3324 Collecting

Saturday, July 30, 2011

Anything that says "healthy" I stay away from.
Giving up butter, for instance, means that in about two years
you will be covered in dandruff.
-- Julia Child --

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It's been a hair over six weeks since I had the stent removed, and it's time to do the 24-hour urine collection. (Why wait six weeks? I have no idea. Perhaps because my bladder was so torn up the urologist wanted to give it time to heal? That still doesn't explain six weeks. Maybe that was the longest he figured he could put off having to see me again.)

I picked up the collection bottles at the lab earlier in the week. Yeah, bottleS. Turns out the doctor wants a bunch of things (chemicals in the urine) tested for, some of which require acid in the urine in the bottle, and others which require pure urine, so I have to do TWO 24-hour collections. So I needed two days that I wasn't going to be going out much.

I had intended to head upriver on Wednesday evening and return yesterday, but I blew it. I got involved in something Wednesday, and time had gotten away from me and it was late and I was very tired. So I decided to leave very early Thursday morning. I've been waking automatically at 6:30 lately, so I figured I could be on the road by 7.

Wednesday night I had great difficulty sleeping. Thousands of thoughts. Tossing and turning. I even got up and came downstairs for a few minutes at 2 am. By 5 am I was still not sleeping. Then I fell asleep and didn't wake until 9:30. That would put me at the old house at the hottest time of the afternoon, I'd have lost control of the heat in the house, wouldn't be able to get it cooled down, and then I'd just have to leave again the next morning. So I didn't go. I'll go Monday.

So I've been collecting urine yesterday and today.

When the woman at the lab gave me the containers, I said, "3000 ml? I'll need an additional container for each day, these aren't large enough."

I am so sick and tired of medical folks patting me on the head and assuring me I don't know what I'm talking about.

"Oh, no, these will be plenty large enough. If you fill it this far (pointing about two inches from the top) you'll be doing really good." I told her I regularly drink a minimum of three liters a day, not including whatever fluid is in my food. She said, "Oh, not everything that goes in comes out. This will be ok."

I didn't argue further.

So yesterday, when the container was more than half full by 2 pm, I curtailed my usual intake for the rest of the day, because I knew the next morning's piddle would be especially important because that's where all the vitamins and minerals I take would show up, and that would be about 12-16 ounces, so I'd have to leave at least that much room. Which royally pissed me off, because I figure if we want to find out what's causing the stones, it's important to eat and drink as close to my usual as possible.

I took that container to the lab this morning, and it was full to within a half inch of the top.

It's NOT thirst that makes me drink so much. It's habit. I don't usually carry bottles of water with me, for example. I can be out running around all day with nothing to drink, and I'll feel no thirst. One odd thing I've noticed is that when I don't get the usual three quarts of water a day, my stomach sticks out. It's like my body pulls a reserve of fluid into the fat pad on my tummy. Camel mode. The better regularly hydrated I am, the flatter the tummy. (And the better my face looks. Wrinkles and grooves get filled in.)

"They" say that when you are adequately hydrated, your urine should be very pale, almost clear.

I never see clear, even at 3+ quarts a day. It's rarely even pale. It's usually bright yellow crayon yellow. When I've gone a day with little to drink, it's a bright intense flashing neon yellow. (When it gets dark yellow, that's infection.)

My liver's fine, by the way. And the whites of my eyes are white.

Maybe it's the vitamins and minerals? Excess getting piddled away? I don't think so, because a.) although I'm taking a large variety, it's not large quantities, nowhere near megadoses on any of them, they're just to "fill in" the holes, so to speak, and b.) I have often skipped the supplements when traveling or "just because", and there's no difference.

I'm hoping this test might answer that question.
.

3323 Maybe this will work?

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

A man who goes to the bottom of things usually winds up on top.
-- Salada Tea tag line --

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Yesterday I went to the NY DMV website, opened an account, and changed my address for my driver's license and registrations. I think, well, hope, that's what they consider my "address of record". (Note that they never do define what they mean by "address of record".) That procedure doesn't change the address on the title, because they say that "the title is valid no matter what address is on it". (So, um, which "record" are we using the address of?)

Today I filled out the forms for replacement of the titles, using the NJ address as the "current address", and mailed them.

Now I wait six to eight weeks to find out whether it worked or not.
.

