Not so early morning, but it's lovely, overcast and nicely cold. Pity I don't have the energy to make use of that quite yet - I did a little later, though.
As it was overcast and still under 30 degrees, I took advantage and pulled all the tall grass out of my garden - well, the area I can see from my chair, at least, so now I have a clear view to my Cosmos and my new beds.
And I finally have a clear walk around the garden! By ten it was clear skies and 30 degrees again. I made my pancakes ... only not a single pancake stayed whole! Ha ha! They tasted good, even though they were scrambled!
I've been reading up about a sourdough starter, well, I got myself a kit, so it should be simple, right? Yeah, only ... ideal temperatures are between 20-28 Celsius! That NEVER happens here! It's either summer, above 30 Celsius or winter, below 20! I finally found a website that suggests adding less water and increasing the feeding times in warmer climates and perhaps chill water and / or flour before adding them. So much for the simple starter kit, eh?
Oh, and just to add to that: the container that came with it? Can't use it! It's too small. Much too small! I can use it only the first day. Sigh. Ah well. I think I'll leave that for a while.
I also made another attempt at making butter ... which also failed! Ha Ha!
The watermelon made simply too much juice for me to freeze all of it, so not I'm enjoying it as a cold drink! Next time, I'll make my water ice again - as well as freezing cubes.
After that fiasco with the pancakes, I decided that I had better make something else for tomorrow's breakfast. Bread, I guess. At the same time, I felt like experimenting in the kitchen - though energy levels are still low, thanks to the heat, I think.
Eventually I came up with an idea: I made another cheese, bacon and herb dough, then mixed some mince with an egg, mustard, the leftover grilled eggplant sauce as well as the leftover pickles and the first tomato from my garden, then shaped the bread dough around the mince, kind of like a cup. Sprinkled more grated cheese on top and baked that! That turned out very well indeed!
When I sat outside Thursday evening, waiting for my mippies to want to come in, I saw a buck wandering across the grass outside my garden! I really enjoy that there is such a lot of wildlife here: tortoises, hares, meerkat and now buck! Oh, and snakes, which I'm not so fond of, but still. I think the buck was a Duiker. It was fairly small - about 3x the size of Ziva; brown and with large ears.
Friday, I didn't have any energy for anything, though. Temperatures climbed close to 40 again and with the promise of rain in the air, it was uncomfortably humid.
I did have all my mippies inside around nine and went to get milk. I had asked for 3 liters, but he had filled 4. No problem, though. Next week it's back to my 'normal' schedule, so that should work out better.
I also found out that there's another Adventure coming up in my online game, so I spent all day writing Tips to circulate, so we can all prepare and work together. I wonder how that will work out, though. Now, all that's left to do is design the spreadsheet we'll be using. That's going to take some time, too! But I've got 2 weeks to get that done, so: no rush!
It was getting somewhat dark outside, a storm was definitely brewing, so first I went and showered - just in case the power goes out during the storm. Lucky, I did, too! When I was done, I called my mippies - I want them to be nearby when the storm breaks, especially Mewthos!
Wow! It was a really, really bad storm! It came down by the bucket-load at first, and then it started hailing! Not too big, at least - the largest hailstones were about the size of a grape at most. But the whole outside was covered in white fairly quickly! I took some photos while trying to calm my mippies - especially Ziva, who hid under the sleeper couch again! The hail just didn't seem to want to stop - it was actually quite fascinating to watch; though, of course, I worried just how much damage it would be doing in my garden!
Of course, the power went out.
Sigh. While I was looking out the front windows, the rain AND hail came in the back window! When I finally went to my bedroom, I discovered that my bed was soaked and I still picked a couple of hailstones off the covers! Worst part was, that I had just washed one duvet and put on new duvet covers! Fresh bed - freshly soaked!
And not just the bed! I had quite a puddle on the floor plus the rain was still coming in through the open windows! I got out the mop and got busy. At least the rain had slowed so I could keep up. I considered going around to close the windows - but couldn't find my jacket, and since the power was out, I didn't want to risk getting soaked with no means of warming up.
When the rain had finally slowed down, I caught up with all the water and could finally relax. I had moved the bed away from the window, though, and taken the pillows off as they were both quite wet. The room was somewhat crowded with everything on one side, but at least it wouldn't be for long, just one night.
Then I looked for something to read. Eventually I stumbled across The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which I had bought a long time ago. I had read all the novels already, but thought it would be nice to have them all in one place - at least, that was my thinking at the time. I was delighted to find an introduction by Neil Gaiman with a Preface by the late, great Douglas Adams himself! Plus: I can't believe I didn't know this, but there's a story in the book, which I haven't even heard of! How could I leave that in my shelf, unread, for such a long time? Sigh - I really, really need to get back to reading!
