5009 Rambling

xxxday, September 1x, 2015

...electricity is a myth. Everything actually runs off smoke. We know this

because once you let the smoke out of something, it doesn't work any more.

-- "SteveM", in a comment in Scienceblogs.com http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/07/frickin_electricity_how_does_i.php

----------------------------[the link may not work any more]---------------------------

Regular gas is less than $2 now!  Something like $1.95.  When did that happen?  Why?  I don't understand.

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

I had long ago noticed that every time I wash my hair, it's longer than before I washed it.  It's especially noticeable now that it's so long that I can get away with washing it once a week, so the increase in length is almost 2 inches.

After all these years, I think I've figured out why.

My hair isn't curly -- it's crinkly.  So over a week, the individual hairs crinkle up, making the whole look shorter without showing obvious curl.  Then when it gets washed, it straightens out.

Weird. 

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

Are crickets more populous in the late summer and fall?  They're all over outside now.  Inside, I'm finding, um, pieces of crickets everywhere, upstairs and down.  When Jasper's not sleeping or begging, he's hunting.  He doesn't eat them, he just takes them apart and then looks disappointed when they can't hop anymore.

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

A hitherto unconsidered benefit of retirement:
I took Hal in for his annual service.  Well, Hal's records report that since purchase, I have driven him an average of 67 miles per week.  No wonder I hadn't noticed that the cost of gasoline had gone down.  In the past 4.5 years, he has had four oil changes.  ...Almost balances out the six (or more? I've lost count) new tires.

I should report that mileage to the insurance company - they might lower my premium.

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

I don't know why anyone puts "THIS SIDE UP" and arrows on boxes.  I do almost all my shopping online, so I get about four boxes dropped on my porch per month, and I have never yet seen even one box with the arrows pointing up.  (UPS, are you listening?)

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

I want to buy Nugget some toys I loved when I was a child, and Daughter also had.  I'm going slightly crazy because I can't find the right things new anywhere online.

I want a pump-type spinning top, you know, the big one that sings, and flaps open inside a clear plastic top showing spinning colored panels that blend as it spins to make changing colors.  All I can find are solid metal with stuff painted on top.  They sing, but nothing else interesting happens.  I did find one on Amazon that almost fits the bill, but Amazon has "temporarily" suspended sale of that item due to some kind of shipping problem.

I want a nice kaleidoscope.  The case doesn't matter, but it must have translucent random-shaped colorful bits in the turning part.  No, I don't want opaque beads.  Duh?  Opaque?  Beads?  I don't want paper clips and other metal bits.  I don't want a solid lead-set stained glass wheel that doesn't give an ever-changing pattern.  I don't want a tube that gets pushed through the viewing chamber.  I don't want one so small that there is little in the chamber.  I also don't want to pay over $30 - I'm not looking for artwork here.  Remember the ones with odd-shaped bits of glass that shifted into view as you turned the end, and made glowing blossoms that never repeated?  Good interesting ones don't seem to exist anymore, not new ones, anyway.  I don't know - maybe kids were taking them apart and getting cut by the shifty bits or something.  I ended up buying a "vintage '50s" one on eBay.  

Still looking for the top.
.

4092 Ramblings

Sunday, August 23, 2015

Every time we impose our will on another, it is an act of violence.

--Gandhi--

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

What's with all the baseball caps?  It seems like every male I see in this area wears one, all the time!  Walking down the street.  Shopping in the hardware store.  Working in the yard.  Watching TV in their living rooms.  Sitting at a table in a decent restaurant!  Do they ever take them off?  Do they sleep in them?

There's a guy a few doors up who wears a suit to work.  He doesn't wear a baseball cap to work, although everyone else seems to.  Hercules wears nice shirts and slacks to work, and he doesn't wear a baseball cap either.  For yard work and ramming around he wears what looks like a floppy Australian campaign hat.  Otherwise, it's all baseball caps all the time around here.  I hate it!

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

I told The Man I had eaten at an Ethiopian restaurant.  He asked if there was anything on the plate.

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

Some senator wants to get really tough about mental health tracking, for strengthening gun control background checking.

Yeah, ok, I see where that's coming from, but I suspect it would only make things worse.  When I was young, men wouldn't even consider any kind of counseling for anything, not even if they were seeing little green men who were telling them to do stuff.  It was considered unmanly to admit that they might need some help handling issues.  Over the decades that attitude has relaxed a little, but not so much in the very population that wants guns.  A "permanent record" of seeking help that might prevent one's getting a gun will, among that population, absolutely shut down any possibility of help, any admission of weakness even to the people closest to them.  The "nuts with guns" will go further underground than they are already.

Bad idea, but I have nothing better to offer.

