a wolf angel is not a good angel

For my birthday, I elected to get cabinetmaking lessons. I am making a secretary. I am having lots of fun with this, though I find that lots of sawdust really makes me sneeze. That is not really a complaint. I’ve done about a third of the hours, having cut all the pieces to size, but not sanded them yet. (Excluding the pieces that will make the actual drawers.)

After today, the place is shut for two weeks, so tonight is my only chance to sand. I have in the past not enjoyed sanding, though that was a long time ago, so maybe it will be more fun this time. (Ha. Sanding technology, it has not changed. A rotary sander is a rotary sander.)

So the question is, do I go tonight, or do I watch Heroes? I have a DVR, I can of course just watch Heroes at 10 instead of at 8, but that’s somehow less fun. I could just go until 9, and watch the American time.

My better nature vying with my lazier one: will laziness finally lose out?

Apparently other people can change it for me. Though I *like* being a snow leopard and will be unhappy if it changes to a non-cat. But since my loner secretiveness seemed to have turned me into a cat, I am likely safe.

So people can click on this, answer 5 questions about me, and possibly change him. I’m curious to see what happens. You can try it yourself and leave it unchangeable, but I like the idea of seeing how other people might change it.

I didn’t get my paper again today! Seriously piss me off.

Then when I was looking at the online version, I accidentally saw the answers for yesterday’s puzzle, and it was a theme that is now spoiled for me.

Should never have gotten out of bed.

After a very, very long hiatus, Heroes is back!

Spoilers ahead.

Other than the part where they tried to pretend like any viewers anywhere might think that Peter died, I liked the episode very much. We all know Peter doesn’t die, or at least not yet; bets are still ongoing about whether or not he actually will die in the finale. But episode 19? No. The emotional resonance in that set of scenes was all off.

I did understand why they killed off Isaac, and I am sad to say I didn’t see it coming, even knowing that someone was going to die this week. I was betting on Mohinder, though that made me sad, as the actor is very attractive. (As is the actor who played Isaac, who even painted shirtless most of the time, for no good reason.) I would have really liked it to be someone in the Niki/Jessica/DL/Micah group, because they’re unbelivably dull. I wouldn’t've minded Sprague, either (radioactive dude, who is somewhat better this week).

I am not clear on what time-travelling and pre-cognition mean in this show. We have found all of Isaac’s pictures came true, and presumably the comic he sent off shows Hiro et al killing Sylar. (Which seems like an inconvenient way of disseminating the information, really; will Hiro have time to read the comic in advance? Or is it also in the sketchbook, including a “please deliver to”? I guess Isaac saw it work out, somehow.) But we’ve also seen his picture of NYC exploding, and I’m betting that the heroes will actually save the city. (We’ve also seen it in Peter’s dreams, an ability I assume he got from Mr. Deveaux, the old man he was taking care of initially, who owns the building that all the roof action takes place on.) Perhaps some of this will become clear in the next (5 years in the future) episode. Or maybe the time travel will be logically incoherent, like Back to the Future. This will not bother me so much, I think, once I know, whichever way it is.

I am curious if the only copy of the list is the one that was destroyed. (I assume that Sylar, who knows how things works, knows when things are unfixably broken, and that is why he couldn’t fix the computer. Possibly he can’t fix the computer anyhow; I’m not clear what powers are what.) And also why Sylar appeared to have taken Eden’s power.

Very pleased that this time there’s only a week’s wait, not 7.

And to my last year of my 20s.

As usual, the cat came back later, but only after a chase scene. So I decided to give her a bit of fresh air at my parents’ house, where again, I had to chase her (my sister was making noise and she got scared. Again).

All that would have been fine, but on the way back I stopped at my aunt and uncle’s place, cat in tow. They locked her in the den (she matches their couch very nicely), and she was there for a few hours. And weirdly, amazingly affectionate. Purring, rubbing on my aunt and uncle and cousins, eating their plants, but mostly very very friendly, and very very cuddly. (Except the brief period where she saw! another! cat! Horrors! Bad!)

