Thursday, August 28, 2008
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Wood Storks
Taken today, about an hour ago. Actually, Wood Storks and a few Great Egrets hangin' out. Photos are awfully dark, but various tries resulted in these as the best ones. While tropical storm Fay is gone, we're still getting this almost-daily storm cloud buildup.
This is a favorite tree for all kinds of marsh birds, all year round. Picture 2 -- look left to see the gang, on the anvil-shaped clump of branches -- gives you an idea why. It's the perfect vantage point, allowing them to chill but view all the marsh comings and goings.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Blessed company
Cypress knees
Brookgreen Gardens, June 2008
I've tinkered with this post for nearly 2 weeks and I quit. I'm posting it, even though I can't quite get satisfied with it. I think the issue is the reason - no satisfactory solution exists.
My first reaction to the Lambeth Conference articles was a verbose think-piece (longer than this, believe me!) on how the Anglican Communion should and could maintain unity, though even as I wrote it I was practically apologizing for chirping "Can't we all just get along?" This fight over the legitimacy of same-sex relationships and the role of gays makes Christians look like bleeding idiots and guess what? We are.
I changed my mind about the unity thing. Followup stories like this are the reason.
Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams' willingness to set aside his own belief on the issue, in order to work against schism, seems selfless, and I think he means it to be. But how much personal compromising, and I mean by all sides, would it take to prevent a split in the Anglican Communion, and what the bleep kind of price is this to pay for unity?
The gay issue hits the Big Three Jackpot of being: (1) hotly felt; (2) uncompromisable; and (3) elevated to article-of-faith status. Christianity has been dividing and subdividing and sub-subdividing almost the whole 2000 years over things people consider so important that they insist they rise to the level of "articles of faith."
I might sort of understand that: yeah, isn't sin exactly the issue at the heart of Christianity? The faith is built on the belief that we need redemption, so how can it be unimportant to define whether something is a sin?
I can sort-of-understand it and still think it's boneheaded stupidity to define whether one is of the "true" faith based on such things. It doesn't rank these issues as trivial to say that not every important thing is of crucial primary importance.
In my opinion only one article of faith is needed : Christ's atonement. That's it. That's all. We'd be more like what I think we're supposed to be, the "blessed company of all faithful people."
That wouldn't solve everything. Even atonement has a bunch of interpretations, plus it still leaves out people who don't hold that belief, but here's the thing -- it would move us whole lot closer, though not all the way, to the ideal of excluding only people who want to be excluded. The more specifics we build into the rule book, the more people we exclude without their consent.
Maybe it's my bad mood ("Really? We couldn't tell...") but I'm fed up and I say: end it. Split. I'm starting to think it’s the necessary evolution of Christianity. Maybe we need for the church to become a mosaic of a gazillion small groups -- and I mean way more splintered than it is even now -- for any underlying core belief to at last become dominant and maybe unite us again in the distant -- very distant --future. To fight it is to drag out a process that apparently has to play out before Christianity can leave schism behind and get back to healing the world.
Isn't every problem it faces one of healing? We talk about healing the body and about healing the mind. We say we need to "heal" personal and social rifts, as though that's a metaphor, but it's not. I think it's literal, because if there is an Absolute Truth that defines what is right or wrong in every issue, why are we unable to see and unite behind that truth and close the case, unless our insight is broken? The controversies would vanish if we could get our lines to God repaired. Till they are, I'm for this or anything nonviolent that ends the stalemate.
I admit I don't care deeply about my denominational identity. My brother, too, left the Episcopal church 20 years ago for one that reflects his more conservative beliefs and that helps us be at ease with one another. If we were fighting for denominational "territory" bad feeling would run higher.
It's different for people who are strongly bonded with the church they've attended with their friends and family for a lifetime. The idea of schism is deeply painful. Am I advocating a nice healthy thing where everybody affiliates with a fellowship in which views they find abhorrent intrude less, enabling them to cool off? Or am I a defeatist? Am I shooting too low? I admit I'm not sure.
As long as humanity is riding this ball of confusion, unresolvable issues will divide us, and maybe we need to treat the journey like a trip through a maze, in which we have to take paths that seem to veer away from the center in order to actually get to the center. Maybe we need to face the pain of formalizing our differences before we can make them secondary and view each other as fellows in the blessed company. This post is loaded with "maybes", but there's a saying: "The only way out is through." I think it might apply here.
I wanted to include a recommendation for this profile over at nellieblogs. Not because I think it supports this largely grouchy and negative post of my own -- on the contrary, it was actually one of the few mood-elevators I've run into this week+. If my post is a downer, follow the link for an antidote. Reading it reminded me of what's good and healthy and blessed about the company.
That wouldn't solve everything. Even atonement has a bunch of interpretations, plus it still leaves out people who don't hold that belief, but here's the thing -- it would move us whole lot closer, though not all the way, to the ideal of excluding only people who want to be excluded. The more specifics we build into the rule book, the more people we exclude without their consent.
Maybe it's my bad mood ("Really? We couldn't tell...") but I'm fed up and I say: end it. Split. I'm starting to think it’s the necessary evolution of Christianity. Maybe we need for the church to become a mosaic of a gazillion small groups -- and I mean way more splintered than it is even now -- for any underlying core belief to at last become dominant and maybe unite us again in the distant -- very distant --future. To fight it is to drag out a process that apparently has to play out before Christianity can leave schism behind and get back to healing the world.
Isn't every problem it faces one of healing? We talk about healing the body and about healing the mind. We say we need to "heal" personal and social rifts, as though that's a metaphor, but it's not. I think it's literal, because if there is an Absolute Truth that defines what is right or wrong in every issue, why are we unable to see and unite behind that truth and close the case, unless our insight is broken? The controversies would vanish if we could get our lines to God repaired. Till they are, I'm for this or anything nonviolent that ends the stalemate.
I admit I don't care deeply about my denominational identity. My brother, too, left the Episcopal church 20 years ago for one that reflects his more conservative beliefs and that helps us be at ease with one another. If we were fighting for denominational "territory" bad feeling would run higher.
