Bzzing aBout

Last year I took the class. A month or so ago I finally got back together with the instructor and took the test, and got the certification. I picked up the licence application a week later (though I haven't sent it in yet). Two weeks or so later, I went to a monthly Milwaukee And Waukeshau Beekeepers Association meeting, and met a beekeeper who collects old, beat-up pieces of hives.

!!!!!!!!

For $60, we have a complete hive, only needing to be cleaned and maybe painted, and some new foundation sheets inserted, to be ready for beezes.

Next we order and pay for the beez, who will come when it is meteorologically auspicious, and then turn in and pay for the license. They will come and inspect where the hive is, and ask all the neighbors if it's okay with them, and then we get permission.


I' so excited! I just can't hide it!

I love A²O³ because (among a horde of other excellent reasons) it makes finding, marking, and sharing thing easy. (My next hope is for a time-limited search, so we [i.e., My Lady and me] can find Anything Entered In March 2009, or whenever.) And because I can just say Lookie! Read this!

astolat, of course, has tons of Lookie! Read this!s, not least because she is absolutely as capable as Barbara Hambly of taking a ridiculous cliche and turning it into something grand and dark and velvety.

House of the Living (16895 words) by astolat
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: American Idol RPF, Adam Lambert (Musician), Kris Allen (Musician)
Rating: Explicit
Warning: Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Kris Allen/Adam Lambert
Characters: Adam Lambert, Kris Allen
Summary:

Megan had been calling them zombies from the get-go; after the third one, while Adam was busy puking his guts all over the sidewalk, she went around to all of them and hissed, "Listen, they're zombies, do you get it?"

Bookmarker's Tags: Zombies, American Idol RPF, Adam Lambert (Musician), Allison Iraheta, Danny Gokey, Kris Allen (Musician), Lil Rounds, Megan Joy, Anoop Desai, Matt Giraud, Scott MacIntyre, Michael Sarver
Bookmarker's Notes:

When it all went to hell in Phoenix, the American Idol Top Ten were left with no entourage, no transportation, no communication: with only their own wits, their own determination, and the searing knowledge that, even if these were zombies, they were still real people, sick and hopeless and with people who loved them.

Astolat has taken cliche to the heights where none dare laugh, once again.

Go. Read. Weep.

Then tell Astolat you love her.

In English we are familiar with the verb "read" being used both as present and past form, with only the pronunciation being different:

"read" pronounced as "reed" being the present tense: "Can you read Ancient script?"; and
"read" pronounced as "red" being the past tense: "Yes, I read that panel already."

The verb "lead" follows a different pattern. Here, present and past are not only pronounced differently, they are also spelled differently. The difficulty comes in because there is a noun which is spelled like the present tense, and pronounced like the past tense, causing the following pattern:

"lead" pronounced as "leed" being the present tense of the verb: "Lead me to the Stargate;"
"lead" pronounced as "led" being the noun for a soft gray metal: "We need more lead for the bullets;" and
"led" pronounced as "led" being the past tense of the verb: "She led them safely past the traps." Moreover,
"leaden," pronounced as "ledden" is the adjective: "Her limbs were leaden with exhaustion."

This is not less problematic because of the word "tread," which follows an even different pattern:

"tread" pronounced "tred" being the noun for a stairstep: "He built each tread very carefully to eliminate creaks," AND
"tread" pronounced "tred" being the present tense for a verb meaning "to take a step:" "Tread carefully among these trees, Colonel," BUT
"trod" pronounced either as "trode" or as "trod" being the kind of past tense where: "the halls of Atlantis where John trod" AND
"trodden" being the adverb meaning "worn or customary" as in "Downtrodden" or "well-trodden."

Have fun, but be careful!

Osama bin Laden is dead, killed by navy seals working, we are told, with Pakistani forces.

Ding fucking dong, you heretical infidel. Ding. Fucking. Dong.l

And because Stephen Colbert lost his bet as to how much money could be raised for the DonorsChoose charity, here he is, singing with the Roots a most wonderful version of:

Friday.

It has been an exciting three days. I'm not in Madison today because I have to take care of family business, but here is how it has been.

1. Peaceable, but loud. People march outside, occasionally shouting one cheer or another. "Kill the Bill" is a good one, but the favorite, and growing more so over time, is "Tell me what democracy looks like?" "THIS is what democracy looks like!" - often with percussive accompaniment. Inside, people are jammed into the Rotunda and around the balconies overlooking it. The balconies over the stairs are always crowded, and sometimes jammed. In between deafening chants and cheering (and the occasional boos), people talk to each other, exchanging news and rumors, and pointing out places of interest (conference chambers, and bathrooms, and electrical plugs, mostly).
There is much smiling, and much giddiness. Inside, we wander (and stay warm), or sit down on stairs. On Thursday, there was a massive sit-in to bar the movement of the legislators. (And also because of all the college students, who were just adorable.) (so were the grade-schoolers and babies, who were all with parents.) Folks would shift to let each other through, and I managed to clear a path from the elevator to the banister for a wheeled person with no anger.

