3820 Snow

Thursday, February 13, 2014

My quarterly real estate tax was due on February 1st.  I missed it, didn't notice it was due until I was paying some other bills on the 11th, last Tuesday.  (Somehow I have it set in my mind that quarterly stuff is due in March, June, etc.)  By the time I realized the payment was late, it was 2 pm, and the town offices close at like 2:30, so I figured I'd pay it yesterday.

I went to the town offices yesterday and found everything closed.  Lincoln's birthday.  Duh?

Today we woke up to 8" of heavy wet snow, followed by ice pellets, followed by rain, and a "code red" call from the township saying that all town offices and functions were closed.

I probably won't get out to pay tomorrow, either, since we are supposed to get more snow overnight and all day tomorrow.

In the meantime, penalties accrue.

I hate snow.

The neighbor up the street says the Garden State Parkway and the Throughway, and many of the major local roads, are closed because of jackknifed  trailers all over the roads.  I got a code red email from the country house township saying that the highways are closed to commercial traffic for the same reason.

I really hate snow.  At least plain cold one can dress for, but snow can leave us defenseless.

At least we still have power.  Maybe that's one good thing Sandy did for us - all the weak trees and branches are already down.

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

I am worried about my neighbor George.  He's got to be in at least his mid-eighties.  He gets out there shoveling.  He throws five shovelfuls, then stops and rests on the shovel handle for a while, kind of bent over the handle, then throws five more.

His late-teen great-grandson mows my lawn.  His granddaughter lives on the next street over, and some sons and daughters live in the area.  I can't help wondering why no one shows up to help him.  They all come for holiday dinners, so it's not like they're estranged.

I've got a delicate back and currently something wrong with my shoulder (rotator cuff?) so my daughter shovels for me if my little electric thrower can't handle it (note that's Daughter, not SIL Hercules), or scares up a kid to do it.  If I were capable, I'd help George.

Maybe I should review CPR procedures.

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I doubt that mankind in general is any smarter now than, say, 200 years ago.  200 years isn't much in evolutionary terms, but I do believe that on average we are already demonstrably more stupid.  We know more "stuff", but we are in general, overall,  less logical, less understanding, less interested in understanding, and less capable than we used to be.  It's like thinking is evolving out of us.  Like we don't need it any more.

Science fiction illustrators often depict humans of the far future as having huge heads, enormous brains.  I don't know why they think brains would get larger.  I think it's more likely we'll have tiny braincases.  As computers do the work of remembering for us, we won't need to remember anything much.  We won't need to calculate anything - the machine will tell us.

We already see evidence of brain atrophy....
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3819 I'm so sorry. Forgive me?

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

This is so cute.  The cat on the left seems to be trying to apologize.  I couldn't resist posting it.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNS7zzIzX-E]

In theory it's only 25 seconds, but be prepared to watch it five or six times.
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3818 Mystery water

Monday, February 10, 2014

Jasper has been fussing about his water dish.  He doesn't like the water.  He doesn't want to drink it.  He splashes in it, as if he's trying to catch a fish in the bottom.  He hooks the side and drags the dish.  Since the dish is on a tray, when it crosses the side of the tray it spills all over the floor.  He'd been doing it for the past two or three weeks.

I mentioned it to Daughter, and she said two of her cats have been doing the same thing.

A mystery.

Then one day (Saturday, I think) I had left a glass of water on the counter when I went to bed, and absentmindedly drank it the next morning -- and spat it out!  It smelled and tasted strongly of iodine.

Water processing plants add iodine to the water when there's a problem with bacteria.  We've had several water main breaks this winter, one about three weeks ago just up the road, so it makes sense they may be worried about contamination.  I don't know why the iodine smell and taste gets so bad when the water isn't fresh out of the tap, but there it is....

Mystery solved.

So now I have to make sure his water is changed a few times a day.