It's different for people who are strongly bonded with the church they've attended with their friends and family for a lifetime. The idea of schism is deeply painful. Am I advocating a nice healthy thing where everybody affiliates with a fellowship in which views they find abhorrent intrude less, enabling them to cool off? Or am I a defeatist? Am I shooting too low? I admit I'm not sure.
As long as humanity is riding this ball of confusion, unresolvable issues will divide us, and maybe we need to treat the journey like a trip through a maze, in which we have to take paths that seem to veer away from the center in order to actually get to the center. Maybe we need to face the pain of formalizing our differences before we can make them secondary and view each other as fellows in the blessed company. This post is loaded with "maybes", but there's a saying: "The only way out is through." I think it might apply here.
I wanted to include a recommendation for this profile over at nellieblogs. Not because I think it supports this largely grouchy and negative post of my own -- on the contrary, it was actually one of the few mood-elevators I've run into this week+. If my post is a downer, follow the link for an antidote. Reading it reminded me of what's good and healthy and blessed about the company.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Book mending
Odd, for this time of year -- instead of the typical now-it's-here, now-it's-gone afternoon thunderstorm, we had a relatively cool, quiet day of steady rain. Good day to spend mending a few of the world's tatters by repairing books.
This is more a How I spent My Day post than an advice essay, but here's what I did, for what it's worth.
1. I repair a book only when I'm willing to destroy its value. Honest - if you even think it may have value, repair will most likely destroy that value. When in doubt, don't. Repair it only if you want to use it! I don't repair them if I plan to sell them. The ones I mended were only for me and others who asked.
1. I repair a book only when I'm willing to destroy its value. Honest - if you even think it may have value, repair will most likely destroy that value. When in doubt, don't. Repair it only if you want to use it! I don't repair them if I plan to sell them. The ones I mended were only for me and others who asked.
2. The right paper and glue are a must. I go to the craft store and hit the scrapbooking section. This paper is designed to take glue without getting soggy, and it's acid-free, and you can get colors that approximate the various shades of vintage paper. You can also get acid-free glue, and it even comes in a bottle with a nice pinpoint tip. The wax paper is also a must.
3. If one little bit of the original connection is still hanging on, it's worthwhile to me to loosen it. I want to make a whole new hinge.
4. My method is to make a hinge by shingling a new piece under the free edge and then over the other, still-intact side.
5. This part is important and hard to describe: the new hinge needs to be tucked into the binding in a natural S-curve. Otherwise when I open the book after the glue dries, the paper "bridge" that spans the break will just split apart again. You can see this better on the 1912 bird book, its repair job illustrated below.
6. I place wax paper between the repair and the intact side, then close it to let the glue dry.
The last picture shows a wonderful bird book I repaired long ago. I add it because the color contrast of the paper shows the shingled hinge structure better.
Addendum: A comment already! 8~) and I need to add something:
The book I show the steps for, above, and this one also demonstrate that it doesn't matter much which direction the repair goes. If the better free end is on the inside cover (the demo book in the above photos) I use that and glue the hinge onto the free endpage. But if the free endpage edge gives me a better one, as it did in the bird book, I hinge under THAT one and glue it to the inside cover.
It's Chester A. Reed's Birds of Eastern North America. Doubleday, Page, 1912. Color on every page, and a bittersweet reminder of when the ivory-billed woodpecker was merely "rare."
Yep, I wanted to keep and handle this one, which is why I repaired it. It's a wonder I ever sell anything.
Thursday, August 07, 2008
Zap! (update)
About 8PM last evening an intense thunderstorm was on us, and lightning zapped a tree just across from the house. It was one stunning explosion.
Photo no. 1 just gives you an idea of how far it was from the house.
Today I was interested in getting a close-up of how nature operates. You can see in the third photo, the way the bolt split the bark in a spiral down the trunk.
Today I was interested in getting a close-up of how nature operates. You can see in the third photo, the way the bolt split the bark in a spiral down the trunk.
Your Intrepid Photographer had to beat her way into the underbrush to see its down-to-the-ground progression (photo 4)
There's about 4 feet of undamaged bark, then the splitting picks up again, so it must have charged through the tree. It remains to be seen whether the tree will make it!
Downyflake, the anxiety-ridden cat, is traumatized for life, though.
UPDATE:
The drama continues! In last night's much milder rainstorm, the top above the strike snapped off.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Thursday, July 17, 2008
eBay feedback policy update!
My sincere thanks to Christy for cluing me in about this eBay announcement, which indicates that their ridiculous policy of counting neutral feedback as negative --about which I posted recently -- has had the approximate lifespan of a mayfly! Yippee!
Purity
Content Advisory : this fictional work-in-progress takes place among college students in the 1970's and contains some crude language and jokes.
--a dorm in a Midwestern women's college.
The 1st draft of this passage was written about a year ago.
Somebody’s huge vase of yellow roses, bearing a birthday-themed envelope, awaited its addressee at the reception desk. She stood awash in their marzipan fragrance.
A burst of laughter brought Audrey out of her trance. She ventured around the corner, where a cheery crowd of about twenty was decorating the lounge for the Woodard Halloween party.
“‑‑need to ridicule everything.” Stephanie Anderson stood at the piano, spacing construction-paper autumn leaves along a string of red yarn, and reprimanding someone.
There was Gwen, of all people, elbows on the piano and holding the yarn’s other end. She jabbed leaves onto it with a big darning needle and slid them down toward Stephanie.
That’s right, Gwen likes this Dana Girls school chum stuff.
Others chopped leaves out of red and gold paper, using little blunt grade-school scissors.
“I completely agree. We should save it for things that need ridiculing,” Denny responded. She glanced up from her task of drawing leaf veins. “Audrey! You can be Diligence!”
“Oh stop being idiotic.” Stephanie yanked leaves irritably.
Might have known Denny was the one goading Stephanie. Wow, this is a sight. Gwen, Laurie, Denny and Steph, working together on the same project.
Well, not exactly together. Far apart in a fair-sized crowd, actually.
“Here. I’m sick of leaning over.” Vickie abandoned a lounge chair, slid cross-legged to the floor and resumed leaf-cutting with her arms propped on the coffee table. Audrey shrugged off her coat and took the seat as someone else pushed orange paper within her reach and tossed a pair of scissors on top of it.
