3320 A cure for poverty?

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.
-- Archilochus --

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Low income families eat high fat, high sugar foods because they're cheaper than fresh, more healthy foods. A lot cheaper.

So some lawmakers have come up with a solution - a way to wean people off the bad stuff and force people to eat healthier foods. They want to tax the hell out of fast foods, sodas, junk food. Make them so expensive that poor people can't afford to eat bad stuff, can't take that choice as the easy way to save money. Save the state lots of money in health care costs. One guy on the news this morning was actually comparing it to the war on tobacco - that ridiculous taxes got people to quit when they couldn't afford it any more.

Uh, I don't understand.

Isn't the theory that they can't afford the healthy stuff, so that's why they eat the bad stuff? No to mention that when you have two jobs, there isn't a lot of time for shopping, chopping, and cooking. So the solution is to ensure that they can't afford any food? If it works like the tobacco thing, will they quit eating?

Actually, I suspect the lawmakers don't understand.

(Although if all the low income families starve to death, yeah, I guess that would save on medical costs.... Maybe this is the new "War on Poverty".)
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3319 I give up

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Garrison Keillor says he speaks Danish well enough to get into trouble,
but not well enough to get out of it.

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This is longish, but do read it.
It may be important to you or someone you know.

I saw this notice when I went to Blogger today:

Do more with your photos
Your blog's photos have their
own album in Picasa Web Albums.
Take a look.

So I went to Picasa to look.

I was faced with the usual "gotta check the box that you read the Terms and Conditions". I've worked with lawyers long enough to know that you DO read the legal stuff or suffer the consequences, but Picasa didn't make it easy. The terms and conditions were in a small unexpandable box, and each paragraph was one very long line, so you had to scroll right and left forever, as well as down.

Most people would shrug, skip it, and check the box. I copied the damn thing to the notepad, and read it, because with that extreme format, I figure they're hiding something.

I found this little gem:

11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. This license is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services. [Emphasis mine.]

11.2 You agree that this license includes a right for Google to make such Content available to other companies, organizations or individuals with whom Google has relationships for the provision of syndicated services, and to use such Content in connection with the provision of those services.

That's the bit that got me banned from Facebook for life when I objected to Facebook's retaining my photos for their own use even after I had deleted them from my account. That word "irrevocable" means that once posting the photos, you can never regain control of them. Note, by the way, that paragraph 11.2 directly contradicts the last sentence of paragraph 11.1. That means that advertisers with relationships with Google can use your photos on ads offering, say, STD cures, and you have no say.

Sigh.

Oh, yeah, every photo that ever appeared on my blog is out there. I know that putting them on my blog I "gave" them to the internet, but I didn't give up my rights to control them if I so chose. I still retained the right to control --- until Google/Blogger/Picasa took it away.

I can't make the albums out there private. I did check the box to not give out the link, but I don't know what that means. Let me know if you suddenly can't see photos on entries. *I* can still see them, but I don't know if anyone else can. Please check out the immediately preceding post. Is the shirt dress still there?
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3318 Shirt Dress

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

I apologize for all my shortcomings.
-- Rhett Butler --

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I used to do this with Jay's older shirts on those lazy at-home days. He loved it.
This doesn't show it, but you cross the sleeves in back before bringing them forward.
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3317 What happened to tuna?

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Most men ... were competent in groups that mimicked the playground,
incompetent in groups that mimicked the family;
that was why all-male committees ran the most smoothly.
-- Jane Smiley, Moo --

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I've always bought solid white tuna in water. I've noticed over the past twenty years that it has been gradually changing - getting darker and less solid. It used to be white and came out of the can solid, like a tuna steak. You practically had to slice it to break it up. Now it looks a lot more like chunk light used to.

If this is what solid white looks like now, I'd hate to see what the stuff labeled chunk light looks like - cat food?

Has the tuna changed?

Or are we consumers now getting second best, they just moved the labels down the line, and the good stuff is going somewhere else?
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3316 I am my own person

Sunday, July 24, 2011

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I think I'll color it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The custom makes it nearly impossible to locate old female friends from high school and college. I have to know who their new owners are.
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3315 Black Metal Pad Thai

Friday, July 22, 2011

Leave the stage while the audience is still clapping.

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Like Pad Thai? Here's how to make it. This is the Vegan Black Metal Chef. He's a riot. A Kiss escapee with the most wonderful knives. The contrast between what he is - and what he's doing - and how he's doing it - and what he's doing it with - is a riot.

[http://www.youtube.com/user/VeganBlackMetalChef#p/a/u/2/CeZlih4DDNg]
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3314 Ugly stuff - avert your eyes and skip this one.

Friday, July 22, 2011

Definition: Punker - Rebel without a clue, with a high school art project hairdo.

(I suspect there's a more current term than "punker" for them,
but the effect is still the same. You know, like the guys with the rainbow Mohawks?)

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I'd mentioned that I can't wear tight jeans, that I get "bumps" on my bottom from them. Well, I also get bumps in front on the mons, around the anus, or in the creases of the groin if I wear anything that is both tight and that rubs there. (But not on the labia.)

The ones on my bottom seem to resolve quickly without getting nasty. The bump comes, complains, then goes away. The others don't.

The bad ones start out as a hard pea under the skin. The bump gets bigger. Then it gets red over the bump, and it gets sensitive. Then it gets dark gray over the bump. Then a black dot appears. The lump continues to grow until the skin seems very tight, there's no more room for it, and it hurts like hell. Then two or three weeks or so since it first started, it either forms a head under or next to the black dot, which eventually bursts and drains, or it drains through the black dot without forming a head, or, and these are the worst, it forms a tunnel deep under the skin, to the outside, and drains an inch or more from the center of the bump. The latter take forever to resolve. The drainage is almost all dark blood, with a little white pus. After two days of draining, there will be a hard plug of white cheesy stuff, and then it's done. They all usually leave a black scar spot when they're gone.

Many doctors, GPs and GYNs, and one dermatologist, have seen them. I've had many diagnoses, been told they are ingrown hairs, infected sweat glands, infected oil glands, rectal tears, my cleanliness and sexual habits have been called into question, everything. Two doctors have cultured the contents, looking for the right antibiotic, and surprise, there IS *NO* BACTERIA involved. It seems to be an immunological overreaction to something, but no one was sure what. In those few cases I had gone to the doctor when it was so painful I couldn't stand it, and about when the doctor decided to lance it after taking it down with antibiotics, by then it had resolved itself and gone away.

History:
First one. Never mind how I ended up on a horse with flopping stirrups at 24, long story, anyway the horse ran away with me and the bouncing tore up my bottom pretty well. I got a bump the size of a softball between the nether cheeks, so large and hard I couldn't close my legs. The doctor called it a perirectal abscess, and put me on antibiotics, planning to lance it once the infection was taken down a bit. But it soon burst on its own, and immediately healed.

Over the next ten years I had small ones all around that area, about one a year, painful for two to ten days, then burst and/or cleared up. (I had one smack between the vagina and anus when I gave birth to Daughter. That's probably how I avoided the "prophylactic" episiotomy everyone automatically got in those days. Doctor was afraid to cut into it.) I blamed them on leftover tears from that damned horse.

Then they moved. In my late 30s and 40s I got them mostly in the crease at the top of the leg. Smaller ones, not so painful, about one every two years.

In my 50s they moved again. Now I get them on the mons, the fluffy part, right in front, maybe one every ten months or so. The bumps get about the size of a large marble (what we used to call a shooter). They aren't very nasty, but they look bad. Try entertaining a man with a bandaid on your mons. I still get told "ingrown hair", "big pimple", and "sweat gland".

