I am a leaf on the wind.

[melannen]

The trees have all turned over the past week. We have four maples in our yard, and it's so *pretty* that I have no motivation to rake the leaves yet, so the whole yard is the approximate colors of this icon. I have this image in my head of Arisia and Hal Jordan under a green pavilion, the roof covered with red and orange and purple maple leaves, the yellow ones drifting through and around them like sakura petals in anime ... alas that my art skills could not do it justice.

***

I signed up for yuletide t'other day; wish me luck. I'm just waiting anxiously for my assignment. Cryptic doublespeak and random enthusiasm and terrified burbling: Yuletide is like a chance to suddenly get more of all the books I loved as a kid, without having to write it myself; whlie at the same time I get to write the same thing for somebody else, only in fandoms that aren't so dear to me that I can't write them. Whee! Only now, I'm afraid that I volunteered for a few that I won't be qualified to write, o alas! Everybody is posting their proclamations about what you *must* be willing to do ion orer to volunteer for a fandom. Me? While I'd be overjoyed if somebody wrote a perfect story tailored to my tastes, personal history, and corpus of work, these are fandoms that are mostly virgin territory for fic, and I'm satisfied with anything that mostly fulfills the request and is well-written. If I get actual Lucky Starr fic or Riddle-master fic? I'm happy, man.

***

I found it interesting that when we went to see Serenity, all of the previews, and the movie, were about a scrappy band of rebels trying to overthrow a supposedly beneficial tyrrany which maintains power through lies and propaganda. Well, all of them except Narnia, and I don't actually remember how the White Witch kept power, althought the revolution theme is the same. It's an interesting trend, after a stretch where most of the big SF epics were about either maintaining the status quo or fighting off an outside evil.

***

We've just got home from a visit to my aunt and uncle's to play with my little cousins, the Duchess and the Kangaroo . If I'd stayed home, I would have gone outside to play in the leaves, so instead I went out in my uncle's yard with the Duchess. We played with leaves and jumped and looked at trees and pulled apart acorns (I have been noticing acorns a lot more this year. The road behind the train station is covered with bright orange scars from acorns being crushed; it looks like pumpkin meat. I tempted to try acorn flour someday) and picked up an entire skirtful of pinecones, which Grandma put in a plastic bag to take home. We also looked at a big Marbled Orb Weaver. The Duchess had an eww response but when I refused to act scared she came up and looked at him a little. She wouldn't sing Eensy Weensy spider with us, though. Or I'm a Little Teapot.

And I got to meet the Kangaroo! He's a few months old now, but still mostly at the smile and blink stage, and he gets cuter the longer you hang around him. He really does - he inherited his grandfather's cleft lip; they're dong surgery as soon as he's old enough, but meanwhile it takes a little getting used to. A *little* - by the time we got hime, I decided I liked the look, and will be working a race of cleft-lip aliens into a sci-fi story with the least excuse. He was very expressive with it, too. I sat and played peek-a-boo and did some finger games for him (Like Here is the Church and Knives and Forks), and he watched very intently even if he didn't know what was going on. The more time I spend with them, the more I remember about babies and how they work, and the more I worry about the small families and age segregation common in our world. People *need* to play with their tiny relatives and neighbors. I also made faces at Kangaroo, which he also liked but I felt a bit uncomfortable about. You can't really say 'stop, or your face will freeze like that!' around him, because, well, his face *is* frozen like that. But, he's a baby! He likes people making faces! So I did it anyway. :}

Speaking of that, I need to stop being a coward and accept one of the many special-ed sub calls I get every night. But I just want to get in a few standard jobs first. I have another one at a high school tomorrow, which means getting up at o-dark-hundred again. I should post a subbing update tomorrow afternoon, if I survive.

Comments

[aelkiss.livejournal.com]

tempted to try acorn flour someday

regyt tried this once. As I recall it took pretty much all day to get all the tannin out of the acorns, and a big pile of acorns only made a little bit of flour. But she's still alive to tell the tale;-)

[melannen.livejournal.com]

I would probably try one of the traditional methods, like burying them in a cheescloth bag in a sandbar under a creek for a few weeks until they turn black. And then die of the pollutants in the creek water rather than the tannin, but hey! My trusty book of edible wild plants (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0811720187/103-6659925-3706201?v=glance&n=283155&n=507846&s=books&v=glance) suggests that the fastest way is to boil them until the water doesn't turn yellow anymore, then roast them and eat them whole. Yum.

[aelkiss.livejournal.com]

the fastest way is to boil them until the water doesn't turn yellow anymore

Right - the problem is that when she tried it, it took pretty much all day.

[melannen.livejournal.com]

Did she grind them before or after? I know it's supposed to take forever, which is why I'm inclined to the passive streambed method.

[aelkiss.livejournal.com]

After, I'm pretty sure - grinding before would make filtering much more complicated.

[melannen.livejournal.com]

Hm, I dunno, probably not *that* much more complicated, depending, and it's supposed to go a lot faster. Of course, then you have to dry it out afterward if you want to make anything other than mush.

[melsmarsh.livejournal.com]

I should post a subbing update tomorrow afternoon, if I survive.

Please do!