3423 Muse

Thursday, December 22, 2011

The last time Republicans cared about my life, I was a fetus.

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There's a jewelry store near Albany named "Castiglione". How would you pronounce that? I'd pronounce it the Italian way, with five syllables. They pronounce it "Cast'line". Strange.

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The mice are running riot in the old house. There's mouse poop everywhere. Loads of it. I hate to do it (I love and admire mice), but I'm going to have to visit the hardware store and spread some poison before I leave this evening.

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I'm debating what to do about winterizing. I think I'll just turn off the pump, release pressure in the pipes to allow for expansion, empty the toilet tanks, and pour antifreeze in the toilets and drains. That way when I visit, I can just turn the pump back on and have water. And if we do lose electricity (and therefore heat) for a long period and a pipe does freeze, the damage would at least be limited to any remaining water standing in pipes.

I'm not going to drain the pressure tank or hot water heater. I don't think that even in the worst case they'd freeze enough to blow out.

We lose power here frequently, but usually just a quick bounce. Every time I visit, even when it's every week, all the clocks and timers are blinking. We must have lost power for a significant period recently, because stuff in the freezer had thawed and refrozen. The popsicles were the first clue.

Hint: If you ever leave your house for a while and want to be able to verify that stuff in your freezer is ok when you return, put a bag or a covered bowl of ice cubes in the freezer before you leave. If you come back to water or a solid block, you had a serious problem. If the cubes are still cubes, you're fine. If they're a bit fused but still distinguishable as cubes, most thicker items will still be ok.
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3169 Spitting

Sunday, February 20, 2011

“[That] is forbidden. But possible.”
-- Common French saying --

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I don't get into political discussions with Piper any more. He's solidly extreme right wing, sees only the wingnut viewpoint. He tries to "educate" me, to turn me from my obviously mistaken ways, but I just shake my head and change the subject.

In all the bad things that have been happening in his life right now, the good thing is that the market is picking up. He congratulated me Friday that of all his investment clients, I've been the only one who didn't panic at all back when everything was tanking. I just shrugged and assured him that everything would eventually come back. Sooner or later. Sit tight. (During the bad times he looked really bad. Discouraged. Wanted to avoid talking to his clients.)

I've made back all the money I lost during the dip, and made 3% on my investments in the past month alone. Piper wanted to give all the credit for the turnaround to his new tea bag buddies in Congress. I pointed out that yes, rich folks are brightening up. I've heard that sales of BMW, Mercedes, and Lexus are up, luxury resorts and spas are picking up again. But it's not so bright for the little folk. His buddies in Congress are making all kinds of cuts, but the programs they're cutting are all cuts to the poorer folks. Services. They're taking from the poor and giving to the rich. So yeah, naturally the rich are happy, and that's what's reflected in the market.

As Field says, "Those 235 poli-tricksters remind me of the bully that goes to the playground looking for a fight, and ignores the bigger kids shooting hoops and heads straight to the swing and jungle gym to pick on the smaller kids."

The smaller kids can't afford lobbyists.

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I don't understand why they want to cut Social Security. Despite everything you hear, SS is not running out of money. In fact, SS has been running a significant surplus, and actually lends money to the federal government. They just don't want to count the loans as SS assets, because then they'd have to pay them back. Oh, by the way, remember when "they" wanted to "privatize" Social Security, i.e. invest the money in the stock market? Funny that we don't hear so much about that these days. I wonder why. I guess they forgot why Social Security was started in the first place.

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Last time I had been to the old house, from all the droppings it looked like the mice were running riot, so I set mouse traps. I caught only one mouse. I don't understand.

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I buy a lot of stuff online. The delivery guys around here (FedEx, UPS, USPS, and that other one) just drop the stuff on the doorstep. UPS is the only service that bothers to ring the doorbell, sometimes. At the old house, I was way up a long drive off the end of a dead-end street, and the house wasn't visible from the road or from neighbors' houses, but delivery guys always rang the doorbell when they left a package. Here, houses are cheek-by-jowl, the doorstep and anything on it is close to and clearly visible from a street full of traffic, cyclists, and pedestrians, but the delivery services just dump the package and run.

Several times I've stepped out the front door and found packages I didn't know were there.

Worse, I could have stepped out and NOT found packages I DIDN'T know SHOULD have been there.

