“New Associated Press guidelines on suspensive hyphenation, you say? That certainly whets the appetite.”
Neither I nor Field Marshal Turkish von Turkenstein (commander, 1st Feline Home Defense Regiment) was invited to the 2019 American Copy Editors Society conference this past weekend in Providence, R.I.
Of course, I only edit myself these days. And having spent a dozen or so years hanging out with copy editors for a paycheck, I don’t regret missing a chance to hang out with them on my own dime.
But the Turk found the slight particularly galling, since like any good deskman he lives for The Craft, even taking his meals in the office, from a bowl that sits atop tattered copies of Webster’s New World College Dictionary and Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations.
His Excellency scans The Compound for unauthorized personnel.
Huh. I’ve actually managed to accomplish a few things lately. Go figure.
My April cartoon has been delivered to BRAIN. And my review of the Salsa Journeyman Claris 650 — print version and its two-minute video teaser — is all but complete; I’m just waiting for some Salsoid to answer a couple of questions about spec.
Unzip over to Voler to join the team! Use the Secret Code (OLDGUYS15) to get 15% off your purchase. And no, goddamnit, for the last time, it does not come with fries!
Two other review bikes have been shipped back to their respective motherships, greatly enhancing velocipede-storage capacity in the garage.
Sue Barue, The Fearsome Furster, has passed her annual checkup and had a brace of new window gussets installed, so maybe I’ll be able to hear the stereo again.
The cats have been given a vigorous spring airing. Field Marshal Turkish von Turkenstein (commander, 1st Feline Home Defense Regiment) inspected the perimeter yesterday and collected samples of this year’s grass crop for scientific analysis, the results of which were displayed on the living-room carpet this morning. Miss Mia Sopaipilla took up her station in the clothes dryer, and reported that for reasons unknown the lint filter seems to be full of cat hair.
And now I have exactly fuck-all to do. Nobody’s sending me to Taiwan, or Sea Otter, I won’t have a cartoon due until mid-April, and I’m fresh out of review bikes.
So I guess I’ll just have to ride one of my own. Sucks to be me.
Miss Mia Sopaipilla performs her cover of “All Along the Watchtower.”
My supervisors noted in a recent performance review that I hadn’t posted any cat pix since January 31.
The Turk has blue eyes, but you hardly ever get to see ’em.
This obviously could not stand, man. So I got busy with the Sony RX100 III.
I think that pay raise I’d been counting on is right out, though.
However, the temps are coming up right smart, and if that continues, I’m out of here for a ride of some sort.
I know that this is a finger in the eye for those of you sentenced to the upper deck of the Benighted States, but at least all that cold and snow is probably tamping down the pollen.
Not so much here, especially with the wind stirring things up. Sunscreen on the outside, Claritin-D on the inside.
His Excellency recovers from the tortures of the damned, a.k.a. a visit to the vet.
While the shit-mist continues to blot out Old Sol in DeeCee, we’ve had a little sunshine in our back door today.
Field Marshal Turkish von Turkenstein (commander, 1st Feline Home Defense Regiment) had been under the weather about a month back, and so I chauffeured him to his personal physician, who diagnosed a bit of arthritis in the hips and (of all things) a pair of stones in his bladder, an affliction with which we are all too familiar.
The vet recommended that we replace his dry kibble with a canned prescription diet and a side of nutriceutical antiinflammatory, then come back in 30 days to see whether the change in cuisine would solve the issue without more heroic measures.
If It didn’t — well, as I noted, we’ve been down this stony road before with the late, lamented Mister Boo. And we were not looking forward to approving yet another round of surgery on yet another of our comrades.
Today was the day for His Excellency’s followup visit, and not only did the Turk pass with flying colors (and without knifework), he’s actually shed a few ounces on the new diet.
Since his rock has apparently rolled, I played him a little Jimi to celebrate.
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