3238 Sunday Thoughts

Sunday, January 23, 2011

"Male circumcision has long been an operation in search of a disease," wrote members of the group Doctors Opposing Circumcision in the May 12th edition of The Lancet.

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New Jersey is famous for potholes. The Man has replaced a few tires and rims wrecked in potholes, and Hercules actually totaled a car, breaking an axle.

When I started doing a lot of local driving here, I didn't see that many, but as the winter progresses, they're starting to scare me. Some of them are HUGE and DEEP! I don't want to think about how much rims for Hal cost. Lately I'm driving slow enough and with enough space between me and the car ahead so that I can see them in enough time to veer around them.

I also noticed something else - they plow right down to the blacktop here. The plows are set low. After a snowplow goes by, the road looks like it's been swept. And I think that's what's causing the potholes!

If there's the slightest uneven spot in the road, like a seam (most of the potholes are on seams) or a pothole patch, the edge of the low-set plow blade catches it and rips it. Once started, subsequent plowings, traffic, and freezing and thawing enlarges it.

I wonder how soon into the winter more accidents are caused by perpetual potholes than by occasional snow on the road.

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Out of nowhere - I absolutely hated the way "Carrie Bradshaw" (Sex and the City) dressed. Her clothes were stupid, and I despised the way she ignored her bra - like the back of the bra showing across the back of a backless dress.

Which reminds me of Princess Diana's bridal gown, which of course is all over the place again with the wedding fever in England, and the fact that Diana's wardrobe is currently touring the US. I have never understood all the people who swooned over how beautiful it was.

Huh? With the dense fabric, ruffled neckline, poofy sleeves ending in ruffles, and poor fit, it looked like something Queen Victoria would have worn to bed. A Victorian nightgown. I mean, go to the link above and look at it. Tell me I'm wrong. Snort.

I suspect the stuffiness of it was on purpose, to draw a parallel to queens past and present. But that didn't make it "beautiful", folks. Note that even the swooners didn't copy it.

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Eh. Maybe I just have rotten taste. I didn't like Jackie Kennedy's dress, either. I thought it looked like it was made from a colonial bedspread.

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I made an effort to get out and meet some people today.

A Meetup group was "mall walking" at Bridgewater Commons Mall this afternoon. The mall was described as a "large upscale shopping Mecca". It was ok, but having been used to the malls in the Albany area, I was underwhelmed. One difference I did notice - most of the stores, even the big name stores (except for the three anchors) were tiny shops. I don't think I've ever seen such a small Victoria's Secret. That tells me the rents must be much higher than anywhere else.

Another odd thing was that the movie theater advertised "dining in". You get a menu with your movie ticket. I'd love to know how that works.

The group was supposed to meet by 2:30, at the back of the food court, near the restrooms. I found the restrooms at 2:20. Never found the group. Apparently there were two sets of restrooms by the food court, although the mall map showed only one. So I ended up wandering the mall alone.

Yeah. "Upscale." Not necessarily in the quality of goods offered, but definitely in the price tags.

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I'm still amazed at the variety of stores to be found here, after 25+ years in the Mid-Hudson Valley. (I remember the excitement when the first Pizza Hut arrived in the Valley, and then the hysteria surrounding the arrival of Barnes & Noble and Starbucks.) I couldn't help but think of the people (well, actually one particular guy in Mensa) who puts on an air of sophistication by name-dropping. Not famous people, though. Stores. He's always talking about the wonders to be found in stores not available in the Valley, like Trader Joe's, and Whole Foods, for example. Places he, of course, shops all the time. Snork.

You'd think with so much competition, the prices around here would be lower. They're not.
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3237 Belling the Cat

Saturday, January 22, 2011

"Illegal aliens have always been a problem in the United States. Ask any Indian."
-- Robert Orben --

(PC update - nowadays he has to say Native American, of course. Sigh.)

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Well, not actually belled. I took the bell off.

Jasper is almost four years old now, and he has never permitted a collar. I tried to put one on him many times, and he always fought it. He'd try to push it off, sometimes succeeding, sometimes popping the quick release, and often I'd find him immobilized somewhere, embarrassed, with one hind leg firmly stuck through the collar.

I tried a small dog collar, without the quick release (ok because he never goes outside), but they have buckles, and he learned how to unbuckle them. He'd turn it until the buckle was under his chin, then he'd duck his head down until he could get a tooth under the loop of collar going through the buckle, and he'd work it until he could pull the strap through the buckle, and actually unbuckle the darn thing.

It was funny because every time he got a collar off, he'd put it on my bed. Like, "That was fun, Mommy! Let's do it again!" Maybe. Maybe it was actually, "Here's your stupid collar, Mommy. YOU wear it!"

One odd thing - I wore scrunchies a lot (they didn't damage my hair like barrettes did), and I occasionally put one on him like a collar, and he didn't seem to mind it at all. He'd leave it on for two days or so before removing it and putting it on my bed.

It occurred to me that maybe the scrunchies were permitted because they didn't smell strange.

So a few days ago I bought another regular cat collar, quick release and all, and then I wore it on my wrist for 48 hours. I put it on him yesterday, and it's still there! He hasn't even attempted to take it off.

I may have found the secret.

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The old house had mice. The new house doesn't. Jasper has been bored. So I've been buying him toys. He likes light foam balls, and little leather catnip mice. He carries the mice around by the tails. It's cute.

One of the mice I bought the other day has feathers. (Yeah, a mouse with a mouse face, mouse ears, a long leather tail, and fluffy feather wings and tail. Gotta wonder about the person who came up with that.) Anyway, it seems to be his favorite, and he has invented a play technique I've never seen before, and I've had many cats over the past 50 years.

He'll crouch, and back up until the mouse is under his hind legs, carefully not looking at it. He'll shift until it's perfectly positioned under his rear claws. He'll pretend to ignore it for a minute or so, and then suddenly jump up, kicking his hind legs out behind him. That sends the mouse flying in an unpredictable direction, and he'll spin around and chase it.

It's funny.
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3236 A Few Things

Friday, January 21, 2011

"The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing at the right place
but to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment."
-- Dorothy Nevill --

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A few of the many things I've learned in my 60-plus years:

• Don't store a sewing needle by sticking it into the threads in the spool. That splits and breaks the fibers of the thread, which will cause twists and breaks later when you try to sew with it.
• If you have a dark cat, have light carpeting, and vice-versa. The shed hair might show up more, but so will a sleeping cat.
• The fastest way to drop ten years in appearance is to smile, and make sure the smile lines near your eyes show. Those are the most attractive wrinkles. Show them.
• To drop twenty years, simply never insist on "your way". Stay open to new ways.
• The ugliest furniture will be forgiven anything if it's comfortable and useful. That goes for people, too.
• Soap is for fats, oils, stains, and trapped particles. If none of those are present, you don't need soap for effective washing. In fact, soap can be counterproductive. Hot water and a good scrub will do.
• Insurance of whatever kind is supposed to be there in case something goes wrong. It has been my experience that having insurance seems to prevent anything going wrong. Some kind of weird Fate thing.
• Never ever lie to your child or make promises you don't intend to keep. It may be convenient at the moment, but the child will never again trust or believe you. That's a sure source of tantrums.
  

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From Shoebox.com: "The House of Representatives voted to repeal health care. Wow. Hope none of them gets sick. Because now that they don’t have health care that would be…um, oh. Never mind."
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3235 New Desk

Thursday, January 20, 2011

A bore is someone who keeps talking when I have something to say.

