Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Lunch today with a friend, at the fancy-schmanciest local inn. He jokingly referred to it as "the office Christmas party". It was sort of sad - the waitress forgot my soup, when it finally arrived it was cold, and the meat in my entree was dry. My friend is circumstantially celibate and when he's sober he claims he's perfectly happy with the state of things, but when he's had a few drinks he confesses that he wants every woman in the village. I want to find him a lady. He deserves a lady. He'd like me to volunteer, but that just isn't going to happen. I don't care how many millions he's got tucked away. On the other hand, if I do find him a lady, I will be jealous of her. He's a good guy and will treat her well.
------------------------------
Another blogger had mentioned problems with Versed. It rang a tiny bell in my head, and I've spent much of the late afternoon researching Versed. It's a sedative, administered "to help you relax" during various medical procedures, either with or without general or local anesthetics.
For most people, it causes amnesia for the period from a few minutes after you get it until it wears off. However, it doesn't knock you out. You are still "conscious" and can respond to questions and commands. It also has no effect on your experience of pain. You just don't remember the pain, or, for that matter, anything else that happened.
Some people think it's wonderful. They get "something to relax" them, and then wake up in the recovery room. I doesn't bother them that they had expected to be aware during the procedure. (They probably WERE, but they just don't remember it.)
Some people have had very bad experiences with it. The amnesia lasts much longer than it should, or they get depressed or paranoid for a long time afterward.
Now, here's why my bell went off. I have been very worried about my memory lately. I was looking at a photograph in the recent issue of the local Mensa newsletter, a picture of me and another person at the gathering in Chicago six weeks ago. It is a very posed photo - not a candid shot. But I have absolutely no memory of that picture having been taken. I did her hair in the style in the photo, then I went to a talk, and she left shortly thereafter. I can't figure out when there was even opportunity for the photo.
Last month Roman gave me the coupons for the third Thursday dinner, and a week later, when it turned out I would not be able to attend the dinner, he told me to give them to John. I denied that he had given me the coupons. He insisted he had, even told me when and where. I remembered being there, but did not recall the coupons. I looked in my purse. They were there. I said to him that I was worried about my memory lately, and he said he's noticed, too, and is also worried.
Things like that keep happening.
Just today I found a note in my purse, a list of things that have no meaning to me, in someone else's handwriting. I don't know whose. I vaguely remember having given someone my notepad to write on, but I don't remember who, when, or where, let alone why, or what if anything I'm supposed to do with it. I find a lot of mysterious notes in my purse.
I keep finding "lost" objects in the house in perfectly logical places, but I have no recollection of having put them there, and I'm the only person in this house - ever.
I've been thinking about my memory lapses, an attempt to define what kinds of things I forget. One thing they all have in common is briefness. If some interaction between me and another person or an object takes less than, say, six seconds, I may not retain the memory. It just plain never happened. It's a completely blank hole in my experience.
It seems to be getting worse, or maybe I'm just noticing it more.
Now, here's today's realization: The memory problems date from the endoscopic procedure of two years ago. The one where they told me I would be conscious during the procedure, but where I remember nothing from the "here's something to relax you" to the "all done!" Whadaya wanna bet they gave me Versed.
Most of the long-term adverse reactions I've been reading about involve lost of memories from BEFORE the Versed. Chunks of their lives missing. Nobody (so far as I have read) mentions loss of the ability to form memories of events occurring afterward. Perhaps it's an aftereffect others have experienced, but no one has made the connection. Proving a connection would be very difficult.
I am annoyed that when I was told I would be given "something to relax" me, and that I would be conscious during the procedure, no one mentioned that I would not remember the procedure. That's not my definition of "conscious". I do NOT believe that I was properly informed, and do not therefore feel that I gave informed consent.
I suspect the medical community loves Versed. It makes things so easy. They can do just about anything, have your (sort of) cooperation during the procedure, but they don't have to be particularly gentle or respectful, because you won't remember anything anyway, so you're not likely to complain. Or sue. So I suspect there isn't a lot of incentive on their part to question residual effects.
Scary.
What now? Will my memory lapses get better, or worse?
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Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
1588 Warm!
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
I had ordered online several bottles of a special shampoo. They arrived today. The box was stuffed with newspaper, and the bottles were wrapped in newspaper - which happened to be the real estate section of a Birmingham, Alabama, paper.
I was smoothing and flattening the pages to put into the recycle bags, and of course I read them.
OMG! Beautiful houses, half again the size of mine, for half the price! I could take a huge "loss" on this house, and STILL upgrade.
And it's WARM there!
What's the deal? Does no one want to move to Birmingham? What's wrong with Birmingham?
Update: Ok. I have just been told it's the most backward, racist, place in the country. Mensa's national gathering was there this past summer, and was boycotted by many members because of that. I forgot that's where it was.
.
I had ordered online several bottles of a special shampoo. They arrived today. The box was stuffed with newspaper, and the bottles were wrapped in newspaper - which happened to be the real estate section of a Birmingham, Alabama, paper.
I was smoothing and flattening the pages to put into the recycle bags, and of course I read them.
OMG! Beautiful houses, half again the size of mine, for half the price! I could take a huge "loss" on this house, and STILL upgrade.
And it's WARM there!
What's the deal? Does no one want to move to Birmingham? What's wrong with Birmingham?
Update: Ok. I have just been told it's the most backward, racist, place in the country. Mensa's national gathering was there this past summer, and was boycotted by many members because of that. I forgot that's where it was.
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1587 Ice Hint
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Putting salt on the walks and driveway can be bad for the nearby grass and flower beds. Try using fertilizer instead. It will melt the ice almost as well without hurting the plants. An overdose of either salt or fertilizer isn't good for the groundwater or city drains, but if it's going to happen anyway, fertilizer is slightly less harmful.
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Putting salt on the walks and driveway can be bad for the nearby grass and flower beds. Try using fertilizer instead. It will melt the ice almost as well without hurting the plants. An overdose of either salt or fertilizer isn't good for the groundwater or city drains, but if it's going to happen anyway, fertilizer is slightly less harmful.
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Monday, December 10, 2007
1586 The Usual Monday
Monday, December 10, 2007
I managed to spend $60 in the grocery store today, and I don't know how! I bought instant coffee, vanilla creamer, a bag of salad leaves, two bottles of dressing, two week's worth of canned and dry cat food, and two pints of ice cream. I don't understand.
A portion of the afternoon/early evening was spent in the pub with Piper and "the guys". It's becoming more and more comfortable there. Fun conversations. Free drinks. Mild flirtations. I could develop a habit.
I recently reopened this journal to searches. The search args that got people here in the past few days are:
human tendency for rebellion
tooky rearrange
1566 thanksgiving
link brightcove services player bcpid1329217643
penis filled its silken confines
narrowboat adventure
"cleartel"
house of mirth
best place to touch a woman
airwick hacking (there were several of these, from different countries!)
mertz's apothecary
silken touch
max gobrial
reporter silk madly
Gotta wonder sometimes what they're actually looking for. Whatever it is, except for the airwick thing, I ain't got it, and that should be obvious from the search hit blurb. Except the "1566 thanksgiving" one - that's the exact title of my post, but I can't imagine what would have someone searching for it by name. Very strange.
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I managed to spend $60 in the grocery store today, and I don't know how! I bought instant coffee, vanilla creamer, a bag of salad leaves, two bottles of dressing, two week's worth of canned and dry cat food, and two pints of ice cream. I don't understand.
A portion of the afternoon/early evening was spent in the pub with Piper and "the guys". It's becoming more and more comfortable there. Fun conversations. Free drinks. Mild flirtations. I could develop a habit.
I recently reopened this journal to searches. The search args that got people here in the past few days are:
human tendency for rebellion
tooky rearrange
1566 thanksgiving
link brightcove services player bcpid1329217643
penis filled its silken confines
narrowboat adventure
"cleartel"
house of mirth
best place to touch a woman
airwick hacking (there were several of these, from different countries!)
mertz's apothecary
silken touch
max gobrial
reporter silk madly
Gotta wonder sometimes what they're actually looking for. Whatever it is, except for the airwick thing, I ain't got it, and that should be obvious from the search hit blurb. Except the "1566 thanksgiving" one - that's the exact title of my post, but I can't imagine what would have someone searching for it by name. Very strange.
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Sunday, December 09, 2007
1585 Slip-sliding Away
Sunday, December 9, 2007
I went to a meeting tonight, to work on the by-laws. We had freezing rain, but the main roads weren't too bad at all. I had no trouble coming home until I got to my driveway.
I stopped at the end of the driveway to get the newspaper out of the tube, then backed up slightly to turn into the drive. I got about a quarter of the way up when the car stopped moving altogether. The wheels were still turning, spinning on ice, but the car wasn't going anywhere.
I stopped for a moment to think about it. What I should have done was back down the street a little to get a running start. No problem. I can back down and try again. That's when I realized I was moving. Backward. With the brakes on hard.
Ack!
I didn't slide over the bank and get rolled and deaded, and I did eventually make it up the hill. I hate winter. I hate my driveway. I don't know who laid it out with that curve next to a bank at the end. I'd love to redo it. There's no reason why it couldn't have gone straight down through the bank. A little dynamite and a jackhammer or two could solve so many problems....
.
I went to a meeting tonight, to work on the by-laws. We had freezing rain, but the main roads weren't too bad at all. I had no trouble coming home until I got to my driveway.
I stopped at the end of the driveway to get the newspaper out of the tube, then backed up slightly to turn into the drive. I got about a quarter of the way up when the car stopped moving altogether. The wheels were still turning, spinning on ice, but the car wasn't going anywhere.
I stopped for a moment to think about it. What I should have done was back down the street a little to get a running start. No problem. I can back down and try again. That's when I realized I was moving. Backward. With the brakes on hard.
Ack!
I didn't slide over the bank and get rolled and deaded, and I did eventually make it up the hill. I hate winter. I hate my driveway. I don't know who laid it out with that curve next to a bank at the end. I'd love to redo it. There's no reason why it couldn't have gone straight down through the bank. A little dynamite and a jackhammer or two could solve so many problems....
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1584 Kitty Update
Sunday, December 9, 2007
I mentioned a few posts back that Jasper likes to empty grocery bags, and had progressed to emptying kitchen cabinets.
His water dish is one of those water-cooler-like units, with the inverted jug that keeps a bowl filled. Two days ago he emptied the entire jug onto the laundry room floor, one paw-splash at a time. (Splash splash splash glurk glurk glurk splash splash glurk glurk ....)
Today I walked into a bathroom and discovered him tail-up in the toilet, splashing away, attempting to empty it onto the floor I suppose.
The kid needs more toys.
----------------------------
I didn't get much sleep last night. Somewhere in the house, something beeped every few minutes.
It wasn't loud enough to be a smoke or CO detector, but it was loud enough, and worrisome enough, to keep me awake. My right ear is dulled by old rifle range stupidities, so it's difficult for me to locate small sounds when they're intermittent. It sounded at first like it was in my bedroom.
I tried to sleep through it, but it worried and frustrated me too much.
I finally pinned the sound to the new cell phone, which was in my purse, at the other end of the house. I had left it on, and one of the new functions is that in the wee hours of the morning, it attempts to back up the directory. It was having some kind of difficulty, and was attempting to draw my attention to an error message.
Thanks, Verizon. If you're going to do something that might result in beeping complaints, maybe you should do it at a more reasonable hour? (Yeah, I checked. I don't think I can change the back up time.)
-----------------------------
For anyone with SiteMeter, I'm coming to you from Phoenix, Arizona, today.
.
I mentioned a few posts back that Jasper likes to empty grocery bags, and had progressed to emptying kitchen cabinets.
His water dish is one of those water-cooler-like units, with the inverted jug that keeps a bowl filled. Two days ago he emptied the entire jug onto the laundry room floor, one paw-splash at a time. (Splash splash splash glurk glurk glurk splash splash glurk glurk ....)
Today I walked into a bathroom and discovered him tail-up in the toilet, splashing away, attempting to empty it onto the floor I suppose.
The kid needs more toys.
----------------------------
I didn't get much sleep last night. Somewhere in the house, something beeped every few minutes.
It wasn't loud enough to be a smoke or CO detector, but it was loud enough, and worrisome enough, to keep me awake. My right ear is dulled by old rifle range stupidities, so it's difficult for me to locate small sounds when they're intermittent. It sounded at first like it was in my bedroom.
I tried to sleep through it, but it worried and frustrated me too much.
I finally pinned the sound to the new cell phone, which was in my purse, at the other end of the house. I had left it on, and one of the new functions is that in the wee hours of the morning, it attempts to back up the directory. It was having some kind of difficulty, and was attempting to draw my attention to an error message.
Thanks, Verizon. If you're going to do something that might result in beeping complaints, maybe you should do it at a more reasonable hour? (Yeah, I checked. I don't think I can change the back up time.)
-----------------------------
For anyone with SiteMeter, I'm coming to you from Phoenix, Arizona, today.
.
1583 TooRealEstate
Sunday, December 9, 2007
There's a real estate program on Sunday mornings, right after one of the news interview shows, where they take you on tours of some of the houses for sale in the Albany/Schnectady area. I am shocked by the difference in prices between here and there. I could sell my house here and buy two larger nicer houses there!
Anyway, between the house tours, they show pictures of the fronts of other more ordinary houses, with the address, realtor, and price.
One of those houses today was a standard two-story over-under duplex, the kind you see in all eastern cities. It had a large glass panel next to the front door. And standing inside that glass panel was a very large completely naked woman.
She was quite clear. I'm surprised no one else noticed before they put the photo up. Even if it's an optical illusion, you'd think someone would have said whoa.
.
There's a real estate program on Sunday mornings, right after one of the news interview shows, where they take you on tours of some of the houses for sale in the Albany/Schnectady area. I am shocked by the difference in prices between here and there. I could sell my house here and buy two larger nicer houses there!
Anyway, between the house tours, they show pictures of the fronts of other more ordinary houses, with the address, realtor, and price.
One of those houses today was a standard two-story over-under duplex, the kind you see in all eastern cities. It had a large glass panel next to the front door. And standing inside that glass panel was a very large completely naked woman.
She was quite clear. I'm surprised no one else noticed before they put the photo up. Even if it's an optical illusion, you'd think someone would have said whoa.
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Saturday, December 08, 2007
1582 Burn
Saturday, December 8, 2007
I planned to clean up the driveway today, in preparation for clearing snow when it happens. Yesterday we got about a half inch, which reminded me that ignoring the possibility of snow is not helpful.
Today it's 43 degrees, not too cold, sunny. There are several heaps of brush on the broad area at the top of the drive, left from when I cut out the blackberries and weeded the "flower bed" (snork), and they'll have to be moved so I can run the snowthrower. Moved to where? I don't know. That's why they're still there. I guess I'm going to have to delegate another burn pile area.
Well, that was the plan.
I was cooking grits in the microwave this morning. The combination microwave and convection oven is installed in a cubby that hangs under the upper kitchen cabinets. Jay and his ex-wife were both tall, and it worked for them, but it's too high for me. I have to stand on a stool to look in.
I didn't stand on the stool this morning to take the bowl of grits out.
It was a shallow bowl, and while it was still above eye level, I guess I tipped it a bit. I spilled boiling water and sticky grits all over my whole left hand. I stared dumbly at it for a moment, then jumped to the sink and ran cold water over it.
It hurt so bad for so long I was afraid I'd really messed myself up, but now it has settled down to just the ends of the first three fingers. The pointer, in fact, is almost normal. Just a little numb. The last joint of the ring finger is still red and alternates between burning and numbness. The last joint and a half of the middle finger is bright red, really nasty looking and it hurts a lot, but with any luck there won't be a blister.
This is an odd thing about my body - it doesn't overreact to burns. I've had things happen that should have resulted in swelling and blistering and weeping, but the worst that ever happens is that the burned area hardens, sometimes pretty deeply, and eventually flakes off, leaving a whiter patch of skin.
Anyway, that's my excuse for not getting the driveway cleared, and I'm sticking to it.
.
I planned to clean up the driveway today, in preparation for clearing snow when it happens. Yesterday we got about a half inch, which reminded me that ignoring the possibility of snow is not helpful.
Today it's 43 degrees, not too cold, sunny. There are several heaps of brush on the broad area at the top of the drive, left from when I cut out the blackberries and weeded the "flower bed" (snork), and they'll have to be moved so I can run the snowthrower. Moved to where? I don't know. That's why they're still there. I guess I'm going to have to delegate another burn pile area.
Well, that was the plan.
I was cooking grits in the microwave this morning. The combination microwave and convection oven is installed in a cubby that hangs under the upper kitchen cabinets. Jay and his ex-wife were both tall, and it worked for them, but it's too high for me. I have to stand on a stool to look in.
I didn't stand on the stool this morning to take the bowl of grits out.
