Friday, January 19, 2007
Third Thursday dinner was last night. There was FirstWoman, The Ditz, and me. It was very uncomfortable, because I had decided last month that if The Ditz annoyed me I wasn't going to hide it any more, and First Woman has actually gotten so upset by The Ditz in the past that she has walked out.
So FirstWoman and I tiptoed around, and were quick to stop subjects, change subjects, and generally keep it on the level of ... well, the longest lasting subject was whether the restaurant would accept an expired coupon, second longest was the series of name-changes the restaurant has endured.
That's harder work than real conversations.
Roman arrived late, after we'd finished eating. He had called me earlier in the evening to say that he'd be late, he was driving up from LI, having been there for a few days tending to his parents, so I should save his seat, and I told him that no matter how late he was, I'd wait.
I'm a bit hesitant to tell what actually happened, it's his story, not mine, but this is my diary, and there is exactly one person in the entire world who reads this and knows who he is, but she has met him only once, so for my own record, I'll continue.
His parents have been alternately in and out of the hospital a lot lately. Both have several serious problems. The past week, both have been hospitalized, both critical, in two different hospitals. Roman and his sister have been alternating visiting them, and meeting with financial planners, lawyers, insurance reps, etc, trying to get control of everything that has to be handled.
I think Roman returned last night just because of Third Thursday.
The dinner group meets at 6:30. I expected him to arrive by 7 at the latest. I'm not sure what time he arrived, but it was well after 7:30, I think. I was beginning to get really worried.
He had called me at 4:40 from the LI Expressway. (When I told the ladies that he'd be late, The Ditz brightened and asked, "Oh? Exactly where on the Expressway?" I stared at her for about three beats, and said, "I . Don't. Know. Was it important?" She actually flinched from the look on my face.) He said that his father had been very aware that afternoon, and seemed lots better. I found that ominous, given the way his father had been for so long. There is often a huge rally before a final crash. It's like they know.
When he arrived at the restaurant, he said that his sister had called him on the road, and told him that the hospital had called her, that their father had died.
Roman said he was late because he "had to make a detour" on the way. (I assume that he had stopped at "the girlfriend's" house, and then came to dinner.) He poked me and said "And you, as usual, your cell phone is off."
I felt very guilty. He knew I'd be sitting there waiting for him. If he'd been able to call, if my phone had been on, would he have skipped dinner? Would he have turned around and gone back to LI? By then I was getting worried enough to have called him, but if he had been at the girlfriend's house during that excess time, he wouldn't have answered anyway (he has me permanently on vibrate). So I feel guilty that I "dragged" him to the restaurant.
But then again, he was hungry (she didn't feed him?), and he did eat.
The Ditz left (by the way, she left her expired coupon, and only enough money to cover if the coupon was honored. I had to add a few dollars), and then after Roman finished eating, FirstWoman left. I had hoped we'd be able to talk, but he was very distracted, and we talked only a little. He'd have to tell his mother today. He doesn't expect her to live more than a few weeks, since he figures the only thing keeping her alive is the necessity of taking care of his father. She got a pacemaker last week, but her pulse is still very slow, and her kidneys are seriously failing. The doctors have recommended dialysis, but she has refused. So.
I can only hope he keeps me informed. I worry.
I talked on the phone with Piper today, first time I've heard from him since just after Christmas (well, except for a form letter from his office with "Call me" handwritten on the bottom.) He's had all kinds of family problems, and January is a very busy month. He's going to Las Vegas to speak at a convention next week, so we're going to have lunch on Monday. He told me today that he's been back and forth to Florida, his beloved mother is failing, and she's scheduled for some surgery plus a pacemaker next week. He's worried about being in Las Vegas during her surgery, but he's got several sisters in Florida who will hold down the fort.
So. Sigh.
.
Friday, January 19, 2007
1079 Presidential IQs Revisited
Friday, January 19, 2007
I got an interesting comment on post 1076 Presidential IQs. (Love it when a post pulls lurkers out!) I'm posting the comment here so that anyone who read the original post will be sure to get the other half of the story.
As I had said, reading the article made my nose wrinkle - it just plain smelled bad. And the obvious bias of the web site for the institute made it even more suspect. But I'm embarrassed because I'm always telling people to please check Snopes before they send me sensational stuff, and, oops, I didn't check Snopes. I was fooled by the existence of the web site.
But even if it had looked like a legitimate attempt, I didn't buy any of it, as my comment about an ivy league MBA being in the low 90s showed. The last paragraph's "world-renowned sociologist" and "world-respected psychiatrist" were the final kickers. Oh, come on!
So, here are the references, courtesy of "Anonymous". By the way, I went to the "ACTUAL study" pointed to by Anonymous, and although it seems more rigorous (and makes a lot more sense), there are still some holes, which the author of the study admits, in that they are not comparing apples with apples. And as soon as you do that, you allow conscious or unconscious bias to creep in.
Anonymous said...
/* Start of Comment */
Lovenstein is a hoax.
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/lovenstein.html
http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/hoaxes/presiq.htm
Claim: According to a study by the Lovenstein Institute, President Bush has the lowest IQ of all presidents of past 50 years.
Status: False.
Origins: No, this isn't a real news report, nor does it describe a real study. There isn't a "Lovenstein Institute" in Scranton, Pennsylvania (or anywhere else in the USA), nor do any of the people quoted in the story exist, because this is just another spoof that was taken too seriously.
The article quoted above began circulating on the Internet during the summer of 2001. In furtherance of the hoax, later that year pranksters thought to register www.lovenstein.org and erect a web site around it in an attempt to fool people into thinking there really was such an institute.
-snip
Speaking of IQ's, an ACTUAL study shows that Bush's IQ is higher than John Kerry's:
http://www.vdare.com/Sailer/kerry_iq_lower.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/24/politics/campaign
/24points.html?ex=1256356800&en=50a1bcbb16e7cf21&ei=
5090&partner=rssuserland
/* End of Comment */
.
I got an interesting comment on post 1076 Presidential IQs. (Love it when a post pulls lurkers out!) I'm posting the comment here so that anyone who read the original post will be sure to get the other half of the story.
As I had said, reading the article made my nose wrinkle - it just plain smelled bad. And the obvious bias of the web site for the institute made it even more suspect. But I'm embarrassed because I'm always telling people to please check Snopes before they send me sensational stuff, and, oops, I didn't check Snopes. I was fooled by the existence of the web site.
But even if it had looked like a legitimate attempt, I didn't buy any of it, as my comment about an ivy league MBA being in the low 90s showed. The last paragraph's "world-renowned sociologist" and "world-respected psychiatrist" were the final kickers. Oh, come on!
So, here are the references, courtesy of "Anonymous". By the way, I went to the "ACTUAL study" pointed to by Anonymous, and although it seems more rigorous (and makes a lot more sense), there are still some holes, which the author of the study admits, in that they are not comparing apples with apples. And as soon as you do that, you allow conscious or unconscious bias to creep in.
Anonymous said...
/* Start of Comment */
Lovenstein is a hoax.
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/lovenstein.html
http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/hoaxes/presiq.htm
Claim: According to a study by the Lovenstein Institute, President Bush has the lowest IQ of all presidents of past 50 years.
Status: False.
Origins: No, this isn't a real news report, nor does it describe a real study. There isn't a "Lovenstein Institute" in Scranton, Pennsylvania (or anywhere else in the USA), nor do any of the people quoted in the story exist, because this is just another spoof that was taken too seriously.
The article quoted above began circulating on the Internet during the summer of 2001. In furtherance of the hoax, later that year pranksters thought to register www.lovenstein.org and erect a web site around it in an attempt to fool people into thinking there really was such an institute.
-snip
Speaking of IQ's, an ACTUAL study shows that Bush's IQ is higher than John Kerry's:
http://www.vdare.com/Sailer/kerry_iq_lower.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/24/politics/campaign
/24points.html?ex=1256356800&en=50a1bcbb16e7cf21&ei=
5090&partner=rssuserland
/* End of Comment */
.
Thursday, January 18, 2007
1078 Scary Idols
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Almost forgot this very strange moment. American Idol was on last night while I was doing something else. I caught only two of the contestants. One was the young man with the very intense, scary, disturbing eyes, and the other was the woman on the right in the photo below. If you saw the show at all, you know exactly who I mean.
Darwin R33dy and her Mom. Photo borrowed from Jackie, at "The (TV) Show Must Go On", who gets them from network sites.
A good positive self image is an admirable thing, but it should be at least somewhat realistic. Ms. R33dy's breasts hung to her waist, and swung and flopped under her loose but clingy blouse. She believes herself to be sexy.
What really got me, though, was that in physical appearance, degree of self delusion, mannerisms, hair, facial expressions, voice, accent, and things she said, her total unawareness of the impression she gives, she struck me as practically a twin of a woman I know in the local Mensa group. The one who often drives me crazy (not The Ditz, the other one. The one who drove me crazy in New Orleans in 2005).
I was fascinated. And then they brought her mother in, and she's exactly the same, except it looked like she was wearing a bra. Does the mid-west grow these people?
.
Almost forgot this very strange moment. American Idol was on last night while I was doing something else. I caught only two of the contestants. One was the young man with the very intense, scary, disturbing eyes, and the other was the woman on the right in the photo below. If you saw the show at all, you know exactly who I mean.
Darwin R33dy and her Mom. Photo borrowed from Jackie, at "The (TV) Show Must Go On", who gets them from network sites.A good positive self image is an admirable thing, but it should be at least somewhat realistic. Ms. R33dy's breasts hung to her waist, and swung and flopped under her loose but clingy blouse. She believes herself to be sexy.
What really got me, though, was that in physical appearance, degree of self delusion, mannerisms, hair, facial expressions, voice, accent, and things she said, her total unawareness of the impression she gives, she struck me as practically a twin of a woman I know in the local Mensa group. The one who often drives me crazy (not The Ditz, the other one. The one who drove me crazy in New Orleans in 2005).
I was fascinated. And then they brought her mother in, and she's exactly the same, except it looked like she was wearing a bra. Does the mid-west grow these people?
.
1077 Disturbing News
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Iran, in April? I hope Dotsson is wrong. I may be forced to move to Canada or Mexico. Read http://dotsson.blogspot.com/2007/01/attack-on-iran-in-april.html.
