Live From Rural Hamlet

Last time I broadcast from Rural Hamlet, it was cold and snowy here. Guess what -- it's still cold and snowy here! We've had about 24-25 inches (60-63 cm) of snow in the last ten days or so. This is nothing compared to Boston and New England, of course, but as Mercutio (in Romeo and Juliet) says of the stab wound that kills him, "'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church-door; but 'tis enough,'twill serve."

Yep, 24 inches of snow will definitely serve. I dutifully shovel the walk, driveway, and deck after every two-three inches, and thus I have the reward of being able to get out when I need to, but yeah. . .'tis enough.

In other news, I'm afraid I don't actually have much other news. In addition to shoveling snow, I have been grading a lot of papers. I'm sad to report that I totally failed to write my story for hp_kinkfest despite having an excellent prompt.

Change a couple of phonemes, though, and I can be glad to report that the delightful starduchess wrote a fine KinkFest story to one of my prompts. I asked for Hermione/Minerva with the kink of "erotographomania: arousal from writing romantic or erotic letters or poems." Starduchess created an elegant fic that is sexy without being explicit. Read it here: From Britannia, With Love.

While I'm at it, here's some more Harry Potter fun: 25 Harry Potter Characters Rated by Date-Ability. Snape fen might think that the Greasy Git is mis-ranked, but members of the OLSB will be pleased.

Now I'm Gonna Whine, so feel free to skip. Here's my problem: A few years ago, I thought I sprained my thumb: muscle pain, swelling, the lot. It wasn't a sprain, though. It turned out to be the beginning of basal joint arthritis. I'm no stoic, but as long as the problem was just minor pain, and that pain was intermittent, I could deal. But now I have constant pain in both my thumbs AND I'm losing my grip (literally, in that I have trouble holding things and opening lids and the like, though probably metaphorically, too) AND sometimes if I do a lot of physical things (like shovel snow or write comments on student papers), my hands just sort of cease working for a while. I can't take anti-imflammatories (allergic). I've tried heating pads and a thumb brace, which help a bit, but I'm telling you, if this is a preview of what old age is going to be like, I think I'll just decline to grow any older, thank you.

I did manage to accomplish something useful recently. Remember that Hell Closet I've mentioned in the past, the one that I've just been shoving things into for about five years, so that it became like something out of Fibber McGee? Well, finally I had enough of it. I dragged out all the crap, sorted it, filed it, donated what I didn't want, repacked the rest -- and now Hell Closet is a Relatively-Close-to-Paradise Closet. It took me two weeks (of puttering around and taking days off and stopping to read things I'd unearthed, and so on), and the house looked like a rubbish tip while I was in the throes of the Great Sorting, but at last it's done. I was so inspired that I also cleaned my linen closet, which had been approaching Purgatory Closet status.

I think that's enough cleaning for the decade. I'm going to take the next few years off. The basement can just go to hell.

Hope you're all well, my friends.