It was a shallow bowl, and while it was still above eye level, I guess I tipped it a bit. I spilled boiling water and sticky grits all over my whole left hand. I stared dumbly at it for a moment, then jumped to the sink and ran cold water over it.
It hurt so bad for so long I was afraid I'd really messed myself up, but now it has settled down to just the ends of the first three fingers. The pointer, in fact, is almost normal. Just a little numb. The last joint of the ring finger is still red and alternates between burning and numbness. The last joint and a half of the middle finger is bright red, really nasty looking and it hurts a lot, but with any luck there won't be a blister.
This is an odd thing about my body - it doesn't overreact to burns. I've had things happen that should have resulted in swelling and blistering and weeping, but the worst that ever happens is that the burned area hardens, sometimes pretty deeply, and eventually flakes off, leaving a whiter patch of skin.
Anyway, that's my excuse for not getting the driveway cleared, and I'm sticking to it.
.
Friday, December 07, 2007
1581 Accent?
Friday, December 7, 2007
One of the things I played with on the new phone last night was "acclimating" it to my voice, so I can do hands-free dialing in the car. The phone would give me a series of letters or numbers that I had to repeat, and then it would repeat them back to me, and ask if it got them right.
ONE of us has a slight ("slat") southern accent! I think it's me. I pronounce "five" as "fav", and "I" as "Ah". And there's a slight tendency toward "Wa" on "Y". I never noticed that before.
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One of the things I played with on the new phone last night was "acclimating" it to my voice, so I can do hands-free dialing in the car. The phone would give me a series of letters or numbers that I had to repeat, and then it would repeat them back to me, and ask if it got them right.
ONE of us has a slight ("slat") southern accent! I think it's me. I pronounce "five" as "fav", and "I" as "Ah". And there's a slight tendency toward "Wa" on "Y". I never noticed that before.
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1580 Jasper, CASA, Phone
Friday, December 7, 2007
I may have to put childproof latches on all the cabinet doors. Jasper is the first kitty I've ever had who gets into cabinets. He's also the most active, most curious kitty I've ever had, and I've had cats all my life.
Well, there was Smokey - 1958 to 1975. She used to open the back door to let the dog in and out, and if she got hungry, she'd open the refrigerator and sit on a shelf. You'd open the door and find her in there sampling leftovers. But she never got into cabinets.
--------------------------------
I'm still getting all kinds of information from CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates). Back when I went to the volunteer fair at the mall, and signed up for the stuff I'm involved in now, CASA was one of the things that most interested me. Volunteers are trained, and then assigned by a family court judge to advocate for a child (or siblings) in a bad home situation.
I know a lot of the local judges and lawyers, from having done court mediation, and from having worked (as a volunteer) in a family law office. And I like kids and get along well with them, perhaps because of my size (they trust me) and because I don't preach to them. They tell me I'm "real".
(By the way, I don't agree with the statement on their site, that CASA is "the only volunteer organization that empowers everyday citizens as appointed members of the court." We volunteer mediators were also officers of the court, with all the reporting responsibilities attendant on that office.)
I had discussed it with several of my friends, and they all strongly advised me not to do it. Unfortunately, if a child is in no imminent physical danger, they often have to go back to their parents, even if they are in emotional or psychological danger, because of the rights of the parents, and this can be very difficult to accept. My friends all advised me that I'd get too emotionally involved.
My friends explained that I know I couldn't possibly work at an animal shelter, I'd end up taking home every animal no one else wanted, and CASA could be worse. I'd end up in jail for kidnapping children and hiding them from the court. A basement full of kids.
I think my friends are right. If not actual kidnapping, there might be a lot of stress and sleepness nights.
So when CASA kept trying to schedule me for the training, I wrote them a letter explaining that I had decided it was not a good match for me, and why, and "please take me off the list".
They're still sending me information, and I can't open the envelopes, because every time I do, I want to sign up again.
-------------------------------------
I went to bed early last night, about midnight, and spent the next two and a half hours propped on my elbows reading the new cell phone's instruction book and trying out all the phone's functions. I can read my email on my cell phone! But I don't know if that costs extra. The next bill will be interesting.
.
I may have to put childproof latches on all the cabinet doors. Jasper is the first kitty I've ever had who gets into cabinets. He's also the most active, most curious kitty I've ever had, and I've had cats all my life.
Well, there was Smokey - 1958 to 1975. She used to open the back door to let the dog in and out, and if she got hungry, she'd open the refrigerator and sit on a shelf. You'd open the door and find her in there sampling leftovers. But she never got into cabinets.
--------------------------------
I'm still getting all kinds of information from CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates). Back when I went to the volunteer fair at the mall, and signed up for the stuff I'm involved in now, CASA was one of the things that most interested me. Volunteers are trained, and then assigned by a family court judge to advocate for a child (or siblings) in a bad home situation.
I know a lot of the local judges and lawyers, from having done court mediation, and from having worked (as a volunteer) in a family law office. And I like kids and get along well with them, perhaps because of my size (they trust me) and because I don't preach to them. They tell me I'm "real".
(By the way, I don't agree with the statement on their site, that CASA is "the only volunteer organization that empowers everyday citizens as appointed members of the court." We volunteer mediators were also officers of the court, with all the reporting responsibilities attendant on that office.)
I had discussed it with several of my friends, and they all strongly advised me not to do it. Unfortunately, if a child is in no imminent physical danger, they often have to go back to their parents, even if they are in emotional or psychological danger, because of the rights of the parents, and this can be very difficult to accept. My friends all advised me that I'd get too emotionally involved.
My friends explained that I know I couldn't possibly work at an animal shelter, I'd end up taking home every animal no one else wanted, and CASA could be worse. I'd end up in jail for kidnapping children and hiding them from the court. A basement full of kids.
I think my friends are right. If not actual kidnapping, there might be a lot of stress and sleepness nights.
So when CASA kept trying to schedule me for the training, I wrote them a letter explaining that I had decided it was not a good match for me, and why, and "please take me off the list".
They're still sending me information, and I can't open the envelopes, because every time I do, I want to sign up again.
-------------------------------------
I went to bed early last night, about midnight, and spent the next two and a half hours propped on my elbows reading the new cell phone's instruction book and trying out all the phone's functions. I can read my email on my cell phone! But I don't know if that costs extra. The next bill will be interesting.
.
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
1578 Traffic
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
I haven't the faintest idea what has happened to today. It's 8:15 pm, I'm already tired, and I have done NOTHING all day. I think maybe it has something to do with the weather. It's almost 10 degrees below freezing outside, and although my house is reasonably tight, I feel cold. The thermostat says it's 74 in here. How can I be cold? I don't understand.
Speaking of not understanding, something is going on with other drivers lately that I don't understand.
I mentioned to a friend a few days ago that I've noticed lately that if I am on a multi-lane highway, and decide to change lanes, and there's a decent space in the lane I want to move into, and traffic in both lanes seems to be maintaining position (ideal for changing lanes), the very instant that I put my signal on to indicate the lane change, the car behind me in the target lane speeds up!, closing up the space.
Why? We could go on in the same positions for miles, but the minute I want to move into that lane, the other person speeds up. Is it a game? Is it "Oh no you don't - you can't get in front of me!" Or maybe they speed up when they see the signal because they hope I'll turn into them and buy them a new car? I don't understand.
So anyway, after I had mentioned it, my friend started noticing it too. So it's not just my perception, and not just people reacting to my little car. It really is happening a lot more.
Driving to dinner last night (1.5 hour drive), I noticed other strangenesses. I was heading down route 9w, during rush hour. People weren't paying attention to the speed limit, but not in the way one would expect. There's a section north of Highland with two south-bound lanes. The speed limit is 55, but there were two people, one in each lane, about two car-lengths apart, who were doing 45. Everyone behind them who wanted to do 55 had to pass one on the right, then squeeze back to the left to get past the second. And the guy potting along in the left lane never seemed to notice.
So when we finally got past them, and the long line of cars was doing 55, we came to a car on the right that had been pulled over by the police, nothing interesting, just an ordinary stop with plenty of room, and amazingly, everyone slowed down to 45, and then stayed at 45! Wha...? I don't understand. I didn't understand slowing down, and I don't understand staying slow.
From Highland south, the speed limit is mostly 55, with a few 40 or 45 patches through hamlets, and one 30 mph section where the village cop's radar gun is on hair-trigger. We stayed at 45 the entire way to Newburgh, even through the 30 mph section. I don't understand.
(Yeah, I did 45 through the 30, too, but it was because there was a long line of cars ahead of and behind me, and if I'd slowed down, twenty cars would have climbed into my trunk.)
Another thing I noticed was that when we stopped at a traffic light, and the line of stopped cars extended to cross another intersection, people blithely blocked the intersection, so that oncoming cars could not make a left turn into the side road. That stopped traffic on the other side, too. How stupid is that? Do they really not notice? Is everyone completely self-absorbed?
What's going on? Do we have a new generation of drivers who've never taken driver ed? My friend, back in the first example, has noticed the speed-up-at-lane-change problem in several states, so it's not a local thing.
Well, I made it to the dinner later than I meant, but still in time. I had to stop in Newburgh to pick up a friend, and I called her as I entered Newburgh and told her to go to the end of her driveway, "and hold your purse strap out so my side mirror can hook it as I pass, and then hang on tight!"
There were 12 of us at dinner, and I did manage to sit in the middle of the table, as I wanted. It was a pretty good group. Roman gave me a birthday gift of Israeli body lotion after dinner, and a CD of photos from his trip. I hadn't realized that although we'd talked on the phone several times since late October and his trip, I hadn't seen him since mid-October. How odd.
Now we have to get together sometime so he can narrate the photos.
.
I haven't the faintest idea what has happened to today. It's 8:15 pm, I'm already tired, and I have done NOTHING all day. I think maybe it has something to do with the weather. It's almost 10 degrees below freezing outside, and although my house is reasonably tight, I feel cold. The thermostat says it's 74 in here. How can I be cold? I don't understand.
Speaking of not understanding, something is going on with other drivers lately that I don't understand.
I mentioned to a friend a few days ago that I've noticed lately that if I am on a multi-lane highway, and decide to change lanes, and there's a decent space in the lane I want to move into, and traffic in both lanes seems to be maintaining position (ideal for changing lanes), the very instant that I put my signal on to indicate the lane change, the car behind me in the target lane speeds up!, closing up the space.
Why? We could go on in the same positions for miles, but the minute I want to move into that lane, the other person speeds up. Is it a game? Is it "Oh no you don't - you can't get in front of me!" Or maybe they speed up when they see the signal because they hope I'll turn into them and buy them a new car? I don't understand.
So anyway, after I had mentioned it, my friend started noticing it too. So it's not just my perception, and not just people reacting to my little car. It really is happening a lot more.
Driving to dinner last night (1.5 hour drive), I noticed other strangenesses. I was heading down route 9w, during rush hour. People weren't paying attention to the speed limit, but not in the way one would expect. There's a section north of Highland with two south-bound lanes. The speed limit is 55, but there were two people, one in each lane, about two car-lengths apart, who were doing 45. Everyone behind them who wanted to do 55 had to pass one on the right, then squeeze back to the left to get past the second. And the guy potting along in the left lane never seemed to notice.
So when we finally got past them, and the long line of cars was doing 55, we came to a car on the right that had been pulled over by the police, nothing interesting, just an ordinary stop with plenty of room, and amazingly, everyone slowed down to 45, and then stayed at 45! Wha...? I don't understand. I didn't understand slowing down, and I don't understand staying slow.
From Highland south, the speed limit is mostly 55, with a few 40 or 45 patches through hamlets, and one 30 mph section where the village cop's radar gun is on hair-trigger. We stayed at 45 the entire way to Newburgh, even through the 30 mph section. I don't understand.
(Yeah, I did 45 through the 30, too, but it was because there was a long line of cars ahead of and behind me, and if I'd slowed down, twenty cars would have climbed into my trunk.)
Another thing I noticed was that when we stopped at a traffic light, and the line of stopped cars extended to cross another intersection, people blithely blocked the intersection, so that oncoming cars could not make a left turn into the side road. That stopped traffic on the other side, too. How stupid is that? Do they really not notice? Is everyone completely self-absorbed?
What's going on? Do we have a new generation of drivers who've never taken driver ed? My friend, back in the first example, has noticed the speed-up-at-lane-change problem in several states, so it's not a local thing.
Well, I made it to the dinner later than I meant, but still in time. I had to stop in Newburgh to pick up a friend, and I called her as I entered Newburgh and told her to go to the end of her driveway, "and hold your purse strap out so my side mirror can hook it as I pass, and then hang on tight!"
There were 12 of us at dinner, and I did manage to sit in the middle of the table, as I wanted. It was a pretty good group. Roman gave me a birthday gift of Israeli body lotion after dinner, and a CD of photos from his trip. I hadn't realized that although we'd talked on the phone several times since late October and his trip, I hadn't seen him since mid-October. How odd.
Now we have to get together sometime so he can narrate the photos.
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1577 Heartstrings
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
(Photo used with permission.)
This is Eli, the tomcat, and Charlie, the coyote pup that Eli and his human are raising. You will find some beautiful photos and the story at http://dailycoyote.blogspot.com/. Go. Look. Read. Share.
[Later edit - I should say - start at the bottom of Daily Coyote and work UP, so you can see him grow up.]
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(Photo used with permission.)
This is Eli, the tomcat, and Charlie, the coyote pup that Eli and his human are raising. You will find some beautiful photos and the story at http://dailycoyote.blogspot.com/. Go. Look. Read. Share.
[Later edit - I should say - start at the bottom of Daily Coyote and work UP, so you can see him grow up.]
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Tuesday, December 04, 2007
1576 Stuff
Tuesday, December (Ack! Already?) 4, 2007
From Scott Adams, at http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/12/party-planning.html:
"One of the most useless party customs is giving attendees gifts as they leave. These guests already gave you a hostess gift when they arrived. The obvious solution would be to tell guests to throw their incoming gifts in a pile by the entrance, next to the shoes. When people leave, they can rummage through the pile and pick something they didn’t bring. Pardon my French, but I think a “voila” is called for."
Amen. I think Christmas presents should work that way, too.
-------------------------------------
If you stay in hotels a lot, watch this. I believe it. When you see those housekeeping carts in the hall, ever notice that they aren't loaded with glasses?
[http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1329217643/bctid1329232712]
----------------------------------------
I have just returned from a very enjoyable four-day weekend visiting with a friend in Virginia, where I attended (as a spectator) my first official bowling tournament. (Which is a little odd, because back when I was still speaking to my brother, he was very "into" bowling, participating in tournaments all over the country and actually making money at it. He was in televised nationals. And yet, I've never seen him bowl.) Anyway, it's like any other sport - it's a lot more interesting when you know one of the players. It was a good weekend.
-----------------------------------------
My cellphone is seven years old this month. In Phoneworld, it's an antique, but I've kept it because I'd never had any trouble with it and saw no reason to upgrade. It has few functions beyond making and receiving calls, but who really needs anything else? It's so large that when young people see it, they remark "Wow! That phone must do everything!"
I went to my service provider's store yesterday to have a small problem addressed, and discovered that my phone will no longer work (!!!) as of February because it's not 911-enabled, and it's analog, not digital, and analog service will end in February.
So they gave me a new phone. They figured they owed me three or four by now anyway. The new one isn't fancy, because I opted for durability instead.
I have about 57 numbers in the directory on the old phone. They said no problem, they just hook up both phones to some machine and it transfers the contents of the directory from the old to the new. Unfortunately, my old phone is SO old, there's no plug to hook it up to. So the clerk sat there and hand-transferred all my old directory to the new phone. Took an hour. So far the only typo I found is that in several places, "Eve" has become "Eye". I'll have to sit down sometime soon and check all the numbers.
----------------------------------------
Mensa dinner tonight. So far 10 people have said they'll be there. That's too many. An ideal restaurant dinner is about six. Beyond that, it tends to break up into two separate conversation groups, and no matter which group you end up in, the bits you hear from the other end of the table sound so much more interesting. I want to make sure I sit in the middle of the table, so I can swing-converse.
.
From Scott Adams, at http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/12/party-planning.html:
"One of the most useless party customs is giving attendees gifts as they leave. These guests already gave you a hostess gift when they arrived. The obvious solution would be to tell guests to throw their incoming gifts in a pile by the entrance, next to the shoes. When people leave, they can rummage through the pile and pick something they didn’t bring. Pardon my French, but I think a “voila” is called for."
Amen. I think Christmas presents should work that way, too.
-------------------------------------
If you stay in hotels a lot, watch this. I believe it. When you see those housekeeping carts in the hall, ever notice that they aren't loaded with glasses?
[http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1329217643/bctid1329232712]
----------------------------------------
I have just returned from a very enjoyable four-day weekend visiting with a friend in Virginia, where I attended (as a spectator) my first official bowling tournament. (Which is a little odd, because back when I was still speaking to my brother, he was very "into" bowling, participating in tournaments all over the country and actually making money at it. He was in televised nationals. And yet, I've never seen him bowl.) Anyway, it's like any other sport - it's a lot more interesting when you know one of the players. It was a good weekend.
