Saturday, October 03, 2015

5016 Is it the weather?

Saturday, October 3, 2015

Holding resentment is like drinking poison
and expecting the other person to die.
It doesn't work.

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Well, it's beginning to look like Joaquin isn't going to hit us.  But right now, and for the past few days and probably a few days more, we are experiencing a Nor'easter.  I gather that's what's pushing the hurricane out to sea, so I guess we can't complain much.  We're getting lots of rain and lots of wind.  I can't hear the wind in the house, but when I go out I can hear roaring.  There was a flock some kind of wide-winged soaring bird flying high this afternoon, and they were flying backward!  Facing east, but moving west.  Weird.

I noticed that sometimes the wind dropped, no movement in the trees, but the roaring went on.  I suspect some of the sound isn't wind in the trees at all.  I suspect it's surf.  Wind kicking the water around.  I'm not going to walk to the end of the street to find out for sure.

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The recent shooting at that college in Oregon.  Apparently the guy did it because he wanted to be famous.  Get his name known.  So, yeah, let's not mention his name.  The media says after every instance that they shouldn't make these guys famous, and then they do.  Shrug.

I found a very good comment on the Field Negro's blog (I'm not going to link because his commenters past maybe the first five are ... assholes), but this early comment says some of what I'd like to say, so, here it is:


Anonymous said...

    Well, if it's already been decided we're not going to do anything about access to guns (the NRA appears to have decided this for us), then we're left attacking the motive for using them.


    But then, we run up against other complaints from some of the same wingnuts who resist gun control.


    If we want to do something about street crime, we've got to create a fairer economic climate so that everyone can earn a legitimate living. That means greater funding of education, industrial policy to develop poor urban and rural areas, better transportation to jobs, labor laws that boost the average worker's wages, etc. It also means reversing "tough-on-crime" [justice system] policy: ending the Drug War, less-punitive sentences for non-violent crime, incentivizing employers to look past ex-cons' records in hiring, etc.


    Inevitably, all of that stuff requires higher taxes and lower incomes for rich people and/or being "nice" to criminals, so that's a "no" from conservatives.


    On the other hand, if we want to reduce mass shootings, the main avenue is addressing mental illness. Yet, mental health care costs rich people money, so that's out, too.


    Thus so we're back to the usual completely ineffective conservative remedies: scold black people, recommend everyone get some more Jesus in their lives, bash immigrants. Lather, rinse, repeat.


    Same shit, different day.

I love the way people  like Jeb Bush say "nobody" knows how to fix it, so we can't.  Um, Jeb, there are several other developed countries who HAVE fixed it.  Listen to Obama's speech and you'll hear about them.  Nobody?

I figure one of the first things to do is to get special interest money out of the election process, so maybe our representatives can represent the people instead of _______________ (fill in the blank with the NRA, the Koch brothers, whatever you like, or don't like).  Other countries have been able to figure this out.  Don't know why we can't --- oh, yeah, look who we're asking to do the reforming....  ne'mind.  Hopeless.

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The green quote at the top is random, but today I read it and think, "Yeah, well, what else can you do?"  The whole damn country is drinking poison.
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Sunday, September 27, 2015

5015 Awwwww....Gramma's pause button

Sunday, September 27, 2015

"Be who you are and say what you feel,
because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind."
 -- Dr. Seuss --

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I dropped the Nugget and her mommy and daddy at Newark Airport on Thursday.  Nugget was all excited at "going on VACATION!" and flying on an airplane and seeing alligators!  Her goodbye to me was rather perfunctory.  
Today I got a phone call from Florida, from a sobbing Nugget who missed her Gramma terribly.  Poor little thing.  There have been many times that I haven't seen her for a week at a time, and it never bothered either her or me, but I guess being in a strange place, being obviously far away, in obviously different surroundings, makes a difference.

When she's upset about something, she often wants to see Gramma.  I offhandedly mentioned to Daughter that I want to be a "safe haven" to Nugget.  Naturally, Daughter was offended by that.  It's not like I want to replace Daughter as Nugget's main haven, but that I want to be a safe place she can go where there's no pressure, no schedules, where she can relax completely and maybe even think things over in her own way.  I can be more indulgent than her parents.  Grammas are allowed.  There are no expectations.

So I think she's just a little overwhelmed right now, and wants to "hit pause".   Gramma has the pause button.

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I have acquired (via Craig's List) a large, wide, blond wood-finish 3-drawer file cabinet.  I can maybe now dig my way out of the paper piles.  

All my life I've had a problem with paper.  At the country house we had four wide drawers, but still there were piles of paper everywhere.  The main problem was that I'd pay bills, or open mail, and then I didn't file stuff right away, because it took so long, and the reason it took so long was that there was a separate folder for everything.  An electric company folder.  One for phone stuff, one for each of the cars, separate ones for each of the insurance policies, separate ones for each bank account, for each stock, ... and so on, spread out over four drawers with three rows of hanging folders in each drawer, arranged alphabetically.  So filing was a royal pain.  Up, down, back, forth, over the drawers, for each piece of paper.  The greatest system in the world is literally useless if you don't use it.

Now that the only person I have to answer to is myself, I have simplified.
There's one folder for everything I pay every month.  It's labelled "Utilities", but it also includes credit card  bills.
One folder for all insurance policies, of any kind.
One folder for all bank statements.
One folder for everything having to do with investments.
One folder for all taxes.
One folder for all auto purchase and service records.
And so on.

It's kind of arranged by "when processed" grouping.  Monthly stuff, quarterly stuff, random stuff.  That way, when I pay the monthly bills, I can just gather up everything and put it in one place.  No sorting.  The bank statements usually arrive at about the same time.  Within the folders, nothing is sorted.  It's just a jumble.  If I ever have to pull together a history, it will be easy enough to just go through the jumble in the proper folder and pull out the pieces I need.

I'm starting to feel better.  Not just because I'm getting a handle on the mess, but now I might be able to actually find stuff.
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