annafdd

Dr Peter Watts, Canadian science fiction writer, beaten and arrested at US border.

Yes. THAT Peter Watts, author of Blindsight etc.

I was scared the first time I got into the States, and from then on I was less and less scared of the country - but the borders always made me damn nervous. I used to joke about it. I thought it an overreaction to swear never to travel to the US because of that - I have so many of my friends there.

But this... well. Makes me rethink the whole thing.

Alex's lodger asked me about Italian Christmas food, and I was very stumped. The thing is, we don't really have a traditional Christmas food. Down South they do capitone (which is a kind of eel I think) for Christmas Eve, when you are supposed to abstain (Italian translation: you do not eat meat). I asked my mom and she said that they used to eat goose at Christmas around here (because you would fatten it up throughout the year). Nowadays, it's mostly cappone, that is, a rooster that has been castrated and fattened (not known either in the UK or US, as far as I know).

But, yes, nothing like the Turkey. In fact, cooking a whole turkey was unheard of in Italy until we heard the Americans were doing it and started copying it for Thanksgiving (no, Italians don't celebrate Thanksgiving as such, but they like doing Thanksgiving because it sounds like fun). A whole pig, yes. A whole chicken, duck, guinea fowl, goose, pheasant, and various other things, yes. Turkey, not so much. Turkey is usually filleted.

As a matter of fact, birds are more often boiled than roasted, because that way you get some good stock which is then used everywhere else in the meal. As a result, mixed boiled meat is often another Christmas favourite - eaten with khren, or hren, or as you call it here, horseradish - although it is more properly an Easter meal (in my part of the world, which includes my bit of Italy, and Slovenia).

Of course we have Christmas sweets, which are bought (from factories, and I guess earlier on from bakers) because they are very very VERY hard to do at home. You have NO IDEA what cooking a panettone involves, and pandoro is even worse.

Around Bologna, of course, they do tortellini for Christmas: proper handmade tortellini (not difficult to do if you have the time and inclination, and I think at some point I will try). But then they do tortellini at the drop of a hat there anyway.

What I can tell you is what my family traditionally cooks at Christmas. This was more a question of finding recipes that we really liked and a tradition forming than anything else.

The ricotta bricks soup is an absolute essential. As far as I know it's the only thing from Artusi that we actually cook - Artusi is a great book, and historically significant, but it was compiled for another age. (That's what it's called in the Artusi - Minestra di Mattoncini di Ricotta). Every respectable Italian household has a copy. Or should.

Anyway: Minestra di mattoncini di ricotta

200 gr ricotta
30 gr grated parmigiano (good - not the "parmesan" knockoff - this is what gives the thing flavour, and it's a very subtle one, so go for the good stuff.)
2 eggs
Salt, as needed (eh.)
Nutmeg and lemon rind (we usually use a whole lemon)

Artusi reccomends sifting the ricotta, but with a nice blender it's not actually called for. Mix everything apart from the eggs, then add the eggs one at a time. Pour into a cake mold (a sandwich pan, for example), lining with baking paper or foil. Then you should cook it in bain marie (it says here that it's called double boiler in America). I don't, because I can't handle bain marie and never have, so I use the microwave. I have no clue how long for, but the idea is that it has to become solid but a bit spongy.

You then cut it into little cubes (or diamonds, which is nicer), put it into a serving bowl and add some Really good stock. In my house, we use the stock derived from cooking the rooster (which is boiled, not roasted).

Cappone on a bed of lambs' lettuce
The other great favourite is the rooster itself. Once used for the stock it loses a lot of its flavour, so it is left to cool and sliced into very thin slices, then put on a bed of lamb's lettuce or corn salad. Then comes the good part: you take the juice of a pomegrenade (or two), mix it with oil, and drizzle it all over the lettuce and rooster. (I suppose you can prepare leftover turkey this way, too). You then generously sprinkle pomegranate seeds on it.

Pomegranate is a wonderful ingredient, and would deserve to be used more, come to think about it.

What I actually did.

Well, since I have been feeling cookery lately, I actually prepared one Easter and one summer dishes for Alex's party.