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

Latest tooth-grinder:  the Rhinebeck town blog/newsletter (at the country house) sent out an alert that the Linden Avenue bridge failed inspection, and has been closed until it can be replaced.  Estimates as to how long that will take will depend on efforts to obtain the "right-a-way" for the replacement.  "Right-a-way" was used several times in the article, and my stomach clenched every time.  Another example of "of" being misused, and another example of someone saying something with no idea whatsoever as to what they are saying. 

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

My hair has passed the bra strap and is now three fingers from my waist in the back.  It doesn't appear so long in the front, though, I guess because it's cut in a curve.  I'm still shedding a LOT - there are long hairs everywhere, in everything.  They compete with Jasper fur in the dust bunnies.  But I'm growing new hair at a good pace, too, so it's still thick (thickish - my hair is too fine to ever look thick) as it goes up toward the scalp.  In the least bit of humidity all the new hairs make a curly corona of fuzz around my head.  It makes me look frazzled.  I probably should start smoothing it with some kind of dressing --- but I really don't want to.  It seems happy frizzing.

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

I own a bazillion pairs of earrings (clip, I'm not pierced), including some I've been wearing since the '70s.  I love wearing earrings; they draw attention away from my face.  However, I haven't been wearing any kind of makeup in several years now, and for some reason I had this idea that I couldn't wear earrings unless I was made-up.  Not that I'd thought about it at all, just that with no makeup I didn't think of earrings.

I recently realized I really miss them.  I'm wearing them again, makeup be damned.
.

4016 Hair

Tuesday, February 24, 2015

My hair is getting long.  It's now to my mid-back.  Last summer it was so thick and shiny (ack! no spellcheck on the notebook pad whatever this thing is!).  For the last six months or so, it's been shedding heavily.  The long stuff is getting thin.  There's a lot of new baby hair near the scalp, but that's no help.  Hope, but no help.

People will say to just cut it short and then it will be thick again.

I DON'T WANT TO CUT IT!!!!  (Lying on floor and kicking heels.)

My hair is in excellent condition.  I don't have a single split end or shaft break on my entire head.  I've been so careful.  No heat, ever.  No French barettes.  No bare rubber bands.  No rollers.  No dyes.  No bobby pins.

I've always preferred my hair long, no bangs, and I figure now is my last chance to GO FOR IT!  I want to be able to sit on it before I die.  I want to be that old lady in the grocery store with the hair down to her ass and the hippie headband!

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

The one complaint I have about my hair is that it doesn't shine unless it's straight.   It has an odd texture, not wavy or curly or straight --- it crinkles.  No other word for it.  Seen against the sun, I have a corona.  So if I want it to look really nice, I have to straighten it somehow.

How, without heat?

I found a way.  Vacuum cleaner!

I sometimes dry it with the vacuum cleaner,  with the doflinky open for a gentle suction.  Not often, just for special occasions.  I happen to have a piece of hose extension that has never been used, so it's clean inside.  Does a great job getting from damp to smooth and dry, without heat.
.

3955 Hair

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

I took this photo back in late May.  I don't think I posted it here yet.

Growing it out again.  It took a long time because it was so short on top, but I kept trimming the bottom and and growing the top through all those painful yuck periods, and it's finally getting there.

I hated my hair short.  I got it cut because some influential people told me I'd look better with it short.  I hate hate hated it short.  I've had longish hair all my life, and I just don't feel like me with it short.  Even bangs.  I don't like bangs on me.  When it gets long enough on the sides I'll probably usually tie it back, but at least I know it's ME!  Never short again, no matter how "mature" I get.

I think people were trying to make me look more sophisticated.  Surprise -- I make no pretension to sophistication, ever.  Get used to it. 
.

3726 Thoughts on exploding things

Saturday, May 11, 2013

Adopt the pace of Nature. Her secret is Patience
-- Waldo Emerson --

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

Lots of fuss now about 3-D printed guns.

Ho hum.

The first problem is the printers. 

I know some people who own home versions of 3-D printers.  The small least expensive ones are more like toys, but cost a minimum of $1500.  They don't work as well as those YouTube videos would lead you to think. You have to feed them plastic "ink", and if you think the cartridges for your regular printer are expensive....yeouch!  The production machines you see on YouTube are horribly expensive.  You're not going to find one in your neighbor's basement.

In some, the base moves, in some the print head moves, in some both move.  This gives you a multitude of possible error points - the head clogs, the head burps, the belt moving the head or base slips slightly, and so on.  There are a lot of misprints using up a lot of that precious plastic before you get a useable item.

The device has to be fed code describing the part to be printed.  That's another big exposure.  How much do you trust the folks who produced it?  Those plans are also usually expensive, no matter how they are generated.

The second problem is the printed gun.