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I figured out what I'd been doing the past few days.

My daughter gets depressed and sometimes downright mean when she's not getting enough exercise. So when she calls and says "Let's go for a walk", I say yes. It makes life a lot easier.

Also, my new desk arrived Tuesday.

The main desk at the old house is a manager's desk bought at an employee surplus sale many years ago. It's nice, but it was built for show - huge footprint, very little storage. So I decided to get something more suitable for here and I'll sell or donate the old one rather than attempt to move it.

On Tuesday we'd had snow overnight, followed by freezing rain, with plain rain predicted, so the driveway was covered with slush.

I'd learned long ago that if I think, "I ought to...", then I'd better do it, no matter what my second thoughts are, because if I don't the consequences can be severe. So when I looked out the door and saw the slush, I thought, "I probably should shovel that". It was raining, and the neighbors said it would all melt by afternoon, but the driveway has about a 15 degree slope, and I was afraid the men would refuse to bring the desk in if the drive was covered in slush.

The truck arrived within a half hour of our clearing the driveway, so I was right to clear it. Daughter had come over to help me shovel (muttering that it was pointless) and had stayed for tea.

Shipping from California was free on the desk, so I was surprised to find it was "Platinum White Glove Service", which means they not only brought it in, they unpacked it, set it up in place, and took the packing materials away with them.

When the guys set the desk up, they plugged a fat cord into the wall. I didn't know what it went with. At the top of one of the drawers was some kind of black panel with buttons. It took Daughter a minute to figure out that it's a power bar. You feed cords from printer, scanner, whatever is on the desk through some holes, and plug them into the back of the black thing, and then you turn stuff on and off using the buttons on the front. Swoopy!

In the past three months I'd built up quite a bit of paper to be filed (a lot of end-of-year and tax stuff, besides regular bills for two houses), so I went to the store and got hanging folders, and yesterday and part of today I sorted and filed all that.

I also shopped and found some acceptable lacy curtains for the living room, installed rods, and hung them.

Desk, oak, matches kitchen cabinets and a trio of bookcases I'll be bringing from the old house:
No, that's not a photograph between the laptop and printer. It's a TV/CD/DVD player. The black box on top is an antenna for the TV - gets me 40-some channels.

Here the drawer is open so you can see the power bar:
That's Clyde, the Pleo (robot baby dinosaur), on top.

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Later: I didn't realize until I was looking at the above photos, but this is very reminiscent of my first desk/sewing table - a hollow door on top of two file cabinets, with wall-mounted shelves above. I loved that arrangement!
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3234 Hair rebellion report

Thursday, January 20, 2011

If you want useful answers, ask good questions.

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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.)

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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.)
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3233 Life on hold

Monday, January 17, 2011

"I am not in this world to live up to other people's expectations,
nor do I feel that the world must live up to mine."
-- Fritz Perls --

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Not much happening. Daughter drove me to the old house yesterday, where we dug the van out of the snow and I drove him south. So now both Fred the van and Hal the convertible are at the new house.

Hal has a mouse, who moved in while he was parked at the old house in November. The first clue was the chewed up roll of paper towels in the trunk, and the chewed hat. The second clue was the motion-detector alarms going off when no one was anywhere near Hal. I thought eventually the mouse would move out, but last week somebody chewed into a bag of peanuts on the front seat, and two nights ago I found a hole chewed in a bag of garbage in the garage. I give up. I'm going to have to evict him before he chews something important.

I bought some traps today, baited one (no mouse can resist peanut butter), and was taking it out to the garage. Just inside the garage, near the door to the house, is a tall plastic kitchen waste bin that I use to put out recycle stuff, and as I walked past it, I saw a motion.

The mouse is in the bin. The sides are too high and slick for him to get out.

He's the cutest little thing - bright eyes, tiny pink paws, short round body, no neck. I wish I had a cage. I'd try to keep him. But since he's caught, I'll give him a little water and walnuts tonight to feed him up a bit, and dump him outside tomorrow. Far from the house, far from Hal!

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Peeved again. This was written by a professional journalist: "... declined invites from the organization ...."

Sheesh, people! At least be consistent. "... declined invitations from the organization ...." or "... declined invites from the organize ...."

Now is it apparent why I hate "invite" as a noun?
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3232 This one's for Becs

Saturday, January 15, 2011

“Immature love is wanting the other person to be happy with you. Mature love is wanting the other person to be happy. Period.”

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Becs will understand this.

Almost alike. Same style, same fabric, different color, different print. I always shorten the sleeves to 3/4 length.
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3231 Gutters

Friday, January 14, 2011

"We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart."
-- HL Mencken --

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I have a serious problem with the gutters on the new house. I guess they're full of leaves or something, because they aren't draining. They've got an ice buildup, and as the snow is melting on the roof (absolutely bad insulation! Not just wind blowing the snow off. You can actually see ridges of snow over the rafters) the melt water is dripping over the edges of the gutters, and has built up icicles on the backside of the gutters, which is bad for the eaves and roof.

The more immediate problem is that the water dripping off the icicles has covered the driveway and porch stoop with a very thick layer of ice. Salt is ineffective, because the driveway slopes and within minutes the salt is washed away by the dripping water, down over the ice all the way down the driveway. And the stoop is cement, so I can't use salt there anyway. I tried kitty litter, but you just slide on the litter sliding on the ice. No traction.

I am worried that
a) the car will slide when I leave the garage, taking out the neighbor's car parked across the street, and
b) someone will slip on the stoop and sue me.

I guess maybe I need some gravel or sand, although I wonder how long it would take for that to become ineffectively buried in new ice. What I really need is the gutters cleaned, but can "they" (whoever "they" is, and that's another problem) do that when everything is all ice?

I have to figure it out, or locate some sand, or something, by Tuesday morning, because I'm having some very heavy furniture delivered then, and ice will make it very difficult and dangerous.

Sigh.

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An interesting detail, the temperature here is now 25 degrees F. The current temperature at the old house is 1.
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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."

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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.

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**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.
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3229 Snow. Again.

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

“It isn’t what we don’t know that causes the trouble;
it’s what we think we know that just ain’t so.”
-- Will Rogers --

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Eight inches of snow overnight. I was all ready to try my new electric snow thrower this morning, but one of the neighbors cleared 80% of my driveway before I got out there. My new toy handled the edges that were left just fine, though.

I cleared two other neighbors' cars and Daughter's car. I like brushing snow off cars. Weird, but there's something satisfying about it.

I heard today that of the "lower 48", Florida is the only state that has not had snow already this winter.
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3228 Sad Souls

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

"The deterioration of every government begins with the decay of the
principles on which it was founded."
- C. L. De Montesquieu; The Spirit of the Laws, VIII ---

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The following was a post to the Mensa online group from our local scientist, Andi. I don't know how much is is her words, and how much is from an article she's quoting, but since I make no money on this blog, I don't think anyone will object either way.

The article is interesting. I think we all are already fully aware of the social effects of economic inequality, but this is a higher view.

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Op-Ed Columnist
Equality, a True Soul Food
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: January 1, 2011, "New York Times"

John Steinbeck observed that “a sad soul can kill you quicker, far quicker, than a germ.”
Damon Winter/The New York Times

Nicholas D. Kristof
On the Ground

That insight, now confirmed by epidemiological studies, is worth bearing in mind at a time of such polarizing inequality that the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans possess a greater collective net worth than the bottom 90 percent.

