3187 Boots

Sunday, December 5, 2010

Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati (When all else fails, play dead.)

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

I just spent literally hours shopping online for just-below-the-knee boots. I have a few suede and ultra-suede skirts that fall between the knee and ankle, and they really need high dressy boots to look right. I don't have any, so I never wear the skirts.

The reason I have no boots that go above the bottom of my calf is that MY LEGS ARE SQUARE!

It's 15 inches from the floor to just below my knee, and my calf at the widest point is 15 inches in circumference. Square. Plus it seems that my calf starts a lot lower than average. My entire ankle area is no more than an inch and a half long.

I figured I needed boots with lycra/spandex tops. They seem to be very rare in anything smaller than a size 7, and even then, the circumference of the top is like 13 inches. In the "wide-calf" boots, the calf circumference seemed to start at 17 inches.

What is a size 5.5 15-incher supposed to do?

Back in the 60s and 70s, you could buy high "socks" that had a knit foot section and then a leather-look or patent-look stretchy section that went to the knee or slightly above. You wore them with your own leather or patent shoes, and they looked for all the world like perfectly fitted boots. They fit my legs so closely with no excess thickness that they fooled the eye into thinking my legs were narrower. I loved them, had several pairs. And then they disappeared, and mine finally bit the dust. I wonder why they no longer exist? They were wonderful.

(Alert! Business opportunity!)

There were a few boots I finally found - in the >$300 range. I was determined to pay no more than $85. I finally found these:

Annie's. $74.95 and free shipping. See that line at the top of the shoe part? They look for all the world like my old "leather" socks with shoes. Except that these look like lycra, and the old thingies looked like leather.

I bought the last pair the online store had in stock. I hope I got them and they don't cancel the order.

By the way, I have a bazillion pairs of shoes, but I never pay more than $30 for shoes. Usually more like $20 on sale at Shoe Town. This is simply another broken rule.

3186 The kindest cuts

Sunday, December 5, 2010

Nothing wrong with disagreement. Plenty wrong with being disagreeable.

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

There's a mirror on the wall next to the front door, so I can check that I'm presentable before I go out in public. This morning I glanced in it and noticed a white spot near the back hem of my favorite eight-year-old black velvet quilted ski jacket. I thought, "Oh, the mend is coming loose, showing the white stuffing, time to mend it again." And that was it.

Then I went to the minivan to sweep it out in preparation for another trip north, and as I folded the back seat down, I noticed the tears in the upholstery on the top back of the seat, and I got all pissed off, just like I've gotten pissed off every time I've noticed them over the past four years.

Both tears, the jacket and the seat, were the result of someone else's actions. So why, I wondered, why the difference in reaction?

The jacket was torn when a friend didn't notice a sharp projection, I forget what or where. As soon as she noticed what she'd done to my brand new jacket, she was very apologetic, said she was so sorry, and couldn't afford to replace the jacket but would pay for professional repair. I just shrugged and said I'd just throw in a few whip stitches and no one would ever notice. I know that had I seen the projection and said "Watch out for that whatsis" she'd have stopped and looked.

The van seat was torn when I was helping a male friend move some furniture. He was shoving a bed headboard through the back hatch, sliding it over the folded-down seat, when I said "Wait! There's a screw!" He ignored me, kept on shoving, r-i-i-i-i-p, and kept on shoving anyway. When he later took the headboard out and saw what he'd done to the seat, he touched the rip, said "Oops", and didn't even look at me. No apology, no offer to make it right. But what pissed me off most was that when I had said there's a screw, he ignored me. That's him. He always knows best. He never did listen to anything anyone else said.

So for the past however many years, when I see the tear in the jacket, I just check that the mend is holding and don't think negative thoughts. I don't even remember exactly how it happened. When I see the tear in the van seat, I remember that entire day and every negative thought I'd ever had about that guy and I get all pissed off all over again.

Moral of the story - when you screw up, admit it, take responsibility, and you'll probably be forgiven. Show respect for the other person's property and feelings, and they'll respect you.
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3185 House Missed the Bull's Eye

Saturday, December 4, 2010

Men don’t “shop”. They “go get it”.

