January 2, 2005

• Hap-py New Year to all!
  
  I
  can’t say as I’ve ever had a New Year’s quite this warm. Lucky
  Pennsylvania ducks – never had to contend with 20-below temperatures
  and three feet of snow on Christmas and New Year’s…I can’t really
  resolve to write updates more often, because I’ve got an average
  ten-hour workday, nobody seems interested in reading, and I’m still
  trying to recover enough grey matter to write a comprehensive,
  evocative entry.
  
  We’ve
  put the steam engine to bed for the winter – I just hope four months
  will be enough time to correct everything that cropped up this past
  year. The injector on the engineer’s side, as I discovered the hard
  way, is constantly kicking back (in other words, steam is getting
  blasted back into the tender through the water line). The other day, I
  was stoking the fire en route up the hill, watching the steam gauge
  climb steadily towards normal pressure…when right out of the blue,
  the engine decided to pop off.
  That’s when the boiler safety valve lifts because the pressure is too
  high, but it’s supposed to pop around 185 psi, not 175. *sigh* That
  engine’s water woes get under everyone’s scalps…
  
  I
  did, however, spend two days working under the tutelage of a gent named
  Ross Rowland, whose name is very well known in steam railroading
  circles.
  He’s the go-to guy for steam operations in this part of the country.
  And I gotta say, working with him was one of the best experiences I’ve
  had in the cab yet! He’s a great teacher – no fireman or engineer has
  ever asked me a few questions along the line to make sure I’m learning.
  What are you doing? Why are you doing it? How is that going to affect
  the engine’s performance? What was that road we just crossed? How do
  you tell when the water in the boiler is too high? Why is the sight
  glass empty when we’re going downhill?
  
  Yessirree,
  I can see why Ross is the man when it comes to steam engines. I’m
  eagerly awaiting the day later this year when I’ll be firing for him.
  
  In the meeeeeeentime…

  CHRISTMAS WITH THE FELLOWSHIP/MINIONS Part 2

  “Okay, they’re off!”

  “Good, it’s about time!”

  Beating
  the bushes aside, Wormtongue and Faramir leaped onto the sidewalk from
  the fuchsia pot across the street. They paused for a moment, looking
  carefully both ways – not for oncoming traffic, but to see if the
  Fellowship and Minions were well out of sight, with no others oncoming.
  It looked like they were home free; Eomer, Aragorn, Theoden, and
  Eomer’s Amazon – er – companion were
  towing the Grond float, while Sauron and Boromir had driven everybody
  else in the Hummer and the Excursion. Nobody was left in the apartment
  - except the flu-stricken Eowyn.

  “Okay, who’s got the chicken soup?” Wormtongue asked, turning around with a clap of his hands.

  “Right
  here,” Gamling said as he, Glorfindel, Haldir, and Jack Sparrow emerged
  from the bushes. He was balancing three cans on top of each other,
  trying to keep them from falling down the sewer grate at his feet.

  “Good,
  let’s go!” Waving his arm, Wormtongue led the Outcasts at a mad dash
  across the street to the door of the apartment building. “Ohh, wait a
  sec, before we go in,” he said, raising his finger. “Which one of you
  knows how to cook?”

  The rest were at a loss, standing
  stock-still, turning heads and coughing uncomfortably as they looked at
  each other for a reply. By Wormtongue’s estimate, a good five minutes
  had passed before Glorfindel finally stated, “What’re you asking me
  for? Since when do Elves have to cook anything? Elvish food cooks
  itself, didn’t you know that?”

  Faramir shook his head in disapproval, sighing. “Fine time to ask, fearless leader,” he said sarcastically.

  “I didn’t hear you asking anybody,” Wormtongue sniped.

  “Hey, why don’t we ask Eowyn to do the cooking?” Haldir suggested.

  “Eowyn?”
  Gamling said, smacking Haldir upside the head (he was developing a
  sizable bruise on his temple from all the slaps the Outcasts gave him).
  “What’s the matter with you, you heartless twerp? She’s the one who’s
  sick, so we’re the ones cooking for her, and besides, have you ever
  seen her turkey soup???”

  “Bloody pure lard, that,” Sparrow chimed in, blinking rapidly.

  “C’mon,
  we’ll wing it,” Faramir said. He cocked his head to the doorway, where
  he and Wormtongue pulled a classic Laurel & Hardy for almost a full
  minute before Glorfindel kicked them inside.

