At the meeting of secret Hunity

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

*Okay, so I’m a weebit loopy today, but I have boxes to clean and promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.  Deal.*

The man approaches the dark door that wasn’t there a minute before. As he approaches, it opens a crack.

He’s so nervous he has to clear his throat twice to speak. “I come,” he says. “To join you.”

The eye on the other side of the door gives him the up and down. The person makes a sound that might be “umph.”

Then after a pause in which we get the impression the person on the other side of the door was examining his nails, “What is the password?”

“There is a password? No one told me there would be a password.”

“Of course there is a password. What kind of conspiracy to take over the world do you think we are.”

“Oh. Er… Um… That pig is wearing an apron?”

“Okay.”

From inside the room a voice says, “Not an apron, you dufus, a dress. The pig is wearing a dress.”

Another voice says “Apron!”

“No, it’s right there on page mumble of A Few Good Men. It’s a dress.”

“It’s an Apron, isn’t it, oh, beautiful but evil space princess.”

“Buggered if I know,” says a voice with an unplaceable accent. “I write the books, I don’t read them.”

There is a long silence. “Well, okay,” says the guy behind the door. “You’re going to have to prove you belong in another way. So… here goes: fish, what is it good for?”

“Eati—“ the man starts to say when a memory intrudes. “Throwing.” With a timid gesture, he lifts his cloak to reveal a weapon at his waist. “I have my carp trebuchet.”

“Good man that,” the guard at the door says. He opens the door. “Come in.”

The man enters the strangest room he’s ever been in. Part of it is medieval tavern, part futuristic space room. In a corner a group of guys are huddled with their guns. Somewhere, on a stage, a man is declaiming Kipling. A bunch of people in a corner are watching Monty Python and saying all the lines before the characters. At another corner, there’s a sign that says “Church of Heinlein, Reformed” and, oh, my, is that a woman in the altogether with a serpent draped around her?

“So what will you drink?” Bellows someone from the back.

“Coffee, he’ll have coffee,” say a kilted man, who hands the newcomer a mug of the tastiest dark brew he’s ever tasted.

In a corner there’s two people slugging it out. He looks fearfully at it.

“Don’t worry about it,” the barista says. “that’s the permanent fight. The fighters change but there’s at least one going on at any time.”

Suddenly a chant rises. “And an unwavering devotion to—”

“Karl Marx,” a brash voice shouts.

There’s a complete silence, then someone says “A fink for authority. How did he get in?”

The door opens. Someone else throws the man bodily out. He sails near the ceiling and lands outside. The door closes. “They do keep trying to come in and enlighten us,” says a stocky young woman in elf clothing. “I’m a hobbit,” she says apropos nothing. “But my husband is an elf.”

“Oh,” the new comer says politely. “How… how could they lift that big guy and throw him out.”

“Oh, that’s easy,” someone says. “We lift brontosaurus haunches around every day.”

“Bront—“

“For the grill.”

Just then four men come in carrying a monumental roast.

It’s set in the middle of the table, and the newcomer stares as people help themselves.

“I think I’m going to like this place,” he says.

“Oh, sure you are,” another voice says. “And just wait for desert. We have snickerdoodles.”

 

324 thoughts on “At the meeting of secret Hunity”

      1. Wyder’s used to make a peach cider. A brewpub on State Street in Santa Barbara carried it some years ago. 6% alc and tasted like soda pop. Used to head there on Friday afternoons ….

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  3. See, I would’ve guessed “snickerdoodles” as the password. Or possibly “I bring snickerdoodles”. I suspect that latter would get me in…assuming, of course, that it was true…

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    1. Devilish bourbon might get you a pass from the unplaceable accent.

      Now, if you’ll pardon me, I need to go relieve somebody in the permanent fight.

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    2. No, snickerdoodles are the appropriate bribe.

      My aardvark will bring bon-bons. (A little aardvark never hurt anyone.)

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      1. No snickerdoodles here, but I can make old fashion rum balls. I use Bacardi 151. Then there is the chocolate covered bourbon cream cherry recipe I got buried around here somewhere..

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  4. The man enters the strangest room he’s ever been in. Part of it is medieval tavern, part futuristic space room. In a corner a group of guys are huddled with their guns. Somewhere, on a stage, a man is declaiming Kippling. A bunch of people in a corner are watching Monty Python and saying all the lines before the characters. At another corner, there’s a sign that says “Church of Heinlein, Reformed” and, oh, my, is that a woman in the altogether with a serpent draped around her?

    Wow, that sounds almost exactly like the Baen Barflies room at Ravencon. But I see no mention of booze. Must have been an oversight.

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    1. I think Barfly Central and the Lair of the Secret and Ancient Order of Hunnity exist in the same location, but in slightly phase-shifted realities. And the membrane is, at places, thin. Very, very thin. So thin as to be nonexistent. You’ll get used to it. Or you’ll go mad and start holding up Marx as the teleological fulfillment of human nature.