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

Speaking of water, the Thames is flooding.  Parts of England are flooded for the first time in a few hundred years.  Weird.
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3817 Silk Shoes

Monday, February 10, 2014

As usual at this time of year, I'm hibernating.  I resist leaving the house.   Most days I don't even get dressed, spend the whole day in a nightshirt and robe.  I also do nothing except wandering around the internet, reading books, watching video clips.  Except for Big Bang Theory on Thursday evenings, I can't even muster the energy to watch TV.  It's so bad my last "grocery shopping" was via PeaPod.

I discovered I can watch movies for free with Amazon Prime.  Not all titles are available for free instant viewing, but there are enough classics and lower-budget movies to keep me occupied for a while. 

Today I watched "Silk Shoes".  Found it by accident.  It's a Korean movie.  Independent.  English subtitles.  It was charming, glad I found it.  If you have Amazon Prime, I recommend it.

A lot of reviewers loved it too, but were disappointed by the ending.  Let down.  Confused.  I was confused because I didn't understand how the silk shoes were significant.

I did a little light research (with the help of this guy, who has provided an excellent review, synopsis, trailer clip, and link to the lyrics) and I figured it out.  The problem is that the subtitles didn't give us the lyrics of the song at the beginning and end of the movie.  So those of us unfamiliar with the song didn't know about the shoes.  It also explains why the old woman at the end asks Grandfather about his brother, which had confused me.

Well,  now you know, so go watch it if you have Prime.
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3816 Quizzes

Thursday, January 30, 2014

I took a few quizzes today at http://www.zimbio.com/quiz (if that link doesn't take you directly to the list of quizzes, click on "quizzes" in the bar on top).

I am:
Purdy from Sienfeld
Howard from BBT
Barbie from Toy Story
Cinderella from Disney
... and at that point I was thinking about giving up and crawling into bed, until I got
Dumbledore of Hogwarts.

I think I'll stop there.
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3815 Beara!

January 30, 2014

I'm watching a video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8P7pSm10s8) about the rise and demise of the old Hotel Sterling in Wilkes Barre, Pa.

I remember that place.  I had occasional date dinners there (in the early '60s), whenever a guy wanted to really impress me.

There's a fellow about my age talking in the clip about the hotel.  He claims to be native to Wilkes Barre, but I'm not sure I can believe him, no matter what he says.

Because....

He pronounces it "Wilkes Barry".

"Barry"?  No way!

Everybody from that area pronounces it "Wulks Beara".  (Actually a blurred sound halfway between "Beara" and "Burra").

Or at least they usta!
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3814 Cable again

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Back in mid-December I called the cable TV/internet folks and got rid of all the extra channels I never watch.  Went to "basic".  Returned the now unneeded set-top boxes.  I thought I'd end up with just the basic networks - CBS, NBC, ABC, PBS - and some local stuff. 

It turns out I have way more than 88 channels.

I went through and eliminated from the automatic list the 16 Spanish channels. Every little municipality has at least one, more usually three, of their own channels - one public access, one townhall, one for school stuff.  I eliminated most of them.

I'm still left with a lot more than I expected - like 3 PBS channels with different programming (one is all children's shows), ION, a movie channel, weather channel, QUBO, and loads of stuff with names like CREATE, LIFE, BOUNCE, THIS, RISE, WORLD, and so on --- I don't even know what they are.

And I'm not particularly interested in finding out.

I wonder if there might be a BBC or a CNN tucked in there somewhere.  They might be the only channels I'll miss.
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3813 Unbelievable!

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Back when Nugget was born in 2011, Daughter was driving a 2-door Honda.  It was a good car, but it was getting pretty old, and it was very difficult for Daughter to get the baby in and out of the baby seat in the back.  So I gave her my 4-door 2003 Suzuki Aerio, and she sold the Honda.

I had bought the Aerio for about $9,000 in 2006 when the van was having serious problems and was costing me a fortune in rentals.  "Suzie" was a great little car, with its high roof and huge windows giving a great view all around, comfortable seats, sportscar handling, and a lot of zip.  It was always actually fun to drive, easy to park, and never gave me any problems.  Well, except for the body, which tended to drop random pieces of itself everywhere.  But they were at least unimportant trim pieces. 