FedEx is the weirdest. They have little stickies that say "We delivered your package", and have spaces for date and time, and check boxes for things like front door, back door, garage, neighbor, and so on.

Only two problems. They don't fill out ANY of the spaces or boxes, and they stick it on the package!

What good does that do?

(Oh, look, there's a Delivery Notice on this package saying they delivered a package. I wonder where the package is?)

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When I'm on the computer in the morning and evening, Jasper bugs me to play. I accidentally discovered how to get him to not disturb me.

I sit at the desk on a canvas director's chair. I had put another canvas chair next to mine one day to show someone something on the computer. Jasper has appropriated the chair. I guess he likes the canvas sling seat. He's happy to sit or sleep there, as long as I reach over and stroke his head every so often.

The only problem is that it's right below the printer, so I have to warn him before I print anything. He's such a chicken....

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Last month Daughter was running out of pants, so I invited her to shop in my closet. I had some loose knit drawstring pants that fit her expanding belly fine. She's fine on tops - she wears a lot of baggy sweaters anyway. Yesterday she said she's down to one pair of shoes, running shoes that are wide enough for her expanding feet. We wear about the same size, but my feet are wider than hers, so I think I'll be short some shoes soon, too.

Baby's due the end of April. No, after three frustrating ultrasounds, they still don't know, so "quit asking!"
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3244 The pitfalls of ownership

Saturday, January 29, 2011

Everyone we meet in life is meant to show us either who we are or who we are not.

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I read somewhere that Mark Zuckerberg is living in a "modest house" he is renting somewhere in California. The author of the article expressed great surprise that a) the house, though large and luxurious, is not a mansion on a walled estate, and b) he's renting. Not purchasing.

In my opinion, he's smart.

(The rent, by the way, is $7,000 a month.)

No one needs more house than he needs, and Mark is smart enough to know that. And renting is sometimes preferable to buying, because if something goes wrong, you don't have to fuss over it yourself, and if fixing it is too big a problem, or you decide to go somewhere else, you can walk away.

So if you aren't thinking in terms of investment, and you have better things to do and to think about than fussing over a building, renting might be the most convenient way to go.

Mark Zuckerberg can certainly afford to opt for convenience.

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The last time I was at the old house, I ran in to get some avocados I had been growing. I had to come straight back, so I didn't spend any time there.

I didn't bring the avocados back.

Last time I'd seen them, they were about a foot tall, growing out of the pits half sunk in soil. This time, there was no sign of green. Nothing whatsoever. Not like they'd wilted and fallen over. Gone. And the pits had been eaten, chewed right down to the top of the soil.

Mice.

It was apparent that the mice were running rampant.

That house, being in woods near fields, always had mice in the fall. They move in looking for a warm place for the winter. In the past, they were confined pretty much to the basement with occasional short forays into the kitchen and laundry room.

With no human and no cat to frighten them, they seem to have pretty much taken over the house.

I am now worried. I'm afraid that they might build nests in the upholstered furniture and mattresses. At the rate things are going, and with the snow not cooperating, I'm afraid it will be well into spring before I get that stuff moved.

Next trip up, I'll have to set traps. Sorry poor mice. I do like and admire you, but most of my furniture has gone 100 to 150 years without musty mouse scent, and I'd like to see it last a little longer.

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I don't understand my electric bill from the old house. The bill includes a bar graph showing usage for the previous several billing periods, and from the same period of the previous year, for comparison. The bars are marked as to whether it's from an estimated or actual meter reading.

I'm on a budget plan, so I pay the same amount every month regardless of the usage, so I wasn't expecting the actual bill to be lower, but I was expecting to see a lower KWH usage, and eventually to start running a credit and recalculation of the budget amount.

Since the beginning of November, there has been ONE small light on. The water has not been run, so the well pump has not been running. Although the water heater is on, it has only had to maintain the constant temperature - no hot water going out, no cold coming in. The refrigerator and freezer are on, but the doors have not been opened. The oil furnace is on, but the entrance doors have not been opened, so it should be running less than when people are going in and out. I can't think of anything else that would be using electricity. (No, neighbors are too far away to be running an extension cord, and the exterior outlets are off at the box, anyway.)

And yet, the electric bill says I've used the same monthly amount of electricity as when I was living there, and the same as last year, and claims it's from an actual reading.

Bull poopy!

Next time I visit (if we ever have a week without snow!) I intend to read the meter myself!
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