3777 Hacks

Saturday, October 12, 2013

"I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals."

--Sir Winston Churchill--

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Some of these "life hacks" are new to me, but very useful.  Others are old, but I had forgotten them.  Check them out:
http://sarcasticcharm.com/99-life-hacks-that-could-make-your-life-easier

3517 Filthy floors

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Stories are simple sequences of events, plots are about causes,
motivation ..., what stories mean. ...life is all stories, and fiction is all plots.....
-- Peter Ho Davies --

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Well, I am only a little stiff today. A little bit of pain down the left hip and thigh. I put the brace on anyway, just to make sure. So far, so good.

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My floors are gross. I haven't swept or vacuumed in ages, and there are crushed leaves, dirt, and cat hair everywhere. I passionately hate vacuuming. The weight. The dragging and controlling of the cord. I purposely rejected carpeting in the new house so it would be easier to keep the floors and stairs clean, but, uh, I hate sweeping, too. The bits escaping, the dust flying, the trying to corral it all. The moving of things in the way.

I bought two vacuum cleaners for this house so I wouldn't have to carry any up and down stairs. But the flipping things are heavy to use. I prefer canisters, because the weight stays on the floor and the head is light, but good canisters are next to impossible to find these days. So I got bagless uprights. I hate them. Being short, I hold the handle lower than most people, which puts the entire weight of the mechanism on my arm, and then moving it out and back strains my lower back. Hate, hate, hate!

So I got the Roombas, one for each floor. But there are a lot of table and chair legs the Roomba can't get between, and the floor is cluttered with cat and toddler toys that I have to pick up first, plus the cat's food tray, and curtains that touch the floor, and shoes under the bed with shoelaces that the Roombas like to eat, and, and, and, and it's a LOT of work for not such a great job (Roomba's exhaust tends to blow dirt, especially cat hair, sideways onto tracks it's already cleaned). I haven't turned them loose in months.

Sigh.

I hate it all.

I looked at the floors today and thought, "I've GOT to do something, now!"

So, I bought (online) a rechargeable vacuum stick. It's lightweight, no cord. We used to call them electric brooms. It's a Eureka, so it should be adequate. With its ten inch wide head it should be easy to maneuver around stuff. No bag.

I don't know how long it will take to get here, but nothing will be done with the floors until it arrives.

Temporary reprieve.
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1449 Dear Diary - Tuesday

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

To CVS for vitamins etc. They had a 2 for 1 sale on magnesium, but only one on the shelf, so I got a rain check coupon. Now I have to remember I have it....

Bank for cash.

IGA for cat food and yogurt. I forgot to buy iced tea mix.

To deli for iced tea.

Made reservations for Wednesday night.

Paid some bills.

P.O. to mail checks.

Cleaned cats' litter boxes.

Threw rocks in the side yard. It's funny how when you have rough land graded, it "grows" rocks. They actually push themselves up to the surface. I've been exercising my arms, and I was surprised at how far into the woods I can throw a rock now.

Took a dress in on the sides and marked it for hemmng.

Watered plants.

Took out the garbage.

Brought in a bunch of things from the car.

Sigh.
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1381 What Makes a Man, Anyway?

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

I am so overwhelmed by what it would take to get this house company-ready. Seriously. A few months ago I came in second in an international messy computer room contest. And that was only because I didn't have a very good photo. (Mine is the fourth photo down, here.) It's worse now.

The only way to get past overwhelmed is to DO something, anything. Even the tiniest bit of progress is something done, a step forward.

Today I sorted paper in the kitchen. I promised myself three months ago, last time I sorted paper, that when a newspaper or magazine arrived, I would throw out the previous issue, whether I'd read it or not.

I didn't. From the mess of paper, I now have a neat 2-foot stack of unread magazines I'm reluctant to throw out, and six weeks of unread daily newspapers.

I did throw out all the catalogs.

Well, a step forward. Let's see if I can prevent a backslide before I get the next bit done.

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Jack's Shack (Hmmm - wonder if he's aware that term has a meaning on "Big Brother"?) over at "Random thoughts- Do they have meaning?" has a recent post on teaching his son to piddle standing up. The post kicked off comments on whether men always have to stand to urinate. Some people think sitting is ok. Others think that a man who sits, ever, isn't a man at all. There seems to be a lot of emotion on the subject.

Jay was all man. He was 6'3" tall, and 240 lbs, mostly bone and muscle. His habits and mode of thought were so male I used to tease him about it. He reeked of testosterone. I was surprised to find that at home, he sat.