It was a good car for Daughter for two years, then finally something important went wrong which set off the "bad light".  I don't know the words, but it had something to do with something that sits above the gas tank and something about vapor or something.  Anyway, fixing it would require major internal surgery, costing more than $1500, which was about what the car was worth.  It still ran just fine, but not fixing it would eventually run the risk of it catching fire.  And until it was fixed, it would not pass inspection.  The trusted mechanic said Daughter could continue to drive it, but to pull over immediately if she smelled gas fumes.

It was due for inspection last month.  No way it would pass.  So Daughter bought a new car, and parked Suzie until she could figure out what to do with her.

Yesterday morning while I was still in bed I heard a sound.  Looked out the window, and saw Suzie being loaded onto a flatbed.  I threw on a robe and ran out to pat her goodbye.

I really did love that car.  Hate to see her go.

Daughter was paid $350 for her.

That was yesterday.

This is Suzie:

The photo is from a used car dealership.  They are asking $1599 for her.  They describe her as "ready to sell".  I wonder if they will tell an interested buyer that she won't pass inspection, and just might catch fire. 

Listing here:  http://www.aberdeenautonj.com/2003_Suzuki_Aerio_Morganville_NJ_224234593.veh
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3812 Long time

Friday, January 10, 2014

I hadn't realized I hadn't attempted a post in almost a month.  I've got a lot of notes saved up, so when I have time I guess I'll go through some of that, but not now.  It's late.

I've been kind of blah.  I read about that kid who was driving drunk and high and killed four people and then got off without so much as a slap on the wrist because he was rich and privileged and his parents had never taught him that one is responsible for one's own actions and actions have consequences.  His lawyer called it "affluenza".  (If you're not already familiar with the story, do an internet search for that word.)

Anyway, I thought of all the kids who go wrong because they had bad or uncaring parents who don't get second chances and who don't "suffer" from affluenza, just the opposite, and

something inside me broke.

It's like why even care?  Why bother?  I had several weeks of not caring about pretty much anything.  This whole damn society is going into the shit can, and nobody else seems to care.

I'm not over it yet.
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3811 Screaming

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Sometimes, when following links deep into the web, I will have seven or eight or more tabs open, and suddenly someone is talking, or there's horrible music coming from the speakers. 

A video ad has started somewhere.

I don't know where.

(The worst is when more than one are running at the same time, talking over each other.  It sounds like a crowded cocktail party in here.)

I bounce back through tabs, scrolling through screens, searching, trying to find the damn thing and turn it OFF, and I can't find it.

I hate that!

There are popup blockers.  There should be an auto-start video blocker!  I'd pay money for it.
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3810 Estate sale

Saturday, December 14, 2013

Well, I have medical insurance for 2014.  I suspect I'm not going to be happy with it, but, we'll see.  The cost is low, but it's a Medicare Advantage plan, and it's an HMO.  I always swore I'd never go into an HMO, but there it is.  The only plan of any type that I was eligible for that allowed me to choose my own doctors was extremely costly.  So.  At least that's done.

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

The country house is under storm alert this weekend.  10" of snow and then sleet.  Since the house is higher up, I suppose there will be at least 12" of snow.  We always got about 20% more than lower down.  Or more.  Temps in the low 20s.  I am worried about losing power there.  Sigh.  Another week I won't be going north.

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

I got an email a few days ago from my old auctioneer, George, saying he was going to be on a show on the Travel Channel, so I watched it.  It was another of those stupid shows that seem to be so popular recently --- you know, where we follow some "experts" while they buy unseen storage facility contents, or race through antique centers looking for bargains, or poke around mountains looking for gold.

This time, we had three "expert bidders" at George's auction.  It was very obvious the whole thing was staged.  He had a full room of bidders, but no one else bid on any of the boxes that were obviously solely for these "experts" to battle over.

