I keep pulling up the starts from that *^%*@+#&!@% tree all over my yard...front yard, side yard and back yard, and the tree isn't even in my yard! I got so sick of it's crap coming over my side of the fence that I cut a monster sized limb out of the tree this past Fall. Didn't want to risk a run-in with the #)%*()#^@! neighbor by using my gasoline powered pruning attachment, so I attacked it with my saw blade attachment on my 16 ft long pruning pole. Never have I had so much satisfaction with a saw before. Really worked out my frustration on that tree. Cut it in the most un-arborly fashion in hopes of killing the entire tree, but I doubt it will suffer that badly. Next I'm considering drilling a hole through the fence and into the tree and attaching a direct feed from a bottle of Round-Up, the really concentrated woody vine and brush killer kind. Yes, I'm that insane. Oh, and about the red bloated tick looking bugs that come with this tree...TonyK was right, you can't kill them with anything but soapy water and it has to be almost waterless soapy water or else they just keep on going. UGH!!!!!!!

I just went to the European Market today and bought a Lemon paczki. Windsor has a bakery - Blak\s Bakery that sells really good pazcki and you have to preorder them, people start lining up early in the morning. Much better than the coffee shop or grocery store paczki

Yes, and that is the first time that has been asked; "...do you have fruit on your books in that bookcase?" It turns out, believe it or not, I have a tchotchke shortfall. A dearth of doodads. I am just grabbing at things, including marble peaches which could roll off and leave a cannonball-like indent in my floors. Incongruous, you say? You mean you don't read by candlelight whilst slurping on peaches? I might scour the house looking for more stuff, but any doodads I might find are already busy doodadding wherever they are, amirite? Everytime I walk past this thing now I do something to it. First I threw out all the jackets. Then, I turned them around ... which meant I could've kept the jackets. Next I might chalk paint the whole thing, books and trinkets included. But rest assured, it is on its way out. She would turn the books around and add more. Go duke it out with Arapaho.

I have given up on registering for the Hugo Awards this year. I'm assuming there is some kind of intermittent firewall that is not allowing registration. Maybe I am wrong, but several attempts have left me in a state of failure. I will resume my voting nest year, but meanwhile, here is my assemement from a note I posted elsewhere: Some of you may know that I have been reading science fiction since childhood and began voting in the Hugo Awards in recent years. This year I was unable to register to vote despite several attempts. There seem to be technical issues. In any case, I cannot seem to keep my opinions to myself, so I thought I'd share my opinions of the Best Novel category here. Please note these are personal opinions only, a reflection of how I would have voted if the registration had worked. In my opinion, this is not a strong year. There are a couple of books I quite liked, a couple I enjoyed but did not get excited about, and a couple I could not even finish. I prefer years when there are books of dazzling excellence. Unfortunately I did not find this to be one of them. Even the two I liked best, definitely well worth reading, were not my favorite works by those particular authors. (Still enjoyable though.) Here are the nominees, and my comments: The Daughter of Doctor Moreau, by Silvia Moreno-Garcia - This is much admired author. I have not been able to get through any of her books. A kind of turgid gothic version of SF, and it simply does not work for me. YMMV The Kaiju Preservation Society, by John Scalzi - I like this guy. He reminds me of the better qualities of Heinlein, updated, and without the weirdness that crept into Heinlein's later work. Had I been able to vote, this was one of the two I might have chosen. (Since I did not get to choose, I never made the final choice.) Legends & Lattes, by Travis Baldree - This book got a lot of attention. I read it, and it was fun. Not wonderful, but genuinely fun. Nona the Ninth, by Tamsyn Muir (Tordotcom) - I have never been able to finish one of Muir's books. They remind me of Gormanghast. I hated Gormenghast. Nettle & Bone, by T. Kingfisher - I love T. Kingfisher. I even like her when she writes genres I don't normally read. This is the other novel I might have voted for had I been able to successfullly register. The Spare Man, by Mary Robinette Kowal - Along with Baldree's book, this fell into my readable but not remarkable category. Glad I read it, not award-worthy. A Nick and Nora knockoff. If you are a SF&F reader, and have an opinion, feel free to share it!