Still Life, With Cats

September 29, 20–

Dear Paisley,

It was so great to talk to you yesterday. The new job sounds fantastic; definitely a better use of your skills than your previous employer. I’m looking forward to hearing more about it as you settle in.

Edward’s settling his new job as well – I think I told you that he recently took a position with Global Chemicor. It’s all hush hush work of course; isn’t that always the way with corporate research? He seems happy with the new position, although I do wish he weren’t working quite so many hours per day, but I suppose that’s what comes with the higher level of authority in the company. .

Halloween is coming and I’m having so much fun getting the house ready. I am putting out the usual silly ghosts and pumpkins and such. Edward, the dear, brought home this horrid spider and gave it to me with such an excited look on his face that I didn’t have the heart to remind him that I really cannot stand spiders. Look at this thing – it’s ridiculous. But I suppose it’s the thought that counts. Maybe if I just tuck it off to one side on the porch no one will notice it. Mitzy, by the way, absolutely hates the thing – she barks and barks at it every time she catches sight of it, and has tried several times to tear it to bits. I admit I’d be tempted to let her, except that Edward really seems to adore the wretched thing.

Your friend,

Millie

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October 3rd, 20–

Dear Paisley,

It was lovely to see you and Roger yesterday – feels like it’s been far too long since we were able to meet for lunch and chat in person. I’m sorry Edward couldn’t make it; this new job has really started to consume every single moment of his time. The only time I ever see him is at night, when he’s in bed, and even then he’s mumbling in his sleep about the strangest things.

I’m so glad your girls liked the nut bread. I’ve been doing a lot of baking; now that Hemworth and Bertram are off to college, I feel as if I’ve too much time on my hands. And it doesn’t help that Edward’s barely ever home.

Remember that horrid spider I told you Edward brought me a few weeks ago? It seems like everywhere I go they’re selling these things. I know it’s Halloween season, but really, there’s more to Halloween than giant spiders. I was looking for orange and black crepe paper for the party and I couldn’t find it anywhere; but apparently if I was willing to decorate with tacky plastic spiders, I’d be all set. Ugh. I mean, look at this. Does no one have any other way of decorating?

Anyway, I am off to meet up with my friend Cecily. She has three darling little Corgis, and they and Mitzy all get along so well that we’ve been going on walks together around the neighborhood. She hates those spiders too.

Your friend,

Millie

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October 13, 20–

Dear Paisley,

I see from the pictures you sent that the spider craze isn’t just here. Just the other morning I was out walking and nearly every other house has at least one or two of the horrid things hung in a tree, or perched on a wall. What ever happened to the decorating classics? Some nice tombstones, or skeletons or even just an array of tastefully decorated pumpkins? But no, nearly every house is festooned with spiders. It has become something of a nightmare, taking little Mitzy for her daily walks. She lunges at barks at every single spider she sees.

Paisley, I have to admit, I’m starting to worry about Edward. He’s looking awfully pale the past few days, and at night he talks in his sleep, something about sphingomyelinase, or some such nonsense. I’ve asked him about it but he just tells me it’s nothing, and then rushes off to the lab. I’m beginning to think that perhaps transferring to Global Chemicor was a bad idea.

your friend,

Millie

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October 20, 20–

Dear Paisley,

Thank you so much for your phone call and flowers. I am sure that when Edward awakes he will greatly enjoy them. I am not sure, however, when that might be; the doctors seem a bit baffled. I am still in a bit of shock about the whole situation. Global Chemicor hasn’t been very forthcoming on details; all I know is that he collapsed at the lab, and they did not even bother to inform me until hours later when he was at the hospital. You can be sure that when Edward recovers, we will be having a hard talk about him finding a new job.

Meanwhile every time I turn around there are more of those wretched spiders. This was in Cecily’s front yard yesterday morning, which surprised me because it wasn’t that long ago she was telling me just how much she hated them. I’m getting a bit worried about her because she asked me to meet her yesterday but she didn’t answer the door and I haven’t heard from her at all.

You know I love Halloween, but I admit this year I cannot wait for it to be over. With Edward in the hospital, I am home alone, and I just keep getting this sensation that I am being watched. I woke up the other night and could swear I heard skittering, but when I turned on the light there was nothing there. Mitzy was growling at the walls though, so perhaps there are mice. Oh, I wish Edward was here!

your friend,

Millie

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October 31, 20–

Dear Paisley,

I pray you receive this before it’s too late. I did try to call but the phone lines appear to be down, and I dare not go outside because, well, I suspect you already know.

They’re everywhere. I’m not sure what they were doing at Global Chemicor, but clearly things got out of control. I took this picture out my front window, before I nailed boards across it. I am doing my best to block every entrance. I suggest you do the same.

