5044 Brush fire 3 - investment account

Sunday, January 17, 2016

"The beauty and intricacy of a person's mind has little or nothing to do with outward appearances."

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

First, some extraneous thoughts:

Microsoft keeps urging me in popups to "reserve my copy of Windows 10".  Why "reserve"?  Are they in danger of running out of copies?

The huge Power Ball lottery.   I am amused by the people who accuse ticket buyers of being mathematically challenged, pointing out the enormous odds of winning.  So what?  Even though I never buy lottery tickets, I don't see those who do decide to take a chance on huge winnings as mathematically illiterate.  The way I see it, someone has to win, someone will win, and I have exactly the same chance of winning as that person.  So two dollars is not too much to share that person's chance at a billion or two.  (However, I don't have the same attitude toward buying tickets every day.  There are better ways to spend that money.)

Anybody else getting whiffs of McCarthyism from the Republican candidates?  (An interesting detail -- Joseph McCarthy's grave is on the banks of the Fox River.)

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

Back in November I got a call from Piper.  He was sending me some papers he wanted me to sign.  He's moving his clients' accounts to a different custodian.

So, the papers arrived.  Currently the custodian of my account is a well-known Wall Street bank.  I didn't recognize the name on the forms to which he wants to move my account.  He's also changing the brokerage that holds his license.  As of January 1, his relationship with the old brokerage ends.  I don't know the right terms for all this stuff, or the nature of the relationships, but that doesn't really matter.

Anyway, having never heard of this new custodian, I did some research, and I really really don't want to transfer to them.  This issue has consumed a lot of physical and emotional energy lately, and I'm tired of it.

They're in Alabama.  (Immediate bells went off.  Alabama?  Would I be depending on graduates of the Alabama public school system?) A bit over a year ago they fired several top executives because, uh, somebody was using company funds for yachts, summer homes, vacations, or whatever.  Digging a bit deeper I get the impression that this company is a good-old-boys country club run for the sole benefit of the good-old-boys who figured they'd found a goose that lays golden eggs with very little attention required.  

Lots of other unpleasant details.  

The most damning, as far as I'm concerned, is that in the summer of 2014 an employee took a laptop home and lost it in a restaurant bathroom.  The damning part is that client records (personal info, SS#s, account numbers, account activity, etc) are kept on the laptops, the employees are allowed to take them home, and nothing was encrypted.  A lower-level employee said that purchase of an encryption package had been submitted for the budget every year, and every year it had been rejected, "no funds in the budget" for that.  But check out what the executives are paid.  This is a clear indication to me that the safety of client data is very low on their priority list.

They've got some large nasty lawsuits going on, some from those fired executives, at least one multi-million dollar suit alleging shady business practices, and so on.  Of course, they might even prevail.  I don't care.  What matters is that there have been some very bad decisions made, and the culture of the company is such that an employee does not feel free to bring problems to management's attention for fear of being seen as "not a team player", or "rocking the boat", which is never a good thing.  They were fined (a piddling amount!) for the lack of encryption, and I have been unable to find anything about what they're doing about security now.  Doesn't matter.  I am not convinced that the attitude that lead to the cavalier treatment of client data is not endemic.  It'll crop up somewhere else, in some other form.

After a hundred years in business as a private company, they've been bought out by one of those fast-growing folks who snap up "companies in turmoil", as these folks have been described, at a bargain price, such purchase frequently to raid the assets or at least to absorb them.  This could be a good thing, but according to what I have been able to find out about the agreement, they are going to be allowed to operate autonomously.  I presume under the same management.  Not a good thing.

I asked Piper why he chose this particular bunch, and what I got back was a long screed about how wonderful the new brokerage firm is (is that what you call the folks he now works under?), but nothing about the custodial idiots in Alabama.  So, then I did the research on the brokers, and they're fine. 

So, no, I'm not going to sign the forms to move my account.  If Piper can't handle it where it currently is (does it matter who he's licensed through?  Maybe it affects how he's paid?) then, well, oops.

Piper is getting frantic.  In my latest email to him (I won't talk to him on the phone anymore, especially not about this) Friday I asked what our options are.  I know him well enough to know that now he's going to go into high gear to convince me, but my mind is made up, heels are dug in, and I really don't want to discuss it further.

Up in the air right now.

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

Something else I know about Piper -- "research" is a foreign concept to him.  He used to send me some of the most outrageous emails, you know, those mass mailings forwarded all over the world that originate with satirical "news" sites as truth, but are obvious blatant lies to anyone with half a brain, but believed by people who WANT to believe them.

I always responded to those with articles and sites that refute them, usually Snopes.com, but he never learned, and I finally had to get a bit insulting -- "please, before making yourself look like a total ass, do some minimal research before forwarding this crap".  He stopped including me in his distribution, but I'll bet he still believes that crap.

So, I'll bet he took someone's recommendation in choosing that Alabama bunch without ever doing any research of his own. 
.

5043 Snow

Sunday, January 17, 2016

"I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. 

When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, 

you will understand why I dismiss yours."

--Stephen Roberts--

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

Snow is falling, lightly.  Just started.  Our first snow of the winter.  

I should have moved "buy sand" up higher on the "to do" list....
.

5042 Something strange....

Thursday, January 14, 2016

"See, free nations are peaceful nations. Free nations don't attack each other.

Free nations don't develop weapons of mass destruction."

--George W. Bush, Milwaukee, Wis., Oct. 3, 2003--

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

There's a white spot in Sweden (inside the Arctic circle):  https://www.google.com/maps/place/68%C2%B022'37.0%22N+20%C2%B055'10.9%22E/@68.3766825,20.9188504,490m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0x0    My first guess was a frozen lake, but other lakes in the area are clearly not frozen.  Then I found this: follow the road east about 3000 feet, then take the spur to the north.  What's THAT cluster?!

A bit further north we find this:  https://www.google.com/maps/place/68%C2%B022'37.0%22N+20%C2%B055'10.9%22E/@68.4549658,21.0819801,622m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0x0

I scouted around a bit and found more solitary white circles, and more green-brown clusters, and in every case, roads go to them.  (I just realized, I'm assuming those are roads, but it's possible they are caribou/reindeer trails.  Leads to interesting thoughts.) 

Anyone know what these things are?   They don't stand up from the surface much, they are flat.  There are villages in the vicinity, but at a (safe?) distance from the spots, and roads go to the spots.  I'm not sure they're villages, either - they're widely scattered houses along the roads.

Weird.

.

5041 Random

Wednesday, January 13, 2016

Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.

– B. F. Skinner --

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

I thought this was amusing:  from http://i100.independent.co.uk/article/ukrainian-google-translate-has-been-accidentally-trolling-russia--WJJqAWte3x Google Translate was criticised in Russia on Tuesday after it emerged that the service was translating the term “Russian Federation” to “Mordor”.  I assume that's the Ukranian Google, translating from Russian to Ukranian.


The explanation offered by Google is that humans are not involved in translations.  Instead, the service scans  hundreds of millions of documents to find the best translation. But, of course, not being human, it doesn't always "get" the context.  One has to wonder what documents were scanned, and how many led to "Mordor".

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

I'm reading the new Stephen King compilation of short stories.  I'm pleased to report that I'm halfway through, and so far only half of the stories get into horror.  I prefer King when he's more psychological or philosophical than when he's freaky.

One of the stories is about a couple who are just barely making ends meet, behind on the rent, can't afford the car insurance, and so on.  He is a substitute teacher, and she is a healthcare worker caring for a wealthy old man six hours a day, six days a week.  That's thirty-six hours a week, right?  Without giving anything away, the old man offers the woman $200,000 to do something.  The couple are debating whether to go for it or not, and she says that it would take her three years to earn that much.

My head spun. 