Pastiera

The Easter dish is Pastiera, a typically Neapolitan cake that has a very springy feel, in the sense that it is made with symbolically important Spring ingredients - wheat, eggs, ricotta. Actually, Wikipedia says:

It was used during the pagan celebrations of the return of the Spring time. During these celebrations Ceres’ priestess brought an egg, symbol of new life in procession. Because of the wheat or the einkorn, mixed with the soft ricotta cheese, it could come from the einkorn bread called "confarreatio", an essential ingredient in the ceremony of the type of ancient Roman weddings named after it "confarreatio". Another hypothesis we may consider is that it comes from ritual bread used, which spread during the period of Constantine the Great. They were made of honey and milk the people offered the catechumen during Easter Eve at the end of the ceremony of baptism.

It is one of those things, like Carnival fritters, or Christmas puddings, that you do not actually do at any time of the year. But I can, and therefore I do.

You need cooked wheat for it, and there are two ways of doing it. The traditional way involves leaving the grain in water for three days, changing the water every evening, and then cooking it for a long period of time. I have never used this method.

The other way is going into an Italian shop and buy a can. This is what I actually do. :-) It is sold as cooked grain (grano cotto) for pastiera and should be easy to find around Easter. I stock up, because it lasts forever.

The cans come with a handy recipe at the back, which involves equal weight of ricotta and sugar (700 gr sugar and 700 gr sugar for this particular can), 7 whole eggs plus 3 yolks, vanilla flavouring, orange blossom flavouring (this is VERY important!) and a quantity of candied citron (succade) that varies from can to can. The usual 150gr is WAY too much. I used about 25gr last time and it was very satisfactory. You also need 300g of milk to slowly heat the grain in so that it turns into a creamy stuff.

Basically, you mix all of the above together, adding the wamish milk and grain slowly, and then prepare the shortcrust pastry with 500 gr of flour, 200gr of sugar, 200gr of butter or lard (I have never used lard, and if you do,it's of course no longer vegetarian), and three whole eggs. Yes, we use eggs in shortcrust in Italy - I didn't know you could do it without. Maybe we just call it some other thing.

You roll out the shortcrust, line two spring cake molds with it, (keep some pastry to a side) leaving about two cm at the top. You then pour the mixture in, then cut strips from the leftover shortcrust and lay it over the mixture forming a griddle. Fold back the overhand, put everything in a 200° oven, wait for the top to become nice and golden, then switch off the oven and let it cool overnight.

Pastiera must be prepared a couple of days at least in advance, and can be easily frozen in a home freezer.

This quantity makes enough filling for two cakes, which is a good thing because you can usually find somebody to give a pastiera to. I've never had any problem in that.

The summer dish is Caponata, which was not a hit with Alex's party, I think mostly because they were getting very close to maximum capacity by the time we remembered we had it and served it. It can be served as a side dish, as a starter, or even on its own. I learned it from my Sicilian ex-(almost)-mother-in-law, because it is very much a Sicilian dish. It's long to do but I love it very much.

Caponata

Caponata is basically an elaborate way to enjoy aubergines, ie eggplants, one of my favourite foodstuff. There is another dish called caponata whose main ingredient are peppers, but that is a Genoese aberration we shall leave for another time.

This is supposed to feed four people, more if you serve it as appetizer or side:

650 g aubergines (about four)
40 g olives (I used green, but I think I'll go for black next time)
one tablespoon capers (would be better if they were in salt, but in brine will do)
one (good) tablespoon pine nuts
200 g "perini" tomatoes (I used canned San Marzano: since you are supposed to peel them and take out the seeds, I say canned is fine).
on tbs sugar
1/4 of a glass of good red wine vinegar (I didn't use balsamic, but I think you can)
one onion
4 white tender celery sticks
oil for frying

Some people put sultanas in; I am not too sure about that, and don't remember my mother in law doing it.

Anyway - you cut the aubergines into little cubes. Which takes bloody forever. Then you put them in salt water and let them purge (I help the process by putting a small dish on top of them and weighing it down with a meat tenderizer). I let them there for several hours, although the recipe calls for one hour at least.

When they are done purging, rinse them, and (and this is the painful phase) dry them.

Once you've done this, you get to the other painful phase, which is frying them. Yes, frying them, as in, fill a pan with oil, chuck them in so that they are fully submerge, watch them bubble cheerfully until they are nice and golden. Fish out, put on miles and miles of kitchen paper so that the excess oil drains off.

Do the same with the celery sticks - cut, fry, put on paper to absorb excess oil.

Then pour most of the oil away, and fry the diced onion in what's left, adding the tomatoes, the capers, the pine nuts. Cook until the onion is nice and done, soft and transparent, then add the sugar, the vinegar, the pine nuts, the capers and the aubergines and celery. Adjust salt and pepper, stir for 15 minutes or so, then pour somewhere and put in the freezer.

