Flaming Zinc

Yesterday I tried my hand at my first sudoku puzzle. They appear to have infiltrated newspapers, magazines and bookstores in a crop circle like manner. Where did they come from, and what was in its place before? Three hours in and I had driven myself mad. I was crossed eyed, brow permanently furrowed and enough steam pouring from my ears to power a small generator. I was as far away from planet fun as I could imagine, and had started to experience magic eye flashbacks. Which I still firmly maintain is a poster version of the emperor’s new clothes syndrome. One person claims to see a unicorn dancing with a little green man, and suddenly everyone standing next to them can see it too. Apart from yours truly of course.

I digress, I temporary abandoned the puzzle and headed up town to a Barnes and Noble meet the writer event – Alexander McCall Smith. I had about 40 minutes or so to kill so I thought I’d give the little fracker another shot. This time armed with a latte, I fully read the instructions and all became clear. Cherubs sang and angels wept, as I realised that each 3×3 box had to contain 1-9 AS WELL AS the horizontal and vertical! I had spend three hours trying to solve the unsolvable, because if you don’t take into consideration the 3×3 situation you might has well trial and error yourself into oblivion!!!!

Needless to say I was able to speedily complete my first sudoku puzzle. I quite enjoyed approaching something in a methodical and logical manner, and being able to phase out the need for trial and error. I might stick to the easy level for a while though.

Alexander McCall Smith was as delightful and courteous as when I saw him last year. He spoke about his “serial” affliction, and if he has the writers kind then I definitely have the readers variety. When answering questions he was able to rattle off an amusing anecdote about W.H. Auden coming to speak in Edinburgh in the early 70s. Just imagine perhaps in 30 years time perhaps I’ll be reminiscing about Alexander McCall Smith reminiscing about W.H Auden! I duly purchased a copy of the next installment in The Sunday Philosophy Club series ‘Friends, Lovers, Chocolate’ and will try to resist breaking into it until Columbus Day weekend.

Time to dust of my brain. This morning I was able to log on to my cyberspace college and par take in virtual freshers week. A meet and greet over pixel juice and muffins, so to speak. The portal is awesome, very easy to navigate and well thought out.

I am a very happy classical bunny.

I am not sure if I left my heart in San Francisco, but I certainly left plenty of shoe leather behind. Let’s just say that in the past fortnight Alex has managed to out walk me and out read me. It was fun kicking back and being a tourist (I nearly ate my body weight in clam chowder). We rode the trams, chow’d down at Bubba Gump Shrimp and visited Alcatraz. Watched the bread being made at Boudin’s, and ate in their excellent bistro. Marched through the Golden Gate Park to the Japanese Tea Garden, which was a disappointment (but not as pitiful as the so-called Shakespeare’s Garden). A tad too commercial, and not very serene as it is surrounded by noisy construction. I dragged Alex to the Fine Arts Museum, only to discover that the actual collection was not as extensive as the website had led me to believe, but it does have one of the best museum cafes I have ever frequented. To give our feet some respite we took coach trips out to the wine country in Sonama/Napa and the giant redwoods in Muir Woods. We skirted over the hippy part of town, and made a bee line for the Metron Centre instead.

The prodigal blogger has returned, and I am in much higher spirits then when I departed this fair continent for Blighty last week. The spoilt child within, think Violet Elizabeth Bott, has been replaced by Monica from friends. Time to organise, prioritise and set-up my routine for the coming months: a solid diet of studying, intermixed with some entertainment (film, telly, reading/blogging, knitting and cooking), a light sprinkling of yoga and some homeopathic style approach to work.

Normal service to resume next week.

A blissful eight and a bit hours of sleep has resulted in a metamorphism. No longer crazed viking (in 5′2″ format) looking to pillage villagers who looked at me funny, I am almost a happy bunny again.

We’re both still up. We’ve tried the counting of woolly four legged mammals, lying very still and pretending to be asleep, and listening to techie podcasts. At two we caved in, and got up. Alex is programming, and I straightened the flat, caught up with olde fashioned written correspondence and Octobers bunch of birthday cards. My eyes heart, but still no fatigue. I’ve just discovered that there is a new Haley on The Archers, and weighing up listening to The Today show live. I am going to start browsing thru The Oxford Classical Dictionary which is three inches (if not a foot thick).

Looks like tomorrow today will be a black coffee day.

For the second night in a row I am awake after midnight. This is not good. I need my eight hours of slumber otherwise I turn into the wicked witch of the East. I am contemplating flicking thru an economy text book or getting Alex to play a Mac radio podcast. I think I was on the brink of sleep, but I thought myself alert. Ah, is that a physics podcast, explaining the E=MC2 equation, I can hear……hopefully, salvation this way comes.

(and then I really will turn in for the night)

When you are away from you regular routine and haunts, you can be forgiven for thinking that everything crashes to a halt the moment you step out. Of course this is nonsense, the world keeps turning and all that greets me is far too much information/articles/posts to process and no idea what the date is. For such an anal person it makes no sense that when I jack out for a day or six I loose track of days/dates/months. I am quite alarmed to discover that is September 18th already, practically my birthday

Even if you have to survived a particularly perilous cab ride in the process. We had a driver, who for no apparent reason, spent 20 minutes going round in circles in Chinatown. It’s a flat fee from the airport so it wasn’t as if he was trying to bump up his fare, if anything he was whittling down his tip.

The West coast was fabulous, photos and pithy posts to follow. But, I am glad to be back in our pokey apartment and reunited with my mac. How I missed my email (though only 6 out of 122 the messages, spread over 4 email accounts, were from actual people rather than spam or cut price theatre offers), lurking about on other people’s blogs, surfing and keeping up to date with the Archers (how evil is Heather, and why does her internet business sound so shady?).

Plus, my course materials have arrived! Yippee.