Either Mr. King, or I, have no idea what life costs and jobs pay these days.  That means she is currently making something like $67K per year.  And plus whatever money the husband is bringing in, that's not enough to support them?  I don't understand. Many decades ago I was a substitute teacher for a year, and I remember that it amazed me that an average of two days a week netted me more than what a salaried teacher made, so the couple had to be together currently pulling in well over $100K.  I guess I really have no idea what an average salary is these days, or what it costs to run a small household.  Either I don't, or Mr. King doesn't.  I don't get it.

Another story is about a Kindle that offers the user what appear to be alternate timelines, like one where Hemingway (and a bunch of other writers) lived longer and wrote some other books.  And you could look up newspapers and read about events that happened in other possibilities, including one where the Cuban missile crisis resulted in all-out nuclear war and the end of civilization.  It blows the minds of two college literature instructors and a student who go a little bit crazy looking stuff up.

I don't get their reactions.  It's not like they are just curious.  They seem to think this stuff really happened and that it somehow has meaning to them.  If I came across something like that, I'd think "fan fiction", and just be impressed that there was so much of it.  And I know that the Cuban Missile crisis didn't kill us all, so I'd figure that was fiction, too.  And even if it WAS material from "other time lines" (which I'd have trouble believing, but even so) I'd figure what the heck, it's not mine, has nothing to do with this life, and as far as I'm concerned it's all fiction.

I'm not all the way through that story yet, but I still think that the protagonists need a slap upside their heads.

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

I've been reading a lot of tributes to David Bowie.  Three things impress me - 1.) that everyone pretty much says  the same things about him, 2.) that everyone mentions Space Oddity, and 3.) that almost everyone who mentioned listening to his music over the past few days made a point of mentioning that said music was pirated, as if they thought he would approve of that.

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

The Wizard of Oz as never seen before:  https://vimeo.com/150423718 

This one is called "Of Oz the Wizard".  Some guy (sorry, I didn't make a note of his name, but I'm sure it's Googleable) went through the entire movie, chopping it into pieces by individual words, and putting it back together in alphabetical order, but still in chronological order by word.  It's an hour and forty-one minutes long.  I went to it just out of curiosity, thinking it would be immensely boring, but it's not boring.  It's great!

Some sections are better than others.  I especially enjoyed "hhh", starting about 38 minutes in (skip ahead).  I've been watching in bits and pieces of down time, and am now at one hour in, at the word "now".

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

I still want to write up the "brush fires", but I just haven't had time.  This stuff required no thought....
.

5040 Sidetracked to Hershey

Saturday, January 9, 2016

If a problem has a solution, there is no need to worry, 

and if a problem has no solution, worrying will do no good.

--Buddhist Proverb --

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

I was reading another blog, and the blogger mentioned visiting Indian Echo Caverns in Pennsylvania.  I'd seen the signs along the roads for that, back when I lived in Gettysburg, so I looked it up on Google maps.  It's between Harrisburg and Hershey.  That took me to Hershey.

In 1951, when I was in first grade, we briefly lived on Chocolate Avenue, directly across the street from the original chocolate factory.  (By "briefly", I was in five different schools, from the deep south to eastern Pa, for first grade.  We didn't live anywhere for more than six weeks while Daddy was in radar school.)  The factory had a large circular flower bed in front, with an "H" in the middle.  I don't remember at all what the house looked like, except that it was one-story, square, brick, one of a group of similar houses along the street, and the back yards were connected and full of flowering shrubs and paved paths.  It was a good place for playing outside.  The other thing I remember is that my mother hated Thursdays, because that's when Hershey roasted almonds, and she hated the odor of roasting almonds.  

Mom wanted to tour the factory, but they wouldn't take just anyone --- you had to be part of a tour group.  One day she saw a bus pull up to the entrance, and the tour group was all women and small children.  She grabbed me and we ran across the street and joined that group.  I guess no one counted the people, because no one questioned our being there.

It was the real* factory, a walking tour, where a worker from each section explained stuff.  What I remember best was the kisses.  Thousands of them, hot and shiny and perfect on a wide conveyor belt, traveling off into the distance like something in an old movie.  Glorious!

So, I went to the western corner of Chocolate and Cocoa Avenues on Google maps street view, where the old factory was, hoping to find our old house right across from the flower bed.

Nope.  What had been a two-lane street is now a multi-lane highway.  There's no room anymore for flowers in front of the old factory, which is now a sort of museum, and across the street there are no houses at all.  It's all big buildings and parking lots.

Sigh. It really was such a nice neighborhood.

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

*Some years ago Hershey moved the factory to a building that was easier to automate the processes, and no longer allows public tours at the real factory.  If you go to Hershey today, you can take a "factory tour", but it's all fake.  A different building, built for the purpose.  You ride in stupid little cars, just like at Disney World, and cows sing to you.  People still mention the kisses on the conveyor belt, though....

Sigh.  I feel like I lost my past.
.

5039 Brush fire 2 - water

January 7, 2016

“Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law.” 

 --circa 1764--

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

My front lawn has a slight slope down to the road.  We had lots of rain throughout October and November, and I noticed that the end of the lawn near the road stayed wet a lot.  I sort of thought it was because under the thin layer of sod it's pure clay, so the lawn just wasn't absorbing the rain very well.

Then later I noticed that right along the curb, the grass was dying.

Then a week later I noticed that even though there'd been no rain for several days, water was spilling over the curb and running down the street to the storm drain.  Hmmmm.  That's not right.  Hmm.  My water meter is buried in the lawn just above the wet spot.

So. in mid-December I called the water department.  Left a voice mail, "Please send someone out to check the meter.  I think it's leaking.  Water is coming up through my lawn and running down the street."

A week passed with no response.  So I called again.  Again, "Leave a message."  The water is now coming up between the end of my driveway and the curb.  I'm worried about it undermining my driveway, and if it freezes under it, it will destroy my driveway.

Five days passed with no response.  It's now a heavy flow over the curb and down the street.  I wrote a letter to the town hall, ATTN: Water Dept. Fix this, damn it!

No response.  Until yesterday.  We'd had our first hard freeze.  The water continued to pour over the curb from my lawn, but on its trip down the street it froze, and had formed a sheet of ice several feet wide and a few inches thick, and growing.  About 10 am I found this stuck to my front door (I was home at the time, by the way, but there was no knock on the door):

I totally flipped out!  Jasper heard some words he'd never heard before.  

I called the number on the form, talked to a woman there, told them it's YOUR $%^&$%ing water, not mine, and I can't get anyone to respond.  She gave me the number to call for the water department, I called there --- and --- left a voice message.  I then sat down and wrote a very angry letter to the township water department which I intended to hand-carry to town hall.  But, in the meantime, the neighborhood had heard about it, and apparently several people were calling to complain.  Somebody must "know" somebody, because as I was leaving the house to tear some asses at town hall, I discovered a water department truck at the curb, and a man opening the hatch to the water meter.

Two hours later everything was fixed.

The guy was up to his elbows in freezing water in below freezing weather, and I told him I had started calling about this back when it was in the low 60s out, so when he gets back to the office he should complain, too.  He told me that when they'd installed meters back a few years ago, they'd used a meter with a plate on the bottom that (this is hard to believe) disintegrates in water.  I said "No shit."  (I was still in a swearing mood.)  He showed it to me when he pulled it out, and it really, seriously, was disintegrated.  There were four flanges on the sides where the bolts go to hold it on, and two of them were completely gone, no sign of them.  He replaced it with a cap that looks like fiberglass.  And I said, "So you guys know this is going to happen, everywhere?"

No idea whether there's damage to my driveway.  The lawn got dug up around the meter, and refilled with frozen clods.

But at least the flow has stopped.