If the entire gun is 3-D printed, the slightest misprint/glitch could cause the gun to explode in your hand the first time you try to fire it.  So how do you test it?

Shooting a standard bullet generates heat.  Heat is not kind to plastic.  So even if it has been demonstrated that it's well printed from good code with no burps, I would be afraid to attempt a second bullet.

Of course, this is all blather from my own head, and there may be no problem at all.

I wonder if soon we'll be seeing a lot of one-handed amateur gunsmiths.

Schadenfreude.  Tee-hee!

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

Have you heard about PC-Kus (sheesh - who named that)?  The reason your hair eventually turns gray is that you build up hydrogen peroxide, which bleaches the hair in the roots.  PC-Kus is a topical cream that converts (breaks up) hydrogen peroxide into hydrogen and water, allowing the previous color to return.

(The bad news is that the longer your hair has been gray/white, the less effective it is.)

The discovery was a byproduct of research on vitiligo, a condition that causes the loss of pigment in patches of skin.

Hmmmmm.  The water probably won't be too great a problem, but one could hope that the tops of very vain people's heads might explode from a build-up of hydrogen.

More schadenfreude.  Tee-hee!
.

3578 Progress

Saturday, July 21, 2012

If we really believed in recycling, we'd sign our Christmas cards in pencil.

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

The heat wave finally broke with a terrific thunderstorm mid-week.  Today it's in the 70s, so I'm taking advantage of the coolth (yeah, I made that up, like warmth, but cool) to rig up the pulley system  through the upstairs attic hatch so I can get stuff to the attic without having to carry heavy awkward boxes and containers up the little drop-down ladder.  I don't like ladders.

First I had to sweep the attic.  The floor up there is covered with the builder's debris.  Even though it's in the mid-70s outside, the attic is in full sun, and it has to be in the 90s up there.  I was a little worried that the heat would get to me and I'd collapse and wouldn't be found until I was desiccated (dessicated?  I looked it up and still don't know which to use), but amazingly I was fine.  I sweated a lot, but that was all. No dizziness or anything.  In fact, I sorta liked it.

Soon as I get some more money built up, I want to get an attic fan installed.  They really do help.  Until then I guess I have to be careful what I put in the attic.  If it's that hot up there today, what was it like when it was really hot?

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

The day of the thunderstorm (Wednesday?  Thursday?  I forget) we lost power for a few hours.  Losing power at the country house is a big deal, because without power there's no cooking (electric stove), and no water (electric well pump).  That means not only no water at the tap, but no toilets!  So it was a pleasure to still have water here, and to be able to still use the stove by lighting the burner with a match.

With no computer, radio, sewing machine, or TV I decided to read, but because of the dark clouds, pouring rain, and wind, it was dark in the house.  There are at least seven pairs of candlesticks, four oil lamps, and two Coleman lanterns and a camp stove at the country house (when the power goes out there, it's out for days, so that stuff is important), but I haven't brought any of them down here yet.  I do have some tall candles, so I stuck one to a saucer in a pool of melted wax and put it on the breakfast bar in the kitchen.  When I decided to go to the bathroom I was worried about it maybe falling on the counter, so I set the saucer on the ceramic tile floor where if the candle fell it would do no damage.

Oops.

Jasper knows that a dish on the floor means a special snack for him.  He was somewhere else in the house, but I guess the sound of a plate touching the floor is like a can opener to other cats.  As I was rounding the corner leaving the kitchen, I saw him run over and sniff the saucer.  I yelled and dove for him just as he raised his head and sniffed the flame.

He seems to be ok.  Lost some whiskers, but I don't think he got burned.

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

The hair.  It was a 6-12 shampoo tint, in "pale ash blond".  After the sixth shampoo, it has gone from brass doorknob to brilliant yellow goldenrod.   Daughter says if I wear a caftan with gold embroidery and chunky gold jewelry "It doesn't look so bad".  Especially if I walk with a flamboyant swish.

Oh dear.

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

There's a Civil War cemetery in Hudson, NY.  A group had put flags on the graves.  The flags disappeared, a few one night, more the next night.  By the end of the week, 75 flags were missing.  Big mystery.  The police set up three cameras to catch the culprit.

It was a woodchuck (or groundhog, or marmot, depending on where you're from).

The police put a camera-on-a-snake down a woodchuck hole and found remnants of the flags.

Love it!

[Story, but not much more than I already said, at http://www.dailyfreeman.com/articles/2012/07/09/news/doc4ffa1213d9e33828160370.txt]

.

3576 Wednesday

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Huston Smith, on faith: "We may do things we think are wrong,

but we cannot believe things we think are false."

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

It's 7 am and it's already 82 F outside and steamy.  It's going to be a hot day.   I was under the impression that living so close to the water we'd have cool refreshing breezes.

