Zozobra: Fire power

The Wall Street Journal had a great article this weekend about the Santa Fe community's annual Zozobra event.

Artisans build a giant structure of wood and chicken wire known as Zozobra. Then citizens bring things symbolic of their troubles (legal papers, wedding dresses from failed marriages, photos of old lovers, letters and notes with their secrets — even hospital gowns) to a public "gloom tent." The evidence of all these woes is stuffed into the Zozobra.

On the night of the festival, dancers with torches set fire to the figure — a functioning marionette that writhes with agony — and everyone's worries symbolically go up in smoke.

And, to think, I was planning on selling my fire pit on Craig's List. No way!

Millionaire

A dozen or so years ago a friend of mine was trying to get onto "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" According to today's Seattle Times, he's done it!

Tune in 6 p.m. today and Monday on KONG TV to see if Alan Carver wins the $1 million. Very cool.

Kitty, kitty. . .kitty?

I've been gone for a week, with neighbors and cat sitters coming in to feed the cats breakfast and dinner. This led me to wonder if the tabbies would forget about their annoying habit of waking me up at 5 a.m. for breakfast and an early outing.

Nope.

When I feed the three cats, I still look out the back door to the foot of the stairs where Garibaldi, the tough orange tabby, used to wait for his handouts. He disappeared early in the summer, and I assumed he'd either fallen victim to a coyote or had been captured, neutered, and put up for adoption by a neighbor.

Last night, when I got in from the trip, there was a beautiful orange tabby waiting in Garibaldi's spot at the bottom of the stairs. This cat behaved exactly like Garibaldi, but was so much sleeker and cleaner I can't believe it was the same cat. He got his handout, gobbled it down, and vanished into the night.

Maskerades

It's 11:30 p.m. in Phoenix, and we're halfway through the first North American Discworld Convention. We've found the one really good restaurant (Cafe Bao) plus the one cup of tea that isn't made with the horrible local water (thank you, Starbucks).

There was a football game at Arizona State today, and the streets are packed with celebrating students tonight, so the conventiongoers are staying in the safety of the hotel. There was an extraordinarily elaborate maskerade, a great game of Werewolves, a disco dance, and a party in the con suite to chose from -- way too much to do after a full day of panels. The highlight of today's events was the interview with Terry (another of his standing-room-only presentations). He closed by talking about his plans for dealing with Alzheimer's Disease (he was diagnosed with a rare, early onset, form of it).

"I won't die of Alzheimer's," he said. "I'll die and take the Alzheimer's with me."

There's no evidence of the disease in Terry's speech or appearance -- except that he moves a little hesitantly. He explained that he has some trouble with spacial perception.

Tomorrow the Scholarly Gentleman will be moderating the panel Publishing Terry with Terry, his agent, and his two U.S editors. Then we're both working on the auction.

I could write for hours about the extraordinary costumes people are wearing at the conference. There is one older man who dresses as the Bursar, and has the worried, delusionary character down so well that I was getting a tad worried. Many of the best costumes are simple, such as the couple who came robed as the Auditors. We found them in the lobby, frightening a fellow from the local film society who had come by to leave some posters at the conference.

I'd blog more, but the computer, disabled by the recent cat-pee incident, is a bit balky.

The turtle sweats

It's 8 p.m. in Phoenix and the North American Discworld Convention is about to get underway. This isn't just any convention; many of us signed up back in the spring of 2008 for the first New World convention to honor Sir Terry Pratchett, author of the Discworld novels (a body of work I like to describe as political satire in the guise of fantasy).

I just got back from a gathering of women in the Seamstress Guild. We were figuring out how to lace up the purple satin corsets we need to wear for the opening ceremonies tomorrow. It turns out there's a "quick lace" method that really makes a difference.

It's been in the 100's in Phoenix -- not just hot but searing. That really takes a toll.

The Scholarly Gentleman and I skipped dinner and went to the pre-conference mixer and Pub Quiz -- a real cut-throat event! Our team, the Overheated Trolls, placed third (our downfall was failure to correctly identify details from 30 Pratchett book covers).

