5064 Pressure

Saturday, May 28, 2016

Where hangs the smoke of hate burns a fiercer fire called fear. 

– old Russian proverb --

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From the Rhinebeck Community Forum, regarding the Memorial Day parade:

The parade will proceed south on Mulberry Street, turn west onto East Market Street and stop at Village and Town Halls for simultaneous flag raisins and a wreath laying ceremony

So many questions.  Does no one proofread anymore?  Raisins?  And it's one parade.  The village and town halls are almost a quarter mile apart, so I wonder how that "simultaneous" works. 

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I'm in procrastinate mode again.  Everything is tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow.  

Daughter's father, EX#2, is in the hospital again, has been there for quite a while.  What I get from Daughter tends to be very garbled, so I'm not entirely sure what's going on.  He's in some kind of rehab facility and is supposed to have some kind of heart valve replacement surgery soon, actually I was under the impression that was supposed to be some time early in this past week, but Daughter has said nothing more, and I don't like to ask because she acts like I'm harassing her when I do ask, so.... 

What made me think it was to be early this past week is that she and the Nugget went to visit him about 8 days ago, because she thought it was important that she see him before the surgery.  The rehab is in Camden, which is a day-trip, but when they move him for the surgery he will be much further south and visiting is a much harder trip, especially with the Nugget.  

I've had to walk on eggshells lately with her because she's very tense for a long time about this week.  They all left this morning for a week-long visit with Hercules' mother, who is currently living in, uh, Arizona?  New Mexico?  Wherever she is, it's way out in the middle of nowhere, something to do with a reservation school or something.  I don't know.  I don't ask.   

I do know that the MIL is nuts.  Oh, not that kind - well, that kind too, but she's fine if she takes her medications - I mean she has some weird ideas and is frequently, in fact usually, completely unreasonable.  There's the orbs thing, and the astrology, and the way she "wouldn't let" Hercules and Daughter name the baby what they wanted to name her, loudly rejecting name after name as being "bad omens".  "Wouldn't let" is in quotes, because of course they could have chosen any name they wanted, but if they did, she'd have made their lives hell.  I am mostly pretty easygoing, but after one hour in her presence I quite literally want to strangle her.

Poor Hercules.  He drew some bad straws in parents.  His father actually told him that Daughter was a gold-digger, that she would eventually leave him and take all his money.  Not suggested, TOLD him.  When Daughter told me that, I said that she should casually drop into conversation sometime how much she stands to eventually inherit from me.  She won't need any of whatever pittance he leaves Hercules.  Anyway, he gives Daughter a hard time.  Nothing she says or does is acceptable. 

The FIL has an odd arrangement.  His second wife, Hercules' stepmother, is an identical twin, and her twin sister lives with them.  The women have the same hairstyle, dress alike, the three go everywhere together, do everything together, at least as far as I know, but of course I know next to nothing.  I don't know what their domestic arrangement is, but it does leave one wondering.  You'd think a guy who has so much money that he's worried about gold-diggers would say, "Hey, let's install your sister in her own apartment."  But, like I said, I know nothing.  I seldom gossip, but I don't feel in the least guilty about this instance.

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Almost forgot.  Back when Daughter and Nugget visited Ex#2 a week ago, he was sitting in a wheelchair, and the urine bag was on the side.  Daughter moved the wheelchair, and the bag somehow came disconnected, and urine spilled all over the floor.  She attempted to clean it up using paper towels or something, and then the nurse came in, and told her that she shouldn't have touched it because Ex#2 has a UTI, and it's a MRSA infection.  

Daughter was freaked enough that she called me from the road on her way home, wondering what kind of danger she and the Nugget might be in, and what she should do.

I didn't say it to her, but I figure she should have asked at the hospital.  I'm surprised that if it was very infectious that they would allow the Nugget in the room.  Of course, on the other hand, it was supposed to be confined in the bag.  I told her to call her doctor or pediatrician the next day.  I haven't heard anything since.

To add to the stress, her cat Titus has had some kind of mouth problem since kittenhood (he's 9 this year) and it finally seems to be causing him problems eating, so Daughter ... well, long story short, several thousand dollars in surgery needed.  

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

Well, I may regret this post.  Daughter is extremely defensive of her "boundaries", and I'm sure she'd figure I overstepped here.  But damn it, it affects my life, too.  I have issues of my own that I have been unable to bring up for the past few weeks because I didn't want to add to Daughter's problems.  So I have a right to complain about things that are attacking her, at least.
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4040 Final bird entry

Saturday, May 23, 2015

I found the baby bird dead Wednesday morning.  I think there was something wrong with him all along.  He never made the fecal sacs that chicks his age are supposed to make, and his cloaca looked prolapsed.  It may have happened when he fell from the nest, or it may have been that way all along so he'd been kicked out of the nest.  We'll never know.

I called Daughter, and she was sad.  She told Nugget, and Nugget was excited, wanted to see the bird right away.
 "Aren't you sad?"
"No.  I like to see dead bodies!"

Oh, my.  Not sure what's going on with that kid.

Well, Daughter has a lot of anatomy books, has even participated in a human dissection, maybe that explains it?

Hercules, Daughter, and Nugget left Thursday for a five-day trip to West Virginia (some kind of caching shindig) and Pennsylvania (Hercules' family), so there wasn't time for a proper funeral.  So the bird is in a box in a freezer bag in my freezer.  Daughter said I could go ahead and bury him while they were away, but I don't want to --- mainly because I am incapable of digging a hole these days, and putting him out with the garbage is distasteful.  On the other hand, given Nugget's ghoulish fascination with "dead bodies", maybe it's a good idea if she doesn't know where he's buried.

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More chain-jerks:

• Weary and wary are different words.
• We are all frustrated by "I could care less" (meaning "I couldn't care less").  Believe it or not, in the past few days I have seen at least three examples in three different places, of  "I could careless."  Don't people think about what they say (write) anymore?
• Exacerbate and exasperate are different words.
• Disorientate is not a word.  Yes, disorientation is the noun, but the verb is simply disorient.  Same with orientate/orientation/orient. 
• This one drives me crazy:  "calm, cool, and collective."  That one I hear as well as read.  How does one be collective?
• Sew and sow are different words.  You can't sew the seeds of discord.
• Invite is a verb.  It is not a noun. 
• Ask is a verb.  You don't have an ask of someone.  You have a request or a question.