On "The Doctors" today, they had a woman who had a similar thing going on in her armpits. They said the name of the condition, but I wasn't really watching and missed it. It took me a while of roundabout searches on the internet, but I found it.

Hidradenitis Suppurativa.

It's a real thing, and the descriptions match mine perfectly! There's a lot out there on it, and as with so much, not all accounts agree. I think some sites are mixing these things up with ordinary boils (caused by a strep bacteria), lumping them altogether in the same pot. This stuff is NOT the same as a boil. It acts differently. And it's not a bacteria thing.

It's described almost everywhere as rare. HA! I'll bet it's not so rare - just that nobody recognizes it! So cases don't get reported or counted.

A few sites mention a theory that high androgens contribute. I am high androgen. High enough that back in the 60s, birth control pills not only didn't work on me, they leveled me out so that I was more likely to get pregnant.

Gee, it's nice to have a name for it, even if there's no cure. Now I can say to a man, "oh, that? That's nothing. Just hidradenitis suppurativa. Not even contageous."
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3313 Compendium

Thursday, July 21, 2011

There are no stupid questions, just stupid people.
-- South Park --

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I have decided not to go upriver today. 100 degrees is the prediction there for today and tomorrow, and there's an ozone alert. The A/C in the old house is totally inadequate. Bleck.

Here's a bunch of stuff I found wandering around and want to save:

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Someday I absolutely want to try this:
The pages are just folded, no tears or cuts.

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

I'd like to try this, too. I have a dremel....

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The Orlando police have been arresting people for feeding the hungry. This guy is the lone police supporter at a protest rally. It's very good.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pJuedzzLXE&feature=player_embedded]

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This is not exactly what I want to do with the stairs in my new house - I want to paint sort of like Moroccan mosaic tile designs on the risers and varnish (poly) the treads. But this is inspiration:
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This is why I didn't change my name (for the third time!) when I married Jay:

Why do men think it's so easy for women to change their name when they marry? And why should she, anyway? It smacks of a transfer of ownership, literally a title transfer.

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And finally:
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3312 Meetup - anger!

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

It matters not what you call me, but what I answer to.
-- African Proverb --

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If "disgruntled" is bad, then "gruntled" should be good, right? So why does it sound so bad?

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

So. Tonight is the first dinner I scheduled under Meetup. The way it works is that you post an activity, and then members can RSVP.

I set the limit at 8 people, and closed RSVPs at 7 pm on Tuesday. As of Tuesday 7 pm, I had 9 people signed up, including me. That's not supposed to happen, to end up over count, but one person RSVP'd for herself, and then instead of checking the box for bringing a guest, so the guest could be counted in the total, she just added the guest as a comment. Sheesh. Idiot.

Anyway, 9 people were signed up at 7 pm Tuesday. Now I've got 2. Seven cancellations yesterday and today - the latest at 4 pm today. Gee, thanks for the notice. "Something came up" being the common excuse.

Yes, I am thoroughly absolutely utterly pissed. Disgruntled.

If they had cancelled BEFORE the RSVP cutoff, maybe others who DID want to go might have signed up. Talk about me-ism. Entitlement. "I'll reserve a space so nobody else can have it, just in case I decide to make the effort." I can't believe these people can't make plans two days in advance.

There's ONE other person left now. And if she doesn't show up I'll spit nails. Actually, I'd like to cancel, but I figure it's too late now. Thanks a hell of a lot, 4 pm person.

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

6:50 pm Update: The last person cancelled at 6 pm, after I sent her a note asking if she was still coming. She "forgot". (Um, hey, Meetup sends reminders.)

It's not something I did, honest. I can't feel responsible in any way. All the information was in the event posting, Meetup sent automatic reminders, I sent out no broadcast notes so it's unlikely I offended anyone, and I didn't do like a lot of organizers and change the details every other day.

I don't understand.
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3311 Snork.

Monday, July 18, 2011

Evans(?), in a letter to the Kingston Daily Freeman: There is no necessary connection between the desire to lead and the ability to lead.... Leadership is more likely to be assumed by the aggressive than by the able and those who scramble to the top are more often motivated by their own inner torments than by any demand for their guidance.

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From http://www.fun1067.com/?page=1&cat=4 :

Posted Monday, July 18th, 2011
BORGATA CASINO NAILED FOR UNDERAGE GAMBLERS
29 suspected underage gamblers have been rounded up at the Borgata in Atlantic City, and casino regulators have seized more than $2,600 in cash. The New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement announced today that the gamblers were rounded up recently, and the money was taken as a forfeiture. The money will be given to special state programs that benefit from gaming. The decision was approved earlier this month, and announced today.

Let's see, 29 gamblers, $2,600, that's $90 each. Not exactly high rollers. That next to last sentence, "given to special state programs that benefit from gambling", cracked me up! Anyone want to take a guess as to what kind of programs? I'm stumped.

Only in New Jersey. You know, in any other state the money would be given to programs like Gamblers Anonymous.

Looked a little further. Other news outlets have now picked up the story (and they are now all using the same wording, different from the above wording), and they say:

The money will be split between state-funded programs to help senior citizens with prescription medication and transportation, and programs to help compulsive gamblers.

Oh. Ohhhhkaaaaaayyy. I wonder what the truth is.

When I see the exact same wording in every place I look, I don't believe it any more. Once upon a time, "reporters" did their own "reporting", and you could get different views of the same story, the truth being usually somewhere in the middle. Now, everyone copies the same story word for word, and you have to wonder if there was a slant, bias, agenda, of the original writer, and what it was. No way to know. Doesn't matter so much with this story (I suspect it was just a poor choice of words in the first rendition), but it's important for other matters.

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

I have already eaten six fair-sized tomatoes from my tiny potted plant - two ripe and four as fried green. There are about 24 more tomatoes on it in various stages of development.

I'm getting anxious about the bell peppers. There are 14 peppers, growing slowly larger, but I don't think the largest is full sized yet. I want one now!

It's been putting out more flowers, but the flowers just drop off. It's not setting more peppers. I did some research, and it turns out that in high heat and/or high humidity, pepper pollen gets gummy and won't fertilize the flowers. Duh. So I hope there'll be a second crop later, when it gets cooler.
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3310 Boozy yogurt

Monday, July 18, 2011

"Freedom" is the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action.
"License" is a freedom that is used with or allows irresponsibility, or disregard for rules of personal conduct.
Too many people confuse the two.
-- Silk --

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I had always bought Dannon fat-free yogurt, either the coffee flavor or plain. I was never concerned about refrigeration. After all, it has live cultures, and think about how you make it, if you make it at home. Lack of refrigeration would simply allow it to get thicker, until the cultures run out of milk sugars and stop multiplying. I prefer the taste and texture at room temperature. And, in fact, I never had any problem leaving them out for days.

Lately I've been getting the Chobani non-fat Greek, live cultures, in plain, honey, or blueberry.

Man, you can't leave that stuff out on the counter, not even for a few hours. The foil cap bulges, and it gets a definite odor of alcohol. I got a little drunk on the honey yogurt this morning. It was like milky mead.

I wonder why the difference from Dannon? Is there yeast contamination in the Chobani?