“Stop being tight-assed,” Denny answered Stephanie, using her favorite tactic of saying something rude in a bright, lilting voice. “Audrey, we’re getting up a group to come to the Halloween party as the Seven Holbrook Virtues!”
“It’s the Seven Ideals, and there’s nothing wrong with them,” scowled Stephanie.
“Seven Ideals, fine, whatever!” Denny turned back to Audrey. “You know how they used to elect them and parade them in gowns like a prom queen court? Laurie’s going to be Responsibility. I, of course‑‑“
Denny dropped her paper leaf, assumed a spacey Beauty Queen smile, and hoisted a boob in each hand.
“‑‑am going to be Charm!”
Rowena Something ‑‑Heidt, that’s it‑‑ a First Floor who sat next to Laurie in the leaf-cutting group, chortled. “Display those charms, now!”
Denny complied by pointing them in various directions like searchlights. This produced howls of laughter from the room, with the exceptions of the leaf-stringers.
“Charm,” said Stephanie patiently, “was not one of the Seven Vir‑‑ I mean, the Seven Ideals.”
“So tell us, what were they?” asked Kaaren Bishop, the Fourth Floor RSA, with convincing innocence.
Stephanie sighed. “Responsibility, Unselfishness...uh...”
“Diligence,” supplied Gwen brusquely. “Honesty, Service, Faith, and Love of Learning.”
“Holy shit.” Kaaren pursed her lips admiringly. “We’ve actually found a freshman who knows them.”
“Every freshman used to have to memorize them and pass a test,” Gwen stated, then eyed her string of paper leaves critically. “These are too uniform. We need to vary the sizes.”
“I can do that!” Rowena quickly began to trim down a leaf.
“Wait, I know,” said Denny. “What we ought to dress up as are the real Holbrook ideals. The things every ladylike girl really was supposed to conform to in the olden days. Charm. Obedience. What else...? Grooming!”
“Hygiene,” Laurie corrected.
“Yeah, that’s better!”
Laurie bounced in her seat. “Please can I be Hygiene? Let me be Hygiene, please!”
“Of course, dear,” cooed Denny, “you can be Hygiene.”
“Godliness,” suggested someone Audrey didn’t know.
Vickie spoke up: “Yeah, and Laurie has to stand next to whoever that is.”
It took a beat for most of them to get it and the laughter burst out again.
Denny flipped a leaf over and began to make a list with her felt tip pen.
“Hey,” said another of the serious types, “those are for the party.”
“Charm,” said Stephanie patiently, “was not one of the Seven Vir‑‑ I mean, the Seven Ideals.”
“So tell us, what were they?” asked Kaaren Bishop, the Fourth Floor RSA, with convincing innocence.
Stephanie sighed. “Responsibility, Unselfishness...uh...”
“Diligence,” supplied Gwen brusquely. “Honesty, Service, Faith, and Love of Learning.”
“Holy shit.” Kaaren pursed her lips admiringly. “We’ve actually found a freshman who knows them.”
“Every freshman used to have to memorize them and pass a test,” Gwen stated, then eyed her string of paper leaves critically. “These are too uniform. We need to vary the sizes.”
“I can do that!” Rowena quickly began to trim down a leaf.
“Wait, I know,” said Denny. “What we ought to dress up as are the real Holbrook ideals. The things every ladylike girl really was supposed to conform to in the olden days. Charm. Obedience. What else...? Grooming!”
“Hygiene,” Laurie corrected.
“Yeah, that’s better!”
Laurie bounced in her seat. “Please can I be Hygiene? Let me be Hygiene, please!”
“Of course, dear,” cooed Denny, “you can be Hygiene.”
“Godliness,” suggested someone Audrey didn’t know.
Vickie spoke up: “Yeah, and Laurie has to stand next to whoever that is.”
It took a beat for most of them to get it and the laughter burst out again.
Denny flipped a leaf over and began to make a list with her felt tip pen.
“Hey,” said another of the serious types, “those are for the party.”
“It’s one leaf, for God’s sake. Okay, we’ve got...” Denny scribbled. “Charm, Hygiene....Obedience....Godliness. We need three more.”
“Wait! Purity!” Again, it came from someone Audrey couldn’t name. From one of the upper floors. Beautiful figure, big nose.
“Oh, but everybody had to be pure back then,” said Denny.
“It sti-still makes a good Deadly Virtue,” said Laurie.
“Yeah. Okay, you’re right. And whoever comes as Purity can wear a big doctor’s certificate of virginity.”
Gwen gave a hiss of disgust, tossed her threaded needle onto the piano with a clink! and stalked out of the room. Kaaren looked at her retreating back, then got up and took over the leaf-stringer job.
Denny ignored the drama. “Vickie, wanna be Purity?”
"Why me?” laughed Vickie. “Anyway I can’t afford a dress for this.”
“Wait! Purity!” Again, it came from someone Audrey couldn’t name. From one of the upper floors. Beautiful figure, big nose.
“Oh, but everybody had to be pure back then,” said Denny.
“It sti-still makes a good Deadly Virtue,” said Laurie.
“Yeah. Okay, you’re right. And whoever comes as Purity can wear a big doctor’s certificate of virginity.”
Gwen gave a hiss of disgust, tossed her threaded needle onto the piano with a clink! and stalked out of the room. Kaaren looked at her retreating back, then got up and took over the leaf-stringer job.
Denny ignored the drama. “Vickie, wanna be Purity?”
"Why me?” laughed Vickie. “Anyway I can’t afford a dress for this.”
“Aw, c’mon. We’ll get some of those ancient formals down at Community Thrift.”
Vickie shook her head. “I can’t even afford that. Wait, though, could we borrow costumes from the theatre department?”
Apparently Rowena was a theatre major. “I can maybe sneak out one dress for somebody, but we can’t raid the costume collection for all of them.”
“One’ll do fine” said Denny. “I can alter any thrift store dresses if people need me to. Audrey! Wanna be Purity?”
God damn my little girl looks. “Sheesh, can’t I be Godliness instead?” She took a completed leaf and used it to trace two more onto a sheet of orange paper.