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4029 Alphabet soup

Friday, April 3, 2015

My daughter has passed her exams for physical therapist and has acquired another set of initials after her name.  Daughter  R.M.T., L.M.T., C.P.T. 

R.M.T. - Reiki Master Teacher
L.M.T. - Licensed Massage Therapist 
C.P.T. - Certified Personal Trainer

CONGRATULATIONS, Kid!

(Note that she also has a degree in civil eengineering, electrical engineering, and mechanical engineering from Penn State, but she never mentions that.  Yeah, she doesn't use it, but it's still quite an accomplishment.)
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4010 Followup from the south

Thursday, February 5, 2015

Well, Ex#2's lab results came back, and he does have (did have?) Stage 1 colon cancer.  Apparently no big deal.

Mentally he's not doing so well.  In the ICU he apparently kept trying to get dressed and leave, so they finally had to strap him to the bed.  Daughter has been talking with him on the phone, and he thinks he's in a hotel. "I don't know the name of it.  The cleaning ladies are nice, but they won't  let me out of bed."

Daughter had a nice long heart-to-heart with a case manager, and the plan now is not for him to go directly home, but to spend some recovery time at a skilled nursing facility, where maybe? they can evaluate? his ability to care for himself.  "The family", his sister and all those other family members down there, have a very strong prejudice against admitting any kind of mental problems, they see it as some kind of unacceptable weakness, a character flaw, so Daughter has to work against them, too.  She's been choosing her words carefully, and that's a strain itself.

In the meantime, Hercules's maternal grandmother, who pretty much raised him, died on Tuesday.  Not unexpected, she's well into her nineties.  The funeral is tomorrow.  Hercules's mother is just plain nuts, certifiably, seriously, the only way she avoided incarceration in North Carolina was by agreeing to psychiatric counseling, whereupon she promptly moved across the country, well anyway she is currently at nasty odds with everyone else, including Hercules, and she will be there.  Daughter and Nugget were supposed to go to the funeral, too, but Nugget suddenly developed an abdominal malady while visiting me yesterday, and she was throwing up last night, and lethargic today (but a bit more chipper this evening), so Hercules left for Pennsylvania today alone.  Poor guy.  Daughter is, I suspect, guiltily happy she doesn't have to deal with her mother-in-law.

The MIL hasn't seen the Nugget in --- gee, maybe more than a year, not since she moved to Arizona or wherever the hell she is now, and I'm worried that since Nugget isn't there, she's going to change her flight plans and insist on coming back here with Hercules.  That may be more than Daughter can handle right now.  Probably more than Hercules can handle.  Likely more than their marriage can handle.  I hope he has the strength to say no if she demands it.

Well, things have been very tense across the street for a while now.  I hope things will loosen up over the next few weeks.
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3976 The past isn't there any more

Sunday, September 14, 2014

It takes a long time to gain trust, five seconds to lose it.

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For some reason this past summer I thought a lot about Gettyburg, Pa.  I had a strong urge to visit.  Nope, not as a tourist.  From summer of 1965 to summer 1967, a mere two years, I lived there.  I taught high school math.

Even though it was only two years, a lot happened.  They were the densest two years of my life, and they had a powerful influence on the next twenty or so years.  More happened in a month there than happened in whole years of the rest of my life.  Maybe it was my age.  Maybe it was the sudden freedom, being on my own.  I don't know.

I originally wanted to stay at a particular B&B in the middle of town.  [See http://www.brafferton.com/.  Check out the beautiful rooms!]  I selected a suite with a Jacuzzi and private entrance, and in July I made a reservation for the nights of September 9 and 10.  I figured that the tourist season would be winding down, so traffic would be less, especially on weekdays, but it would still be warm.

And then, on impulse, I mentioned to Daughter that I planned to go, and asked if she and the Nugget would like to join me.  I was thinking simply nice little vacation.  Daughter jumped to the utterly baseless conclusion that I was facing an emotional upheaval and was begging for her support, so she had to go.  Of course she didn't check that with me.  That's one of the things we fight about --- that she makes assumptions and then operates on them without checking with the other person, ALL THE FREAKIN' TIME!, and then she holds those assumptions against you.

I attempted to get Daughter and Nugget a room in the same B&B and discovered that they don't allow children under 10-years-old (or so, I forget), so I cancelled that reservation and booked two adjoining rooms at a Marriott outside town.  I was disappointed that the particular Marriott didn't have an in-room Jacuzzi and mentioned that to Daughter, so she did her own research and found another hotel that had something they called "family suites", that did have Jacuzzis.  Now from the photos on their website, the suite looked like two completely separate rooms with a shared bathroom between them.  So I called them, verified the Jacuzzi, made the reservation for a family suite WITH Jacuzzi (it was an unbelievable $160/night), and then cancelled the Marriott.

Sigh.

It was a 3.5 hour drive, which meant that Nugget would require a run-around break at some point.  Also, Daughter and I could not spend that much time in quarters that close without one of us (her!) having a meltdown bigger than the Nugget could throw, so we took separate cars.  Besides, that would allow us to do different explorations once there.

She left an hour before me, but we arrived within minutes of each other. 

I was very annoyed to find that the suite looked nothing like the photos implied.  It was a room with two queens with the bathroom by the entrance door, like any other cookie-cutter room, and then another room with a king bed opening off to the side of the queen room.  Yes, it had a door that could be closed, but one would have to go through the queen room to get to the bathroom.  Yuck.  AND, there was NO Jacuzzi.  I called the desk and asked if we could move to a family suite with a Jacuzzi, and was told no, there were no other rooms available.  I pointed out that I had specifically asked for the Jacuzzi, had moved from the Marriott on the assurance that I'd have one, and I was very unhappy.  They compensated me by reducing the room rate to $100/night.  Daughter was hyperventilating.  That was a warning I missed.


A few minutes later, as we passed the desk on the way out to find dinner, Daughter stopped at the desk and .... I don't know how to describe it ... she had an emotional  breakdown and said she couldn't stay in that room because there was no place she could be alone, there was no retreat, could she have another room for herself.  I was very embarrassed, and nodded to the clerk and told her to put it on my tab.  They gave Daughter another room, FREE.