Let's impeach self-elected President Cheney (that isn't a typo) - he's nuts!
.
Iran, in April? I hope Dotsson is wrong. I may be forced to move to Canada or Mexico. Read http://dotsson.blogspot.com/2007/01/attack-on-iran-in-april.html.
Let's impeach self-elected President Cheney (that isn't a typo) - he's nuts!
.
1076 Presidential IQs
Thursday, January 18, 2007
This was sent to me. I thought it interesting at first glance, but the more I think about it, the more my nose wrinkles. The web site for the Lovenstein Institute is http://lovenstein.org/. They seem far from neutral, so I find their conclusions suspect.
The numbers, even if assumed to be accurate in some way, are meaningless except as compared to each other (because above about 135, the standard deviations for standard IQ tests diverge so wildly that a 145 on the California Test of Mental Maturity, for example, is actually a higher score than a 160 on the Stanford-Benet (unless they've recalibrated recently)), and they don't say what scale they're comparing to here. I've also heard that the average IQ for high school seniors is closer to 115 than to 100, so low 90s for an ivy league MBA doesn't feel right.
Of course, that's the perennial argument: how do you define higher than average intelligence? Do you look at pattern recognition and problem solving? Vocabulary and ability to communicate? Social awareness? Numerical or musical or physical talent? Scholastic drive and success? Everyone who wants to assign numbers and rankings picks their favorite characteristic and ignores the rest.
Does Jimmy Carter's high number make the conclusions in his latest book more valid?
Well, here it is. Enjoy.
This was sent to me. I thought it interesting at first glance, but the more I think about it, the more my nose wrinkles. The web site for the Lovenstein Institute is http://lovenstein.org/. They seem far from neutral, so I find their conclusions suspect.
The numbers, even if assumed to be accurate in some way, are meaningless except as compared to each other (because above about 135, the standard deviations for standard IQ tests diverge so wildly that a 145 on the California Test of Mental Maturity, for example, is actually a higher score than a 160 on the Stanford-Benet (unless they've recalibrated recently)), and they don't say what scale they're comparing to here. I've also heard that the average IQ for high school seniors is closer to 115 than to 100, so low 90s for an ivy league MBA doesn't feel right.
Of course, that's the perennial argument: how do you define higher than average intelligence? Do you look at pattern recognition and problem solving? Vocabulary and ability to communicate? Social awareness? Numerical or musical or physical talent? Scholastic drive and success? Everyone who wants to assign numbers and rankings picks their favorite characteristic and ignores the rest.
Does Jimmy Carter's high number make the conclusions in his latest book more valid?
Well, here it is. Enjoy.
The Presidential IQ Report
WASHINGTON --In a published report, the Lovenstein Institute of Scranton, Pennsylvania has detailed findings of a four month study of the intelligence quotient of President George W. Bush. Since 1973, the Lovenstein Institute has published its research to the education community on each new president, which includes the famous "IQ" report among others.
According to statements in the report, there have been twelve presidents over the past 60 years, from F. D. Roosevelt to G. W. Bush who were all rated based on scholarly achievements, writings that they alone produced without aid of staff, their ability to speak with clarity, and several other psychological factors which were then scored in the Swanson/Crain system of intelligence ranking. The study determined the following IQs of each president as accurate to within five percentage points:
| 147 | Franklin D. Roosevelt (D) |
| 132 | Harry Truman (D) |
| 122 | Dwight D. Eisenhower (R) |
| 174 | John F. Kennedy (D) |
| 126 | Lyndon B. Johnson (D) |
| 155 | Richard M. Nixon (R) |
| 121 | Gerald R. Ford (R) |
| 176 | James E. Carter (D) |
| 105 | Ronald W. Reagan (R) |
| 98 | George H. W. Bush (R) |
| 182 | William J. Clinton (D) |
| 91 | George W. Bush (R) |
The six Republican presidents of the past 60 years had an average IQ of 115.5, with President Nixon having the highest IQ, at 155. President G. W. Bush was rated the lowest of all the Republicans with an IQ of 91.
The six Democrat presidents had IQs with an average of 156, with President Clinton having the highest IQ, at 182. President Lyndon B. Johnson was rated the lowest of all the Democrats with an IQ of 126.
No president other than Carter (D) has released his actual IQ, 176. Among comments made concerning the specific testing of President GW Bush, his low ratings were due to his apparent difficulty to command the English language in public statements, his limited use of vocabulary (6,500 words for Bush versus an average of 11,000 words for other presidents), his lack of scholarly achievements other than a basic MBA, and an absence of any body of work which could be studied on an intellectual basis.
The complete report documents the methods and procedures used to arrive at these ratings, including depth of sentence structure and voice stress confidence analysis. "All the Presidents prior to George W. Bush had a least one book under their belt, and most had written several white papers during their education or early careers.
Not so with President Bush," Dr. Lovenstein said. "He has no published works or writings, so in many ways that made it more difficult to arrive at an assessment. We had to rely more heavily on transcripts of his unscripted public speaking."
The Lovenstein Institute of Scranton Pennsylvania think tank includes high caliber historians, psychiatrists, sociologists, scientists in human behavior, and psychologists. Among their ranks are Dr. Werner R. Lovenstein, world-renowned sociologist, and Professor Patricia F. Dilliams, a world-respected psychiatrist. This study was commissioned on February 13, 2001, and released on July 9, 2001, to subscribing member universities and organizations within the education community.
CLICK HERE TO SEND THIS TO A FRIEND
The Lovenstein Institute of Scranton Pennsylvania is a think tank employing high caliber historians, psychiatrists, sociologists, scientists in human behavior, and psychologists. Among their ranks are Dr. Werner R. Lovenstein, world-renowned sociologist, and Professor Patricia F. Dilliams, a world-respected psychiatrist.
Since 1973, the Lovenstein Institute has published its research to the education community on various topics including the famous
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
1075 Catalog
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
The new Spiegel catalog has arrived, and I am pleased that they seem to have turned a corner.
Once upon a very long time ago I used to buy my office wear from Spiegel. They used to have some really nice stuff. I bought my favorite suit of all time from them, a pale turquoise linen-look, and another suit in rose and navy that for some reason got me first class treatment on business trips. The items were beautifully and carefully packed, and they even (back in those days) included a prepaid label for returns.
But somewhere between ten and fifteen years ago, they changed. Everything in the catalog looked like it was aimed toward streetwalkers and amateur sluts, or for cowgirls. (I'm not saying cowgirls are anywhere near streetwalking sluts - that just seemed to be the two separate groups they were courting, in two separate sections of the catalog.)
There was no way I was going to wear transparent tops, tight lycra dresses, belly button level plunge necklines, underwear as outerwear, broad-shouldered blouses covered with appliqued lace, or suits with peplum jackets to the office. Too much skin. Too much flash. Too much fluff. Yuck.
I don't think I've bought anything from them in a least a decade, but they have continued to send me a huge catalog several times a year anyway.
I guess they've finally fired that buyer. This issue is chock full of reasonable choices. We've got boob and belly coverage! The lycra is drapey! We've got a lot less lace and sequins. It almost looks like they've decided to go for the more mature, sophisticated, customer.
The only complaint I have is that the models are obviously out of proportion. The head length and total height should be a 1 to 7 ratio, and most of these models are 1 to 10. Their heads look tiny, and their legs look impossible. Most of the photos look like they were shot with the photographer lying on the floor, and even then the photos look like they were stretched.
I, at 4'10", can't imagine myself in those clothes. Not from those photos.
So I didn't buy anything (I don't need anything, either, but that never stopped me...), except that I had just the other day decided I need a full-length bodysuit for under a semi-sheer caftan, and some black tights for under a tunic, and lo, they had them in my size, so I ordered them.
-------------- Time has passed --------------
I got a phone call from a friend, the one with the ill parents, and we talked for over an hour. At the same time, there was a program on TV, one segment of which was going to be on hoarders. I taped it, and I just watched the beginning of that segment.
I have a lot of "stuff", which has built up into clutter. But I'm not a truehoarder, not like Jay was. The program mentioned that to a hoarder, throwing out anything is like tearing out a piece of their life. One woman mentioned that she's terrified that she might throw out something important. The program also said that hoarders tend to think of their hoards in three dimensions, that they know exactly where everything is. They don't catagorise things for sorting or storage, because to them, every item is unique.
(Heh heh. I guess that proves I'm not a hoarder. I still haven't found my winter shoes.)
Jay was like that. He knew exactly where everything was, even though there was nothing remotely resembling sorting, which blew my mind. It was true that he was terrified of throwing out something important. When I first moved in, I tried to clear out the stacks of paper in the den, and he actually got panicky, hyperventilating and all. We ended up buying a pair of 42 inch wide 2-drawer file cabinets to corral the mess.
He had subscriptions to about eight magazines, and never threw an issue out. Ever. There are still boxes of Smithsonians and Scientific Americans and others in the attic. I had attempted to clean out the basement, where there were boxes wall-to-wall and stacked to the ceiling down there, many of which had moved with him from Texas in the early 80s, and had not been opened since the move. We managed to get through one box when I realized this wasn't going to happen. The box we opened together had some badly-framed, faded and stained prints of Paris that his parents had bought on one of their trips, and had hung in his boyhood bedroom. Parents (deceased mother). Paris (dear to him). Boyhood bedroom. Hoo boy. Throwing out those prints was, to him, throwing all that out.
Every item had a memory attached, and it was as if throwing out the item was to excise, or at least devalue, the memory.
After he died, I tackled the basement. I found all his old college textbooks, all his high school and college class notes, several huge boxes full of unopened junk mail, boxes full of old ratty towels, bath mats, ugly knickknacks, all the detritus of thirty years of never throwing anything out. I filled two construction dumpsters, and that's only about half the stuff yet to go.
The TV program (pardon me if I don't look up what it was, I don't have a TV guide, and it's gone now so who cares) put some hoarders through an MRI while they showed a hoarded object and asked whether it should be kept or pitched, and they found that "a war went on" in their brains. A large number of connections involved in the decision.
I have to rewatch that first bit, and then the rest.
But right now there's a piece about the lost boys of the Sudan on Nightline, so pardon me while I go watch that. They're in my will (if Daughter predeceases me), along with several other charities. I suppose I ought to check whether it's still an operating charity. The boys have a fascinating story. Anyway, gotta watch that now.
.