3322 Getting weird

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Alimony: Bounty on the mutiny.
-- Salada Tea tag line --

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I'm beginning to think someone is playing games with me. The "cars" folder, which is supposed to contain titles and service records (and I know I have put service records in there!) is empty.

Now I can't find the registration cards or insurance cards. They are supposed to be in the clove compartments. I always put them in the glove compartments within a day or two of their arrival. Always! In fact, Hal and Fred have plastic cases for them. If I hadn't put the new ones in the cases, then the old ones should still be there.

The cases are empty.

It would make more sense if the cases were missing.

I don't understand.
.

3321 Kill me now!

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Honest men are slaves to their conscience, and there's no predicting 'em.
But you can always trust a dishonest man to stay that way.
-- Pirate "Jack Sparrow" --

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

I need to get my cars registered here. The local gendarme has been slowing down at the end of the driveway and peering at Fred's NY plates. One of these days he's going to ask.

In order to register them here, I need the titles. I can't find the titles. They MUST be in the old house somewhere, but I've sorted through every stack of paper, and they are nowhere. Naturally, the folder in the file cabinet marked "cars" has nothing in it.

So, "all I have to do" is apply to the NYS DMV for new copies. I have the forms. I have the $20 each. What I don't have is a way to receive them.

NYS will send the new titles only to the address of record. Period. The address of record is the old address. Even if I change the address of record (and I'd have to change it to a NY address, not a NJ address) they will send the new titles with the new address on them only to the old address.

No, you cannot pick them up in person. Impossible. Mail to address of record only.

Duh? This has to happen a lot. Why don't they have a better process?

I'm having the USPS forward mail going to the old house to the new address (there's very little by now that doesn't have the new address). The old house is no longer getting mail. HOWEVER, the USPS will not forward ANY official government mail, state or federal. It will be returned to sender, the DMV.

The two women at the information desk at the DMV office in Kingston, NY, told me that there will be a USPS sticker on the envelope telling them the new address, but they don't know if that will result in them being resent to the new address. (They, employees of the DMV, actually looked at each other ruefully and said, "After all, it's the DMV we're talking about.") So they gave me a phone number in Albany to call and ask what to do.

I have called that number - early morning, late afternoon, lunchtime, over and over - and all I'm getting is a recorded message saying that the call volume is too high and they are not taking calls, that I should go to the website. The website just says they'll mail new titles to the address of record. Sigh.

They have divided the state into area code blocks, and ask that you call different numbers for different area codes. I've tried the number for the old area code, and for out of state, and I get the same "high volume, go to website" message. Click. Crickets.

Hey folks! It's not high call volume causing the problem! It's low phone answerer volume! Put more people on the damn phones!

I don't know what to do.

The only thing I can think of is to stop the USPS forwarding, and instead have the mail held at the post office, and then pick it up on trips upriver until the titles arrive, then reinstate forwarding. BUT, it was a permanent (one year) forward, and I don't know if they'll let me do that.

Kill me now.

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

AHAH! I'll write them a letter asking what I should do! I'll even include a SASE.

(What are the chances that IF there's a response, it will be coherent?)

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

I checked the DMV website. I can change my address online for the driver's license and registrations, but not for the titles. "Your title is still valid with the old address on it."

Duh?
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3320 A cure for poverty?

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.
-- Archilochus --

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Low income families eat high fat, high sugar foods because they're cheaper than fresh, more healthy foods. A lot cheaper.

So some lawmakers have come up with a solution - a way to wean people off the bad stuff and force people to eat healthier foods. They want to tax the hell out of fast foods, sodas, junk food. Make them so expensive that poor people can't afford to eat bad stuff, can't take that choice as the easy way to save money. Save the state lots of money in health care costs. One guy on the news this morning was actually comparing it to the war on tobacco - that ridiculous taxes got people to quit when they couldn't afford it any more.

Uh, I don't understand.

Isn't the theory that they can't afford the healthy stuff, so that's why they eat the bad stuff? No to mention that when you have two jobs, there isn't a lot of time for shopping, chopping, and cooking. So the solution is to ensure that they can't afford any food? If it works like the tobacco thing, will they quit eating?

Actually, I suspect the lawmakers don't understand.

(Although if all the low income families starve to death, yeah, I guess that would save on medical costs.... Maybe this is the new "War on Poverty".)
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3319 I give up

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Garrison Keillor says he speaks Danish well enough to get into trouble,
but not well enough to get out of it.