It was so stupid.  THEY were so stupid.  They were bidding on unopened boxes and bags, no idea what was in them.  Number one, George never sells unopened stuff.  Number two, these "experts" didn't do their research.  One idiot kept saying "There's lots of mansions in [this village].  Huge estates. This is an estate auction so these boxes are coming from the attics and basements of these wealthy mansions.  You KNOW it has to be good stuff!"

First of all, the statement that there are lots of mansions in [the village].  Yeah, that general wider area is full of mansions, yeah, but most of them are run as tourist destinations by the national park service, like the Vanderbilt, Astor, and Roosevelt places, and a few other piles of marble with names and history.  There are a few private mansions around, but these days almost all of them are empty, like the place where Chelsea Clinton's wedding reception was held. (It's for sale and the owner volunteered it hoping for free advertising.) So, there's no good stuff coming from mansion attics!  Do your research, you fool!

Second, the "expert" doesn't even know what an estate auction is!

"Estate" in this sense doesn't mean mansions and land, anyway.  It means somebody's Aunt Sally died and left all her worldly goods to somebody who is now selling off the excess.  "Estate" in the sense of the disposals of a legal will.  Sheesh.  And these folks are "experts"?

(Sometimes George does sell items from a mansion, but when he does, he tells you where it came from,  "Sale of the Contents of Blah Blah Mansion", and the auction is exclusively those items.  In 10 years, I've seen only two of those auctions - one being Larry (Hustler) Flynt's place.  Usually George's estate sale stuff is bits from hither and yon all over the northeast.)

Third, one of the "experts" attempted to figure out what was in a locked duffel bag by SITTING ON IT!  Well, there goes that Faberge egg, eh!  How stupid is that.  The other guy was shaking boxes violently.  Duh.

It got to where I was yelling at the TV.

I will never watch any of those things again.  Bleck.  I will not miss cable.
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3809 One thing I did do right

Thursday, December 12, 2013

Among all the things I've screwed up over the past week, I think I did do one thing right.  Or as right as I know how, anyway.

I am paying $168 a month for TV cable, internet, and a stupid house phone I didn't want and don't use.

I watch maybe 5 to 7 hours of TV a week, max.  And I almost never watch any of the 400 or more channels other than some basic broadcast networks (NBC, ABC, CBS, PBS).  In fact, it's almost exclusively CBS and a little PBS.  I don't watch sports, the comedy package, the movie package, any of that other stuff.

Why am I paying for stuff I don't use?

So I called.  The first rep could cut it down to $158 per month for basic cable. $10?  Big whoop.  I made disappointed shop-around noises, so she passed me to another rep who "might know of some discounts".

It's now basic local cable and the internet will be twice as fast without all those channels, and I'm down to less than $90 a month.  Because it's just local broadcast channels, I don't need the four set-top (stupid design - how many sets have room for anything on the top these days?) boxes, either. I gotta keep the stupid useless phone because it's part of "the package".

You know what's really disgusting?  That's still ridiculously high.  When I first signed up for this entire package, it was $99 for the whole shebang, including four DVD(Tivo?) boxes.  In three years it has gone up 68%.
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3808 Maybe I can see Jasper's vet? He makes house calls....

Thursday, December 12, 2013

A week, already?  Egads!

I didn't go north last week.  I didn't get everything finished that I had to do before I left, and, in fact, I'm not finished YET.

I really screwed some stuff up.  For the past 19 years, along about October, I'd get the package from IBM about the medical insurance coverage for the next year.  Choices/changes had to be made by the end of December (earlier, if you wanted the new medical cards by January 1).  If there was nothing you wanted to change, you did nothing, and you got the same coverage continued.  For 19 years, IBM taught me that the package could be safely ignored.

So I ignored it.

I should have known better.  IBM is (surprise) no longer offering the group packages.  They have seized the opportunity to dump all the retirees and "allow" us to get individual coverage through an exchange.  After all these years of experience with IBM, why am I surprised?  I should have expected that. 