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      1. Or you’ll go mad and start holding up Marx as the teleological fulfillment of human nature.

        Bite your tongue! :-P

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          1. It’s not the going mad part that bothers me, it’s the specific flavor of madness you mention.

            I’d say my life drives me crazy, but for me, it’s more of a short putt.

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      2. “… you’ll go mad and start holding up Marx as the teleological fulfillment of human nature.”

        It depends — are you a Grouchovarian or a Chicobin?

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          1. No, the Zeppofarians are a minor sect that everybody largely ignores, not unlike the Gummobite schism.

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    3. “Must have been an oversight.”

      In much the same way it was an oversight to not mention the presence of air.

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      1. Does the fish mention the water through which it swims? Likewise the Neptunian Gladore-beast the bloodstream of the Giant Vronk, or the Elder Thing the frigid, eldritch aether?

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  6. Well, clearly oatmeal raisin cookies won’t get me in… :-)

    Are puns helpful for gaining entrance? I’m fair at Hunnity Punnity.

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    1. Er, that should have been a reply to jabrwok, above, but I blame WordPress because it gave me errors 4 or 5 times before posting my comment.

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    2. Just think outside the box… given that there are certainly already cookies there, bring milk.

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      1. *Rummages around behind coffee machines* Um, let’s see, do you want raw milk, whipping cream, whole milk, half-and-half, 2%, skim, goat’s milk, sheep milk, hey! *holds up almost-empty bottle* Water buffalo milk! Who lost the bet? *puts it back* Almond milk, *pinches nose closed* soy milk, and something lumpy and greenish with blue fuzz on the edges of the cap. And creme de cacao, which I don’t think is in the right cooler.

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        1. You missed the keffir. Or doesn’t that count, as it shades into keffir, yogurt, clotted cream, sour cream, and then finally into outright admitted cheeses…

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          1. I think those are in a different ‘fridge. I was just poking around in the ‘fridge by the cappucino/espresso/drip/percolator machine.

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            1. Look to the left of the percolator and the right of the electric kettle, there should be a couple of boxes of Jackson and Picadilly Earl Gray Tea.

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              1. Someone built a percolator into the Machine?! What mad heresy is this? Oh, and it’s between sub-aetheric slow-presso extractor and pandimensional revelator. Lovely. Now I’m going to have to tear out the phase-frequent membrane relay just to get it out. Someone is so going to feel the back of my hand. Probably Rex. And the timing on this one is going to be interesting. If I work for a solid couple of days, I should be done by yesterday, assuming the polytransic temporomantic formulae are steady. If not, who knows when the next cup will brew.

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            2. Yes. The ice-cream is in that fridge. The kefir, etc, are all in the fridge with the biohazard flower on it. There was an incident when Louis the Troll wanted an affogato “with a little zing.” Arsenide-silicate lifeforms are a little … odd. Ever since then, food put in that one more or less cultures on its own, which is why we only keep dairy in there anymore. You do NOT want to try cultured cthulhumari. It takes forever to wrestle the monocle away from it, for one.

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      3. Putting together two plus two here: randy…..think outside the box….you’re telling us to get our minds out of the gutter????

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        2. I would never tell anyone that, especially since I would have to get my own mind up from the sewer to even get to the gutter.

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    3. Oatmeal raisin cookies need chocolate chips, and milk to dip them in, and must still be warm, and… just bring the dough, you can cook them in the toaster oven someone shoehorned into the machine above the percolator and below the FTL centrifuge.

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  7. How do we throw big guys out? Well some of us are dragons and are larger than those big guys. [Very Big Dragon Grin]

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    1. If you think that, I’ve got a meat pie to sell you. Genuine meat products, my good sir. Guaranteed to have seen meat en passant, sirrah, to have gotten a good whiff thereof.

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          2. I’ve heard of a good one in London. He’s supposed to be very thorough. Has a shop on Fleet Street.

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          3. But Adolfo Pirelli is from Italy (well, technically Ireland, but that’s not necessarily common knowledge).

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        2. Well, don’t look now, because it means that there will be more for me. I brought this decadent little cake, no flour, just dark chocolate, eggs and ground almonds.

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            1. I am sure, given access to the kitchen I could produce a lemon or orange chiffon with a citrus vodka glaze. Any takers?

              If you go back to breakfast (which day was that?) there was a large pecan coffee cake. It was the morning of the bacon sampler buffet, with hickory, pepper, maple, applewood and corn cob smoked bacons.

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              1. given access to the kitchen I could produce a lemon or orange chiffon with a citrus vodka glaze

                I’m going to display my masculine ignorance here…it sounds like you’re saying you could make an edible prom dress…

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                1. One of the best bakers I ever met was a boy, one of nine children, who liked fresh baked goods enough to learn to do it himself. His mother never did seem to have the time. (Wonder why?)

