3440 I really don't need this

Saturday, January 7, 2012

Ambition is a poor excuse for not having enough sense to be lazy.
-- Steven Wright --

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I've been suspecting a UTI for the past ten days. The AZO strip said "sorta", and the strange odor to my urine is back. I have no other symptoms. I've been drinking a lot of water, and upped the cranberry tablets. Sometimes the odor would go away for a day, then it would be back. The urologist has office hours only on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday (other days he's doing surgery and stuff, and you can't even make an appointment on the non-office days), so on Thursday I finally faced the fact that I would have to make an appointment on Monday.

Yesterday afternoon I started the dull pain across the top of my hips and the heavy feeling in the abdomen, and in the evening the slight nausea started - not like I feel like I might throw up, but like I don't want to eat. Just before I went to bed the blood started. My urine was red last night and first thing this morning, with small stringy clots.

I just piddled a few minutes ago, and now it looks fine.

I don't know what's going on. I now have less pain in the back, so maybe I passed a small stone? I'm now piddling into a strainer.

I called the doctor's office just in case there might be someone there, and I got the message that "if it's an emergency, call 911." I don't want to go to the ER. That's horribly expensive even with insurance, and I doubt that this is an emergency.

Sigh. I really don't need this....

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I also woke up this morning to a Meetup announcement, that one of my event organizers has scheduled a Super Bowl Party, in a bar, for my meetup group.

I was immediately extremely angry. I was very specific with those women that the group was for dining and conversation, I specifically set a geographic boundary, I specifically said we don't do bars, bands, or booze (although if the restaurant happens to have a bar that's ok), I specifically said that attendance should be limited to one table of diners. I was very clear that it was a small conversational group.

She has set up an unlimited blowout in a bar on Super Bowl Sunday, way outside the geographic limit, with DJ and dancing after the game.

What's wrong with these people? She completely ignored everything I said.

I waited until I calmed down, then I wrote an email to all four, saying that I was pleased that they were taking the reins and scheduling events. However, I would appreciate it if they would reread the initial email I had sent as to the purpose of the group. I said that I am allowed to start up to three groups, so if any of them would like to start a separate group under my account, they may do so. I mentioned that I was going to cancel the Super Bowl party as outside the parameters of the dining group.

Then I sent a separate email to the woman who organized the party, saying that she is welcome to start a group under my account, she can name it and define it any way she wishes and have complete control over it. Then after it's set up, I'll cancel the party under the dinner group and we'll just have everyone who RSVPed for the party move to her group and RSVP there.

What do you want to bet she doesn't read the entire notes, blows up, freaks out, emails all 38 current members blasting me, and just generally makes life miserable for me?

Sigh. I really don't need this....
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3439 Duh....

Friday, January 6, 2012

Another happy ending….

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It's Friday. Another week during which I made absolutely no progress on anything.

Well, I did find the forms online to kill my NY "business". I never bought anything using the tax id and I never sold anything, but I still had to file tax forms for it, so I figure I may as well kill it. All the forms I could find online to kill a DBA were dated for 2011, though. I hope there are no major changes in the forms for 2012.

I couldn't actually print them because my printer has a problem.

It worked fine for a few weeks after I bought it, then it quit printing things in real time. The error message says it's offline. But it would, however, print everything on the queue when I IPLed. As soon as Windows was full up, it was offline again. About two weeks ago it stopped even that.

It will scan documents and print them - so essentially I have a copier. It has never, since I first installed it, been willing to send scanned stuff to the computer.

I figured I should uninstall and reinstall it, but I can't find the disk or booklet that came with it. I swear they were on top of the desk overhead, but they're not there now.

So I sent links to the tax forms to Daughter to print for me, but she is extremely relaxed about stuff like that. Oh, well, I have until March.

It just seems like everything these days is either going wrong, or is harder than it should be. I want to hide in my bed. Yesterday I didn't get dressed at all.

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I have done nothing with the Meetup dinner group, either, since that dinner last summer when nine people signed up, and then one by one they cancelled out until the afternoon of the dinner I was the only one left.

It was up for renewal this month, and I didn't want to pay for renewal if I wasn't going to do anything, so I'm trying something. I asked the members for volunteers as event coordinators. Four women volunteered. I sent them an email asking that they please, when they schedule a dinner, keep to my vision for the group:
- Local to this area (I specified "south of"/"north of" boundaries)
- Limit to six or eight at table
- Make sure ALL information is in the original announcement so there won't be update after update, change after change.

