I Miss My Grandma

I walked into the bathroom earlier to see that Nephew has been filling in a puzzle in the crossword book I keep in there. It’s a habit I picked up from my grandma, my mom’s mom. She always had a puzzle book in the upstairs bathroom of her house. Sister and I would often start working on one of her puzzles during a visit and carry the book into the bedroom we shared, where between the two of us, we’d end up completing the book before the end of our visit. Poor Grandma; I wonder how many new books we made her start that way.

A Thank You from the CARDIS

Wow. Look at that. Can you believe my pilot made me live in that cold? I'm a desert car, y'know! It's so great to be back home!

HI! This is the CARDIS (stands for Chronology And Relative Dimension In Space). I understand at least one person was disappointed that there wasn’t a picture of me in the call for help posted by ButMadNNW, so I thought I’d take a moment to thank you personally.

My pilot and I are both positively gobsmacked at the generosity of the donors who commissioned knitting or gave without expecting anything in return in order to keep us together. In just over a day and a half, you’ve exceeded the minimum we need to keep the monsters at bay. You have no idea how much it means to us; we’ve been together for over four years and being separated would be horrible. Who knows what kind of a reckless, bumper-sticker-loving cretin I might end up with?! It’s bad enough ButMadNNW sticks these silly Disney antenna balls on me. [She’s joking; the CARDIS loves her antenna balls. ~ButMadNNW]

A little history, for those wondering: I was already living with my pilot for a year or two before she met the Doctor and realized I had a name. So no, she didn’t take me home because I happen to have the same paint job as that Time Lord’s vehicle – might be hard to see in that photo, but I do – that was just luck.

Personally, I can’t wait for my pilot to get a job. Not only do I know how hard this whole situation has been on her, I’m sick of sitting in garages or on driveways in all sorts of weather with no place to go! I’m a vehicle, hello! I’m meant to move!

In the meantime, ButMadNNW wanted me to let you know that she’s happy to take some more knitting commissions via the Donate button on the right of the screen. The threat of me being taken away is only one of the problems being faced down right now. So every little bit still helps. I’d offer to help her with all the knitting she now has lined up, but it’s hard to hold needles with tires.

What’s that, pilot? We have to run out and drop off some applications? Brilliant! *revs* Thank you all again, but I have to run! *purrs*

I need your help: Knitting to save the CARDIS

UPDATE!: As of 12:00 PDT, 24 June, I’m only about $10 from my minimum goal! HUGE thanks to everyone who’s helped out!

As many of you know, I’ve been out of work for several months now and trying to find a job. I’ve been more-or-less maintaining the illusion of staying afloat, but not wisely. I am at the end of my rope and dangling by the last string. The job I was supposed to walk into when I got to California? Still waiting on the background check. I’ve been putting out more applications, but anything I might get will take some time to get started.

I’m not very good at asking for help, especially not handouts. I don’t even like to talk openly on the Internet about my financial problems. But I need some serious help.

Here’s why:

Earlier tonight, my car loan company informed me that if I can’t get a payment to them by the end of June, they’re going to start taking steps towards repossessing my car (who is dubbed the CARDIS). I now live in a very rural area. There is no public transit. If I don’t have a car, I can’t get to work – I can’t even find a job.

I need your help, but in return you get A THING!: A hand-knitted reusable cup sleeve for your morning cup o’ joe or tea – Earl Grey – hot. (Or possibly, your cup of something almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea.)

Your cup sleeve may look like this - or not.

You are welcome to donate any amount, but for a minimum donation of $10 US or £8 GBP, I will make you your very own cup sleeve and get it to you as soon as possible, i.e., as soon as it’s finished and I can post it. Once you click the donate button, you can leave a message with your color choice (see list below). If you just want to help and don’t want a cup sleeve, you can do that too; just let me know in the box.

As an extra-special added incentive, for Whovians and Sherlockians: With a donation of $15 (£11) or more, you can choose a sleeve inspired by the Fourth Doctor’s scarf or John’s Jumper from Sherlock! (NB: John’s Jumper is a beige cable-knit; you’re still welcome to choose your own color if you prefer.)

UPDATE #2: Because a couple people have asked: Yes, if you want to help and get a knitted item in return, but don’t drink coffee/tea, we can discuss another project for you. I suggested cup sleeves because they’re simple and a fairly quick knit. For more complex projects, I have to ask for a higher minimum donation. (I’m desperate here, but still trying to be sensible about return on my time investment, yarn cost, and such.)

Anything you can do is a big help, and very much appreciated. Thank you.

Possible yarn colors: (All yarns are acrylic, cotton, and/or nylon. I cannot use wool due to allergies. All yarns are lovely to hold; I’m very picky.)