                  The chiffon cake was invented by an insurance salesman, Harry Baker in 1927.

                  From Wiki:

                  A chiffon cake is a very light cake made with vegetable oil, eggs, sugar, flour, baking powder and flavorings. It is a combination of both batter and foam type (sponge type) cakes.

                  Instead of the tradition cake ingredient butter, vegetable oil is used; but this is difficult to beat enough air into Therefor chiffon cakes, like angel cakes and other foam cakes, achieve a fluffy texture by beating egg whites until stiff and folding them into the cake batter before baking. Its aeration properties rely on both the quality of the meringue and the chemical leaveners. Its oil-based batter is initally blended before folding into the meringue.

                  But, if a prom dress can be made out of duct tape, who knows?

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                  1. But, if a prom dress can be made out of duct tape, who knows?

                    I once saw (purely as an entertainment thing, not a serious dress – a women’s group staying at the YMCA Camp where my dad worked was having a “fashion” show) a wedding dress made from paper towels (or perhaps it was toilet paper – it’s been over 30 years, and I’m not certain).

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                    1. Well, yes, I suspect you would have to use snaps on the dress — the kind mounted on a fabric tape. Not sure how a zipper or buttons would hold up…

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                    3. If we can get better control on the time shifting we could pick up some of the original Jujubes, which came in lilac, violet and rose, spearmint and lemon flavors. Spearmint and rose have been dropped in favor of lime and cherry.

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                3. “it sounds like you’re saying you could make an edible prom dress”

                  And this would be a bad thing, why?

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                1. For you I will see that one is has a light powdered sugar glaze made without the alcohol, just orange juice and zest with a squeeze of lemon to brighten and balance the sweetness.

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  13. A voice emerges from beside another door as a red-headed figure leans in and calls, “Who wanted rare?”

    “What kind of rare?” The barista called back.

    “Um,” the head vanished and the stranger heard muttered and half-shouted conversation in three languages, or is it four? The redhead returned. “Unicorn, spotted owl, and something called ‘honest politician’ except I think it’s marinated kudu. Peter?” More noise from outside the door, “Yup, kudu. The brontosaur and the anaconda ribs are almost done. Dave says the abalone’s fighting back more than he anticipated.”

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            1. You gotta tenderize it, but it’s a close in kinda thing. Be sure to get into your half-plate beforehand. And the big hammer from over the bar. No, not that one; the BIG hammer.

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            2. Oh, that’s not the abalone; it’s the cthulhumari. That one does need to be nuked, and yes: preferably from orbit. Cuts down on the madness inducing colors, it does.

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        1. Flat-Cats? Are any available for adoption? I’ve heard that they are easier to manage than Tribbles.

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          1. Don’t Believe It!!!! The only difference is that Flatcats taste better than Tribbles! [Very Big Dragon Grin]

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            1. Hmm, I’ve seen them on the menu at Duffy’s Roadkill Café, but never tried them.

              “Flat cats, single or in a stack.” ;-)

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            2. From a nice comfy chair a knitter pipes up, ‘Yes, but the tribbles became much more useful once someone realized were mostly fleece which spun beautifully, producing a allergen free wool substitute. And it turns out they do quite well on a diet of kudzu .’

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          1. I thought we could feed them, as long as it was before .. .. oh wait, that was that Gremlins.

            Which one was it that I wasn’t supposed to get wet? Where did I put my handbook anyway.

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            1. Gremlins are don’t feed after midnight, and Flat Cats are don’t feed at all, unless you want a population boom.

              Gremlins are also don’t get wet, because that causes them to multiply.

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                  1. I think it’s time for a new Auto manufacturer with a similar business model to AMC, buying components direct from quality third-party manufacturers and building a reliable vehicle without all the practices that keep up prices, like changing models of alternator twice in one model year.

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                    1. Who did they buy the Pacer inside door handles from? Tried to get some for my buddie’s sister. The junkyard had a waiting list.

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              2. Gremlins can eat at any time, it’s Mogwai that you don’t feed after midnight, lest they *become* Gremlins.

                This is important stuff!

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                1. I remember watching part of that movie and wondering the time changes affected that rule. [Grin]

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                  1. I figured it was controlled by the sun, but yeah, things like Daylight Savings Time would screw that up, wouldn’t it?

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                    1. And does it go by apparent or mean time?

                      railway or local?

                      There have been three separate terms for the term “God’s time.”

                      The first is where you define noon as the point when the sun is right overhead. Owing to some quirks of the planet, this can vary as much as fifteen minutes from chopping it up into twenty-four hour days and saying that noon is in the middle.

                      Then there was the outrage that railway time was set by zones instead of being when the sun was overhead for you — which obviously, would vary by sixty minutes from one end to the other.

                      Then there was DST — government time — as opposed to railway time — or God’s time.