“Come to think of it, you’d make a better Obedience,” Denny grinned.
“Yeah,” Audrey muttered, cutting. “Tell me to jump and I’ll just say Ooo, how high, and thank you.”
“Uh-oh.” Laurie got serious. “Bad day?”
Audrey shrugged. “My schedule might get fucked up.”
“In the middle of a semester?” Kaaren, the RSA, looked concerned.
“Only if I want to drop English and mess it up myself.”
She could feel Laurie and Denny watching her. She gave full concentration to trimming her leaf.
“Drop English.” Typical Denny, never asking a question, just dropping a statement in a skeptical tone so you had to explain.
Audrey shrugged and examined a finished leaf. “If I want to. I need to make some of these small, don’t I?”
Vickie shook her head. “I can’t even afford that. Wait, though, could we borrow costumes from the theatre department?”
Apparently Rowena was a theatre major. “I can maybe sneak out one dress for somebody, but we can’t raid the costume collection for all of them.”
“One’ll do fine” said Denny. “I can alter any thrift store dresses if people need me to. Audrey! Wanna be Purity?”
God damn my little girl looks. “Sheesh, can’t I be Godliness instead?” She took a completed leaf and used it to trace two more onto a sheet of orange paper.
“Come to think of it, you’d make a better Obedience,” Denny grinned.
“Yeah,” Audrey muttered, cutting. “Tell me to jump and I’ll just say Ooo, how high, and thank you.”
“Uh-oh.” Laurie got serious. “Bad day?”
Audrey shrugged. “My schedule might get fucked up.”
“In the middle of a semester?” Kaaren, the RSA, looked concerned.
“Only if I want to drop English and mess it up myself.”
She could feel Laurie and Denny watching her. She gave full concentration to trimming her leaf.
“Drop English.” Typical Denny, never asking a question, just dropping a statement in a skeptical tone so you had to explain.
Audrey shrugged and examined a finished leaf. “If I want to. I need to make some of these small, don’t I?”
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Don't even read this whiny entry
Really, skip this entry. It will be nothing but whining, despite the fact that everybody's healthy, we're threatened by neither hurricanes nor wildfires, and plenty of people would be glad to have problems as dumb as this. I don't care. Just ignore this post.
Something woke us both at 3:30 AM. By the time we were fully awake there was no clue as to what had done it. Probably, I figured before I dozed back off, a last rumble of a storm that had peaked earlier, around midnight.
Woke at 7AM with a whopper of a migraine. Whimpered. Took stuff.
At 8, Larry marches into the room. "Somebody broke into the car. That's what we heard."
"Uh-oh! The gas tank!" My first thought. Gas theft is running rampant, often obtained by a costly gas tank puncture.
No, thank heaven, apparently they were just looking for money or small valuables.
But: "Did you leave any mail from banks or credit cards out there?"
The headache's better but I struggle to think. "I don't think so, but maybe we'd better call the police before I touch anything."
"Don't bother, they won't fingerprint the car for something this minor." I struggle to my feet. Dress. Go down to inventory the car junk.
It's really funny. We have nothing that anybody would want to steal. They'd gone through every pocket, glove box, trunk, all for nothing.
This reminds me of one of my long-ago moments of amusement, circa 1982, when I owned my AMC Pacer. Exited my apartment one morning to go to work and found that someone had considered stealing my car radio, until he discovered it was merely an AM radio and not worth the trouble. He was apparently so disgusted by my poor taste in electronics that he forgot his screwdrivers. A standard and a Phillips, there on the driver's seat. Nice quality set. I used them for years. But I digress.
So Larry calls the sheriff's dept. in case they want all the reports. And oh, they sure did. This is happening a lot. Kids, they say, just looking for money, credit cards, iPods, other things that people Much Less Intelligent than we are leave in their cars. They steal CD's too, she said. This also amused us, since, for some reason, they had left Mozart, the soundtrack to Lord of the Rings, and Norah Jones. I'm sure they really wanted them. They must have gotten interrupted. Yeah, that's it.
Anyway, I mix my protein shake and sit down to read comics online while we await their arrival. Larry goes out to meet them. Comes back in.
"Boy are you in trouble!" he says, but he's grinning. Turns out they did want to print the car. Turns out he told them "his wife" had opened the door and examined things. (Actually, he admitted his own examination of the car to them, but that wasn't the story I got!) Turns out he failed to mention that I wasn't going to until he scoffed at the idea. (Must...plot....revenge...). They dust and depart.
As this pseudocrisis winds down, we are informed that EIGHT out-of-town guests will arrive, starting tomorrow, in overlapping shifts.
And this while we have a flea infestation.
There's no excuse for having a flea infestation, with these cool hi tech monthly treatments. But...
(Here's something AA members are cautioned not to do: whine about how they're singled out for problems, "Oh I'm so special, nobody has it as hard as me-e-e-e!" )
But I swear, if Frontline, ordinarily a fantastic product, makes one bad batch a year, we will get it. Murphy's Special Law Just for the Pleistocene Family. But we did get a batch that did nothing, might as well have been Aquafina. (Yes, I'm going to tell Frontline, when I remember to bring the box upstairs for the batch number). And poor Scooter infested the whole downstairs with fleas he was not supposed to have. We switched to Advantage, he's flea-free, but the downstairs has become a biting nightmare. It's been professionally treated once, to no avail. Needs another treatment, but with small children arriving and Scooter needing someplace to escape the heat.... Well, we'll work something out. Scooter is fine in the foyer at night, so daytime, he can be out and about while the garage is...being dealt with.
At least the fleas aren't in the upstairs living space but I'm complaining anyway, o-KAY? Time for Excedrin.
So that's the news and the prospects for the week ahead. I want chocolate.
Something woke us both at 3:30 AM. By the time we were fully awake there was no clue as to what had done it. Probably, I figured before I dozed back off, a last rumble of a storm that had peaked earlier, around midnight.
Woke at 7AM with a whopper of a migraine. Whimpered. Took stuff.
At 8, Larry marches into the room. "Somebody broke into the car. That's what we heard."
"Uh-oh! The gas tank!" My first thought. Gas theft is running rampant, often obtained by a costly gas tank puncture.