After Daughter walked away, I told the clerk that this is NOT your problem to fix, it's our problem, my Daughter is nuts, so please put her room on my credit card, but they said no, it's ok.   I just wish Daughter had said something to me earlier.  We could have moved entirely to two adjoining rooms.  (I especially felt bad the next day, when I overheard one of their regular customers being turned away, because they were full, no rooms available.)  So I ended up with the family suite all by myself.  

[Embarrassed much?  Look like one of those city folks who walk in and start demanding all kinds of free stuff?]

That pretty much set the tone.  I should have gone alone.

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

The town has changed a lot.  It's surrounded by battlefield where nothing can be built, so the town has expanded by getting a lot more dense.  There was very little that I recognized.  Fifty years ago it was a sleepy little rural town that sort of woke up a little every summer when the tourists came, but there was little in the town itself that primarily catered to tourists.  Mostly, they just tolerated them.  In fact, there was just one chain hotel, a few small family-owned motels, and people who took in guests in the summer for some extra cash.  Now there are huge hotels all over the place.  Shops that primarily catered to the needs of townfolk and farmers now seem to be geared toward tourists, all antiques or artsy-fartsy.  

Actually, the middle of town is beautiful.  And then I remembered that last year was the 150th anniversary of the battle, so I'll bet all the sandblasting, restored and refurbished storefronts, fancy lampposts, and the huge planters everywhere were federally funded.

I found my old apartment building, the diner where I ate dinner almost every evening with six to eight students crammed into my booth with me, the location of the trailer I moved into after the fire at the apartment (that location, which used to be on the alley behind an apartment building, is now an extension of the hospital), and some other things.  But mostly I recognized very little.  

The past mostly isn't there any more, it's been papered over.

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Before anyone yells at me about the filth of hotel Jacuzzis, I have a way to handle that.   I pack a small bottle of Clorox.  Fill the tub up to the intakes, pour in half the bleach, run it for a few seconds, and then let it sit for about 15-20 minutes, run it again for a few seconds, then drain it.  If there was anything floating after after the second running (which I have seen only once in 30 Jacuzzis, The Man loves a Jacuzzi), just do the process again.  It is now safe.  Go out for dinner and by the time you return the bleach odor is gone.

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

Another odd thing happened.  I had a memory of a section of road heading out of New Jersey into an unknown state, where the road crosses a bridge over a steep-sided river gorge, into a wonderland of small heavily wooded mountains piled one on another.  Beautiful.  It's been driving me crazy for the past few years because I didn't know where it was, couldn't remember where I might have been driving from or to, or even when.  I just wanted to find that piece of road again.

It got to be an obsession.  Several times over the past year I went to Google maps street view and followed almost every major road out of New Jersey in every direction, especially those that crossed a river near the state line.  No luck.

Going to Gettysburg, I let the GPS guide me.  And there it was!  It's Interstate 78 west, over the Delaware River.  I still have no idea when I might have taken that route in the past.  Maybe I dreamed of it. 

Returning, the GPS took me a different route, via the Pa turnpike, and the NJ turnpike.

Odd.  Like I was meant to find it.  Odder still, my memory was of heading west over the gorge. Had I returned by that route heading east, I might not have recognized it.
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3697 Eh.

Saturday, February 9, 2013

"'Tis an ill wind that blows no minds."

-- Malaclypse the Younger --

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Well, the "blizzard" left me underwhelmed.  At the country house a normal "biggish" snowstorm would leave a foot of snow or so with a layer or two of ice to make the shoveling or throwing interesting.  (More than once I'd had to go down the 300+ foot driveway with a coal shovel chopping the layer of ice on top of the snow into squares and removing the squares before I could use the snow thrower.)

Here, there was about 9 inches on the roof of the van, but by the time I got outside it was heavy and wet.  I got about 1/3 cleared from the 2-car-length driveway when my little electric thrower couldn't handle it any more (sticky heavy snow kept clogging up the chute).  Daughter cleared the town plow plug across the end of the driveway, neighbor George used his big thrower on the lower half, and I still have to clear around the van with a shovel.

Daughter and Nugget did return from DC yesterday morning.  I had called her to say that if she wanted to stay at a hotel, I'd reimburse her, but as it turned out it was mostly rain and the roads weren't bad.

I was amused by the following comments on a Yahoo e-news storm report:

Big Momma  •  16 hrs ago
I 'm watching, as the snow reaches 3 feet in depth, my husband staring at the window. If this keeps up I may have to let him inside.

critters_r_me  •  6 hrs ago
There are hundreds of cars stranded on the Long Island Expressway. Gee, I bet they wish someone had told them a storm was coming.

WilliamH  •  19 hrs ago
First you were finding NEMO, now you're tracking NEMO.
You're going to make that poor little fish paranoid.

I know that some areas really did get slammed, and the constant break-ins on the TV with officials warning of doom were justified there (but those areas are used to winter extremes!), but around here fear-mongering crap like that is just going to cause people to wave warnings off, even when it really is serious.

P.S. What's with the current trend for naming storms?  Like, we don't know what to call it without a name?
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3696 Crap.

Thursday, February 7, 2013

Absence makes the heart grow fungus.

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I have a very sore throat.  I called the doctor (strep?), and they called in an antibiotic prescription (which involved three screw-ups and six phone calls, and took six hours).  I have an appointment with the doctor on Monday.

I wanted to get ahead of my throat because we're expecting a major storm starting tomorrow morning.  Rain, snow, torrential rain, ice, sleet, plunging temperature and more snow, possible loss of power, possibly up to a foot or more of snow tomorrow overnight after it gets colder.  (I love that "up to xxx or more".  Like, "up to" no longer has any meaning, I guess.)

What's upsetting me the most is that yesterday Daughter and the Nugget drove to the DC area to visit a friend, and plan to drive back tomorrow.  I suggested to Daughter that she might want to delay her return a day or two, and she refused to even consider it.  "If it's bad I'll just drive slower."

Yeah.  A normally five hour drive under the best of conditions, on a Friday, with a 21-month-old in the back seat.