Caponata should rest in the freezer for at least 24 hours, although it is best served at room temperature. As somebody said, "caponata is made by my and the fridge."

So - to answer Sarah's question, what is hearty homely food? This is. Simple home food in Italy requires several hours of preparation. The problem is that once you tried it, you want to do it again and you end up spending a lot of time in the kitchen...

Despite a very stressful travel through London Saturday, the weekend has been very nice, with the usual warm Christmas party at B&C, where I didn't even drink too much, met lots of people I would like to see more often, ate good stuff, and came home satisfied.

Sunday was a long party day at Alex's, with more (lots more) good food, good people, Christmas lights, and a general warm fuzzy feel all over.

Low point of the day was noticing that poor Simba had made a bit of a mess of himself (not his fault, we let his fur get too long on his bottom) and having to catch him and dunk his back half in warm water. After a while he stopped struggling and just meowled mournfully. Then I had to dry him with a hairdryer, which he also did not enjoy, and me and Alex gave him a bit of a haircut. Since I also captured him and combed him thoroughly later on, I am not sure he was ever going to forgive me, but he seems to have, this morning. I on my part have forgiven him the couple of bites he gave me towards the end of the combing.

High point was noticing that for the first time EVAR I managed to stay up and awake and bright for the whole day! I was physically tired but never sleepy. I am so thrilled by this I cannot quite explain how much.

More and more often I find Zip and Jam sitting close together - not touching, but closer and closer.

This is not because of any melting of Zip's cold heart towards Jam. The fact is that Jam, in her quiet way, is stubborn. She waits for Zip to be settled down, and then she nonchalantly jumps up quickly and settles down close, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

Zip is clearly furious, but not enough to get up from the nice comfortable place she has found, so she remains there, ears a bit rotated, tail swishing. Jam goes to sleep. Zip affects indifference.

Life in the UK does, indeed, mention the Reformation. Thus:

[Potted history of Henry VIII's break from the Church.]

At the same time the Reformation - a great movement of opinion against the power of the Pope - was happening in England, Scotland, and many other European countries.

No mention of any German or Swiss whatsoever.

Later:

Mary was a devout Catholic and brought England back to obedience to the Pope. Under Mary, Protestants were persecuted. [...] Elizabeth I was more moderate than Mary in her religion. [...] Elizabeth expected everyone to attend church but did not ask questions about their real beliefs.

Now, I haven't had the privilege of a British education, but I seem to vaguely remember something about Catholics being persecuted too at some point. Am I wrong?

I AM definitely starting to understand deep truths about Life in the UK. I'm not sure they are the one I'm supposed to learn.

Especially if you are a font, pardon, typeface nerd.

I am reading the Official Life in Britain text, ie the text I need to memorize to pass the citizenship test.

The first section, on which I will not be tested, is a short history of the British Isles.

It tells you everything you need to know about the whole affair. I offer choice bits here for the edification of my friends and the potential death by apoplexy of my historian friends. (Nothing in it is wrong as such, but...)

The period after the Norman Conquest is called the Middle Ages or the mediaval period. It lasted until about 1485.
[...]

During the Middle Ages, the English kings also fought a long war with the French, called the Hundred Years War. The English won some important battles against the French, such as the battle of Agincourt, which Shakespeare describes in his play Henry V. Later the French fought back and reclaimed their country. (p 10)

And this is ALL that is said about the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars:

The American colonies defeated the British army with the help of the French. After a brief period of peace, wars with France continued, especially after the French Revolution of 1789. Britain's navy at that time was the strongest in Europe. Britain fought against combined French and Spanish fleets, winning the battle of Trafalgar in 1805. In 1815 the French Wars ended with the defeat of the Emperor Napoleon by the Duke of Wellington at Waterloo.

(It's not easy to sum up a couple of millennia and change of history in easy to understand language and limited space, but, well, this manages to be confusing as well as a bit misleading. You'd think, for example, that the Hundred Years War as a French-English affair, instead of a catastrophe that devastated the whole of Europe for close to a century and prepared the ground for the Reformation and all of that. Also, I see the little help provided by the Russian winter, and, well, the Russians, to the defeat of Evil Forces from Europe goes unrecognized once again.)