I asked why, and he said that "a toilet is not a urinal. It's too low. It would make more sense to use the sink." If a real urinal, or tree, or anything else was available, he'd happily use that, of course, but he saw standing in front of a toilet as asking for trouble. Having had a few husbands and visiting males over the past 40 years, I saw his point, and was grateful.

It isn't whether you stand or sit that makes you a man. It's completely irrelevant. Sitting when there's only a toilet doesn't unman you. It makes you a considerate man. In my opinion, consideration makes a man much more desirable than any macho posturing. If standing is required to make you feel manly, you aren't very confident in your masculinity.

Why aren't home urinals common? They'd make a lot of sense. Is it because most plumbers are male, and they don't have to clean up after themselves?

[Note - if there are any males reading this who are candidates for using a toilet I am expected to clean, who do not intend to sit, well, that's ok. I accept that choice. There are other ways to be considerate. It evens out...]

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This reminds me of a story.

A new building was built, and our product area moved into it. All the guys were annoyed about the urinals in the men's rooms - they were apparently set very low. "I feel like I'm back in grade school!" It so happened that the product manager was a very short man.

A few months after the move into the building, we got a new product manager. He was exceptionally tall, and a few days after he arrived, all the urinals were replaced with higher ones. There may or may not have been a connection.

He lasted a short time, and then was replaced by May, whom I have mentioned a few times in this journal. She was introduced in an all-hands meeting, and when she took the podium, she floored the whole group with, "Don't worry, guys. The urinals are staying."
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1347 To the Museum

Tuesday, July 3, 2007

To the Maritime Museum volunteer gig this afternoon. I processed new member and renewal checks. The first half-hour was opening envelopes. The second half-hour was making copies of the forms and checks to leave on the accountant's desk. The last two hours was updating the membership info in the database.

I hate Lotus.

We found an "uh-oh" with the new dues payment forms. The museum wants to start accepting credit cards, so there's a space on the form for the type of card, the number, and a signature. No space for the expiration date. Cute. That's the letters I sent out last week, so this month we'll start getting payments we can't process. Real cute.

Well, that's the coordinator's problem, not mine. I refused to have anything to do with credit cards the first time it was proposed.
"We're going to start accepting credit cards for the dues, so you'll have to process them in the gift shop."
"No."
"Huh?"
"No. I won't do credit cards."
"Huh?"
"I don't want to do credit cards. If you want credit cards done, someone else'll have to do them. I've got more than enough to do now. I won't take on more."
"Oh."

Man, as a volunteer, you can pretty much dictate your terms. Lots better than being an employee!

The credit card machine is downstairs in the gift shop, and it's temperamental. Last week some woman bought like $45 worth of stuff in the shop, and the machine overcharged her card by fifty-some dollars. The volunteer on the register followed the printed instructions to cancel the transaction, then tried to refund the card, and nothing worked. She offered the woman a cash refund from the register, and the woman, tapping her foot impatiently, refused it. Small panic, phone calls made.

Hain't no way I'm touching that fool machine. Sounds like something a paid employee should do anyway.

No plans for tomorrow.

I guess I have to admit I did waste time yesterday. Absolutely no other person has been in this house in the past year. The place is a mess. When Roman picked me up to go Mass MOCA a few weeks ago, I was waiting outside for him. He asked if he could use my bathroom, and I said "No. We'll go to the diner." He was shocked, but nope, no one's seeing the inside of this house until I can clean up. I used to say it's cluttered, but at least it's clean clutter. Now the clutter is so bad, I can't clean.

Roman's house is a mess, too, stacks of paper on every surface and the floor, but that's different and ok. He lets me in his house (but nobody else, only me). He doesn't understand the difference. I said, "Well, when a man sees a woman's house all messy, he thinks, 'Yuck. She's a rotten housekeeper.' When a woman sees a man's house all messy, she thinks, 'Aw, so male. He needs a woman.' And that's a BIG difference."

So, tomorrow I move storage containers to the basement, and see if I can't get some order in one or two corners, at least.
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1135 Old Dailies

Saturday, February 24, 2007

Whoop! I got up early enough to take stuff to the recycle center today. About 40 lbs of glass, a large bag of plastic, two grocery bags of newspaper, and two of "clean" paper. And an 18" stack of flattened corrugated boxes. I can move in the kitchen again.

I don't understand where all those boxes came from - one from the shredder, one from the new TV, a few book purchases from Amazon, but the rest? I don't know.

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Looking for a small spiral notebook to take to the museum yesterday, I found my Dailies from 1999 and 2000. I used to write down every evening what had happened that day. I'd done that for years. No philosophizing, no opinions, just a list of things done. At the bottom of each page I made a list of "to do"s for the next day. It worked well. I was always able to look back to see when orders were placed, forms mailed, items bought, errands run. Looking through them, I am amazed at how much I accomplished every day.