The new Spiegel catalog has arrived, and I am pleased that they seem to have turned a corner.
Once upon a very long time ago I used to buy my office wear from Spiegel. They used to have some really nice stuff. I bought my favorite suit of all time from them, a pale turquoise linen-look, and another suit in rose and navy that for some reason got me first class treatment on business trips. The items were beautifully and carefully packed, and they even (back in those days) included a prepaid label for returns.
But somewhere between ten and fifteen years ago, they changed. Everything in the catalog looked like it was aimed toward streetwalkers and amateur sluts, or for cowgirls. (I'm not saying cowgirls are anywhere near streetwalking sluts - that just seemed to be the two separate groups they were courting, in two separate sections of the catalog.)
There was no way I was going to wear transparent tops, tight lycra dresses, belly button level plunge necklines, underwear as outerwear, broad-shouldered blouses covered with appliqued lace, or suits with peplum jackets to the office. Too much skin. Too much flash. Too much fluff. Yuck.
I don't think I've bought anything from them in a least a decade, but they have continued to send me a huge catalog several times a year anyway.
I guess they've finally fired that buyer. This issue is chock full of reasonable choices. We've got boob and belly coverage! The lycra is drapey! We've got a lot less lace and sequins. It almost looks like they've decided to go for the more mature, sophisticated, customer.
The only complaint I have is that the models are obviously out of proportion. The head length and total height should be a 1 to 7 ratio, and most of these models are 1 to 10. Their heads look tiny, and their legs look impossible. Most of the photos look like they were shot with the photographer lying on the floor, and even then the photos look like they were stretched.
I, at 4'10", can't imagine myself in those clothes. Not from those photos.
So I didn't buy anything (I don't need anything, either, but that never stopped me...), except that I had just the other day decided I need a full-length bodysuit for under a semi-sheer caftan, and some black tights for under a tunic, and lo, they had them in my size, so I ordered them.
-------------- Time has passed --------------
I got a phone call from a friend, the one with the ill parents, and we talked for over an hour. At the same time, there was a program on TV, one segment of which was going to be on hoarders. I taped it, and I just watched the beginning of that segment.
I have a lot of "stuff", which has built up into clutter. But I'm not a truehoarder, not like Jay was. The program mentioned that to a hoarder, throwing out anything is like tearing out a piece of their life. One woman mentioned that she's terrified that she might throw out something important. The program also said that hoarders tend to think of their hoards in three dimensions, that they know exactly where everything is. They don't catagorise things for sorting or storage, because to them, every item is unique.
(Heh heh. I guess that proves I'm not a hoarder. I still haven't found my winter shoes.)
Jay was like that. He knew exactly where everything was, even though there was nothing remotely resembling sorting, which blew my mind. It was true that he was terrified of throwing out something important. When I first moved in, I tried to clear out the stacks of paper in the den, and he actually got panicky, hyperventilating and all. We ended up buying a pair of 42 inch wide 2-drawer file cabinets to corral the mess.
He had subscriptions to about eight magazines, and never threw an issue out. Ever. There are still boxes of Smithsonians and Scientific Americans and others in the attic. I had attempted to clean out the basement, where there were boxes wall-to-wall and stacked to the ceiling down there, many of which had moved with him from Texas in the early 80s, and had not been opened since the move. We managed to get through one box when I realized this wasn't going to happen. The box we opened together had some badly-framed, faded and stained prints of Paris that his parents had bought on one of their trips, and had hung in his boyhood bedroom. Parents (deceased mother). Paris (dear to him). Boyhood bedroom. Hoo boy. Throwing out those prints was, to him, throwing all that out.
Every item had a memory attached, and it was as if throwing out the item was to excise, or at least devalue, the memory.
After he died, I tackled the basement. I found all his old college textbooks, all his high school and college class notes, several huge boxes full of unopened junk mail, boxes full of old ratty towels, bath mats, ugly knickknacks, all the detritus of thirty years of never throwing anything out. I filled two construction dumpsters, and that's only about half the stuff yet to go.
The TV program (pardon me if I don't look up what it was, I don't have a TV guide, and it's gone now so who cares) put some hoarders through an MRI while they showed a hoarded object and asked whether it should be kept or pitched, and they found that "a war went on" in their brains. A large number of connections involved in the decision.
I have to rewatch that first bit, and then the rest.
But right now there's a piece about the lost boys of the Sudan on Nightline, so pardon me while I go watch that. They're in my will (if Daughter predeceases me), along with several other charities. I suppose I ought to check whether it's still an operating charity. The boys have a fascinating story. Anyway, gotta watch that now.
.
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
1074 Beasty Armor
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Samurai mouse armor:
Samurai cat armor:
The above are from Calgary artist Jeff de Boer. You can see more of his suits of armor for cats and mice at http://www.jeffdeboer.com/Galleries/CatsMice/tabid/63/
Default.aspx.
The rod attached to the top of some of the armor is (obviously) for jousting.
.
Samurai mouse armor:
Samurai cat armor:
The above are from Calgary artist Jeff de Boer. You can see more of his suits of armor for cats and mice at http://www.jeffdeboer.com/Galleries/CatsMice/tabid/63/
Default.aspx.
The rod attached to the top of some of the armor is (obviously) for jousting.
.
Monday, January 15, 2007
1073 Ice
Monday, January 15, 2007
I didn't go to NJ this morning. Everything was covered with ice. The driveway was only wet, not icy, which would imply that the roads were ok, but the pine trees outside my kitchen window were bent double from the weight of ice, and the radio seemed to think that the greater danger was loss of power. I decided to stay home so I could throw logs in the fireplace if we lost electricity.
Talked with Daughter a few times on the phone. She had picked up some massage jobs anyway, so it wasn't a complete bust. But Hercules had made some more of his delicious peanut butter cookies for me, and I had just finished the last of the previous batch last night, so I was really looking forward to getting more cookies. I'll have to tough it out 'til next weekend.
Roman called in the morning from LI, his father is in the hospital again, said he'd call in the evening. He called from the road on his drive home (which is always awkward, because the signal drops several times - he usually doesn't call back after the third drop, and it leaves the conversation unfinished), and he said the roads were slippery, he saw (a) car(s) that had spun out, so it's just as well I didn't go anywhere.
.
I didn't go to NJ this morning. Everything was covered with ice. The driveway was only wet, not icy, which would imply that the roads were ok, but the pine trees outside my kitchen window were bent double from the weight of ice, and the radio seemed to think that the greater danger was loss of power. I decided to stay home so I could throw logs in the fireplace if we lost electricity.
Talked with Daughter a few times on the phone. She had picked up some massage jobs anyway, so it wasn't a complete bust. But Hercules had made some more of his delicious peanut butter cookies for me, and I had just finished the last of the previous batch last night, so I was really looking forward to getting more cookies. I'll have to tough it out 'til next weekend.
Roman called in the morning from LI, his father is in the hospital again, said he'd call in the evening. He called from the road on his drive home (which is always awkward, because the signal drops several times - he usually doesn't call back after the third drop, and it leaves the conversation unfinished), and he said the roads were slippery, he saw (a) car(s) that had spun out, so it's just as well I didn't go anywhere.
.
Sunday, January 14, 2007
1072 Superman
Sunday, January 14, 2007
It's my understanding that it's our yellow sun that causes Superman to have super strength and super powers.
It's my understanding that you build muscles by working them hard.
Now, if Superman has super strength, to him nothing is heavy, how did he manage to build big muscles?
Just something else I don't understand.
.
It's my understanding that it's our yellow sun that causes Superman to have super strength and super powers.
It's my understanding that you build muscles by working them hard.
Now, if Superman has super strength, to him nothing is heavy, how did he manage to build big muscles?
Just something else I don't understand.
.
1071 Chi1dren's Fund
Sunday, January 14, 2007
I was about to go to bed, and glanced up at the TV, and there was a commercial on for Chris1ian Chi1drens' Fund, and I had to, again, fight down the urge. They have a very good reputation. They have one of the smallest overheads. And come on, it's children!
But I had a very bad experience with them way back when.
When Daughter was small, we decided to "join up". We requested a girl, in Africa if possible, about Daughter's age if possible. They said that could be arranged, and they hooked us up with a girl of about the right age, in ... Baton Rouge, La. She was African only by heritage. Oh, well.
So we sent our set amount every month for about three years, and everything was fine.
Then we left Ex#2 and moved from Maryland to New York State, in the middle of the summer (early '80s). I had just enough money for a down payment on a small house, but no extra cash. The well pump died within a month of our moving in. The furnace went shortly after. I was starting over, way down on the pay scale. I had to pay for child care. I was really worried about money. It was paycheck to paycheck, and we were scrimping. But we still sent the same amount to C-C-F every month.
Daughter was starting second grade in a new school, and was dismayed that she didn't have the cool fad stuff the other kids had, to fit in, establish her bona fides, but there was no way I could afford stuff like those $150 XXX shoes she "needed", especially not when she'd outgrow them in six months.
Then came Christmas. Daughter got what few gifts I could afford.
And then the Christmas photos arrived from the child in Baton Rouge. The kid was sitting in the middle of a huge pile of toys, including the very doll Daughter wanted, but I couldn't afford, and wearing those exact same $150 XXX shoes that my daughter craved. The furniture in her home was better than ours.
I continued to send the check for the next few months, but it was bugging me. This kid was doing better than my own daughter. She had a stay-at-home mother, while my daughter was spending her time in daycare and I was racking up bills. She was taking all kinds of music and dance lessons. She went to summer camp. She and Daughter corresponded, and Daughter couldn't help but be jealous of all the "stuff" this kid had, the designer name dropping. Photos confirmed that it wasn't mere name dropping.
Then my washing machine died, and I decided that maybe I should back up and take care of my own home and my own child first.
I wrote to C-C-F and explained that I was newly divorced, and having a hard time, and I would be unable to continue, that this was the last check I could send. That perhaps in the future, when I was back on my feet, I would try again.
Uh uh. There was no way they were letting me go! They badgered me by phone and mail constantly for the next few weeks, and then a couple times a month for the next YEAR! They tried guilt, anger, guilt again, innocence ... they didn't let up even when I asked if I could maybe get my daughter on their beneficiary list, since I suspected that a lot of their kids were better off than we were! They didn't quit until I mentioned harassment, and even then it took a while to taper off.
