Carol the Dabbler

That dachshund didn't get an opportunity to bite me, because thank goodness there was a nice chain-link gate in the way. Another time, something in the Rottweiler/German shepherd category apparently wanted to play, and grabbed my ankle between his teeth, scuffing up my skin a bit. But the only dog that ever actually bit me was some kind of little yapper. I was driving home and saw the neighbor's dog (which was normally fenced in) standing in the middle of the road, so I pulled over and went to pick it up to take it home, and the darned thing sank its tiny teeth into my little finger. Fortunately its shots were up to date.

We've been hearing sandhill cranes flying north for the past few days. Tonight, though, we've been hearing coyotes yipping nearby, off and on. I'm glad our cats stay indoors, but a bit concerned about the outdoor critters in the neighborhood.

Yet one more reason to applaud the man -- he's championing the current plight of pit bulls, who are often (sometimes legally) condemned as "dangerous" (because in the past they've been *trained* to be dangerous). There's a pit bull who now and then wanders onto our property, and he's just the sweetest fellow, whereas I was once prevented from taking a misdelivered piece of mail to the neighbor's house by their overzealous dog -- a dachshund.

As I mentioned recently, we're rewatching The Next Generation on the remastered DVDs. In an extra feature that we saw just now, a staff member mentioned that Deja Q as originally planned had Q fooling the crew by pretending to have lost his super powers. When they ran the story by Gene Roddenberry, he said "What's it about?" and they said "It's about Q leading the crew on a wild goose chase." And he said (approximately) "No, that's not about anything. If Q actually did lose his superpowers and the episode showed him coming to grips with that, then that would be about something." (So of course they rewrote it accordingly.) As you might guess from what I said a couple of days ago (in the quote box above), I've always loved that aspect of TOS and TNG, but I never realized that it was part of Roddenberry's basic concept. (In fact, I think he sort of soft-pedaled it, in order to sell the original series as "Wagon Train to the stars.") I still maintain that without people like D. C. Fontana and Gene Coon, Star Trek would not have had the deep-rooted appeal that it did (and still does) -- BUT I must henceforth give Gene Roddenberry full credit for the show always being about something. That would be a Staffordshire bull terrier? (Had never heard of them before.) Thanks for the background info. Much as I love Jean-Luc Picard, that show might be just a bit much for my taste -- though if it were on broadcast TV, I'd presumably give it a chance.

Can you give us a brief description of the situation at the beginning of the series?

My brother gave it one look and said the same thing. It does take a bit more care than getting in and out of, say, a dining-room chair, and I can imagine that I might -- eventually -- need something to grab hold of (such as a basic walker). But the sitting sure is nice! Yes, I can imagine that short thighs could be a problem -- one's lower legs would tend to stick straight out, rather than draping gracefully over the "hump." Alex and I are both about 5'8" (umm, 172 cm), and it fits us very nicely. Nevertheless, I do find that if I sit in it for a long time, my knees get tired of being in one position -- if I'm not ready to get up, though, I briefly move my feet to the floor on either side of the chair (which is fairly narrow at that point), so that my knees are bent at a sharper angle.

Of course! (We are currently rewatching Next Generation.) Does each Picard episode tend to have a point (or a moral, if you will), as in the original series and Next Generation?

Update: I discovered that there are (of course!) a number of knock-off versions of this chair, ranging from cheap (and shoddy) to reasonably priced (comparable to a typical name-brand recliner) -- in either case, only a small fraction of the original. I bought one of the latter from Amazon a few months ago, and so far am quite pleased with it, (My main problem is reminding myself to get out of it!) Alex swore up and down that he didn't need any such thing. Then a month or so later, he sheepishly pointed out that they had a brown one on sale. So now we're a two-chair family. One more advantage over a recliner: All the recliners that I've tried, when pushed back just barely far enough to allow relaxation (nowhere close to "lying down"), give me the feeling that they're about to tip over backward. This chair feels very stable (primarily because it is).

Sorry, I should have specified American robins -- they're cousins to your blackbirds, only with a fancy paint job. But I'm guessing that your blackbirds may stay year round as well, since your winters are generally milder than ours. I woke up to snow this morning (and what will the robin do then, poor thing?), but it's only in the thirties (*above* zero, that is!) so far -- a bit colder weather coming tomorrow, but it doesn't look like we'll be giving you a run for your money any time soon.

At dusk ths evening there was a flock of robins on our lawn. I've heard that in mild winters they may not migrate, so they could have been here all winter -- but still....

Right. I believe our only significant snowfall so far was back in autumn, much earlier than usual. So I, too, am halfway expecting the other shoe to drop. And thanks for reminding me that I'd like to plant some snowdrop bulbs in the lawn (plus crocuses, etc.), though of course I'll have to wait till autumn to do that.

We heard our first blackbirds (over by the neighbor's pond) this evening -- even earlier (by a couple of days) than in 2015.

Would food from BBC Sherlock also get a nod? (Just curious -- it's your party!) Oh wait a minute -- -- unless I'm misreading that, you've already answered my question in the affirmative. So individual mince pies are a go! I've read probably half of the canon stories, but don't seem to have retained a great deal regarding food. I have a vague recollection of eggs and toast and maybe scones, lots of tea, and not much else.

Yeah, that's roughly what I thought (though I did get more of a romantic feeling between her and Kylo/Ben). She'd been Luke's protege and also Leia's (in different ways), so that they were really the closest thing to a family she'd had since she was a little girl. I have no idea. She buried two lightsabers in the sand, and then she pulled out another object that looked to be about the same size and shape, but with different details -- looked like it might have had a wooden handle, which is why I said it looked old-fashioned. By that time, I had kinda lost count of the lightsabers, so I have no idea whether/where I'd seen it before.

After further thought, I don't think that's quite accurate. I actually can "verbalize" mentally, even though it's sometimes helpful to engage my mouth. What I said before still applies to daydream conversations, though -- no idea why. Maybe mental verbalizing doesn't satisfy the need for a conversation?