3982 Bits

Saturday, October 4, 2014

"To be willing to die for an idea is to set a rather high price on conjecture."
 --Anatole France

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A travel hint:
Many times I've found that there are plenty of nice inexpensive places for lunch near the hotel, like even a cafe in the hotel, but in the evening, dinner time, they're all closed, and the only places to eat are horribly expensive and seem to expect you to "dress" for dinner.  

I call BS. 

I try to get a refrigerator in my room.  (A microwave is a nice bonus.)  If I have to, I lie and tell the desk I have medications that have to be refrigerated.  A little unmarked travel bottle of water in the fridge will play the part if necessary.  Then I have a nice lunchtime "dinner" at a lunch place, and I doggy bag a dinner from there and eat my nice cheap evening meal in my room or on the balcony.

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A question:
If I have a pulley set up to lift some weight, you know, a single pulley on the top and one on the bottom as in #2 below, I can cut the apparent weight in half.  Like if there's 100 lbs, and I pull the rope, it's as if I am lifting only 50 lbs because the rope I'm pulling moves twice as far as the weight.



Here's the question:  I figure the rafter that I have the top pulley attached to has to support 100 lbs, the weight on the end of the pulleys.  A friend says no, the rafter has to support 150 lbs - the weight on the bottom PLUS the 50 lbs of pull I'm putting on the rope.

Anyone know for sure?

The way I figure it, if I am using the pulley as in figure 1, the rafter just has to support 100 lbs, not 200.  But then the next minute I can convince myself the other way.  I don't even know where to look to get the answer.

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Newest grammar complaint:
The word for unbroken is "intact", not "in tact".  I'm seeing even pros use "in tact" and it's driving me batty.

Also maddening, the new "go to" word seems to be "massive".  It seems that anything that is larger, longer, or bigger than normal is "massive".

In my opinion, "massive" is used only to refer to great mass.  An Egyptian pyramid is massive.  When we're taking about a "massive heart attack", even then we mean that the attack involved the mass of the heart.  I'll even accept a "massive head cold" (under small protest) because it feels like a rock in your head.  But there's no way I can accept some of the ways I've seen it used lately:
- a massive house cleaning job
- a long flight route, as in "The Airbus A380 super-jumbo will fly six times a week on the massive 13,800 km journey between Sydney, Australia and Dallas / Fort Worth, U.S."
- a massive TED speech 
- his massive snoring kept me awake
- a massive groan from the audience

Grinding my teeth....

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I rarely have nightmares.  So rarely I can't remember the last.  The closest thing to a nightmare I can think of usually involves a building with many corridors and many closed doors, and I feel panic because I can't figure out where whatever it is I'm looking for is.  I keep opening doors, but that's not the right room, and there are so many doors and so little time.  (In the special way of dreams, space is distorted.  The doors are right next to each other, cheek by jowl, but when I'd open a door the room was a normal size, and that was frustrating, too.)  These dreams aren't scary, though.  Just frustrating.

Maybe I have scary nightmares, but I don't awaken, so I don't remember them.

When I was in college living in the dorm, I always had my own room, no roommate, because (they say) I screamed words and cried in my sleep all the time, and it disturbed anyone else in the room.  Not just because I was loud, but because my obvious distress worried them.  But I don't remember any nightmares.

Ex#1 did say I sometimes cried or shouted in my sleep.  He'd wake me and it would stop, but again, even after being awakened, I don't remember any dream.

That was a very long time ago, and no one else has complained about it since then, so I don't know. 

I have been dreaming more lately, but the ones I'm working on as I wake in the morning are mostly pleasant,  usually involving some people, mostly older women, who are being hospitable, pleasant, we're working on something together, that kind of thing.   I read as I'm falling asleep at night, fall asleep with my nose in a book, the light is on a timer, and I think what I'd been reading influences my dreams.
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3762 Chicken Farmers

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; 

if you really make them think, they'll hate you."

--Don Marquis--

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Am I the only person who thinks it's hypocritical that folks get all huffy when someone uses "retarded" to mean stupid, but no one blinks twice at the same use of the word "dumb"?

