Your leaking thatched hut during the restoration of a pre-Enlightenment state.

 

Hello, my name is Judas Gutenberg and this is my blaag (pronounced as you would the vomit noise "hyroop-bleuach").



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   doggy border incident
Wednesday, August 24 2022
I awoke this morning in the greenhouse and would be spending a second night there as well. Now that Gretchen is in the DuoLingo "Diamond League," I've been wanting to make it easier for her to do DuoLingo sessions late at night in bed, which she's going to have to do to maintain her status in the league (or advance to the next higher one, whose name we do not know).

[REDACTED]

Gradually throughout the day, and then finally after work, I watched the first episode of House of the Dragon, the new Game of Thrones prequel. I expect it to be a dreary rehash of themes from GoT intended as a cash grab for an audience that will loyally watch anything from this now-sprawling franchise. But it was unexpectedly good. I was especially struck by the fortuitous timing of the launch of a season that begins with the horror of a state placing more value on soon-to-die infant's life than on the mother whose body it finds itself in. As we now know, this doesn't just happen in fiction; the Supreme Court is allowing this same thing to play out in all the states with enough hillbillies to outvote sensible urban elites.

Today marked the end of the agile sprint in the remote workplace, and I felt a little bad for not having finished more of my tasks. But they'd been plagued with complexity issues of the sort that the other developers on the team cannot even see due to their years of familiarity with both the code and the business rules they automate. I can only do what I can do and hope to do better.

At some point today I started working on a loose painting of a loon swimming in a landscape. At points I felt like I was getting somewhere with it, especially the landscape. But then other times it kind of disgusted me. You can be the judge below.

This evening I heard the dogs barking down near the greenhouse, and when I went down there, I saw our dogs were facing off against the three Australian shepherds belonging to Crazy Dave, who (despite the sale of the land he's living on to a different owner two years ago) still lives in the little cluttered cottage across the ravine. His dogs are about as crazy as he is, and (like him) they make a lot of noise but are completely benign. Ramona hates them (as she does most dogs), but they had enough sense to avoid her, and she had no interest in actively attacking them. Neville, on the other hand, seems to love all dogs, and one of the Australian shepherds came up to him and they did the usual butt sniffing. It was adorable.


Diane and Oscar in the yard near the front door. Click to enlarge.


Oscar. Click to enlarge.


Diane in the yard near the front yard. Click to enlarge.


More Oscar. Click to enlarge.


Not a great picture, but between the greenhouse and Crazy Dave's cottage, our dogs had a small border incident with Crazy Dave's Australian shepherds. Ramona was openly hostile; note that her hackles are raised. Click to enlarge.


One of Crazy Dave's dogs seemed to like Neville, who is always friendly to other dogs. Click to enlarge.


It was kind of sweet.


The not-great loon painting I made today. Note the black thumb print still present in the lower right.


The double-flipped version.


For linking purposes this article's URL is:
http://asecular.com/blog.php?220824

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