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

This is cool.
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I have two a/c systems, one for upstairs and one for down. I guess this is supposed to make the total more efficient. The compressors are out back, just on the other side of the wall I'm sitting near. There's a definite disadvantge to two. When they're both running, they go in and out of phase. So I hear "AHH-rooommmmm, AHH-rooommmmm, AHH-rooommmmm, AHH-rooommmmm, ...." (When only one is running I hear nothing.)

Very annoying.

3309 Amazing!

Saturday, July 17, 2011

Ted Kennedy, of his friend Barry Goldwater: [He] had one motto. It was "Ready! Shoot! Aim!"

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This video is absolutely amazing. I kept wishing I could slow it down. We sometimes forget that there's so much more to the world than what we see through our windshields.

Quoting from the uploader's description: "A short tribute to the Planet Earth and the the people that inhabit it. Edited by GrahamboProductions. Song: Baba Yetu by Christopher Tin. Most clips are from the BBC series' Planet Earth and Human Planet. I do not have the rights to any of this content, including the song, and am not associated with BBC, Tin Works Publishing, or any of their affiliates." ...So I guess you'd better watch it quickly. It may not be on YouTube much longer.

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3308 It takes time

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Follow the man who seeks the truth; avoid the man who thinks he's found it.

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I was thinking about Friday, so few bags of garbage. What took so long?

Shredding. I spent more than two hours, in half-hour shots because of the shredder overheating, shredding paper. I filled three large white garbage bags with tiny paper diamonds, pressed down tight.

Medical films. CT scans, mammograms, x-rays, ultrasounds, MRIs, a stack of old-fashioned actual films over 10 inches high. All except my mammos and one chest x-ray, and one x-ray of a cat, were Jay's.

I couldn't bring myself to throw any of them out. Just leafing through and figuring out what they were brought back so many memories.

You know, I think Jay was accident-prone, or something. Medical problem-prone, maybe. It's almost like his time was up but he kept surviving anyway, until Fate decided to bring in the big guns.

The brain cancer overshadowed everything else, and I'd forgotten.

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

A few months before I first met him, he'd been working in Texas, and The Company transferred him to Poughkeepsie, NY. He had been dating C, I believe it had been for almost a year, and when he got the transfer, they decided to hurry up and get married.

In an old box from that time, I found the results from some kind of church premarital counseling questionnaire, showing the answers from both parties. It asked questions like "Are you sure this is the person you want to spend the rest of your life with?" She answered "Yes". He answered "No". "Does your partner have any habits or attitudes that you think might cause major relationship problems?" She answered "No". He answered "Yes". And so on for four pages. It was really bad. I know they both had to be aware of the other's (his) answers, but I'll bet real money that they never discussed them. I don't understand why no one took him aside and cautioned him. I mean, what else was the purpose of those questions? Why did no one stop him? I know him well enough to know that he probably felt committed and couldn't back out, and this was his attempt to say "Stop me!" but no one listened.

At the rehearsal dinner, he had an attack, turned white, couldn't breathe, passed out, and was rushed to the hospital. C and the guests thought it was a heart attack, but the doctors said it was a severe panic attack. I'm amazed that no one thought about that and talked with him.

So they got married. He told me that C "was convinced" that it really was a heart attack but that people lied to her, so she used that as an excuse to avoid sex, and especially not to have children. Actually, she hated children, and sex was a bother, so it suited her to believe that.

While he was in the hospital with the panic attack, they discovered that his cholesterol and blood pressure were both through the roof, so he started taking the heavy duty meds for that (which he continued to take for the next fifteen years, with the every-six-months tests for liver function, etc.)

Maybe two years after the wedding, his mother died, and he managed to turn his ankle at the funeral, tearing ligaments and tendons. I found the X-rays from that. I remember that he was on crutches for a very long time, and wouldn't let us bring him lunch from the cafeteria, he insisted on going with us. It was a good half mile to the cafeteria.

I found the x-rays for the broken wrist he had about two years later. Then there was the x-rays of his foot. Never did figure out what was wrong, but it was painful. Maybe bone spurs.

Then shortly after we were married, there was the automobile accident. Head-on. Cracked sternum and split ribs.

About a year later his back went out. Ruptured disk. Surgery to remove disk and immobilize the spot.

And then a year later, the seizure, brain tumor, cancer.

It's like Fate had been preparing him - "Get more life insurance!"

When he started chemo, they took him off the BP and cholesterol medications, because his liver would have enough to handle, didn't need more stress. Surprise - his BP and cholesterol were fine. I wonder how long he'd been taking liver-destroying meds that he didn't need.

It's interesting that he died of organ failure, not cancer.
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3307 Emerging Pattern

Sunday, July 17, 2011

It isn’t how you start that matters, it’s how you finish.

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From Shoebox.com: "In the latest gambit in the debt limit talks, the GOP has figured out a way to make Obama take all of the blame for keeping interest rates down, paying Social Security recipients on time, and continuing to pay soldiers. No, wait. That wouldn’t be blame, that would be credit. We’re so confused."

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Today's Sunday Morning is described as a "special edition". IT'S A RERUN! Oh come on! Special? (Yeah, I know, it's "special" because it's all about animals, and the tag is left over from the original airing, but still, I didn't know that when they piqued my interest....)

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I have established a pattern for upriver.

I arrive early evening. Last Thursday the drive took me 3.5 hours because there was an accident on the Garden State Parkway.

The next day I spend the whole day sorting and throwing things out, into the Hunk's trailer for him to take to the dump for me. This past trip I tossed six large black garbage bags, plus a dozen or so tape and floppy disk storage containers, and outdated programming books in there. I spent the entire day on the den. It's not a large room, it's the third bedroom, but that's the room in which, after Jay died, I found seven computers and a huge laser printer that I didn't even know existed. The room also contains every important piece of paper that ever entered the house. And no longer important paper. And never was important.

That's how cluttered that room was. Jay never ever threw anything out. Someday he might be able to use it. Unlike most hoarders, though, Jay had a mental inventory of everything, and knew exactly where it was. The only problem was that he never needed to use it.

The following day I pack whatever needs packing for this load and fill Fred. This past trip Fred's load is almost entirely paper to go to the recycle center down here. (Yeah, I could just toss the paper in the trailer, but I'll pay by the pound to dump it, and I don't want to pay for a ton of wet paper.) And a few things to go to Good Will.

There's a recycle center upriver, but they are open only one afternoon during the week and on Saturday morning, and you have to buy a sticker to get through the gate, and everything has to be strictly sorted. I didn't get the $25 sticker for this year. The recycle center down here is open every day except Sunday, it's free, and paper is paper, no sorting necessary. Free! Easy! And they take electronic thingys too, so there's also a few external drives and old monitors in Fred.

Then after loading the van I return downriver. Yesterday's trip took over three hours because I left too early and hit the Saturday shore traffic on the Garden State. Note to self - leave mid or late afternoon. Once home, I immediately unload anything that can't take heat, and then the next day, I rest. Tomorrow I get to fully unload. Usually that involves finding new homes for everything I brought down. With no chests, tables, bookcases, or anything else, that's not easy. Mostly stuff is just getting stored in boxes in a bedroom until I can get furniture down.

On the previous trip I worked on the kitchen, clearing out drawers and cabinets (that house has a huge kitchen, nine or ten large deep drawers, seventeen or more cabinet doors (all the shelves glide out), four rotating corner cabinets, a butcher block island, a huge double pantry - I loved that kitchen! This trip I had taken a container of stew. I wanted to heat half of it for dinner Thursday evening, and discovered I had nothing to spoon it out with.