Oh, by the way, I've still had no response to my calls or letter.  Just in case you were wondering. 

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

Coming up:
Brush fire 6 - eBay, 5 - real estate taxes, 4 - homeowner's insurance, and 3 - investments.
.

5038 Brush fire 1 - van

January 7, 2016

There's a fine line between genius and insanity, 

but the line between beautiful and ugly is really, really thick.

– Mil Millington --

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

I haven't been keeping up with this blog because I've been stomping brush fires.  It's been one thing after another, and I don't know if it's age or just the way things go these days, but it seems like everything takes forever.  So much energy.

The battery in my van died a long time ago. Like more than a year ago.  Hercules gave me a jump one spring day, and I drove it around for a while to charge the battery, but then the next day it wouldn't start again (not even a rrr-rrr-rrr), so I let it sit.  I didn't do anything about it because I knew that the vehicle needed a lot of work to be dependable, and it was easier to think about buying oh, maybe a commercial van, or something, than to actually do anything.  So, in November I called my local garage folks, and they came and got it. They came out with some kind of electric pack, and they drove it to the garage.  They will also deliver, which is nice.  

So, they had the van for weeks.  The alternator was ok, but it needed a new battery.  And oil change.  And this and that from being left sitting for so long.  And brake lines.  Oh, and there's a gas leak somewhere, so they have to drop the tank to find that.  Then replace the fuel pump (gaskets leaking).   Every time they called with something new, they gave me an estimate.  Now, there was a definite communication problem there.  The numbers kept going up, so I assumed that was the total.  Nope, every call was just THAT problem.  In addition.  So at the end I was expecting a bill of about $1400, and was shocked when he wanted almost $3000!  (Something like $2994.)

I can't complain too much.  I told Mike I wanted the van to be dependable, so do whatever it needs to put it in very good shape.  I'm comfortable with what they did, I'm not so worried about the trip upriver now, but it was a scramble to pay that bill.

Then, the rest of the story.

The van had been sitting in the driveway for more than a year, driver's side about six inches from the edge of the lawn.  When the mechanic delivered the van, he parked it in the same spot, and I gave him a ride back to the garage in my car.  Big mistake.  I should have used the van to take him back.  Then I'd have seen this before he got away:

A surprise:


The fender:


The door:


The garage was closed by then, so I immediately called and left a phone message so there would be no mistake about when it had happened (or more accurately, NOT happened).   And then I took the van over the next morning so he could see it. 

Naturally, he claimed it looked like that when they picked it up.  Uh, no, it had been parked next to the lawn for more than a year.  There's no way it got hit there.  My neighbors can all verify that.  This happened when it was in your care. 

The scrapes went right down to the base coat, so he claimed that door had already been repainted once.  Uh, no, I bought the thing new, have been the only owner, and except for a scratch near the door handle, there hasn't been a single solitary mark on this vehicle in fifteen years.  I'm rather proud of that. 

He seemed to think he could get out of it some way until I said that it looked to me like someone parked too closely had turned into me trying to get out, scraping me, probably a large SUV or truck, and that the policeman had agreed that's what it looked like.  He looked shocked.  "You called the police?!"  "Uh, yeah.  If I have to go to my insurance company for a hit and run, they'll want a police report from as close to the accident time as possible."

So, they had it for another two weeks.  It now has a new door panel (supposed to be the same color, but it's slightly off because it's not as faded), and the dent in the fender is pulled out and the scrapes polished out.

This was all emotionally exhausting.

I don't want to dirty that pond, because with the van's dropped floor and 4 inch clearance, it can't go up on any old rack, so it's hard to find a good mechanic who has the right lift or pit to work on it.
.

5037 Country visit

Sunday, January 3, 2016

Comparison is the thief of joy.

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

I'm at the country house, arrived late last night.  I had wanted to come up last Monday, but about two hours before departure time, I got a notice from the Rhinebeck community forum that they were expecting a major ice storm, starting Monday evening and extending into Wednesday night.  According to news reports, it was pretty bad.  So I drove up last evening instead.

I didn't see any snow or any indication of anything nasty the whole drive up, until I turned into this street, and POW, there were actual snowbanks on the side of the street.  Yeah, my house is on a ridge, but it's not that high, so I never have understood why snow and ice is so much worse, as soon as you turn off route 9 onto this street. As soon as, as in before it ever starts going up.

I had not left the heat on after my last trip.  I arrived about nine PM.  The temperature outside was below freezing, and it was 40 F inside.  I was so grateful when the furnace went on with no complaints, but warming up took a very long time, because everything in the house had to be warmed, too. I finally was able to stop shivering long enough to fall asleep under a comforter and two blankets at about one am, and by then the thermostat said it was 51.  By morning it was 74, but every time the furnace decided it was satisfied, the air cooled off quickly, because walls and furniture were still absorbing heat.  When I leave tomorrow, I'll leave it set at 55.

It's been a while since I've been here, so I haven't done much of anything today.  Just soaking up the vibes of the house.  Returning south tomorrow, after a few business calls.  I am not looking forward to one of them.  I'm going to blow Piper out of the water.  I'll detail that when I have a keyboard.

5036 Screwed up the MRD

Saturday, December 12, 2015

If all your friends are fat, there are no seesaws, only catapults.

 – Demetri Martin –

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

Lately I've been sleeping oddly.  I go to bed very early, then read in bed or do logic puzzles for an hour or two, fall asleep, then I awaken again somewhere between 2 and 5 am, read or puzzle some more, fall asleep again, and wake in the morning.  Last night I woke up about 2 am, started to read, and decided I wanted something to eat.  So I came downstairs, and while munching on crackers and peanut butter, I puttered around on the computer.  I was still mulling over why the 401K folks seemed surprised that I asked more more than the Minimum Required Distribution on the 401K, so I looked some stuff up.

Well, it turns out I had been given bad advice several months ago, when I was looking into the requirements for taking the MRD (a.k.a.RMD) from my 401K and the IRAs.  The amount one has to take depends on the account balances from 12/31 of the previous year, and a percentage from IRS tables.  I had been told by my financial advisers that I could add up the accounts, arrive at the total MRD, and then take all of it from any one of the accounts, or a bit from each, or any combination, as long as the total came out to the required minimum --- and back then I found nothing online that disputed that.  So I added it all up, and took it all from the 401K.

Surprise.  I found a very recent article that says that you cannot combine the 401K with IRAs.  You can combine several IRA balances and take money from any of them, but a 401K has to be handled separately.  You have to take the 401K's MRD only from the 401K, and you can't take any IRA MRDs from the 401K.

Crap.  If I hadn't found that, I'd have been hit with major tax penalty for not having taken any MRD from the IRAs!

So, I did that at 3 am.  I took the required amount from each of the IRAs.  The IRS will have nothing to complain about.

I'm still a bit confused about why I have to pay a 20% tax "penalty" on the "excess" over the required minimum I took from the 401K.  I thought this was my retirement account, and that I'm now old enough to be able to take as much as I want out of there whenever I want --- whatever I need to live on, right?  It likely has to do with what portion is "tax free", and anything over that is taxed as income.  But I ran the numbers, and if I were to take only the minimum every year, that account wouldn't be drained until I'm 115 years old.  I'm not likely to live that long.

BTW, there's no penalty if I take money out of the 401K and roll it over into an IRA, and then I can take all I need from the IRA whenever I need it, taxed as normal income.  No penalty.  I think.  I'll have to look into that next year.
. 

5035 A present for me?

Saturday, December 12, 2015

"Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. 

To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom."
~Bertrand Russell~

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

The hot thing for the younger crowd this year is the "hoverboard", somehow tied in its advertising to the Back to the Future franchise, which makes the kids lust for it.