2. Increasing. On Wednesday when I went, we re-arranged ourselves to fill two buses, so that the third could go directly to another collection point, leaving us to go directly to the capitol. We were told that there were more people than on Tuesday. On Thursday - which was, actually, not planned for - the people in the buses were sparse, but the capitol was full: the building was packed (see above), and folks were walking en masse around the outside of the building and around the sidewalk next to the street. Apparently people had carpooled in on their own, not having found out in time that the union was providing buses again. On Friday, the buses were jammed, and I got to be the Bus Captain (which was delightful). The Rotunda was packed, the balconies were packed, but you could walk around, and there were a (precious) few staffers available to be spoken with. People were marching around the building; around the sidewalk; and around the streets. Estimates were 10,000 Tuesday, 15,000 Wednesday, 25,000-30,000 Thursday, and at least 40,000 Friday. Some few were from out-of-state, but almost all were Wisconsonites.

- Gotta go do business. More later.

So, I went shopping on Monday afternoon, picking up Storm Snacks, and found that several hundred other people were in this very small grocery for the same purpose. We were all polite and unworried, though.

Tuesday, I insisted on driving Margot in to work, so that I could pick her up - the blizzard was to hit at 3, and she leaves work at 4:45. I had my doubts about her little Cougar in any depth of snow. She laughed at me for being a worrywart, but let me do it. She was let go 15 minutes early - fortunately I was already waiting for her - and had been told not to come in today.

It wasn't really snowing yet. Just flurries. By then the wind was picking up a bit, but just blowing around the really dry stuff we already had on the ground.

Now, we'd already had snow on the ground from Monday and previous. I ran the Cougar up over the drift to get it closer to the east gate, and drove Carolyn's SUV up behind it. Then I took my van around to the north gate, and tried to get it in. The wind was so fierce that it kept closing half of it, and I finally had to drag a concrete block over to hold it open. Then I had the fun of flinging the van through the snow in the back, into the barn. (What, plow the back? Why on earth would I plow the back??) Got it in, closed the barn door, closed the north gate, and slogged my way in through the back door.

Panted at the table for a while, got a little to eat, had a little Irish Cream, and made sure the house was locked up. Carolyn got the dishes done, and had her own bite to eat. Margot tried to work on her glass in the basement, but decided it was too cold - even with the heater vent open - and came up to get some Drambuie. And then we took the animals and came upstairs.

The wind was fierce by this point, but we were still only seeing loose snow being cast about, as far as we could see. We watched tv (mostly saved stuff) and ate snacks, and drank booze. Because the windows here in the bedroom are unfinished, we were getting some wind in here. I'd covered the window behind the bed, but it tore a bit in a couple of places, and the whole sheet of plastic was belled out in a way it had never been. (At least we didn't have to worry about carbon dioxide buildup!) Margot hid under the covers - which meant I couldn't, or I'd block her view of the tv. I stayed on the computer, well-wrapped.

About 9:30 or so, the wind really started howling. About 11:30, we got thundersnow. The wind was blowing snow sideways, and visibility dropped from a couple blocks down to half a block. About 1:30 the roar of the wind was incredible.

We never did lose sight of the next building over, so - not as fast a snowfall as the 1979 blizzard; but still quite impressive.

This morning, our east and north sidewalks were scoured almost clean, but the drive and the back yard were drifted really well. We never lost power and, unlike some of our neighbors, we never lost cable. One of our neighbors cleaned the sidewalks for us and dug out the buried driveways; I shoveled the balcony.

We're good. We stayed off the roads (except for Carolyn but - you know. Hospital workers gots to go in.) We didn't overwork ourselves, and we shared the (admittedly notional) snowblower with the neighbors. We planned ahead, and we are fine.

Drifts elsewhere had defeated the DOT's first efforts, but now I hear that 90% of the roads are clear. The workers took their trucks and snowplows home with them last night, so they could start plowing from home and work their way out. There were people elsewhere who were on the roads - We as a society need for businesses to plan better to get people all the way home before blizzards next time. But apparently we only lost one person, an older guy, to shoveling. No stranded folks have been reported friz to death. No homeless people have been reported friz either. So we done good there.

How are you doing?

Here's hoping it's a better one.

I rather think I blew them completely away, considering the smiles, nods, and surprised looks I kept getting to the questions I answered. I believe I set a bar the rest of the two weeks worth of candidates will have a hard time reaching.

Thank you all so very much for your good wishes. They helped.

I got my Effexor refill. My brain started working again.
I remembered to call to get my CPAP recalibrated to its proper, higher setting. I am now actually sleeping, and now waking up rested. My brain is clear.
My lady and I are speaking to proper effect. It's painful, and it ain't done yet, but I can see our way through this.
My HUD-approved counselor is confident she can help me keep from going into foreclosure.
All of our cars are operable, even if mine still is too cold.
I gave my lady an Official Weekend Off, and she actually physically relaxed, which hasn't happened in way too long.


I have an interview for an actual job in my field. In the area I first wanted to work in lo, these thirty years ago. At 2pm Chicago time.

Pray for me, light candles for me, surround me with light, whatever: I need this job. After a year and a half unemployed, I need this job.