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

This is longish, but do read it.
It may be important to you or someone you know.

I saw this notice when I went to Blogger today:

Do more with your photos
Your blog's photos have their
own album in Picasa Web Albums.
Take a look.

So I went to Picasa to look.

I was faced with the usual "gotta check the box that you read the Terms and Conditions". I've worked with lawyers long enough to know that you DO read the legal stuff or suffer the consequences, but Picasa didn't make it easy. The terms and conditions were in a small unexpandable box, and each paragraph was one very long line, so you had to scroll right and left forever, as well as down.

Most people would shrug, skip it, and check the box. I copied the damn thing to the notepad, and read it, because with that extreme format, I figure they're hiding something.

I found this little gem:

11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. This license is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services. [Emphasis mine.]

11.2 You agree that this license includes a right for Google to make such Content available to other companies, organizations or individuals with whom Google has relationships for the provision of syndicated services, and to use such Content in connection with the provision of those services.

That's the bit that got me banned from Facebook for life when I objected to Facebook's retaining my photos for their own use even after I had deleted them from my account. That word "irrevocable" means that once posting the photos, you can never regain control of them. Note, by the way, that paragraph 11.2 directly contradicts the last sentence of paragraph 11.1. That means that advertisers with relationships with Google can use your photos on ads offering, say, STD cures, and you have no say.

Sigh.

Oh, yeah, every photo that ever appeared on my blog is out there. I know that putting them on my blog I "gave" them to the internet, but I didn't give up my rights to control them if I so chose. I still retained the right to control --- until Google/Blogger/Picasa took it away.

I can't make the albums out there private. I did check the box to not give out the link, but I don't know what that means. Let me know if you suddenly can't see photos on entries. *I* can still see them, but I don't know if anyone else can. Please check out the immediately preceding post. Is the shirt dress still there?
.

3318 Shirt Dress

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

I apologize for all my shortcomings.
-- Rhett Butler --

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I used to do this with Jay's older shirts on those lazy at-home days. He loved it.
This doesn't show it, but you cross the sleeves in back before bringing them forward.
.

3317 What happened to tuna?

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Most men ... were competent in groups that mimicked the playground,
incompetent in groups that mimicked the family;
that was why all-male committees ran the most smoothly.
-- Jane Smiley, Moo --

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I've always bought solid white tuna in water. I've noticed over the past twenty years that it has been gradually changing - getting darker and less solid. It used to be white and came out of the can solid, like a tuna steak. You practically had to slice it to break it up. Now it looks a lot more like chunk light used to.

If this is what solid white looks like now, I'd hate to see what the stuff labeled chunk light looks like - cat food?

Has the tuna changed?

Or are we consumers now getting second best, they just moved the labels down the line, and the good stuff is going somewhere else?
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3316 I am my own person

Sunday, July 24, 2011

The essence of charity ... [is] not deciding what others needed and giving
it to them, but giving them what they wanted.
-- Jane Smiley, Moo --

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The biggest disadvantage of having skimpy eyebrows is that sweat runs straight down into my eyes, carrying sunscreen with it. That means red burning eyes, blurred vision, and no makeup. Heat itself doesn't bother me much, I'm otherwise perfectly willing to go out when it's hitting 100 and above. But my eyes, my eyes! The only thing anything near a solution is no sunscreen above my cheeks, and a hat.

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

Got my hair trimmed last Friday. I may go back and get the back trimmed a bit closer in a week or two. They always leave the back too long and it wants to stick out.

The hairdresser was very jealous that I didn't want blowing out or mousse - "I'll just scrunch it with my hands until it dries." She said she envied my hair's body and wave. I said it was just a good cut. She raved about my color, "and it's entirely natural!" Hmmm. I'd been seriously contemplating a temporary light blonde coloring.

The main problem is that I don't know what color it is. When it was long I could pull it in front and look at it, and when I trimmed it I had some length to look at. But back then I was coloring it. Now it's natural, and the old dye is all grown out, but I can't see it.

No, mirrors don't reflect true color. And when I look at the bits of trimming on the salon floor, they look dull gray to me. When I ask people, they wrinkle their noses and say "No, not white. Not gray. Sorta blondish, I guess. But not really." Main trouble is that I think it's different colors in different light.