-----------------------------------------
My cellphone is seven years old this month. In Phoneworld, it's an antique, but I've kept it because I'd never had any trouble with it and saw no reason to upgrade. It has few functions beyond making and receiving calls, but who really needs anything else? It's so large that when young people see it, they remark "Wow! That phone must do everything!"
I went to my service provider's store yesterday to have a small problem addressed, and discovered that my phone will no longer work (!!!) as of February because it's not 911-enabled, and it's analog, not digital, and analog service will end in February.
So they gave me a new phone. They figured they owed me three or four by now anyway. The new one isn't fancy, because I opted for durability instead.
I have about 57 numbers in the directory on the old phone. They said no problem, they just hook up both phones to some machine and it transfers the contents of the directory from the old to the new. Unfortunately, my old phone is SO old, there's no plug to hook it up to. So the clerk sat there and hand-transferred all my old directory to the new phone. Took an hour. So far the only typo I found is that in several places, "Eve" has become "Eye". I'll have to sit down sometime soon and check all the numbers.
----------------------------------------
Mensa dinner tonight. So far 10 people have said they'll be there. That's too many. An ideal restaurant dinner is about six. Beyond that, it tends to break up into two separate conversation groups, and no matter which group you end up in, the bits you hear from the other end of the table sound so much more interesting. I want to make sure I sit in the middle of the table, so I can swing-converse.
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1575 Big Brother, Thy Name Is Facebook
Facebook Admits Ad Service Tracks Logged-Off Users
FROM YAHOO NEWS ...Juan Carlos Perez Mon Dec 3, 12:00 PM ET
Facebook has confirmed findings of a CA security researcher that the social-networking site's Beacon ad service is more intrusive and stealthy than previously acknowledged, an admission that contradicts statements made previously by Facebook executives and representatives.
Facebook's controversial Beacon ad system tracks users' off-Facebook activities even if those users are logged off from the social-networking site and have previously declined having their activities on specific external sites broadcast to their Facebook friends, a company spokesman said via e-mail over the weekend.
Although according to the spokesman Facebook does nothing with the data transmitted back to its servers in these cases and deletes it, the admission will probably fan the flames of the controversy engulfing Beacon, which has been criticized by privacy advocates. The Facebook spokesman did not initially reply to a request for further explanation on how the Beacon action gets triggered if a user is logged off from Facebook, when the social-networking site's ability to track its users'activities should be inactive. It's also unclear whether Facebook plans to modify Beacon so it doesn't track and report on the off-Facebook activities of logged-off users.
Beacon is a major part of the Facebook Ads platform that Facebook introduced with much fanfare several weeks ago. Beacon tracks certain activities of Facebook users on more than 40 participating Web sites, including those of Blockbuster and Fandango, and reports those activities to the users' set of Facebook friends, unless told not to do so. Off-Facebook activities that can be broadcast to one's Facebook friends include purchasing a product, signing up for a service and including an item on a wishlist.
The program has been blasted by groups such as MoveOn.org and by individual users who have unwittingly broadcast information about recent purchases and other Web activities to their Facebook friends. This has led to some embarrassing situations, such as blowing the surprise of holiday presents.
On Thursday night, Facebook tweaked Beacon to make its workings more explicit toFacebook users and to make it easier to nix broadcast messages and opt out of having activities tracked on specific Web sites. Facebook didn't go all the wayto providing a general opt-out option for the entire Beacon program, as some had hoped.
Then on Friday, just hours after Facebook had scored some points with its modifications to Beacon, Stefan Berteau, senior research engineer at CA's Threat Research Group, wrote in a note about Beacon's until-then unknown ability to monitor logged-off users' activities and send the data back to Facebook.
Users aren't informed that data on their activities at these sites is flowing back to Facebook, nor given the option to block that information from being transmitted, according to Berteau.
If users have ever checked the option for Facebook to "remember me"-- which saves users from having to log on to the site upon every return to it-- Facebook can tie their activities on third-party Beacon sites directly to them, even if they're logged off and have opted out of the broadcast. If they have never chosen this option, the information still flows back to Facebook, although without it being tied to their Facebook ID, according to Berteau.
Facebook's admission over the weekend contradicts previous statements from the company regarding this issue. For example, in e-mail correspondence with Facebook's privacy department, Berteau was told, among other things, that "as long as you are logged out of Facebook, no actions you have taken on other websites can be sent to Facebook."
A similar statement was made by a high-ranking Facebook official in an interview with The New York Times published Thursday."If I buy tickets on Fandango, and decline to publish the purchase to my friends on Facebook, does Facebook still receive the information about my purchase?," a Times reporter asked Chamath Palihapitiya, Facebook's vice president of product marketing and operations at Facebook. "Absolutely not. One of the things we are still trying to do is dispel a lot of misinformation that is being propagated unnecessarily," Palihapitiya replied.
http://tinyurl.com/3ydej3
.
FROM YAHOO NEWS ...Juan Carlos Perez Mon Dec 3, 12:00 PM ET
Facebook has confirmed findings of a CA security researcher that the social-networking site's Beacon ad service is more intrusive and stealthy than previously acknowledged, an admission that contradicts statements made previously by Facebook executives and representatives.
Facebook's controversial Beacon ad system tracks users' off-Facebook activities even if those users are logged off from the social-networking site and have previously declined having their activities on specific external sites broadcast to their Facebook friends, a company spokesman said via e-mail over the weekend.
Although according to the spokesman Facebook does nothing with the data transmitted back to its servers in these cases and deletes it, the admission will probably fan the flames of the controversy engulfing Beacon, which has been criticized by privacy advocates. The Facebook spokesman did not initially reply to a request for further explanation on how the Beacon action gets triggered if a user is logged off from Facebook, when the social-networking site's ability to track its users'activities should be inactive. It's also unclear whether Facebook plans to modify Beacon so it doesn't track and report on the off-Facebook activities of logged-off users.
Beacon is a major part of the Facebook Ads platform that Facebook introduced with much fanfare several weeks ago. Beacon tracks certain activities of Facebook users on more than 40 participating Web sites, including those of Blockbuster and Fandango, and reports those activities to the users' set of Facebook friends, unless told not to do so. Off-Facebook activities that can be broadcast to one's Facebook friends include purchasing a product, signing up for a service and including an item on a wishlist.
The program has been blasted by groups such as MoveOn.org and by individual users who have unwittingly broadcast information about recent purchases and other Web activities to their Facebook friends. This has led to some embarrassing situations, such as blowing the surprise of holiday presents.
On Thursday night, Facebook tweaked Beacon to make its workings more explicit toFacebook users and to make it easier to nix broadcast messages and opt out of having activities tracked on specific Web sites. Facebook didn't go all the wayto providing a general opt-out option for the entire Beacon program, as some had hoped.
Then on Friday, just hours after Facebook had scored some points with its modifications to Beacon, Stefan Berteau, senior research engineer at CA's Threat Research Group, wrote in a note about Beacon's until-then unknown ability to monitor logged-off users' activities and send the data back to Facebook.
Users aren't informed that data on their activities at these sites is flowing back to Facebook, nor given the option to block that information from being transmitted, according to Berteau.
If users have ever checked the option for Facebook to "remember me"-- which saves users from having to log on to the site upon every return to it-- Facebook can tie their activities on third-party Beacon sites directly to them, even if they're logged off and have opted out of the broadcast. If they have never chosen this option, the information still flows back to Facebook, although without it being tied to their Facebook ID, according to Berteau.
Facebook's admission over the weekend contradicts previous statements from the company regarding this issue. For example, in e-mail correspondence with Facebook's privacy department, Berteau was told, among other things, that "as long as you are logged out of Facebook, no actions you have taken on other websites can be sent to Facebook."
A similar statement was made by a high-ranking Facebook official in an interview with The New York Times published Thursday."If I buy tickets on Fandango, and decline to publish the purchase to my friends on Facebook, does Facebook still receive the information about my purchase?," a Times reporter asked Chamath Palihapitiya, Facebook's vice president of product marketing and operations at Facebook. "Absolutely not. One of the things we are still trying to do is dispel a lot of misinformation that is being propagated unnecessarily," Palihapitiya replied.
http://tinyurl.com/3ydej3
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Wednesday, November 28, 2007
1574 Bonus for Buying Cheap
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Remember that online store, the one that I had guilt feelings about because I broke up an order so I could get multiple discounts?
Since then, they have been showering me with discount coupons - in the order boxes as they arrived, in the mail "for our valued customer", and stuck to the front of "special offer" catalogs. In the past 12 days, I have accumulated:
A card for $30 off a $100 order.
Two cards for 40% off my next order of any amount.
Six coupons for $10 off any order.
The big cards cannot be combined with each other, but the $10 coupons can be used in any combination with anything, including each other. And all that will be on top of any sales they're running.
Wow! When I have some time next week, I'm gonna sit down and figure out what I can get for free!
You know what's really weird? I have never, ever, not once, paid more than half the retail price for their stuff. I always hit their clearance sales, and accumulate and use the "thank you" coupons.
I guess this is proof that their things are overpriced. I can't be the only person doing this, but they somehow stay in business, and they think I'm wonderful.
.
Remember that online store, the one that I had guilt feelings about because I broke up an order so I could get multiple discounts?
Since then, they have been showering me with discount coupons - in the order boxes as they arrived, in the mail "for our valued customer", and stuck to the front of "special offer" catalogs. In the past 12 days, I have accumulated:
A card for $30 off a $100 order.
Two cards for 40% off my next order of any amount.
Six coupons for $10 off any order.
The big cards cannot be combined with each other, but the $10 coupons can be used in any combination with anything, including each other. And all that will be on top of any sales they're running.
Wow! When I have some time next week, I'm gonna sit down and figure out what I can get for free!
You know what's really weird? I have never, ever, not once, paid more than half the retail price for their stuff. I always hit their clearance sales, and accumulate and use the "thank you" coupons.
I guess this is proof that their things are overpriced. I can't be the only person doing this, but they somehow stay in business, and they think I'm wonderful.
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1573 Interruptions
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
I have so much to do today. Laundry, clean out the car, clean litter boxes, pay bills, go to the bank, get gas, select clothes for the weekend, hem anything I select that needs hemming, etc. Instead I've been answering the phone and doing other things that pop up out of nowhere. Like my gutter man called this morning, and said that even though the apple tree and the oak that overhang the garage still have leaves, we MUST clean the gutters today, while he has time and before the gutters freeze and we can't get the gutter clutter out at all. Joy.
At least I played it smart - it's now 3:18, it'll be getting dark soon, and the things I HAVE managed to cross off the list are those that require daylight.
.
I have so much to do today. Laundry, clean out the car, clean litter boxes, pay bills, go to the bank, get gas, select clothes for the weekend, hem anything I select that needs hemming, etc. Instead I've been answering the phone and doing other things that pop up out of nowhere. Like my gutter man called this morning, and said that even though the apple tree and the oak that overhang the garage still have leaves, we MUST clean the gutters today, while he has time and before the gutters freeze and we can't get the gutter clutter out at all. Joy.
At least I played it smart - it's now 3:18, it'll be getting dark soon, and the things I HAVE managed to cross off the list are those that require daylight.
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Tuesday, November 27, 2007
1572 House of Mirth
I just finished The House of Mirth. I'd wanted to read it for a year or so, I had bought a paperback copy. It sat in the "to read" pile, with all the others.
Then I discovered it online. I've read it over the past week. It's easier when I'm mostly just sitting here anyway. After I finished it, I read the forum comments. No one had the question I have.
What is the one word Seldon was bringing to Lily? One word. One.
.
Then I discovered it online. I've read it over the past week. It's easier when I'm mostly just sitting here anyway. After I finished it, I read the forum comments. No one had the question I have.
What is the one word Seldon was bringing to Lily? One word. One.
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Monday, November 26, 2007
1571 The Tree
I just saw on the news the state Christmas tree arriving in Albany, recumbent on a flatbed truck, cruelly cut trunk exposed. That always annoys me. "Oh, look, what a beautiful perfectly-shaped tree! It must have taken a hundred years to grow so large! Let's kill it!"
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1570 I Got Nothin'
Monday, November 26, 2007
Hey. I got nothin' to say. Talk about the weather, I guess.
Sleet last night. Drizzly rain today. Um, nothin' else to say about that.
Zzzzzzzz.............
Oh, ok, kitty update. Jasper seems to need a lot of human interaction. He's never far away from me. I have to be careful when I'm holding something in my hand (pens, scissors, spoons, panties, toothbrush, Kleenex, socks, whatever) and set it down, because he'll steal it and play with it, and then it disappears. Or I guess from Jasper's viewpoint, it escapes. He dearly loves tearing paper, so I can't even leave unpaid bills on the desk.
All of the other cats in my life have loved grocery bags. After I'd empty them, the cats loved to hide in them. Jasper isn't interested in empty bags or boxes (maybe because he was feral, he's leary of being trapped). He likes the bags full. When I bring groceries in and put the bags on the kitchen floor, he loves to empty the bags for me, all over the floor. Cinnamon seems to fascinate him.
Ok, now I got nothin' else.
.
Hey. I got nothin' to say. Talk about the weather, I guess.
Sleet last night. Drizzly rain today. Um, nothin' else to say about that.
Zzzzzzzz.............
Oh, ok, kitty update. Jasper seems to need a lot of human interaction. He's never far away from me. I have to be careful when I'm holding something in my hand (pens, scissors, spoons, panties, toothbrush, Kleenex, socks, whatever) and set it down, because he'll steal it and play with it, and then it disappears. Or I guess from Jasper's viewpoint, it escapes. He dearly loves tearing paper, so I can't even leave unpaid bills on the desk.
All of the other cats in my life have loved grocery bags. After I'd empty them, the cats loved to hide in them. Jasper isn't interested in empty bags or boxes (maybe because he was feral, he's leary of being trapped). He likes the bags full. When I bring groceries in and put the bags on the kitchen floor, he loves to empty the bags for me, all over the floor. Cinnamon seems to fascinate him.
Ok, now I got nothin' else.
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Sunday, November 25, 2007
1569 New Jersey Live
Sunday, November 25, 2007
So, Thanksgiving dinner was Friday, at the home of Daughter and Hercules, attended by the co-Mother-in-Laws. Daughter did a terrific job on the dinner. Frankly, I've never had better stuffing or candied yams.
Saturday another NJ blogger and I browsed sari stores, and sampled yummies.
Jasper was happy to see me when I got home late Saturday evening. Since he'd been baiting Miss Thunderfoot before I left, he'd spent my time away shut up in the laundry room. I'm a little worried because while I was gone he'd eaten the two days worth of food I'd left for him, and today he looks like he'd swallowed a football, but there's no poopy in his litter pan. Now that he's no longer confined and has access to Miss Thunderfoot's litter box, I won't be able to tell if he goes or not.
Phooey. If guess I'll know if he explodes....
.
So, Thanksgiving dinner was Friday, at the home of Daughter and Hercules, attended by the co-Mother-in-Laws. Daughter did a terrific job on the dinner. Frankly, I've never had better stuffing or candied yams.
Saturday another NJ blogger and I browsed sari stores, and sampled yummies.
Jasper was happy to see me when I got home late Saturday evening. Since he'd been baiting Miss Thunderfoot before I left, he'd spent my time away shut up in the laundry room. I'm a little worried because while I was gone he'd eaten the two days worth of food I'd left for him, and today he looks like he'd swallowed a football, but there's no poopy in his litter pan. Now that he's no longer confined and has access to Miss Thunderfoot's litter box, I won't be able to tell if he goes or not.
Phooey. If guess I'll know if he explodes....
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Saturday, November 24, 2007
1568 The only kind of tags I like are on new clothes.
Saturday, November 25, 2007
The ever popular "Seven Random and or Weird Things About Me" meme. I was tagged by The Queen.
The Rules:
1. Link to the person who tagged you
2. Share seven random things about yourself
3. Tag seven random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs
4. Let each person know they've been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs
Ok, Rule #1 - done.
Rule #2 - really difficult. I get the impression it's supposed to be stuff that's not already somewhere in the blog, and, uh, I can't think of much of anything I haven't already said. I even did that "Gazillion Things You don't Know About Me " a while ago (and which I can't find now - Blogger search doesn't seem to go back past the first of this year). Also, what does "random" mean in this context? I'm a mathematician and computer programmer, so I figure if it comes out of my head, it isn't random.
Enough complaining. Try, at least.
Seven Random Things About Me (that I don't think I've said yet):
1. I never shave anywhere unless I think it's gonna be seen or touched, and even then there's limits (I've been known to strike deals with doctors on delivery tables). Ain't no way anybody is going to get anywhere near me with hot wax!