Of course, this is a history of the British Isles, but I wonder: is the history that is taught at school in Britain so Brit-centric? Italy is so bound up with European History for various reasons that even wanting to we can't dismiss the whole issue of the Sacred Roman Empire and various European nations whacking each other on the head. And since Napoleon helped substantially (if mostly unwittingly) in creating modern Italy, we kinda study a lot about him as well. (I admit that I know very little about Scandinavia, though. Apart from how Queen Christina killed Descartes by making him wake up early in the morning and lecture in freezing rooms... )

Reading this I have a new understanding of how British sentiment is so set against the idea that Britain is a part of Europe. It's possible, with some sleigh of hand, to pretend that Europe was a separate continent far, far away, that only constituted a problem now and then.

Reading between the lines, it's surprising to see how much British history was, in fact, intertwined with the Continent, at all levels. Britain, at reading even between this lines, must be one of the most ethnically mixed nations in the world. Sort of how we got the most interesting weather because we sit at the intersection of five or so climate systems, so we seem to have a pretty interesting ethnic makeup - as the language clearly show.

I will add that although obvious care has gone into using basic level English, the choice of a sans-serif font, black on gray, doesn't do wonders for legibility. The illustrations are very, very nice, but some captions would have helped me identify the King on page 11.

Since I read The Wisdom of Whores my reaction to the general all-purpose AIDS fund collection as Good Thing has subtly changed.

Not that I think it's any less important, or less urgent. I see that today Jacob Zuma has declared that he has HIV tests and is going to have another, which increases my respect for the guy, admittedly a respect that is very very very low.

But I am a little disturbed by the fact that while AIDS is mentioned and funds are gathered, the very few simple truths about it are not mentioned as much, because a bunch of evil morons has managed to make them "controversial".

These are: you get AIDS by having sex and injecting drugs. You stand a fairly good chance of not catching it if you a) use condoms and b) use clean needles.

It's simple, but it's not done. Avoiding the spread of AIDS is SIMPLE and is still NOT DONE.

It's good that people who already have AIDS are cured. But it would be even better if people who are not yet infected were stopped from catching, since, as I said, it's really very simple to do.

Distributing condoms, for free, where people are likely to have sex with lots of other people (brothels, for example) has been shown to greatly decrease the rate of infection. Maybe brothels are evil. But even in this case, brothels without free condoms are evil AND deadly.

Offering needles exchange practically stops the spread among injectors. Oh, and fitting places where people can get a needle and then inject in safety cuts infection AND reduces almost to nil fatal overdoses.

These things are widely known, but not done because, well, because we can't encourage people to do wicked things.

Did I mention how angry I got during some of the bits of The Wisdom of Whores? Try this for size:

All the evidence suggests that that harm reduction programmes help people quit drugs, and increase the chances that people will not be infected with a fatal virus when they do manage to get off drugs.
I find it hard to respond to the e-mails my father passes on, because other than gloating over the findings of the early Vancouver studies, the very rarely provide any data to back up their claims. Drugs are evil and harm reduction promotes drug use and that's that. Enough Americans voters feel this way that the United States government has maintained a ban on federal funding for needle exchange programmes since 1988.
One of the Warrior websites contains the following baffling assertion: 'There are no scientific-based studies that prove these [needle exchange and harm reduction] programs prevent AIDs and discourage drug use.' No scientific studies? Leave aside all the individual studies I've already cited in this chapter. Here's a list of US government agencies that have conducted comprehensive reviews of the effectiveness of needle and syringe programmes, and found that the cut transmission of fatal viruses and help drug users access other services, while doing nothing to increase drug use or drug injection.

- The National Commission on AIDS (1991)
- The General ACcounting Office (1993,1998)
- The Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (1993)
- The Office of Technology Assessment of the US Congress (1995)
- The National Institute of Health (1997)
- The American Medical Association (1997)
- The United States Surgeon General (2000)
- The Institute of Medicine (2006)
- The National Academy of Sciences (2006)

Here's a list of US government agencies that have conducted comprehensive reviews if the effectiveness of needle and syringe programmes, and found that they increase drug use, criminality or disease transmission:

-

That's right. Not a single one.

The gods in the US pantheon of scientific credibility all favour needle exchange. The politicians that pay their salaries do not. And so not one clean needle has been bought for a drug injector with money from the US federal government. Not one needle in the United States, and not one needle anywhere else in the world either. (pp.250-25)

(For more information on this and other AIDS related issues, try Elizabeth's Pisani splendid blog, for example this article on needle exchange in the US and UK.)