Tomorrow I'm participating in the opening ceremonies, then running the Igorlympics, and finally working with the other Seamstresses to host the opening night party. Fortunately, those duties end around 9. I'm involved with a panel Saturday and will be a gofer at the auction Sunday, but otherwise just plan to enjoy the convention and go shopping at the steampunk booths in the dealers room.

And, no, I haven't seen Sir Terry yet. But there is a fellow who looks remarkably like him, a bit taller, whose nametag says simply "Not Him."

Pre-vacation meltdown

Securing the house, lining up a cat sitter, giving a highly edited version of vacation plans to my mom, dealing with last-minute client calls...getting ready for a vacation is such fun.

Russell Up Das Barbecu!

I've never seen or heard Wagner's Ring Cycle, but that isn't stopping me from going to the ACT Theatre parody of it, Das Barbecu, tomorrow night.

Of course, knowing something about the 20-hour, four-part opera being parodied would probably help. Fortunately, singer Anna Russell provides a delightful synopsis, which has been posted on You Tube. (The synopsis is also in four parts, each about 10 minutes. I linked to Part 1, which was the only one I could find that had video as well as audio. It's worth tracking down and listening to all four parts.)

Off to Gnomedex

It's been quite a while since I've gone to any confabs in the social media community. These are the people who were second-wave adopters of Twitter and who believe there is vast potential for communities and businesses in places like the Twitterverse (and Second Life, and Facebook, and blogging).

I'm not so sure; I tend to use social media for fun or for professional development (depending on the platform). My clients use it for marketing and fundraising and, while I'm happy to advise them, I'm not crazy about being on the receiving end of 90 percent of the marketing and fundraising that goes on.

For the next two days I'll be at Gnomedex in Seattle and will report back on Sunday.

Low tide at Golden Gardens

People often ask me how I can focus on work in a home office. Actually, I often have the opposite problem — I'm just a few steps away from the outdoors, in casual clothing, but I'm tapping away at the keyboard for hours on end. This is particularly sad because I'm just a few blocks from a beautiful beach.

This morning the Scholarly Gentleman and I got up early and went down to Golden Gardens to see what was revealed by this morning's ultra-low tide. There were crabs, a huge live scallop, spurting clams, and thousands of anemone. And many seagulls and egrets enjoying the sashimi banquet.

There were people fishing, several painters with easels, day care teachers with squealing, splashing kids, and one woman who had set up a chair on the wet sand and was warbling opera to the waves.

Here's my iPhone video of how to annoy a clam. You can hear the seagulls, and the Burlington Northern, in the background.

Who's afraid of the big bag wolf?

That is not a typo.

I am referring to the Seattle shopping-bag fee ballot measure and its slavering opponents.

As someone who lives in a world where gas prices soar $1 per gallon in a month, where people routinely pay $3.50 for a daily latte, and where dry cleaning prices are approaching the level of fees for restoration of rare artworks, my reaction to the bag fee is: big deal.

In fact, I'm grateful that stores will sell me a cheap plastic or paper bag to use if I've spaced out and forgotten to drag around my own trendy, reusable shopping sack. It would be difficult to carry 10 potatoes out of the store in my hands.

In the past week, I have received several calls from the bag-fee opponents, disguised as "surveys" that purport to want my "opinion" on the bag fee.

I agreed to take one, and the surveyor read a "question" that went something like this:

"How do you feel about an oppressive, socialist invasion of government into your life by way of a bag tax?"

a. in favor

b. maybe kinda in favor

c. not in favor

d. heat up the tar, Bubba, them bag tax people is a-headed this-a-way

"And how do you feel about the opponents valiantly trying to defend our community against the bag tax?"

"They're a bunch of hysterical wing-nuts," I cut in. "I feel no need to be defended against a 20-cent bag."

To my surprise and delight, the surveyor, a young woman, burst into laughter. I hope our call wasn't being monitored for "quality assurance."