Bullpoopy!  It has nothing whatsoever to do with hovering.  It's basically a cheaper Segway with smaller wheels and no upright.  Another difference between this thing and the Segway is that anyone can use a Segway smoothly almost immediately, while the "hoverboard" requires that you survive its multiple attempts to kill or maim you.

I sneer at you, "hoverboard"!

That got me thinking about the Segway.  I've wanted one since they first came out.  Are they still making them?  Do they still cost as much as a small slightly used car?    Answers: Yes, and yes.  Also they're so heavy and the wheels on them are so large they can't be put in a car trunk easily, which limits their versatility.

But, wandering around the web looking up deals on Segways, I found a little thing called a QBOT (http://www.discovermymobility.com/store/scooters/greetransporter/q-bot/index.html).  It's like a Segway but much smaller than the Segway, a bit slower, weighs only 35 lbs, and isn't so good "offroad".  But it's cute!  I can get it in pink, which makes it almost theft-proof.  And it costs a third or less of the Seqway's price.

I am very very tempted.
.

5034 Diary - 401K RMD, Met Life - Ignore

Friday, December 11, 2015

I guess I've got to start using this as a diary again.  After I got off the phone, after an hour and fifteen minutes with the Fidelity rep arranging for them to issue my 401K RMD check, I was feeling really good about having completed two big tasks, and then realized I couldn't remember what the first of those tasks was.  So I guess I'd better write it down for future reference.

1. I arranged for changing the beneficiary on Ex#2's life insurance (which I own and pay the premiums on), from me to Daughter.  I don't know what MetLife's problem was, but it took three days, including several abortive attempts at the website, and two phone discussions with reps.  What I have accomplished so far is the printing out of the forms - 9 pages!  Nine pages of details I have to locate.  Heck, I don't remember when his birthday is!  And I don't know his phone number.  Luckily, I do have his SS#.  (Daughter can probably provide some of what I need, but I didn't want her to know I was changing it over to her because back when I told her I intended to, she shrugged and told me to just drop the policy.)  MetLife isn't making this easy.

2. I have to withdraw the Required Minimum Distribution from my IRAs and 401K.  I don't have to take the RMD from each, I can take whatever the total works out for all three from any one of them.  So I'm taking it all from my 401K because they are the easiest to deal with.   However, they figured out how much I am supposed to take from them ONLY, so they are considering the excess I'm taking as a simple early withdrawal which I am not rolling over, and therefore they have to send 20% of the excess to the IRS as punishment.   I don't understand.  By taking it all from the 401K and not touching the IRAs, I AM in effect rolling it over without actually transferring the money --- but there's nothing I can do about it except turn the mess over to the Angel and he can probably get it refunded to me at tax time.

Nothing is easy anymore.

I guess it's not just me.  Daughter mentioned in passing the other day that she was spending an exorbitant amount of time on a simple Amazon return.
.

5033 Bits

Thursday, December 10, 2015

"[T]he more a person deems absolute equality among all people to be a desirable condition, 

the further left he or she will be on the ideological spectrum. 

The more a person considers inequality to be unavoidable or even desirable, 

the further to the right he or she will be. 

-- Roderick Stackelberg,  Hitler's Germany, Routledge, 1999, pp. 4–6 --

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

Cat Allergy

When Jay and I started dating, I had Siddy Kitty. Jay was highly allergic to cats.  The membranes in his nose swelled, the whites of his eyes turned red, and the membrane that covers the eyeball, the conjuntiva, would swell so badly it actually hung out over his lower eyelid in a blob.  All he had to do was walk into the house.  This was a bit of a problem.  I also had two dogs at the time, but they didn't bother him.

I found some kind of stuff somewhere, I forget what it was called (it was probably similar to Allerpet), a liquid that when put on the cat did something to reduce the allergens.  I scrubbed Siddy down with it about every other day at first.  I'd put some in a bowl, sop a sponge in it, then rub her all over with the sponge.  She LOVED it!  There's no way you'd ever get her into a bath (and live), but she thought being rubbed down with a sponge was wonderful.  It was like Mommy was licking her all over with a sponge tongue.

It worked beautifully.  Jay's non-reaction was immediate, and he and Siddy got to be best snuggle buddies.

Gradually I reduced the scrubbings to every three days, then every four days, then once a week, trying to find out how long the effects lasted.  Within another two months or so, I was frequently forgetting to do it, then one day I realized Siddy hadn't been doused in months, and Jay still wasn't reacting.  We stopped, and even after we got Miss Thunderfoot, a long-hair with skin problems, Jay no longer reacted.

I have no idea what happened.  His earlier reactions were so extreme, and he said he'd always been that way around cats.  Did his allergy simply go away?  Was there a psychological component to the allergy such that when he fell in love with Siddy it went away?

I'd still love to know.

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

Christman Lights

They've been going up all around here since the day after Thanksgiving.  Nugget and I have wandered around in the car looking at them.  She gets so excited.  I noticed something new this year.  In previous years I had seen nets of lights that people spread over shrubs and small trees.  This year some houses look like they have nets of lights spread over the whole front of the house, hundreds of tiny green and red lights.  I wondered if you hang the netting from the eaves, or what?  Then my neighbor across the street got them.  The front of their house is narrow, and the web covered the whole front, including across the front door.  I wondered how they'd get in the house.  Then I saw someone walk up to the door, and the lights were across his back --- oh, it's a projector!

Silly old lady.  Get with the times!

That seems so easy.  If I did Christmas stuff at all, I'd definitely go that route.

There's some weird overspill from the projector across the street.  I have seven or eight tiny dots of red and green on the north end of my house, running up the garage to the house roof.  I wonder, if you point the projector up to the sky, what would it look like from a plane?

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

Squirrels

I like to give peanuts to the neighborhood squirrels.  I used to stand on the porch and call them, "Squiggy!  Squiggy!", and they'd come running for the peanuts on the lawn and driveway.  Some were getting bold enough to come within a few inches of me to beg.  Then the blue jays figured out what "Squiggy" meant, and they started showing up, within seconds of my calling.  The jays would call each other, and pretty soon it was getting nasty, with jays dive bombing squirrels and squabbling over the peanuts.  So I had to stop calling.  I just threw peanuts when I saw squirrels nearby, and stopped when I heard the first jay call.

This year there's something strange about the squirrels.  There don't seem to be many big chubby mature squirrels.  They all seem to be very small and young.  Where did all the older ones go?  Hercules says a fox has been seen, but foxes would seem to have an more of an effect on the cat and rabbit population than on the squirrels.  There's one little squirrel who has a thin scrawny tail.  I worry about him.  That stick of a tail isn't going to keep him warm when it gets cold.  I try to throw peanuts to him, but he always runs away.

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

Other Stuff

I have lots of opinions on lots of stuff, but I try not to write anything that will just upset me more.  Gotta wait for it to simmer down a bit more.  But there's the van, Met Life, France, politicians, aaaagggghhh!  I'm getting annoyed already.  Need more time to pass.

[Drops mike....]
.

5032 I love me a marching band.

Thursday, November 26, 2015

I haven't watched a holiday parade on TV in ages, so I didn't realize how coverage of the parades has changed.  I love marching bands, especially high school bands, military bands, and police/fire department bands.  I love the sound and the precision.

10:20  We're 20 minutes into the NYC parade, and I'm getting very frustrated.  CBS is showing every balloon and every advertising float, but every time a marching band comes down the street they cut away to reporters nattering to each other or to somebody who has something to sell, or to commercials.  There have already been a jillion commercials.

And what's with these stage shows?  What do they have to do with a parade?

I am disgusted.

10:25  Whoa!  They just showed a high school band!  Well, a little of it.  They were moving FAST -- almost trotting.  
10:35  I wish the reporters would just SHUT UP!