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              3. Hmmm, maybe that’s what happened… … … Wish I knew a way to send the little blighters to DC.

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        2. Basterd!

          Now I’ll have that song stuck in my head.

          So! I must answer in kind!

          Star Trecking across the Universe. Boldly going forward, because we can not find reverse….

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          1. There’s Klingons on the starboard bow, starboard bow, starboard bow, There’s Klingons on the starboard bow, wipe them off, Jim!:-D

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          2. They’re coming to take me away, ha ha,
            They’re coming to take me away, ho ho hee hee…

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          3. Back in college, I had it worse. I frequently rattled it off as I was walking around campus. It was like it was drilled into my head.

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          5. It was a one-eyed, one-horned, flying purple people eater,
            One-eyed, one-horned, flying purple people eater,
            One-eyed, one-horned, flying purple people eater
            Sure looked strange to me (one horn?)

            Liked by 1 person

            1. So we’re *trying* to infect one another with earworms?

              Hmmm..

              I’m ‘enery the Eighth I am, ‘enery the Eighth I yam, I yam,
              I got married to the widow next door, she’s been married seven times before,
              And ev’ry one was an ‘enery (‘Enery!) She didn’t ‘ave a Willie or a Sam (No Sam!),
              I’m ‘er Eighth old man I’m Enery, Enery the Eighth I yam!

              Second verse, same as the first!

              I’m ‘enery the Eighth…:-D

              Liked by 1 person

              1. First in my class here at M.I.T.
                Got skills, I’m a champion at DND
                MC Escher, that’s my favorite MC
                Keep your 40, I’ll just have an Earl Grey tea

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                2. I like the way you roll Foxfier :-).

                  A long long time ago in a galaxy far away Naboo was under an attack.
                  And I thought me and Qui-gon Jinn…

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                  1. Oi, I gotta re-collect his songs. I can already sing them from memory, but my kids don’t know most of the great ones yet!

                    Oooh, that’s a great Christmas gift for Dear Husband…..

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              1. Though good fences make good neighbors, we do insist you not stay *on* the fence. He doesn’t like being trod upon you see, flat though he may be.

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                1. I must insist that, contrary to the stereotype, we Flying Purple People Eaters also come in the two-horned variety. Diversity!

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          6. Hello mutter, hello father,
            Here I am in Camp Grenada.
            Camp is very entertaining,
            And they say we’ll have some fun if it stops raining!

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            1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jc_BFM_wJMU

              I once had a whim and I had to obey it,
              To buy a French horn in a second-hand shop.
              I polished it up and I started to play it,
              In spite of the neighbours who begged me to stop.

              To sound my horn,
              I had to develop my embouchure.
              I found my horn,
              Was a bit of a devil to play.
              So artfully wound,
              To give you a sound,
              A beautiful sound,
              So rich and round.

              Oh the hours I had to spend,
              Before I mastered it in the end.

              But that was yesterday.
              And just today,
              I looked in the usual place.
              There was the case,
              But the horn itself was missing!

              Oh where can it have gone?
              Haven’t you, hasn’t anyone seen my horn?
              Oh where can it have gone?
              What a blow, now I know,
              I’m unable to play my Allegro.

              Who swiped that horn?
              I bet you a quid somebody did.
              Knowing I found a concerto,
              And wanted to play it,
              Afraid of my talent at playing the horn.
              For early today to my utter dismay,
              It had vanished away like the dew in the morn.

              I’ve lost that horn!
              I know I was using it yesterday.
              I’ve lost that horn, lost that horn,
              Found that horn gorn.

              There’s not much hope of getting it back,
              Though I’d willingly pay a reward.

              I know some hearty folk,
              Whose party joke’s pretending to hunt with the Quorn.
              Gone away, gone away.
              Was it one of them who took it away?
              Will you kindly return that horn?
              Where is the devil who pinched my horn?
              I shall tell the police!

              I want that French horn back.

              I miss its music more and more and more.
              Without that horn I’m feeling sad and so forelorn.

              I found a concerto and wanted to play it,
              Displaying my talent at playing the horn.
              But early today to my utter dismay,
              It had totally vanished away.
              I practised the horn and I wanted to play it,
              But somebody took it away!
              I practised the horn and was longing to play it,
              But somebody took it away!

              My neighbour’s asleep in his bed,
              I’ll soon make him wish he were dead,
              I’ll take up the tuba instead – WAA WAA !

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    2. Sounds like a cross between Callahan’s Cross Time Salon and the end of Number of the Beast to me. ;-)

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        1. Tis neither the coffee nor the Irish that is mean, tis the bloody hangover the morning after Davey me lad.

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    3. I only read Job once. It’s one of two Heinlein books that didn’t do anything for me. I think you have to be raised in the US to “feel” it.
      I hope he hasn’t possessed me, though. I like my redheads MALE.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Eh.