They are being so gracious about it, they have contracted with a company to discuss our needs with us, and help us choose what works best for us.  In other words, they hired people to navigate the government website for us. 

So I freaked out last week and started studying the materials.  I will still have Medicare, of course, but I still will need a medical supplement, and something for prescriptions, and of course I don't know what I'll do for dental and vision.  (Oddly enough, dental and vision insurance coverage is the ONLY advertising junk mail that hasn't been arriving.)  And if I don't have the prescription thing nailed down by 12/31 and then find out I have to go with Medicare part D, I will have to pay a penalty for the rest of my life.

So, I read all the materials and went to the recommended we-will-help-you website and tried to set up my profile.  Yeah, sure.  It wouldn't accept it because "You must provide a number greater than 0" --- but I had filled in every space, and all numbers were greater than 0, and the site wouldn't tell me where I went wrong. Nothing was flagged.  I tried everything, including starting over from scratch, and after four hours I gave up.

So I called the we-will-help-you folks, the option for people without computer access.  There was only an hour and a half wait.  The woman asked me if I had my Medicare card in hand.  Well, I said no (I can be stupidly honest.  I can't find it, haven't seen it since my hospital stay last January), but I have all the information from the card.  She informed me she couldn't help me until I had the actual card, and, in effect, hung up on me.

I called Social Security and asked for a replacement card, was told ok, we'll mail it, but it will take 4 to 6 weeks to arrive!  No, they can't expedite it.  Yes, if I don't sign up for Part D by 12/31 and it turns out I need it, I will pay the penalty rate every year for the rest of my life.

I freaked out.  Then I remembered that my doctor's office had made a copy of my Medicare card, so I called there, and I now have a copy.  Not the original, but I'm not going to tell anybody that.  Turns out Medicare had screwed up my name slightly on the card, and if I don't use the exact same name nobody can accept it, and I had naively thought they'd used my real name.  (I'm beginning to hate the world.)

So tomorrow, I call again, and try again.

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

In the meantime, cash flow is a problem.  I'm waiting for a large check from my investments, but my car insurance and the insurance on the country house were due, so I went to their websites and put those payments on a credit card.

I have only two credit cards, by choice.  Also by choice, one of them has a very high limit, and the other has a very low limit, also by choice.  I use the low limit card for all low-trust online business and anytime anyone wants to walk away with it so that if anyone "steals" it, they can't get much.

Yup.  I screwed up.  I used the low limit card for both, and together they are going to blow the limit, so ONE of them will "bounce", but I don't know which.

I spent several hours today on calls to the insurance companies, the credit card company (I had them transfer cash from one of my checking accounts to the credit card, THEN found out that will take 4 to 6 days!)  So I tried to have the limit raised, but was told I had to go to the issuing bank to have that done.  So, I call the issuing bank.  They need to send me an application to raise the limit, which I have to have notarized and send back.  (I call B.S. on that!  They used to send me letters telling me they'd raised my limit, isn't that wonderful, and then I'd have to call them and say no, I WANT to keep that low.) That's not going to help.

So, one of my insurance policies is in jeopardy, and I don't know which.  I guess when I get the cancellation letter, I'll just call and switch it to the other credit card.

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

On top of all that.............................................

Blah.

Let's just say I've been running flat out for more than a week, I'm tired, I still have to get the van inspected, there's four inches of snow out there, the van is covered in ice, the BMW has ANOTHER tire losing air, and we can expect below freezing temperatures (way below average for this time of the year) for the foreseeable future.  I haven't made it to the country house yet, so I haven't put antifreeze in the toilets and drains yet (I think I did at least leave the water turned off after the last visit), so if the house loses power, well, I don't want to think about it.  Especially if it's that insurance that might get temporarily cancelled.

I am way way behind on correspondence.

I think I'll go to bed now.
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3807 Kicking

Thursday, December 5, 2013

I'm  hoping to get through the to-do list today, enough of the high priority items that I can head north this evening.