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This is cool:  a series of concrete arrows ten miles apart crossing the continent from New York to San Fransisco!   They were used to guide mail planes across the country in the days before guidance systems.  If I were younger and had an ATV, or a horse, and liked to camp out, I'd want to follow this trail before it completely disappears.  It's more interesting to me and less depressing than the fabled route 66.

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When I was very small we lived a few places in the south, like Fort Bragg, and Biloxi.  One time when I was maybe five years old, there was a holiday parade, and mixed in with the thrilling bands and floats there was a bunch of boring people in ghost costumes.  For some reason my mother got all tense and upset and muttered that they shouldn't be allowed.  I agreed, because they were boring, but so were the boys with the shoulder bands covered with badges, and the women in aprons, so I asked why they were worse and shouldn't be allowed.

Mom said they were the coo clucks clan, that they were fowl people, they kill people they don't like, and I should stay away from them.

I was shocked that chicken farmers would kill you. Why were they different from cow farmers and corn farmers?

For several years after I felt very brave eating chicken, because what if the farmer didn't like me and the chicken was poisoned?  To this day, 60+ years later, when anyone mentions the KKK, my first thought is of pigeons and chickens.
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3445 Foiled again!

Friday, January 13, 2012

Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
-- Steven Wright --

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Packing for flying:

If you don't like the idea of strangers handling your packed intimates, there's an easy way to discourage it and still not annoy them.

Buy gallon sized ziplock bags.

Fold your clothes to fit the bags, and pack everything in the bags in such a way that it's obvious what's in the bag, and so that the bags are flexible. A week's worth of panties will fit in one bag. If you wear underwire bras, put fewer in a bag so that the wires can be felt for what they are. Three or four t-shirts, or two turtle neck sweaters, one pair of jeans, or two or three shorts, and so on. Socks should go into a ziplock flat, not rolled, so they can be felt easily. If there are any hard parts, like buckles or decorated areas, fold the item so the hard stuff is on top and visible through the plastic.

If they can see and feel what's in the bags, they won't open them.

Everything else can go in bags, too. Actually, that makes it easier to settle at your destination and to unpack when you get home. Put things like shampoo, toothpaste, deodorant, etc. in your shoes, which should then go into OPEN clear plastic bags, not ziplocks. They will get annoyed if they have to actually open a ziplock.

Carry expensive jewelry with you. Costume jewelry in the suitcase, and anything else that might look tempting, goes into a large ziplock with a piece of cardboard the size of the ziplock. That makes it harder to "accidentally" drop or pocket something.

On your return trip, the temptation is to just jumble dirty clothes. Uh uh. Fold them neatly into the ziplocks, exactly as when you set out, so it's not obvious those are used panties.

They don't check every bag, by the way. The threat of opening the bag is enough to keep the average person in check. Of course, they seem to forget it's not the average person's suitcase that needs checking.... (Oh, yeah, for a moment there I forgot what the REAL purpose is.)
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2929 Back from the trip

Sunday, April 11, 2010

"If two men agree on everything, you may be sure that
one of them is doing the thinking."
-- Lyndon B. Johnson --

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I'm back. The Royal Air Maroc plane landed at JFK at about 4:30 pm yesterday, I managed to get out of the airport at 6:30, and got home about 9 pm.

It was an interesting trip. Morocco is such a mix of old and new. Beautiful modern cities with lots of cars, scooters, motor bikes, ... and donkeys! People riding donkeys and driving donkey carts right there in the middle of the traffic.

Most of the Moroccan women we saw were covered, wearing jelabas and head coverings. There were a lot of outdoor cafes, and only once did we see a woman at a table. The linked article says the younger women don't always wear the jelaba and scarf, but about the only women we saw uncovered were tourists. Oh, another thing, North American tourists are rare. Most were Dutch, German, French, or Spanish.

Things are relatively cheap. I ended up buying a lot more stuff than I had planned. The unit of currency is the dirham, about eight dirham per dollar. When shopping, the other women kept asking me "How much is xxx dirham in dollars?" I'd answer, "Divide by 8", and then I'd do the division for them. I finally taught most of them how to do it easily: "Divide by 2, three times, so 1000 dirham is equal to (half once = $500, half twice = $250, half the third time = $125) $125." We got breakfast and dinner with the tour, but had to pay for our own lunch, which usually ran from as low as 25 for a veggie salad (which always included tuna and egg) to 100 dirham for a tagine, which is like a pot roast. Ok, quick now, how much is that in dollars?

