Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Pioneer Winter?

We had snow yesterday morning.  Yes, I said snow.  Again.  It melted right away, but still.  Are we having a pioneer winter, sort of like Indian summer, but not?  

Who came up with the term Indian summer and what's it trying to say?  I can't decide if I like the term because  I feel weird calling Native Americans Indians.  I don't think it's particularly offensive or derogatory (please correct me if I'm wrong) but it's perpetuating a historical error.  We've known better since the 1600's, folks.  Why is this Indian thing clinging on?  I'm not trying to be politically correct.  I just think it makes sense to refer to friends from India as Indians and friends from America as Americans, and to be more specific when specificity is required.  Makes sense to me.  Further, pioneer winter makes sense to me as a description because we always read about the incredibly tough winters the pioneers endured and so when we have an extra long one, I think of them.  With Indian summer, the connection isn't clear to me at all.  

I sense a Google moment coming on, but not this morning.  I have editing to do before I head in to work.

Anyway.

In writing news, I'm waiting to hear back about two short stories.  Waiting means that I'm not sending out queries or submissions, which means Kami needs a slap on the wrist.  More $$ for the INK coffers, I guess.  

In cat news, Katherine gets dropped off to be spayed tomorrow.  I suspect that she has mites because she digs at her ears, so I'll have the vet test them and clean them out if she has time while Kat is out.  You see, we learned something about Kat that makes us uninclined to just set her on our laps with a Q-tip, a few balls of cotton, a cotton square and some ear wash.  Kat walked through mortar while I was setting up to lay a tile, so I snagged her and went to rinse off her feet.  The vast majority of cats don't like this and will squirm and fight and whine and maybe snag me, and it's never been much of a big deal except with the ballistic cats.  You know the ones I'm talking about.  Well it turns out Kat is a ballistic cat.  We're talking wild thrashing, all claws splayed, danger of biting ballistic.  Thanks to my considerable experience at holding cats I was able to hold on to her but not able to do more than a cursory wetting of feet while the water was running.  I got her feet wet enough for toweling (which is a non-ballistic activity for her, apparently,) and got her feet plenty clean enough for her health.  OMG, what is it about the littlest kitties being the most insane?  I guess they have to fight extra hard to hope to break even.  Which lends me a bit more perspective on Mark's situation in Masks.

Yes, everything is wrapping around back to writing these days, which is as it should be.  I could stand to do more painting, but right now I'm working too many hours and writing comes first.  Too bad, because I'd really like to paint.  A lot.


2 comments:

The Moody Minstrel said...

Ballistic cat!

"I kan haz pound of ur flesh?"

Pioneer winter? Are you saying that pioneers and Indians are opposites? Maybe you should call it "Viking winter" to include yet another historical misunderstanding.

Kami said...

Ooo, I like the idea of Viking winter. Heh.