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

Someone suggested Lyme disease for Dr. House's mystery patient this evening, and House said impossible, because there's no red bull's eye.

Dr. House screwed up. (Well, the script writers screwed up.)
a.) Not everyone with Lyme gets a bull's eye, and
b.) if there is a bull's eye, it's just a short-term initial reaction when first infected; long-term Lyme won't show the bull's eye any more, and
c.) the patient's heart problem would have indicated that he'd had Lyme for quite a while, so any bull's eye would be long gone, and
d.) the patient was Black, and the bull's eye, if there even is or was one, is often missed on Black skin.

I'm surprised that no one on the show staff caught it.
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3184 Cold, cold, cold, cold feet*

*Nod to Tracy Chapman

Saturday, December 4, 2010

“The squeaking wheel doesn’t always get the grease. Sometimes it gets replaced.”
-- Vick Gold --

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

I wear closed shoes and socks only in the winter. I'm back in open shoes, sandals, and bare feet as soon as possible in the spring. The socks I do wear in the winter are the thin "trouser socks".

Man, I'm dying here! It seems so much colder here, even when the thermometer says it's in the high 40s. My hands and feet are freezing constantly!

I think the difference between the new and the old house is the wind, the flatness, the proximity to ocean, the humidity.

The old house was among rolling countryside. There was wind, but the topography directed it high. The tops of the trees would whip, but close to the ground there was usually little wind. Shopping was mostly tucked in valleys.

Here, at the new house, there's nothing to stop the wind. It blows off the water and across the land. This area of New Jersey is so flat. I hate flat, but I figured it would be ok because I can always go visit mountains when I feel like it. I am relearning why I hate flat.

The wind is not only strong and low, but coming off the water, it's damp.

I guess I could buy some wool socks, but it's not that easy. My feet are wide and I have an unusually high instep. It's difficult enough to find shoes that fit well (short, but wide and high) even with thin socks. I doubt that most of my shoes and boots would fit over heavy socks that make my feet even wider and higher.

Maybe I'll have to hibernate for a few months.
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3183 My head hurts

Saturday, December 4, 2010

Going up the elevator is unsettling when you are packed in with a bunch of people
who look like they hadn't left their mother's basements since the last convention.
(Comment overheard about Furries, but could also apply to Mensans.)

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

I heard sirens this afternoon. It sounded like several fire trucks, nearby. But they didn't seem to go to one place and stop, They went on and on, and every time I went to the front door to listen, the sound was coming from a different direction.

Maybe it was a multi-alarm fire, companies arriving from multiple locations? Or maybe it wasn't a fire at all, but many police cars chasing someone?

Then I looked out the back and saw children and adults running up the next street over, all looking the same direction. Maybe the fire is at the end of that street? Hmmmm. No smoke....

The sirens got closer, and I saw several fire trucks moving slowly down that street. Then I saw Santa on the back of the third truck.

Oh.

I guess Santa is touring the neighborhood in style.

He didn't come down our street, though. It's a dead end. Although it would be amusing to see a herd of fire trucks trying to turn around at the end.

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

Another blogger, whom I know to be very conservative in many ways, blogged about her experience with the TSA scanners on a recent trip. She, like others, is upset about the erosion of the fourth amendment. I followed and agreed with her assessment right up to the end, when she blamed trashing of the Constitution on "liberals and faux-conservatives".

I thought I must have misunderstood and read it again. And again. Beat my head on the wall and read it again.

I keep hearing that the symptoms of the conservative disease include poor memory, selective memory, and an ignoring of facts. It must be true.

Wasn't it Bush who tossed the Constitution out the window when he decided he could declare war without the approval of Congress? Wasn't it the Bush administration who pushed for and and the conservatives in Congress who passed the Patriot Act, that pretty much declared the fourth amendment void, what with all the warrantless searches and wiretapping and everything else? Wasn't it those same folks who built the Homeland Security Administration, and gave them carte blanche to stomp all over the Constitution any way they wanted in the name of fear security and citizen terrorist control?

Methinks she hates where it all has led, and figures it must be the fault of "them". It couldn't possibly be "us".