In reference to the previous post, I got the advice of four people.  Three said ignore the woman.  One pointed out that if I restrict communication to email, I am in control and I can decide what information to give her and what to withhold, what to answer and what to ignore.

I decided that she's right.  I am in control.

So I have to do what is natural to me.  When someone extends an olive branch, I can't ignore it and walk away.  That's just not me.  It would bother me forever, and I should know that by now.  Remember - I'm the one who always sent a penny, even though I never got one.

So I did reply to her note.  All I said was that she had written her note entirely on the subject line [and I tried it from Gmail, and yeah, Gmail will allow you to do that without warning] so I don't know what she said; please try again.

That was Tuesday evening.  I have not heard from her, but I doubt she checks her email often.

Now, off to the to-do list.
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3806 Scary World

Sunday, December 1, 2013

I've been searching the internet for people I hadn't heard from or maybe thought about in ages.  It started out as plain curiosity.  Where are they now?  What are they doing?

Men are easier to find than women, because their names don't much change.

It has become scary.

So far, every man I've been able to locate whom I had ever dated before Jay died --- is dead, with the sole exception of Ex#2.  (And him, I don't understand how he's still alive.)

I'm beginning to feel somehow responsible.

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

Things got weird in another area, too.  I have written in the past about a friend from work and also from Mensa.  I'm the first she called when her husband died, and I helped her through all the messy legal and emotional details that entailed.  She was so grateful she said she would put my favorite charities in her will, donations to be made in my name.  I gave her brain tumor research and doctors without borders.  By the way, she is fabulously wealthy.  We're talking original Picassos and Miros on her walls.  She has no family except a grand-niece somewhere.

She'd always been a drinker, and after her husband died she started drinking heavily.  She started calling friends in our group at 3 and 4 am to chat.  You'd explain to her that you were sleeping and had to get up in the morning, so, uh, goodnight, and hang up on her.  She was hard of hearing and tended to talk right over you, so ... the phone would ring again, "We got cut off!"  That would go on and on all night.  If you didn't turn the phone off it began to sound like an alarm clock.

Our friendship ended when she went to a Mensa party that was supposed to start at 7 pm, and showed up already hammered at the hostess' house at 7 am, oops, and then just stayed, drinking the whole time.  At the end of the evening no one wanted her to drive home, but she fought anyone who tried to take her keys and the hostess had had it with her and refused to keep her overnight.  So I volunteered (without her knowledge or permission) to follow her, to make sure she made it home.

I think my being a discreet distance behind her infuriated her, and kept her alert and on the road.

When I got home I found several messages on my machine, and then the phone rang again and it was her.  She was furious that I'd had the nerve to follow her home.  To treat her like she was incapable.  She yelled at me a while, and then hung up.

I don't think she ever went to another Mensa event, and at any rate, never spoke to me again unless it was the wee hours of the morning and she was too drunk to remember she was mad at me.

Then I moved to New Jersey.

About two years ago I got an email from a mutual friend.  He told me that she had asked for my phone number.  She had apparently tried to call the country house and the phone had been disconnected.  He said he figured he should check with me first.  "Is she still calling people in the middle of the night?"  "Yep."  "Thanks for asking first.  No, don't give her my new number.  Tell her you simply don't have it or can't find it."

And that was the end of that.

Well, last week I got to wondering about her.  She's only maybe two years older than I, but she has always been in poor health, has some kind of balance problems and falls a lot even when she'd been sober, and now with the drinking...  So I searched the internet.  She's still alive.  Ok, end of thought.

Until yesterday.

 I got an email from her.

A strange email, to the account I rarely use anymore.  She even sounds sort of sober...

except

...the Subject line says: "Hey, are you still out there?  Let me know.  The reason I am writing (besides just wanting to reconnect) is that some time ago I told you that I wanted..."

The body of the email, the text part, is completely blank.  She apparently wrote the entire note on the subject line, which, of course, got cut.  (Sheesh.  How do you even do that?)