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I probably threw out a lot of valuable stuff. Jay was all science. He loved Edmund Scientific catalogs. I found all kinds of kits, some that had never been opened. One was labeled "photographic special effects" and the box was full of camera lenses (without the plastic screw-on parts). I threw them out. There were three microscopes. I kept the one that looked least jury-rigged and still had the instruction book and threw the other two out.

Yeah, maybe someone would appreciate that stuff, and at one time I considered listing stuff on Freecycle or eBay (most of it is too esoteric for Good Will), but when I consider the amount of research and coordination that would involve, I realize I just plain don't have the time or energy, and all that crap would just end up stored here, just like it was there. It has to go, now. And once the decision is made, it must be executed immediately. No second thoughts.

I can hear Jay screaming.
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3306 Incommunicado

Thursday, July 14, 2011

"The town I'm from is so small, Charles Kuralt has been there twice."

I miss Charles Kuralt.

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No posts for a few days. Not taking laptop with me, and I'm too Luddite for anything resembling a smart phone.
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3305 'Fess up

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

If the desire to write is not accompanied by actual writing, then the desire is not to write.
-- Hugh Prather, Notes to Myself --

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Someone is coming directly to this blog via smart phone - linux, android, safari - several times a day during the weekdays. I have my suspicions, but (ahem) that person had sworn off the internet during work.

Who is it? If you like, you can leave a comment with a dummy username (or a coded reference) such that I can figure out from whom it's coming, but no one else can.

I'm curious because there are only four likely candidates, and the fourth one worries me.
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3304 Sleep reset

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Anyone who inhabits himself cannot believe in objective thinking.
-- Hugh Prather, Notes to Myself --

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I've been going to bed early pretty much ever since I've moved down here. I don't know why. I'm not watching TV much, lately I've had it on a total of maybe three to five hours a week, and that might be part of it. No reason to stay up late. Mainly I think it's because I've been waking up so early, so by 9 or 10 pm I'm tired.

I don't know why I'm waking up so early. There's a constant sound coming from the east, the side of the house my bedroom is on. It sounds like tree frogs, like shaking small chains, with a deeper undercurrent of machinery. I had noticed it during the winter, starting up in the evening and going until 2 or 3 am. Now, in the summer, it's constant. The really weird part is that no one else can hear it, even on my porch, only me, and I can't hear it anywhere else except in the front of my house and my yard. It's driving me crazy.

I woke this morning at 5 am and couldn't get back to sleep. I had set the A/C higher overnight (I don't know why, habit I guess, do the opposite with heat in the winter) and it was already 80 F in the bedroom when I woke. The birds were going crazy. When I got downstairs I turned the TV on for the news, and caught the numbers 100-105 F - today's prediction.

Good Grief! This is New Jersey! And I haven't felt humidity like this since I left St. Louis. Everything feels damp. Nothing dries. It's hard to breathe. (Nothing dries except the plants outside. The lawn, the tomato and pepper plants, the flowers. They scream constantly. The sun! The sun!)

When I wake in the morning, my mind is in high gear - fussing over the old house and the amount of work it's going to take to get out of there. There's just too much STUFF! I'm getting more and more willing to throw out perfectly good stuff, just to get it gone. And The Man. I wish I knew for sure what's going on there.

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

Daughter and Hercules contribute to the loud bird problem. They bought their house from an elderly couple, and the old man in retirement built birdhouses. They have (I haven't counted, but it's something like) 15 birdhouses in the trees on their lot, and they are all occupied, with several varieties of birds and a few squirrels. The birds congregate there. Right across the street from my bedroom window. They start up just before the sun peeks over the horizon. Yeah, it's nice, but loud.
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3303 Loaded, no bears.

Saturday, July 9, 2011

"Next time I will...." "From now on I will...." -What makes me think
I am wiser today than I will be tomorrow?”
-- Hugh Prather, Notes to Myself --

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I'm about to close up here and head back downriver. Fred is carrying a full load -

• Hanuman (a heavy wooden statue of the Hindu deity Hanuman, plastered and gilded),
• a guitar signed by Les Paul just before he died,
• a large oil painting,
• a large framed print,
• an antique wood-framed mirror,
• a large ceramic giraffe,
• a bunch of kitchen utensils,
• a bag of refrigerator storage containers,
• a load of summer clothes,
• seven singing bowls,
• a mammoth tusk carved with a herd of mammoths,
• a box of netsukes,
• two ostrich eggs, one carved, one plain, and
• three wheeled briefcase-laptop-overnighters (that I plan to drop off at Good Will. When you put 8-10 compartments and pockets in those things, with the requisite zippers, they get ridiculously heavy, even if they do have wheels, and all the compartment separators leave little room for anything else. I have never used them.)
• And some other stuff. I forget what all.
• Oh, yeah, and a hot-air popcorn popper. I've been hungry for popcorn, but my microwave at the new house is dead.

So I'm packing up the laptop now, and heading out.

Hey, remember that woman who was promised a new Toyota, and sued when what she got was a new toy Yoda? I was reminded of that today. I went to a charity auction once and bid on and bought a nice looking pendant and chain necklace. I had looked at it before bidding, and the auctioneer distinctly said it was a "diamond necklace". When I opened the box after taking possession, under the velvet cradling the necklace was a dime. The necklace was crystal. I'd bought a "dime and necklace". I found that box today, with the dime still in it.
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3302 If I lose at the casino, can I sue?

Friday, July 8, 2011

On "image": It may not get the job done, but it makes it possible to get the job done.
-- Paul Levine, Night Vision --

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Meetup crazies have started. Just had a guy drop out of the dinner group. He said he didn't realize it was a singles group and suggests that I put "singles" in the description. His reason for coming to that conclusion? He noticed that all the other people who had joined were single.

Sigh.

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I don't care what you think of the Casey Anthony thing. The fact remains that the prosecution was unable to prove any kind of murder charges to the jury. Period. That means over, done, finis on those counts.

At least I thought that's what it was supposed to mean.

Florida, however, has decided to sue Anthony for the cost of the investigation and trial.

Huh?

Don't let your opinion of her guilt or innocence sway you while thinking about what that means. Instead, think about a truly honestly innocent person whom the police have decided to go after, and the prosecutor's office has decided to convict on circumstantial evidence.

Pretend it's you, and an entirely different case. Let's say you and your significant other had an argument and then he/she went missing. You thought he/she had left you, and being hurt and depressed, you said and did some stupid things, and then even started dating again. Then some weeks later he/she is found dead, shot by your gun, which you assume he/she must have taken with him/her and you had never noticed it was missing. The only prints on the gun are yours, and the death happened weeks before and you have no idea what you were doing at the time. We have cause, opportunity, prints, and no alibi. Also no guilt. You really didn't do it - but the state decides to prosecute. You spend two years in jail waiting for trial.

Your attorney manages to get you off on reasonable doubt (the "some other dude dooed it" defense), but the state is so pissed that they lost, so sure that they were right, so angry that they were "cheated", they sue you for the costs of the investigation and trial. Of course, having been in jail for the past two years, you have no money and no savings.

So, is this right and fair? THEY decided to investigate, they decided to prosecute, they bought the ticket and placed their bets, and they lost.

I think the only time it should be ok for the state to recoup investigation/prosecution costs is from someone who reports a crime that simply didn't happen. Like people who claim to have been kidnapped, or like the Tawana Brawley thing (that stands out for me because I was living there at the time). And even then, the state should be required to prove that the claims were bogus, not just be pissed.
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3301 Revising history

Friday, July 8, 2011

We are all born psychopaths, born without repressions.
Society teaches us the restraints of proper behavior and helps us develop a conscience.
-- Paul Levine, Night Vision --

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I mentioned to The Man the other day that, although I may be disloyal to my gender by saying this, I can't wait for the primary debate spitting match between Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann. The two seem to be hatched from the same pea pod.