I think maybe in natural light, sunlight, it's a pale platinum blonde. In artificial light I suspect it's a yellowed gray, like an old linen tablecloth.

I think I'll color it.

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

I've been thinking about what I said in an earlier post about women changing their names when they marry, that it's like there's been a change of ownership, changing the title so to speak.

I have come down strongly and firmly on the side of NOT changing names. I see no reason whatsoever for a woman to change her last name. When I was married to Jay I didn't change my name because I owned so much in my own name and both he and I could see no reason to go to all that bother. If anyone got fussy about it, like in the hospitals when they wanted to be sure that I was really his wife before they'd let me stay past visiting hours, I'd just say "My name is [my name], and my social title is Mrs. [his name]. There's a difference." Oddly, they all simply accepted that.

Note that although it is perfectly legal for a man to change to his wife's name on marriage, almost none ever do. Ask a man why not sometime. The answer will be illuminating.

I also think that hyphenating is downright silly. Why bother? Does a woman really have to add his name? No.

As for children, most people don't know this, but you can give a child any surname you want. You don't have to use the parent's last name(s). Just agree on something you like, and that's it. No, it doesn't cause problems. Look at all the blended families, where stepparent and stepchildren don't have the same surname, or a natural mother who changed her name on remarriage and has children of a previous marriage, or step-siblings. No big deal.

I just strongly object to the assumption (or male insistence) that a woman has to take her husband's surname. It's too much like changing title on property. (It's also unique to western Europe. Most eastern countries don't have that custom.)

The custom makes it nearly impossible to locate old female friends from high school and college. I have to know who their new owners are.
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3315 Black Metal Pad Thai

Friday, July 22, 2011

Leave the stage while the audience is still clapping.

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Like Pad Thai? Here's how to make it. This is the Vegan Black Metal Chef. He's a riot. A Kiss escapee with the most wonderful knives. The contrast between what he is - and what he's doing - and how he's doing it - and what he's doing it with - is a riot.

[http://www.youtube.com/user/VeganBlackMetalChef#p/a/u/2/CeZlih4DDNg]
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3314 Ugly stuff - avert your eyes and skip this one.

Friday, July 22, 2011

Definition: Punker - Rebel without a clue, with a high school art project hairdo.

(I suspect there's a more current term than "punker" for them,
but the effect is still the same. You know, like the guys with the rainbow Mohawks?)

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

I'd mentioned that I can't wear tight jeans, that I get "bumps" on my bottom from them. Well, I also get bumps in front on the mons, around the anus, or in the creases of the groin if I wear anything that is both tight and that rubs there. (But not on the labia.)

The ones on my bottom seem to resolve quickly without getting nasty. The bump comes, complains, then goes away. The others don't.

The bad ones start out as a hard pea under the skin. The bump gets bigger. Then it gets red over the bump, and it gets sensitive. Then it gets dark gray over the bump. Then a black dot appears. The lump continues to grow until the skin seems very tight, there's no more room for it, and it hurts like hell. Then two or three weeks or so since it first started, it either forms a head under or next to the black dot, which eventually bursts and drains, or it drains through the black dot without forming a head, or, and these are the worst, it forms a tunnel deep under the skin, to the outside, and drains an inch or more from the center of the bump. The latter take forever to resolve. The drainage is almost all dark blood, with a little white pus. After two days of draining, there will be a hard plug of white cheesy stuff, and then it's done. They all usually leave a black scar spot when they're gone.

Many doctors, GPs and GYNs, and one dermatologist, have seen them. I've had many diagnoses, been told they are ingrown hairs, infected sweat glands, infected oil glands, rectal tears, my cleanliness and sexual habits have been called into question, everything. Two doctors have cultured the contents, looking for the right antibiotic, and surprise, there IS *NO* BACTERIA involved. It seems to be an immunological overreaction to something, but no one was sure what. In those few cases I had gone to the doctor when it was so painful I couldn't stand it, and about when the doctor decided to lance it after taking it down with antibiotics, by then it had resolved itself and gone away.

History:
First one. Never mind how I ended up on a horse with flopping stirrups at 24, long story, anyway the horse ran away with me and the bouncing tore up my bottom pretty well. I got a bump the size of a softball between the nether cheeks, so large and hard I couldn't close my legs. The doctor called it a perirectal abscess, and put me on antibiotics, planning to lance it once the infection was taken down a bit. But it soon burst on its own, and immediately healed.

