2565 Cold

Saturday, August 29, 2009

Those who think history repeats itself will be forced to relive it.

(Not what it seems.)
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I could have taken stuff to the recycle center this morning. I didn't. I could go to the county fair today. I won't. I could go to an auction this evening. I shan't. Instead, I'm holed up here trying to keep warm.

It's cold out there! Low 60s. Right now it's above 70 in the house, but I think I may have to switch from A/C to heat by this evening. I figure what few warm days we'll have from now on can be handled by windows and the attic fan.

After spending Thursday at the hospital with FW, I did absolutely nothing yesterday, except clean out all the stuff that had arrived on the internet. I don't know why, but I didn't feel like doing anything else. It looks like today might be the same.

I've got medical insurance stuff to work on, and the father-in-law's estate is about to be settled, so I've got an 80-page report to review and then I have to call the attorney, and Daughter wants me to locate childhood photos for her, and I'm to the point where if I don't do laundry soon I'll have to buy more underwear, and, and, and .... I probably won't do any of it today.

You know, I think it's just because it's cold. I can't face losing summer.
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2564 A Day in the Hospital

Friday, August 28, 2009

Me: Divorce is tortious, tortuous, and torturous.

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FW had been having abdominal pain for several weeks, to the point where she was unable to work. She'd had all kinds of scans and tests, and nothing showed as the cause, so she was scheduled for exploratory laparoscopic surgery yesterday.

She needed a ride to the hospital, and since I am the only person she knows who doesn't work and who also has a car (even though I live a hair over an hour away), I was elected to take her in. I was grateful that she wasn't scheduled for one-a-them early hour arrivals.

We arrived at the hospital a little before noon. She was installed in a room, with a gown and an IV, and we waited about five hours before they finally wheeled her away. We'd have no idea whether she'd be staying the night until it was over, so I had to wait.

During the pre-surgery wait time, we talked a lot. We haven't really associated much in the past year or more, ever since I decided her mood swings were too much for me (and her vicious attacks when I didn't meet her expectations were poisoning me), and I withdrew. So there was a lot of ground to cover.

Naturally, she was worried, and they weren't allowing her any pain killers, so she was in pain. I was trying to think of non-lethal causes for the pain, like pinched nerves in the lower back and so on. Along the way, she mentioned that a few years ago she'd had an enormous (benign) tumor removed from an ovary, and I offered adhesions as the most likely possibility.

Yup. I should be a diagnostician. They freed the adhesions and released her at about 9 pm. She was still a bit weak (but no longer groggy) when I got her home. She has steep stairs in her house, and the only bathroom is upstairs, so we installed her upstairs with water, takeout Chinese, and phone, and orders not to attempt the stairs until morning.

I got home just before 11 pm. Called her this morning. She's fine.

Now I'm in a minor panic. I know she's going to want to renew the old ramming around we used to do, and I can't fall into that trap again, because she WILL turn on me again. The verbal attacks. I can't. This is the woman The Man laughingly refers to as my "psycho ex-girlfriend". I just can't.
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2563 Yeah, ok.

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Deepak Chopra, quoting a Vedic scholar: I am that; you are that;
this is that; that is all there is, and if you understand that,
you understand all.

I don't understand.

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I'm in love again. The red flags are still flapping in the wind, and I don't care.

It took him six months to use the "L" word, so I gather he doesn't use it lightly. I mentioned to him last night that he'll say "I love you" easily on the phone or in an email, but he'd never yet said it to my face. So he did. And to my ear. And to the top of my head. And he signed this evening's email:

Love you, to your face,
[The Man]

Sigh.

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Later: After filing this post, I went to the blog to ensure it got posted correctly, and as I was proofreading it, the music started up. It was Tracy Chapman's "Give Me One Reason".

Coincidence?
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2562 Community gardens feed the community

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Isaac Asimov: Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.

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Quick note. I'm meeting Piper for lunch on the riverside patio of the Rhinecliff Hotel, and then meeting The Man later this afternoon, so I need to get moving.

I caught the first few minutes of Martha Stewart before I changed the channel. She was talking about feeding your family from vegetable gardens - in your back yard (shot of her enormous garden), patio containers (shot of a lonely tomato plant surrounded by herbs), or a community garden (shot of fenced area with neat raised beds).

Ex#2 and I participated in a community garden effort when Daughter was a toddler and we lived near Gaithersburg, MD. We worked hard, preparing the soil, fertilizing, weeding, picking insects, and although our section was the most healthy and productive, we never got to eat anything from our plants. There were apparently others in the neighborhood who considered it a food bank, and everytime I went to check and hoped to gather, our produce had been stripped.

I don't see how a community garden, the type where each person has a plot and grows and picks their own choice of plants, can possibly work without a 24-hour armed guard, and checking of ids against plots.

