.

upstairs at my house

Pumpkin

vox jubilante

Vox Jubilante

Happy launch, guys.

QotD: All My Computers

How many computers do you have in your house? 
Submitted by Foomper.

not really my computer

All of them! Except the one that is here on my lap in the hotel room. (where "all" equals something between six and nine. do you count CPUs or cases?)

I checked into the Sheraton Hotel in Burlington so that I could be fresh as a daisy to give my talk at the New England Library Association Conference tomorrow. Since it's just about an hour from my house, and even less far from where I was staying in Barre, I just brought my pjs, swimsuit and toiletries in my messenger bag... and my pillow. I've had bad luck with hotel pillows historically, even though Sheratons are usually okay. I love my own pillow, and I love flannel pillowcases. I left my pillow at my cousin's place once after staying with him when I was driving cross-country. I got a cryptic email from him whenI got home "We have The Woobie." So yeah, it's like that. I have testy sleep mojo lately, so I try to stick with what I know.

Judging from the looks I got on the way in, I am fully expecting to be introduced at my talk tomorrow and have some librarian in the audience gasp "That's that girl from the elevator, the one with the pillow!"

QotD: Good On A Cold Day

What food or drink do you love when it's cold out?  (Recipes and recommendations, please!)

Matzoh Ball Soup

Some cold days I don't even want to sit around chopping celery and boiling chicken in the cold kitchen. While I have a lot of recipes that involve actual cooking, this one is all about reading instructions on a familiar box and the most complicated decision I have to make is "one egg or two?"

I did have to go down the street from my current housesit to the Trow Hill Grocery to get eggs. Since I'm leaving tomorrow, I didn't really need more than two, but I'd decided to settle for six. The store sold dozens, but with the help of a big butcher knife (theirs, not mine) they managed to sell me a half dozen for half the price of a full dozen. Imagine!

The soup was amazing.

sno!

first snow

more at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/firstsnow/

Vermont International Film Festival - a wrap up

Screenshot from Pawns of Paradise

Screenshot from The Last Valley

 

Screenshot from Pawns of Paradise

Just a few screenshots from some of the movies that I saw last weekend at the Vermont International Film Festival.

My writeup of the movies I saw is here.

Images and Issues of Global Concern

I am not entirely satisfied with my new autumnal vox theme, it lacks depth and mulchiness

looking northwards

Please see: Autumn, for real over on Flickr.

QotD:Just Like Me, But In 2-D

Which cartoon character best represents you? 
Submitted by Know It All.

Peppermint Patty

...except for the "not good at math" part. I even have those shoes!

vtiff!

I'm in Burlington for my annual movie watching binge. My usual stint has been cut from four days to three (one of which is over as of a few hours ago), but I'm making up for it in volume. I saw seventeen films today, though most were under fifteen minutes. I'll do a full write-up this week, but on the off chance that anyone else is also at the festival, please say howdy to me. I'm in the jacket that looks like it's made of orange muppet fur.

water

westport stitch

If anyone knows a way to make Vox and Blogger cross-post to each other, please let me know. I'm partial to Blogger's "insert your posts right into your own website" feature, but I have a bunch of friends who live solidly in the Vox universe. In any case...

I've been having those water dreams again which are totally typical of me at times when my life is all over the place. Usually they're about boating disasters, or unusal restrooms. In this case, I was on a big ship which was at sea and rocking back and forth. At one point, the ship rocked back and did not go forth but kept going and was clearly turning over. I walked out of the boat as it sank by doing one of those Fred Astaire walk-on-ceiling things and wound up on a desert island. The setting was like the teevee show LOST with a bunch of stranded people standing around zombielike, staring at the ocean, tending to wounds, etc. I walked around saying hello to people saying "Hi, I'm Jessamyn, I'm the self-absorbed character." I think this may have to do with the fact that I just finished reading The Outlaw Sea: A World of Freedom, Chaos, and Crime which has a similar boat wreck in it.

In any case, things are looking a little more even keel around here. My Mom went to the oncologist who said "there was no follow-up needed for the lung cancer... [a]lthough it could recur, or another type might form, for now, I'm done with that as far as she's concerned." This is a huge relief and a really big deal. I'd like to say I'm now going to sleep for a week, but some victories still evade me.