• Green
• Yellow
• White
• “Wood” (black/gray/rust)
• Dark variegated pink
• Light variegated pink
• Pink (fibers: bamboo/acrylic/polyester)
• Blue
• Purple
• Red
• Dark brown
• Toffee (medium brown)
• Tan (light brown)
• Black
• Beige
• Gray
• Maroon
• Lime green (yes, really)

Weekly Photo Challenge: Tiny

A tiny banana I knitted

Why Creative People Are Eccentric (Scientific American)

Last month, I wrote a bit about my long-standing opinion that all writers are mildly schizophrenic. And last year, I mentioned how much I love it when research backs up something I’ve always known (or at least believed). Here we go again!

The new Scientific American has an article titled “The Unleashed Mind: Why Creative People Are Eccentric“. It’s an interesting read if you’re interested in psychology, creativity, and/or why your neighbor wears polka dots exclusively and talks to his pet duck in Chinese; and it looks like the entire text is available online. So rather than discuss the article in detail here, I’d rather drive some traffic their way and have you go read the article for yourself.

But I will point out one of the conclusions drawn from the research discussed:

Harvard researcher Dennis Kinney and his team … suggested that schizotypal individuals may inherit the unconventional modes of thinking and perceiving associated with schizophrenia without inheriting the disease itself. … They found that the adopted offspring of schizophrenic individuals who themselves displayed signs of schizotypal personality had higher scores for creativity than the control subjects. The Kinney group also made a new discovery: some of their control subjects who did not have a family history of schizophrenia met the profile for schizotypal personality—and they too scored higher for creativity than other control subjects.

In other (over-simplified) words: highly creative people are, quite frequently, mildly schizophrenic. Or at least exhibit similar thinking styles.

Where have I heard that before…?

Breaking NYT News: Women cannot be geeks!

Okay, I’m a bit late to the ranting party, and there have already been many excellent blog posts about Ginia Bellafante’s New York Times “review” of HBO’s production of Game of Thrones. My good friend Kristen McHugh said several things better than I could on her Tumblr, and GeekGirlDiva is aggregating related posts on her blog. Go check some of them out.

My main purpose in posting here is twofold:

If you could pilot any vehicle, real or fictitious, what would it be? (via The Daily Post at WordPress.com)

The TARDIS, duh!

Why? Because it’s a time-traveling spaceship! Is any other reason needed? Oh, yeah, one other reason: it’s far bigger on the inside than on the outside.

So I could load ALL of my belongings into it, hop over to the UK, and move right on in. Live there for years, even decades, and return to the States (after all, I’d have to visit my family) five minutes ago. Not to mention visiting other planets; visiting other places on our own planet; or getting to talk to deceased people I admire, like Shakespeare, Milton Erickson, etc.

And no worries about affording the cost of living anywhere. I can either just live in the TARDIS itself, or go back in time a century or so, deposit a miniscule amount in a decent interest-earning account, and hop forward to collect my earnings.

ETA: Oh, forgot the most important reason: All that travel, with NO TSA!

Topic #97: If you could pilot any vehicle, what would it be? (F-35, Death Star, The Enterprise, an aircraft carrier, anything goes). Why? Where would you go? What would you do? Submitted by Adventurewriter’s Blog. … Read More

via The Daily Post at WordPress.com

Words Matter: Hens, cocks, etc.

*briefly wonders how much spam and how many misdirected clicks will result from that second-to-last word*

Today’s post over at Sleep Talkin’ Man (which is hilarious, by the way, and you should subscribe or add it to your RSS feed or whatever you do to track these things) highlights one of my enduring stances: the words we choose to use matter (I’ve been meaning to write more on this…maybe someday). I don’t care if it is “only” a text message or tweet or message board posting. Use a word incorrectly, spell it wrong, muck up your grammar, and don’t be surprised when you’re misunderstood. But I digress.

STM also reminded me of a story from my high school days. So I thought I’d break my chain of non-blogging days (#postaweek, ha!! …can I blame it on preparing to move?) by sharing it.

During my senior year, I took what was, I believe, the only psychology course (surprise, surprise) on offer in the entire school. One day, the teacher read us brain teasers, and we tried to answer them, discussing the logic involved, challenging our assumptions in thinking, etc. One of the teasers was:

“If Mr. Brown’s peacock lays an egg in Mr. Green’s yard, to whom does the egg belong?”

(I’ll put a break here in case you want to consider that for a second.)

#100factsaboutme

As I’m starting this entry, the #1 worldwide trending topic on Twitter is #100factsaboutme. Sure, why not?

On a special anniVersary

Five years ago today, my mother met me after work and we went out to see my coworker’s husband play a St. Patrick’s Day gig with his band. Realizing that we didn’t frequently get a chance to have a night out, just the two of us, Mom and I snuck out of the gig early. For lack of any better idea, we decided on seeing a film and I called the cinema to find out what was playing. I vaguely remembered seeing an ad for one of the titles, that it’d looked good, and it was opening that night, so we decided to see it.

The film was V for Vendetta.

Strange how such a small and seemingly random chain of events can utterly change the course of one’s life.