I didn't leave a comment because her readers are loyal sycophants, also conservative in viewpoint, and starting a flamewar is pointless. But I can't just ignore it, either. So, this blog serves its purpose as a brain purge once again.

Sigh. But my head still hurts.
.

3182 We passed on all counts

Friday, December 3, 2010

Disappointment is the distance between expectations and reality.

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

Let me get this straight: The House has blocked the bill to extend unemployment benefits, but the House Republicans want to keep tax cuts for the wealthy. The house blocked a bill to feed needy school children healthy food (junk food producers, big campaign contributors, objected), but they passed the bill to ban loud TV commercials.

Yup. I guess they've got their priorities straight. "I've got mine, buck you fuddy."

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

A prediction: There will be a class action suit against Prilosec and Zantac, alleging that they contribute to osteoporosis and broken hips. (Unfortunately, they do, by blocking production of acid, thereby making it difficult to absorb calcium, even if one is taking supplements. That's why the packages say not to use them for more than two consecutive weeks.)

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

I hosted my first overnight guest in the new house last night. He'd been traveling all over the US and working a lot of overtime, and drove in from the Philadelphia area last night.

He likes a warm room. I like warm, too, but I often find his idea of "just right" too warm for me. Like, I'm trying to put makeup on and it's melting off. I think this house is cold, even though the thermometer says 72. Probably because with no basement, the floors are cold. Anyway, I was a bit worried that he'd think it was too cold here. I think he expected that, too, because he hadn't been here more than a half hour when he said, with surprise in his voice, "It's nice and warm here."

This morning, again with surprise in his voice, he said, "Nothing in the house smells of cigarettes." I think he was worried about that, too. I was, a bit, because even though I washed everything that came from the old house that could be laundered, there were a lot of things that couldn't be washed, like rugs and upholstery, and the sari spread on the very bed he slept in. And I knew if there was the slightest hint, he'd detect it.

And he has a slight cat allergy, and he knew Jasper is here. But Jasper sheds the least of any cat I've ever seen, not a bit of dry skin or dander, and, timid to the core, made himself scarce, so that wasn't a problem either.

So we were both afraid, in our own way, that he'd find the place cold and smelly and full of allergens, and we're both surprised that it was just fine.

This is good, I think. Now all I have to do is learn to cook.

Nah. That's going too far.
.

3181 Bubbles!

Thursday, December 2, 2010

All general statements are false.

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

I just discovered that if you blow bubbles when it's cold, they last a very long time. They've drifted from my porch to all the way across the street, and when they land on something (like the grass or tree twigs) they don't immediately pop.

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

A relative discovered this little gem - underwear that displays the text of the fourth amendment in the TSA scanner: http://laughingsquid.com/underclothes-that-display-the-4th-amendment-when-x-rayed-by-tsa/
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3180 More unknown sounds

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Political Correctness: The belief that anyone expressing a thought is responsible for the comfort of the person interpreting that thought.

Law #1 - You must not bother other people.
Law #2 - If you are other people, you must not be bothered so easily.

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

A strange noise at the new house that I forgot in yesterday's post:

A night, and only at night, and only from the front porch, I hear what sounds like tree frogs and crickets off to the east. A steady very rapid buzzing overlapping cheecheechee, with a subtle undertone of mechanical motor.

I know that there's a marshy river inlet over there that leads to a large marina. Marsh equals frogs. Right? Frogs equals insects. Right? And I'm a country girl. I know and like frog/cricket duets, and that's exactly what it sounds like.

That explanation worked in October and early November, but we've had many nights when the temperature has dropped into the low 30s, and the "frogs/crickets" continue singing unabated.

Not frogs. Not crickets. Right?
.

3179 Weird noises

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Men get married so they don’t have to date anymore.

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

A few people have blogged lately about hearing weird noises.

I'm always amazed at how far sound will travel under the right conditions.

When I was in college, the campus climbed a hill, and the gym/pool building was at the top of the hill. If you had metal fillings in your teeth, and only if you had fillings, you could hear the local radio station when you were submerged in the pool. If your teeth and ears were underwater, it was clear as a bell.