When I lived in Highland, I briefly belonged to a garden co-op. Designated people tended the garden, and members could go and pick up a bag every week containing whatever was ready that week. That didn't work for Daughter and me, because it wasn't our choice of produce, and we could eat only so many turnips and pumpkins per week.

I'm trying this. Whether it look right or not will depend on Blogger's formatting, but here goes:
*´¨)
¸.·´¸.·*´¨) ¸.·*¨)
(¸.·´ (¸.·´ * Silk

Edit: Nah. Blogger removed some of the necessary blanks. Suggestions? What I need is a unprinted character in the bottom line to replace the blanks, or a different font that doesn't close up the spaces. ???

2561 Gramma did it right.

Monday, August 24, 2009

A girl has to have a life goal before she starts dating boys,
or boys become the goal.

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Gramma was devoted to her shows: "Love of Life", "The Guiding Light", "As the World Turns", "The Edge of Night". All of her friends and family knew not to call her during the time they were on, because she would give you short shrift during a few of them, and flat out would not answer the phone during "Light" and one other, "Night", I think. And that was before answering machines.

I have exactly one show I watch during the daytime - the first half-hour of "The View", which is on at 11 am. How come everybody in the world always calls between 11 am and 11:30? It's uncanny.

My home phone will take a message, and if the caller doesn't leave a message, it will still tell me the calling number, and the name if available. So I don't have to answer. I can call back later. But I always do answer.

I'm not very bright.
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2560 I'm hard.

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Steve Wozniak, "Newsweek" 2/19/96: I read the papers
to find out who I am,
so I can be it.

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I get annoyed when someone associated with TV dies, and then the show(s) do a long eulogy of some behind-the-scenes guy we may never even have heard of, complete with clips and testimonials.

I can understand their desire to do it, but hey, I didn't know the guy, and really don't care.

I mean, it's not like I enjoy going to random funerals.
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2559 For consideration...

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Sophocles: Truly, to tell lies is not honorable.
But when the truth entails tremendous ruin,
to speak dishonorably is pardonable.

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Some people think that government should be small, that big government is restrictive. Others see nothing wrong with big government. People rarely mention big business in that context.

I don't necessarily think big government is good, but consider that the only thing that can contain and restrain big business is big government. Without big government, big business becomes the government. Which do you trust more, and which do you trust least, with making decisions that affect your life?

Big business? Or big government?
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2558 Cars, and men, and stuff

Sunday, August 23, 209

Me: Men don't fall in love with a person.
They fall in love with the way they feel
when they're with that person.

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I saw "Gran Torino" last night, in that totally sexy home theater in Valatie last night. The drive upriver was exciting again. It rained so hard at one point that I couldn't see the tail lights of the car four lengths ahead of me, and there was no place to pull off the road. Torrent.

There were four guys and me at the movie. They were more offended by some of the language used in the movie than I - or maybe it's that old chauvinistic problem, the language would have been fine with them had I, a female, not been there. Two of the guys couldn't believe that real street thugs talk that way. Heck, I don't know where they live, but ordinary high school kids talk like that these days (every third word starts with "f", that all-purpose adjective, adverb, verb, and interjection).

I highly recommend the movie, by the way.

The car wasn't really as big an issue in the movie as either the title or synopsis would imply, but on the drive home I was thinking about cars I have known.

Before he retired, my father bought a new car every three years or so, and always a Buick with all the options, like the one with "air ride", where when you turned the car on it actually rose into the air as the pillows in the shocks filled. Or the one with the electric eye on the dashboard (in the late '50s!) that sensed whether it was day or night, and automatically turned the headlights on if it was dark, and lowered them for oncoming cars. I guess it was handy, but it tended to overreact, and turned the lights on in garages, underpasses, and tunnels, or even if there were trees closed over the road. Lightning at night (as there was tonight, which is what made me think of it) made it go crazy clicking from high to low beams.

I also thought about my series of VW Karmann Ghias (coupe and convertible) in the mid 60s to mid 70s. Loved those cars. But a lot of my friends in those days were young and unsophisticated guys in their 20s, and they thought a motor in the rear was incredibly stupid. That was the days of long hoods covering huge mega-horsepower motors, and all real cars had two drive wheels, in the rear. Everybody knew if you put drive wheels in the front, you wouldn't be able to steer.

Their argument against the rear motor: "Where do you put a horse to a cart? In front! You don't put the horse behind the cart! That's stupid! The horse pulls the cart, doesn't push it! Yuk yuk yuk (slapping each other on the back - ha, good one!)"

I'd respond, "Where are your drive wheels? In the rear! Your car is pushed, not pulled. You don't even know where your horse IS!" Silence.

They thought I was too smart for my britches. (Eh. Maybe that's why they kept trying to get them off me. Had to exert dominance somehow....)
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