I can't seem to get through to her that you can have loads of confidence in yourself, but can you have confidence in EVERYONE else on the road with you? All of them?

She will be furious with me if I call her tomorrow morning and offer to pay (reimburse her) for a hotel room, but I think I'll risk it.

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

When the sky is cloudy at night here, it's not black or gray, like at the country house.  It's pink.  Light pink.  Faded flamingo pink.  On all sides.  I find that disturbing.  Ominous. 

I don't like it at all.
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3652 Thrashing

Sunday, October 28, 2012

Confidence - The feeling you have before you fully understand the situation.

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(I do hope that green randomly-generated quote above is not prophetic.)
 
If you don't hear from me for a while, it'll be because we lost power.

Yesterday was weird.  All up and down the street, people were raking and blowing leaves into the street.

Duh?  Why?

They are all just going to blow, and what doesn't blow away will block the storm drains as soon as it rains.

If you have a day and a half before all hell breaks loose, why are you spending that time raking leaves?

I don't understand.

Tomorrow is garbage collection day.  I will not be surprised to see garbage cans at the curb.

Sheesh.

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

I searched the blog to help remember when last year's hurricane was, and I found this, from August 2011:

Back in the mid-70s, Dr. K. said that one of my problems involved feelings of omnipotence, that I felt I was personally responsible for everything bad that happened. No wonder, given that my father blamed me for everything.

Anyhow, it's awfully hard not to fall back into that.

I mean, there's a lot of circumstantial evidence. People have been convicted of murder on less.

Let's examine:
I bought the house last fall.
This past winter [2010-2011] was the coldest and snowiest here in decades.
This summer [2011] had the worst heat wave in decades.
Last week we felt seismic activity for the first time ever here.
Now we're to get a hurricane, and the last time an eye passed directly over this area was in the 19th century!

I rest my case.  

Today, add to the list what is predicted to be the worst storm since the 1800's, and the eye will (probably) be passing about 20 miles south.

I am Typhoon Mary.

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I am hoping that the wind and ocean surge predictions are exaggerated because no government entity wants to be accused of downplaying it.  Daughter and Hercules, and the Nugget, plan to stay here.  "We have a generator now." 

I'm not happy with that, because the Nugget has been very sick with a head cold, croup, and TWO infected ears.  She was limp-sick on Friday, but a little better yesterday now that she has antibiotics.  But I don't know where else they could go with a sick baby.

Also, while my house is 29' above sea level, their house is at least 8' lower.

Well, excuse me while I bring outdoor furniture in and corral the flamingo herd.

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Flash:  NYC Mayor is on TV right now, he says surge is expected to be 10-11 feet.  Ok.  That's a lot better than the 20' I was hearing yesterday!  I guess I don't have to worry about fish in my living room.
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3650 Panic

Friday, October 26, 2012

Clinton lied. A man might forget where he parks or where he lives,

but he never forgets oral sex, no matter how bad it is.

-- Barbara Bush (Former US First Lady) --

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A lot of freakin' out going on.  Some kind of super storm supposed to hit up the east coast.  The local township is sending out email alerts that make it sound like there will be no food, water, or power available for weeks.  The water-heavy sky is going to fall and flatten us like a pancake and then float it all out into the ocean.

The town of Rhinebeck, NY, near my country house, is also drumming up a panic with email broadsides.  They seem to think that the world is going to blow away, leaving everything flat as a pancake, not a blade of grass standing.

Ok, who's the spoilsport who sued a municipality for not warning people sufficiently about weather, so now they're afraid NOT to scare the pants off people?

This is ridiculous.  Tell us something is coming.  Give us the best prediction as to rainfall, windspeeds, etc.  It really isn't necessary to scream at us.  I'm tired of being treated like an infant.

FLASH:  The NYC mayor is on TV right now talking about precautions and plans being put into place for the storm, and how people can get information and assistance if needed.  He's being matter-of-fact and serious without being hysterical.

You know, his calmness has got me thinking about it, whereas the local and upstate hysteria just had me rolling my eyes and passing it off.

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

Speaking of infants, the Nugget is very sick.  She has a cold, it's going into her chest, frighteningly high fever, and she has two infected ears.  Remember I said she's very strong?  Well, it's next to impossible to get medicine into her.  She fights like a tiger.  She clings to Daughter, won't allow any space between them.  Daughter has Hercules and me to help her out with a sick baby.  She asked today how on earth I managed alone.

Well, I didn't tell her, I'll let her think that's how it always is, but the biggest difference is that Daughter would take the medicine if I asked her to.  She was very compliant.  Nugget will not allow anything she doesn't want, that's that, and there's no reasoning with her. That's different, but not better or worse, and I don't want Daughter to wish it otherwise.

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

John Scalzi has written a letter from "a rapist" to conservative politicians, thanking them for making his hobby so much more satisfying.  It's sadly funny and it's infuriating.  Please go read it, at http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/10/25/a-fan-letter-to-certain-conservative-politicians/.  You won't be sorry you took the minutes to read it.  An excerpt:

Ah, I see by your surprised face that you at the very least claim to have no idea what I’m talking about. Well, here’s the thing. Every time you say “I oppose a woman’s right to abortion, even in cases of rape,” what you’re also saying is “I believe that a man who rapes a woman has more of a right to control a woman’s body and life than that woman does.”

3637 Bare Bones

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

We cannot get rid of terrorism by getting rid of terrorists. We must

get rid of the conditions that create terrorists.

-- Silk --

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

Well, here I am.

There you are.

.......... crickets ............

I've got nothing.

Well, a little news.  The Nugget is going to school!

Ok, not really school.  She's going to a day care center three mornings a week, from 9 'til 2.  She gets a "report card" every day.  She likes "circle", stories, colors, and lunch.

This gives her Mommy some time for herself, too.

Nugget hasn't adjusted yet to the change in nap schedule, and since she started "school", she's been up several times during the night, which is upsetting her Daddy, Hercules.  Don't know how that's going to shake out.

Daughter had asked me a while ago to give her sewing lessons, but there was never time.  Well, there was time, but chasing the Nugget around used it up.  So now, after Daughter gets caught up on the list of things she hadn't been able to do for the past year and a half, maybe.