There’s growing evidence that the toll of our stunning inequality is not just economic but also is a melancholy of the soul. The upshot appears to be high rates of violent crime, high narcotics use, high teenage birthrates and even high rates of heart disease.

That’s the argument of an important book by two distinguished British epidemiologists, Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett. They argue that gross inequality tears at the human psyche, creating anxiety, distrust and an array of mental and physical ailments — and they cite mountains of data to support their argument.

“If you fail to avoid high inequality, you will need more prisons and more police,” they assert. “You will have to deal with higher rates of mental illness, drug abuse and every other kind of problem.” They explore these issues in their book, “The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger.”

The heart of their argument is that humans are social animals and that in highly unequal societies those at the bottom suffer from a range of pathologies. For example, a long-term study of British civil servants found that messengers, doormen and others with low status were much more likely to die of heart disease, suicide and some cancers and had substantially worse overall health.

There’s similar evidence from other primates. For example, macaque monkeys are also highly social animals, and scientists put them in cages and taught them how to push a lever so that they could get cocaine. Those at the bottom of the monkey hierarchy took much more cocaine than high-status monkeys.

Other experiments found that low-status monkeys suffered physical problems, including atherosclerosis in their arteries and an increase in abdominal fat. And as with monkeys, so with humans. Researchers have found that when people become unemployed or suffer economic setbacks, they gain weight. One 12-year study of American men found that when their income slipped, they gained an average of 5.5 pounds.

The correlation is strong around the world between countries with greater inequality and greater drug use. Paradoxically, countries with more relaxed narcotics laws, like the Netherlands, have relatively low domestic drug use — perhaps because they are more egalitarian.

Professors Wilkinson and Pickett crunch the numbers and show that the same relationship holds true for a range of social problems. Among rich countries, those that are more unequal appear to have more mental illness, infant mortality, obesity, high school dropouts, teenage births, homicides, and so on.

They find the same thing is true among the 50 American states. More unequal states, like Mississippi and Louisiana, do poorly by these social measures. More equal states, like New Hampshire and Minnesota, do far better.

So why is inequality so harmful? “The Spirit Level” suggests that inequality undermines social trust and community life, corroding societies as a whole. It also suggests that humans, as social beings, become stressed when they find themselves at the bottom of a hierarchy.

That stress leads to biological changes, such as the release of the hormone cortisol, and to the accumulation of abdominal fat (perhaps an evolutionary adaptation in preparation for starvation ahead?). The result is physical ailments like heart disease, and social ailments like violent crime, mutual distrust, self-destructive behaviors and persistent poverty. Another result is the establishment of alternative systems in which one can win respect and acquire self-esteem, such as gangs.

Granted, humans are not all equal in ability: There will always be some who are more wealthy — and others who constitute the bottom. But inequality does not have to be as harsh, oppressive and polarized as it is in America today. Germany and Japan have attained modern, efficient economies with far less inequality than we have — and far fewer social problems. Likewise, the gap between rich and poor fell during the Clinton administration, according to data cited in “The Spirit Level,” even though that was a period of economic vigor.

“Inequality is divisive, and even small differences seem to make an important difference,” Professors Wilkinson and Pickett note. They suggest that it is not just the poor who benefit from the social cohesion that comes with equality, but the entire society.

So as we debate national policy in 2011 — from the estate tax to unemployment insurance to early childhood education — let’s push to reduce the stunning levels of inequality in America today. These inequities seem profoundly unhealthy, for us and for our nation’s soul.

3227 Naughty Pets

Sunday, January 9, 2011

"I laid my bed, now I've got to sit on it."
-- A-Rod --

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Roomba:

The kitchen island, the snow thrower, and many other items have arrived packed in that semi-solid foam stuff. Lots of flat sheets of it. It sheds tiny balls of static-charged plastic foam that stick to everything. After putting the island together, my kitchen floor and Jasper's tail were covered with bits of it, and it quickly spread throughout the first floor.

I got the big vacuum cleaner out to clean it up, and coming around the corner I bumped the Roomba. He took that as a signal to start cleaning, so I let him go. He actually did a pretty good job, so I let him take care of it.

I goofed.

I had stacked the sheets of plastic foam against a wall in the dining room until I decided what to do with it. I was sitting at the computer with my back to the dining room, when I saw balls of plastic foam floating past my shoulders.

Roomba had found the foam, and was stuck in the middle of it, and was chewing it industriously. His exhaust (and the fact that his belly was full with what he'd already eaten) was blowing the chewed bits. The freaking stuff is now stuck to walls, ceilings, curtains ....

Bad Roomba!

Jasper:

Almost all my adult life I'd had lots of houseplants. The old house had high ceilings and glass across much of the west-facing walls. Before Jay died, I had several 8' and 10' plants in the livingroom and bedroom. One schefflera had an 8" diameter trunk. The last year of Jay's illness most of the plants died because I wasn't able to care for them, and the rest died during the long darkness after. I hadn't bought any more plants.

So, since he's been living with me, Jasper has had no experience with houseplants.

The new house doesn't have the light of the old, but what it has is sufficient, plus the Home Depot is selling plants that appear to be in excellent condition, CHEAP, and if I travel Daughter can water them --- so I bought some.

Jasper has been chewing on them. (Yes, I know which are poison, not to worry.)

Either he doesn't know they'll make him throw up, or he does know and that's why he chews them. Actually, that's ok.

He apparently does NOT know that kitty cats must NOT throw up on Mommy's prized hand-knotted, natural-dyed, pure silk, pastel, imported oriental carpet. That's definitely not ok. Especially since 90% of the floor space is bare.

Bad Jasper!
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3226 Truth in charity, sort of....

Sunday, January 9, 2011

Love is when you want for someone whatever makes them happy,
even if it doesn't happen to include you.
-- Silk --

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There's a shoe store out there, TOMS Shoes, that advertises: "With every pair you purchase, TOMS will give a new pair of shoes to a child in need."

Sounds good. You buy a pair of shoes (canvas, loosely shaped, rubber soled) and TOMS delivers another child sized pair to one of a network of various aid societies, who distributes them to a needy child somewhere in the world.

TOMS can take credit for the idea and the mechanism, but in my opinion, they shouldn't take credit for the shoes. I'm pretty sure they aren't losing any money on the deal. They are not exactly a charity.

Take a look at the prices on the shoes, at the link above. They are grossly overpriced for the materials and quality. YOU are actually paying for the second pair of smaller shoes, and probably distribution costs. TOMS is providing the paperwork.

Yes, it's a good idea, but credit should be given where deserved. If you buy a pair of TOMS shoes, pat yourself on the back - not TOMS.

(And of course I, being the cynic I am, have to wonder how much of a tax break TOMS is taking for that second pair, that , actually, you paid for.)
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3225 Ready for snow! (Almost)

Saturday, January 8, 2011

In this age of texting and instant messaging, capitalization is dying. But it's important. It's the only difference between helping your Uncle Jack off a horse, and ....

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Early in December I was looking at snowthrowers.

The one I had at the old house is a huge electric-start gas-powered Toro workhorse. It could easily handle snow up to 18 inches deep, and cut a 2' wide swath. But it needed constant service. Carburetor cleaning. Gas carrying. I needed something that big to handle the 350' driveway.