Our guide was Edr3s Imam1, a Moroccan of Arab extraction, with fluent english and much patience. (I have replaced an "e" with "3", and an "i" with "1" in his name to make it a little more difficult for others on the trip to find this blog.) Edr3s and me, at the brass doors of a walled royal residence:

Edr3s said that the unemployment rate in Morocco averages about 29%, higher in the rural areas. The king takes care of his subjects, so no one starves. Even though education is free through university, and technically compulsory through 15, the illiteracy rate is 41%. Children often don't go to school because they are needed to help on the farm or in the family business, especially the girls. The language is arabic, but french is a required class in the schools, so most people also are fluent in french, and where there was no english, we used french.

As expected, the woman who organized the trip and I butted heads. She didn't wear a watch (in her words, nobody has ever died because she was late...), and every time! that Edr3s said to be back at the bus by such-and-such a time, she and one or two of her buddies were fifteen minutes to a half hour late. It bugged the hell out of the rest of us and Edr3s ("...the same ones again...") because we didn't have the extra photo or shopping time she blithely took, and over the course of the day, time we could have spent sight-seeing was spent sitting on the bus waiting for her.

It didn't bother her at all, and others hesitated to say anything because many of them work with her or are in other Meetup groups she runs that they want to stay in. I've never in my life met anyone as self-centered as her. Everything was always about her. (BTW, I and several of the others on the trip suspect that we paid for her trip, and shopping. Another woman is going to contact the tour company and find out what the actual cost of the trip was.)

By the end of the week, we were frankly sniping at each other. She cut me out entirely. She and her buddies didn't listen when I spoke, looked away, started talking to each other in the middle of my sentence. Also, I am shy and quiet, soft-voiced, often went off on my own (because my interests are often different and I didn't want to hold other people up, and also because I often didn't feel welcome), and sometimes people see that as standoffishness (is that a word?) and arrogance. One of the other women told me that the others were talking about me and had actually made racial comments about me. Wow. I'm not sure what she meant by that, I asked if they thought I was racist, and she said no. I didn't pursue it, because, as my mother always said, sometimes certain people's opinions of you are worthless. So it doesn't bother me. By the end of the trip, the group of 12 had split into two camps. There were usually 6 at each table at meals, and it became obvious who was "in" with who, and who was kissing whose tail.

Everyone else thought the food was good, but the hotel breakfasts and dinners were buffets, and they always had exactly the same things every time, no matter where we were. I didn't much care for the spices used in everything. However, if you ever have the chance, get the beef with dates, the carrots, the olives, and the yogurt (any flavor). They were all excellent.

The best part of the trip was the souks (shopping areas, a.k.a. souqs) in the medinas (the oldest, often walled, parts of the city). The streets are narrow, lined with shops where you are expected to bargain.

Food sellers-

A street of metal workers -


A residential street in the medina -

The hotel and restaurant bathrooms are modern, but at a roadside stop you might be faced with a squat toilet - a hole in the floor with raised "footprints" on either side to stand on, and a faucet to fill a bucket to flush with. I hate them. You find them in the rural areas of southern France, too. The first time I was faced with one, the hem of my skirt slipped to the sopping floor and stank to high heaven for the next few hours, until I could change. The second time, I managed to keep everything gathered up, but was in such a stressed position I couldn't aim. When I came out, I told Edr3s I hated those things. He said "When in Maroc, do as the Marocans do." I asked if Marocans also piddle on their shoes. (I often cracked him up.) From then on, whenever there was a rest stop, I asked him, "Sit or squat?" If he said squat, I held it.

Leaving from JFK, we had the usual TSA hurdles. Leaving from Casablanca we had Moroccan security. Our carry-on baggage was hand searched something like three or four times, once at each stage - at entering the airport, at passport check, at entering the gate area, and before getting on the plane, they actually took things out and examined them - and we had to go into a curtained booth where we got a pretty thorough pat-down, including a crotch grab (same-sex agent). And yet, it was still faster than at JFK. Many more agents doing it.