The Dailies were not kept after December 2000, because things got so hectic with Jay's illness that I lived by little slips of paper and file folders, and I spent very little time at home. Mostly I was in hospitals, on the phone, or on the road. And then after Jay died, I never got back to it. Maybe I should restart. It might get my tail in gear again.

The 2000 Daily has reminded me of how strange Jay was in 2000. I had forgotten.

In May 2000, he decided to cut back the raspberries spreading into the yard from the woods. I happened to glance outside and found that he was cutting everything, including good shrubs, young trees, flowers, everything. Like his mind said "Cut", and the governor was off.

Along about July he started changing lightbulbs. If you didn't keep him occupied with other stuff, if he got to loose ends, he'd start changing light bulbs. When we went to the store, he'd insist on buying more light bulbs. The bulbs weren't burned out - I'd retrieve them from the garbage - it's just like he'd forget to flip the light switch, decide the bulb was out, and replace it. That explains why I now have a few hundred light bulbs in the pantry. Funny how I'd forgotten that.

We used to go to garage sales on weekends. I'd drive and he'd navigate. Along about August he lost the ability to read maps. He could find streets on the map and trace the route to get there, but he couldn't apply it to the roads we were on. We'd come up to a "Y", and I'd ask "Which way?", and he couldn't figure it out. About this same time he could no longer read a calendar, or do the binary search required to find a word in the dictionary. And no matter where we went, even just up the road to the deli, he thought we had crossed the river.

In September, he lost doors and drawers. If they were closed, they became solid walls to him. He didn't know how to get to the other side of them, or in some cases, that there even was anything on the other side. If you opened them for him, he'd leave them open, even the shower stall door. He couldn't figure out how to keep the water in the shower stall.

In late September, he sometimes got lost in the house. If he was tired, he couldn't find the bedroom from the dining room. We didn't dare close bathroom doors.

It was in October that he woke me in the middle of the night to tell me that there was someone else in bed with us. I asked who, where, and he pointed to his left arm and whispered "There. That's his arm." He didn't recognize his left arm. He could move it, use the hand to pick things up, but didn't recognize it, which was very confusing to him. He kept hitting it, like he wanted it to go away.

By November he could no longer dress himself. He would dress his right side, but neglect the left, and of course his clothing wouldn't stay on, and he couldn't figure out why not. He looked so cute coming out to the kitchen for breakfast with his robe on his right side, the belt tied neatly around his waist, but the left side completely naked, and the left half of the robe dragging on the floor behind him. By December, however, he couldn't remember how to tie a knot, so the robe wouldn't stay on at all.

And yet, some parts of his mind were as sharp as ever. It was during this time that he completed work on the invention application (the one that was finally granted last fall), and his old workmates still depended on him for telephone consultation on highly technical matters.

Some things were lost, well, more like hidden, since his logical powers didn't work in the hidden areas, but what hadn't been lost was as good as ever.

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I read an ad for a toy that "flies as far as a football field". I'm wondering, just how far can a football field fly?
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#629 Feelin' Groovy 2

I'm psychic! I got a note from the future co-mother-in-law to whom I had sent the silk veil. She has the hip scarf from Rakkasah, which is orange (I had forgotten what color it was), and she has purchased some other bits of practice costume, all in shades of brown and orange. The veil I selected to send to her is copper, orange, and yellow! I hope it will go beautifully with her other stuff, and will pick up the color of her hair. Wow. And to think I almost chose a red one.

I am so pleased!

The second dumpster has been picked up. I didn't think it would be as heavy as the first load, because this one has a lot less glossy paper and a lot more cardboard. But this load also came out to 1.5 tons (3,000 lbs). I forgot there was wood, metal, and huge old computer tape reels in this load, all of which is also heavy. That's 7,300 lbs of trash I've carried out, all by myself.

I am so proud!

I chatted quite a bit with the guy who came for the dumpster. His son, it turns out, is a roofer. So I'm getting another estimate on the roof on Saturday. He'll also give me an estimate for installing an exhaust fan in the attic, which will help the air conditioning situation enormously. Progress is being made, and I didn't even have to do anything for it.

I am so fortunate!

I found the mini-cycle that I had bought to exercise Jay that last year, when he was immobile. It's pedals on a small wheel, that you set up in front of a wheelchair or on a table to exercise legs or arms. It has a band that you tighten or loosen to adjust the tension. Jay was never really able to use it. I have set it up under the computer desk, and as I sit here, I'm pedaling like mad.

I am so virtuous!

