Even in Kyoto

I've been playing a Scrabble-like game online with a friend about once a week or so. She generally completely kicks my butt, but somehow or another I picked up some good tiles yesterday, including all four high-scoring ones (J, Q, X, Z). In addition, I managed to put together a bingo, and I even had a second one in my rack (LUMPERS or RUMPLERS) but I couldn't put it anywhere. S also managed a bingo, and so in the end I won with 396 points to her 378. Maybe I should start keeping track of game totals.

Anyway, here was our final board:


Later in the day, I told sytharin that I would lend her a hand with projects out in the garden. First things first, I went on a quick trip over to the store to pick up more potting soil to replace the soil I'd used up, so she can start a bunch of interesting seeds. Things like a pink banana plant, for example.

When I returned, she was underway with another project, mixing and pouring plaster for a ceramics wedging table:



Have you ever mixed and poured plaster before? I've dealt with it a lot, in the context of making ant nests. So I was a touch nervous when RAC said she'd been mixing the plaster and water for about 5 minutes by that point. So then she got ready to pour:


...slightly more liquid than she'd hoped...



...kind of thick towards the bottom...and you can see how it's starting to leak out of the mold, too...



After things reached this stage, I stopped taking pictures and started helping out. A spare board helped reduce the leak rate, and then we managed to scoop a bunch of the plaster back into the mold. If you ever find yourself wanting to make a plaster clay wedging table, I have a small piece of advice: put a small strip of clay along the seams, to seal them off.

Oh, actually, multiple pieces of advice. I think the mixing ratio that RAC used was probably okay. It was the ratio on the package. Anyway, other advice. Do what she did and get one of those drill attachments for mixing paint. Always add plaster to water, not the other way around. And maybe put the form onto something that's slightly easier to tap/vibrate/relocate to knock out as many of the bubbles as possible. In this case it would have helped to have something like a moving dolly. That would have helped with the splashing, too.

For clean-up, have a bucket of water ready to go for immediately after you pour. Use the water to rinse out and dilute the plaster that remains in your mixing vessel and on your mixing equipment. You don't need a ton of water, but enough to loosen things up. Removing hardened plaster is often more difficult, but another alternative is to work with a flexible mixing vessel. If you generate a bunch of waste liquid, pour it into a big bucket and let it sit for a week or more. The plaster residue will sink to the bottom and you will be able to pour off the water. Then, once things have dried out, you'll have an easier time disposing of the residue. I believe there's actually a way to recharge it, but it might involve temperatures that are too high for doing this at home.

Then I did some cooking, and I have no idea where the rest of the day went.

All right, here they are, photographs from our crawdadding expedition behind the cut. Warning: there are a lot of them! Hooray for a successful Scrabble Society expedition!

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Day 1: 21,097 m.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Despite the questionable origins of the holiday, it's always nice to have an opportunity to express gratitude. I spent a lovely evening last night with Ms. annikusrex and W, who popped in and out. Alas, a silly move on my part (failure to play FOWLER) cost me the game. But there will be a rematch tonight for certain. Now to eat copious amounts of starchy foods.

This morning I dropped a butter knife on the kitchen floor because I was in too much of a hurry. It made the loudest, clangingest noise ever. I was trying to be quiet, really I was.

Yesterday before I went running, I contemplated putting on sunscreen, and then I didn't. Today I have the most impressive tan lines ever. Okay, maybe it was more impressive when I had both a sock tan AND a sandal tan a couple of years ago. But I've gotten many more comments on the present tan lines so far. I shall have to run all covered up in the future to prevent the bad tan lines from worsening.

I made heaps of Indian food for dinner last night--channa daal curry, a red lentil dish, raita, parathas (did you know that Pilsbury makes Indian bread products?), and rice. I will have to post recipes soon--the red lentils and raita were spectacularly good (more new recipies out of the new Indian cookbook). A couple of friends came over and we all ate and ate and ate. It was so good, and there were no leftovers and everybody had enough to eat. Amazing. Afterwords, we played a game of Scrabble and I was able to spell the word SCABIES, using all 7 tiles, including 2 blanks. Later on, somebody else played HIVES, and eventually NIT. Talk about a good Scrabble game theme--skin problems. Amazingly, I managed to do all that and wash the dishes and still get to bed in time to get up and go rowing this morning. And then I dropped a butter knife.