So that's why I fight off the commercials. I don't want to get into that guilt trap again. I give a lot, to a lot of charities, but as soon as they start acting like they're entitled to a donation, they don't get another for a while.
-----------------------------------
Habitat is starting to annoy me. I got a call yesterday, asking for $200. "Well, you sent $200 last time, so perhaps you could send the same for this drive?"
Hey, folks, "last time" was just two months ago. BACK OFF! You won't get another dime from me until I haven't heard from you for six months.
Jay's father contributes a lot. He's probably on everybody's list. That bad part is that the more you send, the more often they ask, and when the donor is getting up in age, sometimes they forget that they already donated. Jay's sister, when she took over management of the old man's mail and money, was horrified to find that certain charities were sending request letters at the rate of one a week, and Dad was sending checks almost as often. He'd forget that he had already sent them a check. They sure didn't forget.
By the way, watch out for those cancer associations that pretend to be the American Cancer Society. If you read the small print, all the donation is used for is "informational materials". In other words, they print up little one-page "go get a mammogram" or whatever fliers that they put on the public info tables in a few libraries, and they keep the rest of the money.
.
I was about to go to bed, and glanced up at the TV, and there was a commercial on for Chris1ian Chi1drens' Fund, and I had to, again, fight down the urge. They have a very good reputation. They have one of the smallest overheads. And come on, it's children!
But I had a very bad experience with them way back when.
When Daughter was small, we decided to "join up". We requested a girl, in Africa if possible, about Daughter's age if possible. They said that could be arranged, and they hooked us up with a girl of about the right age, in ... Baton Rouge, La. She was African only by heritage. Oh, well.
So we sent our set amount every month for about three years, and everything was fine.
Then we left Ex#2 and moved from Maryland to New York State, in the middle of the summer (early '80s). I had just enough money for a down payment on a small house, but no extra cash. The well pump died within a month of our moving in. The furnace went shortly after. I was starting over, way down on the pay scale. I had to pay for child care. I was really worried about money. It was paycheck to paycheck, and we were scrimping. But we still sent the same amount to C-C-F every month.
Daughter was starting second grade in a new school, and was dismayed that she didn't have the cool fad stuff the other kids had, to fit in, establish her bona fides, but there was no way I could afford stuff like those $150 XXX shoes she "needed", especially not when she'd outgrow them in six months.
Then came Christmas. Daughter got what few gifts I could afford.
And then the Christmas photos arrived from the child in Baton Rouge. The kid was sitting in the middle of a huge pile of toys, including the very doll Daughter wanted, but I couldn't afford, and wearing those exact same $150 XXX shoes that my daughter craved. The furniture in her home was better than ours.
I continued to send the check for the next few months, but it was bugging me. This kid was doing better than my own daughter. She had a stay-at-home mother, while my daughter was spending her time in daycare and I was racking up bills. She was taking all kinds of music and dance lessons. She went to summer camp. She and Daughter corresponded, and Daughter couldn't help but be jealous of all the "stuff" this kid had, the designer name dropping. Photos confirmed that it wasn't mere name dropping.
Then my washing machine died, and I decided that maybe I should back up and take care of my own home and my own child first.
I wrote to C-C-F and explained that I was newly divorced, and having a hard time, and I would be unable to continue, that this was the last check I could send. That perhaps in the future, when I was back on my feet, I would try again.
Uh uh. There was no way they were letting me go! They badgered me by phone and mail constantly for the next few weeks, and then a couple times a month for the next YEAR! They tried guilt, anger, guilt again, innocence ... they didn't let up even when I asked if I could maybe get my daughter on their beneficiary list, since I suspected that a lot of their kids were better off than we were! They didn't quit until I mentioned harassment, and even then it took a while to taper off.
So that's why I fight off the commercials. I don't want to get into that guilt trap again. I give a lot, to a lot of charities, but as soon as they start acting like they're entitled to a donation, they don't get another for a while.
-----------------------------------
Habitat is starting to annoy me. I got a call yesterday, asking for $200. "Well, you sent $200 last time, so perhaps you could send the same for this drive?"
Hey, folks, "last time" was just two months ago. BACK OFF! You won't get another dime from me until I haven't heard from you for six months.
Jay's father contributes a lot. He's probably on everybody's list. That bad part is that the more you send, the more often they ask, and when the donor is getting up in age, sometimes they forget that they already donated. Jay's sister, when she took over management of the old man's mail and money, was horrified to find that certain charities were sending request letters at the rate of one a week, and Dad was sending checks almost as often. He'd forget that he had already sent them a check. They sure didn't forget.
By the way, watch out for those cancer associations that pretend to be the American Cancer Society. If you read the small print, all the donation is used for is "informational materials". In other words, they print up little one-page "go get a mammogram" or whatever fliers that they put on the public info tables in a few libraries, and they keep the rest of the money.
.
1070 Snarl
Sunday, January 14, 2007 (1 am)
I'm supposed to go to central New Jersey for the day on Monday. Daughter has the day off, but Hercules has to work, so Daughter and I are going to do "girl stuff". But the weather reports out of Albany are full of storm. Sounds like maybe ice. Maybe snow. Maybe both.
I don't mind driving in ick. I just go slow and listen to CDs or the radio, and just keep slogging along. But the problem is my road. I'll be driving the minivan with the dropped floor (only 4" clearance), so if there's more than four inches of anything on the road, I can't move. The front edge of the dropped floor turns into a snowplow and pushes snow up into the motor compartment. If that's not bad enough, so much steam comes out from under the hood when that happens, I can't see anyway.
There's no place within a half mile of the house that I can park the van and leave it if I can't get up my road when I get home.
I'll watch the reports, listen to the weather radio, but I don't know how I can be sure, ever, what's going to happen until it actually happens.
-----------------------------------------
Whatever the program is that handles "flash" stuff updated itself the other day, and ever since then if I go to any page that has flash stuff on it, it takes the browsers down. I couldn't even visit my own blog because of the Flickr badge (that box with the changing photos that used to be on the left). I had to comment it out in the template. I can't visit the blogs of anyone else with a Flickr badge, either.
I suspect what happened is that the flash thingy update didn't check the level of the operating system. I'm running Windows 98 SE. They're likely trying to do something 98 SE doesn't support.
I've been planning to buy a new laptop. I guess it's getting urgent.
.
I'm supposed to go to central New Jersey for the day on Monday. Daughter has the day off, but Hercules has to work, so Daughter and I are going to do "girl stuff". But the weather reports out of Albany are full of storm. Sounds like maybe ice. Maybe snow. Maybe both.
I don't mind driving in ick. I just go slow and listen to CDs or the radio, and just keep slogging along. But the problem is my road. I'll be driving the minivan with the dropped floor (only 4" clearance), so if there's more than four inches of anything on the road, I can't move. The front edge of the dropped floor turns into a snowplow and pushes snow up into the motor compartment. If that's not bad enough, so much steam comes out from under the hood when that happens, I can't see anyway.
There's no place within a half mile of the house that I can park the van and leave it if I can't get up my road when I get home.
I'll watch the reports, listen to the weather radio, but I don't know how I can be sure, ever, what's going to happen until it actually happens.
-----------------------------------------
Whatever the program is that handles "flash" stuff updated itself the other day, and ever since then if I go to any page that has flash stuff on it, it takes the browsers down. I couldn't even visit my own blog because of the Flickr badge (that box with the changing photos that used to be on the left). I had to comment it out in the template. I can't visit the blogs of anyone else with a Flickr badge, either.
I suspect what happened is that the flash thingy update didn't check the level of the operating system. I'm running Windows 98 SE. They're likely trying to do something 98 SE doesn't support.
I've been planning to buy a new laptop. I guess it's getting urgent.
.
Saturday, January 13, 2007
1069 Friday Night on the Town, Sort of...
Saturday, January 13, 2007
[Later edit - screwed up the date again....]
Friday evening (last night) FirstWoman and I went to a Carl's List party in uptown Kingston. It was held in what used to be a furrier's shop, then a law office, and now an art gallery "and whatever" space on Wall Street. There was a front room, where the tables of food and drinks were, then a second round room, where two different groups played and sang, then a hall lined with restroom, kitchen, and smaller gallery rooms, leading back to a huge concrete and steel furrier vault room (very cold in there), safe door standing open.
It was an interesting space, but not really ideal for the group. Unlike last month, there were few chairs, and no tables other than those used for the food and drinks, and there wouldn't have been enough room to set tables up anyway. The round room had a double row of chairs (perhaps 20?) around the wall opposite where the band was set up, leaving the center of the room open, but people hesitated to stand in the open space in front of the seated people, so almost everyone was jammed into the front room, where it was so noisy no one could hear the music, and so crowded that a plate or drink got dumped on the floor every ten minutes or so.
It was more difficult to meet people than at last month's affair. Nobody was exactly relaxed.
We stayed two hours, and then headed to another something-or-other. (I don't know what to call these things.) The next thing was a Chronogram-hosted thingy in mid-town, in the old Shirt Factory (hi, Gypsy!) Parking was tight. We ended up parking in a 20-minute-only spot right across from the post office doors. (I'm such a rule-follower, I fussed about it for a bit.)
We had passes, so it cost us only $10 to get in. When we arrived, there was recorded music in a darkened room, with multicolored multishaped spotlights waving all around, and large projected pictures on the wall (seemed to be mostly pages from the Chronogram, a sort of free community newspaper). They had some kind of dust in the air to make the waving lights more interesting, I guess, and the dust really got to my nose.
FW was very unhappy, whether she didn't like the music, or the look of the crowd, or the fact that it wasn't open bar ($4 for wine/beer, $2 for soda/water), or what, I don't know. We were there about 20 minutes when she decided she wanted to leave, even though there was a band that was supposed to be very good slated to start within the half hour. She tried to get our money back, but the management said no. So we left.
There was supposed to be a good band in Saugerstock that FW wanted to hear. I had earlier told her that I probably wouldn't be up for Saugerstock, but since it was now only 9:45, I said ok. She was going to follow me, since she's unfamiliar with central Kingston. We got just around the corner, when she hit the horn and flashed her headlights, and stopped in the middle of her lane. I pulled over to the curb and ran back.
She had a flat rear driver-side tire.