        It was Yet Another Atheist who can’t grasp that satire has to be accurate enough to wound to work.

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  19. A slightly singed mad scientist slides down the spiral stairway in the corner, wanders over to the notice board, and posts the following:

    “The Space Observation Deck is now OPEN. Today’s location: the Horsehead Nebula. Please do not turn down the radiation shielding below 60%.
    Thank You,
    Mad Science Services.”

    Liked by 1 person

  22. After a week of being sick from something I caught in the field, and it being to dry to find anything now that I’m well enough to go back into the field, I needed the laughs. Thanks.

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          1. (I was the only child of two youngest children – by the time I was first exposed to babies I had no damn idea what to do with them. And besides they leak. :) )

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            1. My oldest niece said, after first meeting her little sister, “She’s no fun. All she does is eat and sleep”. [Very Big Grin]

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            2. I am the only surviving child of two only surviving children. The first diaper I ever changed was on The Daughter.

              Fortunately a newborn’s isn’t so bad, so I had practice before things got interesting. (And yes, they do leak… ;-) )

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          2. Babies are great fun as long as you can hand them back when noise, smells, or leakages instantiate.

            That said, I take credit for being a fair to good walker-bouncer-quieter for slightly noisy babies, a skill not to be poo-poohed, so to speak.

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            1. “I can assure you sir, the pooh poohing was merely circumstantial.”

              about 1:36

              Babies are infinitely more fun as a grandpa. You can just ignore all the bad stuff.

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        2. Once The Daughter noticed the camera it was ever so long that all we got were pictures of palms little fingers reaching out.

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  25. Don’t want a pickle; just want to ride my motor…sicle. If you ain’t got Double stuffed Oreos there isn’t any need for ice cream. Well, maybe if you used a spoon but that’s cheating. Don’t matter anyway, I’m lousy with passwords and you didn’t say there was a secret entrance for goofus. I’m probably out of luck on the dark coffee too. But thanks for the fun, it’s been a lon…g July.

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    1. Like the guy who set his password to “Incorrect” so that he’d never forget it. If he got it wrong, the computer would tell him “Your password is incorrect.”

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    2. Or perhaps friend as in
      “Speak Friend and Enter”.
      Its really a bear that Sindarin has no punctuation.

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          1. My youngest rotten kid, his amazing and wonderful wife, and the two finest hellion grandbabies in the world are currently residents of BN (that’s Bloomington/Normal, sillynoise for the uninitiated) which is 524 miles away, so out of the immediate blast zone.
            BN’s main claims to fame are in hosting both ISU and headquarters for the State Farm Insurance company.
            I am most proud to have been from Illinois, emphasis on from. It’s actually a very conservative friendly rural state with a cancerous boil infecting its upper northeast corner. Unfortunately the cancer has spread to also infect Springfield, the state capitol.

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          2. Dang it, Jerry — you stepped on the punch line! That is supposed to read:

            “My first wife was from Normal. … Far from Normal.”

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            1. You’re right, of course, a thousand pardons. Thank you, Lord Murphy, for showing us the error in our ways.

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  30. On a completely unrelated note, I just saw _Guardians of the Galaxy_. I can heartily recommend this movie. It’s fun, violent, a bit coarse in parts, and occasionally silly. I agree with Howard Tayler’s assessment of it as the #1 movie of the year so far.

    One caveat however. It’s a Marvel movie, so there’s an Easter Egg after the credits. All I can say about that is…oh god no…the horror…the *horror*…0_0…..

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  31. What’s all this? I was reliably told by the Usual Suspects that we spent our time plotting to suppress women and minorities? But what do I find instead? Jokes and threats of carp attacks! Outrageous!

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    2. It would appear that they are both wearing martial art gis, rank based on color of belt depends on specific discipline, but any color other than white generally indicates above beginner status.
      Ladd is certainly a cutie, definitely equal to her two partners, Fawcett and Tieggs.

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  33. A quartet lifts their voices in a yuletide carol, but are immediately shouted down by cries of “no trolls!!!”

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  35. I always thought the password was Snickerdoodle… And yes, it IS a mashup of Callahan’s, the Number of the Beast, and Hitchhiker… No towel no entry…

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  36. As the first rays of sunrise crept into Hunquarters (to be greeted with calls of “Shut the d-mn curtains!”), a few early (or late) risers wrapped up the trans-temporal MST3K-a-thon of classic films such as “Sharknado 3: Great Whites in the White House”, “Avengers 4”, and “The Six-Billion Dollar Woman” (which was voted worst re-make, worst message film, and worst film since the Ishtar-Ice Pirates mashup of 2016). Meanwhile, an incessant beeping from the secondary lab sounded the warning of an experiment gone horribly wrong . . . Oops, sorry, nope, my bad, that’s the back-up warning on the clean-up truck and beer delivery vehicle.

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    1. “Stephanie Austin: social justice warrior. A woman barely alive.”