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

I think my daughter may be trying to kill me.  Late last week she brought over some beef stew with lots of vegetables (she seems to think I don't eat right).  It was good, but it was loaded with sharp shards of bone that I wasn't expecting until I bit down on one.  She had smashed up a big marrow bone into it.

Today she brought over a chicken stew with potatoes, chick peas, carrots, and lots of stewed tomatoes in it.  Also lots of fingernail-sized bits of what looks like rib bone.  After I discovered the first one I tried to feel around for them in a mouthful (found an average of four or five per mouthful), but then I bit down on a sneaky one and it stabbed between a tooth and gum - so I threw the rest of the stew out.  It was very good, but it scared me.

I hope she's not feeding the Nugget that tonight.

Maybe I should call her and warn her.  On the other hand, she takes offense easily, and my complaining of bones twice within the space of a week will not be taken well.

I never was very good at diplomacy, no matter what my Dale Carnegie trophy says.
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3611 Telephone protocol

Saturday, September 8, 2012

Half the American people have never read a newspaper.

Half have never voted for president.

One hopes it is the same half.

-- Gore Vidal --

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Daughter has never telephoned someone when I'm around, so I don't know if the following is a general pattern with her, or reserved for me.

My phone:  "Ring ring..."  Phone display says it's her.
Me:  "Hello."
Her:  "Hi Mom."
...silence...
...silence...
...silence...which will continue until...
Me:  "Um, you called me.  You get to pick a topic."
Her:  "Oh, yeah, I'm going to the store.  Need anything?" (or whatever her topic is)

Every single call! 

Is the problem mine?  When she says "Hi, Mom", am I supposed to say hello again, or ask what's up, or "how are you", or something?  Is my understanding of phone protocol wrong?  Isn't the person who made the call supposed to take the lead?
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3485 Looking back at Mother

Sunday, March 11, 2012

The rich buy assets. The poor have only expenses.
The middle class buys liabilities they think are assets.
--Robert Kiyosaki --

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Everybody, when they have a baby, is determined to not make the same mistakes their mother or father made with them. They vow that "I will never" blah blah, whatever they remember from their own childhood as a crime against them.

They are unaware that even as they avoid the old mistakes, they will make new ones of their own.

Especially with the first child, when they are unsure, they begin to realize that they've already made mistakes before the kid is even walking, they begin to realize that it's not as easy as they thought. They realize that parents are human, and there are other parts of life to deal with, other pressures, and they can't always make the right decisions and do the right thing all the time. Other crap interferes. Parents aren't so god-like that they know everything about everything, everything that's going on. The best you can do is try to make the right decisions and actions righter than the wrong ones are wrong.

And then they look back at their own parents, and think "gee, maybe they weren't so bad after all, they did the best they could at the time", and they finally brush off all those little scars to their psyche they'd been carrying around for so long.

I just wish it hadn't taken my daughter 36 years to have her first baby.
.

3443 Peanut Butter

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Hard work pays off in the future; laziness pays off now.
-- Steven Wright --

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

Daughter has some decisions to make. Her job: She gets a call when a client is scheduled, and goes in then, a few times a week. So her job-related babysitting needs are sporadic. I had told her I'd babysit for things like doctor's appointments or whatever, or when she and Hercules need an evening out, but that she was not to use me for job babysitting. I need flexibility, and she must treat babysitting for work as a professional thing, set up some kind of business arrangement.

Well, she's going crazy finding sitters. She's been depending on neighbors and friends, and she's paying $10 per hour. One by one the sitters are dropping out. One had a mild heart attack which resulted in surgery. One has a young daughter who continues to treat Nugget like her personal rag doll despite Daughter's requests for closer supervision (I had noticed long ago that after the Nugget had been there, she flinches at any quick movement). One smokes in the house when Nugget is there, now that it's getting colder and outside is inconvenient. One is a total ditz. Friends are starting to be too busy.

So Daughter is now looking into day care centers, for three days a week (Daughter would prefer two, but three is the least any of them will do), and for a multitude of reasons she's not happy with what she's finding. Daughter doesn't trust immunizations, so she's been delaying them as long as possible. Although Nugget is now 8.5 months old, she's only up to the 4 month level on her shots. (Actually, I agree with Daughter. I think they give some of those shots way too early. And NJ is nuts - they require way too many.) Anyway, the licensed centers won't take babies that aren't up to date on their shots.

I suggested interviewing granny nannies who wouldn't mind a few dollars a week on an as-needed basis.

It's only going to get harder. Hercules' new assignment is going to require every other month in Europe. He was able to negotiate it down from two months there and two here.

She's got options-
Get Nugget up on the immunizations for day care, or
Interview casual grannies, or
Quit work until Nugget is ready for nursery school, or
Finish a room in her basement where she can work, but for that she still needs a sitter, or
Sell jewelry on Etsy (temporary change of career), or
Both quit their jobs, move to and find work in Reading, Pa., and then use his family for sitting.
(His family is putting pressure on him to do just that.)

I swore I would not step in and fix this, but that last option really scares me - I just bought this house and am nowhere near selling the old one - I CAN'T move again, and there's no way I'm staying here if they move away. I haven't said anything like that to them, but it's freaking me out. His family has enormous influence on him. When things were going fine here, he was able to resist them, but with the Europe thing and Daughter under pressure, he may cave.

So, this week I am the work sitter. I had the Nugget four hours Tuesday, five yesterday, I'll have her Friday afternoon, and as of now, two days next week. At Daughter's house, Nugget can pretty much roam free, and she seems to be happy puttering around. Here she needs constant supervision, and for some reason demands constant attention (probably because the separation anxiety is higher), and won't nap because it's not her room and not her bed, which means she gets overtired and fussy. So I can't do anything else when she's here. Yesterday I didn't eat lunch until after 5. So it looks like I'll be sitting over there from now on, where I'll have a little more freedom to get things done, but ... what? Everything that needs doing is here, not there.

Sigh.

I'm sighing a lot lately.

Sigh.
.