The current driveway is maybe 50' at most, and we aren't as likely to lose electricity in snow as at the old house, so I was considering a smaller electric snowthrower.

Just before the Christmas blizzard, I decided to buy one.

Ha! There were no snowthrowers left anywhere. They had been replaced by spring gardening equipment.

What? That's worse than clothing stores where you can't find anything warm after mid-January! We hadn't even had our first snow yet.

So, online.

It arrived this morning.

We had snow almost all day yesterday, but it was light and didn't stick anywhere but on the existing snow. More snow today. A few inches might start sticking by this evening. So I need to go out and buy an outside 50' extension cord.

Then I'm ready.
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3224 Hair

Saturday, January 8, 2011

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

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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.
.

3223 Spell Check Disaster

Friday, January 7, 2011

"The argument that capital punishment degrades the state is moonshine,
for if that were true then it would degrade the state to send men to war...
The state, in truth, is degraded in its very nature:
a few butcheries cannot do it any further damage."
-- HL Mencken --

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

Eye halve a spelling chequer
It came with my pea sea
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.

Eye strike a key and type a word
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait a weigh.

As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the error rite
Its rare lea ever wrong.

Eye have run this poem threw it
I am shore your pleased two no
Its letter perfect awl the weigh
My chequer tolled me sew.


Candidate for a Pullet Surprise
by Mark Eckman and Jerrold H. Zar

There's a longer version at the link.
.

3222 Expectations

Friday, January 7, 2011

"Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence."
-- HL Mencken --

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

A few weeks ago I went to the holiday dinner with the old Mensa group, and First Woman was there. [Link to a description of our last previous encounter: http://thesilkentouch.blogspot.com/2010/03/2803-buck-you-fuddy.html]

I'm still a little bit disturbed by what happened at the dinner.

What happened? Nothing. And that's what's bothering me.

When I arrived, FW was seated at a table with five other people. When I walked past her table, she kept her face turned away from me, but she slid her eyes sideways to look at me (reminding me of a ticked-off cat who will sit in front of you with her back to you, pointedly ignoring you, but with her ears turned back toward you).

I knew instantly what I was supposed to do. I was supposed to walk over to her, enter her space, and request her attention with a little fawning.

Being the rebellious contrarian that I am, I didn't, just because I knew it was expected.

From the table I sat at, every time I looked past my table companions, I was looking directly at her, and every time I glanced her way, she was staring at me. And every time, she quickly averted her eyes.

At one point, she walked past our table, I don't know why - there was nothing of interest past our corner - and again she averted her face, but her eyes slid sideways toward me. Again, I had the impression I was being given a chance to request her attention. Again, I didn't.

[If you haven't read or don't remember the "F**k You!" post linked above, go read it now. And while you're at it, visit this one, too: http://thesilkentouch.blogspot.com/2008/03/1734-i-dont-understand-people.html - insight into how she operates.]

So, it's been bothering me. I know her. I know what she's like, and I know she has some emotional problems. I don't resent her for the incident at the gathering, I hold no resentment. I consider myself a forgiving person, easy to get along with.

So why didn't I give in and give her what she wanted, reach out to her, be the bigger person? That question has been bothering me ever since that evening. I know I hurt her feelings by not making the move. It bothers me that I hurt her feelings, knowing full well that's what I was doing.

So I've been thinking about it.

I didn't make the first move because she expected it.

She assigned that role to me.

And that was the basic problem back when I tried to be friends with her.

She's certifiably nuts, on a variety of medications the dosages of which she messes around with resulting in some strange effects, but that's part of what makes her an interesting person. She's bohemian. I'm easy to get along with. I know that once I figure out what a person is like, what weird things they might be or do, I can decide whether I can accept and/or work around that, or not. I don't mind a little crazy. Once I know there's mood swings, I can work around them, let them roll off. I'm easy. I try to understand, not judge or condemn.

And it wasn't her craziness that drove me away, that necessitated my telling her that I refuse to put myself in her path any more, that she was poisoning me. (The Man refers to her as my "Psycho Ex-Girlfriend". Read that post, too. It's funny.)

It wasn't craziness that drove me away. It wasn't all the times she used me. It wasn't all the times she was very verbally nasty.

It was her expectations of me.

Instead of getting to know me, learning what I am like, what is natural to me, how I relate, how I respond, instead of accepting me for what and how I am, she decided that I should be a certain way, should do certain things and react in certain ways. And when I didn't, she castigated me in exceedingly harsh terms.

I hate the telephone. But she expected me to call her a minimum of once a week. If I didn't, she would finally call me and pour a load of vitriol on me for not caring about her or her problems. Note that I was to call her. Her calling me was apparently a breech of protocol, for which I was to be punished.

She expected me to listen for hours at a time to her problems with her boyfriend - a married man with several small children who would turn up at her house once a month, roll around in her bed with her for an hour, and then go home for dinner. I know she was unreasonably in love with him, and I really didn't want to hear about him and how uncaring he was, but I let her talk because she needed to - I'd give her the "uh huh, uh huh, wow, that's sad" - but I didn't sympathize enough, and that pissed her off, and she'd tear me a new one because I didn't say the right things, didn't give her the advice she wanted and expected.

There was so much like that. So many expectations that I didn't meet, and she'd get nasty every time I "failed her".

Sheesh. I don't feel I failed anyone. I am what I am, I am who I am, and a lot of people find that to be good enough, including me!

And that's why I had to cut her off three years ago, and that's why I didn't make the first move, or any move, at the dinner. Precisely because she acted like it was expected of me.

I'm not giving anyone anything just because they expect it of me. If she'd bothered to learn anything about me back when, she'd have known that.

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

This isn't just me. You can't define how other people should relate or react. Other people are what they are, and you are free to accept or reject them. But you should never expect anything, or you're guaranteed disappointment. I couldn't get along with FW because she decided I should be a certain way, even if she had to push and shove and punish me into being that way. It took me a long time to find myself, and she, in making me feel inadequate, was destroying the me that it took so long to find.

By feeling that I had done something wrong at the dinner, by fussing over it, I demonstrated again the power she has to make me doubt myself. I'm glad now that I didn't give her the satisfaction.
.

3221 Blue collar love

Thursday, January 6, 2011

American journalism thrives on exploring conflicts, often to the exclusion of ideas.

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

When I first began working for The Company, in 1968, I lived in a 4-room log cabin in the woods, in a little depressed area called Ruby. The kind of neighborhood where there are trailers tucked into the woods, and old cars sinking into yards, and you can't see any neighbors when there are leaves on the trees. No lawns. Just mud and weed yards.

My friends thought it was a rather dangerous place for a small woman to live alone.

It turned out to be the ideal place. Half of my neighbors were nurses, state police, or city of Kingston cops, and the other half worked for the highway department. It was very safe, and when snow fell, my street was the first plowed, the most thoroughly plowed, and the most frequently plowed.

I'm finding that kind of advantage here, in my new home. The houses are small, on small lots. Very few have garages. It's definitely a lower middle class blue collar neighborhood.

But...

The fire chief lives across the street. That's got to be handy. A few highway department folks live nearby. In the last storm, this street was one of the first plowed, and after the drifting stopped, a town frontloader came through and removed not only all the snow right up to the curbs, dumping it on some town-owned land down the street, he also cleaned out the plow piles across the end of the driveways. I didn't think anything of it until I ventured out onto the "better" streets, and found snow still halfway into the street lanes and people snowed into their driveways.

