Podding broad beans =/= riding a bicycle

Broad beans, fava beans, call them what you will: slitting the pods open and slipping out the beans, there's a knack to it. I used to have this knack. No longer, alas: my brain can't remember what my thumbs ought to do.

In other more of the same news, I am rehearsing my domestic duties this morning. A friend is coming for lunch, so I am cooking and cleaning and loading up the washing-machine and emptying the dishwasher and tending the herb garden and like that. (We have planted up a herb garden! I have tarragon and oregano and basil and two kinds of thyme and French sorrel and dill and chives! And it is a totally gorgeous day out there, and really I just want to sit out with a book and a tall glass of something chilly. But. Domestic duties. *exhibits virtue*)

It's fun, this playing at househusband thing. Kinda makes me want to stop playing and do it for real. 'Scuse me while I go and sort the laundry. And find a place to put this box of earth that may or may not contain turtle eggs...

EtA: I do, on the other hand, apparently retain the knack of slipping the blanched green semi-precious beans from their nasty leathery grey skins. Which is odd, as the former was acquired in childhood and the latter only as an adult. Broad beans were actually the first crop I ever grew, in my little portion of my parents' garden; even as a kid, I never really understood the point of growing flowers that you couldn't eat or play with. Tho' having said that, I have just planted marigolds like an honour guard all around my herb patch. John says they attract ladybirds, of which I am very much in favour.

Then again, some things don't change

You can cross oceans and continents, experiment with sharing a house, learn new and fascinating ways to live - and yet you can still end up waiting in all day for the durn UPS person to bring you parcels.

In this instance, it's the boxful of copies of Desdaemona which have been kindly released early so that we can sell them at Baycon this weekend. Which I have actually been waiting for all week, and which are now promised to be aboard the truck and on their way. But they were on the truck in Sunnyvale at 5.30 this morning. It's now 2.30 this afternoon. Urgh, argh.

I may already have cleaned Karen's cooker more often than I've cleaned mine. And I've had mine fifteen years.

I am still refusing to iron, though. Chaz does not flatten. It's a rule.

In other news, you can now buy Light Errant in e-book form, in sundry DRM-free formats, from the Book View Cafe ebookstore. Generally, we feel that this is a good idea. BVC is worth supporting. Oh, and so am I.

Eleven hours

My package was put on the truck for delivery - in this very town - eleven hours ago. I'm still waiting.

I've reached that point now where I can't do anything else but wait. I have read the internets and tried to work, but now I'm just giving up. And staring out of the window, mostly. Trying to imagine a brown truck into existence. Alas, my faith is not strong enough. Or the vehicle's been raptured. Maybe that was Harold Camping's mistake? He thought it would be us, but actually not. Jesus came to save the cars.

EtA: also, my head hurts. Tense, moi? I have drunk sencha, and that didn't shift it. I shall take medications, and sulk a lot.

Twelve hours

...And furthermore, it is an utterly lovely day out there and in any reasonable dispensation I should be sitting in the sunshine with this glass of gin and that book over there. If I'm not working, I could at least be enjoying myself. But of course I worry that if I'm in the garden back yard I'll miss the front door, and the van will drive off with my package. So I lurk within door and blink out at the sun and don't get the benefit. Sob.

Twelve bloody hours. How long does it take, for cryin' out loud?

...And finally!

Just shy of 6.00pm. Can I bill them for my day? ...No, I thought not. *sighs*

Still. We can haz buks!