In an interview with George Stephanopoulos, Ms. Bachmann referred to John Quincy Adams as a Founding Father, despite the fact that he was all of nine years old at the time. My thought was, ok, we're revising history again?

Well, someone went out to the Wikipedia entry for J. Q. Adams and altered the "life as a child" section to add "But even as an embryo, John Quincy Adams could feel pain and was a Founding Father."

Cracked me up. What cracks me up even more is that people seem to think it was a Bachmann supporter who did it. (Do we really give them credit for that much blatant stupidity?)

I know who did it. He lives about ten miles from my old house. He most definitely is not a Bachmann supporter.
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3300 Running around

Thursday, July 7, 2011

A "nine-days' wonder" is taken as a matter of course on the tenth day.
-- Robert Heinlein --

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Yesterday I mowed the back yard, babysat in the morning and a little in the afternoon while Daughter got some stuff done, and squeezed in a mammogram.

I'd always wondered what people meant when they said mammograms hurt, because they never bothered me in the least. This time, the right didn't hurt, but the left did. I wonder if it was the way she arranged me. Every other time, and on the right yesterday, the technician arranged the "fold" (you know how you get folded in half?) exactly across the nipple. Yesterday, I noticed that for both views on the left, the fold was below the nipple, so that the nipple was sort of flat against the top plate. I hope that's what made it hurt, and not something going on in there.

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

I'm now at the old house. I didn't get on the road as soon as I'd wanted to today, but it was good enough, I guess, to get a few things done. I got up here in time to go to the radiology lab and pick up my old mammo films. I'll take them to the new place on Monday.

I went to the DMV and picked up forms to get new copies of the NY titles for my vehicles. I'm sure they're around here somewhere, but I can't find them. I'll need them to register the cars in NJ. There's a problem - NY will send the copies only to the "address of record", which is the old house. I'm having my mail forwarded, and that's working fine, BUT the post office will not forward official government mail. So they will be returned. Duh. The woman at the DMV gave me a number to call to ask how I can get them sent to my new address.

I stopped at the post office to verify that, and yeah, they won't forward them. But she said that they'll be returned with a sticker on them with my new address, so NY should then send them again to the new address.

Uh, yeah, but remember this is the DMV we're talking about. Logic and "makes sense" don't apply.

Then I got Fred the van inspected at an oil change place. The NY inspection expires the end of this month. His serpentine belt is bald, and they told me he couldn't pass inspection with that belt, and they can't fix it. Well, sort of. The mechanic offered to pass him if I gave him "a little extra". It took me a minute to understand what he was saying. I said, "Uh, no, I'd really rather do this legally." Later the manager came to me and said he "has a soft spot for the elderly and disabled" (Fred's a wheelchair van) so they'd pass him anyway, but I'd have to promise to get the belt fixed within the next ten days.

"Elderly?"

So then I went to a Dodge dealership to see if I could get it done tomorrow. They have no open time slots, but want me to call tomorrow and maybe they can squeeze him in.

Then I went to the garage that's working on Suzie (they haven't got to her yet) to get her VIN to order her new title, and to make sure they had my new phone number.

I stopped somewhere else, too, but darned if I can remember where.

Right now I'm watching "Big Bang Theory", and plan to watch "Big Brother" (shame! shame!) later. All that running around after a 2.75 hour drive has left me drained.

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I mentioned I'd started a Meetup dining out group. I was disappointed because it got no action for two days. I didn't realize that Meetup hadn't released it to the public yet. They released it yesterday, and I already have 22 members, and three have RSVP'd to a dinner I scheduled for July 7.

I'm afraid I might see some of the same craziness that drove me away the last time. I clearly stated I wanted to keep it local, even gave a north and south limit. So, one of the new members lives in Manhattan, and has suggested that we meet at some Manhattan restaurants. Sigh. Actually, if she wants to, I guess I could let her host it....
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3299 Fireworks

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Being right too soon is socially unacceptable.
-- Robert Heinlein --

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Yesterday afternoon I finally finished raking up the gumballs in the back yard. Daughter and Hercules were barbequing vegetable skewers and steaks, and I was invited, but Hercules' mother was visiting for the day (visiting from the Carolinas, stopped in on her way back from visiting her mother in Pa.), and I'm avoiding her. I suspect it's obvious I'm avoiding her, but I don't care. Every third sentence out of her mouth makes me want to strangle her, so it's a lot healthier to avoid her.

It takes less than five minutes to walk to the bay from my house, so at 8:30 pm I went to the bay to see some fireworks. Neighbor George had said that it's a good place to see them, but that last year the police had blocked access off and not allowed people down there. But last year, it was all rocks and broken cement with a sharp dropoff down to the water. Since then, the township has put in a nice paved walkway with a railing.

There was no one there. An occasional couple or someone with a dog would walk past and disappear into the distance, and that was it. A pair of policemen walked past and said hello.

Even though I was facing east, the sunset was incredible, the colors reflecting off the water. I wished I had taken my camera.

Looking north over the water I saw the fireworks from the Amboys, from a wealthy enclave above Laurence Harbor, and north and northeast several spots on Staten Island. To the west, Keyport put on THREE surprisingly decent and long-lasting shows, followed by an obviously expensive display from either Union Beach or Keansburg.

The big Macy's show (supposed to be the largest display in the country) was pretty far across the water, on barges on the Hudson River between Staten Island and Manhattan, but I can see most of Staten Island, the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, and the lower coast of Brooklyn, So I was able to see the higher chrysanthemums from that, plus other more local shows along the coast and inland.

Daughter, Hercules, the Nugget, and Hercules' mother and her two dogs had gone somewhere earlier in the day, probably walking in some park, I don't know and didn't ask, but about 9:15 Daughter and Hercules joined me at the bay.

Near where I had been standing, there was a tall pole, next to the path from the access road ("Authorized Vehicles Only") to the walkway. I had earlier noticed that once it got full dark, anytime anyone walked that path, there was a flash of light and a recording, "This is the xxxxx police. Your photograph has been transmitted to our office." I found it amusing. We got our pictures taken when we left a little after 10.

Hercules found it fascinating. Where was it getting the power? We examined the pole and found no wires. At the top of the pole there were only two very small boxes. Solar panels on the top of the boxes? Seems like they'd be too small to power the motion detector, the flash, the recording, the camera, and a transmitter. The panels used to power emergency phones along the highways are much larger. I pointed out that there's not necessarily really a transmitter, or even a camera. Maybe there's really only a detector, flash, and recording. Sorta like those dummy police cars semi-hidden behind billboards.

I suggested that we stage a murder next to the pole, then wait in the bushes to see if anyone shows up. On the walk back to the house we had some fun planning the scenes. Hercules is a real ham.

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

A funny thing happened. Daughter joined me first, Hercules joined us a little later, after getting his mother and Nugget settled at the house. He runs. A lot. He was running down the dark path to join us and passed a teenaged couple. The guy shouted something rather nasty after him (apparently thinking Hercules with his dark hair was Hispanic). Hercules turned around and ran back toward him, and the guy pulled his girlfriend in front of him! Hercules told us what he then said to him, but I forget exactly, except that it had something to do with tiny balls rolling on the ground or the like.

And that was it.