  Upstairs, a
  snuffling Eowyn, blinking rapidly and rubbing her nose with a few
  tissues, slowly plodded her way out of the bedroom she reluctantly
  shared with Arwen. She hated being sick – not just because it made her
  all the more vulnerable to the onslaught of the Outcasts, but also
  because it made her eyes horridly sensitive to the Light of Earendil.
  Mumbling something off-colour about the Evenstar, she coughed noisily
  as she stumbled toward the kitchen to make some Thera-Flu.

  One
  bleary eye caught sight of the Balrog sitting in the corner with his
  feet propped up on a surround speaker, websurfing. Beside the computer
  desk sat a heavy-duty bucket in case his hemlock Thanksgiving dinner
  caught up with him. Needless to say, he would usually be using the
  computer in his sub-toolshed den; but since Sauron refused to spring
  for a second high-speed Internet connection, he was relegated to a
  cruddy 56K dial-up. As such, he would snatch any chance he could get to
  take advantage of the high-speed wireless that Sauron had so
  persuasively requested for his computer. The Balrog was just beginning
  to think of surreptitiously inciting Lurtz to install a LAN when he saw
  Eowyn stumbling through the living room en route to the kitchen, and he
  quickly resumed his surfing.

  “Whatcha doing?” Eowyn asked, shuffling in his direction.

  “Hmm?
  Oh, uh, nothing…just surfing a little,” the Balrog answered, hastily
  minimising the Anne Hathaway photo page he’d been ogling. “How feel
  you?”

  “Like I got run over by Aragorn’s van,” Eowyn sighed.
  Moaning softly to herself, she blew her nose again and made a beeline
  for the kitchen. “Everybody gone?”

  “Yeah. I think I’ll turn on the TV in a little while and watch Legolas make a total geek of himself in his Rudolph regalia.”

  “Way
  to spend Christmas Eve.” Smiling to herself, Eowyn shook her head as
  she procured the Thera-Flu. “Say, how come you were home so late last
  night?”

  “Oh, I’ve just been doing a little moonlighting in
  Pennsylvania,” the Balrog said casually. Glancing furtively toward the
  kitchen, he continued to sneak peeks at his favourite screenshots from Ella Enchanted.
  “I hit a snow squall in Philly, though – the roads were friggin’
  homicidal. I tell you, one more fifty-car pile-up on the Garden State
  Parkway and I’m setting all of New Jersey on fire.”

  “That
  shouldn’t be too hard,” Eowyn coughed. “I mean, can you believe Sauron
  dragged everybody to Atlantic City for a weekend last summer? No way! I
  almost got run over by some raggy old bus that shouldn’t even be on the
  road, and the driver didn’t even stop! The idea of it! Eru forbid
  anybody should pay attention to pedestrians down there…”

  It
  was here that the Balrog pointedly tuned her out, considering that
  blatant jaywalking was a hallowed practise in Atlantic City. He hummed
  idly to himself as he reached for the remote control, flipping on the
  TV. By the look of it, the Christmas parade was assembling at Columbus
  Circle; people were already giving Sauron and his Grond float a wide
  berth. At least he didn’t try to rope Shelob into pulling the dang thing, the Balrog thought to himself as he took a whiff of Eowyn’s tea.

  “Oh, Eeeeowyyyyn…” he called over his shoulder. “Could you make some for me? My throat’s burning again…”

  “Very funny,” Eowyn grumbled. She flopped down on the couch, staring blearily into the TV. “What time do they step off?”

  “Knowing Sauron, he’ll storm right into the front of the parade, so I figure about ten fifteen.”

  “Great. So we’ve got twenty-odd minutes before the Nazgul start rewriting ‘The Night Before Christmas’.”

  “With
  one pissed-off Witch-king hanging back on the quarter waiting to bump
  Legolas off,” the Balrog nodded. He turned off the modem and rose,
  spinning backwards into Sauron’s recliner, glad to see that Boromir had
  heeded his…ah…suggestion to fireproof all the furniture.

  “You
  know, I just can’t shake this feeling that Wormtongue and his bunch are
  lurking outside the windows and doors,” Eowyn said after downing a gulp
  of tea.

  “Hey, I told Haldir to look forward to a cookout if
  they got ambitious again. Enjoy the parade and don’t worry about it.”
  Biting a claw, the Balrog stared thoughtfully at the image of the
  leading high-school band. “What I wouldn’t give to be in Gimli’s place
  now…”

  “What, tossing presents out to random little kids?” Eowyn chortled.

  “No,
  whacking Legolas on the back of the head with a riding crop,” the
  Balrog grinned. He turned up the volume, just in time to clap his hands
  over his ears and cause Eowyn to grab her forehead in pain. Half the
  high-school band had started off “Joy to the World” in E sharp while
  the other half started in D natural. It was going to be a long parade.

  • 12:22 pm
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