Snowflakes...

It has been snowing all day. Pretty, fluffy snow. Walking is difficult but the pretty snow itself lifts my spirits. Since nature is making its own snowflakes, I feel inspired to make a few of my own. A person on one of my mailing lists said, after playing with this site for a while: "It isn't possible to make an ugly snowflake." I've always thought that.

And here we are, on the shortest day of the year. I look our my window and it's dark already. I think I'll light candles when I get home tonight.

I'm on week 1, day 3 of my new exercise/diet program, and Wednesdays are days without exercise. I miss it. Something of my day's structure is gone. I woke up at 6 without the need to roll out of bed and into exercise clothes; I suppose I should have done yoga instead, but that didn't seem in keeping with the spirit of the plan (I told myself), so I picked up a book and read for a while. Then had trouble putting it down when I really should have been getting dressed.

Seven things...

This came from pegkerr:

Seven Things to Do Before I Die

(1) Write and publish the novels in my head
(2) master Latin and Esperanto, and maybe also Anglo-Norman and Anglo-Saxon
(3) visit Greece
(4) get into good physical shape
(5) improve my yoga practice
(6) read Little Dorrit, the only Dickens novel I have not read
(7) enjoy each day as it happens

Seven Things I Cannot Do

(1) Whistle
(2) Sit-ups. I used to be able to do them before I hit adolescence, but never since.
(3) Master a foreign accent, or, for that matter, recognize or identify regional accents of any kind
(4) Spell the word "existence" without looking it up
(5) Watch sitcoms on TV
(6) Go without sleep - I need at least 8 hours per night, and 9 hours makes me feel even better.
(7) Eat pickles.

Things that Attract Me to Men or the opposite gender, or whatever gender you're attracted to - in my case:
Things That Attract Me to People

(1) A good voice, and attractive modulation of that voice. (Example: Peter Wingfield)
(2) A large nose; a long nose; not necessarily a wide nose, but that's okay too
(3) Kindness
(4) Intelligence and independence of thought
(5) Honesty
(6) Sexual adventurousness
(7) Good health

Books or Series or Authors I Love

(1) The Lymond books by Dorothy Dunnett
(2) Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
(3) The Alexander books by Mary Renault
(4) Lois McMaster Bujold's Miles Vorkosigan series
(5) The Spenser novels by Robert B. Parker
(6) The Kinsey Millhone mysteries by Sue Grafton
(7) The Psammead/Phoenix books by E. Nesbit (the three novels about Cyril, Robert, Anthea and Jane)

Movies I Can Watch Over and Over

(1) Lord of the Rings
(2) The Sound of Music
(3) Sneakers
(4) My Fair Lady
(5) Casablanca
(6) The Lion in Winter (and I have...)
(7) Dangerous Liaisons

I'm not going to tag anyone, but I'd love to hear your lists.

The Batmobile

Yahoo!Picks today had a link to recommended websites, and one was to The History of the Batmobile.

I had thought I knew what the Batmobile looked like. Hah! I had no idea it had changed so frequently and so radically. And I've been reading Batman comics for, well, for a long time.

Thing is, though, at the best of times I'm pretty much blind to what all cars look like, and that includes colour and shape - I recognize my friends' cars only when I memorize the license plate. (Which I frequently do, but I don't tell them that.) There are only two exceptions: the Dodge Caravan, which I love, and recognize most years and models of, and my firend Donna's new royal blue Saturn.

So it's not suprising that I had only a general idea what the Batmoble looks like - in any era. After all, with Batman in the vehicle, one of the sexiest heroes in comics, why would I be looking at the car?