Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
Completed another 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzle last night. It was a fun one, except the clouds. Took days and several wrong piece placements to get that sky finished.
Yes, it’s sideways. Didn’t feel like making it go another way. Just that sort of morning. More coffee, please.
We finished a jigsaw puzzle last week. I neglected to share it. This is an interesting Charles Wysocki offering. Lot of fun putting together, with just the right balance of challenge and ease.
We finished our Ravensburger Beach House puzzle last night.
Tucker got up there as soon as he could. After a short inspection, he gave it his approval and napped.
Here it is sans Tucker.
Isn’t it funny how Tucker chose to sleep on the dog and table?
Cheers
We enjoy jigsaw puzzles at our house and do a few a year. I do most of them as my wife does the edge, walks away for a while and then returns to help finish. We usually get them from the local library of things in Ashlandia. That was the case for this one. Unfortunately, as happened with two other puzzles this year, this one was missing pieces. The first one missing a piece this year, we didn’t know it was missing one until the puzzle was done. With the second episode, a note in the box noted that a piece was missing and showed where it was missing.
In this case, nothing was said about a missing piece, and it was more than one piece. In fact, six to nine pieces were missing, including multiple edge pieces from two sides. As we didn’t know, we spent a lot of time carefully going through pieces looking for those edges.
It’s a shame, though, because the thousand-piece puzzle was challenging and otherwise fun, and a beautiful scene. Several times while working it, I thought, I wouldn’t mind being there, sitting a table with a glass of wine.
When we take it back to the library, we’re going to point out how many pieces are missing. My wife says she’s going to suggest to them that it be removed from circulation.
I finished the Christmas jigsaw puzzle. Though she picked it out and suggested we do the puzzle, my wife helped with the edges and then bowed out. I worked on it in evenings and found it a mentally stimulating diversion, which might be the best kind. It’s the first puzzle of 2023, though technically, it was begun in 2022. We found it at our local library of things and will return it after I admire it for a day or two.
Hardest part was the tree. Took a few days. Fireplace was easiest. Last done was the top wood paneling.
Feast your eyes on it. Cheers
Dawn light cracked the night’s eastern flank apart at 7:28 AM. With sunlight alleviating the cold, we soon saw temperatures rise to the mid-fifties. Temperatures are expected to prance on up to 86 F today before night closes in at sunset, predicted to be at 6:23 this evening.
It’s Wednesday. Mid-week for many. Beer night for me. We celebrate Ron’s 75th birthday tonight. Per the beer group’s tradition, the individual reaching the milestone buys pizza and beer. Salute.
It’s also October 19, 2022. Just a normal day for me, but many will be celebrating, like Ron. To you, salud.
The Neurons are being cheeky today. I was out admiring the sky, breathing in and out, not thinking about anything specific. Cats were with me, checking it out. Tucker, our black and white long-haired enigma, was busy grooming. Papi the ginger blade was pretending to see things that he might attack. He rarely pulls the claw on his planned attacks; they go on in his mind, I imagine.
As I turned to head back in, The Neurons brought up a song called “Sky High”. While I knew the lyrics and melody – they’re quite simple and straightforward – I was like, who, when? I knew somewhere from the early seventies. Wikipedia fed me what seems like the correct answers: 1975 and Jigsaw. I don’t recall hearing any other music by Jigsaw. Watched the video after that and yeah, I’ve never seen the group. Thank you for the music, guys. I do appreciate it. In another surprise, I learned that the song was for a movie, The Man from Hong Kong, which my memory denies knowing. The movie starred George Lazenby, an actor who once played James Bond.
Here’s the music. I have coffee at hand. Maintain your positive attitude and do your best to test negative as COVID and other viruses and illnesses spread. Other than that, I encourage you to drink deeply and prosper.
Cheers
I’ve been doing a jigsaw puzzle but this piece just doesn’t fit.
We finished puzzle number nine yesterday afternoon. It was the most entertaining puzzle. The artist, David Bradley, incorporated fascinating details and used sharp, vivid colors. There were many people in it, and it engaged me and my wife to find a piece and ask, “Okay, where’s this hair go,” “Who is missing an ear with a diamond earring,” “Who has a hand with red fingernails?” Each person was given a nickname for easy reference.