Nope.  Just steam.

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

From a Meetup invitation: "Sorry, no pets are aloud to join the party." 

Maybe it means I can bring a boa constrictor?  They're quiet.

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

From a weather advisory for the country house:  "Severe thunderstorms, hail up to one inch in diameter or larger."

Do they know what "up to" means?

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

I had a hair accident Monday.

My natural color these days is not white or gray.  It's a very pale yellow.  Pale blond, which is pretty much what it had been when I was a baby.  In the winter it's a bit darker, and in the summer, especially since I drive with the top down a lot, it gets bleached to white in the sunlight, although still pale blond indoors.

So, since I like it blond, in the summer I shampoo in a temporary (6-12 shampoos) ash blond tint.   The stuff I use has no bleaching ingredients, so my scattered brown hairs still show through here and there.

Monday I screwed up.  The stuff is supposed to be on your hair 20 minutes.  I usually leave it on 15 minutes.  I had received an email that I wanted to respond to, and started the response after putting the tint on.  I got to thinking about what I was writing, and next thing I knew, 40 minutes had gone by.

I ran to the bathroom, jumped into the shower, lathered it  up, rinsed it off, toweled it dry, looked in the mirror, and ... my hair is the same color as the bathroom door's brass doorknob.  The EXACT same color.  I could see the doorknob in the mirror, next to my hair.  I am not exaggerating.

My hair has been washed four times in the past day and a half, and it's still flaming brass.  A long time ago I'd read that to remove temporary hair color, you should use oil, so my hair has been mayonnaised and olive oiled.  (I thought the mayonnaise would work well because it also has vinegar.)  I've been wearing scarves wrapped around my head, or hats, when I have to go out in public.

I am unhappy.
.

3537 Hair! The solution!

Friday, May 25, 2012

The underwire in a woman’s bra deflected a bullet. It also lifted, separated, defined and supported.  Her terrified thong tried to hide and was almost impossible to remove from the scene.

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

Hair saga:   When my hair was long, it was easy.  I just trimmed the ends, and for bangs I'd grab a hank, hold it straight up and make one cut, automatic taper.  Done.  I'd been doing that all my life, because when my mother was in charge of my hair, I'd never had a salon cut that didn't leave me crying.

Eighteen months ago I decided to go short.  I tried salons again, thinking that hey, I'm adult, I'm in charge now.  They pretty much did what they wanted to do, not what I wanted, no matter what I said, and I wasn't happy. 

I tried cutting it myself, and it took forever, with much twisting and swearing.  The top and sides were ok, but I simply can't wield scissors with my left hand while looking at the back of my head in the mirror.  I tried using clippers on the back, but blending where it meets the upper back was hit or miss, and it's too difficult to get it the right length anyway.

I'd finally get it sort of right over a period of several days or weeks, snipping hither and yon, constantly with itchy bits of hair all over me, the bathroom sinks, and the floors.  And then when it finally looked good, within a week it was too long again and time to do it all over again.  It was choppy from my hacking, so to go to a salon and say "cut it just like this, but shorter" would be asking for trouble.  They'd try to "fix it" and guess wrong.

I've been moaning over it.  It was now about a half inch too long to be manageable.  Sigh.  Here we go again.

I went to the country house (I'm not calling them the old and the new house any more; they are now officially "the country house" and "the city house") this past week and found the solution to all my hair problems in the back of the coat closet.

In about the mid-'90s, we had tried a haircutting thingy for Jay's hair that attaches to the vacuum cleaner.  It sucks the hair into a tube where there's rotating blades, and the clippings go into the vacuum cleaner.  (There are three versions on the internet.  I won't recommend any particular one because they all have advantages and disadvantages, but I will say that the RoboCut and clones is infinitely adjustable for various lengths, where the Flowbee and clones has multiple set lengths, which is important to know if you want a smooth taper.)  It didn't really work on Jay's hair because he had strange thin spots on the back of his head where the hair had to be cut slightly longer to cover them, so it got packed up and stored in the closet. (My hair was very long then, so I wasn't cutting mine.)

I brought it down to the city house, and this evening I tried it.  It works!  I LOVE my cut!  It's perfect!  It took less than 10 minutes, there's no itchy bits on me or on the floor, and it's done.  Done done done.  And so what if it needs another trim in a week or two?  It took less than 10 minutes!  I can give myself a quick trim before going out for dinner.

I had to sketch out the lengths I wanted.  I measured the hair all over my head and made a chart marking the length all over.  Like a sketch from the front and the side, with the hair sticking out light-socket-wise.  I decided to play it safe and take off only a half inch all over.  It's always easier to go shorter if that's not enough.  I started at the top, set the tube to to 3.5 inches, then graduated to 3.0 upper back, 2.0 from the top of my ear around to the other ear, and taper down to 1.5 below that.  If you scrub the tube up and down a bit, it blends nicely.