No, thank heaven, apparently they were just looking for money or small valuables.
But: "Did you leave any mail from banks or credit cards out there?"
The headache's better but I struggle to think. "I don't think so, but maybe we'd better call the police before I touch anything."
"Don't bother, they won't fingerprint the car for something this minor." I struggle to my feet. Dress. Go down to inventory the car junk.
It's really funny. We have nothing that anybody would want to steal. They'd gone through every pocket, glove box, trunk, all for nothing.
This reminds me of one of my long-ago moments of amusement, circa 1982, when I owned my AMC Pacer. Exited my apartment one morning to go to work and found that someone had considered stealing my car radio, until he discovered it was merely an AM radio and not worth the trouble. He was apparently so disgusted by my poor taste in electronics that he forgot his screwdrivers. A standard and a Phillips, there on the driver's seat. Nice quality set. I used them for years. But I digress.
So Larry calls the sheriff's dept. in case they want all the reports. And oh, they sure did. This is happening a lot. Kids, they say, just looking for money, credit cards, iPods, other things that people Much Less Intelligent than we are leave in their cars. They steal CD's too, she said. This also amused us, since, for some reason, they had left Mozart, the soundtrack to Lord of the Rings, and Norah Jones. I'm sure they really wanted them. They must have gotten interrupted. Yeah, that's it.
Anyway, I mix my protein shake and sit down to read comics online while we await their arrival. Larry goes out to meet them. Comes back in.
"Boy are you in trouble!" he says, but he's grinning. Turns out they did want to print the car. Turns out he told them "his wife" had opened the door and examined things. (Actually, he admitted his own examination of the car to them, but that wasn't the story I got!) Turns out he failed to mention that I wasn't going to until he scoffed at the idea. (Must...plot....revenge...). They dust and depart.
As this pseudocrisis winds down, we are informed that EIGHT out-of-town guests will arrive, starting tomorrow, in overlapping shifts.
And this while we have a flea infestation.
There's no excuse for having a flea infestation, with these cool hi tech monthly treatments. But...
(Here's something AA members are cautioned not to do: whine about how they're singled out for problems, "Oh I'm so special, nobody has it as hard as me-e-e-e!" )
But I swear, if Frontline, ordinarily a fantastic product, makes one bad batch a year, we will get it. Murphy's Special Law Just for the Pleistocene Family. But we did get a batch that did nothing, might as well have been Aquafina. (Yes, I'm going to tell Frontline, when I remember to bring the box upstairs for the batch number). And poor Scooter infested the whole downstairs with fleas he was not supposed to have. We switched to Advantage, he's flea-free, but the downstairs has become a biting nightmare. It's been professionally treated once, to no avail. Needs another treatment, but with small children arriving and Scooter needing someplace to escape the heat.... Well, we'll work something out. Scooter is fine in the foyer at night, so daytime, he can be out and about while the garage is...being dealt with.
At least the fleas aren't in the upstairs living space but I'm complaining anyway, o-KAY? Time for Excedrin.
So that's the news and the prospects for the week ahead. I want chocolate.
Friday, July 04, 2008
Great granddaddy's flag
46 stars, circa 1910, in rows of:
8 - 7 - 8 - 7 - 8 - 8 stars.
About one story tall - it's hanging off the second-story porch rail on its annual Fourth of July chance to wave.
Professionally preserved about ten years ago, with as much cleaning as could be done and a backing which enables single-sided display only.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Random notes
See what I put up with?
OK, alright, I strew hair clips around the house, but sometimes they come in really handy. Like, when I have a half-eaten bag of crackers and all the chip-clips are in use. Why not just clip the bag closed with the nearest paper clip, piece of tape, or ... hey, there's a hair clip right at hand. One, OK, I put one on the bag to hold it closed.
But then I get up the next morning and find this.
8~)
It fell off a truck.
No, really, it did. This poor shrub was lying beside the road withering in the sun. We stuffed it in the car trunk and planted it here, guessing as to its species. Possibly a camellia, in which case it should like this partial-shade spot.
The new finch mix is popular.
Lousy photo, partly because I took it through rain, and partly because zoom really erodes picture quality in this otherwise nice little camera. But it shows every perch occupied, and somebody awaiting an opening.
And in this other bad photo, you can see a painted bunting there -- the brightly colored guy on the pole.One of our dwarf peach trees has two peaches.
And last but not least...
...in trying to read the T-shirt that ronniecat's cartoon avatar was wearing (over on her blog but the avatar changes clothes frequently!), I went to yahoo! avatars ...
... and got distracted making one for myself. It shows just what mood my computer is putting me in. I'm trying to finish two editing projects before dealing with the problems, a decision I made before new problems with the cursor, and with highlighing text, showed up. To continue is a gamble, but I was so close to finished! But I do have backups...
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Things
I grew up in this little house. I took the photo on a nostalgic visit in 1999, but it looked different in my time. From 1957-1966 it was white with dark shutters and an unsheltered concrete front stoop. The arrow shows my bedroom and the dormer I gazed out of on my own nightly version of Neighborhood Watch. Those front lawn trees were shorter then and their leafed-out branches filled my view, though winter's bare branches let me see starlight. On ground floor right is The New Room, a cozy den added on by my parents in 1963. I accidentally dropped a spoon between the floor joists while I was eating ice cream one evening during construction. I expect it still lies buried in the foundation like Tut's treasure.
This was our 4th dwelling in my lifetime, and there would be 2 more. But the little white house was "home." Catherine, whose post about home got this train of thought started, mentioned the importance of place as a "source" of who we become. This was the place, for me. I was aged 3-12 there, and that house was a constant through a decade of huge change.
I grew, learned to read, battled the multiplication tables, got sick and got well, believed in, and then stopped believing in Santa Claus, gained crushes and ambitions and lost my only-child status of almost 7 years when my beloved (eventually) brother was born. My concept of an orderly law-abiding world shook the day in 4th grade that our teacher announced the shooting of John Kennedy, and I came home to find my mother doubled over on a hassock with a box of Kleenex in front of the TV, crying. And it crashed with the suicide of my friend's dad down the street.