Morale of the story - don't judge the liveability of a neighborhood by appearances. It's good to live near the people who work to make life liveable.

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

By the way, although I have worked in white collar jobs and lived in some pretty snooty places, and many of my friends are upper crust ivy league, I freely admit I come from blue collar roots, and many of my attitudes and values are frankly blue collar. And I like it. It's a virtue.
.

3220 Island, vet, etc.

Thursday, January 6, 2011

"There is a principle which is a bar against all information,
which is proof against all arguments
and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance —
that principle is contempt prior to investigation."
-- Herbert Spencer --

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

I've been a bit busy the past few days.

Under my medical plan, I have to get long-term medications through the mail. The doctor writes a prescription for three months' worth, with three more refills. When my bottle of thyroid pills (the only prescription I take) gets down to 14 tablets, I go online and request that they send the next quarter's worth, and they arrive within the week.

I screwed up. I'm down to the last few, and I went online and discovered that there are no more refills. I don't have a doctor in this area yet, and because of confusion over health plan requirements, The Company hasn't got their ducks in a row yet, and I don't know whether I can just select my own doctor. And even if I could, it will take a while to get in to see one as a new patient. My old doctor is willing to send me a perscription for one month's worth, but no more unless I make an appointment for a checkup. So I did, but they can't get me in until February 7. Um, that's further out than one month.

Rats!

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

My old kitchen had 10 drawers, all a pretty good size. The new kitchen has three, one large and two useless tiny ones. What on earth am I going to do with all those utensils and towels and mats and skewers and chopsticks and etc. from those ten drawers?

So I decided I'd find some kind of freestanding something-or-other with drawers, workspace on top, and maybe some more cabinet space. I shopped hard, both locally and online, and found this:
The wood doesn't look as nice in a photo as it does in person. It's warmer looking. It's larger than I wanted, I'd have been happy with just the drawers and one cabinet. But it was less than half the price of all the other possibilities out there, and it's SOLID WOOD! All over. It weighs a ton! I think it's mostly oak (even in the drawers), with an oil finish.

The top is butcher block, and the drop leaf swings up for more work space.
The paper towel holder doubles as a rolling pin.

It came as a kit, about 200 pieces, but I had read the reviews and everyone said it was easy to put together. The only complaint was that the guide holes for the plain wood screws were too small, and the wood was so hard that you had to drill the holes larger and deeper.

I have a drill. No problem.

It took me six hours, but it wasn't at all difficult. And it's sturdy!

Two of the four wheels lock. Once I decide on a permanent spot for it, I'll probably remove the casters. I'd prefer it a few inches lower anyway.

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

Daughter has three cats, two of whom were feral captures, like Jasper, and therefore very shy and easily frightened by strange people and experiences.

This was outside her house this morning:
It's a veterinary office on wheels! It even includes a surgical suite. A lot less trauma for the cats.

This will solve my problem with Jasper, and his freaking out in the carrier, and having seizures in the car.

Now I wonder if the vet will crawl under the bed to visit with him.
.

3219 Flying AH Guide to commenting

Monday, January 3, 2011

"A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject."
-- Sir Winston Churchill --

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

Oh, you've GOT to read this! She absolutely nailed it!
http://overflowingbrain.com/2010/12/28/the-assholes-guide-to-commenting-on-news-stories/
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3218 Warm spell

Sunday, January 2, 2011

“We accept the love we think we deserve.”

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

The green quote above is so very true! If we think we don't deserve, we don't accept. We push away what's offered. If we don't think we are worthy, we are suspicious of love. On the other hand, if we love ourselves, we accept that others can love us, too. There's so much in those eight simple words.

It's difficult to love someone who doesn't believe it can possibly be real.

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

There's one FAIL! and one big WIN! in the video in the previous post. Did you spot them? The foot on the brake is the failure. That's a different word. The two men sharing the sundae is the big win. Do you get why?

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

I shoveled the last of the snow in the driveway this morning. It's 52 F degrees out there, so the driveway should be completely clear by this evening.

I also glued up the house numbers. The builder had stuck some chintzy small small numbers low on a porch post. They were made of nothing more than black plastic tape, were no more than 2 inches high, nonreflective, and not visible from the street, especially at night. Now I've got larger reflective numbers on the garage, between the garage door and the front door. I had a glue that was supposed to work under harsh conditions on difficult materials, but it wanted a minimum of 40 degrees to set, so I was afraid I wouldn't get them mounted until spring.

Now people can find me on the first pass down the street.

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

The woman next door had said it's very dusty here. I haven't noticed much dust in the house, but I am quite literally shocked at how dirty the snow in the front yard is. It's not from gravel on the road - they didn't salt or gravel this street. It's just a black soot-like coating. It think it's blowing in the air, because it's thicker on the windward sides of ridges in the snow.

I'm kinda used to snow being white for a while, even coming from an area where every second house has a wood stove pouring out smoke and ash.

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

If there's one thing I'm good at, it's being Devil's Advocate. I can look at all sides of an argument, think of multiple possibilities and meanings. And I enjoy doing it. It's one reason why I enjoyed my stint as a small claims court mediator so much.

The only difficulty is that people often think that when I do offer other ways to think of or look at something, that I'm expressing my personal opinion of what's going on, even if I preface it with, "Another way to look at it....". It may or may not be my opinion.

Another way it causes problems is that when someone has "done me wrong", I can find all kinds of explanations as to why, and I always choose to believe the most positive. Sometimes it just ain't so. They just plain shat on me for no other reason than meanness, but I keep giving them the benefit of the doubt, keep assigning excuses, keep giving them second chances, and they keep on crapping on me. That's what was going on with First Woman. It took me a long time to accept that I was being used. I guess that's why it's called Devil's Advocate instead of Angel's View.

I have a good example of playing Devil's Advocate. Some people may recognize this example, but it's difficult to disguise it and get the same effect. Sorry if I'm stepping on toes.

Suppose you make and sell doggie cookies. A friend who has bought cookies from you in the past says that she would like to buy some for her child to give to the dog for Christmas, but she can't afford them right now. A few days later, you find that she has purchased a squeaky toy, that might even have cost more than the cookies, for the child to give to the dog. You are hurt, and think the woman was not truthful, and didn't really want any cookies at all. She lied to your face.

The Advocate in me says: She may have been absolutely truthful as far as she went, in that she could afford only one gift for the dog. Cookies or toy. Cookies are a normal everyday thing, and won't last as long as the toy - so the child might see giving cookies to the dog about the same as getting socks from Santa. The gift has to be more special, something new and unique. So she chose the toy, and cannot now afford the cookies TOO.

If that's the case, she didn't lie. She was absolutely truthful; she just didn't tell you the whole story. But - she was under no obligation to do so.

I don't know what the truth is, but the point is that you don't either.

Some people always pick the most positive explanation, and sometimes they get taken advantage of as a consequence. Some people always pick the most negative reading, and those people never trust anyone. The ideal I guess would be to look at all the possibilities and choose the positive until it's obvious that isn't working (First Woman, Roman!) and then accept the negative.

Well, that's not the real ideal. The real ideal would be that if you think someone piddled on your foot, you ask what's going on. But that's not always possible. Some people will think they're being accused of piddling on your foot.

Sigh.