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

All of this reminds me of my high school band experience.

The school I graduated from went from kindergarten to 12th grade in the one building, and there was a total of about 200 kids altogether.  Of that, about 80 were in high school (we were top-heavy because there were a few small Catholic schools that went up to eighth grade), and of that 80, about half were in the marching band. 

There was one other school in the northern reaches of the county, but they didn't have a marching band, just a small concert band, so we represented the county in all parades in all surrounding counties.   We won almost all competitions because we were the only band that actually played while marching.  All the others had to stop to play.  The uniforms were red pants and jackets with gold braid and bucket hats.

And then it all changed.

In my junior year, the county announced that they were consolidating the two public schools, and  building a new facility for the junior and senior high school classes ... which didn't seem to make a lot of sense to a lot of people because that meant some kids would be on the school bus for at least an hour each way, twice a day.  My class was going to be the last to graduate from our old school.

Also, somewhere in that period, the old music teacher retired, and we got a new woman.

She decided that the old uniforms with pants were not appropriate for the females in the band, so she ordered expensive new white wool skirts and jackets for the girls, with red berets ...  which didn't make a lot of sense since no one knew what the colors for the new school would be, and both bands would have to consolidate somehow, and with the boys in red and the girls in white, we lost the uniformity.  Plus, most of the parades were in the winter, and up there on the plateau it was COLD, often below zero, and the girls' legs froze.  (We majorettes were in skirts, but we at least could keep constantly moving.)

Something else that didn't make any sense, they stopped recruiting new members into the band.  The excuse we were given was the consolidation, but we all knew that the real reason was that the new music teacher didn't know how to teach any instrument beyond her beloved violin.  So over the next two years as members graduated, the band got smaller and smaller.

Plus, and this was the absolute worst, she changed the (I don't know the word for it) pace we marched to.  She decided we had to quick-step, apparently the latest fad.  Which meant we could no longer play while marching.

We all, kids and parents, hated her.  But I guess being a small school in the mountains in the middle of nowhere, she was the best they could get. 

We still won competitions, though, because without discussing it with her, the band whistled our old playlist as they marched.  She didn't like it, but she couldn't stop them.

My senior year we were down to three majorettes.  Sandra and Sharon and me.  Sandra and Sharon were tall, and I was short, so the teacher decided I should be the drum major, out in front with the big silver whistle and the bucket hat with the tall feathered plume.  I was so short the plume looked silly, so that was ditched.  But I got to blow the whistle for stops and turns and roll-off.  That was fun.

So, my class, the "last class from Turnpike High", graduated.  Over the next summer, the brand new building that everyone was supposed to be moving into, collapsed.  The foundation crumbled.  It was a complete loss.  It turned out someone had been siphoning off the construction money, and all the cement and concrete was mostly sand.

Nobody was surprised.
.

5031 Frusty

Sunday, November 8, 2015

So now everybody is down on candidate Carson for saying he had been offered a scholarship to West Point, because "everyone knows that West Point is free for anyone accepted."  I've heard people I had heretofore considered intelligent snorking about it.  "Yeah, scholarship.   Snork."

Yes, Ben Carson has said some very weird stuff, but this isn't one of them.

What else do you call an offer of free tuition and room and board at an institute of higher education?  Last I heard, that's called a full scholarship.  Sheesh!  You really don't have to stretch that far to find stuff to razz him about.

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

"Sunday Morning" did a story this morning on a guy who carves the lettering on monuments.  You know, I'd never thought about it.  I guess I'd assumed it was done with some kind of machine, like a thingy you slap on there, and it routs out the letters according to a platten you put in it.

The country house is near the Catskills and the beginnings of the Adirondacks, so there are a lot of old mountain house resorts scattered around, many of which are now nothing more than foundations lost in the woods.  The resorts were built on the tops of mountains, with bare granite outcroppings from which you can see for miles. Those views are popular destinations for hikers.

Back in the 18th to early 20th centuries wealthy families would spend the whole summer at the resorts.

What I found fascinating about those outcroppings was the graffiti.  OLD graffiti. Names and dates, initials, entire classical quotations, some in Latin or Greek, carved into the granite.  I suspect it was likely young men bored out of their minds --- rich, classically educated young men with a lot of time to fill.   The work was not just scratchings.  It's that "V" shaped chiseling of straight letters with capitols, exactly as seen now on monuments.  Excellent work.

Of  course, there's modern graffiti here and there, too.  In spray paint and barely decipherable.  Made by youth who couldn't compose a Latin phrase to save their lives (except maybe E Pluribus Unum, but even then they would likely misspell it, even if they have a quarter in their pocket).

If ghosts could laugh, the mountains would ring.

Sigh.
.

5030 Not difficult to understand

Thursday, November 5, 2015

Looking at the field of presidential candidates, I wonder why they are in general so ... bad.  Many of them are just plain weird in their opinions and proposals.  Very few of them come across as thinkers.

Then I realized it's completely understandable why no intelligent, aware, educated, accomplished, thinking person who wants to better the lives of the people would want to run for the office.  I mean, who in their right mind would volunteer to deal with what Congress has become?

That leaves the field open for people who just want the power and glory of the title, or who want to push their own narrow agendas and prejudices.

Out of the whole field, there are maybe two whom I could vote for without holding my nose, and even then it would be without hope.

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

If you disagree, tell me who you think is a decent candidate, and why.  Maybe you could sway me. (No, I won't tell you who my two might be.)
.

5029 Weird-oween

Tuesday, October 3, 2015

I wish there was some way to estimate how many kids would show up for Hallowe'en, and when.  Last year we had a gazillion, all between 5 and 9 pm.  This year there were very few.  They started showing up at 2 (!!!???) and I wasn't at all ready, and it was all over by 7.  I don't understand.

I don't like to hand out candy.  The past few years I had LED blinking rings and bracelets, and for boys who didn't want "jewelry" I had tiny LED fingertip flashlights.  They went over well.  This year I had one bowl with 12-count boxes of Crayola sidewalk chalk, and another bowl full of whistles and kazoos, sitting on the porch.  Kids could choose one from the bowl of chalk, OR two or three items from the bowl of whistles.

At least half the "kids" were at least 15, many older. Half!  Even worse, on three occasions, the MOTHERS came up with a batch of little kids and the MOTHERS ALSO GRABBED STUFF OUT OF THE BOWLS!  Handfuls of stuff from BOTH bowls!  Carefully not looking at me!  That completely blew my mind!

I think next year I might put up a little sign:

 "If you are taller than I am, forget it."

I had moved a chair out onto the porch, set up a space heater to blow on me, and settled down with a book.  I did get quite a bit of reading done.  There was a lot of time that there was no one on the street.

The Nugget came to my house early, grabbed a kazoo, and ran back home, whence she and her mother drove off, not to be seen again for hours.  Turns out they'd gone to another neighborhood to make the rounds there with friends.

Rapunzel, at the nursery school costume parade on Friday:

The wig is a bit too far back on her forehead, so her own hair is peeking out, but that was almost necessary to keep it out of her eyes.  The wig reached to her knees in the back.  (She looks good blonde.)  That wig cost me less than $20 new on eBay, including shipping, and it really looks great (when it's combed), with natural color variation and a natural-looking part.  It was a surprise how nice it looked when it arrived.  I was expecting it to look like fake hair, but it doesn't.   I just might get another one for me.

The nursery school kids marched around the parking lot.  The day before, Daughter had told me that Nugget didn't want to be in the parade.  I asked why, and Daughter said, "She's shy."   Duh?  I never noticed shyness in her.

