Your leaking thatched hut during the restoration of a pre-Enlightenment state.

 

Hello, my name is Judas Gutenberg and this is my blaag (pronounced as you would the vomit noise "hyroop-bleuach").



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   Ramona's expectations regarding toys
Tuesday, January 5 2016

location: rural Hurley Township, Ulster County, New York, USA

This morning as I was putting away things from backpack, I had to find something to do with that stuffed chicken I'd bought in the Guayaquil airport. But the moment Ramona saw it, I realized I was going to have to put it well above her reach. So I put it with the copper and ceramic chickens on the hearth shelf behind the woodstove (atop the bluestone firewall I'd made years ago). But Ramona wasn't done with it. She stood there staring up at it, occasionally whimpering. At one point she even got up on her hind legs. She making a fuss until I managed to hide it completely. This reaction is understandable given that every thing like that I have ever brought into the house has always been a toy intended for her. Unfortunately, were she to get her mouth on that chicken, it wouldn't last more than about a minute. And then I'd have to clean up all the disembodied stuffing.

While I'd been away in the Galapagos, a tiny $25 drone (model CX-10C) I'd ordered arrived in the mail. It is supposedly the smallest drone with a camera, and it can shoot video. Sadly, it seems incapable of flights lasting more than about 20 seconds (at least given my level of skills when it comes to operating the controller). But this is enough time for it to climb at least sixty feet into the sky. Beyond that, it seems to get out of range of the controller's radio signal. In terms of utility, it's actually best for shooting indoor drone videos. Oddly, these videos only play correctly when uploaded to Facebook. On YouTube they're unwatchable.

The weather was unseasonably warm when we left for the Galapagos, but on our return it's a little cold even by the standards of early January. We've been burning lots of wood, though this has been easy due to the huge amount of very dry wood I'd stockpiled on the indoor wood rack.

This evening Susan and David came over for a little dinner party centered around another of Gretchen's noodle bakes. Mostly what they had to talk about was the unpleasantness of Susan's brother's family, who'd stayed with them for six days in late December. "Not lifting a finger" was only part of what was wrong with Susan's sister-in-law. There was also the infuriating learned helplessness she and her husband are imparting to their children, who are unlikely to survive their first day free of the nest.


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