That house shaped in me a concept of home as a place that stayed stable while nothing else, within or without me, did. My room, the tree outside. The two elderly gentlemen who lived at either end of the street and would meet on the sidewalk in front of our house and argue politics. Salesmen and deliverymen who had the same route for a decade and became warmly greeted friends. The tiny neighborhood soda shop and newsstand where kids could stock up on Double Bubble and the new comic books ....and that I was still walking to later when I got interested in Redbook's short stories and the always intriguing "Can This Marriage Be Saved?" column in Ladies Home Journal (housewife magazines fascinated me from about age 9 on. How I fell into that reading habit I have no idea).
I guess I had that feeling of permanence long enough to keep me looking, hoping to find it again. I never will. Not in a house or its contents. In each of 3 Opportunities For Growth -- a Charlotte flood, Hurricane Hugo, and a divorce -- more of my valued possessions have been culled out. Life shift after life shift shows me that the key is something I've just barely come to possess: a little eye of the storm inside me which houses my essential "self" and will let me transplant it somewhere new. Theoretically I could do this with no beloved memorabilia at all. Theoretically. I'm not there but I oughta be.
This could turn into a post about spirituality and how "this world is not my home," and for me that's part of the answer, but I see that calm eye in people of all brands of spirituality, and of no spiritual belief at all. New climate and terrain, accents and local traditions... for people who carry the calm eye within them wherever they go, these things are details. They color life, they don't draw its features.
Hurricane season is here again. I have a shelf of hard or impossible to replace books. Some are common printings that I value because they bear my grandparents' bookplates. Stuck between them is The List. It's my evacuation checklist of other treasured things scattered around the house. All I have to remember in a crisis is to go to the shelf, get The List and follow its instructions. I could get what matters most into a laundry basket. With advance warning, I can get secondary-priority stuff into a couple more. Things are the home I can carry with me, my seeds for transplanting to make a new home.
Like anyone who watches the news, though, I know a bit about disaster. Lead time is a luxury many don't get, and no inanimate object can be counted on. I really hate that thought.
We dream about our eventual mountain retreat, the place that will be our "real" home. "Someday," we say, "when we can get some land, we'll make the exact home we want." Once we pay off some other debts (and $43 fill-ups for a Civic ain't helping), we plan to look for a spot, maybe with a secure little storage building, and begin to move some of our most cherished belongings to it, out of storms' reach. But I know it's an illusion. One good mountain wildfire could sweep through. Larry, who's been through his own versions of the loss-thing, thinks it's possible to regain a lot of that safe and settled feeling, and I hope so but pessimism is my old buddy. I'll always expect the world to be lurking on the doorsill trying to pick our locks, but if I can expand my inner eye-of-the-storm, I can ride it out.
This was our 4th dwelling in my lifetime, and there would be 2 more. But the little white house was "home." Catherine, whose post about home got this train of thought started, mentioned the importance of place as a "source" of who we become. This was the place, for me. I was aged 3-12 there, and that house was a constant through a decade of huge change.
I grew, learned to read, battled the multiplication tables, got sick and got well, believed in, and then stopped believing in Santa Claus, gained crushes and ambitions and lost my only-child status of almost 7 years when my beloved (eventually) brother was born. My concept of an orderly law-abiding world shook the day in 4th grade that our teacher announced the shooting of John Kennedy, and I came home to find my mother doubled over on a hassock with a box of Kleenex in front of the TV, crying. And it crashed with the suicide of my friend's dad down the street.
That house shaped in me a concept of home as a place that stayed stable while nothing else, within or without me, did. My room, the tree outside. The two elderly gentlemen who lived at either end of the street and would meet on the sidewalk in front of our house and argue politics. Salesmen and deliverymen who had the same route for a decade and became warmly greeted friends. The tiny neighborhood soda shop and newsstand where kids could stock up on Double Bubble and the new comic books ....and that I was still walking to later when I got interested in Redbook's short stories and the always intriguing "Can This Marriage Be Saved?" column in Ladies Home Journal (housewife magazines fascinated me from about age 9 on. How I fell into that reading habit I have no idea).
I guess I had that feeling of permanence long enough to keep me looking, hoping to find it again. I never will. Not in a house or its contents. In each of 3 Opportunities For Growth -- a Charlotte flood, Hurricane Hugo, and a divorce -- more of my valued possessions have been culled out. Life shift after life shift shows me that the key is something I've just barely come to possess: a little eye of the storm inside me which houses my essential "self" and will let me transplant it somewhere new. Theoretically I could do this with no beloved memorabilia at all. Theoretically. I'm not there but I oughta be.
This could turn into a post about spirituality and how "this world is not my home," and for me that's part of the answer, but I see that calm eye in people of all brands of spirituality, and of no spiritual belief at all. New climate and terrain, accents and local traditions... for people who carry the calm eye within them wherever they go, these things are details. They color life, they don't draw its features.
Hurricane season is here again. I have a shelf of hard or impossible to replace books. Some are common printings that I value because they bear my grandparents' bookplates. Stuck between them is The List. It's my evacuation checklist of other treasured things scattered around the house. All I have to remember in a crisis is to go to the shelf, get The List and follow its instructions. I could get what matters most into a laundry basket. With advance warning, I can get secondary-priority stuff into a couple more. Things are the home I can carry with me, my seeds for transplanting to make a new home.Like anyone who watches the news, though, I know a bit about disaster. Lead time is a luxury many don't get, and no inanimate object can be counted on. I really hate that thought.
We dream about our eventual mountain retreat, the place that will be our "real" home. "Someday," we say, "when we can get some land, we'll make the exact home we want." Once we pay off some other debts (and $43 fill-ups for a Civic ain't helping), we plan to look for a spot, maybe with a secure little storage building, and begin to move some of our most cherished belongings to it, out of storms' reach. But I know it's an illusion. One good mountain wildfire could sweep through. Larry, who's been through his own versions of the loss-thing, thinks it's possible to regain a lot of that safe and settled feeling, and I hope so but pessimism is my old buddy. I'll always expect the world to be lurking on the doorsill trying to pick our locks, but if I can expand my inner eye-of-the-storm, I can ride it out.