Anyway, Daughter was late (she's always late, everywhere, for everything) and didn't arrive until the parade was over and the kids were just lined up for photos, so I'm glad I was there to wave at Rapunzel in the parade.  Nugget was amazing.  Notice her hands in the second photo above.  She was marching like she was a beauty queen perched on the back deck of a white convertible, flashing a genuine smile the whole way, and waving both hands at the adoring crowd.  All she was missing was a sheaf of roses.

Shy, my eye.
.

5028 Lip reading

Thursday, October 29, 2015

There's some bunch out there taking videos, deleting the audio, and replacing it with lip-readings.  This video is so funny.  The new audio really does seem to be what the candidates are saying.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_yxGsWHx9o]

There's some real skill involved here, to both "read" what seems to fit the mouth movements, AND make it make sense (sort of).
.

5027 Super Snork

Monday, October 26, 2015

The new Supergirl show was on tonight.  I watched The Big Bang Theory, and Supergirl was on right after it, so I just left the TV on, figured I'd give it a chance.

It started out ok, but then they brought in a bunch of criminal aliens with superpowers and otherworldly technology, which includes weapons that look like something a 10-year-old boy would design and Worf would carry, and all kinds of explosions, so I lost interest in the second half. 

Calista Flockhart is Kara (Supergirl)'s rich bitch witchy boss.  I was pleased to see her, I wondered what happened to her after Allie McBeal.  Jimmy Olsen (Mehcad Brooks) turns up in Kara's office, yeah, THAT Jimmy Olsen, except now he goes by James since Jimmy got all grown up and smooth and sexy and deep-voiced, and he's now black.  If I ever watch the show again, it'll be for him and Calista.

The snork part?  Kara takes off her glasses, and one of her male coworkers says, "You're really pretty without your glasses."

I HATE THAT!!!  I wanted to reach through the screen and strangle him.  I heard that so many many times in my youth.  One time in college a guy actually took my glasses right off my face in the Husky Lounge and then wouldn't give them back, because, "I like looking at you without glasses."  I wanted to kill him.  At that time my vision was 20/350.  I was legally blind.  Anything past 18 inches was a blur.  I was furious.

When I got a little older I learned how to handle that comment.  Some guy would say, "You look so pretty without your glasses" and I would smile sweetly and respond, "You look so handsome without my glasses."
.

5026 Up in the air

Friday, October 23, 2015

Whoa!  It's been a while since I visited here.  In the meantime, I've figured out a few of those noises in post 5021.  The microwave sounding beeps are probably people with remote keys locking and unlocking cars.  That explains the "bip bip" ones, but doesn't fully explain the "bip     bip-bip-bip     bip" ones. 

The loud crash during the night was the curtains and rod falling in the master bedroom, a closed room I seldom enter.  The curtains in that room are on a pressure rod that fits inside the frame, so I guess some temperature differential caused it to no longer hold.  I've had problems with those curtains before.  The second bedroom, where I sleep, has the same curtains on the same type of rod, but they've never fallen.  (I don't sleep in the master bedroom because that room is cold and drafty.)

I haven't been to the country house in a long time, and that's starting to gnaw at me.  The packed overnight bag has been in the trunk of the car for so long that I'll have to bring it back in and replace the light short sleeved things with heavier long sleeved stuff.  It seems like every time I plan to go, something happens to stop me.  This week I was absolutely determined to go, and then on Wednesday Ex#2 collapsed and was taken by ambulance to the ER, so Daughter ran off to south Jersey, and I had the Nugget.

Apparently he has some kind of blood infection, whatever that means.   They have him on antibiotics.  He wants to leave the hospital.  He's not entirely reasonable.

I really don't understand how that man is still alive.  I hear that he falls down all the time, but refuses to use his walker.  His diabetes is out of control.  His feet are so swollen they are like rockers, but he won't eat anything but ice cream.  He lives in an efficiency apartment attached to the big farmhouse (which he owns) where his sister, her divorced son and divorced daughter, her divorced daughter's ex-husband, and one or two of her grand children all live, and they are being driven crazy by him.  He's incontinent both ways, but refuses to wear diapers, is incapable of cleaning himself up, refuses to bathe, and refuses to have a daily health care worker in to assist.  An assisted living facility is absolutely out of the question.  He even refuses physical therapy.  And yet he declares he intends to live forever.

Daughter asked for and got a psych evaluation in the hospital so somebody else can make decisions for him, but they haven't heard the results yet.  I warned her that even the most out-of-it people can somehow pull it all together and sound perfectly reasonable for the few minutes that takes -- we went through that with Jay's father -- so we can't count on that.  But Daughter and the sister did at least get him to agree to a home care aide while the rest of the family are at work or school, so that's something.  Daughter doesn't have very high hopes for that because he gets mad and yells at anyone who tries to get him to do anything he doesn't want to do, and she's afraid they'll just quit,  but I told her that these aides are used to working with people like that and will know how to handle him.  I hope I'm right.

So, a lot of my schedule is up in the air.  Being available to Daughter is always a higher priority than the country house. 
So. 
.

5025 I figured it out!

Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Don't tell Peapod, but I figured out how to use the limited-time coupons they send me.

You can place an order, and select a date and time in the future for delivery, and check out.  Then up until late afternoon or evening of the day before delivery, you can continue to add stuff to the order.  Usually I schedule delivery for the day or two after I place the order.  I place an order for $120 to $200 about every three or four weeks.  (Yeah, I don't eat much, especially since that includes household staples, too.)

A few days after my order is delivered, they email me a coupon for X dollars off my next order over $100.  However, that coupon usually expires within two weeks or so, and I'm not going to need another $100 worth of groceries within that time frame, so I seldom have an opportunity to use the coupon.  Very frustrating.


I accidentally found a way around that!

I placed my order last week and went through checkout, for delivery this Thursday.  In the meantime I have been adding things as I run out of this or that or I think of something else.

Today, they sent me a coupon for my "next order", with the usual short expiration date.  Apparently their system didn't notice that although I had checked out last week, I had not yet received this order.  So, when I added another item today, I tried the coupon, and it worked!

From now on I'm going to start the order well ahead of delivery, so I can exploit that loophole.

Don't tell Peapod.
.

5024 Gun control blather

Monday, October 12, 2015

I don't understand why there's so much talk about gun control at a federal level.  That's absolutely unconstitutional, but not for the reasons people think. 

When the second amendment was written, the states very much considered themselves individual entities.  You know, that "states' rights" thing?  They each had their own government.  They were jealous of any power another state might have, and that's why the District of Columbia was created.  They didn't want to be completely subservient to a federal government, and that's why many of them insisted on the first ten amendments before they would ratify the new constitution.  It was to be a union of states for purposes of defense, trade, major projects and the like, not a homogeneous country with counties or departments, like England or France or whatever.  That's why the name is The United States, not just Columbia or something.

The individual states figured they had a right to self-defense, defense from any internal or external threat, whether it be natives, another land-grabbing state, another country, or even the federal government, so they had a right to maintain their own defenders.  States had their own militias.  Look at the military companies fighting in the Civil War.  They fought under the union or confederate banner, but each company carried the name of their state.  They were members of their state militias.

So a state is constitutionally allowed to have and maintain their own "well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State".  That's what it says.  It's plain English and doesn't even need interpretation.  It refers to a state (not referring to the federal "state", but to a state as understood then) and its need for defense.  A state can define a militia in any way they want.  I don't understand why so many people are confused by the "well regulated militia" words in the amendment.  It simply means that states are allowed to arm themselves, the federal government can't mess with that, and the states are allowed to define who makes up that militia and how it's regulated.  The militia  can even consist of every person in the state capable of wielding a club, and at one time, in many states, it was.  And the state can regulate that militia any way its people decide.

That means if a state decides everyone in the state with a gun is a member of the militia, they can regulate it any way the people of that state decide.

So gun control is a states' issue, not a federal issue.  And the states have every right to regulate guns.