3431 A Nerd's Christmas, The Goddess, and A Tastless Xmas

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Borrow money from pessimists. They don't expect it back.
-- Steven Wright --

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This is North Point Ministries' iBand. It's 7.5 minutes, but well worth it. (I was especially fascinated by the iPhone maracas. How does it know you're shaking it?)

[http://youtu.be/F9XNfWNooz4]

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

I've had a necklace for the past twenty years or so that Daughter loved. Every time I wore it, she said she wanted it. I gave it to her today, along with a nearly matching bracelet I'd found at a craft fair. The Goddess's stones are all different, hand polished and hand set on sterling silver. The goddess figurine is a hair over two inches long, and hangs just above the breastbone. She is horn, the panther is bone. Ignore the larger stones in the photos - that's the bracelet, which isn't nearly as nice or well made.

I present "The Goddess":

I'm going to miss her.

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

This is around the corner and down the road a bit from my house. There are flashing lights on the house and the top and bottom of the fence and in the trees, so likely any one photo isn't going to capture all the glory - or the music playing from the speakers. All kinds of stuff is just jammed together without any rhyme or reason. And it all seems to have to do with consumerism. The shorthand "Xmas" was made for displays like this. Forgive the blur, I didn't have a tripod or anything to brace against, but you get the idea. I want to get a photo in daylight sometime. No hurry - if last year is any indication, it'll all still be there in February.

Note the hot-air balloon in the back yard.




Yep. None of the photos caught the flashing lights on the roofline or fence.

My taste runs more toward a wreath on the door and candles in the window, or monochromatic lights on the shrubs at the foundation and along the walkway (no blinking, please), that says "this house is quietly joyful and welcoming". Or a softly lighted manger scene (please, no Snow White included), which says "we honor".

There's very little of that in this neighborhood.

Sigh.

3427 Photos

Sunday, December 25, 2011

99% of lawyers give the rest a bad name.
-- Steven Wright --

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Daughter, Hercules, and the Nugget are away for the weekend. With my ex and Hercules' parent's exes, there are four sets of grandparents: me, one in south Jersey and two sets in Pa, and this is the Nugget's first Christmas, so everybody wants her. They left Friday to make the tour, and will return late tomorrow. So we'll do our piece of Christmas late Monday or Tuesday, whatever works.

Daughter has been complaining that she has no childhood photos of herself. I have a huge box of unsorted photos from my life, so I spent today putting together a special gift for her -- a smaller unsorted box from her life. We'll have to go through them together, adding names, dates, and occasions to the backs of those she decides to keep.

Someday I'll have to do that to all my photos. Daughter is afraid I'll drop dead someday, leaving her with random sepia photos of unidentified ancestors/strangers.
.

3404 Sadness

Friday, November 25, 2011

What happens in Vegas stays …
on the internet, forever.

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Daughter is sad today.

In, I believe, 1997, when she was working at a high-paid engineering job in Philadelphia, she bought a new silver 2-door Honda. It's still healthy, with 197,000+ miles on it.

Now the Honda's two doors make it difficult to get the 20-pound Nugget in and out of the infant seat in the back. So I gave her my 2003, 53,000 mile, 4-door Suzuki, a.k.a. Suzie.

Today, Daughter sold the Honda to George-the-neighbor's granddaughter. (I think she got $5,000 for it!)

Sadness.

We do tend to get attached to a car. We remember how dependable it was, how many wonderful places it took us, how sometimes it seemed like our best and only true friend. Selling a car is almost like finding a new home for kittens. You hope the new owners will love and care for it, and appreciate its unique qualities as much as we did.

(Yeah, I wish Suzie were a Hummer. Or a tank.)
.

3396 We's gots the miserys

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

To be ignorant of one's ignorance is the malady of the ignorant.
-- Amos B. Alcott --

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

Daughter and the Nugget are both sick. Head cold, sore throat. Nugget occasionally bats at her right ear, so there may be something going on there, too. Occasional slight fever, not enough to worry about until she gets fussy tired, and that makes the congestion worse. She hates having her nose touched. Daughter is wrung out, but Nugget is nowhere near lethargic - she's still happy and active.

Daughter called early yesterday morning and asked if I could take the Nugget for two hours so Daughter could get some sleep. I ended up having the Nugget all day, until Hercules got home from work.

I have the Nugget right now while Daughter gets some sleep.

-------

As I wrote the above sentence, a little before noon, the napping Nugget woke up. It is now 6 1/2 hours later. She stayed with me today until about 4 pm.

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

Flash: The idiot who shot up the White House abandoned his car a few blocks away - with his driver's license in it. Duh.

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

The Nugget is 6.5 months old. For about three months now, she has been standing up to be picked up. You put your hands under her arms and with just balance help, not lift, she gets her feet under herself and stands up. She weighs 20 pounds now, so her standing to be picked up is a lot easier on adult backs.

Today I was shocked to discover that standing, she already comes up to the top of my thigh. That's amazing! She's a BABY!

In Mommy's papoose pack:
Napping today in Mommy's lap:
Oops, the click of the camera woke her:.

3357 Been a while....

Saturday, September 17, 2011

Intelligence does not automatically convey knowledge.

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

It's not like I've been especially busy, although I have managed to get a few things done. I now have a NJ driver's license, TV and internet cable, a house phone, got Hal's paws aligned, and have arranged for gutter cleaning and screening, and a few other things. I've got the pulleys, hooks, and cargo net for the attic, but since the hurricane, rope has been hard to find, so that's not finished yet.

One at a time:

NJ Driver's license

I'd been dreading going to the DMV, because I'd heard NJ DMVs are understaffed, have long lines and inefficient procedures, and everything takes a full day to accomplish. I went in one morning to find out what I'd need to get the license changed and the cars registered. There were no lines, and the people were very helpful. In and out with a list of "gets" and "to dos" in 15 minutes. Back the next day with the required documents for the driver's license.

And yes, there were some inefficiencies. Because I already have a valid NY license and no violations, I didn't have to take any tests. But I still had to fill out the forms and pay for a "temporary permit". When they took my picture, the woman asked if it was ok, "but this one is just for the temporary permit", so I said "yeah, it's ok, although I don't think of myself as having jowls". THEN she entered the data from the forms for the permanent license. I was under the impression I'd get a temp that day, and the permanent would be mailed, but then at the end she handed me the permanent, with the "temp" photo on it. Duh?