His references were interesting, too. Is that Whistler’s Mother in the background? So many of these people presented seem like stereotypes, I can imagine their their background, involvement, and conversations. And love the takes on Laurel and Hardy, Mona Lisa, and American Gothic, and the greenback on the floor. So entertaining.
Next up: the red Corvette.
There was box on the front porch mat.
I’d been in the office for a while. To get to the front porch, the office must be passed. The office has a large window which faces the street, driveway, and walk, so that I can watch for zombies and aliens. The phantom deliverer was either invisible or a ninja.
Ninja Delivery – “When you don’t want people to see it coming.”
I informed my wife of the find. She was as surprised as me. “I didn’t hear a truck or anything.”
Anything, I guess, were footfalls. I was nodding, but thinking, at what point had I been dashing around the house naked? I used to do it often, less so after the Okinawa Incident.
We were stationed at Kadena Air Base on Okinawa (or in Okinawa Prefecture), Japan. As we were lowly enlisted people, we were residing off-base. There wasn’t enough housing for everyone on base. We enjoyed our little apartment. Two of them could fit into our great room, the cathedral-ceiling living-dining-kitchen combo in our current house. The whole place was like an Easy Bake kitchen blown up by about four times.
Living there was fun. The place was full of couples like us. Typhoon parties were lively, although the walls were thin. The newlyweds’ loud and energetic coupling brought everyone in the neighborhood over to ensure no one was being killed. Space between apartment buildings and houses were tight. I chose that day after showering to turn on music and dance around naked, entertaining my wife and the cats.
I was also entertaining three third-grade girls on the porch next door, just five feet away from the bedroom where I gyrated…until I saw them. High on music, by the time I’d noticed them, they were sneaking away. I’m sure I shocked them for life.
Since the Okinawa Incident, I’ve been more careful about dancing around the house naked. My wife still calls if she’s coming home and bringing someone along, though. It’s safer for everyone.
I’d not danced around that day, but I had stripped naked for a shower and then remembered that I’d wanted to check on something in the office. What the hell, what are the chances of someone being outside and looking in just as naked me sauntered by?
Yet, my mind summoned an image of the UPS guy hurrying to the door, preparing to ring the bell, package in hand, and seeing me through one of the windows on either side of the door. As he’s ready to ring the bell, my nude man-feast passes by the window. Averting his eyes with a hard gulp, he mutters, “I’ll just leave this here,” and flees, head down, like someone’s shooting at him.
Anyway, I learned from checking tracking numbers on the Internet machine that these are the puzzles we’d ordered from Zulily. After letting the package sit outside for a few hours to lose some of its COVID-19 strength, I brought it in and put it in the sanitizing zone. When another day had passed, we deemed it safe to risk opening the package.
Oh, new puzzles. I was sure that they probably had all the pieces. One — fifteen hundred pieces (yeah, we’re getting bold) — featured a red Corvette. The year isn’t given, but I guess it’s a 1960. I had a neighbor who had one, and once rode in the trunk, so I was pretty sure about it. You don’t forget something like that.
“That’s a lot of red,” my wife said. I know she’s thinking of past puzzles that featured long stretches of blue sky, blue oceans, or green lawns.
We turned to the other one. It’s a lovely reproduction of a David Bradley painting with vivid colors and many details. I opened the box. The colors look true. Among the pieces were eyes, heads, and faces. That appealed to us; it’s easier to find faces and put them on heads than test red piece after red piece.
We began today, because it’s Sunday. An old wise woman once told us that it’s best to start new projects on a Sunday.
Damn, I just realize that she said Monday.
Or was it Friday?
Oh, well, what do days of the week matter during this period, when most of us are inside, hunkering down against zombies or alien invaders?
We have begun the puzzle.
We stayed away from a new puzzle for a longer period than I expected. But we finally began number puzzle number eight. Nothing to do with the coronavirus and being sequestered. We began this series at the beginning of the year. They’re just fun.
Michael Seidel, writer 