Sometime later, we had walked further up the bay. Daughter and I were standing on either side of Hercules, who was squatting on the ground with his back to the walkway, when a group of five or six guys, mid or late teens, trotted up to us and asked if we'd seen a guy run by wearing tan pants and a grey knit shirt - "He threatened our friend!" Hercules stood up and turned around, and the kids said, "Not you. It wasn't you." Hercules said yes, it was, and that he hadn't threatened him. He'd merely commented on his hiding behind a girl. And the kids immediately apologized, and shook Hercules' hand.

Huh? Hercules is not tall. He's not big, rather lightly built. He's a runner and cyclist. Why, when it was obvious they wanted to find this guy and beat him up, why did they back off so quickly and thoroughly?

Was it because Hercules is not Hispanic? Because he was not a teen? Because he was with two small women (that doesn't feel like the reason)?
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3298 Meetup Capitulation

Sunday, July 3, 2011

The early bird deserves the worm.

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I swore I wouldn't do it, but I've waited for six months for a local dinner group, and there are none. So I gave up and started one. I may regret this.

It's at http://www.meetup.com/Keyport-Dining-Out/. I have no idea what the home page looks like, because what I see is the organizer's version of the page.
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3297 SIDS

Saturday, July 2. 2011

I shot an arrow into the air. It's still going - everywhere!
-- L. Long --

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The previous post got me thinking about SIDS. About how "they" insist that babies must be put down to sleep on their backs, never on their bellies. The Wikipedia article is interesting. There are many many advantages to putting babies down on their bellies, including that babies who have "bubbles" are more comfortable (Nugget is much happier on her belly), their craniums develop more evenly, and they develop physical and social skills faster than back-sleeping babies. The ONLY advantage to back-sleeping is that it has reduced the incidence of SIDS (and, by the way, they still don't know what exactly goes wrong in SIDS) by like 50%.

What IS the incidence of SIDS? It's fewer than 1 in 1,000! Fewer! (Actually it's .73 per 1,000, which is 1 in 1370.) So if back-sleeping reduces it by 50%, that means that 2,738 babies will be developmentally delayed to save one baby and lose one baby.

(Well, "delayed" might be changed. "They" are considering pushing back the developmental guidelines so it won't be considered a delay any more. Sheesh. There's a name for that kind of thinking....)

Also there's a list of risk factors (from Wikipedia) that nobody ever mentions.

Pre-natal risks

• teenage mother (SIDS rates decrease with increasing maternal age)
• lower maternal education (SIDS rates decrease with increasing years of schooling)
• lack of prenatal care (SIDS rates increase with increasing delay in starting pre-natal care)
• exposure to nicotine by maternal smoking (SIDS rates are higher for infants of mothers who smoke during pregnancy)

Post-natal risks

• mold (can cause bleeding lungs plus a variety of other uncommon conditions leading to a misdiagnosis and death). It is often misdiagnosed as a virus, flu, and/or asthma-like conditions.
• low birth weight (in the US from 1995-1998 the rate for 1000-1499 g was 2.89/1000 and for 3500-3999 g it was 0.51/1000)
• exposure to tobacco smoke
• prone sleep position (lying on the stomach)
• not breastfeeding
• elevated or reduced room temperature
• excess bedding, clothing, soft sleep surface and stuffed animals
• co-sleeping with parents or other siblings may increase risk for SIDS, but the mechanism remains unclear
• infant's age (incidence rises from zero at birth, is highest from two to four months, and declines towards zero at one year)
• premature birth (increases risk of SIDS death by about 4 times. In 1995-1998 the US SIDS rate for 37–39 weeks of gestation was 0.73/1000; The SIDS rate for 28–31 weeks of gestation was 2.39/1000)
• anemia [NB: per item 6 in the list of epidemiologic characteristics ..., extent of anemia cannot be evaluated at autopsy because "total hemoglobin can only be measured in living infants.]

Nugget and her parents don't have a single one of the long list of risk factors. In fact, in age, education, and environmental conditions, they reduce the danger significantly.

Ok. So they tell you that you must put your baby on his/her back. If you point out that the risk to Nugget is so low as to be almost non-existing, they'll respond, yeah, and what if your baby is that one in a thousand. Huh? What then? Huh? Huh?

Sigh. Guilt trip.

Let's apply that thinking to other issues. Let's be Mr. Spock instead of Dr. Spock.

The incidence of fatal automobile accidents among drivers younger than 35 is higher than the SIDS incidence. Much higher. Much much higher. Therefore NO ONE under the age of 35 should be allowed to drive.

What's wrong with that logic? How is it not the same thing? Oh, I forgot. There's no one to send on a guilt trip because they didn't listen to us.
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3296 Nugget Report

Saturday, July 2, 2011

Anyone who considers protocol unimportant has never dealt with a cat.
-- L. Long --

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Yup. The kid definitely was not switched in the hospital. True to her mother's genes, she picks a long holiday weekend to get sick. She's got thrush. With her mother it was ear infections.

So her mother and I spent a portion of this afternoon trying to find gentian violet, the old tried-and-true topical cure. NO drug or herbal stores around here seem to carry it, although they all are willing to order it, "...will be here Tuesday". Tuesday will be too late.

All the drug stores were going to close early, so at 4:45 Daughter was on the phone to the doctor's covering service to get a prescription called in so we could pick it up today.

After all that, after we got home, I suddenly realized that on my last trip upriver I had cleaned out the medicine cabinets at the old house, and I'll bet I have at least two unopened bottles of gentian violet in the "to be unpacked" boxes upstairs. Jay'd had thrush when his immune system had crashed, and the prescription made him violently ill, to where he was throwing up. He had so many medicines on so many different schedules, and I was worried that with all the vomiting I wasn't sure he was keeping down his more important meds, so I used gentian violet on his thrush and it worked with no side effects.

So Daughter will try the prescription, and if the Nugget has any trouble with it, we'll try the GV.

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Photos. Forgive a first-time Gramma. Nugget has the most beautiful wide open-mouth smile, but it's near impossible to catch with a camera because she WANTS the camera. This is close as I could get to a smile. A small flirtation. (06/27/11)

Tears coming because I won't give her the camera.


Full belly; nap time. (06/30/11)


This was today, 07/02/11. Nugget was asleep in the bouncy chair. Daughter and I stepped outside (for three seconds! I swear!) to measure Hal's back seat, and we didn't belt Nugget in. Hey, she's only a hair over two months old. She's not going to climb out of the chair, right? Right. The following is what we found when we came back in (still sound asleep). Please don't call child protective services on us.

We were afraid we'd wake her if we tried to move her, so Gramma insisted on protection.

Hal has lost some of his sex appeal. It's a little hard to carry off "prowling platinum cougar" with a green plaid baby seat in the rumble.

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Major developmental step - day before yesterday, while she was visiting with me, she discovered her feet. She was sitting sideways on my thigh and looked down and saw them moving. She spent, honest to God, a good half hour watching her feet. She practiced making them move. She'd stare at the right foot, and wiggle it, curl and uncurl the toes. Then she'd turn and stare at the left foot, and wiggle it. It was pretty amazing.

I was worried about her being all bent over like that right after eating, that she'd spit up or get a belly ache or something, but when I tried to straighten her up she fought me, waving her arms and fussing and throwing her head forward and down. She's very strong.

When I took her back across the street, I told Daughter about it, but Nugget wasn't interested in feet any more. She wanted booby.

Later I went over to visit, and the instant I put her on my lap she threw herself forward and worked on foot control again. Daughter laughed that Nugget seems to think Gramma brings feet.

