Sister and Governor!

King's Cup in the background.

Mucky Mouse

I seemed to hit the keyboard with great verve and enthusiasm this morning despite not being able to make head nor tail of Google spreadsheets (how do I NAME a column? Surely that is 101).

In a momentary creative lull I doodled away at my keyboard with damp cloths and cotton wool buds and it is gratifying how much better it looks - in the light of the new overdesk Daylight striplight Stefan created, complete with matt black baffles so the light goes in a slit on the keyboard, not on the screen or into my eyes.

The mouse. I couldn't believe the filth. Much Mrs Meyers and GoofOff later, I seem to have stripped it of some degraded outer layer, and it took a toothpick to clear the grooves. It is like a skinned rabbit.

Even more fun was putting a new board into Stefan's computer: one little board, but to get to it we had to take out the four drives, the fan assembly and two memory boards, so while I was at it I vacuumed out as much dust as I could reach with my little computer vacuuming adaptor. I hope to heaven it all works now.

This is what we did: http://www.newertech.com/Static/articles/article_macenstein_eSATA.html

Valentine's Day

Over now, fun and very productive. In the morning we had the pleasure of overhearing Allen on his clarinet - what a welcome addition! The fun was all the friends who called in, or whom we met walking Buckley, or in the street, all the champagne and cake, then wine and rather weird snacks into the night as Marz has wanted a website for a while, so Stefan got her one and it wasn't planned.

I suppose we were all so sociable because the weather has been so heavenly everyone in the neighborhood has been out walking around, smelling the blossom and just generally catching up. All the doors were open, I painted the panels for Stefan's new over-desk lights out on the deck, then cut the baffles and edged them with my Dremel before finally coming to grips with the new casing for Will's Chumby, now glued and clamped.

Tomorrow is a holiday as well - I wonder what we will find to do?

In the Material World

Dawn this morning showed the thinnest sliver of waning moon over a rising tide, and the rumble of traffic on the Richmond Bridge through some trick of the wind. The frogs are in full chorus too, so I can only think they are in the freshwater puddle/lake on the far side of the inlet.

I was talking with Norma on Skype yesterday, she on her loggia with a roar of cicadas behind her, me with my frogs. What a world we live in!

There are other seasonal and more than seasonal changes too - the seawall has slipped to such an extent that there is now a bank a good ten feet further out into the bay, and several sections where we walk are noticeably lower. Yesterday at low tide we scrambled down and found such wonderful weathered logs from some ancient tree down there I was kicking myself once again for not bringing a camera. As we walked back the sun broke through to highlight chosen sections of the far hills so that suddenly a glowing green hillside would appear like the Promised Land, or sails would glow on the dull water.

I railed unforgivably the other day about how dull and suburban Marin could be, and I was wrong. The people may be unimaginative, but the setting is absolutely breath-taking.

I am reading Lawrence Durrell, not my favorite author but he slips down well enough, and his sour rantings against living in England are as unfair as mine here - there are plenty of people living in sacred enthrallment with their gardens and fields and woods in England, just as he was in Corfu. They must exist in Marin too, but how do I find them?

There Now!

Isn't that better?

Hard at Work

Painted Stefan's ceiling after taping off everything I didn't want plastered in white paint, but the spray painter was Not Good, paint dripping from my elbow, so I returned the thing in high dudgeon and carried on with roller and brush. Then the walls... then tore up the appalling carpet, and have just finished ripping up the lino underneath, dear reader. And what did I find but quite respectable polished floors! What possessed the previous owners?!
So, I have remounted the curtain rail at ceiling level and hung the new white linen curtains I had made last week, and it is coming on nicely. Photos soon - Stefan has torn his edit suite apart to rewire it so downloading not quite possible at the moment.

I Came Back To...