When I lived near St. Louis, our house was at the top of the highest hill in the county - you could see the arch, almost 25 miles away, from that hill. If the air was still at night, there was a steady thrumming sound in the house that about drove me crazy, the kind of sound you feel more than hear. You couldn't hear it outside, just in the house. I finally discovered that there was a Toyota truck factory a bit south of the city, a good 30 miles from my house, and they were testing motors at night. That was confirmed when they shut the factory down for a week, and the sound stopped for that week.

The house I'm moving out of is also at the top of a hill. The back of the house overlooking the valley is mostly glass, which picks up and amplifies or reflects sound. There was a bagpipe band (fire and police) that practiced at a fire house across the river and upriver a bit (probably at least 5 to 7 miles away), tucked invisibly into another valley, and I could hear them clearly on the deck, but not in the house. On the other hand, sometimes a train on the tracks running up the river would sit on a side track for hours, running, and I could hear it in the house but not on the deck. (For a long time I thought that sound was a refrigerated truck compressor at the beer store at the bottom of my hill, but a quick trip to check proved that idea wrong.)

In this house, I occasionally hear "moooOOOoop ... moooOOOoop ... moooOOOoop", about five to seven mooops in a row, coming from the southeast. I asked Daughter what it was, but she doesn't hear it, and theorized that it was a "noon whistle" kind of thing, from a fire station or something. But the times I hear it are random, and never on the hour. I think maybe it's boats. Big boats (ships) have foghorns, and that's what it sounds like. Maybe there's a drawbridge down there somewhere that they mooop at to ask that it be opened.

Sounds can travel for many miles, and sounds can be heard in one spot but not in another only feet away, so sometimes asking the neighbors just gets you a strange look. "Whachu talkin' 'bout, Willis?" I often hear sounds that no one else hears, which is strange because my right ear lost the high and low registers from too much time at the rifle range with no ear protection. I wonder what sounds neighbors hear that I don't, but I suspect asking will just get me an even weirder look.
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3178 Anticipating murder on Beachside Street

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

"Don't ever take a fence down until you know the reason it was put up."
-- G. K. Chesterton --

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The past three nights when I went out onto the porch for a cigarette, I heard tinny music. Not close, maybe at the end of this street, or on the next street over. Bits of musical phrases on the breeze.

This evening I recognized it as Christmas carols.

I suspect someone's yard display includes music. Tinny music.

It's not even December yet. How long will their neighbors allow them to live?
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3177 Matching Expectations

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Successful people do all the things unsuccessful people don’t want to do.

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Saturday and Sunday I taped up the master bedroom, and painted all around the edges. Yesterday I finished the edge painting and started on the walls with the roller. Got about a third of the room done.

I'm staring to have second thoughts about the color I chose.

The furniture that'll eventually go in that room is all Chinese and Tibetan, mostly a very dark red with a lot of gold, black, and some other colors. An obvious choice for the walls would have been a pale green, or blue, or golden yellow. However, my skin has yellow tones and those colors are simply not flattering to me. I could go with a neutral beige or light gray, but that was just blah, and I didn't want blah in that room.

I picked a paint chip that was close to the red of the furniture, and I carried it around with me, holding it next to possibilities, and believe it or not a color I kept going back to over and over, that worked very nicely and made me happy, was called "essence of lilac", a pale lilac with grayish overtones.

Not an obvious choice with dark red, but it worked.

Well, I'm not so sure any more. What is coming out of the can is more of a violent violet. I don't think it's the light in the room. I have several large chips of the chosen color, and I stuck them on the wall on top of the paint, and it's not the same color at all. The grayish component is missing. It'll still work with the Chinese red, but not with the gold and other colors in the furniture.

I'm hoping that after it "cures", it'll change to the grayish lilac. The peachy mauve paint in the living room did change over the first week, so maybe. Otherwise, I'll have to do it all over again.

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

Daughter and I went on Sunday to a state park for a short walk. On the way back home, we passed a house around the corner with I swear a hundred Christmas doohickeys in the front yard. I said, "Oh my God!", and Daughter said, "Just wait. They're not finished yet." I'll post a photo when they are finished.

