Whew!

We had radegund and her two boys with us from Saturday 25 March until about 08:45 this morning, and niallm joined them for the last weekend.

It included party, painting, visitors, housework, playing, telly, books, 1 am, the community garden, Linnea's birthday itself (she bought her own train ticket, we called in to Eclectic Games, had lunch out, bought helium balloons, went to the museum to see the Victorian Bayeux Tapestry and some really, really old biscuits, and ended up with Linnea buying her own bus ticket, too) and when niallm arrived we also had Kew Gardens and sharing a train with drunk rugby fans after an Army V Navy match, which was lovely and helped Radz and me with any low blood-pressure problems we might have had. I felt lousy afterwards that I hadn't stood up and had a go at them when they were harassing other female passengers, but in my defense I had a sleeping baby on my lap and anyway we were travelling with two toddlers and two young children so drawing drunk attention might not have been a good idea.

Then we finished up with a big dinner (the whole chicken got eaten, which hardly ever happens) and crawled out of bed this morning to say goodbye.

I think we swapped colds with them, too.

It was great. Let's do it again when we've had almost enough sleep.

To do list

Today
Sort dry laundry
Plan order of business for dirty bedding (2 single beds, 1 double, 1 king)
Menu-plan for one week

( This week, month, quarter, year )

Red Mars (also, Dreamwidth)

This is partially a test of crossposting from my hitherto unused, brand-new, shiny Dreamwidth account.

But also I wanted to mention Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars which I have been reading for the first time. I kind of wish I'd read it before all the recent discoveries about Mars, but it's pretty good anyway, because I don't pay as much attention as I ought to things like that and Mars sounds exciting and scary and bleak and even more futuristic than a personal jetpack and a shiny silver catsuit.

What happens with SFF I read is this: I ask Rob to recommend a book, and he looks hard at his shelves, and tries to choose one in which nothing appalling happens to children, some major characters are female, not all female characters are mothers or skivvies or intrinsically nurturing or ball-breakers, female characters drive the plot, and male characters are not all hideously sexist.

It's a limiting set of criteria, but at least it's not the Bechdel test.

The last one he offered was great except for the "female characters all being maternal reeeeeally" thing - it was A Fire Upon The Deep by Vernon Vinge. This one even avoids that, though with a cast of thousands it does draw on a lot of sexist stereotypes. It mostly manages to rise above them, though.

I think it's basically Lord of the Flies in space with grownups. I'll probably reread it some day, after I finish it this time. Don't tell me how it ends.

Breadmaking as a therapeutic exercise

Reposted from a comment elsewhere:

If you buy a pack of yeast there's a recipe printed on the side. 1 lb flour, 1 tsp yeast, 1 tsp sugar, 1 tsp salt, 1/2 pint warm water. Beat the living daylights out of it, abandon it to its miserable fate and see how it likes it, beat the living daylights out of it again, let it recover, and just as it thinks it's safe, tip it head-first into the fucking oven. HA. That'll show it.