3169 Spitting

Sunday, February 20, 2011

“[That] is forbidden. But possible.”
-- Common French saying --

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I don't get into political discussions with Piper any more. He's solidly extreme right wing, sees only the wingnut viewpoint. He tries to "educate" me, to turn me from my obviously mistaken ways, but I just shake my head and change the subject.

In all the bad things that have been happening in his life right now, the good thing is that the market is picking up. He congratulated me Friday that of all his investment clients, I've been the only one who didn't panic at all back when everything was tanking. I just shrugged and assured him that everything would eventually come back. Sooner or later. Sit tight. (During the bad times he looked really bad. Discouraged. Wanted to avoid talking to his clients.)

I've made back all the money I lost during the dip, and made 3% on my investments in the past month alone. Piper wanted to give all the credit for the turnaround to his new tea bag buddies in Congress. I pointed out that yes, rich folks are brightening up. I've heard that sales of BMW, Mercedes, and Lexus are up, luxury resorts and spas are picking up again. But it's not so bright for the little folk. His buddies in Congress are making all kinds of cuts, but the programs they're cutting are all cuts to the poorer folks. Services. They're taking from the poor and giving to the rich. So yeah, naturally the rich are happy, and that's what's reflected in the market.

As Field says, "Those 235 poli-tricksters remind me of the bully that goes to the playground looking for a fight, and ignores the bigger kids shooting hoops and heads straight to the swing and jungle gym to pick on the smaller kids."

The smaller kids can't afford lobbyists.

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I don't understand why they want to cut Social Security. Despite everything you hear, SS is not running out of money. In fact, SS has been running a significant surplus, and actually lends money to the federal government. They just don't want to count the loans as SS assets, because then they'd have to pay them back. Oh, by the way, remember when "they" wanted to "privatize" Social Security, i.e. invest the money in the stock market? Funny that we don't hear so much about that these days. I wonder why. I guess they forgot why Social Security was started in the first place.

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Last time I had been to the old house, from all the droppings it looked like the mice were running riot, so I set mouse traps. I caught only one mouse. I don't understand.

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I buy a lot of stuff online. The delivery guys around here (FedEx, UPS, USPS, and that other one) just drop the stuff on the doorstep. UPS is the only service that bothers to ring the doorbell, sometimes. At the old house, I was way up a long drive off the end of a dead-end street, and the house wasn't visible from the road or from neighbors' houses, but delivery guys always rang the doorbell when they left a package. Here, houses are cheek-by-jowl, the doorstep and anything on it is close to and clearly visible from a street full of traffic, cyclists, and pedestrians, but the delivery services just dump the package and run.

Several times I've stepped out the front door and found packages I didn't know were there.

Worse, I could have stepped out and NOT found packages I DIDN'T know SHOULD have been there.

FedEx is the weirdest. They have little stickies that say "We delivered your package", and have spaces for date and time, and check boxes for things like front door, back door, garage, neighbor, and so on.

Only two problems. They don't fill out ANY of the spaces or boxes, and they stick it on the package!

What good does that do?

(Oh, look, there's a Delivery Notice on this package saying they delivered a package. I wonder where the package is?)

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When I'm on the computer in the morning and evening, Jasper bugs me to play. I accidentally discovered how to get him to not disturb me.

I sit at the desk on a canvas director's chair. I had put another canvas chair next to mine one day to show someone something on the computer. Jasper has appropriated the chair. I guess he likes the canvas sling seat. He's happy to sit or sleep there, as long as I reach over and stroke his head every so often.

The only problem is that it's right below the printer, so I have to warn him before I print anything. He's such a chicken....

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Last month Daughter was running out of pants, so I invited her to shop in my closet. I had some loose knit drawstring pants that fit her expanding belly fine. She's fine on tops - she wears a lot of baggy sweaters anyway. Yesterday she said she's down to one pair of shoes, running shoes that are wide enough for her expanding feet. We wear about the same size, but my feet are wider than hers, so I think I'll be short some shoes soon, too.

Baby's due the end of April. No, after three frustrating ultrasounds, they still don't know, so "quit asking!"
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