And believe it or not, both sides of my head are now the same length!  I've never been able to do that by hand.

My only sadness now is that I was afraid to do it before The Man visited.  I cut it about six hours after he'd left.  Too bad.  But at least I can easily maintain this.
.

3520 Hair

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Barbara Kingsolver's character Adah in The Poisonwood Bible points out that God created vermin and microbes as well as humans, and "He's not necessarily rooting for just the humans."

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

Hair cut:
Week 1 - much too short
Week 2 - too short
Week 3 - too short
Week 4 - a little too short
Week 5 - almost right
Week 6 - PERFECT!
Week 7 - too long, unruly, can't do a thing with it, aaaaggghh!
.

3455 Mental Gymnastics

Friday, February 3, 2012

Vegetarian: an old Native American word meaning "lousy hunter".

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

I have a small patch of hair on the left side of my head, maybe like an eighth of an inch in diameter at the roots, that wants to stick out. The hair around it curves down, but this tendril wants to curve up. Every morning I have to wet that little patch and curve it over my fingers to get it to blend in.

But wind, dampness, whatever can make it stand up again.

This morning I stood there at the sink with the patch curling up, sticking up like a tiny antelope horn, feeling a bit of frustration, and I got the scissors out to cut it off. Just cut the part that curves up. It'll be shorter than the hair around it, might look like a bit strange...

...then I suddenly decided to leave it, let it do what it wants. I'll just call it cute. It's CUTE! Got it?

This afternoon I walked past a mirror, saw the lock sticking out, smiled, and thought without thinking, "Aw, that's cute."

I wish I could do that with other parts of my life.
.

3316 I am my own person

Sunday, July 24, 2011

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I think I'll color it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

3290 Hair, final version!

Friday, June 24, 2011

"My admiration for you has found new limits."
-- Trevanian, The Eiger Sanction --

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

When the new woman cut my hair on Monday, just sitting there in the chair I was pleased with what she was doing. I've been happy with it since.

Yesterday, arriving at the old house, I went into the master bath and looked at me in the huge three-way mirror. Sitting next to the mirror was a wig stand, holding the wig I had purchased last summer for my mannikin Peggy Sue, and had worn a few times myself. Everyone liked the wig on me, they thought I looked amazing, but I wore it only a few times because it slipped and itched. But it was that wig that convinced me that maybe going short might be ok.

The first cutting, I showed the original hairdresser the photo of me in the wig, and told her that's what I wanted. That's not what I got, then or in the next two trims. I was discouraged. Maybe I didn't have enough hair for the same effect.

Well, yesterday I looked back and forth between the wig and the mirror. It's exactly the same! I finally got what I'd wanted all along.

My hair is almost white. The wig is a medium blond. Hmmmmm.............
.

3287 Heating up

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

We see the world not as it is, but as we are.

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

I have been lax about updating here, not because I'm busy, or because nothing's happening, but because my internet connection goes down about every half hour, which makes it awfully hard to get anything at all done, let alone the lower priority stuff.

This morning I got a popup when I tried to connect saying that Novell wanted to do a "firmware update" to my modem --- with a stern warning that any interruption of the update could severely damage the modem. Uh, ok. That explains why it's been so unreliable lately. It needs an update to be compatible with the other end? So I clicked "Ok". The connection hadn't actually been made, but I figured the updater ought to be able to figure that out and make the connection, right?

Yeah, sure. It got halfway through the update and couldn't connect. No kidding. That's what has been the problem the past few days. Can't connect or won't stay connected. Duh. Catch 22.

So it failed.

Scared me half to death.

But then after I restarted the system, I was able to connect. Modem not dead. Halleluiah.

I got the "update now" message again this evening, after about the fifth bounce, and this time it actually worked.

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


Daughter, Nugget, and I walked into ... gee, I don't know what to call things around here. Out there in the country you've got actual villages and towns. Around here it all runs together, there's residential neighborhoods, businesses along the highways, and, uh, clumps of "main street shops" kind of things, sort of like once upon a time when this was countryside, it used to be a village and that was the "downtown". Well, we walked into the downtown. There was a Thai restaurant she wanted to have lunch at, and a new salon that might do a better job on my hair.

We walked. I had the best Pad Thai ever. I got about an inch cut off my hair, and I'm really happy with it now. The back is finally exactly the way I want it. Then we walked back. I checked it on the map, and it was 1.9 miles out and 1.9 miles back, so after avoiding walking as much as possible for the past month, my first excursion was four miles in rubber flip-flops, and I had no problem at all then or today.