Over the next ten years I had small ones all around that area, about one a year, painful for two to ten days, then burst and/or cleared up. (I had one smack between the vagina and anus when I gave birth to Daughter. That's probably how I avoided the "prophylactic" episiotomy everyone automatically got in those days. Doctor was afraid to cut into it.) I blamed them on leftover tears from that damned horse.

Then they moved. In my late 30s and 40s I got them mostly in the crease at the top of the leg. Smaller ones, not so painful, about one every two years.

In my 50s they moved again. Now I get them on the mons, the fluffy part, right in front, maybe one every ten months or so. The bumps get about the size of a large marble (what we used to call a shooter). They aren't very nasty, but they look bad. Try entertaining a man with a bandaid on your mons. I still get told "ingrown hair", "big pimple", and "sweat gland".

On "The Doctors" today, they had a woman who had a similar thing going on in her armpits. They said the name of the condition, but I wasn't really watching and missed it. It took me a while of roundabout searches on the internet, but I found it.

Hidradenitis Suppurativa.

It's a real thing, and the descriptions match mine perfectly! There's a lot out there on it, and as with so much, not all accounts agree. I think some sites are mixing these things up with ordinary boils (caused by a strep bacteria), lumping them altogether in the same pot. This stuff is NOT the same as a boil. It acts differently. And it's not a bacteria thing.

It's described almost everywhere as rare. HA! I'll bet it's not so rare - just that nobody recognizes it! So cases don't get reported or counted.

A few sites mention a theory that high androgens contribute. I am high androgen. High enough that back in the 60s, birth control pills not only didn't work on me, they leveled me out so that I was more likely to get pregnant.

Gee, it's nice to have a name for it, even if there's no cure. Now I can say to a man, "oh, that? That's nothing. Just hidradenitis suppurativa. Not even contageous."
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3313 Compendium

Thursday, July 21, 2011

There are no stupid questions, just stupid people.
-- South Park --

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I have decided not to go upriver today. 100 degrees is the prediction there for today and tomorrow, and there's an ozone alert. The A/C in the old house is totally inadequate. Bleck.

Here's a bunch of stuff I found wandering around and want to save:

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

Someday I absolutely want to try this:
The pages are just folded, no tears or cuts.

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

I'd like to try this, too. I have a dremel....

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The Orlando police have been arresting people for feeding the hungry. This guy is the lone police supporter at a protest rally. It's very good.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pJuedzzLXE&feature=player_embedded]

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This is not exactly what I want to do with the stairs in my new house - I want to paint sort of like Moroccan mosaic tile designs on the risers and varnish (poly) the treads. But this is inspiration:
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This is why I didn't change my name (for the third time!) when I married Jay:

Why do men think it's so easy for women to change their name when they marry? And why should she, anyway? It smacks of a transfer of ownership, literally a title transfer.

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And finally:
.

3312 Meetup - anger!

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

It matters not what you call me, but what I answer to.
-- African Proverb --

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

If "disgruntled" is bad, then "gruntled" should be good, right? So why does it sound so bad?

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

So. Tonight is the first dinner I scheduled under Meetup. The way it works is that you post an activity, and then members can RSVP.

I set the limit at 8 people, and closed RSVPs at 7 pm on Tuesday. As of Tuesday 7 pm, I had 9 people signed up, including me. That's not supposed to happen, to end up over count, but one person RSVP'd for herself, and then instead of checking the box for bringing a guest, so the guest could be counted in the total, she just added the guest as a comment. Sheesh. Idiot.

Anyway, 9 people were signed up at 7 pm Tuesday. Now I've got 2. Seven cancellations yesterday and today - the latest at 4 pm today. Gee, thanks for the notice. "Something came up" being the common excuse.

Yes, I am thoroughly absolutely utterly pissed. Disgruntled.

If they had cancelled BEFORE the RSVP cutoff, maybe others who DID want to go might have signed up. Talk about me-ism. Entitlement. "I'll reserve a space so nobody else can have it, just in case I decide to make the effort." I can't believe these people can't make plans two days in advance.

There's ONE other person left now. And if she doesn't show up I'll spit nails. Actually, I'd like to cancel, but I figure it's too late now. Thanks a hell of a lot, 4 pm person.