I have already killed too many of them to count. Turns out I’m pretty good with a butcher knife, and Mitzy is a terrier, so she’s really coming into her own. But there are far too many of them out there, and they just keep on coming.

There is skittering in the attic, and screaming outside, so I had better close for now. Stay safe,

all my love,

Millie

A couple years ago we ripped out the front yard and replaced it all with drought tolerant plants and a couple citrus trees, and a whole lot of mulch. And by ‘we’, I mean we hired someone to come in and design it and then do all the work, because as I have noted previously, yardwork is not our thing.

I freely admit that one of the primary reasons for doing this was sheer laziness. A grass-free front yard requires far less maintenance, and no more lawn meant we didn’t have to keep remembering to drag out the stupid sprinkler and keep the grass (or rather, the weeds) green primarily so the neighbors wouldn’t hate us for having a crappy yard. Now, with the blissful lack of lawn, and the drip system installed, mostly all the plants just sit there and do their thing and sometimes if we’re lucky we get some fruit out of the deal (although I suspect it will be a few more years before the citrus trees really start to produce). But the other reason we did it is because drought-tolerant yards require far less water and it has been clear for years now that water is one of those things we really needed to find ways to conserve.

Should you not already be aware, California is currently in a serious drought. The annual rainfall has been dwindling for years, the reservoirs are scarily low, and whoever thought it was a good idea to encourage everyone to have water-greedy lawns in the middle of a desert climate was an idiot in the first place. So it has been encouraging to see that slowly, more and more people are ripping out their front lawns and replacing them with far more drought tolerant landscaping. It is nice to see, as I travel around my city doing errands or heading to work, that new little patches of native plants are starting to spring up.

I know we have a long way to go, yet. There are far too many people who cling stubbornly to their lush green lawns (because denial is a powerful, powerful thing, unfortunately). But it is happening. And it is nice to see that more and more people are finally catching on that xeriscaping can be a beautiful, wonderful thing, and that water is not an infinite resource.

The letter X is brought to you by the Blogging from A to Z Challenge.

First, I will state the obvious. I am a fan of zombies. I like (mostly) the entire genre. And it is really not a huge surprise that they’ve become so popular. Zombies cross every boundary – they can be any race, any religion, any gender, any species. Anything that can die can become a zombie.

There are, of course, a lot of different interpretations of zombies – from the mind-controlled not-really-dead ilk, to the rage-virus type (which technically isn’t a zombie, since those infected weren’t actually dead, but eh, I’ll let it slide) to the most common iteration of ‘dead person reanimates due to and wants to eat your brains’. It doesn’t really matter *how* the zombies came about; what is most important is that underlying commonality. They were dead. Now they are ‘alive’, in some form or another, and without proper control, they are very, very dangerous.

There have been a few recent shows on TV whose premise relies on zombies. Let’s start with Walking Dead.

We started watching it, when it first came out, and I admit, the first season was terrific – the story arc following this desperate band of survivors trying to figure out what to do with themselves, now that the world as they knew it is over. The zombies themselves primarily serve as background material throughout the show. The rag tag band of plucky survivors could just as easily have to battle giant mutant killer bunnies, or oncoming swarms of rabid hamsters. It’s just in this case, it’s zombies, and so they have to work around that.

The problem I have with the show, and the reason why eventually I stopped watching it, is because after a while it stopped being a show about people working to survive a desperate situation, and instead morphed into just another a show about people being horrible to each other, with the occasional zombie thrown in for dramatic tension. We stuck it out through the second season, but by about midway through the third, we were done. Even zombies couldn’t make it appealing anymore.

In contrast, and at the urging of a friend, we watched something from across the pond called In the Flesh, which takes place after a zombie apocalypse has happened, and after a cure (of sorts) has been discovered. In this case, the viewer is experiencing the plot from the point of view as the former zombies. As is often the case in shows from the BBC, the characters, and the plot, were allowed to develop slowly. If people were being horrible to each other it is because there were good, understandable reasons (unlike in Walking Dead), based on what had happened during the early days of the zombie uprising. The show allows the characters to work through all the emotions of having to now reconcile and reintegrate with people they had once been fighting, such that even when horrible things happen, you as a viewer can still sympathize with the people doing those acts. The last episode of the first season was done so beautifully that I was crying by the end. Naturally this show has not lasted nearly as long as Walking Dead, because alas, people being horrible to each other for no apparent reason always manages to be more popular (see also pretty much every ‘reality’ show on TV).