Well, I enjoyed reading last night. Then went to bed - using the spare duvet for my pillow, trying to use the little dry bits of my other duvet to cover my feet ...
One of the worst night's ever! I just could not get to sleep, the mosquitoes were driving me absolutely nuts! No fan, no noise, so the buzzing sounds as loud as a buzzsaw! I was slapping and flapping around like a fish out of water! At the same time, all my mippies helped dry the bed by sleeping everywhere. Only Mini practiced apartheid by sleeping in the bathroom! I went and carried her to the bed and forced her to be nice to my mippies! It's not only the big mips not fully accepting the mini, but Mini herself tends to like being MY baby rather than mixing with her own kind! I pushed quite a bit, though, so there's been some growing closer.
I don't know how many times I got up, but the last time I checked, it was one in the morning! At that time the mozzies calmed down somewhat, so I finally managed to get to sleep.
Only to wake at three! Again! Mozzie buzzing at full volume, driving me absolutely insane! And it was hot and humid and I was uncomfortable - although, more of the bed and duvet had dried, so I had some more room.
I spent the time awake working on a concept I've been meaning to develop for a long time. It's a very feminist concept, because frankly, I'm getting really tired of women's equality being measured purely by how 'male' they are. For example, when it comes to strength - only women who can fight a well as men AND look extremely sexy while doing it, are considered to be 'strong women'. Why can't a woman who runs a happy home be considered strong? Or, why is it that 'emotional' is always labelled as a weakness? In my opinion, when it comes to 'right' and 'wrong' true justice must involve emotion to some extent ... what's going on in the courts these days, based purely on 'unemotional law' is definitely not justice! It's more of a theatrical interpretation, twisting the letter of the law to serve the richest person's purpose. And here again: juries are emotionally manipulated by a performance, so: so much for 'right' and 'wrong'!
Anyway, I'm busy working on a concept of a matriarchal society. One where men and women are truly equal - not, like where real life is at the moment, where everything traditionally associated as 'male' is good and strong, whereas anything even remotely associated with 'female' is weak and inferior.
And I would like to expose the hypocrisy of today's society, as well. For example, women have an accepted reputation for being emotional - the truth, in my experience, is quite the reverse. I have had more unprofessional emotional outbursts coming from men - and far more frequently than I've every had coming from any one woman! Especially in 'professional' environments! Yet, when a woman reciprocates, she's shut down and told 'calm down', usually referencing her menstrual cycle! The same goes for gossip! There's a generally accepted belief that an office filled with women is 'chit chat and gossip and office politics' - I've spent more time in male dominated offices and, in my experience, men are much, much worse! Especially, since everyone accepts that, if it comes from a male, it's an objective statement of fact, not gossip!
Another observation I would like to explore is that aggression is usually an outlet for something suppressed. I have several experiences to draw on. Of course, that doesn't explain psychotic personalities - but then, I've never encountered one myself; and I'm no psychologist, so I honestly don't know. Maybe not all aggressive behaviour can be explained with suppression, but definitely a lot!
Anyway, it's a concept that's been on my mind for a long time. I've been working on it every now and then - usually sleepless nights. As I said, I'd like a truly matriarchal society - but I'm finding it difficult to establish a development that could actually work. So far, I'm at a society where females are rare; actually all people are rare - children are only born when there is a gap. So, there's no overpopulation leading to expansionist aggression. But that's not really natural - what controls it? So, I've come up with a limited telepathic society, which would also encourage faster development - with communication open right from the start, allowing an exchange of ideas at the earliest stages. But not everyone is telepathic. All women are - which is why women are often leaders, as they have the wisdom and knowledge of ALL women in the world to draw upon. Some men are also telepathic. Telepathy being the intial means of communication - just like some people are good at sharing their thoughts, teaching what they've learned. They are not necessarily the most brilliant minds - just like humans. Some can understand, some can communicate their understanding. Also, they evolved from amphibians. Where we have different skin colours, on their planet they have different levels of amphibian-ism - some people still have webbed feet and / or hands. Another thing is, that, if a tribe or village or group find themselves without a female, a male can become female. That is one of the foundations of their true gender equality.
Also, in a population that is limited - I think, the telepathic pressure of too many people may naturally repress reproduction? - everyone is valued. Rather than treasuring the lemmings, diversity is treasured. And THAT, too, led to the fast-track of their progress, that they allow minorities to be heard rather than what we do: laugh at them for being / thinking / believing differently. Where brilliance doesn't have to fight hard to be heard or acknowledged.
Well, that's what my mind keeps itself busy with when I can't sleep. I still don't know whether this might be a novel, a short story, a series of short stories ... or what. An idea I had last night is, that I might like to 're-write' episodes or short stories with my female cast.