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

6:50 pm Update: The last person cancelled at 6 pm, after I sent her a note asking if she was still coming. She "forgot". (Um, hey, Meetup sends reminders.)

It's not something I did, honest. I can't feel responsible in any way. All the information was in the event posting, Meetup sent automatic reminders, I sent out no broadcast notes so it's unlikely I offended anyone, and I didn't do like a lot of organizers and change the details every other day.

I don't understand.
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3311 Snork.

Monday, July 18, 2011

Evans(?), in a letter to the Kingston Daily Freeman: There is no necessary connection between the desire to lead and the ability to lead.... Leadership is more likely to be assumed by the aggressive than by the able and those who scramble to the top are more often motivated by their own inner torments than by any demand for their guidance.

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From http://www.fun1067.com/?page=1&cat=4 :

Posted Monday, July 18th, 2011
BORGATA CASINO NAILED FOR UNDERAGE GAMBLERS
29 suspected underage gamblers have been rounded up at the Borgata in Atlantic City, and casino regulators have seized more than $2,600 in cash. The New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement announced today that the gamblers were rounded up recently, and the money was taken as a forfeiture. The money will be given to special state programs that benefit from gaming. The decision was approved earlier this month, and announced today.

Let's see, 29 gamblers, $2,600, that's $90 each. Not exactly high rollers. That next to last sentence, "given to special state programs that benefit from gambling", cracked me up! Anyone want to take a guess as to what kind of programs? I'm stumped.

Only in New Jersey. You know, in any other state the money would be given to programs like Gamblers Anonymous.

Looked a little further. Other news outlets have now picked up the story (and they are now all using the same wording, different from the above wording), and they say:

The money will be split between state-funded programs to help senior citizens with prescription medication and transportation, and programs to help compulsive gamblers.

Oh. Ohhhhkaaaaaayyy. I wonder what the truth is.

When I see the exact same wording in every place I look, I don't believe it any more. Once upon a time, "reporters" did their own "reporting", and you could get different views of the same story, the truth being usually somewhere in the middle. Now, everyone copies the same story word for word, and you have to wonder if there was a slant, bias, agenda, of the original writer, and what it was. No way to know. Doesn't matter so much with this story (I suspect it was just a poor choice of words in the first rendition), but it's important for other matters.

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I have already eaten six fair-sized tomatoes from my tiny potted plant - two ripe and four as fried green. There are about 24 more tomatoes on it in various stages of development.

I'm getting anxious about the bell peppers. There are 14 peppers, growing slowly larger, but I don't think the largest is full sized yet. I want one now!

It's been putting out more flowers, but the flowers just drop off. It's not setting more peppers. I did some research, and it turns out that in high heat and/or high humidity, pepper pollen gets gummy and won't fertilize the flowers. Duh. So I hope there'll be a second crop later, when it gets cooler.
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3310 Boozy yogurt

Monday, July 18, 2011

"Freedom" is the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action.
"License" is a freedom that is used with or allows irresponsibility, or disregard for rules of personal conduct.
Too many people confuse the two.
-- Silk --

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I had always bought Dannon fat-free yogurt, either the coffee flavor or plain. I was never concerned about refrigeration. After all, it has live cultures, and think about how you make it, if you make it at home. Lack of refrigeration would simply allow it to get thicker, until the cultures run out of milk sugars and stop multiplying. I prefer the taste and texture at room temperature. And, in fact, I never had any problem leaving them out for days.

Lately I've been getting the Chobani non-fat Greek, live cultures, in plain, honey, or blueberry.

Man, you can't leave that stuff out on the counter, not even for a few hours. The foil cap bulges, and it gets a definite odor of alcohol. I got a little drunk on the honey yogurt this morning. It was like milky mead.

I wonder why the difference from Dannon? Is there yeast contamination in the Chobani?

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

This is cool.
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I have two a/c systems, one for upstairs and one for down. I guess this is supposed to make the total more efficient. The compressors are out back, just on the other side of the wall I'm sitting near. There's a definite disadvantge to two. When they're both running, they go in and out of phase. So I hear "AHH-rooommmmm, AHH-rooommmmm, AHH-rooommmmm, AHH-rooommmmm, ...." (When only one is running I hear nothing.)

Very annoying.

3309 Amazing!

Saturday, July 17, 2011

Ted Kennedy, of his friend Barry Goldwater: [He] had one motto. It was "Ready! Shoot! Aim!"

