3563 Water and Fire

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Men are much more willing to compromise their health and sanity to make more money, women are more willing to compromise their financial status in order to have a more fulfilled, balanced life.

-- Kandralla --

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Today's dose of politics.  I had noticed that the conservatives seem to do a much better job of swaying opinion, destroying the credibility of ideas they don't like, appealing to the lowest denominator, and mobilizing people.  This explains how they do it, and the reason the liberals can't seem to get organized:  http://www.alternet.org/story/156084/it_is_no_mystery:_the_real_reason_conservatives_keep_winning?akid=9008.227416.8411ip&rd=1&t=8.

--------------------------------

Hercules' mother (let's call her HM) has been visiting Daughter and Hercules.  She arrived  Saturday and left yesterday morning.  Daughter was very uptight about her visit.  I pretty much didn't cross the street while she was here.  The woman flat-out drives me crazy.

Daughter is one of those people who needs alone time often.  We all know that when she's "in a mood" you don't prod her and absolutely don't touch her.  She came over here at one point and said, "Mom, I keep telling her I need some quiet time, and she keeps touching me!  She keeps putting her arm around me and asking what's wrong!  How do I make her leave me alone!?"

On Sunday, Hercules crossed the street to say hello, with the Nugget in the wagon.  He said as soon as HM changed her clothes, they were going to the beach at the end of the block.  I noticed that the Nugget was wearing a swimming diaper.  Daughter's car was gone.  I got an ominous feeling.

Ok, you need to know about "the beach".  It's not like the Jersey shore beaches.  Those are on the ocean.  This is a stretch of mixed sand and broken glass on a curve of Raritan Bay.  The Raritan River, the Hudson River, and The East River dump into Raritan Bay.  (Ever watch Sienfeld?  Remember Kramer swimming in the East River?  Raritan Bay is where that water goes.)  The bay water is murky.  About the only thing that lives in it is horseshoe crabs, and they have the constitution of cockroaches.  The crabs are the only reason the "beach" hasn't been paved over - it's where they lay their eggs every spring.

The last time we had the Nugget on that beach, she splashed water in her face, and Daughter got upset.

I got a little worried and asked if I could go along.

This was from when we first arrived:

Yup.  HM fully intended to take the Nugget into the water, to "get her comfortable" in water.   She carried her out into the waves, up to HM's chest.  Waves hit the Nugget in the face.  She got water in her ears, eyes, mouth, and I stood there wondering what pathogens and parasites might be in that water.  Hercules long ago gave up his cocoanuts to HM.  I was freaking out, but I kept my mouth shut.

It was a good thing I was there.  The two of them frequently got distracted, they'd be standing there looking at something with their backs to the Nugget (and the Nugget never stands still), and she'd be running off up the beach or into the water and they didn't notice until I'd yell "Grab her!"

There were horseshoe crabs in the water.  At one point Hercules was trying to herd a mating pair into shallower water and HM was trying to get a picture, and neither of them had any idea where the Nugget was.

I was glad when I looked up the seawall and saw Daughter arriving.

---------------------------------

Hercules gets cluster headaches.  He'll go weeks or even a few months without, and then he'll get slammed.  The weekend HM was visiting, he had several.  When Daughter arrived at the beach, a bad one hit, so he left.  By the time we got back to the house, he had gone to bed.

I wonder if there was a connection.

---------------------------------

Fireworks out there.  It's 10 pm and there's no point in going to bed.  Somebody on the next street behind me sounds like they're dynamiting their house.  I didn't go to the seawall to watch any.  You can see a lot of NYC, Staten Island, and up and down the NJ shoreline from there.  Don't know why, but I'm just not interested.

Someplace to the north just over the water had a huge show last night, maybe somewhere on Staten Island.  It went on for almost an hour, and there were never fewer than five huge double chrysanthemums in the air at any instant.  I could just see it from my dining room window.  It was amazing, but all I could think about was the expense.  What municipality around here has that kind of excess in their budget?  What could all that money have been used for instead?  Oh, maybe like repairing bridges, or water mains?  Soup kitchens and shelters?  I think it left me a little disgusted.

"Hey, we've got an extra $800,000 here!  Lets BURN it!!!"

---------------------------------

Oh, almost forgot.  Nugget was slapping at her right ear yesterday.   Thanks for the gifts, HM.
.

3055 Of dogs, poop, and dirt.

Saturday, August 14, 2010

"Those that flee temptation generally leave a forwarding address...."

-----------------------------------------------

There's a local guy whose blog I read. I don't know him personally, just found him one day while searching for information on some local event. Anyway, he's starting to really bother me.

He, his wife, two medium-large dogs, and a passel of cats live in a wooded area near county-owned land that is forested and has a stream running through it. He helps heat the house in the winter by burning wood, which he mostly gathers on land he doesn't own. That doesn't bother me too much because he doesn't cut living trees, but gathers wind-downed wood. Still, it's not his wood, and left alone would go to nourishing young trees.

He does have two habits that do annoy me. (Well, he has many habits that annoy me, but these two affect others besides him, so they bug me more.)

He takes the dogs with him everywhere, off leash, to people's homes, to outdoor cafes, yard sales, everywhere, and seems to think everyone should be fine with that - which might be ok except that the dogs are not particularly well-behaved. They're "safe", in that they wouldn't so much as growl at anyone or other animals, and they don't usually wander far out of sight of him, but not everyone is relaxed around biggish dogs. Worse, they very well might piddle or poop on your carpet, and their owner thinks you should be fine with that and leaves it for you to clean up. I find his attitude very annoying.

Second, the county often dumps topsoil, gravel, or sand in areas around the stream for erosion control, flood control, and to make the little beach area more pleasant. Whenever this guy needs fill, he goes to those areas and takes what he wants. He seems to think it's there for his use. That royally pisses me off. Does he not care why the fill is there? Does he not care that we paid for it? It's not as free as he seems to think it is.

---------------------------------

The above reminded me of an incident with Ex#2's mother. I've mentioned that she hated me and used every possible passive-aggressive way to demonstrate her feelings.

Ex#2 had to go "home" for every holiday, and I was not allowed to beg off. Sometimes we took my dog along. She was a medium-sized black Australian Kelpie, and very well behaved. Ex#2's mother had a small terrier.

One time when we were visiting and had brought the dog along, arriving that morning, dear MIL came to me in the evening all in a huff and accused my dog of having pooped behind the couch (which was at an angle across a corner). She had been watching television and smelled it, and tracked it down to behind the couch. She took me to the room and had me kneel on the couch, and look at the evidence.

Yep. There was poop in the corner behind the couch. BUT, the poop was covered with white fungus, which indicated that it had been there several days. And the space between the corners of the couch and the wall were much too small for my dog to have gotten through. Her dog could have gotten through easily. Third, my dog had been beside me all day, and neither of us had been in that room. I pointed that all out, and she furiously informed me that her little darling was much too good to have done it. Therefore it must have been my dog.

Ex#2 wouldn't stand up for me. He told me to just clean it up. I think that was the first hint of no future with him.
.