2. Daughter says I always embarrass her somehow when we go shopping together. (One time she tried to embarrass me by picking up a thong, in front of two clerks and several other shoppers, and saying "Here, Mom, you should try these." I got her back. "Nope. Won't work. There's no place to stick the Poise pad." All the other women cracked up. Daughter crawled under the counter.)
3. I don't have a favorite color. If you ask me what my favorite color is, I'll tell you what I like today, but tomorrow will be different. That makes home decorating difficult.
4. I have an extremely high libido, which doesn't get nearly enough exercise, because I also have high standards. And morals. Or something. At least I hope that's why not.... Hmmm. Maybe it has something to do with #1.
5. I find it very difficult to throw anything out. Might need it sometime, you know?
6. I like messy food. I much prefer eating with my hands to using utensils. When I cook a steak for myself at home, alone, I pick it up in my hands, whole, and tear off chunks with my teeth. I might even growl a little. Sometimes in restaurants I forget, and growl a little at my dinner companion.
7. I've had my hair professionally cut exactly three times in my adult life (last time was in 1975), and each time I swore "Never again!"
Well, I did it. Seven random "so what"s.
Hey! I've got another one! I've never played "Truth or Dare"!
Rule #3 and 4 are about tagging others. I don't want to, so I won't. If you want to volunteer, have at it. I dare you.
.
The ever popular "Seven Random and or Weird Things About Me" meme. I was tagged by The Queen.
The Rules:
1. Link to the person who tagged you
2. Share seven random things about yourself
3. Tag seven random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs
4. Let each person know they've been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs
Ok, Rule #1 - done.
Rule #2 - really difficult. I get the impression it's supposed to be stuff that's not already somewhere in the blog, and, uh, I can't think of much of anything I haven't already said. I even did that "Gazillion Things You don't Know About Me " a while ago (and which I can't find now - Blogger search doesn't seem to go back past the first of this year). Also, what does "random" mean in this context? I'm a mathematician and computer programmer, so I figure if it comes out of my head, it isn't random.
Enough complaining. Try, at least.
Seven Random Things About Me (that I don't think I've said yet):
1. I never shave anywhere unless I think it's gonna be seen or touched, and even then there's limits (I've been known to strike deals with doctors on delivery tables). Ain't no way anybody is going to get anywhere near me with hot wax!
2. Daughter says I always embarrass her somehow when we go shopping together. (One time she tried to embarrass me by picking up a thong, in front of two clerks and several other shoppers, and saying "Here, Mom, you should try these." I got her back. "Nope. Won't work. There's no place to stick the Poise pad." All the other women cracked up. Daughter crawled under the counter.)
3. I don't have a favorite color. If you ask me what my favorite color is, I'll tell you what I like today, but tomorrow will be different. That makes home decorating difficult.
4. I have an extremely high libido, which doesn't get nearly enough exercise, because I also have high standards. And morals. Or something. At least I hope that's why not.... Hmmm. Maybe it has something to do with #1.
5. I find it very difficult to throw anything out. Might need it sometime, you know?
6. I like messy food. I much prefer eating with my hands to using utensils. When I cook a steak for myself at home, alone, I pick it up in my hands, whole, and tear off chunks with my teeth. I might even growl a little. Sometimes in restaurants I forget, and growl a little at my dinner companion.
7. I've had my hair professionally cut exactly three times in my adult life (last time was in 1975), and each time I swore "Never again!"
Well, I did it. Seven random "so what"s.
Hey! I've got another one! I've never played "Truth or Dare"!
Rule #3 and 4 are about tagging others. I don't want to, so I won't. If you want to volunteer, have at it. I dare you.
.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
1566 Thanksgiving
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Daughter and SIL are hosting Thanksgiving dinner this year, first one in their new home, but for a variety of reasons they're doing it tomorrow, not today. So today, it's me, Jasper, and Miss Thunderfoot. Tomorrow morning I head to central NJ.
When I got up this morning, I opened the refrigerator for my usual yogurt breakfast, and discovered I'm out of yogurt. Hmmmm. What to eat? I've got all kinds of cold cereals, eggs, grits, several types of oatmeal, bread and jelly, scones, hash browns, and even some frozen breakfast "dinners". But I still felt deprived because I didn't have my yogurt. Pout pout.
Then I realized how spoiled I am.
Today, people all over this overfed, over-commercialized, self-satisfied country will be consuming individually enough food to feed an entire family throughout most of the rest of the world, and giving thanks for the ability to do so. Even in this country, there will be people who will go hungry today.
I was in my twenties through the hippie era, Woodstock, Viet Nam anti-war marches, sit-ins, all the turmoil, and I was not a part of any of it. I was busy learning how to be a corporate clone. Now, as I get older, I'm getting more stubborn and rebellious. (Little symbolic rebellions - don't want to draw attention....) I decided that in solidarity with those less fortunate, I'll fast today.
Big deal. I often don't eat for a day or so, but I do it by choice (well, not actually choice - I forget to eat, but the fact that I don't feel hungry says something). Others feel hunger but have no choice.
So, I'm thankful that it is a choice. I'm thankful for my friends, for the fact that my Daughter counts me among her friends, for my long-distance lover, for having two guys on the back burner who would like to be lovers (pretty damn good for a little old lady!), for an economy that allows me a life of leisure, and a slew of other harder-to-pin-down advantages.
But at the moment, I'm thankful that the grocery store will be open tomorrow, and I can buy yogurt.
.
Daughter and SIL are hosting Thanksgiving dinner this year, first one in their new home, but for a variety of reasons they're doing it tomorrow, not today. So today, it's me, Jasper, and Miss Thunderfoot. Tomorrow morning I head to central NJ.
When I got up this morning, I opened the refrigerator for my usual yogurt breakfast, and discovered I'm out of yogurt. Hmmmm. What to eat? I've got all kinds of cold cereals, eggs, grits, several types of oatmeal, bread and jelly, scones, hash browns, and even some frozen breakfast "dinners". But I still felt deprived because I didn't have my yogurt. Pout pout.
Then I realized how spoiled I am.
Today, people all over this overfed, over-commercialized, self-satisfied country will be consuming individually enough food to feed an entire family throughout most of the rest of the world, and giving thanks for the ability to do so. Even in this country, there will be people who will go hungry today.
I was in my twenties through the hippie era, Woodstock, Viet Nam anti-war marches, sit-ins, all the turmoil, and I was not a part of any of it. I was busy learning how to be a corporate clone. Now, as I get older, I'm getting more stubborn and rebellious. (Little symbolic rebellions - don't want to draw attention....) I decided that in solidarity with those less fortunate, I'll fast today.
Big deal. I often don't eat for a day or so, but I do it by choice (well, not actually choice - I forget to eat, but the fact that I don't feel hungry says something). Others feel hunger but have no choice.
So, I'm thankful that it is a choice. I'm thankful for my friends, for the fact that my Daughter counts me among her friends, for my long-distance lover, for having two guys on the back burner who would like to be lovers (pretty damn good for a little old lady!), for an economy that allows me a life of leisure, and a slew of other harder-to-pin-down advantages.
But at the moment, I'm thankful that the grocery store will be open tomorrow, and I can buy yogurt.
.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
1565 The Ghost
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
In the previous post I mentioned seeing a ghost at that fantasy B&B.
The driveway leading to the hotel wound through bits of woods and stone-walled fields. The second day of our stay, Daughter and I had gone to visit a nearby ancient burial chamber (I think it was this one - http://www.anima.demon.co.uk/sites/sh505703.html).
On the way back to the B&B, while coming up the drive, I saw a woman ahead, in a field to our right. As we got closer, I saw her crossing a stile in the rock wall. I slowed the car, and she crossed the road in front of us, and went into the field on the left, through another stile.
She was an older woman, very small and slight in build, wearing a gray-brown tweed walking suit consisting of a jacket and long A-line skirt, a brown knit tam-shaped hat, and boots. White hair, and the lightest fairest skin I have ever seen. As she passed in front of the car, she turned and looked straight at me and smiled. Her eyes were the most beautiful I've ever seen. After 20 years I still remember them. They were blue, light blue, mesmerizing blue, the blue of flowers and skies, and I couldn't look away from them until she turned away.
Her beauty fascinated me, so when we got to the hotel, I asked the locals at the desk who she could be. It was a small village. People tend to know everyone, but no one had any idea who she might be. I mentioned that she had come through a stile, and that got a frown - "there are no stiles in those walls. Not any more, anyway."
Later, Daughter and I went into town for dinner, and on the way down the drive, I looked for the stile. There was none. I turned around and went back to look again. No stiles. Daughter asked why I was retracing the drive, and I said I was looking for the stile.
"What stile?"
"The stile that woman came through when we came back from the chamber."
"What woman?"
Daughter had seen no woman.
There was no stile.
Either I'd seen a ghost, or I'd experienced a fold in time.
I still remember the eyes.
.
In the previous post I mentioned seeing a ghost at that fantasy B&B.
The driveway leading to the hotel wound through bits of woods and stone-walled fields. The second day of our stay, Daughter and I had gone to visit a nearby ancient burial chamber (I think it was this one - http://www.anima.demon.co.uk/sites/sh505703.html).
On the way back to the B&B, while coming up the drive, I saw a woman ahead, in a field to our right. As we got closer, I saw her crossing a stile in the rock wall. I slowed the car, and she crossed the road in front of us, and went into the field on the left, through another stile.
She was an older woman, very small and slight in build, wearing a gray-brown tweed walking suit consisting of a jacket and long A-line skirt, a brown knit tam-shaped hat, and boots. White hair, and the lightest fairest skin I have ever seen. As she passed in front of the car, she turned and looked straight at me and smiled. Her eyes were the most beautiful I've ever seen. After 20 years I still remember them. They were blue, light blue, mesmerizing blue, the blue of flowers and skies, and I couldn't look away from them until she turned away.
Her beauty fascinated me, so when we got to the hotel, I asked the locals at the desk who she could be. It was a small village. People tend to know everyone, but no one had any idea who she might be. I mentioned that she had come through a stile, and that got a frown - "there are no stiles in those walls. Not any more, anyway."
Later, Daughter and I went into town for dinner, and on the way down the drive, I looked for the stile. There was none. I turned around and went back to look again. No stiles. Daughter asked why I was retracing the drive, and I said I was looking for the stile.
"What stile?"
"The stile that woman came through when we came back from the chamber."
"What woman?"
Daughter had seen no woman.
There was no stile.
Either I'd seen a ghost, or I'd experienced a fold in time.
I still remember the eyes.
.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
1564 Trip Photos 4 (of 4)
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
And now, the pièce de résistance, our B&B on the Isle of Anglesey, Wales.
All together now -
Oh!
My!
Gawd!
That was certainly my reaction when we came around the bend in the long tree-lined drive and saw it.
It looked inside exactly as one would expect from the exterior. Huge curved staircases, carved dark paneling, fireplaces, crystal chandeliers, palms in Chinese pots. Our room had a high four-poster bed with canopy and velvet and lace drapery all around for me, and they had set up a smaller bed for Daughter, WITH a "princess" half-canopy. In the mornings, there was a discreet knock on the door, and a maid came in with a huge English breakfast, which was served in bed. That was the "wakeup call".
Our hotel in Kensington had been nice but tiny - five rooms total in a converted white marble townhouse. Then there was the boat, and then on our wanders from Hadrian's Wall to Roman ruins to castles in Wales we'd had no reservations, had simply knocked on doors of private homes with B&B signs out front. This was a reservation, made by our travel agent before we'd left the US, and it was listed as a B&B, so ... it was a shock.
This is where I saw the ghost.
That's for another post.
.
And now, the pièce de résistance, our B&B on the Isle of Anglesey, Wales.
All together now -
Oh!
My!
Gawd!
That was certainly my reaction when we came around the bend in the long tree-lined drive and saw it.
It looked inside exactly as one would expect from the exterior. Huge curved staircases, carved dark paneling, fireplaces, crystal chandeliers, palms in Chinese pots. Our room had a high four-poster bed with canopy and velvet and lace drapery all around for me, and they had set up a smaller bed for Daughter, WITH a "princess" half-canopy. In the mornings, there was a discreet knock on the door, and a maid came in with a huge English breakfast, which was served in bed. That was the "wakeup call".
Our hotel in Kensington had been nice but tiny - five rooms total in a converted white marble townhouse. Then there was the boat, and then on our wanders from Hadrian's Wall to Roman ruins to castles in Wales we'd had no reservations, had simply knocked on doors of private homes with B&B signs out front. This was a reservation, made by our travel agent before we'd left the US, and it was listed as a B&B, so ... it was a shock.
This is where I saw the ghost.
That's for another post.
.
1563 Trip Photos 3
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
More photos from our narrowboat adventure on the Grand Union Canal, England, 1988.
Daughter operating a lock. Note the "treads" on the ground to the left of her feet. They're for traction in pushing the gates open. This particular lock had quite a drop.
Pleasant scenery along the way. If it had been getting dark, and we had tied up there, we probably would have been invited in for tea.
This was a frequent scene at the locks. It's a good thing that Daughter (in red) was not afraid of large curious beasts.
After turning the boat in, we rented a car and wandered around England, headed in the general direction of The Isle of Anglesey, in the northwestern part of Wales. My ancesters had been slate and coal miners, so we visited a slate mine. Also a wool mill, several parks, a zoo (where I overheard a child ask her mother "Is that a bald eagle?" and the mother replied, "Yes. Never understood what the Americans saw in it." "It" was a vulture!), and every dolmen and castle ruin along the way.
I fell wildly madly in love with thatched roofs. Some of them are true works of art.
Traveling through Snowdonia National Park. The sheep are everywhere, and loud. Stereophonic sheep. At one point we attempted to climb a hill to look at the heather, but although it looks like grass, it's more like a wet sponge out there.
Snowdonia. I didn't lighten the photos up because that's the way it really was. Clouds were low and constant. It felt like you could wring water out of the air. The sogginess of the turf was due to mist, fog, clouds perpetually condensing on the mountains. Some of it ran down in little streams, but mostly it was a constant seep down through the turf.
A road sign.
In one of the castle ruins.
.
More photos from our narrowboat adventure on the Grand Union Canal, England, 1988.
Daughter operating a lock. Note the "treads" on the ground to the left of her feet. They're for traction in pushing the gates open. This particular lock had quite a drop.
Pleasant scenery along the way. If it had been getting dark, and we had tied up there, we probably would have been invited in for tea.
This was a frequent scene at the locks. It's a good thing that Daughter (in red) was not afraid of large curious beasts.
After turning the boat in, we rented a car and wandered around England, headed in the general direction of The Isle of Anglesey, in the northwestern part of Wales. My ancesters had been slate and coal miners, so we visited a slate mine. Also a wool mill, several parks, a zoo (where I overheard a child ask her mother "Is that a bald eagle?" and the mother replied, "Yes. Never understood what the Americans saw in it." "It" was a vulture!), and every dolmen and castle ruin along the way.
I fell wildly madly in love with thatched roofs. Some of them are true works of art.
Traveling through Snowdonia National Park. The sheep are everywhere, and loud. Stereophonic sheep. At one point we attempted to climb a hill to look at the heather, but although it looks like grass, it's more like a wet sponge out there.
Snowdonia. I didn't lighten the photos up because that's the way it really was. Clouds were low and constant. It felt like you could wring water out of the air. The sogginess of the turf was due to mist, fog, clouds perpetually condensing on the mountains. Some of it ran down in little streams, but mostly it was a constant seep down through the turf.
A road sign.
In one of the castle ruins.
.
1562 Smile
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
The Man always makes me laugh. I hope he doesn't mind my writing this, but I want to preserve the him-isms. I just hope I can do them justice.
We were on the phone today, and I was telling him that I had decided to no longer keep giving a certain friend second chances, that the last time she pulled this stunt I'd decided the next time was the end, and she has blown it now.
He said, "She ran into your tomato."
"Tomato?"
And he told me the tomato story.
His little brother came home from school one day and told their mother that the teacher was going to throw something at them. "What's she going to throw at you?"
"Tomatoes."
"Tomatoes?"
"Yeah. She said that if we didn't settle down, she was going to throw an old tomato at us."
"An old tomato?"
(An ultimatum.)
The image of her running into my tomato is just too funny.
One day when he was talking about a tense situation at work, he said he had to "get his ducks in a bag." A friend of his had used the phrase once, and it amused him so much, he adopted it in lieu of "ducks in a line". The mental image of the lumpy bag is funny, but even funnier is the quacking sounds coming from the bag. Next time I have to get my ducks in a row, I'll put them in a bag.
"How's your cold?"
"Lots better. I'm just a pony."
"A pony?"
"Yeah, you know, pony. A little horse."
Friends like this are valuable.
Later: I just realized he and I are starting to speak in code. "Perhaps I was a pony, so my friend didn't hear me well, and that's why she ignored my old tomato and didn't get her ducks in the bag."
Makes sense to us....
.