She doesn't have control of her arms and hands yet, except when reaching for her face and mouth. She's very accurate at getting fingers into her mouth. Otherwise her arms kind of just wave around. I doubt there had been anything else she wanted to grab, requiring hand-eye coordination. The feet seem to have provided incentive. She'd been trying to reach for them since she discovered them. Yesterday she caught one, and looked very surprised. She's better at catching feet today.

And I think she's figured out they're hers, not Gramma's.

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Looking at the pictures of Nugget in the bouncy chair. We had left her on her back. So I think that may have been her first rolling over, too. Given the cradling shape of the chair, that couldn't have been easy. I wonder how she did it. You're not supposed to put infants to sleep on their bellies any more (SIDS). I wonder how you prevent belly sleeping once they learn how to roll over?
.

3295 Bits

Saturday, July 2, 2011

There's no reason to waste a creative thinker on an implementation task.
-- Dilbert --

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When the Nugget got her first immunizations, Daughter had been worried about how she would react when the nurse hurt her baby, and she didn't want the Nugget to think her mommy had done this terrible thing to her, so she asked me to go with her. Well, when the time came, Daughter did take over, and talked to Nugget. Nugget startled, the lower lip came out, but she recovered quickly and smiled at her mommy. All was well. Daughter picked her up, held her in her arms, and told her she was a good girl, very brave. And I put my arm around Daughter and told her she was a good girl, very brave.

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

I'm reading one of the free books that came with the Kindle, a collection of old fairy tales. Very bloody. They use a lot of old or unusual words, too. I have to look up words in every story, like "firmity" (a sort of a pudding-like glop made with soaked cracked grain, thickened with egg), "league" (the distance a man can walk in one hour, being farther on flat smooth ground and shorter on rough or steep ground), "cimeter" (a smallish knife with a curved blade shaped like a scimitar), "drest" (old adjective form of dressed), and so on.

I most enjoyed looking up "league". The first part of the Wikipedia article on anthropic measurements is very interesting. Ever wonder what a cubit is? Or a fathom? Furlong?

It struck me as odd that many of the measurements seem to assume an average human height of six feet. (On a well-proportioned body, the distance from the tips of the fingers to the opposite tips of outstretched arms should be equal to the height from the ground to the top of the head.) And yet I'd always heard that people in antiquity were much smaller than now. That David's giant was actually probably just a bit over six feet tall. I know that when you look at uniforms in Civil War museums (I lived in Gettysburg a few years) the uniforms seem tiny, too small even for me, and that was only 150 years ago. Same with Victorian dresses.

So it seems odd.

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

I'm thinking I can probably live with this kidney stone. I still have the other part of that double kidney functioning well. I believe the stones formed because I had the year-and-a-half kidney infection, and if I can avoid any future kidney infections, it won't get any worse.

The organism was the usual Escherichia coli (E. coli). "They" tell women that to prevent UTIs, we should wipe front to back, and piddle after sex. I don't know about the rest of the world, but I have great difficulty doing either. I have to wipe side-to-side, just being careful not to pull forward. And I can't piddle after sex because I have to piddle before, or I can't relax to enjoy it, so there's nothing there. Besides, I can't piddle that many times in one evening.

So I was thinking about that, and decided that I will have to use the Azo strips periodically. Check often, and insist that if something does show up, we cannot assume it's just a simple bladder infection.

That got me wondering about bidets. Um, wouldn't they contribute to UTIs? I can't imagine that the stream of water is very careful about where it carries and splashes and deposits stuff. At least then it's your own ickiness. Not like the automatic-flush toilets in public restrooms, like those along the parkways and throughways, that flush even while you're still on them and splash your bottom with God-knows-what left by God-knows-whom. Those things make me cringe.

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

I heard fireworks last night. I automatically got up and went to the window, and was disappointed to find that I could see nothing. The sounds were coming from the north and northwest, and from the southeast. North and northwest would be Brooklyn and Staten Island, and in the winter I can see them, but with the leaves on the trees now I can see next to nothing. Southeast would be along the bay shores or ocean shores, but being at sealevel myself and surrounded by trees, I could see nothing.

Disappointment. The old house is on a ridge with a view to the mountains, and I used to be able to see the fireworks from Bard college, Kingston, Rhinebeck, and Saugerties, and if Woodstock invested in the good stuff that would rise above the mountains, I could see theirs, too.

Tsk. I'll miss them.
.

3294 Dear Diary

Friday, July 1, 2011

How "good one is in bed" has more to do with the combination than with any skill.
-- Silk --

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One purpose of this blog is to act as a diary for me, so I kind of know what happened when. I don't always remember what I did three days ago, let alone last month. Of course, I also often don't realize the significance of small things when they happen, so they get left out and lost. So the usefulness is often compromised. Eh.

I wanted to go upriver this past week, probably Tuesday evening through Thursday, and had told the Hunk I'd be up. But it didn't happen. And I'm already starting to forget why.

Nugget had a pediatrician appointment on Wednesday afternoon. Daughter had managed to convince the doctor to delay Nugget's first immunizations for a month, so she'd be getting them Wednesday, and Daughter was a nervous wreck. She asked me to go with her. She was so afraid herself that I think she was almost afraid she'd have to leave the room. Ok, Gramma can be the bad guy. So I didn't go upriver Tuesday evening. I can go Wednesday, and return Friday.... (Yuck. Garden State Parkway, Friday on a holiday weekend, heading toward the shore points?)

Tuesday afternoon Daughter and had I spent some time looking up baby carriers on the internet. She wanted one that could be used on the front with the baby facing in or out. I pointed out that Nugget would soon be too heavy for a front carrier, so maybe she should look for one that could also be used as a back carrier. We found a few that looked good. I emphasized that she shouldn't buy it online, though, at least until she'd tried one on for size and comfort.

So Wednesday after the pediatrician appointment, Daughter suggested that we locate a selection of carriers on Thursday. Wednesday, by the way, was a long day. Daughter is pokey anyway, but she stops dead every two hours or so for 20 minutes or so, to breastfeed the Nugget.

On the way home from the pediatrician we had stopped at a huge Target to see if they had any carriers (no, not a single one), and while I was standing at the counter in the Target snack bar a man next to me set a cup of coffee on a small bit of shelf set there to hold a debit card reader at the front of the counter, while he paid his tab. The unsecured shelf tilted, the coffee slid off and hit the floor, and the hot coffee shot straight up, a veritable volcano, and splashed my neck, tiny boiling droplets from behind my right ear to my shoulder.

No, I don't need 911. No, I don't need the store nurse. I would like a cloth with some ice, please. Now!, if it wouldn't be too much trouble? Yes, I would like to see a manager. Yes, I would like to fill out an incident report - for the sole purpose of bringing attention to that unsecured shelf, which should be removed or secured, because the next person burned could be a Nugget-type. Or a litigious type. Who would certainly have a case now that I am reporting it.

The manager removed the shelf immediately. Next time I'm in Target, I'm going to check.

Then Daughter asked me to watch Nugget that evening while she worked on some medical insurance problems** and wrote an article for an organization newsletter. So I didn't make it up river Wednesday evening, either. Ok, I can go Thursday evening, then return Saturday evening, and that's better for traffic anyway.

So Thursday Daughter, Nugget, and I headed for the largest Babies R Us in the area, south of here, just a bit north of Asbury Park. We tried on several carriers. Daughter ended up with a frame backpack - the Cadillac of carriers. Good for hiking with Nugget. By then it was close to 5:30 pm, and she suggested we visit the Asbury Park boardwalk, Hercules works near there so he can join us, and we can have dinner there.