Heat

I grew up in Northern Virginia, the capitol of Hot & Humid. But Hot weather in Seattle is different; I think that's because it's dry heat in an environment that's used to being humid. All the plants look stunned.

Today was Too Hot, and that's not good — because the rest of the week is going to be Hotter.

The only reason I'm not currently sprawled in a wading pool in my (relatively cool) back yard is that Fred Meyer was out of wading pools.

The house itself is warm, even though I've had the front screen door, and the back (unscreened) door open most of the evening.

The basement TV room is habitable; the main floor is a bit cozy; and the upstairs, a former attic with a cathedral ceiling, is like an oven, despite a fan that's been going all day and French doors open onto the breeze from the Sound.

I can't believe that the first couple of years here there weren't any sun awnings on the West-facing front window and French doors. The awnings, plus interior shades and curtains, make quite a difference most days.

But today...it's just Hot. The cats spent the day laying around looking like moth-eaten furs at a crummy estate sale. After dark, they recovered somewhat and are now out in the back yard. I even let Sheba, the deaf white cat, go out wandering tonight so she could cool off.

Fremont zombie walk video

Hank Graham has posted his semi-official video of the 2009 record-breaking Fremont Zombie Walk.

Not only is this professional-quality documentary work, but Jonathan Coulton allowed them to use his "Re: Your Brains" as the sound track.

Brilliant!

Stuff on my house

The painters are coming tomorrow to pressure wash the house; they'll be back next week to apply semi-solid stain and then to paint the trim. I can't believe it's been five years since the house was painted!

In preparation for their visit, I've been removing things that are next to the house and on the porches — no small task, it turns out. Two plants are espaliered against the house; on the hidden north side, I'd been storing the wheelbarrow, ladders, a bag of sand, and extra garden chairs under the overhang. Somehow the front of the house has two sets of house numbers! Fragile planters had to be moved, and bushes trimmed. Hose holders and such had to be unscrewed from the trim. All of this cleanup revealed piles of moldy leaves, and big weeds growing in the leaves. More cleanup!

As a result, I've gotten very little officework done this week. When I did sit down at my desk, I got to tangle with AT&T over the iPhone bill (friendly but confusing) and with Bank of America over web long-in (worst identity verification I've ever encountered on a website).

Susan is out of town for the week, so no evening yoga classes. But there's a special yoga dance class every morning at Taj Yoga this week, so I've been up there every morning at 9 — which means I'm not getting to to work until just before 11.

Next week, back to normal. But with the painters swarming all over the house.

The return of the Zombie Flu

I'm still having episodes of exhaustion and aches, so have cancelled yet another weekend's plans. When I have energy, I spend a few hours at my desk, so am able to keep up with all my work projects.

The high point of the day was petting Garibaldi, the semi-feral tomcat. He was sleeping out on the raised deck in the back yard and I went out to talk with him. I usually do this from a distance of about three feet. He runs away if I get any closer.

Today he hissed as I approached, but then rolled onto his back and stretched out as if he wanted his stomach rubbed. So I reached out and rubbed him. He twisted away, then rolled back to be petted, then got up and head-butted my hand, then shrunk away, then came back and lay down again and let me scratch his chin. There was obviously an argument going on between the part of him that wanted to be petted and the part that was frightened. After about three minutes, he stood up and moved away. I went inside and got a can of food and put some into his bowl on the back porch, then went inside and let him eat by himself.

Garibaldi's fur is nice and soft, like Sheba's.

The Zombie Flu

Forget the swine flu...this is the Zombie Flu.

The Scholarly Gentleman and I worked registration at the record-setting Fremont Zombie Walk Friday afternoon and evening. We got home very late, and I attributed SG's comments about a sore throat and fever to all the yelling we'd been doing ("Zombies? Register here! Whoops, let me wipe the blood off that pen.") and standing in the hot sun for several hours. It seemed like something a good night's sleep and rehydration would take care of.

Wrong.