Apparently a lot of people around here decorate in a big way.

This is definitely a working class neighborhood. When I decided to buy this house, Daughter tried to redirect me to other neighborhoods nearby. Yeah, those neighborhoods have nicer houses on larger lots, with residents who store their cabin cruisers and speedboats in marinas for the winter, not in the front yard. (Lots of boats around here - we're close to water.) But I liked the idea of being across the street from the kids.

Even though I worked in a definitely white-collar job and have mostly lived in white-collar places, when you come right down to it, I'm from a blue-collar background. Neither of my parents went to college. Before my father was selected for officer candidate school and was commissioned in the Air Force based solely on his scores on IQ tests, he worked in the coal mines and machine shops. He was always very conscious of and sensitive about his lack of education. Before Mom had to quit work to accompany him on his postings, she worked a loom in the Scranton Lace Company. (I have her practice tablecloth.)

So, many of my deepest attitudes, tastes, and preferences are blue-collar. Daughter may not believe it, but although this is not the kind of area where I might have imagined I'd end up, I'll probably be just fine here. Maybe even happier than in a snootier place where one has to meet certain expectations.
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3176 Appreciation, so easy.

Sunday, November 28, 2010

Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.

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

I can appreciate the smallest things. One of the things I appreciate most about the new house, a few dozen times a day, is the water.

In the old house, the water was so hard that you didn't dare let drops dry on anything. A dried drop would leave a ring of hard gray salts that could be removed only by acid. Everything had to be dried by wiping immediately.

If you let a bowl sit in the sink overnight with water in it, there'd be a hard ring in it by morning.

You wouldn't believe the toilet bowls! The ring at the edge of the water would get so thick it needed an acid soak every month, and scrubbing with a wire brush. There was also silt in the water, so the toilet ring was brown. (Not iron - no iron - silt from the well.)

It was the hard water that killed the washing machine, by building up salts in the shutoff valves, so I had to fill the washer by hand, or it would overflow. And the silt could stain the clothes if I hadn't changed the water filter just before doing laundry.

It's funny how used to inconvenience one can get. For years I just dealt with it. That's what one does.

I appreciate the water here every time I turn a faucet on, and don't have to wipe the sink down immediately. I appreciate it every time I rinse out a bowl and feel the hard rings remaining in it from the old house. I appreciate it when I can leave a pot to soak. I appreciate that it's been more than a month here, and the toilet bowls are still clean and white. I appreciate it when the drops run off the shower curtain, and the curtain looks clean.

I really like how much easier decent water can make life.
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3175 Is everything just fodder for a status update?

Saturday, November 27, 2010

“The man who thinks he knows does not yet know what knowing is.”
-- Michel de Montaigne --

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

In the past week I came across two items that struck me as strange, but a sign, I guess, of our changing --- what? Priorities? Communication methods? Some kind of social disconnect? Or a changing way of connecting?

It struck me as weird.

Bill Nye the Science Guy collapsed mid-sentence on stage a few days ago while giving a presentation at the University of Southern California, before hundreds of students. He'd been a bit incoherent before collapsing, and it looked for all the world like a stroke. (He's ok now, he was just overtired.)

This part is what got me. He got up, asked how long he was out, and

... continued with the presentation but began slurring his words and stumbled against his laptop, according to Camacho, who said that when Nye first collapsed, students were “texting and updating their Twitter statuses” instead of going to Nye’s aid. [emphasis mine]

That bounced around in my head for a few days. Did it really occur to no one to go up and help him? Did it occur to no one to call 911? And then I found the next one.

A grandfather and grandson were canoeing on the Hudson River, and capsized in Tivoli Bays, in very cold water. The grandson, 17, texted family and friends from the water to tell them what had happened. Others apparently had enough sense to call for rescue.

Why didn't the kid call 911? Was his first instinct to text friends?

Is there a pattern here?

I don't understand.

(And when did "text" become a verb, anyway? That got past me!)
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3174 Was the metrosexual born of Sally?

Saturday, November 27, 2010

The less capable we are in a job, the more confident we are that we do it well.
The less capable we are of making a decision, the more confident we are of that decision.