The Man always makes me laugh. I hope he doesn't mind my writing this, but I want to preserve the him-isms. I just hope I can do them justice.
We were on the phone today, and I was telling him that I had decided to no longer keep giving a certain friend second chances, that the last time she pulled this stunt I'd decided the next time was the end, and she has blown it now.
He said, "She ran into your tomato."
"Tomato?"
And he told me the tomato story.
His little brother came home from school one day and told their mother that the teacher was going to throw something at them. "What's she going to throw at you?"
"Tomatoes."
"Tomatoes?"
"Yeah. She said that if we didn't settle down, she was going to throw an old tomato at us."
"An old tomato?"
(An ultimatum.)
The image of her running into my tomato is just too funny.
One day when he was talking about a tense situation at work, he said he had to "get his ducks in a bag." A friend of his had used the phrase once, and it amused him so much, he adopted it in lieu of "ducks in a line". The mental image of the lumpy bag is funny, but even funnier is the quacking sounds coming from the bag. Next time I have to get my ducks in a row, I'll put them in a bag.
"How's your cold?"
"Lots better. I'm just a pony."
"A pony?"
"Yeah, you know, pony. A little horse."
Friends like this are valuable.
Later: I just realized he and I are starting to speak in code. "Perhaps I was a pony, so my friend didn't hear me well, and that's why she ignored my old tomato and didn't get her ducks in the bag."
Makes sense to us....
.
Monday, November 19, 2007
1561 Trip Photos 2
Sunday, November 19, 2007
A narrow section of the Grand Union Canal. Under a bridge. Bridges were sneaky. We'd head for the dead center of the span, and STILL manage to hit or scrape the side.
Coming up on a town. Bigger towns excited us, because we might be able to do some laundry, buy food, and mail some postcards. But ONLY if we could cash some travelers' checks.
This was pre-ATM days. We had taken travelers' checks, and then discovered they were very inconvenient, because no one in the smaller villages would take them, because "the bank came" only one day a week, and if a shop cashed a travelers' check for us, and had to give us too much change, then there wasn't enough cash left in the village for the village to operate until the bank came again. Wow.
Over and over we kept missing the bank visits. At one point, we had a small fortune in useless travelers' checks, and we were counting coins and eating cheap, trying to stretch out what little cash we had.
Going through a lock. Daughter on the right. Locks were easy and fun. Boats tended to "pile up" at the locks, waiting to go through, and everybody helped everybody else.
One thing that bugged me - if anyone jumped line, went out of turn, it was a 100% certainty it was American tourists. For some reason, most of the people we met, local and other visitors, concluded that we were Canadian (later we were pegged as Welsh), and after exposure to other loud and rude American tourists, we let them believe it.
.
A narrow section of the Grand Union Canal. Under a bridge. Bridges were sneaky. We'd head for the dead center of the span, and STILL manage to hit or scrape the side.
Coming up on a town. Bigger towns excited us, because we might be able to do some laundry, buy food, and mail some postcards. But ONLY if we could cash some travelers' checks.
This was pre-ATM days. We had taken travelers' checks, and then discovered they were very inconvenient, because no one in the smaller villages would take them, because "the bank came" only one day a week, and if a shop cashed a travelers' check for us, and had to give us too much change, then there wasn't enough cash left in the village for the village to operate until the bank came again. Wow.
Over and over we kept missing the bank visits. At one point, we had a small fortune in useless travelers' checks, and we were counting coins and eating cheap, trying to stretch out what little cash we had.
Going through a lock. Daughter on the right. Locks were easy and fun. Boats tended to "pile up" at the locks, waiting to go through, and everybody helped everybody else.
One thing that bugged me - if anyone jumped line, went out of turn, it was a 100% certainty it was American tourists. For some reason, most of the people we met, local and other visitors, concluded that we were Canadian (later we were pegged as Welsh), and after exposure to other loud and rude American tourists, we let them believe it.
.
1560 Trip Photos
Monday, November 19, 2007
I've been putting a selection of old photos on Flickr. Last night and this morning I scanned and uploaded some pictures from a trip to England and Wales that Daughter and I took in the summer of 1988 (or 1987, I forget...). I think maybe I'll start including more photos in entries. Here's the first:
Daughter and I spent the first week in London. The above photo was taken from a Thames tour boat, as we passed under the bridge.
Our B&B was in Kensington, where there are beautiful houses, ponds, and gardens.
I'm not certain, but I think the above may have been at Kensington Palace. That's Daughter, at 11 or 12. I'm under orders not to put her face in this blog, but no one would recognize her from this shot, so I think I'm safe. Besides, hey, I'm the Mommy!
The next week, we rented a canal boat, a "narrowboat", and spent somewhere between 10 days and two weeks, I forget, on the Grand Union (no relationship to the grocery store) Canal. This was the interior of our boat, the Naiad, looking from the front toward the back:
The table dropped down to make a double bed, and to the right in the back you can see two bunks. There was a gas stove-top and oven, an electric refrigerator, electric heater, a sink, and a bathroom with shower. Except that the rear bunks were a bit damp (so we used the double bed) it was quite comfortable, but a LOT of work.
You could moor at night anywhere you wanted along the canal. Just pull over and pound in stakes. We soon learned to avoid spending the night near sheep. Man, those things are LOUD, and they keep it up all night.
We had to clean out the screws every morning. You'd open a hatch in the back deck, and reach way down in there, into cold dark muddy water, and feel around for fishing line and weeds wrapped around the axle and screws, and that was the absolute worst job, because you couldn't see what was there, the weeds were squishy and could have any kind of beasty living in it, and the fishing line could include hooks. But it had to be done.
We had to keep an eye on the fuel and water, because the places you could refill (DIY!) were few and far between. And the motor had to run for a certain amount of time to fully charge the battery, or we wouldn't have lights or heat at night, which meant that even if it was pouring rain, you had to be out there at the tiller and controls.
The stern of our boat, moored. Cows are a lot quieter than sheep. That red bar just above the first "A" in Naiad is the tiller, and those are stool seats on either side. The boat is only 7 feet wide, and very long, and learning to steer the thing is an adventure. The canals are wide in some places, and narrow in others, and turning around is a horror.
There are a lot of locks, but the locks were easy and fun. However, there are also a lot of bigger hills, and therefore tunnels. Tunnels were scary. They were perfectly round, concrete, 15 feet in diameter, and half that is water, so a taller person standing on deck had to duck to avoid bumping his head. We were extremely conscious of all that earth above us. They were coal-mine dark. If the tunnel was short and straight, so you could see the light at the end of the tunnel, and if no other narrowboats were coming from the other direction, then it wasn't so bad. But at least one tunnel we went through was over two miles, with a curve in the middle, so you couldn't see the end. AND, in that tunnel we met up with several other boats. Sound is magnified and echos, and that adds to the weirdness. The tunnels are 15 feet wide. The boats are 7 feet wide. Do the math.
That's where you learn what "light at the end of the tunnel" really means.
We cooked breakfast, but stopped for lunch and dinner at taverns on the canal (where I developed a taste for hard cider - nothing like what you get in the states!). Several times we managed to catch festivals, Morris dancers, and other friendly narrowboaters. There are people who live on the boats year-round, and still a few people who make a living transporting goods on the canals.
More canal photos later.
.
I've been putting a selection of old photos on Flickr. Last night and this morning I scanned and uploaded some pictures from a trip to England and Wales that Daughter and I took in the summer of 1988 (or 1987, I forget...). I think maybe I'll start including more photos in entries. Here's the first:
Daughter and I spent the first week in London. The above photo was taken from a Thames tour boat, as we passed under the bridge.
Our B&B was in Kensington, where there are beautiful houses, ponds, and gardens.
I'm not certain, but I think the above may have been at Kensington Palace. That's Daughter, at 11 or 12. I'm under orders not to put her face in this blog, but no one would recognize her from this shot, so I think I'm safe. Besides, hey, I'm the Mommy!
The next week, we rented a canal boat, a "narrowboat", and spent somewhere between 10 days and two weeks, I forget, on the Grand Union (no relationship to the grocery store) Canal. This was the interior of our boat, the Naiad, looking from the front toward the back:
The table dropped down to make a double bed, and to the right in the back you can see two bunks. There was a gas stove-top and oven, an electric refrigerator, electric heater, a sink, and a bathroom with shower. Except that the rear bunks were a bit damp (so we used the double bed) it was quite comfortable, but a LOT of work.
You could moor at night anywhere you wanted along the canal. Just pull over and pound in stakes. We soon learned to avoid spending the night near sheep. Man, those things are LOUD, and they keep it up all night.
We had to clean out the screws every morning. You'd open a hatch in the back deck, and reach way down in there, into cold dark muddy water, and feel around for fishing line and weeds wrapped around the axle and screws, and that was the absolute worst job, because you couldn't see what was there, the weeds were squishy and could have any kind of beasty living in it, and the fishing line could include hooks. But it had to be done.
We had to keep an eye on the fuel and water, because the places you could refill (DIY!) were few and far between. And the motor had to run for a certain amount of time to fully charge the battery, or we wouldn't have lights or heat at night, which meant that even if it was pouring rain, you had to be out there at the tiller and controls.
The stern of our boat, moored. Cows are a lot quieter than sheep. That red bar just above the first "A" in Naiad is the tiller, and those are stool seats on either side. The boat is only 7 feet wide, and very long, and learning to steer the thing is an adventure. The canals are wide in some places, and narrow in others, and turning around is a horror.
There are a lot of locks, but the locks were easy and fun. However, there are also a lot of bigger hills, and therefore tunnels. Tunnels were scary. They were perfectly round, concrete, 15 feet in diameter, and half that is water, so a taller person standing on deck had to duck to avoid bumping his head. We were extremely conscious of all that earth above us. They were coal-mine dark. If the tunnel was short and straight, so you could see the light at the end of the tunnel, and if no other narrowboats were coming from the other direction, then it wasn't so bad. But at least one tunnel we went through was over two miles, with a curve in the middle, so you couldn't see the end. AND, in that tunnel we met up with several other boats. Sound is magnified and echos, and that adds to the weirdness. The tunnels are 15 feet wide. The boats are 7 feet wide. Do the math.
That's where you learn what "light at the end of the tunnel" really means.
We cooked breakfast, but stopped for lunch and dinner at taverns on the canal (where I developed a taste for hard cider - nothing like what you get in the states!). Several times we managed to catch festivals, Morris dancers, and other friendly narrowboaters. There are people who live on the boats year-round, and still a few people who make a living transporting goods on the canals.
More canal photos later.
.
Sunday, November 18, 2007
1559 Weird Standing
Sunday, November 18, 2007
I'm weird. Yeah, I know that. Perhaps my biggest weirdness is that I often don't understand why people think something I do or think is weird. Everything I do or say seems perfectly reasonable to me. I think it's weird that they think it's weird.
Some people think the way I stand is weird.
If I'm going to be standing anywhere for more than a few seconds, I "assume the position". I put all my weight on one leg, with that foot turned slightly outward, weight toward the ball of the foot. The other foot is slightly to the front of the weight-bearing foot, and at a 90-degree angle to it. Knee on the free leg is bent, so there's a slight hip tilt.
Try it. It's very comfortable. I can stand like that for hours, with occasional side-to-side swaps.
I guess it does look a little weird, but if everybody stood that way, it wouldn't be weird at all.
Over the years I've had many many women, always women, never men, tell me that I shouldn't stand that way.
"Why not?"
"It looks bad."
"How does it look bad? Does it make my hip look big?"
"No. It just looks bad."
"Awkward?"
"No, just bad."
"How do you mean bad? Ugly?"
"No. I dunno. Just bad."
Well, a dating body language article I read yesterday said that if a woman stands with her ankles crossed talking to a man, she's sexually unavailable (I think she's liable to fall over), and if she stands with her legs apart, she's sexually receptive to him.
Is that what was "bad"?
I'm not sending any message. It's just the absolutely most comfortable stance. Well, second most comfortable. The first most comfy draws way too much attention, and I can't do it at all in public.
Man, those women should have seen the way I stood in high school and college, when nobody was looking, anyway, until I started wearing high heels all the time and it was no longer feasible , and eventually I fell out of the habit. If you have to stand, this is the closest thing to not standing.
Again, all weight on one leg. The flat of the free foot is pressed against the inside of the standing leg, at or above knee level. There's a kind of bulge at the top side of the knee that the sole of the foot fits over perfectly. You see those really tall skinny African guys with all the cows (Watusi?) standing that way when they're out watching the herds. Again, it's very comfortable. If you do it right, it feels like sitting. Try it at first with bare feet.
I suspect that both of those stances involve less strain on the muscles of the hips and lower back than a standard stance.
I have had since adolescence a weak lower back and some hip problems.
So it's not weird, and not sending any availability messages. It's just comfortable and easy.
So there.
.
I'm weird. Yeah, I know that. Perhaps my biggest weirdness is that I often don't understand why people think something I do or think is weird. Everything I do or say seems perfectly reasonable to me. I think it's weird that they think it's weird.
Some people think the way I stand is weird.
If I'm going to be standing anywhere for more than a few seconds, I "assume the position". I put all my weight on one leg, with that foot turned slightly outward, weight toward the ball of the foot. The other foot is slightly to the front of the weight-bearing foot, and at a 90-degree angle to it. Knee on the free leg is bent, so there's a slight hip tilt.
Try it. It's very comfortable. I can stand like that for hours, with occasional side-to-side swaps.
I guess it does look a little weird, but if everybody stood that way, it wouldn't be weird at all.
Over the years I've had many many women, always women, never men, tell me that I shouldn't stand that way.
"Why not?"
"It looks bad."
"How does it look bad? Does it make my hip look big?"
"No. It just looks bad."
"Awkward?"
"No, just bad."
"How do you mean bad? Ugly?"
"No. I dunno. Just bad."
Well, a dating body language article I read yesterday said that if a woman stands with her ankles crossed talking to a man, she's sexually unavailable (I think she's liable to fall over), and if she stands with her legs apart, she's sexually receptive to him.
Is that what was "bad"?
I'm not sending any message. It's just the absolutely most comfortable stance. Well, second most comfortable. The first most comfy draws way too much attention, and I can't do it at all in public.
Man, those women should have seen the way I stood in high school and college, when nobody was looking, anyway, until I started wearing high heels all the time and it was no longer feasible , and eventually I fell out of the habit. If you have to stand, this is the closest thing to not standing.
Again, all weight on one leg. The flat of the free foot is pressed against the inside of the standing leg, at or above knee level. There's a kind of bulge at the top side of the knee that the sole of the foot fits over perfectly. You see those really tall skinny African guys with all the cows (Watusi?) standing that way when they're out watching the herds. Again, it's very comfortable. If you do it right, it feels like sitting. Try it at first with bare feet.
I suspect that both of those stances involve less strain on the muscles of the hips and lower back than a standard stance.
I have had since adolescence a weak lower back and some hip problems.
So it's not weird, and not sending any availability messages. It's just comfortable and easy.
So there.
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Saturday, November 17, 2007
1558 Paths Not Taken
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Back when I was going through some very bad times in my twenties and early thirties, I "seriously" considered suicide a few times. "Seriously" is in quotes because I didn't do it, and the "only" reason I didn't is because I had to stay alive to take care of my cat. But I thought about it a lot.
Another thing I thought about a lot was prostitution. Not the standing on the street corner kind, and not the getting calls to "escort" a stranger, either. More like a mistress to a few men who could afford me. Maybe three or four "regulars". It seemed like handled discreetly and carefully, it could be an easier way to make a lot more money than whatever I was doing, and I'd be in control of my time. I could make at least five times what I was making legit, doing something that wasn't much effort and I enjoyed anyway, and I'd invest the money carefully, and be fully retired by 35.
I had met a lot of older guys (by "older", then, I meant over 40) who thought I was just wonderful. They liked the way I could converse about almost anything. They thought I was just the sexiest little thing. I could have picked several suitable clients.
There were a few I found without even trying, like the Italian electrical engineer in H---ford who wanted me, but couldn't marry me because I was a divorcee, but actually offered me a "hostess" contract, covering duties, an attractive salary, and child support should any result.
Then there was the 45-year-old guy in G---burg who used to knock on my door whenever he'd had a few drinks. I knew him as one of the more successful businessmen in town, and often talked with him when he was sober, but I never opened the door to him on these slightly drunk nocturnal visits. He'd sit on my doorstep outside the closed door, and we'd talk for hours through the door, about cabbages and kings, until he sobered up and went home to his invalid (as in ill, not illegal) wife. Usually, depending on how much he remembered of the conversation, a few days later I'd find a gift on the doorstep, perfume, books, a scarf, usually something in the $40-$60 range (at a time when I was making $100 a week teaching), along with a note thanking me for my patience and understanding.
I often wondered what I'd have gotten if I had opened the door.
Well, those were paths not taken. But I do wonder sometimes.