What troubles me every time that I buy a (red) product or dutifully do my various AIDS funding rituals, is that I often hear "the money has been spent on curing X number of women and children". That's good.

But the great and the good already do that. The US government and even the Catholic Church give money (a lot) to build hospitals, give antivirals and generally help the women and children. Not enough, and maybe not spent in the best way, but not a penny of American or churchy money goes to help the people that are in the first line when AIDS is concerned, which means, for the most part, hookers, their clients and junkies*.

So I'd really like the money for the various private charities to spend some of their money in giving condom to whores and clean needles to junkies, because I am just as ready to feel sorry for them as for the "women and children". The charities highlight the women-and-children for the obvious reason that they would get a lot less money if the advertised that they are defending whores and junkies. Good Christians and even good liberals are a hell of a lot less generous when it comes to whores and junkies.

The homosexual community helped themselves, to their credit, and while there is a certain degree of dangerous complacency growing now most people in the gay community are well informed and have access to condoms when they need them. Because they fought exactly the battle that is about protecting people who are doing dangerous (as far as HIV transmission is concerned) things that the society at large does not approve of.


* Elizabeth Pisani constantly uses this terminology in her book, for the very reason that she, like me, is mad as hell at the fact that some human beings are deemed less worthy of protection because they sell sex or inject drugs. As she puts it, we all do stupid things because they are fun. We do not deserve to be infected with a fatal desease for it.

The cat emergency at the Mayhew sends plaintive cries in my direction through their Twitter feed. They have 35 kittens right now. They have had to close the cattery and only accept emergency cases, which means that people are abandoning pets on their doorsteps instead of turning them in. One four months old kitten was left in a box in the reception, but an unspecified number of new born kittens where simply dumped in front of the surgery in a shoebox, and none made it.

Please please please, if you can at all foster some cats, consider volunteering for it. Fostering means just giving a home to a cat or a litter of cats for a while - from two weeks to a couple of months. Among other things, with all the kittens available older cats stand no chance right now, and there is no point in them taking up a cabin.

Today on La Repubblica there is a long open letter from the dean of a prestigious University to his son. It can be summed up very briefly: dear son, get out of this country, because you will not be able to get ahead on merit and you will suffer greatly. We tried to leave another kind of nation to you: we failed. With a heavy heart I have to tell you: get out.

The comments are more of the same, and they say the same things I have thought again and again: "I told my children the same thing: this country doesn't deserve you, there is no future here, it's old, racist, egoist. don't waste your life trying to change it."

This is what most people who (rightly) guffaw about Berlusconi's latest caper can't know: the heartbreaking bitterness of a generation that tried to build a better nation. The Best of Youth, for those that may have seen that movie, now grown old and tired and telling their children to just get out.

And to cap it off, a woman who says: "I left long ago. For all the reasons outlined in this letter, with the aggravating circumstance of being a woman. I don't feel like a migrant, I feel like an exile."

Word.

The field - British SF, British fandom, SF in general, fandom in general - lost a much loved part of itself this morning with the passing of Robert Holdstock.

Being the lazy bastard that I am, I never got around to reading the many of his books I had bought. So today I am feeling guilty, as well as sad.

We live very close together, although some people will tell you that this is no real closeness. And so, I tiptoe around, knowing that I can't fake mourning (that would be disrespectful) but also feeling an unwarranted sense of unease for my ordinary, cheerful tweets. So many of my friends are grieving, and here I am talking about cakes.

I am sorry for my friends, whose number and real pain tells me all that I need to know about what kind of man has gone. It is not a great comfort for anybody right now to reflect on how precious, and how rare, that kind of thing is.

May we all aspire today to be as missed as he is. Better to leave a void by dying than by looking away in annoyance.

37.7? You must be kidding me. I feel wretched, yes, but not 37.7 wretched. There must be a mistake.

That I am feeling quite inordinately miserable. A simple cold should not make one feel so wretched, but it does.

Beecham's doesn't seem to make much difference, but that's because I slurp a new cup before the old cup can fade. I would probably feel a lot MORE miserable, hard as this is to imagine, if I didn't.

Water seems to help. Hot milk with honey, too. Dying is starting to look like a mildly better option than going to sleep at this point, all the same.

I have been looking at the list of symptoms for hypothyroidism again, and recognizing me again.

And yet, my hormones have been assayed all the way to Rome and back, and my thyroid function seems to be utterly, utterly normal.