I need to get up to the old house. Maybe tomorrow.

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

Tomorrow is the 7th anniversary of this blog, if you count the original on the now-defunct AOL Journals. I go back and read the old stuff occasionally, and I no longer recognize that person. She seemed smarter and more passionate then.
.

3204 Hair - Again....

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Want to live a calm and happy life? Simple. Never do or say anything that could be misinterpreted or taken out of context.

Good luck with that….

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

My hair is now super short. Too short.

I figure if you want to find the right length and shape, starting long and nibbling it down, the way I've been doing the past three months, isn't the way to go. Better to go too short, and let it grow into something that works.

I already know I'd like it a little longer on the top back crown and at the bottom behind the earlobe. More feminine. It'll get there. I think I like the back of the head, though. At least it's willing to lie down at this length.
.

3187 Haircut Update

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Heat, pressure, time. The same things that make a diamond also make a waffle.

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

I've been nibbling at my hair. Rat tail comb, scissors, mirrors. The original cut was much too long, difficult to deal with.

I was a little worried about what The Man would think, but I guess it was ok. He said he liked that the back was short - that too many women, when they go short, leave it too long in the back. Which was kind of neat because it was just the night before he saw it that I went after the back and chopped it all off.

This is what it looked like in November when the professional was finished:
Feminine, sexy, but next to impossible to keep the back looking right without "product", and difficult to wear a hat without killing it entirely. Just too much hair behind my ears.

This is what it looks like since I've been nibbling:
From the front (sorry about the focus, or whatever it is that went wrong - call it a virtual face lift - which helps a lot because I have no makeup on):

It even looks like the hair is thicker when it's shorter. Not so much scalp showing through. Note how the color has changed as the old blond dye is growing out and the natural is coming in. It's still blonder in the front and on the sides. The light has a lot to do with the color, too.

I might eventually go blond again, but I figured it was a good opportunity to find out what color it really is these days. (It's actually darker in the lower back than shows here.)

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

I bought automatic dishwasher detergent the other day, "Regular Scent". Scent? Why scent?

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

Some guy has written an extension for browsers that will automatically blank out any mention of "Charlie Sheen", as well as photos, for those of us who are sick of the whole thing cluttering up our environment.

You know, even though I intensely dislike the show, I hope the network continues "Two and a Half Men" with another actor in Sheen's role, and that the show is even more successful with the replacement actor. That would really be ironic, pop ol' Sheen's ego-trip bubble, show him that it WAS the writing and production that made it successful after all, not him.

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

Vocabulary lesson of the day: The term is straitjacket, or strait jacket, not straight jacket, where "strait" means "narrow, confined".
.

3167 A wandering mind

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

"All meetings last longer than they should."
-- Scott Adams --

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

An oddity: When I was young, the islands of the Caribbean were often referred to as the West Indies. You never hear that anymore.

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

When Daughter was in school, I would get very annoyed because when the allotted snow days were used up, in order to meet the mandated minimum, the school board would extend the school year into middle to late June, despite the fact that Spring Break was supposed to be used. The reason? Because teachers had scheduled vacations during Spring Break and were angry that they might have to eat plane tickets. The teachers were stupid to count on having those days.

Something has changed in the past twenty years. The school district at the old house has announced that they have already used up the snow allotment, and if there are any more snow days, they will use the Spring Break. Cool.

What I don't understand is the way they have chosen to use it - guaranteed to piss off a lot of people.

"If school needs to be closed for emergency reasons, weather-related or otherwise, and additional “make-up” days are needed, classes will then be in session first on Wednesday, April 20, and thereafter on Thursday, April 21, and then on Tuesday, April 19th, in that order. If additional “make-up” days are needed beyond that, April 18 and April 22 will then be under consideration."

This says that if one more snow day is needed, they're taking it out of the middle of the break.

I don't understand.

I guess maybe they're thinking that they'll at least preserve two long weekends?

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

There's a lot of talk about raising the Social Security retirement age again. There's something they're not taking into consideration.

Not so very long ago, if you got a good job, and kept your nose clean and your manager happy (which was often a contradiction, if you know what I mean), and kept your skills up, you pretty much had a job for life.

Nowadays, the only people with that much security are folks in strong unions. High tech companies have pretty much been able to avoid unionization. The technology, however, changes so quickly these days that those companies find it efficient to get rid of older folks (who are higher on the salary ladder) and replace them with new college graduates, at a lower starting salary, who will impact company-sponsored health plans less, and who already know the new stuff.