She called 911. (Rule-follower me again: "Uh, this isn't exactly an emergency." "Well, what else are we going to do?" "Um, we could change the tire, do you have a spare?" "Yes, but @#$%^&*!!!" "Oh, ok.")
The town police actually came within minutes. Also, we happened to be stopped in front of a county cop's home, and he heard the call on his scanner, so he came out, too. They were very nice (all the police around here are always nice), they didn't even yell at FW for calling 911 or for sitting in the middle of the lane with her lights off (I was at the curb with flashers on).
They changed the tire. FW's jack was a little screw-type, so the county cop got a big pump jack out of his garage, and then when it turned out FW's donut was also flat, he provided an electric pump. We kinda had a little party there of our own. The town cops asked where we were from and where we had been, so we told them about the big party around the corner. They didn't know about it, which surprised me a bit. We jokingly told them that since they had done us a favor, we'll do them one, "if you're in the mood for writing parking tickets, try around the corner."
So Saugerstock was off. The cops advised FW against attempting the drive home to Newburgh on the thruway on the donut, so I led her to route 9W, and she limped home. I was home before 11.
-----------------------------------
Some people object to my calling police officers "cops". I have enormous respect for good police officers, so there is no disrespect in my use of the term. I don't think it's disrespectful at all. I think maybe people who think it's disrespectful don't know where the nickname came from, and perhaps they get it confused with "pig" - same number of letters and all that. Most police officers I've met don't seem to object to "cop" - after all, that real-life TV show is called "Cops". So there.
-----------------------------------
Some idiot woman brought a dog to the Carl's List party. I don't know what was going on in her head. It was a Jack Russell-Chihuahua mix, a little bitty very nervous beasty. It wouldn't have been so bad if the woman had held the doggie in her arms, or if she had positioned herself in an out of the way spot, but no, he was on the floor, in the middle of the room, on a leash. The room was very crowded, people stepping back to let others through and all that. The little dog almost got trampled several times, and looked very frightened. I was just waiting for someone to trip over him and fall on him, or get nipped. The woman acted completely oblivious. She was way past old enough to know better.
------------------------------------
At the Chronogram party, there were several men about our age at the table next to ours. They looked like businessmen who'd gotten lost, really uncomfortable and out of place. They brightened when they saw FW and me, one pulled out my chair for me, and so on. But for some reason, FW was already turned off by the place, and wasn't at all welcoming, thunder faced, so that went nowhere.
------------------------------------
And that was my big night out.
Sigh.
.
[Later edit - screwed up the date again....]
Friday evening (last night) FirstWoman and I went to a Carl's List party in uptown Kingston. It was held in what used to be a furrier's shop, then a law office, and now an art gallery "and whatever" space on Wall Street. There was a front room, where the tables of food and drinks were, then a second round room, where two different groups played and sang, then a hall lined with restroom, kitchen, and smaller gallery rooms, leading back to a huge concrete and steel furrier vault room (very cold in there), safe door standing open.
It was an interesting space, but not really ideal for the group. Unlike last month, there were few chairs, and no tables other than those used for the food and drinks, and there wouldn't have been enough room to set tables up anyway. The round room had a double row of chairs (perhaps 20?) around the wall opposite where the band was set up, leaving the center of the room open, but people hesitated to stand in the open space in front of the seated people, so almost everyone was jammed into the front room, where it was so noisy no one could hear the music, and so crowded that a plate or drink got dumped on the floor every ten minutes or so.
It was more difficult to meet people than at last month's affair. Nobody was exactly relaxed.
We stayed two hours, and then headed to another something-or-other. (I don't know what to call these things.) The next thing was a Chronogram-hosted thingy in mid-town, in the old Shirt Factory (hi, Gypsy!) Parking was tight. We ended up parking in a 20-minute-only spot right across from the post office doors. (I'm such a rule-follower, I fussed about it for a bit.)
We had passes, so it cost us only $10 to get in. When we arrived, there was recorded music in a darkened room, with multicolored multishaped spotlights waving all around, and large projected pictures on the wall (seemed to be mostly pages from the Chronogram, a sort of free community newspaper). They had some kind of dust in the air to make the waving lights more interesting, I guess, and the dust really got to my nose.
FW was very unhappy, whether she didn't like the music, or the look of the crowd, or the fact that it wasn't open bar ($4 for wine/beer, $2 for soda/water), or what, I don't know. We were there about 20 minutes when she decided she wanted to leave, even though there was a band that was supposed to be very good slated to start within the half hour. She tried to get our money back, but the management said no. So we left.
There was supposed to be a good band in Saugerstock that FW wanted to hear. I had earlier told her that I probably wouldn't be up for Saugerstock, but since it was now only 9:45, I said ok. She was going to follow me, since she's unfamiliar with central Kingston. We got just around the corner, when she hit the horn and flashed her headlights, and stopped in the middle of her lane. I pulled over to the curb and ran back.
She had a flat rear driver-side tire.
She called 911. (Rule-follower me again: "Uh, this isn't exactly an emergency." "Well, what else are we going to do?" "Um, we could change the tire, do you have a spare?" "Yes, but @#$%^&*!!!" "Oh, ok.")
The town police actually came within minutes. Also, we happened to be stopped in front of a county cop's home, and he heard the call on his scanner, so he came out, too. They were very nice (all the police around here are always nice), they didn't even yell at FW for calling 911 or for sitting in the middle of the lane with her lights off (I was at the curb with flashers on).
They changed the tire. FW's jack was a little screw-type, so the county cop got a big pump jack out of his garage, and then when it turned out FW's donut was also flat, he provided an electric pump. We kinda had a little party there of our own. The town cops asked where we were from and where we had been, so we told them about the big party around the corner. They didn't know about it, which surprised me a bit. We jokingly told them that since they had done us a favor, we'll do them one, "if you're in the mood for writing parking tickets, try around the corner."
So Saugerstock was off. The cops advised FW against attempting the drive home to Newburgh on the thruway on the donut, so I led her to route 9W, and she limped home. I was home before 11.
-----------------------------------
Some people object to my calling police officers "cops". I have enormous respect for good police officers, so there is no disrespect in my use of the term. I don't think it's disrespectful at all. I think maybe people who think it's disrespectful don't know where the nickname came from, and perhaps they get it confused with "pig" - same number of letters and all that. Most police officers I've met don't seem to object to "cop" - after all, that real-life TV show is called "Cops". So there.
-----------------------------------
Some idiot woman brought a dog to the Carl's List party. I don't know what was going on in her head. It was a Jack Russell-Chihuahua mix, a little bitty very nervous beasty. It wouldn't have been so bad if the woman had held the doggie in her arms, or if she had positioned herself in an out of the way spot, but no, he was on the floor, in the middle of the room, on a leash. The room was very crowded, people stepping back to let others through and all that. The little dog almost got trampled several times, and looked very frightened. I was just waiting for someone to trip over him and fall on him, or get nipped. The woman acted completely oblivious. She was way past old enough to know better.
------------------------------------
At the Chronogram party, there were several men about our age at the table next to ours. They looked like businessmen who'd gotten lost, really uncomfortable and out of place. They brightened when they saw FW and me, one pulled out my chair for me, and so on. But for some reason, FW was already turned off by the place, and wasn't at all welcoming, thunder faced, so that went nowhere.
------------------------------------
And that was my big night out.
Sigh.
.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
1068 My Bed, etc.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
I need to buy more sheets, and I cringe because they're so expensive.
I have a queen-sized bed, and in the winter I use two complete sets of sheets, because of the feather bed and the cat.
First there's a fitted sheet on the mattress (hotel-quality, firm). Then there's another fitted sheet on the feather bed. (Imagine an eight-inch-thick pillow the width and length of the mattress. You sink into it, and it cuddles you. That's a feather bed.) I used to put one sheet over both the feather bed and the mattress, but it squished the feather bed, didn't allow it to curl up around me. With a separate sheet on it, it's easy to fluff it in the morning.
Next is a flat sheet, tucked in at the foot. On top of that is an enormous king-sized white eider down comforter, so thick that Miss Thunderfoot can disappear into its depressions, and then on top of the comforter is another flat sheet. The top sheet is necessary to protect the comforter from Miss Thunderfoot - she still has her claws, which catch on things, and she sheds terribly. I can put a nice cover on the bed only temporarily for "company show". If there's anything other than a sheet on top for everyday, she'd destroy it.
When Jay was sick, I bought lots of good pillows. He needed them all around him to prop him up, and to change the position of his arms and legs. So now I have several on the bed. I need a very thick dense one for under my belly when I lie on my stomach to do crossword puzzles, so my back doesn't get bent the wrong way. I need a medium dense one for my head. I need a malleable one for when my neck is bothering me.
My winter bed is utterly shapeless. It looks like a mound of marshmallow fluff. I can't walk past it without throwing myself on it. I love it. It's so soft and warm and cuddly. So warm, the programmed thermostat will allow the house to drop 15 degrees at night, and I won't even notice.
Why do I need new sheets? I don't know. I'm down to two green sets. That's ok for the summer when the feathers are stored away, but not for the winter. Seems like there ought to be more, there should be a tan set, and a flowered set, but I don't know where they went. I seem to remember the flowered set was left over from Jay's ex, and they pilled, so I threw them away, I think. I'm confused.
What I really want to do is buy two queen and two king plain white flats, and make "envelopes" for the feather bed and the comforter (like duvets). That's a minimum of four sheets for one set of covers. Ack!
I need a good white sale.
----------------------------------------------
Classmates.com seems to think I have an account. I don't think I do. A few years ago I visited, hoping that maybe someone from my old high school might be listed, but my old high school wasn't there, let alone any classmates. So I tried to put my high school on their list with me as the first alumnus, but they wouldn't allow me to list it. Apparently, they allow only "known" schools, with real street addresses. My school ceased to exist in 1963, and it never did have an address. It was just Turnpike Area School, Mildred, Pa. Period. No street address needed, when there are only three streets and maybe twenty houses in the whole town.
-----------------------------------------------
A good friend called this afternoon to ask if I had a wheelchair he could borrow for his parents. I've still got all kinds of sickroom equipment, but the bed, Hoyer lift, oxygen generator, reciprocating air mattress, and wheelchair were rented. I wish I could accommodate him. I'm willing to lend him the van if he needs it to transport a chair-bound parent, but I know he wouldn't accept it.