Saturday morning, the SG looked and sounded like a zombie who'd died of bronchitis. He retired to the crypt.

By Sunday morning, he was feeling slightly less ghoulish, but I was flattened with milder but definitely similar symptoms. (The weather is warm -- but not 99.9 degrees, surely?)

All social plans for the weekend were canceled, with many apologies.

We'll be back from the dead. Soon.

Back from Minneapolis

I spent the weekend at a literary conference in Minneapolis. It's a city with a real sense of itself — the sort of identity a place has when it's the cultural center of the state. Beautiful parks, lots of agricultural and industrial history, everyone talking about the arts — and about religion, but not in a conservative sense. And you definitely get the feeling that people appreciate warm weather, which they were having.

It was good to get home — at an appalling hour — Sunday night. It had rained, so the tomatoes were doing well. Monday morning Garibaldi, the orange tom cat, was waiting on the back porch to be fed. He had a cut on his nose — always some new evidence of a fight.

After he ate, he came over and sniffed my hand, which I viewed as real progress. But I haven't seen him since then, and am now pretty sure that something out there (coyotes? a car? another cat?) got him. Or maybe someone captured him and took him to be neutered.

In a hour or so I'm picking up Smokey — my cat who lives with a neighbor seven blocks north — and taking him in for his annual vet visit. Another feline mystery.

Slobs on the web

As you know, I'm among the first to rush to the ramparts to defend web content writers from the accusation that we have lower standards for writing than our print colleagues.

Having spent this past week involved in a print project, I may need to stand down.

I was given the text taken from a non-profit's website and asked to lay out the text into a simple print brochure. (Using Apple's delightful page layout application, Pages.)

I sent the completed layout to the non-profit, expecting some comments back such as "more illustrations," "larger headlines," or "Can you make the columns shorter?" but got instead several dozen corrections to punctuation and capitalization and a number of complete rewrites of paragraphs.

"But," I pointed out to the person serving as the liaison for this work, "All those punctuation and capitalization problems, plus the sloppy writing and incorrect information, are on their website and have been there for the whole world to see for months."

He peered out from around the filing cabinet where he had taken shelter.

"Er, can you just make the changes?" he said.

Happy blogiversary

Friday was the 6th anniversary of The Mysterious Traveler Sets Out.

I celebrated by taking delivery of my new iMac (my third iMac in the past eight or nine years). I still haven't had time to open the box and set the thing up, so that's on the list for tomorrow. Setting it up, of course, takes about 10 minutes. It's deciding which apps to risk bring over with the data and which to reinstall from scratch that's tricky.

I intend to consult Adam Engst's ebook Take Control of Buying a Mac, which covers things like "How should I connecct my old and new Macs so I can transfer files?" and "What should I do about iTunes authorization when moving to a new Mac?"

And now, for my next act...

I've left a few threads loose on this blog in the past month or two, so this an attempt to tie them up.

• Some good news: I got the contract to write humorous essays about home and lifestyle topics for a local consumer newsletter. It's subscriber-only, and I am not able to retain rights to republish, so I can't re-post any of the essays on my blog. And they're not online. But I'm delighted to have an opportunity to do my favorite type of writing.

• I'm pretty much recovered from breaking my nose when I feel over some fencing on the patio while chasing a cat in the middle of the night.

• The orange cat, Mr. Garibaldi, is coming by for two meals a day and has let me touch him twice. Mostly he likes to sunbathe on the deck or sleep at the bottom of the back porch stairs.

Still recovering from Folklife weekend, which was great. I thought the festival was less chaotic than in past years, and more acoustic. Didn't get as much dancing done as I would have liked, but got the chance to catch up with several folks I hadn't seen in ages. High points of the weekend included seeing the Morris dancing mockumentary "A Life with Bells On," shown as a collaboration between SIFF and Folklife, and hearing Mike's band close the Roadhouse Sunday night with the waltz he composed for Nina.

I know exactly what I want for Christmas

Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes film, with Robert Downey as Holmes, opens Christmas Day.