Oh, cripes.

I thought about it most of yesterday and today.  It's ten years since her husband died and she wrote the new will, so I suspect her lawyer has told her it's time to review it, and maybe she wants to check my choice of charities.  I don't know.  I'd have to respond to her to find out what she wants to say.

I am torn.  I feel like the right thing to do is to respond.
BUT I DON'T WANT TO!!!!!!
I do not want to reconnect!
I'd rather she just thought I am lost.
But that's a bad thing to do, to hide from her like that.
It's a moral dilemma.
I do still feel some pity for her --- she's so alone.
She has no interests, no activities, no family.
But I need to protect myself from the suction of her life.

I asked Daughter, who tends to be one of those maddeningly black or white people, and she said I have no obligation to respond.  The woman cut me off a long time ago when I had been perhaps her best friend, and I can leave it at that.  She chose that loss, that path.  My only loss might be some large contributions to charity, maybe, if that's what the note was about.  So I can choose to not respond without guilt.

So, what do you think?
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3805 Train wreck, in more ways than one.

Sunday, December 1, 2013

I turn the TV on for only four shows a week these days.  One of them is "Sunday Morning", although I've been disappointed in that show for the past few years.  Lately it's been just celebrity-type stuff, with a hidden sales pitch, rather than what's happening out there in the "real" countryside, like back when it was Charles Kuralt, remember him?  (Joke:   "My home town is so small Charles Kuralt has been there three times!")

Anyway, I was up this morning, turned the TV on, and instead of "Sunday Morning", it was a report on the Metro North train derailment.  Four dead so far, but so many are in critical condition I think unfortunately that number will rise.  I haven't heard yet how many people in total were on the train.  It had left Poughkeepsie (that's pronounced P-kip'-see by the natives, Po-kip'-see by newcomers, abbreviated "Pok") just before 6 am, due to arrive at Grand Central a bit before 8 am, so it wouldn't have been crowded - likely mostly people who work in the city, maybe some returning from the holiday.  There are a lot of commuters from the Pok area since the mass exodus from Manhattan after 9/11.  I'm sure some work on Sundays.

Story:  http://mashable.com/2013/12/01/new-york-train-derailment/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=rss#_

I am familiar with that train route.  That's the line I took from the country house on the few occasions I ventured into the city.  It runs alongside the east bank of the Hudson, and is quite scenic.

Amtrak trains running between Albany and NYC stop in Rhinecliff, and that's actually much closer to the house, only a few minutes drive.  But an Amtrak ticket is a small fortune, the trains go to Penn Station, the local station is manned only a few hours on weekdays, and there's no real parking lot in the tiny village of Rhinecliff.  You have to compete for parking along the river.  So I would drive the 40 minutes south to Pok where there are huge parking lots and a well-manned station, and take a Metro North train, which was a LOT cheaper and goes to Grand Central.  Metro North cars are the same trains that serve inside the city - some are actual subway trains.  Pok is the northern-most terminus of the NYC subway system.  Weird, huh?

Since so many people moved north after 9/11, there's been a lot of noise about extending Metro North up to Rhinecliff, but I doubt that will ever happen. 

Anyway - the point, finally.

Because Pok is the end of the line, they USED to have an engine at the north end of the train to pull it north, AND an engine at the south end to pull it south.  Then someone came up with a brilliant cost-saving idea.  They now have one engine, on the north end, which pulls it north, and PUSHES it south.

Pushes.

Any child knows that if you link some wagons together and pull them, they follow, and if one somehow goes off the path, it might pull others out of line, but they aren't going to jam up (well, from momentum, but that's all the energy in the jam).  But if you try to push them, if one goes off the path, the following ones will jam up and push even more off the path because of the energy coming from behind, and likely spill the contents.  Violently.

I hope Metro North saved a zillion dollars with that idiotic idea, because those passengers ought to sue the pants off them.

And I'm not an advocate of lawsuits for every little thing.