      “‘Genderneutrals, we can rebuild her. We have the taxpayer dollars. Whinier, strident, more entitled than before . . .’ “

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  37. Sorry I didn’t read this yesterday. I never made it online. It seems that illness is a black hole and I have disappeared into it. If someone would open that dimensional gate, I could use a good brawl. (not bawl– been doing that too often, I need to get the blood pumping). Anyway, it seems that illness also causes about three times the amount of laundry. Since I have to cart my laundry to a laundromat– let’s say that I am exhausted. Hey– Hey– you can’t have my horns. I stole them fair and square.

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      1. I am getting used to this feeling of doom– which is why I need a good brawl. We are doing okay right now. Other than the hubby is weak, he looks better than he has in months. (had his first chemo infusion this week) So I am feeling hopeful–

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          1. If you would but cast away your crown as Empress of Hate you would believe our glorious leader that this is the most peaceful, safest, most prosperous of times, due entirely to his valiant efforts to inflict… er create necessary change on us from our old evil USAian ways.
            /sarc/sarc/vomit/sarc/spit/sarc/sarc.
            Now how do I get this very nasty taste out of my mouth?

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        5. And it can’t be easy to take care of someone when your own health is not as robust as it could be. I know I had enough trouble trying to take care of my wife while she was taking her chemo.

          Glad to hear he’s looking better. Hope the chemo isn’t too hard on him. Wife told me the third day after each one was like being hit by a train.

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          1. Yea – for some reason he started to do some swelling last night. I was told to keep his legs up and make sure he doesn’t have shortness of breath. Today he had labs and tomorrow we’ll be at the chemo place again.

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  38. This trans-dimensional architecture proves very useful, doesn’t it? I found these nifty window seats in the library. Each appears to have a different view, each a perfect fit, and only so many as is needed at a given point in time. Bless whoever thought to put these in. With a mug of Earl Gray, a copy of a good book (I choose Star Beast), closing the curtains, wrapping oneself in a conveniently provided afghan it proved the perfect retreat when things got a bit overwhelming in the main den. And the little pull out shelf for your glasses with its built in cup holder is such a nice touch. Thank you.

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    1. Cupholders? Huh, I thought those were for the data-plates the Centauris gave us. Turns out one of their scouts had a malfunction halfway through the system and they dropped into Colorado to do some repairs. Met himself and they took some of his work with them when they went home. It – ah – kinda started a craze for what we think of as classic scifi. But they’re cupholders, you say? Doubly weird, as the plates worked just fine. Great holographic displays, too.

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      1. I have found that much of the stuff around here appears to be multi-purpose, fulfilling the need of the given moment.

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          1. I am not the owner of that capacious carpet bag, if you haven’t noticed I don’t carry a parrot headed umbrella. ;-)

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            1. I didn’t think you did, but with so many sword canes, flask canes, trick umbrellas and other things in the umbrella stands and leaning against the tables, it can be hard to keep track.

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    2. Eh. Some days useful, some days a nuisance! I stepped into the loo for a spot of relief and spent the rest of the night around a campfire drinking with a bunch of orcs!

      Orcish mead is a bit stiff. And crunchy. Somebody ought to tell ’em to get all the bees off the comb first.

      They were a hilarious bunch though. There was this one story… Well, family blog. It’ll have to wait.

      Hey! Why’s the Machine in pieces? And what’s with the plumbers kilt!? Nobody needs that!

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      2. Orcish mead is a bit stiff. And crunchy. Somebody ought to tell ‘em to get all the bees off the comb first.

        Yes, but the bees do provide protein. They aren’t kidding when they say that one can live off of the stuff.

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  39. Every time I visit this site and read a comments thread, I think to myself, “Hunny, I’m home.”

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          1. It is Madame Hoyt until the lady condescends to invite me to address her by her Christian name, and I thought we were standing in the Hoyt-den?

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              1. I probably missed the pun and faux outraged dignity to attempt a jest. Sorry I got a weird sense of humor

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                1. You have a weird sense of humor? The certainly won’t make you stand out in here, but likely it will serve to get you the honor of a carp flung at you somewhere along the line.

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                  2. The Vorkosigan Saga, at least the early ones, are very good. Cherryh is an extremely talented writer; but I’m not a huge fan of her books. If you like dystopia’s where nobody can trust anybody else, and every half decent female character with a backbone is either a rapist or a whore, I highly recommend them. I have them on audio and am listening to them while driving, probably wouldn’t be reading the series, if I was sitting down reading them, but I would finish whichever book I started. She sucks you in and hooks you so that you keep hanging on to see what happens next. But I find myself dissatisfied when I get to the end of each book.

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            2. As long as you don’t call me Hoyt! like you’re my first form teacher, we can be friends. Sarah, or Sarah Hoyt, or Her Nibs, or The Host or eh.
              And the females of the huns are hoydens, unless they prefer to be huns.