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

Almost every guy I've ever talked with in any depth beyond mere superficial acquaintance level over the past 20 years has asked me if I saw "When Harry Met Sally", and when I say no, has gone on to rave about it and urge me to see it sometime. Jay, especially loved it. Of course everyone has seen the "faking it" clip, but if I ask, the guys say no, that's not the part they mean, they mean the whole story.

Even though I hadn't seen it, it didn't strike me as a guy movie. I thought it was more like a girly movie or date night movie, so I didn't understand what these guys thought was so wonderful about it and why I should see it, and they couldn't explain. "Just rent it or something, ok?"

I never did.

So, tonight it was on TV. It was on one of the weaker stations, so I'd miss a word or three now and then, but I got the gist of the story. And you know what? I still don't understand why all those guys thought it was wonderful, why they'd urge me to see it. Yeah, it was a good movie, but not THAT wonderful.

Maybe they were trying to tell me something? Was he him, or was I her, or were we them? Maybe, where Jay was concerned, but I don't think so with the others. Jay and I circled each other as good friends for seven years before making a connection. These other guys? No.

So what is it about "When Harry Met Sally" that strikes a chord with 40 to 60 year old men? What are they taking so strongly from it?

Don't ask a man who hasn't seen it. Ask a man who has seen it. My questioning so far has not produced an answer. Apparently something got in, something they wanted me to have experienced, too, but they can't get it out in words.
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3173 Annoyance, also so easy.

Friday, November 26, 2010

“Life in itself is neither good nor evil, it is the place of good and evil,
according to what you make it.”
-- Michel de Montaigne --

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

Just as it takes little to make me feel satisfied, it seems it takes little to annoy me.

The lady in the next house to the north is very nice. I'd say she's maybe 10 years younger than I. I haven't met the husband yet, but that's ok. Anyway, they have parties, and they decorate extravagantly for every holiday.

Since closing on the house in mid-October, I have been startled several times by the black-robed ghouls hanging in the trees, moving in the breeze, next to my driveway. This week, the ghouls were been replaced by this:

The view from my front porch -

The view from Daughter's porch across the street (that's Daughter's fence in the foreground) -

Several of those things move. And twinkle.

Ouch!
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3172 Satisfaction, so easy.

Friday, November 26, 2010

"Facts have a notorious liberal bias."
-- Stephen Colbert --

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

I don't know why, but there's something very satisfying about doing laundry in my new washer and dryer. I've been washing every bit of anything washable coming from the old house, partly because I smoked in the old house, but mainly because the old house was infested with clothes moths imported from the middle east a few years ago in some wool camel bags, and I don't want any moths in this house.

Fabric things that aren't washable, like carpets, get vacuumed topside, backside, topside, backside, over and over until nothing comes out.

Yesterday and today I mostly washed pillows. I have something like 12 bed pillows packed away from when Jay was sick and we needed pillows to tuck around him in bed to prevent pressure. I'm washing them one at a time, on the "heavy duty" setting with hot water, double rinse, and maximum extraction (1.5 hours!), and drying on high heat. I'm very pleased with the way they're coming out. Only two got lumpy, and those two are also the two that don't seem to want to dry completely, even after several passes through the dryer. They'll get taken apart to stuff decorative pillow covers.

Daughter wonders why I need so many pillows now, but on a queen sized bed I'll use four pillows, so with two queens and two twins, that's ten right there.

I have a feeling the water and gas bill will be shocking this month, but it's a one-time thing.

Right now I have a huge old hand-crocheted tablecloth in the washer (it may become curtains, or bedspread), and I've been feeling so virtuous I'm poking around for other things to wash. (Jasper? Here, kitty kitty....)

My new bed for bedroom #2 arrived this morning. I like it.

It's very sturdy for what little I paid for it. I like the simpler head and foot boards. I got the "low profile" box springs, 3 inches thinner than regular, because the regular box, although it made the bed look more luxurious, made the bed so high it was awkward for me to get in and out.

I have some mother-of-pearl inlaid tables from India that will be perfect on either side.

Now I need curtains in that room. Actually, I don't think I can sleep there just yet. The bed is new out of the box and it still smells of stain and varnish. I guess it will need to air for a while.