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Back when I was going through some very bad times in my twenties and early thirties, I "seriously" considered suicide a few times. "Seriously" is in quotes because I didn't do it, and the "only" reason I didn't is because I had to stay alive to take care of my cat. But I thought about it a lot.
Another thing I thought about a lot was prostitution. Not the standing on the street corner kind, and not the getting calls to "escort" a stranger, either. More like a mistress to a few men who could afford me. Maybe three or four "regulars". It seemed like handled discreetly and carefully, it could be an easier way to make a lot more money than whatever I was doing, and I'd be in control of my time. I could make at least five times what I was making legit, doing something that wasn't much effort and I enjoyed anyway, and I'd invest the money carefully, and be fully retired by 35.
I had met a lot of older guys (by "older", then, I meant over 40) who thought I was just wonderful. They liked the way I could converse about almost anything. They thought I was just the sexiest little thing. I could have picked several suitable clients.
There were a few I found without even trying, like the Italian electrical engineer in H---ford who wanted me, but couldn't marry me because I was a divorcee, but actually offered me a "hostess" contract, covering duties, an attractive salary, and child support should any result.
Then there was the 45-year-old guy in G---burg who used to knock on my door whenever he'd had a few drinks. I knew him as one of the more successful businessmen in town, and often talked with him when he was sober, but I never opened the door to him on these slightly drunk nocturnal visits. He'd sit on my doorstep outside the closed door, and we'd talk for hours through the door, about cabbages and kings, until he sobered up and went home to his invalid (as in ill, not illegal) wife. Usually, depending on how much he remembered of the conversation, a few days later I'd find a gift on the doorstep, perfume, books, a scarf, usually something in the $40-$60 range (at a time when I was making $100 a week teaching), along with a note thanking me for my patience and understanding.
I often wondered what I'd have gotten if I had opened the door.
Well, those were paths not taken. But I do wonder sometimes.
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Friday, November 16, 2007
1557 Honesty
Friday, November 16, 2007
I like to think I'm honest. I do try, honest....
I just did something that bothers me, a little bit.
There's a particular store where I buy almost all of my clothing. Their cut and sizing just happens to fit me well. I've bought enough from them that they now consider me a special customer, and I get advance opportunities on sales, $-off coupons in the mail, and a "personal shopper" (whatever that is) in the brick & mortar store. They also have an online store with an outlet section with some great deals.
I've dropped another size since last winter, so this morning I filled in my winter wardrobe.
They've got a deal going now where if your order is over $100, you get $30 off the order. Not 30 percent - a flat $30.
I went through the online catalog, and ordered a bunch of stuff, mostly from the outlet, so it was already a good 50% or more off (which, actually, is about what the stuff should cost in the first place, but that's another issue). Anyway, when I had my entire order together, I noticed that the total came to a little over $400.
I thought about that. I was going to get a flat $30 off.
I printed out the "shopping cart" page, divided it up into four separate orders, started over and placed the first $100 order, got $30 off, then started over again, placed the second $100 order, got another $30 off ... and so on.
So instead of saving $30, I saved $120.
Somehow, that feels dishonest. Very satisfying, but dishonest.
.
I like to think I'm honest. I do try, honest....
I just did something that bothers me, a little bit.
There's a particular store where I buy almost all of my clothing. Their cut and sizing just happens to fit me well. I've bought enough from them that they now consider me a special customer, and I get advance opportunities on sales, $-off coupons in the mail, and a "personal shopper" (whatever that is) in the brick & mortar store. They also have an online store with an outlet section with some great deals.
I've dropped another size since last winter, so this morning I filled in my winter wardrobe.
They've got a deal going now where if your order is over $100, you get $30 off the order. Not 30 percent - a flat $30.
I went through the online catalog, and ordered a bunch of stuff, mostly from the outlet, so it was already a good 50% or more off (which, actually, is about what the stuff should cost in the first place, but that's another issue). Anyway, when I had my entire order together, I noticed that the total came to a little over $400.
I thought about that. I was going to get a flat $30 off.
I printed out the "shopping cart" page, divided it up into four separate orders, started over and placed the first $100 order, got $30 off, then started over again, placed the second $100 order, got another $30 off ... and so on.
So instead of saving $30, I saved $120.
Somehow, that feels dishonest. Very satisfying, but dishonest.
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1556 Triple Your Money
Late night. Stupid "paid program" on tv, trying to convince people to sell trashy junk for a drop-ship company. Any remote possibility that I might be tempted to try it evaporated when they showed an item that sells for $12, but "costs you only $4", giving you an $8 profit, "you instantly triple your money!"
I can't see doing business with a company that can't do simple math.
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I can't see doing business with a company that can't do simple math.
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Thursday, November 15, 2007
1555 Boooorrring....
When I was very young, I learned that it was much easier to always tell the truth, because then you didn't have to remember which made-up story you had told to whom.
Now I'm older, and and truth is ingrained. The difficulty in age is in remembering which true stories I've already told to whom. And how many times.
Now I'm older, and and truth is ingrained. The difficulty in age is in remembering which true stories I've already told to whom. And how many times.
1554 Domino Pool
This is a little fuzzy (low resolution?) but pretty cool anyway.
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-SAKCuVyjI]
It's not that terribly complicated. You set up the ramps first, and you can fiddle around with them until they send the balls exactly where you want them to go, then the dominoes are (literally) child's play. Even knowing that, the effect is pretty good.
What I'm having trouble with is - what starts the balls on the cues, that go from table to table? I don't see anything bumping them.
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-SAKCuVyjI]
It's not that terribly complicated. You set up the ramps first, and you can fiddle around with them until they send the balls exactly where you want them to go, then the dominoes are (literally) child's play. Even knowing that, the effect is pretty good.
What I'm having trouble with is - what starts the balls on the cues, that go from table to table? I don't see anything bumping them.
1553 Cavemen
Thursday, November 15, 2007
I loved the Geico commercials with the caveman, and looked forward to the sitcom. I got annoyed at people who, never having seen a single episode, were predicting that it would die early. Before it started, a friend told me he had pulled "four episodes" in the office pool. I'm glad he lost. Nya nya!
I've been watching it online, and loving it. The three cavemen roommates have distinct personalities, and the storyline and comedic material is consistent and believable. The writing reminds me of the early days of Frasier. It's clean. No sexual innuendo or boob shots. If it dies, that will be why. (I never understood the fascination with Two and a Half Men. An ugly show.)
For anyone who has never seen it, I recommend the episode of Cavemen that aired 11/13/07. You can watch it on www.abc.com - click on "full episodes", ensure popups are allowed (it screens in a popup), select the cavemen, and select the 11/13 episode. There are only two or three extremely short commercials, for other ABC shows.
(I always have a small problem with the sound breaking up toward the middle or end, probably having to do with my line speed, and if that happens, just back it up to replay a tiny bit, and that fixes it.)
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I loved the Geico commercials with the caveman, and looked forward to the sitcom. I got annoyed at people who, never having seen a single episode, were predicting that it would die early. Before it started, a friend told me he had pulled "four episodes" in the office pool. I'm glad he lost. Nya nya!
I've been watching it online, and loving it. The three cavemen roommates have distinct personalities, and the storyline and comedic material is consistent and believable. The writing reminds me of the early days of Frasier. It's clean. No sexual innuendo or boob shots. If it dies, that will be why. (I never understood the fascination with Two and a Half Men. An ugly show.)
For anyone who has never seen it, I recommend the episode of Cavemen that aired 11/13/07. You can watch it on www.abc.com - click on "full episodes", ensure popups are allowed (it screens in a popup), select the cavemen, and select the 11/13 episode. There are only two or three extremely short commercials, for other ABC shows.
(I always have a small problem with the sound breaking up toward the middle or end, probably having to do with my line speed, and if that happens, just back it up to replay a tiny bit, and that fixes it.)
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1552 Third Thursday
Thursday, November 15, 2007
The Third Thursday dinner was tonight. Roman, who usually hosts it, is teaching an evening class, so he had passed the hosting duties to First Woman, whose car died, so she passed it on to John, who decided he couldn't come because he has a long drive through the mountains, and freezing rain was predicted, so in a phone call this afternoon he passed it on to me.
I was wondering if there was any point in going, because the above list is pretty much the entire core group, and it's pretty obvious none of them will be showing up. It's a 40 minute drive for me. But somebody has to be there, just in case. Especially since I'm the one who complained so loudly when in the past I'd arrive at the gathering place, and no one was there.
So, I went. The only other person to arrive was The Ditz.
You know, something has changed with her. She's gotten a lot easier to talk with. We had a good time with just the two of us, and at parting, she said she was glad it was just us, because we had an opportunity to get to know each other.
Yeah. It was ok.
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The Third Thursday dinner was tonight. Roman, who usually hosts it, is teaching an evening class, so he had passed the hosting duties to First Woman, whose car died, so she passed it on to John, who decided he couldn't come because he has a long drive through the mountains, and freezing rain was predicted, so in a phone call this afternoon he passed it on to me.
I was wondering if there was any point in going, because the above list is pretty much the entire core group, and it's pretty obvious none of them will be showing up. It's a 40 minute drive for me. But somebody has to be there, just in case. Especially since I'm the one who complained so loudly when in the past I'd arrive at the gathering place, and no one was there.
So, I went. The only other person to arrive was The Ditz.
You know, something has changed with her. She's gotten a lot easier to talk with. We had a good time with just the two of us, and at parting, she said she was glad it was just us, because we had an opportunity to get to know each other.
Yeah. It was ok.
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1551 Think
The AOL "Goodbye" screen had an interesting warning this evening:
Good advice. I've had a few blog posts I wish I'd never written, not because they were injurious to anyone, but because they were found in searches by people I would prefer not to deal with. I considered deleting the entries, or at least changing some words so they wouldn't turn up in searches, but it wouldn't do any good, because the original version will still be out there in caches. It really IS forever!
(My foreskin restoration post (not one that worries me, BTW) is apparently being passed around in emails or something - people are coming in to that post from all over the world, but not usually from links or searches. They're coming direct. Weird, because searches turn up lots of much more interesting sites on that topic.)
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Anything you post online can be seen by anyone.
Forever.
Think before you post.
Good advice. I've had a few blog posts I wish I'd never written, not because they were injurious to anyone, but because they were found in searches by people I would prefer not to deal with. I considered deleting the entries, or at least changing some words so they wouldn't turn up in searches, but it wouldn't do any good, because the original version will still be out there in caches. It really IS forever!
(My foreskin restoration post (not one that worries me, BTW) is apparently being passed around in emails or something - people are coming in to that post from all over the world, but not usually from links or searches. They're coming direct. Weird, because searches turn up lots of much more interesting sites on that topic.)
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Wednesday, November 14, 2007
1550 So, How's It Going?
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Yeah, I'm not writing about people and relationships much lately. That's on purpose.
Another blogger asked people to say whether they were happier now than five years ago. He got nineteen comments, and of the nineteen, seventeen said they were happier. I wonder if that's true for almost everyone. When we look back five years, do almost all of us feel happier now? Are we really, or does it just seem that way?
The answer's pretty easy for me.
Five years ago, November 2002, Jay had been gone eleven months. My support structure had collapsed during his illness - all my friends from The Company had transferred out, moved away, and I'd lost touch with everyone else. That first year I had tried to be active. I took some classes, joined the volunteer fire department rescue squad (kind of as a payback for their help with Jay), and went to fairs and antique auctions. In November it all kind of fell apart. The rescue squad started talking about holding the ambulance on calls so that I could make it (I lived just that wee bit too far out), and so I quit rather than be responsible for that. And then winter came, and I pretty much crashed. I went into seclusion for the next two and a half years, bought tons of stuff on eBay, lost all the muscles I'd gained caring for Jay, and gained 45 pounds.
It's been a long climb out of that hole. Oddly, asked then how I felt, I always answered "Content", and I was. Asked if I were lonely, I always answered "No", and I wasn't.
Now, 2007, I've found a man who fascinates me and appreciates me. I complain about the distance, which makes it hard to give or get a hug when it's needed, but on the other hand, distance has slowed things down, so hormonal overflow is not running the show, and that's good. Daughter is married, bought a house, and is finally finding herself. And although I have only a few local friends (2 male, 2 female), they're good ones.
So, yeah, I'm a lot happier now than five years ago.
You?
.
Yeah, I'm not writing about people and relationships much lately. That's on purpose.
Another blogger asked people to say whether they were happier now than five years ago. He got nineteen comments, and of the nineteen, seventeen said they were happier. I wonder if that's true for almost everyone. When we look back five years, do almost all of us feel happier now? Are we really, or does it just seem that way?
The answer's pretty easy for me.
Five years ago, November 2002, Jay had been gone eleven months. My support structure had collapsed during his illness - all my friends from The Company had transferred out, moved away, and I'd lost touch with everyone else. That first year I had tried to be active. I took some classes, joined the volunteer fire department rescue squad (kind of as a payback for their help with Jay), and went to fairs and antique auctions. In November it all kind of fell apart. The rescue squad started talking about holding the ambulance on calls so that I could make it (I lived just that wee bit too far out), and so I quit rather than be responsible for that. And then winter came, and I pretty much crashed. I went into seclusion for the next two and a half years, bought tons of stuff on eBay, lost all the muscles I'd gained caring for Jay, and gained 45 pounds.
It's been a long climb out of that hole. Oddly, asked then how I felt, I always answered "Content", and I was. Asked if I were lonely, I always answered "No", and I wasn't.
Now, 2007, I've found a man who fascinates me and appreciates me. I complain about the distance, which makes it hard to give or get a hug when it's needed, but on the other hand, distance has slowed things down, so hormonal overflow is not running the show, and that's good. Daughter is married, bought a house, and is finally finding herself. And although I have only a few local friends (2 male, 2 female), they're good ones.
So, yeah, I'm a lot happier now than five years ago.
You?
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1549 New Read
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
If anybody is looking for something more to read, try the blog "Witt and Wisdom" (http://www.wittandwisdom.com/home/). I haven't the faintest idea how I discovered it, don't remember, maybe through a TAR fan, but I enjoy the way the author's mind works.
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If anybody is looking for something more to read, try the blog "Witt and Wisdom" (http://www.wittandwisdom.com/home/). I haven't the faintest idea how I discovered it, don't remember, maybe through a TAR fan, but I enjoy the way the author's mind works.
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Tuesday, November 13, 2007
1548 Gender Gap
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
The 2007 Global Gender Gap report is out, at http://www.weforum.org/en/initiatives/gcp/Gender%20Gap/index.htm. The US comes in at #31, and you'd be surprised at some of the countries that are ahead of the US.
Odd - it seems like the colder the country, the more gains women have made in education, political empowerment, and economic participation.
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The 2007 Global Gender Gap report is out, at http://www.weforum.org/en/initiatives/gcp/Gender%20Gap/index.htm. The US comes in at #31, and you'd be surprised at some of the countries that are ahead of the US.
Odd - it seems like the colder the country, the more gains women have made in education, political empowerment, and economic participation.
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1546 Free Rice
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Go to FreeRice.com ( http://www.freerice.com/faq.html) to read about an interesting approach to ending world hunger. Click on tabs at the top to read about it, and then click on "Home" to take the vocabulary test.
For every word you get correct, 10 grains of rice are donated, paid for by the advertisers. (Don't tell those advertisers, but I wasn't even aware there were ads there. Oops!) Every time you get three words in a row correct, you are raised to a more difficult level. I got to level 47, with 60 of 70 words correct (and at level 47 you need to rely on a passing knowledge of Latin and Greek to figure out the base of the words, because I swear I've never heard of those words before!), and 600 grains paid for, before I went into brain freeze and quit.
It's addictive. I plan to go back and rack up more rice.
Update: See also http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7088447.stm
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Go to FreeRice.com ( http://www.freerice.com/faq.html) to read about an interesting approach to ending world hunger. Click on tabs at the top to read about it, and then click on "Home" to take the vocabulary test.
For every word you get correct, 10 grains of rice are donated, paid for by the advertisers. (Don't tell those advertisers, but I wasn't even aware there were ads there. Oops!) Every time you get three words in a row correct, you are raised to a more difficult level. I got to level 47, with 60 of 70 words correct (and at level 47 you need to rely on a passing knowledge of Latin and Greek to figure out the base of the words, because I swear I've never heard of those words before!), and 600 grains paid for, before I went into brain freeze and quit.
It's addictive. I plan to go back and rack up more rice.
Update: See also http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7088447.stm
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Monday, November 12, 2007
1545 Kitty Update
Monday, November 12, 2007
Jasper continues to grow. He is now, at perhaps 7 or 8 months, a bit larger than Miss Thunderfoot, at 11 years. Thunder still hates him, and won't allow him within five feet of her. He's gaining courage, and thinks it's great fun to bait her, and is now beginning to chase her. Not good. He knows well what "Jasper! No!!" means.