And finally, I want to mention a brand new show that is currently in its first season – iZombie. Technically it’s based on a graphic novel series, although having read the first book in that series, I will state for the record that the TV show is a bazillion times better. It’s made by the same people who did Veronica Mars, so if you liked that show (we did, a lot), you’ll likely love iZombie. The basic premise is that a young woman has been turned into a zombie, so she ends up working in a morgue (to gain access to her primary food source, of course), and also helps solve crime. Since she works in a morgue, and because she is not the only zombie, there are occasionally people being horrible to people (because that is usually how someone ends up murdered), but that is only a minor backdrop to the rest of the plot.

The letter Z is brought to you by the Blogging from A to Z Challenge.

One of the awesome things about the internet (all hail the internet) is that it opens up all sorts of opportunities to take classes online. Occasionally I sign up for something that would be useful for work, or because it seems like something I *ought* to learn how to do to enhance my existing skills, but lately I’ve been signing up for MOOCs, purely for the fun of it. The best part about them is that you can take the tests, or not, based on how you feel. You can cram all the coursework into one week if you don’t have time to do it spread out. Your level of involvement in the discussions is entirely up to you (and if you don’t post a single response, no one will care). And if life gets in the way (like with the Mobile Game Programming course I had to sadly let slide a couple months ago), eh, you just stop logging in.

In January I went through a really interesting course called Introduction to Forensic Science, which was offered by the University of Strythclyde via FutureLearn. Over the course of six weeks the instructors posted lectures (via video) and links to articles and other related reading material, and hosted lively discussions. Each week they provided a high level overview of some segment of forensic science (which is, of course, far more time consuming, and far less accurate than CSI and all of those other crime-of-the-week shows would have you believe), and throughout the course, we were also considering one particular murder case, and using what we learned to assess what we could now know about the evidence collected. As I’ve got a science background (as rusty as it is), most of what was covered wasn’t difficult for me (although I admit to being surprised by how many people seemed to struggle with DNA – didn’t everyone learn about Mendel and his peas back in grade school?). And what I appreciated most about the course is that the case study they used did *not* have a clear cut verdict. Our class poll was pretty evenly split; at the end, the ‘guilty’ votes only won out by a percentage point or two over the ‘not guilty’ votes.

Currently I am taking two separate ethics classes via EdX (a rather amusing coincidence, as I signed up for them at two completely separate times). The first is The Ethics of Eating (put on by a couple of philosophy professors via Cornell University), and if the first week is any indication, it’s going to be an interesting class, since we’ve already tackled Food, Inc. (hint – the film has a NOT REMOTELY SUBTLE agenda), and read an article that, if I hadn’t already been extremely uncomfortable with how they were prepared in the first place, would have been more than enough to convince me to never eat a lobster again. The second course is an Introduction to Bioethics, put on by the Kennedy Institute of Ethics at Georgetown, and it also looks like it’s going to be really interesting. As of the first week we’ve discussed bodily autonomy; the slippery slope ethical discussions around patients making decisions to refuse treatment without which they will die, and the issue of doctors who do (or do not) honor those requests, and from the syllabus, it looks like we’ll be tackling some even more contentious issues later on.

The letter U is brought to you by the Blogging from A to Z Challenge.

I picked up my new glasses last Tuesday.

Normally when I get new glasses there’s a brief moment when my eyes try to work out that something is new, and then it’s all good. These, however, are bifocals. So the transition has been a lot more rough. Do I look straight ahead? Do I look down through the lower half that is meant to be used for close-up work? Which one should I be using for when I’m on the computer. How about for when I’m knitting. Or trying to read music.

I was really, really aware of the bifocals the first couple days (driving after switching to bifocals is certainly an interesting experience). At this point, however, most of the time I don’t even think about them anymore. But every once in a while, like during tonight’s rehearsal, boy am I reminded that I have to look at things in a new way.

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Mom and kittens are settling in just fine, by the way. It’s clear Ruby isn’t going to transition to lap fungus right away, but she leans into our hands for head rubs and neck scritches and she deliberately shifts her body so she can get closer to the front of her box for more attention. So it’s really only a matter of time.

I set up a Facebook page for them, so you can keep up with how they’re doing here.

The letter F is brought to you by the Blogging from A to Z Challenge.

I still miss the pull-out keyboard of my old Droid phone. I miss it a LOT; it’s so much harder to type on a screen.

But there are bonuses about my new phone (Droid Turbo, since I know someone is going to ask) that make up for it. And one of the primary bonuses is the camera.

I love the camera on this phone so much. I have a little point-and-shoot-dummy camera as well, but these days I rarely use it, because my phone does just as good a job, if not better.

I know there are likely special apps I can download, but why bother when the default app lets me get pictures like this.

Or this

Or this.

The letter P is brought to you by Blogging from A to Z Challenge.

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