So I paid for a temp, AND for a perm, and she entered the data twice, once for the temp and then again for the perm, and I never got the temp. Uh, why not just skip the temp part entirely, and why make me pay for something you never had any intention of giving me?

I can't register the cars until I switch the insurance. I called my NY agent, and it was really simple. She said the insurance is even cheaper in NJ.

Daughter and I talked about Suzy Suzuki. Daughter has an 11-year-old Honda 2-door, and with the Nugget getting bigger, it's getting harder to get her in and out, so I'm going to give 4-door Suzy to Daughter.

Now I'm just waiting for the new insurance cards, and I can register Fred and Hal.

TV cable, WIFI cable internet, house phone

That all came as a FIOS package, for just about as much as I am currently paying for broadband internet alone. I had thought I could drop the broadband, but unfortunately there's no other way to get to the internet from the old house, so I'll have to keep it a bit longer.

The cable TV is annoying because there's just so much to choose from. I guess I'll find out what I like at some point, but in the meantime it's so overwhelming I find I don't watch at all. Which, actually, may be worth the cost.

I haven't handed out the house phone number at all, but the damn phone rings every half hour - people trying to sell me things (yeah, I got on the nat'l do-not-call list, but it'll take a while for that to take effect) and calls for the folks who used to have this number. Apparently they were deadbeats. Most of those calls are from collection companies. I recorded a message saying that "I do not answer this phone. I've had this number only since 9/2, so I'm probably not the person you're looking for, and I do not buy anything on the phone. I do check messages, so if you are certain you want to talk to me anyway, leave a message."

Nobody leaves messages, but the phone continues to ring about every half hour. There doesn't seem to be a way to turn the ringer off.

The internet connection is fantastic! I can actually watch YouTube videos right off, without waiting for them to load.

Hal's alignment

After the latest new tire application, the tire dealership told me that Hal needed alignment, but they preferred that BMW do it. It didn't seem too bad - no shimmy or pull, just a little less nimbleness in handling - and I don't drive him that much, so I didn't get around to it until this past week. The nearest BMW shop is a over a half-hour away down roads packed with shore traffic, so I waited until school started to take him in. The procedure took a half day and cost over $200, and now he's pulling to the right.

Crap.

Gutter cleaning and screening

Damn Gum tree balls. The gutters were so packed last winter that they filled with ice, and dumped ice and water down the driveway. Dangerous. In the past few rain storms, they've spilled water out about four feet before the downspouts. Annoying.

I was afraid it would cost a small fortune to get some kind of leaf and ball proof covers, but turns out it'll be less than $600 for both sides of the house roof and the porch roof. That's about half what I expected, given that two cleanings a year would come to $300/yr.

Installation is next Friday.

Attic pulleys

Attic access here is a drop-down ladder/stairs hatch in the upstairs hall. Those ladders are steep and because of the hinges they feel rickety, and I'm never comfortable on ladders anyway. So in every house I've lived in, I've installed pulleys so I don't have to carry anything up and down the ladder. One pulley in a rafter at the top and one that raises and lowers at the bottom halves the weight, too. At the bottom I use a fishnet arrangement to hold the stuff going up.

I have all the materials to do it except for the rope. I need 50 feet of clothesline-like rope, and it just doesn't exist anywhere right now. Every place sold out when the hurricane was coming. So I wait for restocking.

Family

The company SIL Hercules works for is, um, an Irish firm famous for crystal. They were bought out a while ago by a British company famous for china, especially featuring, um, a particular shade of blue. Anyway, they're consolidating and trimming, and Hercules' department is getting drastic cuts - except for Hercules. Last spring he and Daughter were invited to Ireland for a week. He thought it was to install a software system, but in actuality it was for the honchos to get a look at him, and after that trip he was offered a fantastic opportunity within the company. He recently spent a few weeks in Pa. in training, and is leaving today for five weeks in Ireland.

The two of them are pretty upset. The Nugget is about ready to get her belly off the floor and start crawling. He's afraid she'll change a lot before he gets back. Daughter bursts into tears at the drop of a "bon voyage". They're both so tense they argue about little things, like which GPS he should take. They've got a Skype-like computer arrangement, and a video camera, so it shouldn't be so very bad. After all, it's not like he's headed for Afghanistan or something.

I may be the one upset later. They don't know for sure where he'll be working after the building he's in now is closed. I just bought this freakin' house after Daughter assured me they wouldn't be moving for a very long time, if ever. I'll be very annoyed if they move away, leaving me here.

Sigh.
.

3299 Fireworks

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Being right too soon is socially unacceptable.
-- Robert Heinlein --

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Yesterday afternoon I finally finished raking up the gumballs in the back yard. Daughter and Hercules were barbequing vegetable skewers and steaks, and I was invited, but Hercules' mother was visiting for the day (visiting from the Carolinas, stopped in on her way back from visiting her mother in Pa.), and I'm avoiding her. I suspect it's obvious I'm avoiding her, but I don't care. Every third sentence out of her mouth makes me want to strangle her, so it's a lot healthier to avoid her.

It takes less than five minutes to walk to the bay from my house, so at 8:30 pm I went to the bay to see some fireworks. Neighbor George had said that it's a good place to see them, but that last year the police had blocked access off and not allowed people down there. But last year, it was all rocks and broken cement with a sharp dropoff down to the water. Since then, the township has put in a nice paved walkway with a railing.

There was no one there. An occasional couple or someone with a dog would walk past and disappear into the distance, and that was it. A pair of policemen walked past and said hello.

Even though I was facing east, the sunset was incredible, the colors reflecting off the water. I wished I had taken my camera.

Looking north over the water I saw the fireworks from the Amboys, from a wealthy enclave above Laurence Harbor, and north and northeast several spots on Staten Island. To the west, Keyport put on THREE surprisingly decent and long-lasting shows, followed by an obviously expensive display from either Union Beach or Keansburg.

The big Macy's show (supposed to be the largest display in the country) was pretty far across the water, on barges on the Hudson River between Staten Island and Manhattan, but I can see most of Staten Island, the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, and the lower coast of Brooklyn, So I was able to see the higher chrysanthemums from that, plus other more local shows along the coast and inland.