Itinerary and some photos tomorrow.

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We all had decided to share photos with each other in them, by trading email addresses. The organizer kept putting it off, and then decided that we didn't have to, because we already had the email addresses on notes she had sent us before the trip. I said, "Only if we saved the emails." Her response? "*I* always save all *my* emails."

That's an example of the self-centeredness. *She* always saves all emails, therefore *everyone* does. (In her mind, that's everyone who matters, anyway.) She would not acknowledge that others may have valid reasons for not saving everything that floats by.

(Another woman went around on her own and gathered them. I copied her list, because depending on who distributes it, I might not otherwise get it.)
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1343 Complications

Sunday, July 1, 2007

The decision as to whether to go to the fireworks has been made for me. There's a gusty breeze high in the trees, and the maple trees are showing the undersides of their leaves. Sure sign of rain.


If I'm wrong, I can still see the higher chrysanthemums from my deck, so I think I'll stay home, warm, and dry.

There were actually about 12 people at NJ's last night. I forgot to count the Pilot and the Nurse. It's interesting that among so few people, there was so much going on underneath. We've all known each other entirely too long.


It was last year at this time, at NJ's, that the proverbial poop hit the fan, as regards Roman and me. I'm sure a lot of people were wondering what is now going on with us. It was obvious we are friendly, even affectionate, which I'm sure blows people's minds, given what had happened. I'm a little surprised he showed up last night. Pond scum and all.

He made a point of several times mentioning "the woman I had been dating", ensuring that everyone knew they had broken up. We left together, and if anyone had been watching from the window, they'd have seen a hug and a very small kiss. They'd have seen both cars go through the stone gateway one after the other. What they couldn't see is that at the end of the access road, I turned north, and he turned south. What they don't know is that's the way it is now. That's pretty much the way it has to be. Hello hugs and goodbye kisses, and nothing much in between.

Dirty Dave broke up with his several-year girlfriend more than a year ago, and he's not over her yet. He finally figured out that she didn't really like him at all, that she was using him. He said she has lived the grasshopper life, and has found herself in her late 50s with no savings, and all she wanted was someone who would pay for her fun.

The poor guy wants a woman.

I opened the can of worms when I asked him if he'd done any travelling lately (that was his retirement plans), and he said no, that he hates travelling alone. He had tried to get back together with a prior girlfriend, and it actually looked promising, but he said that the 15-year age difference, that hadn't mattered at all when he was still working and dating her, is now suddenly a problem, because he has all this free time, and she has none. She has a lousy two weeks of vacation, and the occasional day off, and they just can't travel like he wants to. It's frustrating.

(He doesn't know what my involvement is these days, but as he went on about it, I felt like he was talking directly to me. Yeah, I understand more than he knows.)

I reminded him that he'd always said that he prefers women his own age. Maybe he needs a woman who is willing and able to pay her own way. Maybe all he needs is a platonic travel companion (implying, of course, me). I swear I said that innocently. (I want to travel. I need a travel companion, too.)

Twenty-some years ago, DD and I'd had a very brief fling, pushed together by NJ and May, who had thought we were ideal for each other. The only other person in the room who knows I had slept with DD is Roman, and it bothers him a lot. I have absolutely no sexual interest in DD. None. I have no desire whatsoever to repeat the experience. When I saw the look on Roman's face, and the look on DD's face, I wanted to say that, make it clear, or withdraw my suggestion. Bleck. Foot in mouth again.

There was a woman there who is at least ten years older than I. Back in March, a new member came to NJ's Green Eggs and Ham, and I noticed that this woman seemed fascinated by him. The expression on her face when she looked at him, the way she engaged him in intense conversation, the way she leaned into him. Last night, it was obvious she was still fascinated by him. When he left, he hugged her tightly and asked her when he'd see her again. And later, she said something about how the night before, she'd forgotten that she had xx in the refrigerator, so he and she'd "had no dessert after dinner." She'd cooked him dinner the night before? Wow. Why wow? He's got to be 40 years younger than she.