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On the TV, there was a reporter talking from "near" the scene.  She startled me at first by reporting that "five of the seven trains" derailed.   Five trains!  Good Grief!  How does that happen!?  "One train almost went into the river".  "Several trains were on their sides".  And so on.

As she went on over the next half hour, it dawned on me that she was calling the passenger CARS "trains".  Does she not know what a "train", a series of linked things, in this case passenger cars, is?

There had to be people around her.  Why did no one correct her?  It got to the point that I was yelling at the TV, wanted to reach through the screen and personally strangle her.

I guess someone finally clued her in, because she started talking about cars.
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3804 Google wants your DNA, too?

Monday, November 25, 2013

Remember when I wondered if Google was getting too big, and too inquisitive?  

Now, does Google want your DNA?  Do you realize how much that test would cost if it weren't subsidized?  Why would anyone want to subsidize it?

I don't like the answer.
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3803 I never got my penny

Monday, November 25, 2013

There's a huge world-wide Secret Santa network being set up through Reddit:  http://redditgifts.com/about/.

I guess I'm a cynic, because I don't believe it at all.  I don't believe the numbers of people, I don't believe the numbers of countries, and I especially don't believe that everyone will actually send decent gifts.  I do, however, believe that this is one heck of an idea for gathering names and addresses, AND interests!  Google ain't got nuttin on Reddit!

Back in the olden days of pen pals and love letters, there was something called a chain letter.  You'd get a letter with a list of the names and addresses of five people.  You were to send some token, like a penny or a postcard to the top name on the list, then make five copies of the letter with the top name/address removed and your name and address added to the bottom, and send it to five new people.  In theory, each person would receive over 3,000 pennies.

I always always always sent a penny to the top name.  Always.  And since I had no allowance and felt so poor, I made ten copies of the letter (handwritten, of course, we're talking about the late '50s) and used my mother's stamps to mail them, hoping that I would get over 6,000 pennies back.

I never got a single penny or postcard.  Never.  Not one.  No one I ever asked ever got a penny.  The only people in the entire world who ever got a penny were, apparently, the ones I sent pennies to.

Way to feel like a patsy.  Maybe this is what contributes to my cynicism.

...and then there were the kids who bragged that they didn't add their name to the end - they jumped the line and added themselves to the top, so they'd get pennies sooner.  They didn't see the hole in that, no matter how many times I tried to explain it.
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3802 Toe

Sunday, November 24, 2013

I've done something to my toe.

There's a raised marble threshold at the bathroom door, and yesterday morning, walking into the bathroom in bare feet, I stubbed my index/second toe on my left foot on the marble.  The kind of stub where the toe folds under itself.

It hurt really badly.  I said some naughty words.  But then after a few minutes it stopped hurting.  I fiddled with it and it didn't seem broken or anything serious.

By late afternoon there was a red bar across the toe a bit above the base of the toenail, at that last joint.  But it didn't hurt at all and there was no swelling. 

Flashes of brief but intense pain woke me this morning.

It's driving me crazy now.  NOT because of the pain - there isn't any pain unless I move it a certain way.  The crazifying thing is that I can't figure out what that certain way IS, so I can stop moving it that way.

 I can tweak it with my fingers, I can bend it up, bend it down, use it to grip and lift the front of the sandals, everything, with no pain.  As long as I'm sitting there's no pain.  But I can't walk without random electric shocks and sudden hit-my-toe-with-a-hammer surprises. (My kitchen is three yelps wide.)  I'm not worried about it, just annoyed that I can't figure out what not to do, to keep it from biting me and let it heal.

Phooey.

Well, I don't think I would have been going anywhere today anyway.  It's 26 degrees F out there, and very windy.
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3801 Soup eats?

Friday, November 22, 2013

I opened a can of soup, Campbell's, for lunch today.  On the label were the words "Soup that eats like a meal".

My first thought was, "Soup doesn't eat!"

My second thought was, "Neither does a meal.  So I guess that's true."

My head hurts.
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