Daughter, Hercules, the Nugget, and Hercules' mother and her two dogs had gone somewhere earlier in the day, probably walking in some park, I don't know and didn't ask, but about 9:15 Daughter and Hercules joined me at the bay.

Near where I had been standing, there was a tall pole, next to the path from the access road ("Authorized Vehicles Only") to the walkway. I had earlier noticed that once it got full dark, anytime anyone walked that path, there was a flash of light and a recording, "This is the xxxxx police. Your photograph has been transmitted to our office." I found it amusing. We got our pictures taken when we left a little after 10.

Hercules found it fascinating. Where was it getting the power? We examined the pole and found no wires. At the top of the pole there were only two very small boxes. Solar panels on the top of the boxes? Seems like they'd be too small to power the motion detector, the flash, the recording, the camera, and a transmitter. The panels used to power emergency phones along the highways are much larger. I pointed out that there's not necessarily really a transmitter, or even a camera. Maybe there's really only a detector, flash, and recording. Sorta like those dummy police cars semi-hidden behind billboards.

I suggested that we stage a murder next to the pole, then wait in the bushes to see if anyone shows up. On the walk back to the house we had some fun planning the scenes. Hercules is a real ham.

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

A funny thing happened. Daughter joined me first, Hercules joined us a little later, after getting his mother and Nugget settled at the house. He runs. A lot. He was running down the dark path to join us and passed a teenaged couple. The guy shouted something rather nasty after him (apparently thinking Hercules with his dark hair was Hispanic). Hercules turned around and ran back toward him, and the guy pulled his girlfriend in front of him! Hercules told us what he then said to him, but I forget exactly, except that it had something to do with tiny balls rolling on the ground or the like.

And that was it.

Sometime later, we had walked further up the bay. Daughter and I were standing on either side of Hercules, who was squatting on the ground with his back to the walkway, when a group of five or six guys, mid or late teens, trotted up to us and asked if we'd seen a guy run by wearing tan pants and a grey knit shirt - "He threatened our friend!" Hercules stood up and turned around, and the kids said, "Not you. It wasn't you." Hercules said yes, it was, and that he hadn't threatened him. He'd merely commented on his hiding behind a girl. And the kids immediately apologized, and shook Hercules' hand.

Huh? Hercules is not tall. He's not big, rather lightly built. He's a runner and cyclist. Why, when it was obvious they wanted to find this guy and beat him up, why did they back off so quickly and thoroughly?

Was it because Hercules is not Hispanic? Because he was not a teen? Because he was with two small women (that doesn't feel like the reason)?
.

3295 Bits

Saturday, July 2, 2011

There's no reason to waste a creative thinker on an implementation task.
-- Dilbert --

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

When the Nugget got her first immunizations, Daughter had been worried about how she would react when the nurse hurt her baby, and she didn't want the Nugget to think her mommy had done this terrible thing to her, so she asked me to go with her. Well, when the time came, Daughter did take over, and talked to Nugget. Nugget startled, the lower lip came out, but she recovered quickly and smiled at her mommy. All was well. Daughter picked her up, held her in her arms, and told her she was a good girl, very brave. And I put my arm around Daughter and told her she was a good girl, very brave.

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

I'm reading one of the free books that came with the Kindle, a collection of old fairy tales. Very bloody. They use a lot of old or unusual words, too. I have to look up words in every story, like "firmity" (a sort of a pudding-like glop made with soaked cracked grain, thickened with egg), "league" (the distance a man can walk in one hour, being farther on flat smooth ground and shorter on rough or steep ground), "cimeter" (a smallish knife with a curved blade shaped like a scimitar), "drest" (old adjective form of dressed), and so on.

I most enjoyed looking up "league". The first part of the Wikipedia article on anthropic measurements is very interesting. Ever wonder what a cubit is? Or a fathom? Furlong?

It struck me as odd that many of the measurements seem to assume an average human height of six feet. (On a well-proportioned body, the distance from the tips of the fingers to the opposite tips of outstretched arms should be equal to the height from the ground to the top of the head.) And yet I'd always heard that people in antiquity were much smaller than now. That David's giant was actually probably just a bit over six feet tall. I know that when you look at uniforms in Civil War museums (I lived in Gettysburg a few years) the uniforms seem tiny, too small even for me, and that was only 150 years ago. Same with Victorian dresses.

So it seems odd.

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

I'm thinking I can probably live with this kidney stone. I still have the other part of that double kidney functioning well. I believe the stones formed because I had the year-and-a-half kidney infection, and if I can avoid any future kidney infections, it won't get any worse.

The organism was the usual Escherichia coli (E. coli). "They" tell women that to prevent UTIs, we should wipe front to back, and piddle after sex. I don't know about the rest of the world, but I have great difficulty doing either. I have to wipe side-to-side, just being careful not to pull forward. And I can't piddle after sex because I have to piddle before, or I can't relax to enjoy it, so there's nothing there. Besides, I can't piddle that many times in one evening.

So I was thinking about that, and decided that I will have to use the Azo strips periodically. Check often, and insist that if something does show up, we cannot assume it's just a simple bladder infection.

That got me wondering about bidets. Um, wouldn't they contribute to UTIs? I can't imagine that the stream of water is very careful about where it carries and splashes and deposits stuff. At least then it's your own ickiness. Not like the automatic-flush toilets in public restrooms, like those along the parkways and throughways, that flush even while you're still on them and splash your bottom with God-knows-what left by God-knows-whom. Those things make me cringe.

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

I heard fireworks last night. I automatically got up and went to the window, and was disappointed to find that I could see nothing. The sounds were coming from the north and northwest, and from the southeast. North and northwest would be Brooklyn and Staten Island, and in the winter I can see them, but with the leaves on the trees now I can see next to nothing. Southeast would be along the bay shores or ocean shores, but being at sealevel myself and surrounded by trees, I could see nothing.

Disappointment. The old house is on a ridge with a view to the mountains, and I used to be able to see the fireworks from Bard college, Kingston, Rhinebeck, and Saugerties, and if Woodstock invested in the good stuff that would rise above the mountains, I could see theirs, too.

Tsk. I'll miss them.
.