Wow. I'd love to know what's going on there.

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Post script - The next October, Roman decided to go to Israel to visit his Daughter, and invited me to go with him, as a "platonic travel companion".  I turned him down (I wanted to go, but The Man wasn't too happy about the idea, and pointed out that he being a man himself, he knew durn well what Roman was thinking.)  Wow.  I wonder if Roman got the idea from the conversation with DD.
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1273 The English Lady

Tuesday, May 29, 2007


Listening to NPR this morning. Some guy talking about coal, why it was used, and why it now is not, said that "we realize that God doesn't send electricity down from the heavens in a golden bowl."

I beg your pardon! God does send electricity down in a golden bowl. I'm amused that he used the term "golden bowl" - it so well describes the sun. Someday we will learn how to use it.


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Sometimes I'm not American, and that suits me just fine.

In Mexico and France, almost everyone thought I was Canadian. I didn't correct them.

In England, for some reason many people decided I was Welsh. I sort of liked that, because my mother's people came from Wales.

In Wales, and this is weird, most people thought I was visiting from England. Sometimes it was funny. I overheard a discussion between the hosts, husband and wife, at a B&B. The conversation went something like this:

She said to him, "The American woman will be checking out today, so make up her bill."
He: "What American woman?"
She: "The little one. With the daughter, the little girl."
He: "She's not American."
She: "Yes, she is. Where do you think she's from?"
He: "She's English, isn't she? Or maybe Canadian?"
She: "No. I saw her passport. She's American."
He: "Are you sure?"
She: "Pretty sure. What makes you think she's not?"
He: "She's too nice to be American."

I'm quiet. I speak softly. I clean up after myself. I accept. I say please and thank you. I smile. I don't complain about things that are different from what I'm used to. I don't take up much space or air. I guess that makes me not American.

Many of the places we stayed had other American guests at the same time, and frankly, they embarrassed me. Loud. Rude. Banging and thumping. Making messes. Complaining about the food, and the lack of mixing faucets, and the roundabouts, the dampness, and everything else. Bragging about how much better "we" do everything.

I didn't mind disassociating myself from them.

It's worse these days. It used to be my fellow tourists who embarrass me. Now it's my government, too.

I almost don't want to leave the country.

My passport is a liability.

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Blogger bug!

Ever since Blogger started periotic autosaves, it's been adding blank lines between paragraphs. Very annoying. I look at the HTML to see what Blogger has added, and nothing shows up. Anyone have any idea what's happening? Someone else has to have noticed it. Why hasn't it been fixed yet?

Ok, so much for not complaining....
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#447 Is It Time to Panic Yet?

Monday. Eight items on the Immediate To-Do list. I accomplished four. Considering what last week was like, I guess that was pretty good.

I cleared out last week's mail and newspaper backlog, and burned the (non-colored) trash.

I made hotel reservations for Wednesday and Thursday, Thanksgiving in Reading with Daughter's fiance's family. I left a message at a beautiful antiques-furnished "haunted" mansion B&B, but they haven't called me back yet. So I made reservations at a Best Western. I can cancel the Best Western if the mansion comes through, but I sincerely doubt that the B&B will have anything available. The clue - They have a 2-week cancellation policy.

I called Roman to check on how his father is doing. Not good but not worse. Dinner together tomorrow, then I'll attend his class, then we both go home alone so we can get ready for our respective trips Wednesday.

I studied a little of the Excel textbook Roman lent me so I wouldn't look like a complete idiot. A lot of it is intuitive. If I learn the terms and where to click, the rest should follow. Unfortunately, I didn't get very far. I hope I can do more tomorrow.

I haven't the faintest idea what took up the rest of the day.

I didn't get laundry done, or hem the jacket I wanted to wear for Thanksgiving, or move the grandfather clock, or unpack several "short trip" bags cluttering the hall. The first two could be a problem. If I don't do laundry tomorrow, I may have nothing to wear to Reading. Wish me luck.

Oh, by the way, the alarm clock works fine. It rings changes on cathedral bells, and this morning I let it go to see how long it would ring. The bells ring for two hours before they give up. I don't know what happened Saturday morning.

~~Silk