Now that's all well and good and pretty clear.  But after the Civil War, in a series of confusing and contradictory decisions, the SCOTUS redefined it as an individual right that even the states can't infringe upon, and that's when it got all messed up.

The Feds were pretty bummed by the whole Civil War thing.  The general consensus was that this "states' rights" stuff was a load of crap and had to be stomped a bit.  Maybe the states needed to be reminded who's boss.

Sigh.

I also hold an unpopular opinion on the Civil War.  

My opinion is that the southern states had every right to secede from the union.  The federal government was dead wrong to use force to stop them.  That doesn't mean I in any way agree with their reasons for secession, just that I believe they had every right to leave the club if they wanted to.  I don't believe the original intent of forming a union was to create a national homeowners' association where the only way to get out is to emigrate or die.  Do you suppose that if the northeastern states knew that once they joined the union, they could never ever get out, that they would have joined?  Nah.  We'd have a country called New England up there in that corner.  Those folks were fiercely independent.  They'd want the right to take their ball and go home if they had to, to maintain that independence. 

The states need some way to control the arrogance of the federal government.  Threat of secession is the most drastic option, but other means are built in.  Note that it's not the people who elect federal officials, it's the states.  The state legislatures actually control who gets elected to federal offices, and it was designed that way.  The Electoral College, for example, is very unpopular, but getting rid of it will weaken states' rights and give more power to the Federal government.  States are (or perhaps were) not even required to hold general elections for federal offices.  They just do it to gauge the preferences of their populace so they don't have a mob burning down the state capitol buildings.

You can take this all as blather, but I hope maybe someone will think about it.
.

5023 Criteria

Sunday, October 11, 2015

I found this interesting.  Common motifs, disputed vociferously by some, especially by those who have turf to protect.

Horus, Egypt, 3000 BC
Born in early winter
Born of a virgin
Star in the east
Adored by three kings
Teacher at 12
Baptized and began ministry at 30
12 disciples
Performed miracles
Was known as the Lamb of God and The Light
Crucified
Dead for three days
Resurrected

Mithra, Persia, 1200 BC
Born in early winter
Born of a virgin
12 disciples
Performed miracles
Dead for three days
Resurrected
Weekly holy day for worship

Attis, Greece, 1200 BC
Born in early winter
Born of a virgin
Crucified
Dead for three days
Resurrected

Dionysus, Greece, 1000 BC
Born in early winter
Born of a virgin
Performed miracles
Was called "King of Kings" and "Alpha and Omega"
Crucified
Resurrected

Krishna, India, 900 BC
Born in early winter
Born of a virgin
Star in the east
Performed miracles
Crucified
Resurrected



One gets the feeling that humans have certain requirements for religious leaders/founders, certain innate criteria, and that those leaders seemed to be conforming --- or at least their followers and chroniclers were.

Another explanation could be that God kept trying, at various times and in various areas, sticking to a pattern that seemed to appeal.

It is the nature of humans to absorb, twist, embellish, and then incorporate whatever makes a story more exciting.
.

5022 Start Picking!

Saturday, October 10, 2015

We got a notice from the township yesterday that we are to rake leaves to the curb, and the town trucks will be by this Monday to suck them up.

Has no one in the town hall noticed that the leaves are still on the trees?
.

5021 Noises in the night

Saturday, October 10, 2015

This house has strange noises at night.  Noises that I don't hear during the day.  It's not that I don't hear them in daytime because of the radio or TV being on, because I don't have anything on during the day.  Conditions are pretty much the same.  Except it's nighttime, and dark.

One is the sound of microwave buttons.  Know that beep beep when you set the timer?  All through the night I hear occasional sets of three or four beeps, exactly as if someone is setting a microwave.  I don't know where it's coming from. 

I hear the siding contracting as it cools off, but I recognize that.  I hear the ductwork expanding as it heats up, and I recognize that.  I hear the click as the furnace goes on and off.  But I also hear solid clicks, and bumps, and creaks that I can't identify. 

Last night there was a loud crash, definitely inside the house, downstairs, as if a stack of books fell off a shelf.  Jasper was sleeping on the bed by my feet, so it wasn't him, and, oddly, he didn't react to it.  I checked around this morning and don't see anything that would explain it. 

If the house were bigger and with mystery rooms or a basement or empty closets, I'd think maybe I have someone else living here who comes out only at night.  You hear about that once in a while.  But there's no spot anywhere here where a person could hide, especially not downstairs.

I'm beginning to think I have a ghost.
.

5020 Old.

Thursday, October 8, 2015

A few days ago, I went into the bathroom.  I was wearing a very full long caftan and over it a large bulky also long cape/shawl sweater thingy.  I gathered it all up in front of me so it wouldn't dunk in the water, with great difficulty, because the cape was long in the back and both sides, with fringes.  I sat down and did my thing, and it was awfully .... wet.  I had forgotten to pull my panties down.

I suddenly felt very old.

I've never done that before.  I mentioned it to Daughter, and she blushed and confessed that she had occasionally done the same thing.  So, maybe it's not old.  Just distraction?

On the other hand, I've been watching a lot of BBC historical documentaries.  Two of them involved Queen Victoria.  I'm noticing a distressing similarity in the mirror to post-Albert Victoria.

Oh dear.

(She was a few inches taller than I and only a few pounds heavier - but I don't look that big, do I?  I've GOT to change my hairstyle!  And stop wearing the damn crown!)

I am reminded of something a wise man told me once about how a man feels about a woman:
- he is attracted to the way she looks,
- intrigued by the way she thinks,
- charmed by the way she acts,
- and falls in love with the way she makes him feel.
Forty years later, when she's wrinkled, jowly, thickened, and saggy, well, three out of four ain't bad.
.

5019 Vote for Science

Thursday, October 8, 2015






[https://youtu.be/8e1XX-ngJcc]
.

5018 Recycling Anger

Tuesday, October 6, 2015

I am very angry at (with?) the township.

Several weeks ago we got notice that all recyclables, collected twice a month, were to be put out in either closed lidded containers or in clear plastic bags.  I had been using an open container -- a hip-high kitchen trash can.  It was light enough for me to easily carry out, and big enough to hold everything.

Well, there's nothing with a good lid that would be convenient for me.  I'd almost need something I could wheel out, and all the wheeled thingies are too big, so I decided to go the clear plastic bag route.

I visited several stores before I concluded that there's no such thing (not in stores around here, anyway) as a clear kitchen-sized trash bag.  Not to mention that even if there had been a space on the shelves labelled for clear bags, everyone in the township was looking for them.  I finally bought some clear bags in a hardware store, but they're sized for yard waste, and are ridiculously huge.  Also ridiculously expensive.  But it was the last box, so I bought them and used them for one collection, realized they were ridiculous, and then went looking online.  Found the right stuff on Amazon.  Used the Amazon ones for the second collection.

The third collection since being told to use clear plastic bags is tomorrow.

Today, late this afternoon, we all got phone calls and alert emails from the township.  Recycle materials must be put in closed containers only.  "Plastic bags will not be picked up." 

Changing horses with less than one day's notice.

You could hear the swearing all up and down the street.

The phone call was a recording, but I swore at it anyway.  Loudly.

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

I thought hard about what I could use and finally remembered that I had two of those old green Rubbermaid stackable recycle bins in the garage, the kind with the sloping flaps on the top front.  I don't remember why I'd kept them all these years, haven't seen them actually used since recycling started three or four decades ago. But, they DO have lids....

So I put my stuff in them and put them out (paper in one, glass, plastic, and cans in the other).  I hope the guys recognize them for what they are, and don't toss the entire recycle bins themselves into the truck, too.  I also have corrugated cardboard (cut, flattened, bundled and tied, as ordered!) sitting next to them, and six huge kitty litter jugs all tied together by their handles (which they may or may not take, although they are #2, but they're not in a "closed container", sigh), so it would be easy for the guys to just throw everything in without thinking.