I am not reassured. I was reading about it today and thought, what if I have something else - iodine deficiency in my diet? thyroid hormone resistance? Because, hell, too many damn things point to that.

I know this is silly, but I am not happy approaching my doctor about this AGAIN.

And yet, God, I spend my days wishing this damn brain fog would rise. That I might get back the normal energy that allows a normal human to do TWO any things on a day - say, driving to a convention and then going to a panel. I have missed most of my CBT course because I have been too tired to go after four hours cleaning cat cabins. Yes, I am unfit, yes, it's hard work... but really? I am forty, healthy and strong. WTF?

I have started taking vitamin D, because I have read here, there and everywhere that it is suspected of staving off colds and flus, protecting you against cancer, and generally lowering mortality rates for all causes. And being a mediterranean type living in London, who never goes out anyway, I am pretty damn certain to have vitamin D deficiency anyway.

Well, we shall see. It would certainly explain why I seem to be sick all the time. It may well be nothing, but at least it's not bad for you.

But did any doctor ever take a look at me, and tell me, why don't we have a titration of 25(OH)D levels in your blood? Nope.

ETA: very intriguing article on Vitamin D and influenza here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2279112/?tool=pmcentrez

james_nicoll on the Canadian health system:

Or to put it another way, we could pay a guy who owns a chainsaw to take care of those 700 kids, pay him $125 million per baby to do it and get the same general outcome as the American system.

I'm sure plenty on my friendlist have installed a cat flap at one point: how do you do it? I want to install one on the window of my study - do I have to call a glazier? Do I have to buy the thing to cut the glass with? Can I rent it? Is it easy to do?

The sun rises, after a night of storm and violent rain, the cats are lounging around purring, AND I HAVE A GODALMIGHTY SORE THROAT DAMMIT.

I am really really tired of being sick. End of line.

Not a brilliant start of the day for me: I woke up groggy after finishing a job at two o'clock or therabout - partly thanks to VMWare Fusion blowing up on me, thanks so much VMWare - set out for the tube already late for the shelter, and realized at the entrance that the 20 pound note I had put in my pocket was no longer there.

Went back with eyes peeled, but no 20 pounds. Came back with Oyster card and eyes peeled so further back that you could see the back of my retinas, still no 20 pounds.

A hundred yards from the shelter I noticed a very poorly pigeon flapping on the pavement. I thought about it a little, went to the shelter, asked for advice, and after a brief betrayal of a less than pure-gold animalist soul ("There's a dying pigeon out there!" "Good!") the receptionist told me to bring it in by any means. I took a towel and went to collect the pigeon.

I picked it up and holding it in the towel I felt pretty sure that this was not a pigeon who was pining for the fjords any more, it was not a pigeon that was tired after a long squack, in fact that was an ex-pigeon, who had gone to join the choir agelicus, had passed on, had gone to meet its maker, and would have been pushing up the daisies if it wasn't wrapped in cotton.

However the vet came out and took the bundle, and I went away feeling virtuos, although "I saved a dead pigeon!" doesn't sound so good.

I busily cleaned cat cabins for four solid hours, somewhat distracted by the fact that the blue block is next to the kitten garden where three kittens were burning off an amount of calories I'd have sworn could only be stored by about three times as much mass as they had combined, but when I went upstairs for a cup of coffee I met the vet nurse and he told me that the pigeon wasn't dead, it was in shock, and that the vet had managed to revive it.

I am dead chuffed. Although sciamanna pointed out that if I'd done that in Milan (or even worse, Venice) I'd likely be shot.

To illustrate what a REAL full-blown animal lover is like, the cattery staff supervisor showed real worry for the pigeon's partner (apparently they pair for life).

I came back home, ate, fell on the sofa in the usual stupor, and woke up with a nasty nasty nasty sore throat. I have, predictably, also a bit of a fever. Ohhh right, that was why I have been feeling so crappy the last few days then. What joy.

BTW - the Mayhew is chock-full of kittens right now, very unusually. This is normally not kitten season, but they are apparently deluged with them. So if you want a tiny feline, or feel up to fostering, they are looking both for adoptees and fosterers right now.

You all who buy my prints at conventions - I am incredibly grateful of course, but you do know that you can buy them at Photobox all year long, yes? There's a link on my LJ page.

I am pondering selling calendars as well. I printed about a dozen for my relatives and they seem to have been a raging success, at least with my dad.