The quilt spread is made of sari trim. I've had it for a long time, but hadn't used it. You can't actually sleep under it because it has a lot of metallic thread in it so it's super heavy, but it's pretty. The camera just doesn't pick up the shine and richness of the colors.
I think I'll put some tassels on the pillows, and make a contrasting neckroll or two from some different sari fabric. Right now it's too much of the same all over.

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

Current thorns:

• "All intensive purposes" - That should be "all intents and purposes" folks.
• "Doggy dog world" - Aaaaagh! Hasn't everybody heard by now how wrong that is?
  

3171 Snow!

Thursday, November 25, 2010

M R teachers.
M R not.
S A R! C M MT pockets?

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Daughter and Hercules left this morning to visit H's grandmother in south-eastern Pennsylvania. (Yes, I was invited. No, it's not my thing. In case you haven't noticed, I don't "do" holidays.) They called from the road to tell me they were driving through a "winter mix" mess. Two hours later I looked out the door and it was snowing here. Not much, but any, so soon, is unwelcome.

Jasper met the downstairs Roomba this morning, and even though I was holding him in my arms the whole time it was on, he completely freaked. Even after I turned it off, he hid upstairs for more than an hour. Wait 'til he finds out there's a Roomba upstairs, too.

I did some further research on cable TV. Turns out I can get FIOS, which is Verizon. They have a better selection of basic channels, for less than Cablevision/Optimum. I think I'll go with them, since I already have Verizon broadband internet and cell phone, and I'll consider bundling them IF I can retain my grandfathered unlimited access. I saw a bunch of Verizon stores all along the highway, so I think I'll stop in at one of them in the next few days and see what we can do.
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3170 Wrangling the Roomba

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

M R snakes.
M R not.
S A R! C M BD Is?

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

I bought two Roombas, both model 560, one new and the other reconditioned, one for upstairs and the other for down.

The third time the downstairs one climbed into Jasper's tray and ate his food, I caught myself slapping it on the nose and saying, "No! That's not your food!" Especially because just minutes before, it had been batting one of Jasper's belled balls around the room.

It nudges things hard - pushed a tall mid-eastern brass ewer filled with peacock feathers halfway across the room.

It interprets very dark surfaces as edges and won't cross them. I hadn't noticed before that the oriental rug in the living room has a band of dark around the center. I don't know how it managed to get in there, but the Roomba got stuck in the center of the rug.

I'm learning. I doubt that it is.
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3169 Someday I will sleep in style

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

M R mice.
M R not.
S A R! C M ED BD paws?
L I B! M R mice!

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I went to the old house Sunday afternoon, with a list of things I wanted to bring back. When I got there I was so overwhelmed by the sheer volume of STUFF that instead of picking out things to move, I grabbed a huge black garbage bag, and filled it with things I don't want to move (and that nobody else would want, either). I cleared out a significant amount of space in the kitchen and entry. I didn't want to return to the new house empty-handed, though, so I just threw loose things in Fred-the-van that would eventually end up here anyway. Mostly clothes. Some kitchen things. Drove back to NJ Monday evening.

I also made an early-morning Monday visit to the tire place to get the flat tire, which is now the spare, fixed. It was a valve stem again. The five tires belonging to Fred all have fewer than 1,500 miles on them, but they sat for the almost three years Fred was off the road, and two of the five have blown their stems in the past two months. I think I can expect three more cracked stems before this is over.

What's interesting is that the two stems that cracked were both on the same side of the vehicle - the side that got sun. I wonder if that's what did it. Maybe the shaded ones won't go bad.

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"My" bed is a 200+ year-old Chinese marriage bed (sort of like this one, but with foo-dogs - I have to wait for The Hunk to help me get it down here and assembled and in the meantime I'm sleeping on a mattress on the floor), and the two small bedrooms will get the Jenny Linds. But I don't have a bed for the second largest bedroom. I have always wanted a sleigh bed, and I figure now's my chance. So today, Tuesday, I went shopping.