------------------------------------------
Jay used to insist that the proper abbreviation of "cellular" is "cel", not "cell", as in "cel phone", not "cell phone". Since he was the techie, I accepted that without question. So now I'm torn. I go back and forth between "cel" and "cell". "Cell phone" seems to be the popular usage, but just because it's popular, does that make it right?
That's the very argument he and I used to have over Webster V Oxford. The Webster dictionary documents common usage, even if it's wrong (with the end result that words lose their meaning, and you can't use them any more if you want to be understood). The Oxford retains purity.
So would Jay bow to "cell phone" because it's popular? Should I stick with "cel phone" because it's correct? Is it?
.
I need to buy more sheets, and I cringe because they're so expensive.
I have a queen-sized bed, and in the winter I use two complete sets of sheets, because of the feather bed and the cat.
First there's a fitted sheet on the mattress (hotel-quality, firm). Then there's another fitted sheet on the feather bed. (Imagine an eight-inch-thick pillow the width and length of the mattress. You sink into it, and it cuddles you. That's a feather bed.) I used to put one sheet over both the feather bed and the mattress, but it squished the feather bed, didn't allow it to curl up around me. With a separate sheet on it, it's easy to fluff it in the morning.
Next is a flat sheet, tucked in at the foot. On top of that is an enormous king-sized white eider down comforter, so thick that Miss Thunderfoot can disappear into its depressions, and then on top of the comforter is another flat sheet. The top sheet is necessary to protect the comforter from Miss Thunderfoot - she still has her claws, which catch on things, and she sheds terribly. I can put a nice cover on the bed only temporarily for "company show". If there's anything other than a sheet on top for everyday, she'd destroy it.
When Jay was sick, I bought lots of good pillows. He needed them all around him to prop him up, and to change the position of his arms and legs. So now I have several on the bed. I need a very thick dense one for under my belly when I lie on my stomach to do crossword puzzles, so my back doesn't get bent the wrong way. I need a medium dense one for my head. I need a malleable one for when my neck is bothering me.
My winter bed is utterly shapeless. It looks like a mound of marshmallow fluff. I can't walk past it without throwing myself on it. I love it. It's so soft and warm and cuddly. So warm, the programmed thermostat will allow the house to drop 15 degrees at night, and I won't even notice.
Why do I need new sheets? I don't know. I'm down to two green sets. That's ok for the summer when the feathers are stored away, but not for the winter. Seems like there ought to be more, there should be a tan set, and a flowered set, but I don't know where they went. I seem to remember the flowered set was left over from Jay's ex, and they pilled, so I threw them away, I think. I'm confused.
What I really want to do is buy two queen and two king plain white flats, and make "envelopes" for the feather bed and the comforter (like duvets). That's a minimum of four sheets for one set of covers. Ack!
I need a good white sale.
----------------------------------------------
Classmates.com seems to think I have an account. I don't think I do. A few years ago I visited, hoping that maybe someone from my old high school might be listed, but my old high school wasn't there, let alone any classmates. So I tried to put my high school on their list with me as the first alumnus, but they wouldn't allow me to list it. Apparently, they allow only "known" schools, with real street addresses. My school ceased to exist in 1963, and it never did have an address. It was just Turnpike Area School, Mildred, Pa. Period. No street address needed, when there are only three streets and maybe twenty houses in the whole town.
-----------------------------------------------
A good friend called this afternoon to ask if I had a wheelchair he could borrow for his parents. I've still got all kinds of sickroom equipment, but the bed, Hoyer lift, oxygen generator, reciprocating air mattress, and wheelchair were rented. I wish I could accommodate him. I'm willing to lend him the van if he needs it to transport a chair-bound parent, but I know he wouldn't accept it.
------------------------------------------
Jay used to insist that the proper abbreviation of "cellular" is "cel", not "cell", as in "cel phone", not "cell phone". Since he was the techie, I accepted that without question. So now I'm torn. I go back and forth between "cel" and "cell". "Cell phone" seems to be the popular usage, but just because it's popular, does that make it right?
That's the very argument he and I used to have over Webster V Oxford. The Webster dictionary documents common usage, even if it's wrong (with the end result that words lose their meaning, and you can't use them any more if you want to be understood). The Oxford retains purity.
So would Jay bow to "cell phone" because it's popular? Should I stick with "cel phone" because it's correct? Is it?
.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
1067 Spelling
Wednesday, January 10, 2006
My ISP seems to have straightened itself out, and the browsers haven't gone down in a while, so whatever was wrong seems to have fixed itself.
I really missed the spell checker when it wasn't working there for a while. I have a small (British) dictionary here in the den, and a huge dictionary permanently open on a stand in the dining room. I really do check one or the other several times a day. I also have French, Spanish, Latin, Legal, Chemical, and Medical dictionaries, plus several other "word" references. Words were one of Jay's interests, too. We would open the dictionary to a random page, and try to stump each other with words. We had small spats over which dictionary, Webster's or Oxford's, was the best.
I have a huge "understanding/reading" vocabulary, but my "speaking/writing" vocabulary is pitifully small and parochial. I'll use the excuse that I see no reason to use a big fancy word that some people may misinterpret when a smaller more common word will do.
That's an excuse, because the real reason is that I can't spell, and I'm never sure of my pronunciation. Which makes sense, because I believe that if you can pronounce a word correctly, you have a better chance of spelling it correctly. (For example, ask someone who pronounces "athletic" with four syllables how they spell it.)
I have particular areas of difficulty:
Long words with double consonants.
Words that end with "el" or "le". I never know which is correct. Label? Lable? Why isn't it like table?
Adding "ed" to a word that ends with "el", double the "l" or not? Sometimes it's yes, and sometimes no, and I can't figure out what the rule is.
Stuff like that.
I do have a learning disability. They used to think it was dyslexia, but I think it's different, having more to do with left/right confusion, and memory. I have a terrible memory. I can't just memorize things, like how a word is spelled. The only way I can remember anything is to understand it. I can memorize a poem, but I can't memorize an item, like a person's name, or the name of a street (I have a specific problem with proper nouns of all types). For spelling a word, I have to know what the etymology is, what the rule is, and then "figure out" how it's spelled, as opposed to remember.
Welcome back, spel chekker.
.
My ISP seems to have straightened itself out, and the browsers haven't gone down in a while, so whatever was wrong seems to have fixed itself.
I really missed the spell checker when it wasn't working there for a while. I have a small (British) dictionary here in the den, and a huge dictionary permanently open on a stand in the dining room. I really do check one or the other several times a day. I also have French, Spanish, Latin, Legal, Chemical, and Medical dictionaries, plus several other "word" references. Words were one of Jay's interests, too. We would open the dictionary to a random page, and try to stump each other with words. We had small spats over which dictionary, Webster's or Oxford's, was the best.
I have a huge "understanding/reading" vocabulary, but my "speaking/writing" vocabulary is pitifully small and parochial. I'll use the excuse that I see no reason to use a big fancy word that some people may misinterpret when a smaller more common word will do.
That's an excuse, because the real reason is that I can't spell, and I'm never sure of my pronunciation. Which makes sense, because I believe that if you can pronounce a word correctly, you have a better chance of spelling it correctly. (For example, ask someone who pronounces "athletic" with four syllables how they spell it.)
I have particular areas of difficulty:
Long words with double consonants.
Words that end with "el" or "le". I never know which is correct. Label? Lable? Why isn't it like table?
Adding "ed" to a word that ends with "el", double the "l" or not? Sometimes it's yes, and sometimes no, and I can't figure out what the rule is.
Stuff like that.
I do have a learning disability. They used to think it was dyslexia, but I think it's different, having more to do with left/right confusion, and memory. I have a terrible memory. I can't just memorize things, like how a word is spelled. The only way I can remember anything is to understand it. I can memorize a poem, but I can't memorize an item, like a person's name, or the name of a street (I have a specific problem with proper nouns of all types). For spelling a word, I have to know what the etymology is, what the rule is, and then "figure out" how it's spelled, as opposed to remember.
Welcome back, spel chekker.
.
1066 Bits
Wednesday, January 10, 2006
I'm having all kinds of problems today. My browsers are crashing regularly, something about "illegal operations", and today the ISP (the folks I pay to dial in to) claims it has a connection to the internet, but all pages are either blank, or "contain no data". I can't get to anything.
So I'm trying to use a free dial-in Juno account I had set up the last time this happened, and I HATE it. Juno fills the screen with ads, leaving me only 6 inches of working space, and although Juno claims to be blocking popups, I get one every 10 seconds.
----------------------------------
After two weeks of fussing, the young lady whose paycheck was refused because of a supposed routing number problem has finally got some satisfaction. She tends to doubt herself, so she's not as aggressive as she should be in dealing with stuff like this, and what really bugged me is that her bank wouldn't or couldn't give her a definitive reason for why the check was refused, let alone put it in writing. In the meantime, the penalties kept mounting, to several hundred dollars at this point. As of Monday, she still wasn't SURE it was really a routing number error, which is critical to figuring out where the fault lies.
Yesterday, her employer agreed to write her a check for the penalties. So it's no longer her problem. However, her latest paycheck has the same routing code as the one that was refused.
She's afraid to deposit it.
I have advised her to change banks. Her current bank is deficient in customer service.
-------------------------------------------
Snow was predicted today for "north and west" of Albany. I watched the weather reports carefully last night and this morning, and the snow area was nowhere near here, not within 60 miles, so I didn't move the van down the driveway. This afternoon, I was surprised to see scattered snowflakes drifting lazily down outside the kitchen window. I half hoped someone was burning brush, and it was ash I was seeing, but nope, it's definitely snow.
-------------------------------------------
The sinuses are still nasty. I'm supposed to go to a pot-luck party with FirstWoman this Friday. She asked if I'd be feeling well enough to go, and I said I could fake it. I had originally planned to take Mormon funeral potatoes, but maybe it would be safer, germ-wise, to do the monetary donation option instead. I'm starting to cough more because of the drainage, and if I can't control the coughing, I suppose I can't go at all.
I don't think I'm contagious, I think that's over, what I've got (at the moment, anyway) is a simple irritation problem (sort of like an allergy), but it sure doesn't SOUND like it.
---------------------------------------------
I think it may be time to replace the bathroom scale. I went into the bathroom to piddle, and stepped on the scale as I passed it. I weighed X pounds, the same as I weighed before this past week of barely eating. Disappointing. I piddled, and then decided to check again, but this time I kicked off my shoes.
