(no subject)

Got up at 5:45 am, looked out the window - to what was mostly blizzard conditions - and flipped on the news - discovering that there were switch problems causing delays on the G, the roads while clearing were slippery and it was bitterly cold. Plus there was a second front expected this afternoon, which would dump even more snow on the area. In the shower, I decided that it would be really stupid to walk to the subway, in my sneakers, air cast, cane, in blizzard conditions and potentially long waits, then the two -three blocks over icy sidewalks to the LIRR, then up the six blocks in Jamaica, over icy sidewalks - considering I sprained my ankle in Jamaica without any ice on the sidewalks whatsoever. Granted could try a car service - but the roads are not safe, traffic is congested, and they are telling people to stay home or take public transit.

So, I wimped out and called in sick around 6:30 am, then went back to bed. Was hard enough just walking about yesterday with no snow on the ground, and no snow falling. Had to ice my knee and ankle for twenty minutes. I'll attempt it tomorrow, when the sidewalks have been shoveled. It'll be bad, but not impossible like today.

We currently have 7 inches, with an expected 10-12 inches in some areas. Gotta love March.
Have decided to celebrate my birthday in May from now on.

Sarah Connor Chronicles - Inside Dreams.

I'm loving my science-fiction tv shows this year, they are all character driven, crunchy, cult fests, with prickly ambiguous characters.

This past week's BSG and Sarah Connor - which selenak did an excellent review of, as did aycheb - regarding Sarah Connor. Luckily for me, my flist mostly likes the same weird ass sci-fi that I do. Of course that's why I wandered online to begin with - to find people who liked this stuff. No one that I know offline can abide it, and those that do love it - have 0 interest in discussing it beyond - yes cool, or nah, horrid bad episode that was way off course. Sort of boring. I can watch any number of tv shows and get those responses. This post is about Sarah Connor because it would be too long to do both.

Sarah Connor Chronicles

Watching this episode reminded me a great deal of the Tony Hillerman novels I read in the 1990s as well as stories my Granny used to tell me. My Granny spent a lot of time with Native Americans in Arizona and the West during the 1970s-1990s. The Navajho and Papago tribes taught her how to do bead work in their own tradition. Then she, upon request, taught their descendants how to do it. My Granny isn't Native American - she's Scotch Irish and German.
But she loved the West. One of the items she learned how to make was a dream catcher.
She gave my parents one, and gave me a pair of dream catcher earrings - studded with turquoise and silver thread, with a sliver feather floating at the end. Complete with a flaw in the bead work. That's how you can tell the difference between Native American work and those who don't know it or haven't learned it from the Native Americans. They deliberately make one mistake - the mistake lets the bad luck out, it makes sure that you don't keep the bad karma in the work. It is also to honor the gods or God or nature - which is also imperfect for the much the same reason. Perfection breeds disaster or so they believed.

A dream catcher has a hole in the center to let in the good dreams, and webs to catch the bad. Usually there are stones - turquoise and others - representing bad dreams that have already been caught. A feather is at the bottom to let the good dreams flow towards us. Or at least that's how I remember the legend.

In this episode - we are in Sarah Connor's head, a woman plagued with insomina, who has not slept. In a sort of psuedo-dream scape. The territory is New Mexico/Southern Cal - the desert, the realm of the Native American tribes and their gods and demons, while Sarah's roam in her future nightmares within glass buildings, and clean hospital corridors.
( Sarah Connor - the coyote, the demon woman, dream catcher's, and robots from the future - spoilers for this week's episode )