Saturday, June 07, 2008
Writers and readers
--Tuesday, 14 March, 1944
Dear Kitty,
Perhaps it would be entertaining for you--though not in the least for me--to hear what we are going to eat today. [1]
In 1966 I read Anne Frank's Diary for the first time, and encountered this unforgettable line.
If you're wondering what could be more forgettable, believe me, I wondered too. Why wouldn't this bit of trivia leave my head? Why did it seem important?? It was one of those writer-to-be wake-up moments, but I was 12 [2], and I didn't recognize it at the time.
I'd run into plenty of entries about the minutiae of her daily life in the 100 pages before that, but here's where she kind of broke the 4th wall of diary-keeping and seemed aware that her readers would be living different lives from her own. It might not even have been the first time she did it -- it's been some decades since I read it -- but it's the one that got through to me.
So I blink my eyes and ka-foof! [3] it's 40+ years later and I'm in this Jetsons world I never imagined, where I can write anything I want, ignore rules and conventions, put it online for free, and even get read.
In the land of Twelve Steps we're urged to live the examined life, to really look at what we do, why we do it, and why we feel what we feel. When other bloggers feel they need not only to take time off but to delete years of carefully crafted and often excellent writing, I don't question it. OK, that's a lie. Let's reword it: I acknowledge that I have no right to question it. They're examining their lives and deciding accordingly.
I'm examining mine too, though, and wondering what the "negatives" of blogging are.
The time it takes from Real Life? Well, yeah. The way it satisfies a need to express myself, which bleeds energy off of writing a book? Yeah, it does that. That it elevates the trivial?
But Anne Frank proved that the trivial can be very interesting and even important. It can be that little glob of paint I spotted in Bruegel's The Harvesters, last time I visited the Metropolitan Museum.
I used to sweep through museums like a Roomba [TM], but last time, I got smart and realized I wanted to see less but to really see what I looked at. I love Bruegel, so I sat and studied it without imposing a time limit on myself. There among the meaningful brush strokes was this little spot where the paint had kind of glommed before the brush moved on and it was breathtaking. It connected me with a "trivial" moment when the paint was wet, 400+ years ago.
Most of my blogging friends live everyday lives that are very different from mine and I enjoy that window on their worlds.
Criticism?
So far I've run into no outright nutjobs, and if I do, there are powers that I could wield to remove their access.
As for honest disagreement .... I reallyreallyreally hate it, OK?!! I hate when I'm an idiot and someone calls me on it, but blogging makes me think my stuff through and by the last draft, I often end up with a more balanced view than I started with. Plus I need badly to face it as an Opportunity For Growth [4].
I speak for nobody else, this applies ONLY to me, but I see these not as negatives of blogging, but as negatives of me. Temptation to give short shrift to my real life, to take easier paths, to avoid criticism. It's all personal baggage and it'll go with me into anything I do.
Used rightly, blogging can hone some of my writing skills, and teach me something about discourse. Maybe even interest readers but that needs to follow my process, not lead it.
A delicate balance to strike. Its important to get tough on oneself, especially when it comes to blogging, because it's so easy to hold oneself to no standards at all. This power, this freedom to say anything any way, could tend to corrupt.
But it can also corrupt me by making me try too hard to pre-empt criticism. My perception suggests to me that I have a soul. And that it needs nurturing. Experience has taught me that letting others tell me what to say, and how, starves it.
When am I making my writing better, and when am I failing to be true to my vision? A blog can be a good place to repeatedly examine that issue and practice a healthy balance.
For its first six months or so, I concocted a few blog entries to entertain myself and blow off steam, but nobody knew it existed. Then people started discovering this thing.
It wasn't by design , but it was probably where I needed to go next. Writing to engage reader interest is a skill I need to hone. But I also need to stand strong against pandering to The Market.
So here's an entry from last December, that I never posted because I thought it would bore people. It's about hymns! Scintillating! 8~) I'm putting it back there in mid-December where it would have shown up, so here's a link.
I could be wrong about reader reaction, but that's totally NOT the point. I need to hold myself to high standards, but not post to please. Otherwise I'm squandering this opportunity.
--
[1] Anne Frank. The Diary of a Young Girl. The original 1947 version I grew up on.
[2] One proper-form rule I get to break is that of spelling out numbers instead of using numerals. I hate spelling out numbers. Vive la révolution!
[3] I also get to make up any weird onomatopoeia I want to.
[4] Opportunity For Growth started out as a suggestion for healthy attitude adjustment toward coping with life's problems. But it's become a sarcastic 12-step-program euphemism for Miserable Experience. When you complain, you get told to stop your Pity Party. But word it as, "I had an Opportunity For Growth this week," and you get lots of sympathy: "O no! I am so sorry!" etc etc.
Monday, June 02, 2008
[UPDATE] eBay feedback changes - "neutral" ain't neutral no more, folks!
An UPDATE is called for!
Sincere thanks to my friend Christy for passing along to me eBay's announcement that this policy will be changed back to the logical stance of neutral feedback being.....neutral!
The seller outcry -- and maybe some protest by buyers who meant "neutral" when they said "neutral" -- must have been substantial!
--
________positives_________
positives + negatives + neutrals
Of course eBay doesn't word it as transforming neutrals into negatives. O no! They are merely Doing The Right Thing To Create Great Buying Experiences on eBay!
Click for more condescension by eBay spokesman Brian Burke:
"We know that seeing your positive Feedback percentage drop is hard," he coos.
No. It is not "hard." It's inaccurate.
They simply "include" neutrals in the calculation, he says.
No. They do not merely "include" them. Neutrals are now placed in the denominator, counted equally with negatives. They now carry the same score-lowering weight as a full negative.
The carefully crafted example he gives is misleading. See, Burke tells us, if two sellers have the same number of positives and the same number of negatives .... but Seller Two also has fewer neutrals, the score needs to reflect that Seller Two is "providing a better overall customer experience"!
Aw, I feel terrible for questioning their much greater wisd-- But wait a minute.
Here's how that works out. Say you have :
100 feedbacks;
_____98 positives_____
98 positives + 2 negatives
Other feedback changes may make my life as a seller harder, but they're at least logical. They were instituted to boost buyer confidence. Well, OK. Somebody wins, even if it's not me.