I really do not understand animals. She normally hates (a) new people (b) groups of more than 2 people and (c) new places. Especially after (d) being carted around in a car. This time, she was the picture of a cat you would want to have. Why isn’t she like this for *me*?

Unfortunately, Matilda escaped, and of course the weather is so beautiful, I have no idea where she got to. The back door is open, but she has a thing against leaving the balcony, and it also means she’s unwilling to come onto the balcony from the stairs. The front door isn’t open, but I check periodically. Usually she only goes away for an hour or so, but I would love her to be back very soon. It’s too trafficky here.

I am highly amused by this ask.mefi thread about how cats view humans.

• We are helper monkeys, with extremely useful opposable thumbs. Our cats think we are kinda slow - well, downright dumb, really - when it comes to understanding what they want when they’re meowing at us and trying to herd us toward the feeding area. I’m sure they wonder why we can’t speak Cat yet.
• Meat. Every morning your kitty jumps into your bed to see if you are still alive or if the feast begins.
• He seems to think that our two dogs are really stupid, clumsy, potential cats.
• The real question, of course, is what kind of poor opinion do cats have of humans — we are so inept at everyday things like licking our own anuses, and we alternate between burning cats at the stake and treating them as honored members of the family.
• I’ve often wondered this as well. From observing my own cats, I think they see us partly as parent/caregiver cats (though they know that only some humans are food sources), partly as poor retarded cats that don’t know how to hunt, and partly as magic black boxes that can be caused to produce food by meowing in a certain way.
• what you are describing is a cat who does not think you are its mother or its love object, but rather a cat who is your witchly familiar.

I figured out my birthday gift. I know where I’m going to dinner (Nonya, an Indonesian place, unless somewhere better comes to mind), though not when, as my birthday is on a Monday this year.

What I do not know is: what is my birthday cake going to be? I like: chocolate. I do not like: mousse, lemon, lime. (I like other things than chocolate, but I want chocolate.) Raspberries and peanut butter are out because my mother doesn’t like them. I love nuts, especially hazelnuts. I like rich. I like icing. I like orange, I like strawberry, I like apple, I like pear. My current idea is maybe a chocolate meringue pie, but I would love something more interesting.

So, since the other post is lost in the mists of weird blog problems, I will reiterate my complaint about the independent bookstores that are here. As you might notice if you look at the back of a book, in Canada, books cost at least 25% more than in the US. And books are expensive, especially if they’re not rereads, because half the time you can only get the 20$ trade paperbacks. I understand the problems with big box stores, but they have really easy online ordering, and they’re way cheaper.

This means that, if you want me to go to an independent bookstore, there needs to be value added. And just “eclecticker selection of books” is not value enough (big box stores have a lot of books). What I want is someone who reads a lot, and has some kind of good advice to give about books. I want to be acknowledged when I go in the store, too, as opposed to ignored until I have some cash to hand over.

I’ve had good experiences at a (now defunct) mystery bookseller in NH, and bad ones at a bookstore in a touristy area in Maine (well, since it was sold, anyhow). I understand that here, there’s a language issue, so we’re cutting the possible population in half, but really: there are a lot of people here, it’s odd that the only independent bookstores are filled with pretentiousier-than-thou types.

I am not really a big book-buyer. I can’t afford to buy that many books. But I do try to shop at places that make things worth it for me. Used bookstores: filled with charming eccentric people who talk or books that cost a few dollars (or both). Big box bookstores: all the books I can imagine to browse at (and get in the library), and huge online inventories. Independent bookstores: all the cost, none of the charm. I am really not interested in ordering from an online bookseller that I don’t have some sort of relationship with.

I am sure I would love S’s bookstore, but it’s an 8 hour drive away. I want to know why all these wonderful independent bookstores are somewhere that is else.