Five more things

From azarias: Five occasions that demand a cowboy hat:

As the owner of a leather cowboy hat, I felt compelled to answer this one.

1) Heavy rain. It might not match my trench coat, but I'm dry, woman-who's-looking-at-me-funny-in-Starbucks, and you're not.

2) Any visit to Steamboat Springs, Colorado. I once saw a man skiing in a cowboy hat there.

3) Halloween, if you're dressing as Doc Holliday

4) Going to see Serenity. It is, after all, a space western.

5) Hiking up Tinker Mountain on Tinker Day (annual tradition at Hollins College). A black, flat-brimmed cowboy hat is an essential part of a femme Zoro costume (as are high heeled boots, a cape, and a black corset), and also serves as a sunshade.


Also from azarias: Five times even Richard Sharpe chose to keep it in his pants.

1) One word: Hakeswill.

2) That terribly pretty naval officer on the Indefatigable. Sharpe's always had a thing for tall men with dark curls, but he had a feeling Mr. Kennedy would arrange to have anyone who touched his messmate thrown overboard. That, and the sullen-looking seaman who followed Mr. Hornblower around constantly could kill rats with his teeth.

3) The night the chosen men weathered a storm in a one-room stone hut in the Pyrenees. Theresa had agreed to guide them through the pass the next morning in exchange for more rifles, and Sharpe was hoping to offer her an extra show of gratitude, but with all the lads sitting about and pretending like they weren't watching and listening... Theresa was touchy enough about sex when there wasn't an audience.

4) The night before Hakeswill (bloody Hakeswill again) had Pat flogged. He thought about giving Pat a good memory to take to the flogging triangle the next morning, but neither of them were in the mood, so they watched the stars and talked about Forlorn hopes instead. Trying to think of something else didn't work beyond the first ten lashes anyway.

5) The day he killed El Matarife. Pat was sympathetic about the broken telescope, and his hands were gentle when he bound up the slash from El Matarife's knife. Sharpe repaid him by falling asleep on him. It was safe to sleep, now that he was away from Ducos and back where he belonged.

Hurricanes suck

I hate hurricanes. Even the edges of their mutant-low-pressure-systems-of-death suck.

The kitten and I (I'm house-and-kitten-sitting for my parents while they go visit the Air Force Academy) spent the day napping on the couch in the side of the house farthest away from the trees, because the power was out and reading textbooks by candlelight is more dedication than Maryland is going to get from me. The power, obviously, is back now.

Storm damage= Two sections of the gutter ripped loose, one 50 to 75 year-old oak tree downed down by the creek, and the apple tree in the front yard (alas, the trunk is broken, so we can't replant it).

The 200+ year-old Swamp Oak directly behind the house is still standing, which is good, because if it went over, it would take half the house out with it. Even if it fell away from us, the hole left by its root system would probably undermine the foundation.

I'm a little concerned about the apartment in College Park, though. It's a basement apartment, and I found out from one of the students in my archival systems class that the reason it has almost-new carpet and paint is bacause all of the basement apartments in that housing complex were flooded with two feet of water during Hurricane Isabel.

Interesting fact: According to Wikipedia, hurricanes are named after a Carribe storm god, "Huracan." I always thought their name came from the fact that they ripped sugar cane plantations out of the ground and launched them through the air.