I weighed X+2 pounds.
----------------------------------------------
Flippin' browsers! Netscape has dropped twice since I started this post, and Firefox can't find Google.
Flippin' Juno! Because I'm not actually using Juno as the browser, it thinks there's "no activity", so every few minutes I get the "we're gonna kick you off in 50 seconds if you don't click here now" message. Which means if I got out to the kitchen for whatever, when I come back, the line has been dropped.
Flippin' whatever! I've clicked on Blogger's "spell check" several times now, and nothing happens.
I quit. I am the soul of patience, but only for reasonable, logical things. Not for arbitrary ridiculousnesses.
.
I'm having all kinds of problems today. My browsers are crashing regularly, something about "illegal operations", and today the ISP (the folks I pay to dial in to) claims it has a connection to the internet, but all pages are either blank, or "contain no data". I can't get to anything.
So I'm trying to use a free dial-in Juno account I had set up the last time this happened, and I HATE it. Juno fills the screen with ads, leaving me only 6 inches of working space, and although Juno claims to be blocking popups, I get one every 10 seconds.
----------------------------------
After two weeks of fussing, the young lady whose paycheck was refused because of a supposed routing number problem has finally got some satisfaction. She tends to doubt herself, so she's not as aggressive as she should be in dealing with stuff like this, and what really bugged me is that her bank wouldn't or couldn't give her a definitive reason for why the check was refused, let alone put it in writing. In the meantime, the penalties kept mounting, to several hundred dollars at this point. As of Monday, she still wasn't SURE it was really a routing number error, which is critical to figuring out where the fault lies.
Yesterday, her employer agreed to write her a check for the penalties. So it's no longer her problem. However, her latest paycheck has the same routing code as the one that was refused.
She's afraid to deposit it.
I have advised her to change banks. Her current bank is deficient in customer service.
-------------------------------------------
Snow was predicted today for "north and west" of Albany. I watched the weather reports carefully last night and this morning, and the snow area was nowhere near here, not within 60 miles, so I didn't move the van down the driveway. This afternoon, I was surprised to see scattered snowflakes drifting lazily down outside the kitchen window. I half hoped someone was burning brush, and it was ash I was seeing, but nope, it's definitely snow.
-------------------------------------------
The sinuses are still nasty. I'm supposed to go to a pot-luck party with FirstWoman this Friday. She asked if I'd be feeling well enough to go, and I said I could fake it. I had originally planned to take Mormon funeral potatoes, but maybe it would be safer, germ-wise, to do the monetary donation option instead. I'm starting to cough more because of the drainage, and if I can't control the coughing, I suppose I can't go at all.
I don't think I'm contagious, I think that's over, what I've got (at the moment, anyway) is a simple irritation problem (sort of like an allergy), but it sure doesn't SOUND like it.
---------------------------------------------
I think it may be time to replace the bathroom scale. I went into the bathroom to piddle, and stepped on the scale as I passed it. I weighed X pounds, the same as I weighed before this past week of barely eating. Disappointing. I piddled, and then decided to check again, but this time I kicked off my shoes.
I weighed X+2 pounds.
----------------------------------------------
Flippin' browsers! Netscape has dropped twice since I started this post, and Firefox can't find Google.
Flippin' Juno! Because I'm not actually using Juno as the browser, it thinks there's "no activity", so every few minutes I get the "we're gonna kick you off in 50 seconds if you don't click here now" message. Which means if I got out to the kitchen for whatever, when I come back, the line has been dropped.
Flippin' whatever! I've clicked on Blogger's "spell check" several times now, and nothing happens.
I quit. I am the soul of patience, but only for reasonable, logical things. Not for arbitrary ridiculousnesses.
.
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
1065 WordsWordsWords
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
If you go to www.snapshirts.com, and choose "Custom", you can build what they call a "word cloud", consisting of the most-used words in your blog. I just did mine, and this is the result: (The larger/darker the word, the more often it is used in the blog.)
I'm rather pleased with this list. The words I've used most are mostly words with positive connotations to me (with the obvious exception of "snow", of course).
Cool.
.
If you go to www.snapshirts.com, and choose "Custom", you can build what they call a "word cloud", consisting of the most-used words in your blog. I just did mine, and this is the result: (The larger/darker the word, the more often it is used in the blog.)
I'm rather pleased with this list. The words I've used most are mostly words with positive connotations to me (with the obvious exception of "snow", of course).
Cool.
.
Monday, January 08, 2007
1064
Monday, January 08, 2007
I've never understood the part in the Irish blessing, "...may the road rise up to meet you...". It's supposed to be good, but I don't understand why. Doesn't it mean that there should be no downhills? Aren't downhills the easy parts? It still leaves uphills, maybe even steeper ones if the road keeps rising. If you fall flat on your face, the road rose up to meet you....
Just something else I don't understand.
---------------------------------------------
My cold isn't a cold any more. Nose is clear, throat is fine, glands are normal, but sinuses are a mess. Back in the mid-eighties I'd had a serious sinus infection that left scarring, so they don't drain very well. I now have a lot of ick draining down the back of my throat (schnorrrrrt!). It's clear or white, so there's probably no infection, but the pressure is causing a lot of headache pain. I guess now it's just waiting it out, and watching that nothing opportunistic starts up.
I'm trying to drink a lot of hot stuff to keep things loose. Unfortunately, I don't like hot drinks. I drink a lot of tea, but I like it very strong and lukewarm.
Hot bubblebath! Ahah! I'll accept any excuse for a bubblebath!
.
I've never understood the part in the Irish blessing, "...may the road rise up to meet you...". It's supposed to be good, but I don't understand why. Doesn't it mean that there should be no downhills? Aren't downhills the easy parts? It still leaves uphills, maybe even steeper ones if the road keeps rising. If you fall flat on your face, the road rose up to meet you....
Just something else I don't understand.
---------------------------------------------
My cold isn't a cold any more. Nose is clear, throat is fine, glands are normal, but sinuses are a mess. Back in the mid-eighties I'd had a serious sinus infection that left scarring, so they don't drain very well. I now have a lot of ick draining down the back of my throat (schnorrrrrt!). It's clear or white, so there's probably no infection, but the pressure is causing a lot of headache pain. I guess now it's just waiting it out, and watching that nothing opportunistic starts up.
I'm trying to drink a lot of hot stuff to keep things loose. Unfortunately, I don't like hot drinks. I drink a lot of tea, but I like it very strong and lukewarm.
Hot bubblebath! Ahah! I'll accept any excuse for a bubblebath!
.
1063 More Ditz, and an Apology to HRH
Monday, January 08, 2007
I was reading another blogger's observation that Chinese fortune cookies don't seem to contain fortunes any more. They're just sage sayings. I had noticed that, too. It's like no one wants to frighten or offend anyone. You kinda don't even look forward to them any more.
Given that, the last "fortune" I got, at last month's Third Thursday dinner was very unusual. It said "Aviod walking alone in the dark." Scary. Even back when they pretended to be fortunes, I'd never seen one like that.
That was the dinner when I wanted to strangle The Ditz, because of other things she'd said. When I wrote that entry, I forgot to mention the fourtune cookie. Her comment was a dismissive wave of her hand, and "Oh, well, how often do you walk alone in the dark anyway?" Roman and I both choked and looked at her in amazement.
I said, "Um, like, anytime I walk out of the house after 4:30 pm?"
----------------------------------------
While looking through the December archives for the entry on The Ditz, to check whether I had mentioned the cookie, I also glanced through some of the entries surrounding that one, including the entries about harddisk clutter. TheQueen had recommended in a comment that I try Window Washer to eliminate the clutter, and I responded that I had tried it, and had a lot of trouble with it.
Well. Looking at that entry, I realize now I may have unintentionally offended her. I had quoted a very unhelpful "help" from FileExt.com to which I said "Very helpful folks! Bleck!"
Unfortunately, the "Very helpful..." looks like a header for my response to TheQueen. Oops.
It wasn't. But with some distance from it now, it sure looks like it.
So I'm making a public apology. I appreciate your suggestion, Your Highness, and never mean to denigrate it or to offend you, and I apologize for any hackles I may have raised. I was facing the other direction when I said bleck (but of course you couldn't see that, what with all the skinny wires and clouds and stuff between here and there).
.
I was reading another blogger's observation that Chinese fortune cookies don't seem to contain fortunes any more. They're just sage sayings. I had noticed that, too. It's like no one wants to frighten or offend anyone. You kinda don't even look forward to them any more.
Given that, the last "fortune" I got, at last month's Third Thursday dinner was very unusual. It said "Aviod walking alone in the dark." Scary. Even back when they pretended to be fortunes, I'd never seen one like that.
That was the dinner when I wanted to strangle The Ditz, because of other things she'd said. When I wrote that entry, I forgot to mention the fourtune cookie. Her comment was a dismissive wave of her hand, and "Oh, well, how often do you walk alone in the dark anyway?" Roman and I both choked and looked at her in amazement.
I said, "Um, like, anytime I walk out of the house after 4:30 pm?"
----------------------------------------
While looking through the December archives for the entry on The Ditz, to check whether I had mentioned the cookie, I also glanced through some of the entries surrounding that one, including the entries about harddisk clutter. TheQueen had recommended in a comment that I try Window Washer to eliminate the clutter, and I responded that I had tried it, and had a lot of trouble with it.
Well. Looking at that entry, I realize now I may have unintentionally offended her. I had quoted a very unhelpful "help" from FileExt.com to which I said "Very helpful folks! Bleck!"
Unfortunately, the "Very helpful..." looks like a header for my response to TheQueen. Oops.
It wasn't. But with some distance from it now, it sure looks like it.
So I'm making a public apology. I appreciate your suggestion, Your Highness, and never mean to denigrate it or to offend you, and I apologize for any hackles I may have raised. I was facing the other direction when I said bleck (but of course you couldn't see that, what with all the skinny wires and clouds and stuff between here and there).
.
Sunday, January 07, 2007
1062 I Hate Snow
Sunday, January 07, 2007
In a phone conversation this afternoon, I mentioned to Daughter that I was happy that we'd had no snow yet, and I'd be even happier if we had none all winter. Then I found this, which pretty much explains why:
December 8:
6:00 PM. It started to snow. The first snow of the season and the wife and I took our cocktails and sat for hours by the window watching the huge soft flakes drift down from heaven. It looked like a Grandma Moses Print. So romantic we felt like newlyweds again. I love snow!