Boardwalk? Yeah, ok. Asbury Park, by the way, has gone through about 50 years of depression, despite the ostentatious (and pretentious) mansions lining the roads in. The city and boardwalk are just now starting to sort of recover. The boardwalk is bracketed with buildings showing obvious decay, but also apparent recent attempts at restoration. We walked the full length and back, with dinner in the middle (overpriced and not that good). During a Nugget diaper change and feeding, I decided to walk down to the water. I'd forgotten how difficult it is to walk on soft sand, and with the dead nerves in my right ankle and shin, my foot dragged, and I ended up pulling something in the top of my right thigh.

We didn't get home until after 10:30 pm. Nope, not going upriver Thursday evening.

Now it's Friday and there's no way I'm going anywhere near the parkway or the turnpike today. Not to mention that the top of my right thigh clenches every so often.

Maybe Saturday evening? No, that would be returning Monday evening, eeeeek! Sunday evening? Returning Tuesday? No. I have a mammo scheduled down here for next Wednesday, and I need to pick up my old mammogram films (CD) up there, and they won't be ready until Thursday, so I may as well wait until then to go up, or it would be another week before I get the films.

I wonder why I never get anything done.

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**The insurance problem. It's a lot more complicated than this one example, but I'll describe one of the problems that has me shaking my head.

When Daughter's water broke early in her labor, there was a lot of thick meconium, which is a bad thing. Then she didn't dilate beyond 9. Then she developed a fever, and they were worried about infection, both her and the baby. They actually piped saline through her uterus to wash out the meconium when her fever kept going up and the baby's heartrate increased. And Daughter's blood sugar was too high. She had poorly controlled gestational diabetes, so the Nugget was likely to be born with too much insulin in her system, which could result in hypoglycemia.

So finally there was an emergency caesarian, and the Nugget went into the neonatal ICU for two days while her risk of meconium inhalation infection and hypoglycemia were assessed and controlled. Daughter was breastfeeding, so she visited the Nugget every few hours. Then they had a day and a half of rooming-in, with both of them on IV antibiotics.

It was altogether, from the time Daughter arrived at the hospital very early in the morning until they were released, four days. (Or something like that. I forget and I'm not going to look it up now.) Anyway, it all sounds like medical necessity, right?

Surprise. The insurance company allows three days for a birth. Period. And they count the first full day as the day you arrive at the hospital, so if you arrive Monday night at 11:45 pm, that's the first one of the three days. They don't count from the birth, but from the mother's arrival. Duh? Does this mean that if you arrive late one evening, and are in active labor for two days, which is not unheard of, the hospital is expected to kick you out an hour before the baby is born?

I guess this is to discourage anxious mothers from arriving too early. BUT!!! Daughter's water broke early, and there was heavy meconium. ALL medical advice is that this is a concern, and to call your doctor, and then do as you're told. Daughter was told to go to the hospital immediately. Why is there no exception for emergency cases?

So, the insurance company is refusing to pay for the fourth day.

Second, although Daughter had originally wanted a home birth, but all kinds of obstacles were thrown in her way, she ended up with a hospital 40 minutes away, which is what the insurance company insisted on, because she was considered high risk. Got that? That the insurance company wanted this particular hospital because it was a high risk birth?

Surprise surprise. The neonatal ICU at this hospital is (for some unexplained reason) considered OUT OF NETWORK! The fact that Nugget ending up in the ICU was not exactly planned, but should have been a consideration, given that it was a high risk birth, and the fact that it was an emergency, doesn't seem to matter to the insurance company. When Daughter asked what else she should have done, she was told that she should have had the baby transferred to another NICU that was in network. The fact that Daughter was breast feeding was not a consideration. So no, they're not paying for two days of NICU since they hadn't given prior approval. Duh?

Um, why did they insist on this particular hospital again? When you say "high risk", doesn't that presuppose the risk of NICU? Wasn't that implied?

It sounds to me like the insurance company is giving them a hard time just because parents of a new baby are unlikely to pull out the big guns, being tired, depressed, and busy with higher priorities.

I say fight it.

This is stupid.
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3293 Social Security

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Virginity is important to men who fear comparison.
-- Silk --

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Congress, those folks with the generous lifetime retirement and medical plans regardless of how long or short a time they HAVE the job, want to cut Social Security benefits and again raise the age at which people can collect. They seem to think that SS is going broke. Or something.

Not true. The real fact is that SS is fine and healthy as it is. The truth is that Congress has "borrowed" enormous funds from SS, which has caused a potential deficit, and they don't want to pay it back. Pure and simple.

For some reason, AARP has backed off their objections to the plan.

From an email letter and news release from the National Retiree Legislative Network (NRLN):

...
The NRLN maintains that Social Security is not a welfare program paid for by the U.S. Government. Social Security beneficiaries and their employers have paid into the Social Security Trust since 1937. And every year since 1983, the payroll tax for Social Security has generated tens of billions of dollars in surplus, every dollar of which was borrowed by Congress to cover other federal spending.* In the future, the Social Security Trust should be insulated from access by Congress and never again be loaned out as a piggybank to cover other government spending.
...

[* Emphasis mine. That sum "borrowed" and never paid back amounts to something like 1.8 trillion dollars.]

Not a welfare plan. It's more like insurance, an annuity, and those deductions from your paycheck are the premiums. Then if you manage to live until retirement, you get to collect from the retirement insurance you paid for.

Well, yeah. If Congress gives you back your money and stops taking it away from you, that is.

For more information about the NRLN, visit their website at http://www.nrln.org. And write your congressional representatives, the ones who don't understand the financial uncertainties faced by real people.
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3292 Exhibitionist

Sunday, June 26, 2011

“Ever try to order the panda at Panda Express? Boy, those people need to get a sense of humor.” -- André at shoebox.com --

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Last Monday I walked all over the nearby business district (and the neighborhoods on the way there and back) in an ankle-length, brown, yellow, and orange gauze dress with a full skirt. I usually wear that dress (any dress) without a slip. Slips are hot. No breeze. Defeats the purpose of gauze.

It was Oprah who started this "no slip" business many years ago. On her show one day she said that her "people" had wanted her to put on a slip with her dress, because "you can see through it". She refused, saying so what? All anyone can see is the shadow, the shape, of her legs, and they'd see more if she were wearing shorts.

Women all over the country agreed and threw their slips away. Tucked them in the back of the drawer with the girdles, garters, stockings, pantihose, sanitary belts, camisoles, and underarm shields that no one wears any more.

(Man, when I think about all the undergarments we wore only 40 years ago...!)

When I look in the bedroom mirror in this dress, I see only the outline of my legs, and then only if there's a light behind me. Fine.

Today I put the dress on, looked in the mirror, nodded, went downstairs, and opened the front door. The bright morning light shone in. There's a mirror next to the door. I saw not only the outline of my legs, but also some spider veins. And some leg hair. And my underpants. I could tell my panties were black, and I could almost count the stitching in the embroidered rose. Ack!

Last Monday, starting out on our walk, Daughter had said, "Mom, that dress is pretty transparent. It needs a slip. [...pause...] Oh well. Some of my friends wear stuff like like that." (The implication being of course that SHE wouldn't.) I walked all over downtown displaying my panties. Ack!

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I bought an eyeliner pencil. On the box it says, "Finished product not tested on animals."

Huh? What is one supposed to conclude from that?
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