Of course, come morning, I didn't wake up. It was past seven when I first woke up, but still turned over. I finally got up at quarter past nine! Co-incidentally, that's when the power finally came back on.
I've been reading up about a sourdough starter, well, I got myself a kit, so it should be simple, right? Yeah, only ... ideal temperatures are between 20-28 Celsius! That NEVER happens here! It's either summer, above 30 Celsius or winter, below 20! I finally found a website that suggests adding less water and increasing the feeding times in warmer climates and perhaps chill water and / or flour before adding them. So much for the simple starter kit, eh?
Oh, and just to add to that: the container that came with it? Can't use it! It's too small. Much too small! I can use it only the first day. Sigh. Ah well. I think I'll leave that for a while.
I also made another attempt at making butter ... which also failed! Ha Ha!
The watermelon made simply too much juice for me to freeze all of it, so not I'm enjoying it as a cold drink! Next time, I'll make my water ice again - as well as freezing cubes.
After that fiasco with the pancakes, I decided that I had better make something else for tomorrow's breakfast. Bread, I guess. At the same time, I felt like experimenting in the kitchen - though energy levels are still low, thanks to the heat, I think.
Eventually I came up with an idea: I made another cheese, bacon and herb dough, then mixed some mince with an egg, mustard, the leftover grilled eggplant sauce as well as the leftover pickles and the first tomato from my garden, then shaped the bread dough around the mince, kind of like a cup. Sprinkled more grated cheese on top and baked that! That turned out very well indeed!
When I sat outside Thursday evening, waiting for my mippies to want to come in, I saw a buck wandering across the grass outside my garden! I really enjoy that there is such a lot of wildlife here: tortoises, hares, meerkat and now buck! Oh, and snakes, which I'm not so fond of, but still. I think the buck was a Duiker. It was fairly small - about 3x the size of Ziva; brown and with large ears.
Friday, I didn't have any energy for anything, though. Temperatures climbed close to 40 again and with the promise of rain in the air, it was uncomfortably humid.
I did have all my mippies inside around nine and went to get milk. I had asked for 3 liters, but he had filled 4. No problem, though. Next week it's back to my 'normal' schedule, so that should work out better.
I also found out that there's another Adventure coming up in my online game, so I spent all day writing Tips to circulate, so we can all prepare and work together. I wonder how that will work out, though. Now, all that's left to do is design the spreadsheet we'll be using. That's going to take some time, too! But I've got 2 weeks to get that done, so: no rush!
It was getting somewhat dark outside, a storm was definitely brewing, so first I went and showered - just in case the power goes out during the storm. Lucky, I did, too! When I was done, I called my mippies - I want them to be nearby when the storm breaks, especially Mewthos!
Wow! It was a really, really bad storm! It came down by the bucket-load at first, and then it started hailing! Not too big, at least - the largest hailstones were about the size of a grape at most. But the whole outside was covered in white fairly quickly! I took some photos while trying to calm my mippies - especially Ziva, who hid under the sleeper couch again! The hail just didn't seem to want to stop - it was actually quite fascinating to watch; though, of course, I worried just how much damage it would be doing in my garden!
Of course, the power went out.
Sigh. While I was looking out the front windows, the rain AND hail came in the back window! When I finally went to my bedroom, I discovered that my bed was soaked and I still picked a couple of hailstones off the covers! Worst part was, that I had just washed one duvet and put on new duvet covers! Fresh bed - freshly soaked!
And not just the bed! I had quite a puddle on the floor plus the rain was still coming in through the open windows! I got out the mop and got busy. At least the rain had slowed so I could keep up. I considered going around to close the windows - but couldn't find my jacket, and since the power was out, I didn't want to risk getting soaked with no means of warming up.
When the rain had finally slowed down, I caught up with all the water and could finally relax. I had moved the bed away from the window, though, and taken the pillows off as they were both quite wet. The room was somewhat crowded with everything on one side, but at least it wouldn't be for long, just one night.
Then I looked for something to read. Eventually I stumbled across The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which I had bought a long time ago. I had read all the novels already, but thought it would be nice to have them all in one place - at least, that was my thinking at the time. I was delighted to find an introduction by Neil Gaiman with a Preface by the late, great Douglas Adams himself! Plus: I can't believe I didn't know this, but there's a story in the book, which I haven't even heard of! How could I leave that in my shelf, unread, for such a long time? Sigh - I really, really need to get back to reading!
Well, I enjoyed reading last night. Then went to bed - using the spare duvet for my pillow, trying to use the little dry bits of my other duvet to cover my feet ...