December 9:
We woke to a beautiful blanket of crystal white snow covering every inch of the landscape. What a fantastic sight! Can there be a more lovely place in the whole world? Moving here was the best idea I've ever had. Shoveled for the first time in years and felt like a boy again. I did both our driveway and the sidewalks. This afternoon the snowplow came along and covered up the sidewalks and closed in the driveway, so I got to shovel again. What a perfect life.
December 12:
The sun has melted all our lovely snow. Such a disappointment. My neighbor tells me not to worry, we'll definitely have a white Christmas. No snow on Christmas would be awful! Bob says we'll have so much snow by the end of winter, that I'll never want to see snow again. l don't think that's possible. Bob is such a nice man. I'm glad he's our neighbor.
December 14:
Snow lovely snow! 8" last night. The temperature dropped to - 20. The cold makes everything sparkle so. The wind took my breath away, but I warmed up by shoveling the driveway and sidewalks. This is the life! The snowplow came back this afternoon and buried everything again. I didn't realize I would have to do quite this much shoveling, but I'll certainly get back in shape this way. I wish I wouldn't huff and puff so.
December 15:
20 inches forecast. Sold my van and bought a 4x4 Blazer. Bought snow tires for the wife's car and 2 extra shovels. Stocked the freezer. The wife wants a wood stove in case the electricity goes out. I think that's silly. We aren't in Alaska, after all.
December 16:
Ice storm this morning. Fell on my ass on the ice in the driveway putting down salt. Hurt like hell. The wife laughed for an hour, Which I think was very cruel.
December 17:
Still way below freezing. Roads are too icy to go anywhere. Electricity was off for 5 hours. I had to pile the blankets on to stay warm. Nothing to do but stare at the wife and try not to irritate her. Guess I should've bought a wood stove, but won't admit it to her. God I hate it when she's right. I can't believe I'm freezing to death in my own living room.
December 20:
Electricity's back on, but had another 14" of the damn stuff last night. More shoveling. Took all day. Goddamn snowplow came by twice. Tried to find a neighbor kid to shovel, but they said they're too busy playing hockey. I think they're lying. Called the only hardware store around to see about buying a snow blower and they're out. Might have another shipment in March. I think they're lying. Bob says I have to shovel or the city will have it done and bill me. I think he's lying.
December 22:
Bob was right about a white Christmas because 13 more inches of the white shit fell today, and it's so cold it probably won't melt till August. Took me 45 minutes to get all dressed up to go out to shovel and then I had to piss. By the time I got undressed, pissed and dressed again. I was too tired to shovel. Tried to hire Bob who has a plow on his truck for the rest of the winter; but he says he's too busy. I think the asshole is lying.
December 23:
Only 2" of snow today. And it warmed up to 0. The wife wanted me to decorate the front of the house this morning. What is she, nuts?!?! Why didn't she tell me to do that a month ago? She says she did but I think she's lying.
December 24:
6". Snow packed so hard by snowplow, l broke the shovel. Thought I was having a heart attack. If I ever catch the son of a bitch who drives that snowplow, I'll drag him through the snow by his balls. I know he hides around the corner and waits for me to finish shoveling and then he comes down the street at a 100 miles an hour and throws snow all over where I've just been! Tonight the wife wanted me to sing Christmas carols with her and open our presents, but I was busy watching for the goddamn snowplow.
December 25:
Merry Christmas. 20 more inches of the slop tonight. Snowed in. The idea of shoveling makes my blood boil. God I hate the snow! Then the snowplow driver came by asking for a donation and I hit him over the head with my shovel. The wife says I have a bad attitude. I think she's an idiot. If I have to watch "It's a Wonderful Life" one more time, I'm going to kill her.
December 26:
Still snowed in. Why the hell did I ever move here? It was all HER idea. She's really getting on my nerves.
December 27:
Temperature dropped to -30 and the pipes froze.
December 28:
Warmed up to above -50. Still snowed in. THE BITCH is driving me crazy!!!!!
December 29:
10 more inches. Bob says I have to shovel the roof or it could cave in. That's the silliest thing I ever heard. How dumb does he think I am?
December 30:
Roof caved in. The snow plow driver is suing me for a million dollars. The wife went home to her mother. 9" predicted.
December 31:
Set fire to what's left of the house. No more shoveling.
January 8:
I feel so good. I just love those little white pills they keep giving me. Why am I tied to the bed?
.
In a phone conversation this afternoon, I mentioned to Daughter that I was happy that we'd had no snow yet, and I'd be even happier if we had none all winter. Then I found this, which pretty much explains why:
December 8:
6:00 PM. It started to snow. The first snow of the season and the wife and I took our cocktails and sat for hours by the window watching the huge soft flakes drift down from heaven. It looked like a Grandma Moses Print. So romantic we felt like newlyweds again. I love snow!
December 9:
We woke to a beautiful blanket of crystal white snow covering every inch of the landscape. What a fantastic sight! Can there be a more lovely place in the whole world? Moving here was the best idea I've ever had. Shoveled for the first time in years and felt like a boy again. I did both our driveway and the sidewalks. This afternoon the snowplow came along and covered up the sidewalks and closed in the driveway, so I got to shovel again. What a perfect life.
December 12:
The sun has melted all our lovely snow. Such a disappointment. My neighbor tells me not to worry, we'll definitely have a white Christmas. No snow on Christmas would be awful! Bob says we'll have so much snow by the end of winter, that I'll never want to see snow again. l don't think that's possible. Bob is such a nice man. I'm glad he's our neighbor.
December 14:
Snow lovely snow! 8" last night. The temperature dropped to - 20. The cold makes everything sparkle so. The wind took my breath away, but I warmed up by shoveling the driveway and sidewalks. This is the life! The snowplow came back this afternoon and buried everything again. I didn't realize I would have to do quite this much shoveling, but I'll certainly get back in shape this way. I wish I wouldn't huff and puff so.
December 15:
20 inches forecast. Sold my van and bought a 4x4 Blazer. Bought snow tires for the wife's car and 2 extra shovels. Stocked the freezer. The wife wants a wood stove in case the electricity goes out. I think that's silly. We aren't in Alaska, after all.
December 16:
Ice storm this morning. Fell on my ass on the ice in the driveway putting down salt. Hurt like hell. The wife laughed for an hour, Which I think was very cruel.
December 17:
Still way below freezing. Roads are too icy to go anywhere. Electricity was off for 5 hours. I had to pile the blankets on to stay warm. Nothing to do but stare at the wife and try not to irritate her. Guess I should've bought a wood stove, but won't admit it to her. God I hate it when she's right. I can't believe I'm freezing to death in my own living room.
December 20:
Electricity's back on, but had another 14" of the damn stuff last night. More shoveling. Took all day. Goddamn snowplow came by twice. Tried to find a neighbor kid to shovel, but they said they're too busy playing hockey. I think they're lying. Called the only hardware store around to see about buying a snow blower and they're out. Might have another shipment in March. I think they're lying. Bob says I have to shovel or the city will have it done and bill me. I think he's lying.
December 22:
Bob was right about a white Christmas because 13 more inches of the white shit fell today, and it's so cold it probably won't melt till August. Took me 45 minutes to get all dressed up to go out to shovel and then I had to piss. By the time I got undressed, pissed and dressed again. I was too tired to shovel. Tried to hire Bob who has a plow on his truck for the rest of the winter; but he says he's too busy. I think the asshole is lying.
December 23:
Only 2" of snow today. And it warmed up to 0. The wife wanted me to decorate the front of the house this morning. What is she, nuts?!?! Why didn't she tell me to do that a month ago? She says she did but I think she's lying.
December 24:
6". Snow packed so hard by snowplow, l broke the shovel. Thought I was having a heart attack. If I ever catch the son of a bitch who drives that snowplow, I'll drag him through the snow by his balls. I know he hides around the corner and waits for me to finish shoveling and then he comes down the street at a 100 miles an hour and throws snow all over where I've just been! Tonight the wife wanted me to sing Christmas carols with her and open our presents, but I was busy watching for the goddamn snowplow.
December 25:
Merry Christmas. 20 more inches of the slop tonight. Snowed in. The idea of shoveling makes my blood boil. God I hate the snow! Then the snowplow driver came by asking for a donation and I hit him over the head with my shovel. The wife says I have a bad attitude. I think she's an idiot. If I have to watch "It's a Wonderful Life" one more time, I'm going to kill her.
December 26:
Still snowed in. Why the hell did I ever move here? It was all HER idea. She's really getting on my nerves.
December 27:
Temperature dropped to -30 and the pipes froze.
December 28:
Warmed up to above -50. Still snowed in. THE BITCH is driving me crazy!!!!!
December 29:
10 more inches. Bob says I have to shovel the roof or it could cave in. That's the silliest thing I ever heard. How dumb does he think I am?
December 30:
Roof caved in. The snow plow driver is suing me for a million dollars. The wife went home to her mother. 9" predicted.
December 31:
Set fire to what's left of the house. No more shoveling.
January 8:
I feel so good. I just love those little white pills they keep giving me. Why am I tied to the bed?
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Saturday, January 06, 2007
1061 Petra
Saturday, January 06, 2007
I want to go to Petra, in Jordan. Take the tour (enter through The Siq, at the bottom). See more pictures. [Later edit - I just spent two hours perusing the "pictures" site. It takes you through step by step, in an easy to follow way. It's wonderful!]
First thing I need to do is find someone to go with me.
I will touch the stone! I will buy Bedouin jewelry! And dresses! And shawls!
I want to do this soon, like within the next two years. I checked the state department advisories, and right now it looks ok. Who knows how long that will be true.
I wanna!
.
I want to go to Petra, in Jordan. Take the tour (enter through The Siq, at the bottom). See more pictures. [Later edit - I just spent two hours perusing the "pictures" site. It takes you through step by step, in an easy to follow way. It's wonderful!]
First thing I need to do is find someone to go with me.
I will touch the stone! I will buy Bedouin jewelry! And dresses! And shawls!
I want to do this soon, like within the next two years. I checked the state department advisories, and right now it looks ok. Who knows how long that will be true.
I wanna!
.
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