People are so complicated.
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3217 Spree

Saturday, January 1, 2011

"Everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, it's not the end."

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

I don't need any more clothes. But, uh, it's damp windy cold here. I need some warmer pants. I had a warm pair I'd bought from my favorite online store, and I had two $20 gift certificates the store had sent as a reward for past purchases, so I decided to go see if they had any more of those warm slacks in the outlet. $40 would get me possibly two pair. (Their list prices are ridiculous, so I never buy anything except from the outlet, where items might be 70% off - in fact since I wear a petite small, I'll often wait until that's all that's left and the price is at rock bottom, but they don't seem to notice and consider me one of their best customers, and send me reward coupons. Fools.)

Surprise! Today they were taking 50% off everything! Whoop!

The slacks I wanted were in XL only, phooey, but I bought a different pair of slacks, a pair of stretch jeans, a sweater, and a jacket, original total list price over $210, total in the outlet $80, then 50% off for a $40 total. With my $40 in gift coupons, I ended up paying the $10 shipping only.

I didn't need any of it, but with that deal, how could I not?

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

This is from Radiolab and NPR, a beautiful exploration of the varied meanings of common words:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0HfwkArpvU]
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3216 It's all me

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

"Computers make it easier to do a lot of things,
but most of the things they make it easier to do
don't need to be done."
-- Andy Rooney --

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

When I was in therapy in my 30's, Dr. K. said I had (among other things) an omnipotence problem - that I thought that when anything went wrong, anywhere, it was entirely my fault. It was difficult for him to convince me otherwise, because I had so much evidence. There was too much connection for it to all be coincidence. Besides, everyone always blamed me.

I moved down here, hoping for less snow.

Sunday was the first snow of the winter. It was the worst snowstorm in this area in decades.

I am sitting here feeling that it's all my fault.

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

I have the antenna booster, one upstairs and one down, and I'm getting about 40 over-the-air TV channels out of NYC, but there's next to nothing worth watching in the evenings now that this season of "Survivor" and "The Amazing Race" are finished. There's nothing but chintzy talk shows, celebrity gossip shows, and ancient reruns of once-decent shows. It's way worse than the Schenectady schedule that I got at the old house.

That, plus the house getting colder in the evenings, has been sending me to bed by 9 every night, where I've been watching "My Name is Earl" DVDs. I'm working my way through the whole four sets. I love that show! It's 180 degrees off "Big Bang Theory", which I also loved. (Loved, because like all situation comedies, it's starting to repeat itself.)

"Jude the Obscure" is on the night table next to the bed, and I have promised myself I won't get into any other book until I finish that, but I just can't stay awake reading it. I pick it up, read a page and a half, and either fall asleep or think of something else to do, like tape another room for painting. I think I'm avoiding it.
.

3215 Shorthand alerts

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

“All wish to possess knowledge, but few, comparatively speaking, are willing to pay the price.”
-- Roman poet Juvenal --

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

"Mom" means I'm about to be given information, or lectured on some failing of mine.

"Mommy" means I'm on low-level duty.

"MommyMommyMommy" means I'm to swing into full mommyhood and be very supportive.

It's nice to get the alerts. Makes it easier to change to the appropriate mode.
.

3214 Fun

Monday, December 27, 2010

“Our virtues are most frequently but vices disguised.”
-- Roman poet Juvenal --

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

Me, wielding a snow shovel in 30 mph gusts.

A skateboard with a sail.

Not a lot of difference.
.

3213 Drifting Snow

Monday, December 27, 2010

Of all the people in history that have reached 65 years of age,
half of them are living right now.
-- wisegeek.com --

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

I think the snow has stopped falling. Can't tell because the wind is so strong and the air is full of snow.

The north side of my house is a windbreak, so the snow has drifted funny. One-third of my driveway is clear - I can see the blacktop - but the other two-thirds has a three-foot drift. The patio slab in the back is clear, but then the snow is again several feet deep beyond the patio.

I don't think there's much point in trying to clear the snow until the wind calms down.

The front porch, from the front door:

The patio slab, through the back sliding glass door:

Bonus photo, to counteract the effects of the above photos - Housewarming/birthday flowers I got in late October from a male admirer:

I feel sorry for people who have to go to work today. The roads aren't clear, and the trains and buses aren't running. There are people who have been sitting for hours on stuck subway trains. There's a "snow emergency" of course, where only emergency driving is allowed, but I remember that when I worked for The Company, there was no such thing as snow emergencies. You were expected to be in the office no matter what. If you decided not to go in, you had to use a vacation or personal business day.

Some people can't afford that luxury.
.

3212 Snow, Curry, ATM, etc.

Sunday, December 26, 2010

"Faith means not wanting to know what is true."
-- Friedrich Nietzsche --

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

I shoveled my driveway and the kid's driveway about an hour ago. There was about five inches on the ground, and it was fairly easy to push to the sides with the plastic plowing shovel. My plan was to shovel about every five inches or so, and that way I'd avoid deep heavy lifting.

Yeah. Sure. I just looked out the door, and there's another five already, and the wind is blowing it so hard I can't see across the street. I think maybe there's no point in clearing now. It'll all just blow back. 12-18" predicted.

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

Some people can't eat or drink certain things without it coming out on their skin. Ex#2 insisted on drinking scotch (in college, scotch was cool, and he never managed to get past that), and after drinking scotch he literally stank for two days. Jay got an odd odor if he overindulged in diet Coke. I can't drink wine for the same reason. Certain spices make my facial oils smell strong.

Well, a few days ago some doctor show on TV was talking about various spices and their beneficial effects on body processes. They said curry contained spices with several good effects on the immune system, blood pressure, cholesterol, etc., and recommended sprinkling it on everything, like salt and pepper. So I thought I'd try it.

It IS good. I like it on yams, potatoes, meat, salad, in sandwiches. But I can't stand the smell of my face. Or urine. Or "bubbles". Jasper even left the bed last night. Tsk.

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

Back on 6/16/09 I mentioned in this journal that I'd had bad numbers on my bone density test, and that the doctor had recommended a different calcium supplement. I decided (I, not the doctor) that it was the Prilosec. I'd been taking it daily for years, and it's my theory that the reduction in stomach acid was interfering with breaking down the calcium. So I quit taking the Prilosec. It turned out I didn't seem to need it anymore, probably because I'd lost weight and changed my diet.

In a 12/3/10 post I predicted class action suits, people who had been taking an acid inhibitor and ended up with broken legs and hips.

Well, guess what? In the past few days there have been multiple news stories about "the connection between broken hips and Nexium, Prilosec, and other acid inhibitors." Nothing yet about lawsuits, but I'm taking bets....

No kidding.

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

All my operating money is still in the Credit Union up by the old house. They had told me that I could use any NYCE ATM in this area to get cash with no charge. I went online and looked for NYCE ATMs near here. One was at a Bank of America just down from the post office. Note- it's the only BOA in the area.

I went there Friday to get some cash.

First off, there was no "going into the bank". They had a drive-up window, and a walk-up on the other side where you had to stand in the wind and push things through a sliding drawer and talk into a microphone to a person behind bullet-proof glass. What? Are they afraid of bank robbers or something?

So I went to the drive-up ATM, and got $200 out, and they charged me $3 for the transaction! What? If I have a NYCE card, and it's a NYCE ATM, what happened to "free"?

Imma haffta call someone.
.