I looked at some rather expensive ones with the graceful swan-neck curves on the thick heavy head- and footboards, and yeah, they were nice but somehow didn't grab me. Then I found exactly what I want! The head and footboard are a little higher and flat, but the endcaps on the head and foot have the curves. Somehow it felt "righter" to me, more antique looking. And to top it off, it was about 1/3 the cost of the others. It and the mattress set (firm! with live recoil!) will be delivered Friday.

While I was in the furniture store, the cell rang, and it was the garage door installers. They'll be arriving on the 2nd.

Then I went to Bed, Bath, & Beyond, and discovered there's a cover you can put on a mattress that will "firm" it. I absolutely cannot get used to the Tempur-Pedic I've been using since I closed on the house (it may be fine if you sleep on your side or back, but for tummy-sleepers it's the pits) so I got one of them, too.

So, I hope to sleep better tonight, and even better on Friday. Things are coming along.
.

3168 TV Freakout

Sunday, November 21, 2010

“Men are so blind that they even take pride in their blindness.”
-- Augustine of Hippo --

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I checked out cable TV for the new house online this morning. Apparently, there is only one company that services this area, Optimum.

According to their website, they do have a basic service for $17.29 per month plus $1.50 for each additional TV set, which has a whole slew of channels, including ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, FOX, and CNN, which is pretty much all I want. I don't need all those fancy cable-only channels; it's dangerous for me to have too much choice. I'd never get anything done. (And if someone who visits often wants more, like sports and comedy, he's welcome to pay the extra for it.)

The price for basic was right, the selection was adequate, so I tried to order it online. And hit a snag. Basic isn't an option to order. I can order all kinds of fancy packages, but not basic.

So I finally gave up (their website is impossible to navigate, I went around in circles) and called the phone number to order service.

I got an entirely different story from what the website says, and then the conversation with the Optimum rep went even farther off the rails.

Me: "I just tried to order service on your website, and went around in circles."

Brittany: "You don't want to do it on the website anyway. They don't even look at those orders for two weeks. On the telephone, we put it right in."

Me: "Ok. I want to get Basic service." ((I have already lost confidence in this bunch.))

Brittany: "For Basic you get 10 channels for $29 dollars."

Me: "That's not what the website said. It says Basic gets a rather large set of non-premium channels for $17.29."

Brittany: "No. Just ten. $29."

Me: "Do those 10 channels include ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, and PBS? If so, that's enough for me."

Brittany: "No. To get those channels you need the IO Family package. That's $44.95 a month."

Me: "That seems like a lot for channels I'm currently pulling in off the air with rabbit ears."

Brittany: "Well, you won't be able to do that much longer. Those channels are going digital pretty soon, so you won't be able to get them with an antenna. Not without a digital box, anyway."

Me: ((Huh? Long pause. What the hell is she talking about?)) "Uh, the channels I'm getting ARE digital, and I've got digital TV sets. I'm watching them in digital. Off the air. With the antenna on the set."

Brittany: "Well, you won't be able to much longer."

Me: ((This woman is nuts. Or she's been in cold storage for more than a year.)) "Are you folks the only cable company serving this area?"

Brittany: "Yes. Very few people in your area have satellite because of the weather."

Me: "So, what do I need to get the channels I want, for how much?"

Brittany: "You'll need the Family package. That's $44.95 per month. How many sets will you have?"

Me: "Three or four." ((One in my bedroom, one in the workroom, one in the kitchen, maybe one in the living room.))

Brittany: "Well for three boxes, that's $65.86, and for four it's $75.75."

Me: "That's almost $10 extra for each box. Your website says less than $2 for each additional." (($10? For WHAT?))

Brittany: ((Silence.))

Me: "This is ridiculous. I'm going to have to speak to some of the neighbors."

Brittany: ((Silence.))

Me: "Bye." ((Click.))

Now, am I nuts or badly informed? Is she nuts? Is this normally what basic cable service, including local broadcast channels, goes for? Especially when it's the only service and therefore there's no competition, and therefore they should be regulated?

None of the numbers she quoted have any relation to the numbers on the website, neither price nor channels available. Can I report them to someone for false advertising, or bait and switch, or something? And to whom?

Something is very wrong here.
.