During one of my bicycle rides along the parkway last week, I startled a group of baby quail who took flight across the bike path right in front of me. I have never seen baby quail fly! Even the adults barely take to the air, opting instead for running, then running faster, and then flying only if they still haven't made it out of the way in time. These babies had the beginnings of striped feathers, and took off in a fixed formation from where they'd been standing, I guess. The radius of their bodies plus flapping wings was a little smaller than a baseball (and yes, you can see their wings the whole time. They're not especially good at flying). Such a surprise!

The weekend before that, someone retweeted pictures of this borb to my Twitter feed. I obsessed over this little guy for an entire day. How is it so fat and adorably cute? Why the emo mascara tears?



Meanwhile, something I've been doing—probably scrolling through Twitter and many, many work documents recently?—has caused me to develop carpal tunnel issues in my right hand. To go with the tennis elbow in my left arm. I was out riding my bike one day, and had to cut the ride short and use creative handlebar techniques to deal with the sudden increase of numbness and loss of grip-strength in my right hand. Yikes!

The next day was a rest day, followed by a day of riding in the garage due to the heat, which helped a little. But what really helped was cutting the remaining foam pipe-wrap cylinder from a previous home repair into pieces, and securing those pieces over strategic parts of my handlebars using rubber bands as "ties." \o?

So, my bike looks like rolling crap at the moment, but the problems in my hands aren't any worse...

I also added more of those foam cylinder pieces to the bike mounted on the garage trackstand, since that's where I've been riding the last 3 days. THIS HEAT!!! It's like a pocket of personal Hell. We'll get a few days of relief, where it's only in the mid-low 90s, and then it shoots right back up near or over 100. Uggggh... :(

I still haven't posted my intended Media info-dump entry. What with the extra work before the surgery, the recuperation, and then the extra work after coming back... I just haven't had time. Which means that more stuff has accumulated toward that post, so \o?

Post-surgical news, the lump was fully benign and bigger than I expected-- about 2 inches and sort of ovoid. Had my post-op visit yesterday, and things are looking good. Although there's a big incision (about 2 1/2 inches, yikes), there was very little cutting into the muscle. Just a small cut, and then spreading so the surgeon could remove the lump. That makes a huge difference in healing, so yay! Also, I can start biking outside again tomorrow. \o/ I've been riding the trainer in the garage for the last week, leaning on my left arm and trying not to put weight on the right (where the surgery was done). I'm half T-Rex now, flailing that useless little arm around...

Recuperation time meant reading books and watching movies/TV, and discovering that all the itching I'd had in the days after surgery was not the anaesthetic's fault. Augh-- the only painkillers left in the U.S. seem to be related to codeine, which makes me itchy and restless. Manageable during the day, but it keeps me awake at night. Suckage. :(

I saw a rainbow beanie baby hedgehog at the store the other day that honestly could as easily have been a rainbow pig. Not one of the better toy hedgehog efforts. But in Googling around for it, I came across some wonderful crocheted hedgehog pieces:

I would totally make this hat, and this other one as well. There's also this entire hedgehog family and this single hedgehog variant. And how cute is this hedgehog with a mushroom?

The actual truth here is that I remember maybe one crochet stitch, probably courtesy of muscle memory. I have no idea how to do any of these neat shaped creations. But they're so cute. I feel I should somehow try. :)

Thanks to those of you who sent birthday wishes last week! It was a lovely day, with scallops, strawberries, and chocolate cake—but as separate foods, not mixed together. I took Friday off, and we went out to breakfast, to the hardware store, and to see Bladerunner: 2049. It was all good. :)

I finished the Serial season 1 podcast last week, and let me just say, WHAT??? I wanted definitive answers! Instead, it feels as if there are just more questions. Still, it was riveting, all the way through. I'm less taken with the Orbiting Human Circus of the Air. The regular season episodes were fun. The Bonus Symphony episodes? Mostly noise fragments battling with the narrative for decibels. \o?

If you liked the original Bladerunner, and were not under the false impression that it was an action movie rather than Sci-Fi noir, I think you'll like Bladerunner 2049. Much of the movie occurs during the daytime, unlike the original, but that style of post-acid-rain bleakness is still there. It leaves you pondering many of the issues that the first movie stirred up, about what it means to be a "person," about what constitutes humanity, and about whether an artificial creation can have something akin to a soul—and whether anyone has the right to decide how worthy such a soul might be. Just fascinating.

tsuki_no_bara offered me a birthday link to hedgehog camping pictures, which I now share with you after spamming my family. The tiny equipment! The satisfied-looking hedgehog sitting at his camp table! SO, so cute. :D It makes me want a hedgie all over again, even though they're not allowed in California.