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                1. Funny, I was always taught exactly the opposite. That to call a lady by her given name without her express permission was an intolerable lese majeste.

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                  1. To some extent. But on this blog you are sort of my guests, so… OTOH if you’re going to call me by my last name, please preface it with “Mrs.” Just “HOYT” sounds like a superior-to-inferior.

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                    1. Forgive me, I thought I had addressed you as Madame Hoyt. Not solely as Hoyt. How impolite of me. What must you think. I assure you my Mamma did raise me right. I must have mistyped. No, this is not sarcasm. Yes I grew up in the rural Midwest.

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                    2. As bearcat said, you did fine. But last-name-only address, in plain text, sounds like a teacher correcting a pupil, and I suspect it’s a bit of a pet peeve of our esteemed hostess. So basically she was telling you there’s quite a bit of leeway in how to address her, as long as you avoid that particular form.

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                    4. If I recall it was not just the false familiarity, but that the content of the person’s posts were problematic as well.

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                    5. It was ‘Hoyt! Hoyt! Hoyt!
                      ‘You ’eathen, where the mischief ’ave you been?
                      ‘You put some good words in it
                      ‘Or I’ll marrow you this minute
                      ‘If you don’t fill up my Kindle, Sarah Hoyt!’

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                    7. You did preface her name with Madame, no worries there. I perhaps didn’t make myself clear (actually rereading it, no perhaps about it). What I was attempting to say was a reply to Sarah that I wouldn’t call her Hoyt with no preface, I only do that to personal friends. Probably a product of where I grew up; you called your superiors (AKA elders you didn’t know well, persons in authority, strangers, etc.) by prefix plus last name, less formally or for clarity in third person you might use first and last without a prefix, acquaintances, equals, inferiors, etc. were referred to by first name, and only personal friends were called by last name with no prefix.

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                    8. As I know little to nothing about our hostess, I fear I may have gone overboard with the formalities. I often do. Partially because my manners were taught by belt and hickory switch and partially because I don’t get much practice anymore. A sizeable portion of “liberated women” take good manners to be an assault on their personhood or whatever.

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                    9. Good G-d man! I’m not liberated. I’d like to see the man who could imprison me in the first place!
                      My preferred honorific is Mrs, but I write enough in French history that Madame is always appropriate.

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                    10. Where I’m from, we do the “address friends by last name” thing to some extent, but that hardly ever extends to women, though it seems to be changing somewhat.

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                    11. where I’m from too. And I went to a hoyty toyty (eh) school, (magnet. we didn’t live in that district) so through most of the school my name was Almeida. from the teachers as a “I’m in command” from the students because we were friends. And it was an all-girl school

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                    12. Besides the regional issues– the “Miss (firstname)” for all women vs “Miss/Mrs/Ms (lastname)” thing, there’s also the military complication where addressing someone as (lastname) is kind of like calling folks by their given name in school, and calling someone by their first name is very personal.

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                  2. I got used to being called by my surname by friends, colleagues, classmates, workmates. My RL friends also took to calling me by my online handle, or Shadow, for short. SD or Shadow’s still my preferred, and still in use even RL, in my own house (coz of all of us being gamers.) Since being moved here my given name’s been nickname-ified, because that’s what happens here in Oz, apparently. Also, easier pronunciation, or so I thought. It still gets mispronounced.

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                    1. SD = Super Deformed? :-)

                      In some circles I’ve used Mauser. It’s been my online handle since my first Internet account back in 1990. (Dr. Mauser is a recent development, 2009). It gets a bit odd sometimes where the circles that know me as Mauser and the circles that know me as Richard intersect.

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                    2. *chuckles* That’s one of the reason why the moniker amused me. I am pretty chibi.

                      The one I didn’t like was ‘Drow’. CLD is fine, ‘Drow is fine (implies that the rest of the moniker’s there), but Yama was the one who first started using just ‘drow’ to refer to me and he did it while falsely claiming I seriously advocate ethnic genocide, and he absolutely despises elves. But since Larry Dixon’s reaction to the moniker, I started liking it again. Larry Dixon found my online handle amusing. That trumps the bad association any day!

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                    3. Haven’t actually talked to Larry since my ‘zine publishing days. Wonder if he’s seen any of my writing since….

                      Don’t let Yama turn you off of something you like just because he’s a dick.

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                    5. I’m glad you clarified that. It’s an awfully long handle to use every time someone addresses you, and I was worried about getting it wrong if I tried to use just part of the name.

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                    6. I have a horrible inability to keep what name I’m using for folks straight– take note, superheroes, don’t tell me your secret identity!– so my poor husband has dealt with
                      “(so and so) sent me an email that I forwarded to you, can you check it out?”
                      “Who?”
                      “You know, CLD.”
                      “Oh. Sure.”