He's never still. Thunder sleeps all day, but I don't know that Jasper ever sleeps. Seriously - I have not seen him sleep except for a few brief naps on my lap with his chin on my elbow. Even then, I'm not sure he was actually asleep. He talks constantly, even when he's alone, and I fall asleep at night to "Eeeep eeeep", a tree frog in my living room.
He loves jingle balls, but even better are balls of crumpled aluminum foil. He bats the foil balls all over the kitchen and pantry floor, but when they stray through a doorway onto carpet, the foil balls don't make that wonderful sound anymore, and he immediately loses interest. I think he thinks he killed them.
He's a bad as a puppy. Puppies will chew whatever they find, and Jasper is almost as naughty. He plays with everything that's not nailed down. I'm finding spoons under sofas, the flyswatter has disappeared, and I'm missing shoes and gloves.
He and Thunder get the same food, Thunder in the kitchen and Jasper in the pantry, but Jasper is convinced that Thunder's food is better. When I put it down for them, he'll take a few tastes from his own dish, then go out and lurk in front of the refrigerator waiting for Thunder to leave her dish unguarded. He also has his own litterbox, and will piddle in it, but poops only in Thunder's litterbox.
So much drama. Poor Miss Thunderfoot. To be burdened with all this at her age.
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Jasper continues to grow. He is now, at perhaps 7 or 8 months, a bit larger than Miss Thunderfoot, at 11 years. Thunder still hates him, and won't allow him within five feet of her. He's gaining courage, and thinks it's great fun to bait her, and is now beginning to chase her. Not good. He knows well what "Jasper! No!!" means.
He's never still. Thunder sleeps all day, but I don't know that Jasper ever sleeps. Seriously - I have not seen him sleep except for a few brief naps on my lap with his chin on my elbow. Even then, I'm not sure he was actually asleep. He talks constantly, even when he's alone, and I fall asleep at night to "Eeeep eeeep", a tree frog in my living room.
He loves jingle balls, but even better are balls of crumpled aluminum foil. He bats the foil balls all over the kitchen and pantry floor, but when they stray through a doorway onto carpet, the foil balls don't make that wonderful sound anymore, and he immediately loses interest. I think he thinks he killed them.
He's a bad as a puppy. Puppies will chew whatever they find, and Jasper is almost as naughty. He plays with everything that's not nailed down. I'm finding spoons under sofas, the flyswatter has disappeared, and I'm missing shoes and gloves.
He and Thunder get the same food, Thunder in the kitchen and Jasper in the pantry, but Jasper is convinced that Thunder's food is better. When I put it down for them, he'll take a few tastes from his own dish, then go out and lurk in front of the refrigerator waiting for Thunder to leave her dish unguarded. He also has his own litterbox, and will piddle in it, but poops only in Thunder's litterbox.
So much drama. Poor Miss Thunderfoot. To be burdened with all this at her age.
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1543 Well That's a Fine Howdy-do
Monday, November 12, 2007
You can't send holiday cards or gifts to anonymous soldiers or vets. Not any more, anyway. The US Post Office will not accept mail addressed to "Any Soldier", and Walter Reed and other military hospitals will not distribute cards or packages received unless they are addressed to a specific patient.
Anonymous mailings are returned or discarded unopened, even if it's only a postcard.
You can, however, send cards and gifts through several organizations.
See http://www.snopes.com/politics/christmas/soldiercards.asp for the explanation, and for alternate addresses.
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You can't send holiday cards or gifts to anonymous soldiers or vets. Not any more, anyway. The US Post Office will not accept mail addressed to "Any Soldier", and Walter Reed and other military hospitals will not distribute cards or packages received unless they are addressed to a specific patient.
Anonymous mailings are returned or discarded unopened, even if it's only a postcard.
You can, however, send cards and gifts through several organizations.
See http://www.snopes.com/politics/christmas/soldiercards.asp for the explanation, and for alternate addresses.
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Sunday, November 11, 2007
1542 Little Drummer Girl
Sunday, November 11, 2007
I went to the Hudson Valley Hafla last night. It was pretty much perfect. There was exactly the right ratio between performances and open dance/social time, and most of the dancers were terrific.
I bought an instructional DVD from Carmine, and have been happily drumming most of the day today. I'll never be good at it because my hands get confused when they try to move too fast, but that doesn't matter. I love trying.
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I went to the Hudson Valley Hafla last night. It was pretty much perfect. There was exactly the right ratio between performances and open dance/social time, and most of the dancers were terrific.
I bought an instructional DVD from Carmine, and have been happily drumming most of the day today. I'll never be good at it because my hands get confused when they try to move too fast, but that doesn't matter. I love trying.
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Saturday, November 10, 2007
1541 In the Days Before
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Daughter never exerienced the days before ATMs, when banks were open only from 10 'til 2, and if you didn't give up lunch to get to the bank, you didn't get your paycheck deposited, and you didn't get cash. Money took a lot of planning.
Remember when there were no cell phones, and you had to use a pay phone when you were out, and other people couldn't be contacted if they were away from their home or desk? Keeping in touch took a lot of planning and cooperation.
Remember when you had to use your telephone to get to the internet? And printers used continuous paper with sprocket holes on the sides? And there were no bar codes and clerks had to actually type the price of an item into the cash register?
I've been trying to imbed this video, http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1788161, and three out of three times now, putting it into a post has taken Internet Explorer down. Strange. Other people have imbedded it in Blogger posts, so it's something unique to me.
Anyway, it's funny. Go watch.
.
Daughter never exerienced the days before ATMs, when banks were open only from 10 'til 2, and if you didn't give up lunch to get to the bank, you didn't get your paycheck deposited, and you didn't get cash. Money took a lot of planning.
Remember when there were no cell phones, and you had to use a pay phone when you were out, and other people couldn't be contacted if they were away from their home or desk? Keeping in touch took a lot of planning and cooperation.
Remember when you had to use your telephone to get to the internet? And printers used continuous paper with sprocket holes on the sides? And there were no bar codes and clerks had to actually type the price of an item into the cash register?
I've been trying to imbed this video, http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1788161, and three out of three times now, putting it into a post has taken Internet Explorer down. Strange. Other people have imbedded it in Blogger posts, so it's something unique to me.
Anyway, it's funny. Go watch.
.
Friday, November 09, 2007
1540 How to Take a Test
Friday, November 9, 2007
It's about 4:40 am and I'm wide awake, because without thinking about it I drank a frappuccino at 11:30 pm, and because my nose was running so badly in bed. I'm beginning to think I may be allergic to something in my bedroom. Anyway, I'm going to be awake until the antihistamine I just took kicks in.
While staring at the ceiling, I was thinking about taking tests. I can take a multiple choice test on almost any topic and pass it. Not because I know the topic, but because I know tests. When people ask me "What's Mensa", I don't say it's a high IQ society - I say it's a social club for people who do well on multiple choice tests. And if you get to know a few Mensans, you'll find that is a more accurate description. Some of us are otherwise incredibly stupid.
One of the Mensa Yahoo groups has been passing around a 10-question "business in history" test (found at http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/21657377). Most of those taking it got 7 or 8 of the ten answers correct. The question that the most people got wrong was:
3. Because of its importance to the 19th century economy, what is the state animal of Connecticut?
a) Sperm Whale
b) Husky
c) Beaver
d) Clydesdale Horse
(You might want to take the test yourself before reading further.)
You don't have to know the answer to a question if you can figure it out. The key words here are "the 19th century economy" and "Connecticut". The husky might have been important in Alaska, maybe, but not to "the 19th century economy" in general. The horse would have gotten merely a shrug, and Clydesdale is much too specific anyway. That leaves us with the beaver and the whale. The beaver may have been pretty important in the early days of the colonies, but probably less so in the 19th century. To cap it off, what do we know about Connecticut? All those whaling villages. Ahah! That fits with the 19th century, too.
I can't imagine how anyone could miss this one, but most people did.
That reminded me of the mid-'70s, when IQ tests were heavily attacked as being culturally biased. Some woman, a teacher representing students from the inner city, was interviewed on a local news program attacking the school system's use of IQ tests to group students. She chose an example from a test to illustrate her claim that the tests were biased toward culturally-advantaged suburban kids. The example was very similar to this:
The opera The Axe of the Fireflies by Joseph Hill cannot be performed in a small theater because
a) it's too loud.
b) it's too popular.
c) it requires an enormous cast.
d) it's too long.
Her argument was that inner city kids are not exposed to opera, their parents don't take them to operas, and therefore they are unlikely to have any knowledge of this opera, they have no way of knowing if it's too loud or if it's popular or whatever, and therefore the question is culturally biased. And the other panelists and the reporter all pursed their lips and nodded in agreement.
I totally freaked. I was yelling at the TV. You don't have to know anything about opera to answer that question! In fact, there is no such opera! All it takes is the power to reason, which is exactly what the test is measuring. Simple reasoning (and the ability to pick out the important parts of the statement) will give you the correct answer.
(By the way , that's one of the things the dreaded fifth-grade math word problems teach - the ability to separate the important information from the extraneous. A very useful skill. You end up in your later years yelling "that's a load of bull poopy" at people on the telephone.)
.
It's about 4:40 am and I'm wide awake, because without thinking about it I drank a frappuccino at 11:30 pm, and because my nose was running so badly in bed. I'm beginning to think I may be allergic to something in my bedroom. Anyway, I'm going to be awake until the antihistamine I just took kicks in.
While staring at the ceiling, I was thinking about taking tests. I can take a multiple choice test on almost any topic and pass it. Not because I know the topic, but because I know tests. When people ask me "What's Mensa", I don't say it's a high IQ society - I say it's a social club for people who do well on multiple choice tests. And if you get to know a few Mensans, you'll find that is a more accurate description. Some of us are otherwise incredibly stupid.
One of the Mensa Yahoo groups has been passing around a 10-question "business in history" test (found at http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/21657377). Most of those taking it got 7 or 8 of the ten answers correct. The question that the most people got wrong was:
3. Because of its importance to the 19th century economy, what is the state animal of Connecticut?
a) Sperm Whale
b) Husky
c) Beaver
d) Clydesdale Horse
(You might want to take the test yourself before reading further.)
You don't have to know the answer to a question if you can figure it out. The key words here are "the 19th century economy" and "Connecticut". The husky might have been important in Alaska, maybe, but not to "the 19th century economy" in general. The horse would have gotten merely a shrug, and Clydesdale is much too specific anyway. That leaves us with the beaver and the whale. The beaver may have been pretty important in the early days of the colonies, but probably less so in the 19th century. To cap it off, what do we know about Connecticut? All those whaling villages. Ahah! That fits with the 19th century, too.
I can't imagine how anyone could miss this one, but most people did.
That reminded me of the mid-'70s, when IQ tests were heavily attacked as being culturally biased. Some woman, a teacher representing students from the inner city, was interviewed on a local news program attacking the school system's use of IQ tests to group students. She chose an example from a test to illustrate her claim that the tests were biased toward culturally-advantaged suburban kids. The example was very similar to this:
The opera The Axe of the Fireflies by Joseph Hill cannot be performed in a small theater because
a) it's too loud.
b) it's too popular.
c) it requires an enormous cast.
d) it's too long.
Her argument was that inner city kids are not exposed to opera, their parents don't take them to operas, and therefore they are unlikely to have any knowledge of this opera, they have no way of knowing if it's too loud or if it's popular or whatever, and therefore the question is culturally biased. And the other panelists and the reporter all pursed their lips and nodded in agreement.
I totally freaked. I was yelling at the TV. You don't have to know anything about opera to answer that question! In fact, there is no such opera! All it takes is the power to reason, which is exactly what the test is measuring. Simple reasoning (and the ability to pick out the important parts of the statement) will give you the correct answer.
(By the way , that's one of the things the dreaded fifth-grade math word problems teach - the ability to separate the important information from the extraneous. A very useful skill. You end up in your later years yelling "that's a load of bull poopy" at people on the telephone.)
.
1539 Warning - Adult Topic
Friday, November 9, 2007
I had mentioned that one of the presentations I had gone to at the Chicago Mensa gathering was "Foreskin Restoration for Fun and Profit".
The speaker was Ron Low, inventor of the TLC Tugger (warning - website has explicit photos). From the program notes: "Ron Low has been curious about what circumcised men might be missing ever since the issue was debated in the letters section of the Mensa Bulletin in the '80s. Flash forward 20 years; he has not only restored his own foreskin, he has helped over 8000 men undertake non-surgical restoration. In a lively and explicit audio-video format, Ron will tell you why men do it, [and] how it is accomplished...."
How could I not go? When my daughter was born, in Missouri in 1975 (back when we didn't know the sex of a baby until it was born), I caused a bit of a crisis in the hospital when I arrived in labor and told the doctors that if the baby was a boy, they were NOT to circumcise him. They said that of course he would be circumcised, ALL baby boys were circumcised, the state said they had to be* and that was that. I told them that if they circumcised MY baby boy against my explicit wishes, I'd sue their asses for mutilation and disfigurement. Luckily, Daughter was a girl, and the hospital lawyers relaxed.
I've always had an opinion on the topic.
The first half of the presentation was all about the physiology of the penis, especially as pertains to the nerves, the different types of nerves, where they are, what they respond to, and so on. Frankly, this was the part most interesting to me. Um, most useful. Gonna take that info into the lab and check it out.** Oh, yeah.
Circumcision actually removes or damages the most sensitive of the nerves, the J-shaped sensors at the joint between the foreskin and the glans. (They respond to being bent and straightened as the foreskin moves in normal sexual activity.) Then over time, the remaining nerves are desensitized by the now-exposed glans drying out and rubbing against clothing.
You'll never get the lost nerves back, but simply providing a natural covering for the glans can allow it to regain some sensitivity, and that's a reason to attempt to restore a semblance of the foreskin.
He showed a lot of photos of the results of various methods of restoration. Surgical restoration seems to be the ugliest. They kind of drag skin up from the scrotum, and you end up with, uh, no other way to say it, a hairy penis.
The non-surgical way is to stretch the skin over time.
He showed several methods for stretching, most involving tape and weights. His invention, the TLC Tugger, doesn't use tape or weights, and is supposedly easier to put on and remove. If you go to the website (link above), you can see how it works. There's a cap over the glans, then you pull some skin down and put another cap over it, and then hook all that to an elastic arrangement attached to your leg. Eventually the skin stretches.
It looks weird, but he says it's quite comfortable. I caused a bit of a sensation in the Q&A period when I asked, "What happens if you're wearing this thing, and you get an erection. Does the cap tiddly-wink across the room?"
When the laughter quieted down, he said that's another advantage of his cap over the systems that involve suspending weights. In those, if the cap pops off, it falls out of your pant leg, and it's a little difficult to ignore or explain. Because his is attached to the leg, it just falls and dangles inside the pant leg. And, his has an "emergency cord" you can reach from inside your pocket that will release tension when necessary.
So, that's what that was all about. Just your normal Mensa presentation.
-----------------------------------
Footnotes -
*The Missouri legislature, who was not, as far as I know, a medical body, also mandated that if an abdomen was opened for any reason whatsoever, the appendix was to be removed. This is the same crew who passed a law in response to Roe V. Wade that ok, abortions were allowed, but all abortions would be performed by hysterotomy (i.e. Cesarean section), not vaginally. That law didn't last long - the doctors rioted.
**The theories check out. The man knows whereof he speaks. He taught this old dog some new tricks. Oh yeah....
.
I had mentioned that one of the presentations I had gone to at the Chicago Mensa gathering was "Foreskin Restoration for Fun and Profit".
The speaker was Ron Low, inventor of the TLC Tugger (warning - website has explicit photos). From the program notes: "Ron Low has been curious about what circumcised men might be missing ever since the issue was debated in the letters section of the Mensa Bulletin in the '80s. Flash forward 20 years; he has not only restored his own foreskin, he has helped over 8000 men undertake non-surgical restoration. In a lively and explicit audio-video format, Ron will tell you why men do it, [and] how it is accomplished...."
How could I not go? When my daughter was born, in Missouri in 1975 (back when we didn't know the sex of a baby until it was born), I caused a bit of a crisis in the hospital when I arrived in labor and told the doctors that if the baby was a boy, they were NOT to circumcise him. They said that of course he would be circumcised, ALL baby boys were circumcised, the state said they had to be* and that was that. I told them that if they circumcised MY baby boy against my explicit wishes, I'd sue their asses for mutilation and disfigurement. Luckily, Daughter was a girl, and the hospital lawyers relaxed.
I've always had an opinion on the topic.
The first half of the presentation was all about the physiology of the penis, especially as pertains to the nerves, the different types of nerves, where they are, what they respond to, and so on. Frankly, this was the part most interesting to me. Um, most useful. Gonna take that info into the lab and check it out.** Oh, yeah.
Circumcision actually removes or damages the most sensitive of the nerves, the J-shaped sensors at the joint between the foreskin and the glans. (They respond to being bent and straightened as the foreskin moves in normal sexual activity.) Then over time, the remaining nerves are desensitized by the now-exposed glans drying out and rubbing against clothing.