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This video is absolutely amazing. I kept wishing I could slow it down. We sometimes forget that there's so much more to the world than what we see through our windshields.

Quoting from the uploader's description: "A short tribute to the Planet Earth and the the people that inhabit it. Edited by GrahamboProductions. Song: Baba Yetu by Christopher Tin. Most clips are from the BBC series' Planet Earth and Human Planet. I do not have the rights to any of this content, including the song, and am not associated with BBC, Tin Works Publishing, or any of their affiliates." ...So I guess you'd better watch it quickly. It may not be on YouTube much longer.

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3308 It takes time

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Follow the man who seeks the truth; avoid the man who thinks he's found it.

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I was thinking about Friday, so few bags of garbage. What took so long?

Shredding. I spent more than two hours, in half-hour shots because of the shredder overheating, shredding paper. I filled three large white garbage bags with tiny paper diamonds, pressed down tight.

Medical films. CT scans, mammograms, x-rays, ultrasounds, MRIs, a stack of old-fashioned actual films over 10 inches high. All except my mammos and one chest x-ray, and one x-ray of a cat, were Jay's.

I couldn't bring myself to throw any of them out. Just leafing through and figuring out what they were brought back so many memories.

You know, I think Jay was accident-prone, or something. Medical problem-prone, maybe. It's almost like his time was up but he kept surviving anyway, until Fate decided to bring in the big guns.

The brain cancer overshadowed everything else, and I'd forgotten.

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A few months before I first met him, he'd been working in Texas, and The Company transferred him to Poughkeepsie, NY. He had been dating C, I believe it had been for almost a year, and when he got the transfer, they decided to hurry up and get married.

In an old box from that time, I found the results from some kind of church premarital counseling questionnaire, showing the answers from both parties. It asked questions like "Are you sure this is the person you want to spend the rest of your life with?" She answered "Yes". He answered "No". "Does your partner have any habits or attitudes that you think might cause major relationship problems?" She answered "No". He answered "Yes". And so on for four pages. It was really bad. I know they both had to be aware of the other's (his) answers, but I'll bet real money that they never discussed them. I don't understand why no one took him aside and cautioned him. I mean, what else was the purpose of those questions? Why did no one stop him? I know him well enough to know that he probably felt committed and couldn't back out, and this was his attempt to say "Stop me!" but no one listened.

At the rehearsal dinner, he had an attack, turned white, couldn't breathe, passed out, and was rushed to the hospital. C and the guests thought it was a heart attack, but the doctors said it was a severe panic attack. I'm amazed that no one thought about that and talked with him.

So they got married. He told me that C "was convinced" that it really was a heart attack but that people lied to her, so she used that as an excuse to avoid sex, and especially not to have children. Actually, she hated children, and sex was a bother, so it suited her to believe that.

While he was in the hospital with the panic attack, they discovered that his cholesterol and blood pressure were both through the roof, so he started taking the heavy duty meds for that (which he continued to take for the next fifteen years, with the every-six-months tests for liver function, etc.)

Maybe two years after the wedding, his mother died, and he managed to turn his ankle at the funeral, tearing ligaments and tendons. I found the X-rays from that. I remember that he was on crutches for a very long time, and wouldn't let us bring him lunch from the cafeteria, he insisted on going with us. It was a good half mile to the cafeteria.

I found the x-rays for the broken wrist he had about two years later. Then there was the x-rays of his foot. Never did figure out what was wrong, but it was painful. Maybe bone spurs.

Then shortly after we were married, there was the automobile accident. Head-on. Cracked sternum and split ribs.

About a year later his back went out. Ruptured disk. Surgery to remove disk and immobilize the spot.

And then a year later, the seizure, brain tumor, cancer.

It's like Fate had been preparing him - "Get more life insurance!"

When he started chemo, they took him off the BP and cholesterol medications, because his liver would have enough to handle, didn't need more stress. Surprise - his BP and cholesterol were fine. I wonder how long he'd been taking liver-destroying meds that he didn't need.

It's interesting that he died of organ failure, not cancer.
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3307 Emerging Pattern

Sunday, July 17, 2011

It isn’t how you start that matters, it’s how you finish.

