Who Died?
I got this from Deadman's Log, who got it from Shellhawk. And it's morbid enough to amuse me on a bright spring day.
129,118 People
Back from four-day weekend trip. The 6.5 hour drive, plus half hour or so for meal & bathroom stops, became a 10.5 hour drive thanks to a trio of traffic jams. Ick.

Of course, there was a list of things waiting for me. Some of it, I wonder about. My job is not rocket science. Why do some people find it so hard?

The fire alarm was set off about noon. I joked with my boss that if I'd known how pretty it was outside, I would have pulled the alarm myself. Luckily, it was a false alarm; so no damage & no injuries.

Two books that I ordered arrived. One was Secret Life of a Vampire. I read that during the fire alarm & over lunch, pretty much. I then started Night's Rose by Annaliese Evans. I'm now up to July 2008 in my Shojo Beat. I'm almost caught up. Whee!

My tatting this past weekend was less than successful. The thread kept breaking.

FYI

People who died on May 25 (various years)

• 2007 - Charles Nelson Reilly, American actor and host
• 2006 - Desmond Dekker, Jamaican ska musician
• 2005 - Gregory Scott Johnson, American murderer
• 2005 - Ruth Laredo, American pianist
• 2005 - Graham Kennedy, Australian television personality
• 2005 - Robert Jankel, British coachbuilder
• 2005 - Sunil Dutt, Indian actor and politician
• 2004 - Roger W. Straus, Jr., American publisher
• 2003 - Jeremy Michael Ward, American musician (The Mars Volta)
• 2000 - Nicholas Clay, British actor
• 1996 - Bradley Nowell, American singer and guitarist (Sublime)
• 1995 - Dany Robin, French actress
• 1994 - Sonny Sharrock, American jazz guitarist
• 1988 - Ernst Ruska, Nobel Prize laureate
• 1986 - Chester Bowles, American politician
• 1983 - Jean Rougeau, French Canadian professional wrestler
• 1981 - Fredric Warburg, British publisher and author
• 1979 - John Arthur Spenkelink, American murderer
• 1977 - Yevgenia Ginzburg, Russian writer
• 1965 - Sonny Boy Williamson, (Alec "Rice" Miller) American Blues singer, songwriter, and musician
• 1954 - Robert Capa, Hungarian-born photojournalist
• 1951 - Paula von Preradović, Croatian-born writer
• 1943 - Nils von Dardel, Swedish post-impressionist painter
• 1940 - Joe De Grasse, American film director
• 1935 - Sir Frank Watson Dyson, English astronomer
• 1934 - Gustav Holst, English composer
• 1930 - Randall Thomas Davidson, Archbishop of Canterbury
• 1927 - Payne Whitney, American businessman
• 1926 - Symon Petlura, Ukrainian politician and statesman
• 1924 - Lyubov Popova, Russian painter
• 1919 - Madame C.J. Walker, African American philanthropist and tycoon
• 1917 - Maksim Bahdanovič, Belarusian poet
• 1912 - Austin Lane Crothers, American politician
• 1899 - Rosa Bonheur, French realist painter and sculptor (d. 1822)
• 1849 - Benjamin d'Urban, British general and colonial administrator
• 1848 - Annette von Droste-Hülshoff, German writer
• 1805 - William Paley, English philosopher
• 1797 - John Griffin Whitwell, 4th Baron Howard de Walden, British field marshal
• 1789 - Anders Dahl, Swedish botanist
• 1786 - Peter III of Portugal, consort of Queen Maria I of Portugal
• 1741 - Daniel Ernst Jablonski, German theologian
• 1693 - Marie-Madeleine Pioche de la Vergne, comtesse de la Fayette, French writer
• 1681 - Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Spanish playwright
• 1667 - Gustaf Bonde, Swedish statesman
• 1632 - Adam Tanner, Austrian mathematician and philosopher
• 1595 - Valens Acidalius, German critic and poet
• 1555 - Henry II of Navarre
• 1555 - Gemma Frisius, Dutch mathematician and cartographer
• 1452 - John Stafford, Archbishop of Canterbury
• 1261 - Pope Alexander IV
• 1085 - Pope Gregory VII
• 992 - Mieszko I first lord and knight of Poland, duke of Polans
• 967 - Murakami, Emperor of Japan (b. 926)
• 735 - Bede, English historian and monk
• 709 - Aldhelm, Bishop of Sherborne

Gaming News
My wizard finally hit with her new daily power. Finally, finally, finally. And she critically hit even (a 20 on a 20-sided die). Whoot!