Yeah. Sure. I keep forgetting that people are crazy. One of the women has scheduled a dinner for the end of January. No attendance limit, and she's changed the time already. She wants reservations in a whole week before so she can "make arrangements with the restaurant". I guess she's unaware that people wait until the last minute to drop out. It's terrible of me, but I almost hope she learns from this....
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3438 Tarnish

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

When everything is coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.
-- Steven Wright --

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I have a lot of silver. Not like big valuable silver tea services or trays or tableware, just bits scattered around, stuff I bought at antiques auctions, like silver trimmed candy dishes, pitchers, silver knobs on walking sticks, stuff like that. The big thingy (urn?) I bought in Morocco is covered with thin straps of silver, and I have ancient brass or copper mid-eastern urns that have traces of the original silver on them. I have a lot of silver jewelry, antique stuff plus things I bought in Morocco, Thai sliver, torques from southeast Asia, handmade stuff from craft fairs. The older stuff isn't sterling, of course.

It all lived quite happily in the house upriver. Even the old stuff. Tarnish grew gradually, requiring a touch-up polishing maybe every three or four years.

I've noticed that as I've brought things down here, they've been tarnishing badly, rapidly. My Miao/Hmong neckrings are almost black. Within three months in this house, most of the silver jewelry becomes unwearable.

Is it something wrong with the house?

I researched. It's sulfur dioxide in the air that tarnishes silver. SO2 is one of the more dangerous components of air pollution. It comes from the burning of sulfur-containing fossil fuels, like by power plants and automobiles, and from home heating fuel oils, and can cause severe lung disease and other pulmonary problems like asthma.

I've heard that NJ is the asthma (and autism) capitol of the US.

Hmmmm.

Also apparently the silver rotting capitol.
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3437 Greek yogurt

Sunday, January 1, 2012

THE cAPS lOCK IS LIKE pIG lATIN FOR YOUR FINGERS.
-- Scott Meyer, “Basic Instructions” --

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Like the texture of Greek yogurt but don't want to pay the price?

Buy a 32-oz container of regular yogurt; the least expensive house brand is fine as long as the only ingredients are milk and live culture.

Line a strainer, preferably the kind with wire mesh, with one layer of cheesecloth. Dump the yogurt in. suspend it over a large bowl or pot such that there are several inches between the bottom of the mesh and the bottom of the pot. Do not stir the yogurt.

Cover with foil or a dishtowel or the pot lid and put in the refrigerator.

Check it the next morning and pour off the liquid that has collected in the pot. That's the whey. You can drink it. It's good. Keep checking and pouring off evening and morning until there's no more (or very little) whey. Do not stir the yogurt while it's draining.

Dump the yogurt out into a bowl or the original container. You should now have about 2/3 the volume you started with, which is why Greek yogurt is more expensive -- but nobody explained that to us -- but still, at half the cost, this is cheaper. Stir it gently with a whisk until it's smooth, no more lumps. You can now add a tablespoon of honey and stir it in, or a little sugar and vanilla. Or fruit. Or jam. Or nothing.

Voila! Greek yogurt.
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3436 Midnight

Sunday, January 1, 2012

Bad decisions make good stories.

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I babysat the Nugget last night at my house while her Mommy went out and her very tired Daddy slept. (His mother had been visiting the past few days. She's high energy and natters constantly, so it's a bit of a strain. Overstimulating for Nugget, too. She left to drive back to NC in the afternoon.)

Nugget was overtired herself, and had some terrible complaint. She screamed. Maybe teething. Maybe bellyache. I'd never seen her so miserable before. She didn't want a bottle, she didn't want toys, she'd show brief interest in something new and then immediately start screaming again. I finally got her to sleep about 8:30 pm by massaging her back.

Mommy returned at about 11. We didn't wake the Nugget. She woke herself at about 11:50, screaming. I had wanted to turn the TV on a few minutes before midnight to see the ball (not because it's new year's but because Hercules had been at the assembly of the NYC ball last week, by invitation, and had talked about the lights), but instead we were dosing the Nugget with Colic Calm at the moment, and missed it.

Man, that stuff (the Colic Calm) is amazing! It worked in literally seconds. Nugget was not only not unhappy, she was smiling and ready to play. Daughter looked up and said, "What time is it?" I said "12:04." Daughter apologized for my missing the ball drop, and I said it's ok, at the stroke of midnight Nugget had smiled and reached for me.

That's even better.

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Somewhere my mother picked up the custom of eating sauerkraut on New Year's Day, for luck all year. In fact, she insisted we eat it because to not eat it guaranteed bad luck all year (well, those years she happened to remember and had sauerkraut in the cupboard, anyway).

For lunch today I had my favorite kielbasa, caraway and anise seed, onions, and thoroughly rinsed sauerkraut, all sauteed together in olive oil until brown.

Daughter thinks I'm nuts, but half of it is going over to their house as soon as they get back from their hike. And I'll stand there until she at least samples it.
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