3211 Snow, Paint, Drafts, etc.

Sunday, December 26, 2010

"America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence
without civilization in between."
-- Oscar Wilde --

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

It's snowing. The prediction is 10 to 16 inches, with 30-50 mph wind gusts. I went early this morning to Home Depot to buy show snovels (that's not a typo - that's how I say it. I've never been able to say "show snovel". Oops. See? I can say each word separately, but not together.) I bought a lightweight metal one for lifting and throwing snow, and a heavier plastic one for pushing and plowing snow. I also bought 40 pounds of "pet friendly" ice killer. The driveway slopes precipitously and I can just see Hal sliding out of the garage, down the drive, and right into the cars parked across the street. Oops.

I'm starting to love the local Home Depot. There are plenty of orange-vested folks in the aisles, and they are always more than willing to help. I've never spent more than a few seconds being confused or lost. This morning they were bringing out flat after flat of shovels and salt, and handing them out right off the flats, and directing heavy customer traffic efficiently into and out of the seasonal aisle. A guy even went out with me to help get the bags of ice killer and shovels into my car, and was a bit startled that two show snovels barely fit into Hal's back seat. Hal isn't very wide. We had to wiggle the shovels around and angle them upward.

Daughter and Hercules went to Pennsylvania on Friday and won't be home until tomorrow or Tuesday, so I'm in charge of their cats, and, I guess, making sure they can get into the driveway when they get home. The neighbors have told me that I don't have to worry about anything - everybody digs everybody else out.

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

I painted most of the downstairs hall and one wall in the kitchen Friday and yesterday. I love the paint. It's Behr Premium Plus "Silky Bamboo" UL180-15. On the card it looks like a pale heavy cream, but on the walls it changes dramatically depending on the light. In the morning, in the kitchen, where the daylight hits it's a cream with a yellow tone, and on the same wall at the other end, where the light isn't direct, it morphs into a rosy peach sand. In the evening, that wall gets a faint greenish tone. The hall walls range from sunny yellow to rosy peach sand. It also changes depending on whether you're looking directly at it, or at an angle. I love it!

The plan was to first paint walls where heavy furniture would be going, so in theory the kitchen and halls would be last. But I have a huge desk with credenza arriving in the next week or two, and it will go along that long wall in the kitchen.

The desk in the old house is an enormous wooden manager's desk from The Company, purchased by Jay at an employee surplus sale perhaps twenty-five years ago. It's very nice, but it's huge, and provides relatively little storage for the amount of floor space it takes up. Not to mention the weight. So it won't be moving down here. I found the new desk online, and I just so happen to have several bookcases that (I hope) will match it perfectly.

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

While standing on the ladder taping the hall yesterday, I noticed the smoke detector just above my head. The center button said "Hold to test / Press to quiet" or something like that. Considering the way everything else in the house was installed, I figured it might be a good idea to test it.

Man! It works! In spades! Every detector in the house went off (and there are many), some screeched, some whooped, some wailed, and a woman's voice upstairs yelled "Fire! Fire!" I couldn't get them to shut up. I kept pressing the button, and they just kept going. They finally quit. If I ever decide to get a burglar alarm, to heck with hooking it up to "central". I'll just have them wire it into the smoke alarm.

(Daughter said not to bother with a burglar alarm system. Back in her electrician days, she worked for an alarm system company. She says they are very easy to circumvent, they won't even slow down anyone who knows what they're doing, and even if they go off, the security people are too late to save anything anyway.)

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I have cut down the drafts and heat loss in the house considerably with a cheap, simple, safe, quick fix. I put strips of painting tape over all the unused electrical sockets on outside walls. Pow. It's ugly as sin, but it works.

I also found out why The Man thought the house was warm. On the floor, the thermometer registers 66 degrees. At counter height, it says 73. At the top of my tall stepladder, it says 75. The Man is more than a foot taller than I. No damn wonder he was warm while I was cold.

The old house had cathedral ceilings in the kitchen, dining room, and living room. The house was fairly tight, but I long ago discovered I needed a fan on the floor aimed up in the winter to circulate the heat down from the ceiling. Next trip to a department store, I'll try to find a small fan for here.

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Well, the snow is starting to build up. I plan to shovel every three inches or so, try to keep ahead of it, so excuse me while I go eat some ice cream to keep my strength up.
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3210 Magnetic Fluid Christmas Tree

Saturday, December 25, 2010

“No one ever became extremely wicked suddenly.”
-- Roman poet Juvenal --

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This is beautiful:


If you're wondering how it's done, these clips explain it:



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3209 The social contract is breaking down.

Friday, December 24, 2010

“Never does nature say one thing and wisdom another.”
-- Roman poet Juvenal --

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Anyone who owns a TV has seen the video clip of the guy falling during a performance of the Spiderman Broadway play - over and over and over. Not once has anyone mentioned that the video shouldn't exist.

It was filmed by a guy in the audience, with a cell phone, I believe.

Every ticket, every receipt, posters as you enter, all say that no still, audio, or video recording is allowed. Period. They are very definite about it, always. When I went to the BNL concert, I purposely left my camera home. (My cell phone will take photos, but I don't think I can get them off the phone, so there's no point.) I know that in some venues in the past, they used to take cameras away from you.

At the BNL concert, not only was every fifth person taping the show, there was one very annoying guy standing throughout the show with his belly pressed against the apron and his camera (a bright distracting spot) held at forehead level. He was obvious to everyone, even the guys on the stage, and yet no one said boo. ...And I had left my camera at home.

So why do they say "not allowed", and then allow it?

Are we really allowed to do anything we want, regardless of the rules?

It's beginning to look like the answer is "Yes".

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I used to obey speed limits strictly, but the past few years, doing the speed limit on the highways will get you run over, cut off, and flipped off. I have been pretty much forced to go as fast as the rest of the traffic, and I don't like it.

But I stopped feeling guilty about it when I heard two different state cops say that they are suspicious of drivers doing the speed limit. They wonder what they're hiding, and figure that's enough cause to pull them over.

Think about that. We've gone from "speeding is cause for arrest" to "obeying the law is cause for arrest". "No recording allowed, unless you happen to feel like it". "The intellectual and physical product of others is yours free if you can figure out a way to download it free."

Where are we headed with all this? At what point between "follow the rules" and "your car is mine if I can hotwire it" is the line drawn?
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3208 Christmas card

Friday, December 24, 2010

“Censure acquits the raven, but pursues the dove.”
-- Roman poet Juvenal --

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This is from the Vancouver Aquarium. I hope they won't mind my using it as my Christmas card.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=A2Jp5VjDglY]
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3207 Wandering around the interwebs

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

“It is not easy for men to rise whose qualities are thwarted by poverty.”
-- Roman poet Juvenal --

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The above green quote was true a few thousand years ago, and it's true today. We like to think that anyone with ambition and drive can succeed, but it's not necessarily true. You need luck, too. When you start out with responsibilities (aging or ill parents, dependent siblings --- they don't have to be "your choice or fault") you often have to take the one, two, or three concurrent jobs that pay enough to support them. And those jobs don't usually allow time for luxuries like education, training, interviews, or time to develop your own business, and don't pay enough to do anything but those jobs. Sometimes the materials to succeed are luxuries.

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This is funny: http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/2010/12/star-wars-next-generation.html. The cakes are ho-hum, but the writeup, a synopsis of the story, is hilarious. The last line before "The End" cracked me up. (Do not skip ahead.)