We made good time driving down yesterday. At least until we got off the highway. Between the traffic, the lights, the rain and the unmarked roads, the last 12 miles took an hour.

I read two more issues of ShojoBeat and did a lot on my wizard during the drive. She jumped from 4th to 6th pretty much, thanks to Scepter Tower of Spellguard. I went 'shopping' for magic items that she'd like.

I thought that I would sleep more but I barely napped for 10 minutes. Chris and Rosemary started muttering about pod people and alien replacement (I always sleep during car trips).

I managed to slam my fingers with the car door this morning. I had a cold drink to put on them, but no ice. They are still tender but haven't bruised, yet.

My current tatting project is the butterfly bookmark for Melinda. Size 80 pink & yellow, using single shuttle split ring.

READ THIS BOOK!
Sorry about the shouting, but I'm very passionate about the book that I finished reading Wednesday night, Three Cups of Tea. It's one of the few non-fiction books that I've read this year and I am so glad that I did. In 1993 David Mortensen tried to climb K2 in Pakistan but failed. On his way down, he got lost and found himself in a small village. Moved by their kindness and by the sight of the village children studying outdoors, he promised to build them a school.

Several times during this story of one man's attempts, triumphs and tragedies, I was moved to tears. True, that's not a very high bar, I've been known to cry at Hallmark commercials. The fact remains that this is a fabulous, hopeful book.

On to less serious matters...
Gaming: Last night we had an Annual edition of our Mutants & Masterminds game. As in comic books; Annuals are an episode out of the story line, usually focusing on particular members of the group. Diana had to work last night because she had Monday & Tuesday off (she went to DC for the inauguration). Rosemary wasn't up to gaming (Toby, her shelter-adopted sealpoint Siamese? died Wednesday - he was about 14 and had thyroid problems. She couldn't get him to the emergency vet because of the snow on the roads; she had to wait until the vet near her opened..and he died on the trip. Despite all her efforts, she feels guilty) so it was just Dr. Marvelous (Nate), The Wraith (Chris) & Totem (me).

David put together a pretty good plot, with a few threads to pick up later in the campaign, for only a couple hours of work. Some powered suits, with non-fatal weaponry but capable of being fitted with lethal weapons, were stolen. The military, or possibly some intelligence agency, was involved so they were keeping the local police and the supers out of the investigation.

The Wraith however, is everywhere. He read the manifest of stolen goods over the general's shoulder, for example (love that OMG hide skill). We did some investigation, sorely missing our PI, Lady Celtic. Dr. Marvelous got into some databases, Wraith spoke to his contacts and Totem chased down her half-brother to work on his training.

You kind of wonder about thieves who 1) use rubber bullets to subdue the gaurds & 2) drain the oil and gas from the stolen truck before dumping it into the river. Turns out that they were vigilantes hunting supervillains who used lethal force. It was a good fight and I got a real good 'Totem' moment. One of the people the trio was fighting had the ability to drain abilities, or suppress them. She suppressed Totem's magic; so Totem couldn't heal or use any of her other spells (translation -not using that in a fight anyway, probably and some other stuff). That means that, to Totem, she cut the connection Totem had to the gods and to her Valley. On Totem's next action she crit'd and knocked out the woman. Wraith helped by stunning her and Dr. Marvelous had helped by taking out the power in the woman's suit. But it was so perfect.

Totem, righteously irate that someone has done the unthinkable - cut her connection to the divine and violted her divine mandate - knocks her out with a solid blow of her sai (think the fight scene between the women in the flashback during Mummy Returns). Aww, cinematic goodness.