You'll never get the lost nerves back, but simply providing a natural covering for the glans can allow it to regain some sensitivity, and that's a reason to attempt to restore a semblance of the foreskin.
He showed a lot of photos of the results of various methods of restoration. Surgical restoration seems to be the ugliest. They kind of drag skin up from the scrotum, and you end up with, uh, no other way to say it, a hairy penis.
The non-surgical way is to stretch the skin over time.
He showed several methods for stretching, most involving tape and weights. His invention, the TLC Tugger, doesn't use tape or weights, and is supposedly easier to put on and remove. If you go to the website (link above), you can see how it works. There's a cap over the glans, then you pull some skin down and put another cap over it, and then hook all that to an elastic arrangement attached to your leg. Eventually the skin stretches.
It looks weird, but he says it's quite comfortable. I caused a bit of a sensation in the Q&A period when I asked, "What happens if you're wearing this thing, and you get an erection. Does the cap tiddly-wink across the room?"
When the laughter quieted down, he said that's another advantage of his cap over the systems that involve suspending weights. In those, if the cap pops off, it falls out of your pant leg, and it's a little difficult to ignore or explain. Because his is attached to the leg, it just falls and dangles inside the pant leg. And, his has an "emergency cord" you can reach from inside your pocket that will release tension when necessary.
So, that's what that was all about. Just your normal Mensa presentation.
-----------------------------------
Footnotes -
*The Missouri legislature, who was not, as far as I know, a medical body, also mandated that if an abdomen was opened for any reason whatsoever, the appendix was to be removed. This is the same crew who passed a law in response to Roe V. Wade that ok, abortions were allowed, but all abortions would be performed by hysterotomy (i.e. Cesarean section), not vaginally. That law didn't last long - the doctors rioted.
**The theories check out. The man knows whereof he speaks. He taught this old dog some new tricks. Oh yeah....
.
Thursday, November 08, 2007
1538 More Credit Confusion
Thursday, November 8, 2007
I called the check verification place today, regarding the check that was refused yesterday, and got a load of blather about how their computer checks patterns, time, place, amount, etc., and that the transaction seemed to fit a pattern of fraud, blah blah, so the computer flagged it as likely fraudulent. She couldn’t tell me exactly what the computer concluded or why. She was able to tell me what checks I had written in the recent past that they had approved at several local stores.
Um, this check was written to a store where I had written checks before, the store is less than 10 miles from my home, the amount was rational - where's the "fraud indicators"? I used the phrase “that’s a load of bull poopy” several times in the conversation.
I wonder if it has anything to do with the fraudulent Master Card charges that I got the call about last Saturday. Is it possible there's a red flag on ALL my cards and checking accounts now, like that there's a possibility of identity theft?
I went to dinner this evening with Angela, Nate, John, Angie, and George, at a diner on route 300 in Newburgh (New Windsor). The conversation was good, the food was more expensive than it rated.
John is in his 60s, I guess, and has been attending the dinners for maybe four months now. I asked him when he might bring his wife along, and he was surprised that his wife would be welcome, seeing as she's not a member. When I assured him that not only would she be welcome, no one would even comment on it, he seemed very grateful. Later I realized I could have pointed out that Nate isn't a member, but my not pointing it out proves the point, I guess.
As we were leaving the restaurant, George, who is new and was at the last two dinners, commented that he wants me to sit next to him next time. Ick! I don't want to. He's older than I, and single, and rather boring. There be dragons.
Speaking of dragons, my friend in NJ is chest-deep in office dragons right now. We've talked by phone and email, but haven't been able to get together since last week. The next two weeks are business trips for him and family related trips for both of us, so barring a miracle, like a few extra days inserted into the calendar, I won't see him for a while.
Sadness. I'm developing a craving for him.
.
I called the check verification place today, regarding the check that was refused yesterday, and got a load of blather about how their computer checks patterns, time, place, amount, etc., and that the transaction seemed to fit a pattern of fraud, blah blah, so the computer flagged it as likely fraudulent. She couldn’t tell me exactly what the computer concluded or why. She was able to tell me what checks I had written in the recent past that they had approved at several local stores.
Um, this check was written to a store where I had written checks before, the store is less than 10 miles from my home, the amount was rational - where's the "fraud indicators"? I used the phrase “that’s a load of bull poopy” several times in the conversation.
I wonder if it has anything to do with the fraudulent Master Card charges that I got the call about last Saturday. Is it possible there's a red flag on ALL my cards and checking accounts now, like that there's a possibility of identity theft?
I went to dinner this evening with Angela, Nate, John, Angie, and George, at a diner on route 300 in Newburgh (New Windsor). The conversation was good, the food was more expensive than it rated.
John is in his 60s, I guess, and has been attending the dinners for maybe four months now. I asked him when he might bring his wife along, and he was surprised that his wife would be welcome, seeing as she's not a member. When I assured him that not only would she be welcome, no one would even comment on it, he seemed very grateful. Later I realized I could have pointed out that Nate isn't a member, but my not pointing it out proves the point, I guess.
As we were leaving the restaurant, George, who is new and was at the last two dinners, commented that he wants me to sit next to him next time. Ick! I don't want to. He's older than I, and single, and rather boring. There be dragons.
Speaking of dragons, my friend in NJ is chest-deep in office dragons right now. We've talked by phone and email, but haven't been able to get together since last week. The next two weeks are business trips for him and family related trips for both of us, so barring a miracle, like a few extra days inserted into the calendar, I won't see him for a while.
Sadness. I'm developing a craving for him.
.
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
1537 Check What?!
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
I'm so glad the local elections are over. I was getting five to eight phone calls a day for the past three weeks, with either taped candidate messages or people demanding that I tell them who I intend to vote for. When I talked to friends, they reported only two or three calls a day. About all I can figure is that I'm registered Independent, so both parties considered me a wild card.
I went to the bank to deposit some checks today, then went shopping for sewing supplies, cat food, and one of those little USB "thumb drive" thingies. Figured I'd try one, see if it might work to hold photographs and stuff.
I bought the USB thingy in Staples, and wrote a check, for less than $80. The checkout child gave her cash register a funny look, and called a manager. The manager looked at the register, and told the child to "make the call". She called someone, gave them all the info off my check, and then turned to me and said "Your check has been refused."
Huh?
She couldn't tell me exactly why, but then said, in front of all the other people lined up behind me, "It's usually because of too many bounced checks." I grabbed the manager who was about to leave, and said "Explain this, please. I've never bounced a check in my entire adult life, and besides, if I do, my bank will automatically go into my savings, and then into a signature line of credit, so it's next to impossible for a check to bounce anyway! This is ridiculous!"
He said they use a credit service to vet checks, and that the service will not tell them the reason, because of privacy issues. But I can call them and find out. He gave me a card with the phone number, and on the back of the card it gives three possible reasons:
1.) Bad history,
2.) They don't have enough information on this person to make a decision,
3.) The id offered was not verifiable.
The child never asked me for id. Whatcha wanna bet the check was refused because she didn't put in the driver's license number. Every time I wrote a check in Staples in the past, they asked for the license.
I'll call the credit service tomorrow and find out.
.
I'm so glad the local elections are over. I was getting five to eight phone calls a day for the past three weeks, with either taped candidate messages or people demanding that I tell them who I intend to vote for. When I talked to friends, they reported only two or three calls a day. About all I can figure is that I'm registered Independent, so both parties considered me a wild card.
I went to the bank to deposit some checks today, then went shopping for sewing supplies, cat food, and one of those little USB "thumb drive" thingies. Figured I'd try one, see if it might work to hold photographs and stuff.
I bought the USB thingy in Staples, and wrote a check, for less than $80. The checkout child gave her cash register a funny look, and called a manager. The manager looked at the register, and told the child to "make the call". She called someone, gave them all the info off my check, and then turned to me and said "Your check has been refused."
Huh?
She couldn't tell me exactly why, but then said, in front of all the other people lined up behind me, "It's usually because of too many bounced checks." I grabbed the manager who was about to leave, and said "Explain this, please. I've never bounced a check in my entire adult life, and besides, if I do, my bank will automatically go into my savings, and then into a signature line of credit, so it's next to impossible for a check to bounce anyway! This is ridiculous!"
He said they use a credit service to vet checks, and that the service will not tell them the reason, because of privacy issues. But I can call them and find out. He gave me a card with the phone number, and on the back of the card it gives three possible reasons:
1.) Bad history,
2.) They don't have enough information on this person to make a decision,
3.) The id offered was not verifiable.
The child never asked me for id. Whatcha wanna bet the check was refused because she didn't put in the driver's license number. Every time I wrote a check in Staples in the past, they asked for the license.
I'll call the credit service tomorrow and find out.
.
Tuesday, November 06, 2007
1536 I Don't Love You Anymore
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
[Apologies for using "they", plural, instead of "he or she", singular. Just trading one awkward construction for another slightly less awkward.]
I didn't change the channel after the noon news, so a soap opera was on. I don't watch soap operas, so I don't know which one this is, but it's the one with Greely, or Greenlee, or whatever her name is, and I overheard a woman on the show say to a man, "I don't love you anymore."
I've never understood that statement. If it's the same person, and you "don't love anymore", then it couldn't have been love in the first place.
I figure that if you get to see deeply enough into another person to love them (a romantic interest, a family member, a friend), then you love them forever. Love isn't a momentary or conditional thing. As long as what you saw and loved exists, then how can you not love that part? They may do something that distresses or hurts you, but if you know the person well enough to love them, the basic them, then you can understand and forgive, and keep on loving.
Of course, there's the case where you never really knew the person at all, and what you loved was a construct, a facade, and when you find the real person they're entirely different.
I suspect that sometimes people confuse "want" and "love". They want someone, want them in their life, and think that therefore they love them, so then when they don't want anymore, they think they don't love anymore.
Or maybe they do love someone, but when they figure out that they really aren't good for each other, or that they can't possibly live together or be too involved in each other's lives (and that happens a LOT), when they don't "want" them anymore, then they can't love them, either.
Well, you can. You should. You need to keep the good, and continue to love it, if perhaps from a distance.
I know someone who is having a problem with that now. Her father has been ill a lot lately, and it has affected his mind and personality, and not in a good way. He'd always been difficult to know, difficult to deal with, and now he's become more self-centered, annoying, and frustrating than ever. She is afraid she's losing charitable feeling toward him. She gets angry with him, and would like to just walk away, and then she gets angrier because he's causing her to feel this way.
I was very lucky with Jay. Even with half his brain gone, delusions and hallucinations, unreasonable demands and frustrating stubbornness, the core of him remained him, all the himness that I loved, and it was easy to continue to love him.
I don't know what to tell my friend.
.
[Apologies for using "they", plural, instead of "he or she", singular. Just trading one awkward construction for another slightly less awkward.]
I didn't change the channel after the noon news, so a soap opera was on. I don't watch soap operas, so I don't know which one this is, but it's the one with Greely, or Greenlee, or whatever her name is, and I overheard a woman on the show say to a man, "I don't love you anymore."
I've never understood that statement. If it's the same person, and you "don't love anymore", then it couldn't have been love in the first place.
I figure that if you get to see deeply enough into another person to love them (a romantic interest, a family member, a friend), then you love them forever. Love isn't a momentary or conditional thing. As long as what you saw and loved exists, then how can you not love that part? They may do something that distresses or hurts you, but if you know the person well enough to love them, the basic them, then you can understand and forgive, and keep on loving.
Of course, there's the case where you never really knew the person at all, and what you loved was a construct, a facade, and when you find the real person they're entirely different.
I suspect that sometimes people confuse "want" and "love". They want someone, want them in their life, and think that therefore they love them, so then when they don't want anymore, they think they don't love anymore.
Or maybe they do love someone, but when they figure out that they really aren't good for each other, or that they can't possibly live together or be too involved in each other's lives (and that happens a LOT), when they don't "want" them anymore, then they can't love them, either.
Well, you can. You should. You need to keep the good, and continue to love it, if perhaps from a distance.
I know someone who is having a problem with that now. Her father has been ill a lot lately, and it has affected his mind and personality, and not in a good way. He'd always been difficult to know, difficult to deal with, and now he's become more self-centered, annoying, and frustrating than ever. She is afraid she's losing charitable feeling toward him. She gets angry with him, and would like to just walk away, and then she gets angrier because he's causing her to feel this way.
I was very lucky with Jay. Even with half his brain gone, delusions and hallucinations, unreasonable demands and frustrating stubbornness, the core of him remained him, all the himness that I loved, and it was easy to continue to love him.
I don't know what to tell my friend.
.
Monday, November 05, 2007
1535 Art Lesson
Monday, November 5, 2007
Warning, some people might think the following video is naughty, so I guess I should warn you. Adults only. And keep your mind out of the gutter! But it really is pretty good.
[http://www.buzzhumor.com/videos/17774/Offensive_Drawings#]
Warning, some people might think the following video is naughty, so I guess I should warn you. Adults only. And keep your mind out of the gutter! But it really is pretty good.
[http://www.buzzhumor.com/videos/17774/Offensive_Drawings#]
Sunday, November 04, 2007
1534 Small Town Life
Sunday, November 4, 2007
I often refer to "the village". A little lesson in NY government: The state is divided into counties, and the county government maintains county roads, libraries, community colleges, and so on. Counties are divided into townships. A township (or just "town", like the Town of Poughkeepsie) maintains town roads, courts, garbage collection, fire departments, a smattering of other things. Towns have no connection to residential or business concentrations. Municipalities are hamlets, villages, or cities, depending on population, and maintain their own streets and services. Hamlets are often too small to bother with a government, and contract with the town for services. So in NY, it is not correct to use "town" to refer to a small city. It's either a city or a village. Town" can include farmland and woods.
I live in a town, outside "the village". There's only one village, and perhaps three hamlets in my township.
And this is how comfortable, yet strange, villages and towns can be: It's normal to leave your house to go to the deli or post office or bank, and leave the house unlocked. A few weeks ago, over the period of two or three weeks, there were 15 burglaries in the village and outside in the town. The town sheriff says they've caught the culprit, and the burglaries have stopped.
Ok, taken care of, right?
Nope. Here's where small town thinking kicks in. Local elections are coming up in a few days, and there's a campaign on to vote out the incumbent town board, regardless of party affiliation (more radical elements want to impeach them all), because they didn't send out an automated phone call to everyone in the town, telling them to lock their doors when they left their houses.
Duh?
The thinking is that it's an issue of incompetence and poor judgement in the face of a threat. "How will they handle a real emergency?"
Uh, this wasn't a real emergency.
.
I often refer to "the village". A little lesson in NY government: The state is divided into counties, and the county government maintains county roads, libraries, community colleges, and so on. Counties are divided into townships. A township (or just "town", like the Town of Poughkeepsie) maintains town roads, courts, garbage collection, fire departments, a smattering of other things. Towns have no connection to residential or business concentrations. Municipalities are hamlets, villages, or cities, depending on population, and maintain their own streets and services. Hamlets are often too small to bother with a government, and contract with the town for services. So in NY, it is not correct to use "town" to refer to a small city. It's either a city or a village. Town" can include farmland and woods.
I live in a town, outside "the village". There's only one village, and perhaps three hamlets in my township.
And this is how comfortable, yet strange, villages and towns can be: It's normal to leave your house to go to the deli or post office or bank, and leave the house unlocked. A few weeks ago, over the period of two or three weeks, there were 15 burglaries in the village and outside in the town. The town sheriff says they've caught the culprit, and the burglaries have stopped.
Ok, taken care of, right?
Nope. Here's where small town thinking kicks in. Local elections are coming up in a few days, and there's a campaign on to vote out the incumbent town board, regardless of party affiliation (more radical elements want to impeach them all), because they didn't send out an automated phone call to everyone in the town, telling them to lock their doors when they left their houses.
Duh?
The thinking is that it's an issue of incompetence and poor judgement in the face of a threat. "How will they handle a real emergency?"
Uh, this wasn't a real emergency.
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Saturday, November 03, 2007
1533 My Big Saturday Night Out
Sunday, November 4, 2007
I got all cleaned up, dressed up, and made up, and went to the auction last night. Trouble is, it's not until next Saturday. I had received the email notice on Tuesday that the online catalog was available, and George never gets the catalog ready until a few days before the auction, so I assumed that meant it was this Saturday. Oh, well.
Just so I wouldn't waste all this pulchritudinosity, I went shopping. I am now the proud owner of two new blouses and three reams of paper. Not purchased in the same store.
.
I got all cleaned up, dressed up, and made up, and went to the auction last night. Trouble is, it's not until next Saturday. I had received the email notice on Tuesday that the online catalog was available, and George never gets the catalog ready until a few days before the auction, so I assumed that meant it was this Saturday. Oh, well.
Just so I wouldn't waste all this pulchritudinosity, I went shopping. I am now the proud owner of two new blouses and three reams of paper. Not purchased in the same store.
.
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