One of the worst night's ever! I just could not get to sleep, the mosquitoes were driving me absolutely nuts! No fan, no noise, so the buzzing sounds as loud as a buzzsaw! I was slapping and flapping around like a fish out of water! At the same time, all my mippies helped dry the bed by sleeping everywhere. Only Mini practiced apartheid by sleeping in the bathroom! I went and carried her to the bed and forced her to be nice to my mippies! It's not only the big mips not fully accepting the mini, but Mini herself tends to like being MY baby rather than mixing with her own kind! I pushed quite a bit, though, so there's been some growing closer.
I don't know how many times I got up, but the last time I checked, it was one in the morning! At that time the mozzies calmed down somewhat, so I finally managed to get to sleep.
Only to wake at three! Again! Mozzie buzzing at full volume, driving me absolutely insane! And it was hot and humid and I was uncomfortable - although, more of the bed and duvet had dried, so I had some more room.
I spent the time awake working on a concept I've been meaning to develop for a long time. It's a very feminist concept, because frankly, I'm getting really tired of women's equality being measured purely by how 'male' they are. For example, when it comes to strength - only women who can fight a well as men AND look extremely sexy while doing it, are considered to be 'strong women'. Why can't a woman who runs a happy home be considered strong? Or, why is it that 'emotional' is always labelled as a weakness? In my opinion, when it comes to 'right' and 'wrong' true justice must involve emotion to some extent ... what's going on in the courts these days, based purely on 'unemotional law' is definitely not justice! It's more of a theatrical interpretation, twisting the letter of the law to serve the richest person's purpose. And here again: juries are emotionally manipulated by a performance, so: so much for 'right' and 'wrong'!
Anyway, I'm busy working on a concept of a matriarchal society. One where men and women are truly equal - not, like where real life is at the moment, where everything traditionally associated as 'male' is good and strong, whereas anything even remotely associated with 'female' is weak and inferior.
And I would like to expose the hypocrisy of today's society, as well. For example, women have an accepted reputation for being emotional - the truth, in my experience, is quite the reverse. I have had more unprofessional emotional outbursts coming from men - and far more frequently than I've every had coming from any one woman! Especially in 'professional' environments! Yet, when a woman reciprocates, she's shut down and told 'calm down', usually referencing her menstrual cycle! The same goes for gossip! There's a generally accepted belief that an office filled with women is 'chit chat and gossip and office politics' - I've spent more time in male dominated offices and, in my experience, men are much, much worse! Especially, since everyone accepts that, if it comes from a male, it's an objective statement of fact, not gossip!
Another observation I would like to explore is that aggression is usually an outlet for something suppressed. I have several experiences to draw on. Of course, that doesn't explain psychotic personalities - but then, I've never encountered one myself; and I'm no psychologist, so I honestly don't know. Maybe not all aggressive behaviour can be explained with suppression, but definitely a lot!
Anyway, it's a concept that's been on my mind for a long time. I've been working on it every now and then - usually sleepless nights. As I said, I'd like a truly matriarchal society - but I'm finding it difficult to establish a development that could actually work. So far, I'm at a society where females are rare; actually all people are rare - children are only born when there is a gap. So, there's no overpopulation leading to expansionist aggression. But that's not really natural - what controls it? So, I've come up with a limited telepathic society, which would also encourage faster development - with communication open right from the start, allowing an exchange of ideas at the earliest stages. But not everyone is telepathic. All women are - which is why women are often leaders, as they have the wisdom and knowledge of ALL women in the world to draw upon. Some men are also telepathic. Telepathy being the intial means of communication - just like some people are good at sharing their thoughts, teaching what they've learned. They are not necessarily the most brilliant minds - just like humans. Some can understand, some can communicate their understanding. Also, they evolved from amphibians. Where we have different skin colours, on their planet they have different levels of amphibian-ism - some people still have webbed feet and / or hands. Another thing is, that, if a tribe or village or group find themselves without a female, a male can become female. That is one of the foundations of their true gender equality.
Also, in a population that is limited - I think, the telepathic pressure of too many people may naturally repress reproduction? - everyone is valued. Rather than treasuring the lemmings, diversity is treasured. And THAT, too, led to the fast-track of their progress, that they allow minorities to be heard rather than what we do: laugh at them for being / thinking / believing differently. Where brilliance doesn't have to fight hard to be heard or acknowledged.
Well, that's what my mind keeps itself busy with when I can't sleep. I still don't know whether this might be a novel, a short story, a series of short stories ... or what. An idea I had last night is, that I might like to 're-write' episodes or short stories with my female cast.
Of course, come morning, I didn't wake up. It was past seven when I first woke up, but still turned over. I finally got up at quarter past nine! Co-incidentally, that's when the power finally came back on.
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