I'm going to have to watch for them to make sure the right things go and the wrong things don't.  They come anywhere between 7:30 am and 3:00 pm.

Sigh.
.

5017 No gun for you...

October 5, 2015

Gun control is once again an issue (being diverted to mental health by politicians), and I've been reading some arguments, none of which have any effect whatsoever, of course.  I am reminded of my experience with gun control measures.

I spent my high school years on a military base.  I used to go to the firing range with the airmen.  I got to be very good with a light hand gun.  They tested me once, and I scored sharpshooter.  Very good.  When you're really good at something, you kinda like it.

You know, if you point at something with your index finger, no matter how far away it is you will point directly at the object.  Your index finger has excellent aim.  So when shooting, if you just consider the barrel to be your index finger, you'll be right on side to side.  One test shot will tell you what adjustment to make up or down.  Guns are a lot easier than arrows.  Arrows don't make good index fingers.

Anyway, in my 20s I missed target shooting.  There was also something else going on that made me want a gun, but really, I mainly wanted target shooting.  At that time in my life, I wanted to do something I was good at, and have people see me being good at something.

The central NY community I was living in at the time had a few target clubs.  There were no public ranges.  You needed a membership to shoot anything other than tin cans in a field.  So I checked, and all of the clubs wanted you to register your guns with them before they would issue membership.  You couldn't join without first owning a gun.  However, when I tried to buy a gun, I was told I had to show a gun club membership before they could sell me a handgun.  (Or a hunting license before buying a long gun, but again, you had to register your existing gun to get a hunting license.)

I don't know if this was a county law or state law, but it was a very effective Catch 22.  I never did get my gun.  And I still miss shooting.  Damn!
.

5016 Is it the weather?

Saturday, October 3, 2015

Holding resentment is like drinking poison

and expecting the other person to die.

It doesn't work.

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

Well, it's beginning to look like Joaquin isn't going to hit us.  But right now, and for the past few days and probably a few days more, we are experiencing a Nor'easter.  I gather that's what's pushing the hurricane out to sea, so I guess we can't complain much.  We're getting lots of rain and lots of wind.  I can't hear the wind in the house, but when I go out I can hear roaring.  There was a flock some kind of wide-winged soaring bird flying high this afternoon, and they were flying backward!  Facing east, but moving west.  Weird.

I noticed that sometimes the wind dropped, no movement in the trees, but the roaring went on.  I suspect some of the sound isn't wind in the trees at all.  I suspect it's surf.  Wind kicking the water around.  I'm not going to walk to the end of the street to find out for sure.

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

The recent shooting at that college in Oregon.  Apparently the guy did it because he wanted to be famous.  Get his name known.  So, yeah, let's not mention his name.  The media says after every instance that they shouldn't make these guys famous, and then they do.  Shrug.

I found a very good comment on the Field Negro's blog (I'm not going to link because his commenters past maybe the first five are ... assholes), but this early comment says some of what I'd like to say, so, here it is:

Anonymous said...

    Well, if it's already been decided we're not going to do anything about access to guns (the NRA appears to have decided this for us), then we're left attacking the motive for using them.

    But then, we run up against other complaints from some of the same wingnuts who resist gun control.

    If we want to do something about street crime, we've got to create a fairer economic climate so that everyone can earn a legitimate living. That means greater funding of education, industrial policy to develop poor urban and rural areas, better transportation to jobs, labor laws that boost the average worker's wages, etc. It also means reversing "tough-on-crime" [justice system] policy: ending the Drug War, less-punitive sentences for non-violent crime, incentivizing employers to look past ex-cons' records in hiring, etc.

    Inevitably, all of that stuff requires higher taxes and lower incomes for rich people and/or being "nice" to criminals, so that's a "no" from conservatives.

    On the other hand, if we want to reduce mass shootings, the main avenue is addressing mental illness. Yet, mental health care costs rich people money, so that's out, too.

    Thus so we're back to the usual completely ineffective conservative remedies: scold black people, recommend everyone get some more Jesus in their lives, bash immigrants. Lather, rinse, repeat.

    Same shit, different day.

I love the way people  like Jeb Bush say "nobody" knows how to fix it, so we can't.  Um, Jeb, there are several other developed countries who HAVE fixed it.  Listen to Obama's speech and you'll hear about them.  Nobody?

I figure one of the first things to do is to get special interest money out of the election process, so maybe our representatives can represent the people instead of _______________ (fill in the blank with the NRA, the Koch brothers, whatever you like, or don't like).  Other countries have been able to figure this out.  Don't know why we can't --- oh, yeah, look who we're asking to do the reforming....  ne'mind.  Hopeless.

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

The green quote at the top is random, but today I read it and think, "Yeah, well, what else can you do?"  The whole damn country is drinking poison.
.

5015 Awwwww....Gramma's pause button

Sunday, September 27, 2015

"Be who you are and say what you feel,

because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind."

 -- Dr. Seuss --

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

I dropped the Nugget and her mommy and daddy at Newark Airport on Thursday.  Nugget was all excited at "going on VACATION!" and flying on an airplane and seeing alligators!  Her goodbye to me was rather perfunctory.  

Today I got a phone call from Florida, from a sobbing Nugget who missed her Gramma terribly.  Poor little thing.  There have been many times that I haven't seen her for a week at a time, and it never bothered either her or me, but I guess being in a strange place, being obviously far away, in obviously different surroundings, makes a difference.

When she's upset about something, she often wants to see Gramma.  I offhandedly mentioned to Daughter that I want to be a "safe haven" to Nugget.  Naturally, Daughter was offended by that.  It's not like I want to replace Daughter as Nugget's main haven, but that I want to be a safe place she can go where there's no pressure, no schedules, where she can relax completely and maybe even think things over in her own way.  I can be more indulgent than her parents.  Grammas are allowed.  There are no expectations.

So I think she's just a little overwhelmed right now, and wants to "hit pause".   Gramma has the pause button.

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

I have acquired (via Craig's List) a large, wide, blond wood-finish 3-drawer file cabinet.  I can maybe now dig my way out of the paper piles.  

All my life I've had a problem with paper.  At the country house we had four wide drawers, but still there were piles of paper everywhere.  The main problem was that I'd pay bills, or open mail, and then I didn't file stuff right away, because it took so long, and the reason it took so long was that there was a separate folder for everything.  An electric company folder.  One for phone stuff, one for each of the cars, separate ones for each of the insurance policies, separate ones for each bank account, for each stock, ... and so on, spread out over four drawers with three rows of hanging folders in each drawer, arranged alphabetically.  So filing was a royal pain.  Up, down, back, forth, over the drawers, for each piece of paper.  The greatest system in the world is literally useless if you don't use it.

Now that the only person I have to answer to is myself, I have simplified.
There's one folder for everything I pay every month.  It's labelled "Utilities", but it also includes credit card  bills.
One folder for all insurance policies, of any kind.
One folder for all bank statements.
One folder for everything having to do with investments.
One folder for all taxes.
One folder for all auto purchase and service records.
And so on.

It's kind of arranged by "when processed" grouping.  Monthly stuff, quarterly stuff, random stuff.  That way, when I pay the monthly bills, I can just gather up everything and put it in one place.  No sorting.  The bank statements usually arrive at about the same time.  Within the folders, nothing is sorted.  It's just a jumble.  If I ever have to pull together a history, it will be easy enough to just go through the jumble in the proper folder and pull out the pieces I need.

I'm starting to feel better.  Not just because I'm getting a handle on the mess, but now I might be able to actually find stuff.
.