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                    7. I have a hard enough time keeping one name straight for each person, so what does my wife do? Drag me into the SCA, where everyone has at least two names.

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                    8. You must have dreadful problems with Russian novels such as The Brother’s Karamazov. I recall friends who took a Russian literature class advising me that, if I ever undertook to read it, I should keep an index cards for each character noting their various nicknames so I could keep them straight.

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                    10. Shoot, don’t feel bad, some days I can’t remember my own name much less anyone else’s. Seriously I forgot my (now departed) wife’s name for a week. That’s why I always use my own name.

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                    11. Oh good. I’m not the only one who’ll occasionally forget my own given name – especially on days where I’ve been super distracted for a long while. Forget my remembering my own phone numbers either. My husband is patient with my various shortcomings, thank goodness – including the actually being short one. He seems to think it’s cute, judging from his reactions.

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                    12. Conversation sample:
                      Husband, when I’m distracted, starting at conversational level: (Firstname) (First. Name.) (FIRSTNAME.) (MAIDENNAME!)
                      Me: “Wut?”

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                    13. ‘What is your phone number?’ I am asked. I invariably reply, ‘Don’t know, I never have reason to call myself. Let me look that up.’

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                    14. That is not a terribly uncommon thing.

                      As bad as my memory is for most things, though, I’m good at remembering numbers. I remember the phone number of the house we lived in 10 years ago, my sister’s home number, even though I rarely use it, my wife’s and younger son’s Social Security numbers, and a lot more.

                      But ask what I had for lunch? Probably going to look at you blankly and say, “Uhhhhhh…”

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                    16. I’ve created “business cards” with my address, phone numbers, and email address more to remind me than to give out. [Grin]

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                    17. Hi, I’m CACS, and I’m horrible with names.

                      I remember all sorts of things, but for some reason names are my Achilles’ heel. I might well ask you how your children are doing: the eldest’s play, the middle one’s soccer game and the youngest’s swim meet. All the while I will be hoping desperately that someone will join us and call you by name.

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                    18. I’m horrible with names AND faces. I remember all of you miscreants at this point (Wayne Blackburn is much more handsome in person than I expected. He takes AWFUL pictures.) but people who talked to me at a con once, or even twice, should REINTRODUCE THEMSELVES. If I’m looking at you vaguely unfocused, I have no idea who you are.

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                2. Are you someone who still uses the term acquaintance? It annoys me to hear people use the word friend to describe someone that they barely know. There are ever so many people with whom I am acquainted, but very few that are considered friends.

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                  1. I certainly use the term acquaintance. But then again, I learned that “friend” had a deeper meaning.

                    I heard them talking about a poll on the radio, and it said that the average person has 64 friends. How could you have that close a relationship with that many people?

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                    1. I heard them talking about a poll on the radio, and it said that the average person has 64 friends. How could you have that close a relationship with that many people?

                      Exactly.

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                    2. You must remember that people differ in depth. Extroverts may not get that it’s not friendship when it’s that shallow.

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                    3. Acquaintance is someone I know on a ‘general’ sort of way, but we don’t interact outside of that social venue. There’s levels of ‘knowing someone’ and friendship from there, and I start using terminology from other languages if they fit. I have only one tomodachigai and fittingly, I’ve known that person for slightly longer than I have my hubby.

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                    4. The problem likely stems from folk confusing “I am friendly with” and “I am friends with.”

                      Grammar will get you every time.

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                  2. It annoys me, but I sometimes use the more common “person I know and don’t dislike” usage– while actually holding to “someone that is chosen family” meaning myself. I’ve got… maybe two guys and three couples? (It’s not like you can be that level of friend with someone and not extend it to their other half; half of those are as much my husband’s friends as mine.)

                    “Close friend” is something even more rare– I’ve only got one, and I ended up marrying him.

                    ****

                    It can be really depressing when you read around and folks are using “friend” in the “person you socialize with voluntarily” sense and they wax persuasive and poetic about how pathetic it is to not have a dozen. It happens to hook up with some screws that are loose in my head, so I can really get in a tail spin when careful reading and thinking indicate they’re not talking about the same kind of friend at all.

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                    1. ;-) The Spouse is addressed in writing as Dearest Friend. (For those who suspect the historical reference, yea.)

                      I was discussing the subject with one of the few people I call a friend last night. On a bunny trail from there she made an interesting comment. People tend to think of written communication as permanent. But, she observed, until someone has read what was written it is not permanent, it can still be edited, lost, or destroyed.

                      Anyway, I woke up today considering that English is such a rich language, capable of amazing nuance. This is, in part, because it has happily mugged all the various languages it encountered for new words — as The Daughter is wont to tell anyone who will listen. It is a shame to see vocabularies shrinking and words loose clear meaning through sloppy usage. I say this as a reader, and verbal storyteller. I can only image the problems for people who paint word pictures in writing.

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