This means that people over 50 are finding it increasingly difficult to find permanent jobs. They end up working temporary contracts, with minimal benefits, no vacations, and no retirement plan. (The benefits of contracting at different companies in various industries are that you end up with a robust and varied resume, which makes it easier to get the next contracting job. The down side is that it still doesn't help you to get a permanent job with all the benefits.) Periods of unemployment between contracts make it difficult to maintain your own retirement plans.

The saddest cases are the folks who worked for the same company for 24 years and then were replaced by a kid. They are 50 years old and have experience specific to that industry and, worse, skills possibly specific only to that company.

It isn't going to get any better. The days of the lifetime job are over. It's only going to get worse.

These folks who want to raise S.S. eligibility to 70, what do they think people will be doing for the last 25 years (or more, the way things are going) of their working life? Nobody is guaranteeing that they'll have a job until then.

Of course, the people who are proposing, considering, and will be voting on this plan have lifetime benefits and a generous retirement, regardless of how long they are in office. They have no idea what others have to contend with.

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

I've been checking around for a hair salon. Becs has even offered her adored Herschel. I'm sort of keeping that in reserve (thanks Becs), but closer would be better.

I want someone who will cut my hair DRY. Not just will cut it dry, but fully understands why I want it cut dry.

There are places online where one can read customer reviews, but I'm suspicious of them. How do I know those reviews are not plants - employees or family and friends of employees?

So, I did something dangerous.

I bought a fine-tooth rattail comb. I already have hair shears. I trimmed it myself. I didn't change the style. I just parted it every which way and smoothed the choppiness, trimmed wherever chunks of hair were sticking out beyond the other hairs around them. It's still a little chunky because in some spots chunks were so short it would have been pretty drastic to cut the longer stuff around them down to that length, so I had to leave it uneven. And the right side is still slightly longer than the left. But it does blend a lot nicer now, and it looks less like a wig at the back of my neck.

I like it now.
.

3164 Hair rebellion report

Monday, February 14, 2011

"95% of science fiction is crap. Come to think of it, 95% of *everything* is crap."
-- Theodore Sturgeon --

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

One month and one day (4.5 weeks) into the great hair rebellion, and I think I may have to retreat, maybe just temporarily. My cut is not good. I think when it grows out a little and I can get a good cut I'll try again. The problem is that my hair is getting stronger and more ... defiant. The natural wave and curl is more definite. It lifts a lot. Most mornings I'm channeling Rod Stewart, and when I try to get it to lie down a little, the bad layering and uneveness is obvious. The shorter patches curl up more than the longer patches in what can only be described as chunks, and the hair doesn't want to blend, if you know what I mean.

Shampoo will soften it a bit, encourage it to blend.

I'd been bleaching the crown and front, because there were darker spots, and I haven't colored it in about ten weeks because now that it's short, it's a good time to find out what it really looks like. So there's an inch and a half of strong healthy unprocessed roots, and that's where all the lift is coming from. It'll behave differently when all the bleached part is cut off. That might be scary. It might go into electric socket mode. Bzzzzzzzzt! But even that could look good if it's well cut.

It should be ready for reshaping in about three weeks, so I've got that long to find a good salon (and I don't have the faintest idea how. I haven't seen a single woman down here that has anything near the style I'd like, cut the way I'd like, so there's no one to ask. In fact, I could start by asking everyone where they get their hair cut, then quietly cross those salons off the list).
.

3234 Hair rebellion report

Thursday, January 20, 2011

If you want useful answers, ask good questions.

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

It is now nine days since I last used shampoo/conditioner on my hair. At first I had to do the hot water rinse every other day. Today is the third day since the last rinse, and it doesn't seem to need it today, but I probably will anyway.

The body and curl has gotten stronger. The individual hairs feel stronger, springier. If I push down, it springs right back up. When I woke up this morning, I looked like Rod Stewart. Ptoing!

Yes, a few days ago I went through an itchy scalp period, a little itchier than usual, but that seems to be settling down. (My scalp and forehead has always itched a little anyway. It might be a thyroid thing. A nice daily scalp massage seems to help a lot.)

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

I've been very busy lately, but I don't have the faintest idea what I've been doing. It's like that meme that's been going around for the past few years - where the person is watering the garden and notices that the car needs washing, and there's a cascade of jobs started and none finished, and at the end of the day, the person is tired, but has no idea why. (If you've never got that one in your inbox, either you're too young to appreciate it, or too old to remember it. Either way, you can read it here: http://www.gardenclub.net/senior.htm.)
.

3230 An experiment in rebellion

Thursday, January 13, 2010

"No matter how fast the light travels, it always finds
darkness has got there first and is waiting for it."