#612 Kitchen Is, uh, Usable, Sorta

I worked most of today on clearing out the kitchen. I won't have enough counter space for making cookies for a while yet, but at least I can move around in there and get the lower cabinets open now. And I cleaned a bit.

I spent several hours removing hard water deposits from the laundry room john. They must have changed CLR, made it weaker or something. It used to work, but I finally had to resort to draining the bowl and filling it with vinegar, and then scrubbing with a stiff brush.

The rolloff is so full I don't think I'll be able to fit the dead dehumdifiers in. They require special handing because of the freon, so I was supposed to put them on top. But I'm afraid now they will stick up past the fill-line. Next load, I guess.

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The friend who is setting up the charitable endowment in my name is driving me crazy. She has decided that she wants the payments from the investment to go to "program", not "administration". I explained to her that if she gives $1000 restricted to programs, and someone else gives $1000 unrestricted, and if the administrative costs are 20%, then they will just use $400 of the unrestricted funds for the admin costs, so restricting the money doesn't accomplish anything. She says she understands, and that she agrees, and then five minutes later she's going on again about how difficult it is to restrict the money.

Then she complains that the charity I chose, Heifer International, has unusually high admin costs. I point out (over and over) that low admin cost can be simply creative bookkeeping, and that you can't compare admin costs without knowing what is included. Heifer does a lot of research to find the most effective locations for the programs, so is that considered "program" or "administration"? She says she understands and agrees, and then five minutes later she's complaining because Heifer's admin costs are so high. I got so angry with her this evening I told her to forget Heifer and send it to Doctors Without Borders. (DWB was my second choice only because they already get a lot of contributions.)

There were a lot of other points that we disagreed on, and I explained, and she agreed, then she went right back to as if she never heard me. She really ticked me off this evening. The kicker is that she keeps saying, in reference to restricting the money, "Well, I want to make sure that the money goes for what you and I both want", and I keep saying, "**I** don't want it restricted! I explained that to you. It's your money, and if you want to restrict it, fine. But it doesn't matter to me!"

You can be in the middle of a sentence, and she will interrupt or talk right over you. The woman doesn't listen. A long time ago, she was my fifth-level manager. Yikes! This evening I was so annoyed that when she interrupted and talked over me, I just got louder and kept right on talking.

I had to fake another call to get off the phone. By then I was shouting, and I was afraid of where it was headed.

I want to tell her to forget it. Leave me out of it. Most of her money will end up going to charity anyway, and I don't see why having my name on it has any meaning worth all this annoyance. But I don't want to hurt her feelings.

#445 Deadline Approaching

I committed to have the house "company ready" by Thanksgiving. I haven't given up yet, exactly, but I don't think I'll make it. Not to my standards, anyway.

I got next to nothing done this week, having been out Sunday afternoon and evening, Monday night, Tuesday night into Wednesday, Thursday night into Friday afternoon, tonight, and tomorrow morning into Sunday. I wanted to move the grandfather clock to the basement. I have to do that in order to move the Tibetan chest that has been blocking the foyer into that corner, in order to unblock the front door, so I can take stuff on a hand truck around the corner of the house to the basement. The only block of time when I could have done that, it was pouring rain and so windy a goose ran into the side of the house.

I had made a promise to myself that I would no longer stack newspapers. I would read every day's paper the day it arrived, and burn it that night. I'm already five days behind. Duh?

I did go to the Wal-Mart movie this evening. It was limited to 350 capacity, at Bard College, and I had never received any confirmation of my online reservations. Well, there were no more than 80 people there.

The movie was nothing new, all stuff we have been hearing. Not nice at all. I have a friend who just started working at W-M and I'll have to ask him what he thinks. It's funny, but when they were talking about how workers are forced to work unpaid unrecorded overtime, and several other unfair practices, I almost had to put my hand over my mouth to avoid shouting "[The Company] did that, too! They ALL do!"

I have one definite technical complaint. There was a lot of what should have been voiceover with background sounds or music. But it was actually more like music (including vocals) with background voice-under. It's especially apparent at the end, but that's not what I'm talking about. I couldn't hear many of the interviews because the singing or music or background sounds were too loud.

In a future entry, I think I'll address company cultures, and how they can so easy change, usually for the worst.

I had a very bad moment tonight. I just realized that the actual ceremony is in the morning tomorrow, and what I have decided to wear is more appropriate to evening. That thought was prompted by Roman's plaint, "Do I really have to wear a suit? And a tie?" At least he can take his jacket and tie off for the reception if he wants. I'm gonna be stuck in what I leave the house in.

Pardon me while I go crawl through my closet again. Blech. Now I wish I had found a moment to do laundry this week.

~~Silk