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This is another that developed in a fascinating way, and the last line cracked me up. http://artoftrolling.memebase.com/2010/12/13/text-troll-i-am-but-a-man/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+AOT+%28Art+of+Trolling%29&utm_content=Google+Reader. Again, do not skip ahead.

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A court in Montana couldn't find anyone to sit on a jury for a criminal trial involving possession of a few ounces of non-medical marijuana. Not only was no one impartial, they all said they wouldn't convict, period. Wall Street Journal law blog story ("On the Great Montana Marijuana Mutiny") at http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2010/12/22/on-the-great-montana-marijuana-mutiny/....

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I have been so cold here that I have decided to get my hair cut so that I can wear warm knit or wool hats. Pixiesh. The kind of thing where when I take the hat off I can just fluff it with my fingers. Having made the decision, now I have to work up the courage to go do it.

I've had my hair cut professionally only three times in my life, and all three left me in tears for months afterward. I'm hoping I'm over that kind of reaction now. (Or that hairdressers have gotten better.)

This is sort of what I want, including the longish front, and I think my hair can do it:
My hair is fine and thin (now - in my youth it was thick and curly), and I think maybe it'll work.

The Man won't be happy, but hey, it's not his hair. Besides, he shaves his head. And if Piper says anything at all, I'll smack him.
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3206 Thermostat lies

Monday, December 20, 2010

“If a cluttered desk is the sign of a cluttered mind, what is the significance of a clean desk?"
-- Laurence J. Peter --

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I keep saying I'm freezing in this house. The insulation is crap. They didn't insulate around the heat runs that go through exterior walls, so when the heat isn't on, cold air blows out the vents. There's a steady cold draft coming out of every electrical whatchmacallit on an external wall. The walls themselves are cold. The downstairs floor (the slab) is icy.

The thermostat says it's 72 in here.

Today I remembered that I have a Brookstone clock that shows temperature, time, GMT time, and has a timer, depending on which side of the cube is up. I had it sitting on "date & time". I turned it over to temperature. It said 63.

The freakin' thermostat lies!

Some people would be comfortable at 63. I'm not. Keep in mind that I'm also comfortable at 95 degrees, as long as it's not too humid to breathe. Different people have different comfort ranges.

I'm sitting here in a sweater over a turtle neck, with a knit shawl over that, knit pants over lycra pants, socks, and plush-lined ankle boots, and I'm FREEZING! My body is actually shivering, and I've got that heavy feverish feeling. I just can't do cold, especially cold drafts.

My nose and hands are freezing. It's silly to wear a ski mask and gloves in the house. This is like when I visited Ex#2's parents' farmhouse, and got chilblains on my cheeks and shins that cracked open and bled. This is ridiculous. I'm going to have to get someone in to figure out what to do, and do it.

When I'm so cold, I'm not interested in doing any work. I have to work hard to not climb back in bed. I'm almost out of food and cat food, but I have no interest in going out into that cold to get any.
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3205 Solstice and lunar eclispe

Monday, December 20, 2010

"The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure
and the intelligent are full of doubt."
-- Bertrand Russell --

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Exceptional conjunction tonight - solstice, and a full lunar eclipse. The eclipse begins tonight (well, Tuesday morning) at 1:33 am EST ( or Monday, Dec. 20th, at 10:33 pm PST).

Totality commences at 02:41 am EST and lasts for 72 minutes.

[Thanks to Barushka for the alert.]
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3204 Naturally beautiful

Sunday, December 19, 2010

"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge."
-- Charles Darwin --

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I'll tell you a secret. You can apply pancake makeup, eyebrow pencil, eyeliner, mascara, rouge, eye shadow, false eyelashes, concealer, highlighter, the whole smash, and most heterosexual men won't realize you're wearing makeup as long as you follow three rules:

1. Never let him see you applying it,
2. Don't overdo it, and most important, the real secret,
   
3. Don't wear lipstick!

Most men define "makeup" as "lipstick". If you don't wear lipstick, he'll think you are naturally beautiful.

I've actually had men tell me they're glad I "never wear makeup". (Huh? When I'm going out, other than like to the store, I most certainly always do.) Questioned, they say, "Well, you don't have any lipstick on."

It wears off, guys....

I had one friend tell me his new girlfriend never wears makeup, and he's so happy about that, "Just like my Mom." And then we met her. Her base was so thick it was all over the neckline of her sweater. Her eyeliner had sweated below her eyes. Her cheeks were clownish. But, she wasn't wearing any lipstick.
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3203 I am punished

Sunday, December 19, 2010

"Idleness is not doing nothing. Idleness is being free to do anything."
-- Floyd Dell --

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The master bedroom has been sitting 1/3 painted for almost three weeks. I had chosen a powdery grayed lilac, but where three walls met at the end of the room, where I had started painting, the walls facing each other seemed to intensify the color, and it was looking more like violent violet.

I wasn't sure what to do. Continue and hope it cooled over time (the living room softened after three weeks, so why not?), stop and start over with another color, what?

Yesterday late afternoon I decided to finish the room, and I did. The color does look softer on the longer walls, but I'm still not thrilled with it.

By the time I finished I was having trouble standing straight. My back was killing me. But I knew that if I stopped, I'd have to clean all the tools before I could start again today, so I just kept going. Stubborn. I refused to let my back dictate to me.

I went to bed at 10:30 pm, on the firmer, back friendlier mattress in bedroom 2. At about 1 am I woke with my face in a crossword puzzle, and my back and lower abdomen in great pain. It felt like I had to go to the bathroom, both bladder and bowel yelling "Immediately!" I tried, but there was nothing. For the next half-hour it was back and forth from the bed to the bathroom. I couldn't find a comfortable position in the bed. My whole middle hurt so bad, front and back. My bladder and bowel kept screaming NOW! NOW!, but there was nothing. I gave up trying to lie down and I was sitting on the john trying to read a book (sitting was more comfortable than lying anyway) when the nausea hit. For that one, at least, my body wasn't fooling. I threw up my entire late dinner, which is unusual because I'd eaten some five hours before, and I have very fast digestion. There shouldn't have been anything in my stomach.

It was complaining nerves in my spine, of course. I knew that, but it doesn't make it any easier to cope with. The nerve was giving false bladder/bowel full readings, and my stomach was apparently on strike without nerve instructions.

I was lying there wishing I'd brought the heating pad from the old house, and wishing I had some aspirin. Then I remembered I'd bought a small bottle of Excedrin extra strength at a rest area on the last trip. I found it, took two, and within 15 minutes everything was all better.

Next time I know I should take an anti-inflammatory at the first sign of pain.

Yeah, "next time"! I've known that almost all my life, and I still ignore the warnings.

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Actually, it's not ignoring or stubbornness, or that male thing of toughing it out. It's just that my mind doesn't work in certain situations, mainly like when I'm not well. When I have pain, it's like my reasoning powers disconnect.

When other people get sick, I always give them what they need. "Here, take this." But me? I can be hacking my throat raw, and it won't occur to me to take a cough suppressant. My head can be throbbing, and I don't think of aspirin. I can be dumping fluids from both ends and it won't occur to me to take anything to slow it down, or to drink more fluids to replace what I'm losing.

The only thing I ever think of for myself is the heating pad. When I'm sick, all I want is my heating pad.

I'm so proud of myself for having thought of aspirin last night.
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