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

Offered for consideration:

1. In the 1950s, we washed our hair once a week or so. For once a month conditioning, we used (real) mayonnaise, eggs, or beer. Our hair was not oily. In fact, it tended to be dry, flyaway, and generally unmanageable for a few days after washing. We brushed it every day - the famous 100 strokes. For school photos, we were cautioned not to wash our hair for at least two days before the photo session. Split ends were not a common problem. They mostly happened to people who spent a lot of time in the sun, or who bleached their hair.

Sometime in the late '50s, Tame, the first commercial conditioner, became available. It was used mainly by mothers on children's hair, to make the comb out after washing less painful.

2. There was some super expensive "hairdresser to the stars", complete with unidentifiable accent, on TV a few weeks ago. He said that the way we treat our hair today is silly. We wash all the natural oils out of our hair, and then replace it with "product". He said that we really need only rinse our hair thoroughly with hot water - at first maybe on the same schedule as we have been washing it, then as our scalps get used to not being stripped, gradually less. We might go through a rough adjustment period, but after a few weeks we will have consistently smooth shiny hair with no breakage and no static or fly away.

3. It's a fact that your scalp is self-regulating. Unless you have a medical condition, your scalp produces exactly as much oil as your hair requires. Brushing is necessary to distribute the oil to the ends. When you wash your hair every day, the scalp produces more oil to replace what has been washed out, which means that when you miss a day, there's an overabundance of oil produced. (Any woman who has ever breastfed is familiar with the phenomenon of the body producing what it thinks and has been taught is necessary, no more and no less. The scalp works the same way.)

4. There was a discussion this morning on TV about self-diagnosing and self-treating based on information from online medical sources. The expert says you have to do more research than just looking up your symptoms. You should be very suspicious of any website that wants to sell you something based on what you read on their site.

5. Now, who told us we have to wash our hair every day? Who told us we must then replace the oils (repair our hair!) with conditioners and other products? Answer: The very people who want to SELL us the shampoo and conditioners. And the more they can convince us we need to use, the better - for them.**

So, I am going to try an experiment. I have been washing my hair with a mild shampoo every three to four days and using a conditioner.

I am going to stop using shampoo and conditioner, and start just rinsing with hot water.

I used just hot water this morning, and my hair looks fine. (BTW- I went back in last Tuesday and got it cut much shorter. It's a pixie now.)

I'll let y'all know how the experiment goes.

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

**The most profitable thing in the world of shampoo marketing was the discovery of the word "repeat". That one word alone nearly doubled sales of shampoo. I don't remember exactly when it began appearing on shampoo bottles, sometime in the '70s, I think, but I do remember that women remarked on it, and then, like sheep, followed instructions.

Somewhere in the '90s, women discovered that they didn't really have to repeat to get the same effect (especially since young women were by then convinced that they had to wash their hair every day), so the shampoo companies tweaked the formulas. I have no "hardcopy evidence" of that tweaking, but have you noticed that the stuff won't lather with the first application? You don't get any lather until the second application - the "repeat" is now required.
.

3224 Hair

Saturday, January 8, 2011

Nobody notices what I do until I don’t do it.

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

I got my hair cut Thursday evening. I've had my hair professionally cut three times in my life, professionally highlighted once, and professionally styled once, and all five times I cried for weeks afterward. So this was a VERY big deal.

Daughter and I went together.

Every time in the past, the main problem with cuts has been that they teased, gelled, blew dry over rollers, tweaked, flipped, and sprayed, and when they were done it looked ok, but I just don't DO that! So naturally, the next day, or after the first washing, it looked like Hell.

And every single time I had told them right from the beginning, "I don't tease, blow dry, use 'product', or spray. I want to let it air dry with some scrunching with my fingers, and that's all. So it's imperative that you take my natural curl into consideration."

Every hairdresser in the world insists on cutting the hair sopping wet, and I've never understood how you can judge the natural tendencies when going from long to short, if the hair is wet. How can you tell which way it wants to curl, and how much?

Well, again, I said several times, "I don't want to have to fuss with it. Wash, fluff with fingers, and that's it."

I got a bad feeling when she cut it sopping wet.

A worse feeling when she put gobs of gel in it.

Much worse when she blew it dry pulling it over a round brush, then tweaked and placed and sprayed it solid.

By the end, I was thinking that apparently natural tendencies don't matter. We'll just force it to go the way we want it to go. Oh well. I guess I can shave my head and let it grow out....

When I got home, it was a solid mass, and I had trouble sleeping because it smelled so strong. I washed it yesterday morning and let it air dry with a little finger scrunching.

This is what it looks like this morning - straight from the bed, no brushing or combing, no nothing, its own natural shape:
I think maybe I like it. Those tendrils right behind my ears,and maybe across the back, need to be a little shorter, but the rest is ok. I think. The lady said I could come in to get it shorter anytime in the next two weeks without charge.

It will very quickly get too long, but I think we have a good base cut to work from.
.