It's almost Halloween, so have this costumed hedgie too. Those fangs are for real!

This is one of the reasons I don't post every day-- some days I've got nothing, let alone the three positive things due today. But let me give it a try:

1) These kids' test answers, which are wrong but hilarious. Some of the teachers' notes are, too. :D

2) This video and this photo series of interspecies animal friendships. Except, needs more hedgehogs! Also, penguins.

3) A mother and baby hedgehog.

In other news, I finished Pushkin Hills, and already started Dark Places over the weekend. All the books!

I was going to update earlier this week (or was it last week?!?), but that didn't happen. There was a short turnaround for Idol last week, so I was either writing or reading, it seemed like. Last week's prompt was, "A Terrible Beauty has been born," which immediately made me think of chaos or anarchy. But I'd already written that as a Batman fanfic drabble on The Dark Knight Rises, and it frankly wasn't going to get better than that! Plus, anarchist POV is disturbing and draining. So I wrote something completely different, which turned out really well. This week's prompt of "scare quotes" has me scratching me head...

Over the last week and half, I finished two books. One was The Bend Of The World (plagued by hipster punctuation, but I still enjoyed it). My favorite character was the narrator's gay friend Johnny, who believes in the most outlandish stuff ever. There is a whole section where he takes disassociative drugs in hopes of reaching the fifth dimension, and instead (as the narrator says) does what he always does when he's high: eats pizza, drinks beer, and sits at the computer in his underwear playing General Panzer II. But you get Johnny's version of that whole section, in which the reader can tell what's actually going on, and the results are funny. Johnny is visited by a masonic angel who insists he's just a deliveryman (and says, "Do I look like I come from the motherfucking Hollow Earth?"). Later, Johnny goes out to deliver a special message to Panzer and encounters vikings and their flaming chariot. Or a police car...

I also read Engines Of The Broken World, a YA book I picked up mainly for its title. Dystopian, spooky, unusual, sad, and amazing. It isn't anything like what you might expect.

We watched Her last weekend, in which Joaquin Phoenix sports glasses and a pornstache that successfully remove any edgy aspect of his appearance or demeanor. The future depicted there, with everyone babbling to their computers/wireless inserts/etc. and effectively ignoring the actual human beings around them... it's depressing how possible that seems. When people fall in love or form friendships with operating systems, it's a sad commentary on life. Although Scarlett Johansson did a fine job as the OS, I would have picked someone with a more alluring voice. It's like Nightvale, to a certain extent—when there is a heavy voice-aspect to a medium, pay more attention to how the actors doing the voicework sound (fewer nasal, baby-voiced characters, Nightvale!). I'm sure Mimi Rogers would have liked a shot at some work. ;)

We also watched The Green Mile, after avoiding it for years because we just weren't emotionally up to it. Terrific movie and cast. I'm sorry Michael Clarke Duncan is no longer with us, and will never get another chance at an Oscar.

In addition to trying to write an Idol entry this weekend, I need to shop for fun gifts for my daughter's 17th birthday. She has no real wishlist, which doesn't help. I'll make a futile attempt today to interest her in something like this Starry Night Skater Skirt, which I'm sure she'll think is too 'something.' Too colorful, too out-there, IDK. If I had the figure to wear it, I'd buy it for myself! But with the short-torsoed hourglass figure (at my best), that cut of skirt looks more like a tutu than anything. :(

Ooh, speaking of birthdays: A tiny birthday party for a tiny hedgehog. \o/

The birthday remorse has settled in. I know, I do this to you about every other year, don't I? Age is just a number, and all that other blah-blah we trot out, but still... 48 is a pretty big number. It's hard not to think of it as being practically 50. :(

Happier thoughts: I've been sharing this picture around here and there, but I think you allll need to see it. It's not from icanhascheezburger, surprisingly enough, but maybe that's because it's cute rather than funny:



Okay, then! The kids are both out of the house until about 8pm, so HalfshellHusband and I have things to do (including eating dinner in peace, with no complaints about the contents). Happy Friday!