Saturday, February 9, 2019

letter to Tom, cc'd to old friends


Hi Tom,

Thanks to your note yesterday I finally got around to solving the problem I'd run into in not being able to comment on your blog posts. Yes, I did notice you'd come back a few weeks ago but since I haven't been to blogger very often these days I just thought you'd changed your settings on your return. I'd tried several times to leave you a note and every time was blocked by not having an 'account'. Also, phantsythat was behaving oddly and I knew I hadn't made any changes. So I got in touch with the help desk forum where I eventually discovered an anti-tracking program (Ghostery) I'd loaded a few months ago had identified a number of blogs (including my own) as sites to be constrained. The solution was very simple in that all I had to do was to mark Gwynt (and phantsythat) as 'trusted' sites. I left a couple of comments on your more recent but older posts and I see one of the people from the forum had dropped by your place too to see if all was well (he's the one who deleted his comment).

Anyhow, that's that. As for me (and Crow) it's true we kind of slipped away from blogging last March and who'd know better than you just how difficult it can be to pick up the traces again? Somehow I'd made a commitment to posting a new illustration of some kind to every piece I posted on the blog and I'd pretty much run out of steam. When I paint or attempt any artistic endeavor the results are invariably based on how much time I've taken. By that point I'd been taking less than the necessary time for a good while and I felt it showed. Added to that was feeling like if I had to write about something important to me I must try to do so in a way that wouldn't offend anyone else. Talk about a conundrum, eh? You can never make everybody happy and sometimes you can't make anybody happy and that's just the way things go.

Lastly, and to not make this too long, although the circumstance described certainly too long enough, we packed up our Halifax, NS life and moved four thousand miles to Victoria, BC late last summer. If you're a Canadian who wants to live in a milder climate but not leave the country this is the place to be. Getting here and becoming established has taken much time and energy.

So far I haven't even attempted to draw anything since last winter. That may change. What also may change is our possible return to phantsythat. After all, you were gone for two years and for us it's only been ten months. We'll see what happens next.

Take care and keep well.
Love,
Susan and Crow
 


💕

16 comments:

  1. Dear Susan, It is with great relief that I read you are well. We have moved house a couple of times in the last two years, but have managed to limit the moves to some fifties of kilometres rather than the well-over-5000's of km that you embarked upon. I hope the move went well and that you are happily settling in.

    Of course many of us look forward to the time you start drawing again. But as I also have found, there are many pressing matters to attend to during and after a move. Taking one step at a time may mean taking some very small steps. The important thing is to stay as well as you can, and enjoy your life.

    Wishing you both well, Love, Tom.

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    1. Hi Tom,
      I was very happy to see you'd returned to writing about your thoughts and experiences. It's good to know you are both well.

      We'll have to see if more developes here.

      Allthe best

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  2. Nice to see you again, Susan. At the moment i'm only 100 or so miles south of you. We got a bit of snow here the last few days, but at least I missed the 3 feet Butte got with the -27 f temps. Take care,
    Mike

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    1. Yeah, Mike
      and Seattle is just a hop, skip and a float away from Victoria. It's wonderful to see mountains again and the Cascades and Olympics are marvelous at any time of the year.
      Stay cozy

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  3. Well hello again. Nice to see you back.

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  4. Hi Susan,
    I trust by now you both have more or less got your feet under the table so to speak in your new abode.
    I know from experience, such a momentous move like that often results in heartfelt changes leading to different priorities. So I can understand how easily it is to drift away from blogging. At any rate we have such a wonderful archive on your BLOG to look back on, as I occasionally go for a trip down memory lane. Best wishes

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    1. Hi Lindsay,
      Yes, we have our feet under the table now and out the door as well. This is a wonderful place to enjoy very long walks and we've been taking every opportunity. So, yes, after more than ten years of regular blog posts the day arrived when it seemed to be enough. We've known one another since the earliest days and I'm happy to say the enjoyment has been mutual.
      All the best

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  5. I have missed your blogs and your art. How does crow like Victoria with all his raven cousins?
    I love Victoria. We stayed at the Empress twice when we were living in Alaska.
    take care
    the Ol'Buzzard

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    1. Thanks for saying so, OB. Crow is as pleased to be here as we are. We can see the dome of the parliament building from here - lit up at night - and the Empress Hotel is close by. Did you know somebody stole the tiger skin from the Tea Room? Never brought it back either.:)

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  6. I’m finally back online after about a month. The war between Yahoo and Google ended. Almighty Google finally let me into my own two blogs. A miracle, as it were.

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    1. Glad to hear that got settled for you, Ray. I think when Google was in the process of disconnecting + they messed up some other bits.

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  7. life is busy busy, blogging takes a step back xx

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  8. Indeed! This is the kind of stuff that drives me crazy though it's probably mostly do to my age and computer and ineptitude. Unfortunately I've lost some friends who disappeared into the outer space of the Internet.

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  9. timeless (give or take 5 minutes)...

    we just saw these 2 gentlemen together last week, re-watching a fish called wanda. who can forget animal-lover ken's various attempts to rub out an elderly witness of his boss' crime: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qguwpiDbMws

    speaking of arguments, i'm not sure if you ever got around to checking out a video game i sent you a while back called 'phoenix wright: ace detective'. it's a japanese game that revolves around the adventures of a lawyer who has to do both the investigating & the courtroom questioning in solving 'who dunnit' - it's an extremely clever, entertaining, funny, & long-running series. anyway, what someone's done is create a bot that can basically sift through any reddit thread & produce a mini-exchange within the context of phoenix wright. an example (which features a brief explanation at the end): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvFk8hapDZY&feature=emb_title

    what i was unaware of was that people had already been manually doing this. a favorite example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIQR_3TPtJw

    i'm sorry! our time is up...

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