Strange attractors and snakebots and Madame Defarge, oh my!

Niraja Lorenz is just one of the talented and innovative fiber artists whose work will be exhibited at Highfield House June 25-September 6.If you're in New England, or plan to be there this summer, don't miss this exhibit on Cape Cod. (Hmmm. Cape Cod. Ocean. Coolth. Wonder if I can convince the First Reader that we should vacation in New England this summer for a break from Austin's hundred-degree heat marathon.)

Next up is a video of a snake robot, no kidding! Watch this little guy tackle the stairs at the Spectrum office. And if that's not enough for you, try this extremely cool video of an amphibious snakebot from Japan. I am so having one of these in the next book. Well, maybe not in Survivors; it would have to be forcibly injected into the synopsis. But there is a definite place for a snakebot in the urban fantasy that's coming up after I finish the Harmony trilogy.

Remember Madame Defarge knitting at the guillotine? I never realized that she was emulated during the two world wars by knitting spies who encoded train schedules, troop movements and other secret information into innocent-looking scarves, hats, and sweaters.That might be trickier to pull off today, since you rarely see women knitting or doing any other handwork in public...but I'm already thinking about a quilt. Hand quilted. In Morse Code. Now, how to use this?

And finally,the stupidest thing I've seen this week: intersectionality meets quantum physics. Oh, good grief. I've been waiting for somebody to tell me this is a hoax. Apparently, though, it's for real.

What to do with all that leftover yarn

Now this would have been more creative than simply putting the stuff in sacks for the Elder Spawn's yard sale. On the other hand, I didn't have anywhere near that much yarn. I might have been able to yarnbomb a chopped Harley, but not a bus.

This week's excuse for not getting much done is that the Younger Spawn, aka the Fashionista, is favoring us with a visit from New York. Today the two of them are off having a Sister Day so I went to Barton Springs...ah. They're back, looking all tan and sleek. They went to Barton Springs too, but later in the day, so they got in on the excitement. Apparently the lifeguards started blowing their whistles and screaming, "Get out of the pool! Get out of the pool!" which never happens there. Then all the lifeguards dived in and went underwater. Apparently somebody had lost track of a child.

That's a big pool. And much of the bottom is covered with water weeds. If it had been my child, I'd have had a heart attack.

Happy ending: they report that the missing kid reappeared safe and relatively dry, having (I assume) simply wandered off somewhere else without mentioning it to the parent. There are enough sloping green banks and trees and bushes around that pool that a child can easily disappear without ever going near the water.

Nothing exciting like that ever happens when I go swimming. Probably just as well; see heart attack, above.