Reading: I've been catching up on my Shojo Beat magazines. I'm up to May 2007. Once I finished Three Cups and the four Thursday Next books, I've been re-reading books. I'd like to buy an external harddrive, to back up my laptop, so I'm trying to save money by not buying any new books. For at least three weeks, anyway. It's going to be soooo hard, biblioholic that I am.

Crafts

work in progress, Viking wire knitting, off the hex wrench (copper leader on the left, hanging down)

Same work, on the wrench - you can see the leader on the left. I need to practice more, my joins are still very rough.

And here it is, ready to work on it.

Pity my neighbor's poor, gullible Bradford pear tree. It apparently believed that spring had arrived and it has blossomed. Just in time for the temperatures to dip into the teens (F). Our tree did not believe, that or its dead. It lost a massive trunk/branch and the tree company did absolutely nothing to protect the open wood. Or perhaps the woodpecker ringed it finally.

On the bright side, there's about 10 hours of sunlight so there's about the same amount of light when I head home as when I leave for work. No more walking home in the pitch black.

Work's been busy. It's report time and that has picked things up a bit. No real surprise there, I guess. I should have expected it, I suppose.

I've lost more fingernails. I don't know if the dry air or if its just me. I'm trying to put moisturizer on my fingernails and I hope it helps them from getting worse.

I've started reading the next (pardon the pun) Thursday Next novel; on a Thursday yet. It's Lost in a Good Book and I'm enjoying it immensely. I'm also trying to catch up on reading my Shojo Beat magazines.

Got some sleep: Seriously, about the time Chris came home, I laid down for a nap. Next thing I knew it was 9 pm. I stayed up long enough to have supper & went back to bed.

sight of the day: young woman, dressed almost stodgily in classic black dress & mary janes, with pale traceries of tattoos all along her arms, below her short sleeves.

books: I finished Smile of the Stranger at lunch yesterday & read my October issue of Shojo Beat!. This morning I'm re-reading The Pursuit of Marriage.

Tatting: I got about 3-4" of edging done yesterday.

tv: I forgot to mention that I watched Women of Ninja Warrior Tuesday night. Last night I watched a little of Pleasantville before heading to bed.

clothes: black 'slippers'; forest green, ankle-length, wrap skirt (embroidered & guimped front panel); burgundy poly knit blouse; malachite & silver cuff bracelet; malachite & silver wire ring; ~rope band; flower band; hematite ring; same hairstick (w/ a black bead on either side of a faceted clear one & a dangling silver spherical charm); & ~silver chain mail earrings.

fingernail: I don't know how or exactly when I did it. But just after noon, I noticed the nail on my left pinkie was ragged. Apparently, I tore/broke clean off. If it hadn't been ragged, I wouldn't have noticed because there's still a little bit of nail past the nail bed.

weather was surprisingly warm today. I only need the sweater, etc. I took off my jacket. Although, the wind was a little sharp.

Lunch activities: I finished one letter to an aunt, started another, read a little, decided getting past/around the people doing inventory was too much trouble to find a gel pen of the right sort, and flipped through a copy of Shojo Beat.

Gaming: Chris's game last night. We learned a few things, did some investigating. Found some suspicious stuff (like all the law & government for city in military hands over the past year or so..since Vertum's old commander & Kelis's old commander showed up). All the temples to gods of justice have not just been abandoned but have been desecrated, again in the last 5-12 months.
dental appointment is today, this afternoon. I'm dreading it.

books: Read What Price Love by Stephanie Laurens. Continued reading in Pillow Book. I also have 2 Shojo Beat issues to read & Dragonsblood. That's in addition to some books that I borrowed from Steve.

clothes: black from head to toe; loafers, socks, slacks, turtleneck. Then a very colorful open crocheted sweater over the turtleneck; fuschia, teal, orange, purple, kelly & red (with concentric circles of beads to accentuate a few of the crocheted circles). I went ahead & wore 2 hair elastics, black & pink entwined at the end of my braid. For jewelry I'm wearing the same as I did yesterday with the addition of the black stone ring.