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From Shoebox.com: "In the latest gambit in the debt limit talks, the GOP has figured out a way to make Obama take all of the blame for keeping interest rates down, paying Social Security recipients on time, and continuing to pay soldiers. No, wait. That wouldn’t be blame, that would be credit. We’re so confused."

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Today's Sunday Morning is described as a "special edition". IT'S A RERUN! Oh come on! Special? (Yeah, I know, it's "special" because it's all about animals, and the tag is left over from the original airing, but still, I didn't know that when they piqued my interest....)

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I have established a pattern for upriver.

I arrive early evening. Last Thursday the drive took me 3.5 hours because there was an accident on the Garden State Parkway.

The next day I spend the whole day sorting and throwing things out, into the Hunk's trailer for him to take to the dump for me. This past trip I tossed six large black garbage bags, plus a dozen or so tape and floppy disk storage containers, and outdated programming books in there. I spent the entire day on the den. It's not a large room, it's the third bedroom, but that's the room in which, after Jay died, I found seven computers and a huge laser printer that I didn't even know existed. The room also contains every important piece of paper that ever entered the house. And no longer important paper. And never was important.

That's how cluttered that room was. Jay never ever threw anything out. Someday he might be able to use it. Unlike most hoarders, though, Jay had a mental inventory of everything, and knew exactly where it was. The only problem was that he never needed to use it.

The following day I pack whatever needs packing for this load and fill Fred. This past trip Fred's load is almost entirely paper to go to the recycle center down here. (Yeah, I could just toss the paper in the trailer, but I'll pay by the pound to dump it, and I don't want to pay for a ton of wet paper.) And a few things to go to Good Will.

There's a recycle center upriver, but they are open only one afternoon during the week and on Saturday morning, and you have to buy a sticker to get through the gate, and everything has to be strictly sorted. I didn't get the $25 sticker for this year. The recycle center down here is open every day except Sunday, it's free, and paper is paper, no sorting necessary. Free! Easy! And they take electronic thingys too, so there's also a few external drives and old monitors in Fred.

Then after loading the van I return downriver. Yesterday's trip took over three hours because I left too early and hit the Saturday shore traffic on the Garden State. Note to self - leave mid or late afternoon. Once home, I immediately unload anything that can't take heat, and then the next day, I rest. Tomorrow I get to fully unload. Usually that involves finding new homes for everything I brought down. With no chests, tables, bookcases, or anything else, that's not easy. Mostly stuff is just getting stored in boxes in a bedroom until I can get furniture down.

On the previous trip I worked on the kitchen, clearing out drawers and cabinets (that house has a huge kitchen, nine or ten large deep drawers, seventeen or more cabinet doors (all the shelves glide out), four rotating corner cabinets, a butcher block island, a huge double pantry - I loved that kitchen! This trip I had taken a container of stew. I wanted to heat half of it for dinner Thursday evening, and discovered I had nothing to spoon it out with.

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I probably threw out a lot of valuable stuff. Jay was all science. He loved Edmund Scientific catalogs. I found all kinds of kits, some that had never been opened. One was labeled "photographic special effects" and the box was full of camera lenses (without the plastic screw-on parts). I threw them out. There were three microscopes. I kept the one that looked least jury-rigged and still had the instruction book and threw the other two out.

Yeah, maybe someone would appreciate that stuff, and at one time I considered listing stuff on Freecycle or eBay (most of it is too esoteric for Good Will), but when I consider the amount of research and coordination that would involve, I realize I just plain don't have the time or energy, and all that crap would just end up stored here, just like it was there. It has to go, now. And once the decision is made, it must be executed immediately. No second thoughts.

I can hear Jay screaming.
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3306 Incommunicado

Thursday, July 14, 2011

"The town I'm from is so small, Charles Kuralt has been there twice."

I miss Charles Kuralt.

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No posts for a few days. Not taking laptop with me, and I'm too Luddite for anything resembling a smart phone.
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3305 'Fess up

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

If the desire to write is not accompanied by actual writing, then the desire is not to write.
-- Hugh Prather, Notes to Myself --

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Someone is coming directly to this blog via smart phone - linux, android, safari - several times a day during the weekdays. I have my suspicions, but (ahem) that person had sworn off the internet during work.

Who is it? If you like, you can leave a comment with a dummy username (or a coded reference) such that I can figure out from whom it's coming, but no one else can.

I'm curious because there are only four likely candidates, and the fourth one worries me.
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