nishatalitha

Link to the Stuff article here. How cool is that? They were buried in 1886 when Mt Tarawera erupted, whic coincidentally, is the year one of my great-great grandmothers was born.

Just imagine what they'd look like with the silt gone, even underwater.

I don't want disaster tourism, I want the time travel to go back and see what things looked like in their heyday. Quite happy just to look, but I want to see things at their best.

Tonight I have:

• Made fish chowder for dinner from my shiny new cookbook;
  
• Put beef stroganoff in the crock pot for dinner tomorrow;
  
• Put the leftover soup into containers to cool;
  
• Made tomorrow's lunch;
  
• Tidied the kitchen;
  
• Packed my gym bag; and
  
• Wrapped thesane's birthday present for last year

New LA has started at work - she seems nice enough. One of my lawyers is away, so SYB and I are handling most of his files, with another Senior Associate overseeing. Most of it I'm comfortable handling, or I put in a pile for him to deal with when he gets back. If I have time tomorrow, I'll get some of the documents organised for next week, but probably not.

The latest chapter in my very interesting history book* was kinda bleh - I'm not particularly interested in chivalry and how it affected military tactics in fourteenth century France, although the fact King Jean went back to England as a prisoner because the hostage he left in his place escaped (I think it was the Duke of Anjou) was definitely living up to those ideals. But generally, meh.

However, the previous chapter had a very interesting bit on the church in the kingdom of Bohemia in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and mentions The very pretty Chronicle of John Zikza (sorry, I can't get the accents) as a source and I kinda want to read that now, and more about Bohemia in this time period, particularly about the aforesaid John Zikza because, and I quote:

In 1420 Zizka achieved the extraordinary feat of holding Prague against the invaders [Germans]. The following year he became completely blind, but the greatest of his campigns, which brought about the defeat of Sigismund's new crusading armies, was fought in 1421-22.

How cool is that?

Following a recommendation by Lois McMaster Bujold last year, I have slowly been watching my way through Mushishi, which I finished last night. I found it very disconcerting watching something without a continuing storyline, which only had one major recurring character (and two or three others that turned up a couple of times each). It was quite surreal at times and the style reminded me a lot of watercolours. The music was also soothing and quiet.

All this actually worked very well for being something to watch in bed - the lack of any story arc meant that at no point was I in a rush to finish it; the individual plot lines were mostly to my taste; and the music and art were soothing and gentle to the eyes and ears, so I could lie in the dark and watch this and let my body and mind relax.

Now I have to work out what to watch instead. Maybe Last Exile...

*Later Medieval Europe: From St Louis to Luther by Dennis Waley

Apparently, as one set of stupid birds die off (presents to me from my cat), another set of stupid birds move in, are given a few months to become complacent, and then become presents in their turn. For my part, I could do without such gifts. I'm not convinced this one was a thrush though.

Watched Heroes episode seven tonight. It was interesting, although not as fun as some of the other episodes. There are more new character interactions though and that's interesting.

Reread Helm by Steven Gould today. It's a neat book - it explains without complete loss of history mass migration from earth, adherence to literacy and sanitation, allowing a clean society where people know about things like blood transfusions in the same world where they use swords and bows. It was the first book by Gould that I read and it's probably still my favourite, even if Blind Waves is loads of fun.

Found that I had actually read Paths Not Taken, the latest Nightside book after all and couldn't be bothered rereading it. I think I've only got three of the books we borrowed from Alessan left to read. On the other hand, tonight is the only week night that I'm actually home this week. Tomorrow is frisbee, Wednesday is grocery shopping, Thursday C. and I are going out to dinner with a couple from church to a Cambodian place before going to a meeting, Friday there is a quiz thing with the Dunedin RPG crowd. Saturday morning is frisbee practice. And sometime in all of this, I need to hit more gorse trunks with an axe. It's all about the instant gratification, baby.

C., as you may know, is studying for her MLS and her current paper is on archiving. I think it sounds fascinating. However, I was somewhat bemused to find from her tonight that due to issues with copyright and ownership, it is far less hassle for everyone involved if we just throw away all the old letters and schoolbooks and receipts and whatnot that we dug out from under the house when we were making room for the firewood than it is for us to donate them to somewhere like the Turnbull Library, as we have no clear title to them.

atomicsusan, you don't happen to know a Rosalie MacGlaskin or MacDonald or someone associated with a catering company who lived here in the 1970s? There was a rotting lever arch file of old bills and recepits of which one of the more recent dates was 1977. I might yet go through some of the envelopes and see what stamps can be saved. There was an old photo album (April 1977, I think) full of photos of a young blonde girl. I think they were taken here, but some of them have surroundings (flat grass, wall of bush) where it's kinda hard to tell.

I used to think that finding something like this would be a fascinating treasure and I would love to sift through it all. I neglected to realise just how much the rot and the mold and the junk would put me off. My versions of finding this sort of stuff tended to involve a dry attic where things might crumple, but it would be due to age and dryness, not a slow compost into the ground under the house.

We really need to own our own house...