But this one makes no sense. These two sellers would have the same rating. Buyers whose Great Buying Experiences eBay is so terribly concerned about, aren't getting an accurate picture by eBay calling neutrals and negatives equivalent. Nobody frikkin' wins.
Buyers issued neutrals under ebay's own rules -- that they would neither boost nor lower a seller's rating.
eBay is not explaining why they now want to override that choice, but -- and I'm speculating -- this seems to be an additional measure to compensate for the past when some buyers wanted to leave negatives but feared retaliatory feedback in return.
If so it doesn't wash, people.
For one thing, it's a blanket change, and assumes that all neutral-clickers really meant negative, and that no seller has the right to the rating he was originally given. That no buyer ever really felt neutral. That it was never about honest misunderstanding or minor nuisances that left the buyer with no complaint once they were cleared up -- which is, in fact, exactly what neutrals are likely to be.
For another, eBay has already disabled retaliatory feedback. Sellers can't give any but positive feedback to buyers anymore.
I don't know whether I'm more baffled by eBay's belief that they need to penalize previous neutrals equally with negatives, or by their belief that they are entitled to do it.
Legally entitled - maybe. Sure, these fat corporations can make their own rules, but in this case, they are not changing a rule from this point on -- they are taking a term that meant one thing, redefining it to mean another, and applying that to past uses of the term.
If the yes-or-no system wasn't adequate, it's wrong to reassign a value after the fact.
Sincere thanks to my friend Christy for passing along to me eBay's announcement that this policy will be changed back to the logical stance of neutral feedback being.....neutral!
The seller outcry -- and maybe some protest by buyers who meant "neutral" when they said "neutral" -- must have been substantial!
--
One day in 1999, Larry came home from work early, which was very weird. He worked at a federal government office in a Trenton NJ neighborhood. Public service US government offices keep exact hours. Something serious has to happen to alter that.
"What..what..?" I sputtered.
"The mafia is burning out the independent crack dealers on our street, so we were told to close up early and go home," he explained. Fires were going up in various rowhouses across the street.
"What..what..?" I sputtered.
"The mafia is burning out the independent crack dealers on our street, so we were told to close up early and go home," he explained. Fires were going up in various rowhouses across the street.
It was around then that I started thinking we oughta notch up our (then) part-time online business to make it a full-time career for us both.
We were practically a ground-floor eBay seller, starting in 1998. Our pride was, and still is, actually caring about our customers. It shows in our feedback.
I've never believed that "the customer is always right." We've run into too many wackos. But in practice, you're crazy to try to reason with unreasoning people, and you're better off biting the bullet. We had a no-questions-asked return policy and never got a negative feedback.
Never. In 10 years. Not one. Our score was 100% positive.
An excellent seller can have a 99.8. It's not a catastrophe. I did cherish that 100% and what it meant to buyers, but I also knew that its days were numbered. No matter how great we were, a crackpot with our name on him had to be out there somewhere. Someone who'd accept no concession that even we, willing to go the extra mile, could in good conscience provide. Or who wouldn't even ask for satisfaction before hitting the red button.
But I was completely unprepared for it to be eBay's managers who bitchslapped us by changing the tally value of feedback categories, and applying it retroactively.
Somebody gave us a neutral four months ago. The toy Matchbox [TM] car he bought, which we'd called 1:64 scale, was actually scaled a bit smaller than true 1:64, as most Matchbox items are. They vary. When we asked why he hadn't requested a refund or some other compensation, he wrote back that the scale did not actually matter a bit to him. But the neutral sits there. Until now, it was .... neutral.
Recent changes to their feedback system have made lots of news but I can't seem to find any outrage over this particular new policy. To any sellers dropping by - you may have missed this little gem, because other changes in your score masked or absorbed it.
"Neutral" feedbacks now count as negatives, against the seller. Yes. Really. Click any seller's feedback page to look at the new calculation method:
Positives are now a percentage of all feedbacks.
________positives_________
positives + negatives + neutrals
Of course eBay doesn't word it as transforming neutrals into negatives. O no! They are merely Doing The Right Thing To Create Great Buying Experiences on eBay!
Click for more condescension by eBay spokesman Brian Burke:
"We know that seeing your positive Feedback percentage drop is hard," he coos.
No. It is not "hard." It's inaccurate.
They simply "include" neutrals in the calculation, he says.
No. They do not merely "include" them. Neutrals are now placed in the denominator, counted equally with negatives. They now carry the same score-lowering weight as a full negative.
The carefully crafted example he gives is misleading. See, Burke tells us, if two sellers have the same number of positives and the same number of negatives .... but Seller Two also has fewer neutrals, the score needs to reflect that Seller Two is "providing a better overall customer experience"!
Aw, I feel terrible for questioning their much greater wisd-- But wait a minute.
Here's how that works out. Say you have :
100 feedbacks;
_____98 positives_____
98 positives + 2 negatives
= 98.0
_____98 positives_____
98 positives + 2 neutrals
_____98 positives_____
98 positives + 2 neutrals
STILL = 98.0
Other feedback changes may make my life as a seller harder, but they're at least logical. They were instituted to boost buyer confidence. Well, OK. Somebody wins, even if it's not me.
But this one makes no sense. These two sellers would have the same rating. Buyers whose Great Buying Experiences eBay is so terribly concerned about, aren't getting an accurate picture by eBay calling neutrals and negatives equivalent. Nobody frikkin' wins.
Buyers issued neutrals under ebay's own rules -- that they would neither boost nor lower a seller's rating.
eBay is not explaining why they now want to override that choice, but -- and I'm speculating -- this seems to be an additional measure to compensate for the past when some buyers wanted to leave negatives but feared retaliatory feedback in return.
If so it doesn't wash, people.
For one thing, it's a blanket change, and assumes that all neutral-clickers really meant negative, and that no seller has the right to the rating he was originally given. That no buyer ever really felt neutral. That it was never about honest misunderstanding or minor nuisances that left the buyer with no complaint once they were cleared up -- which is, in fact, exactly what neutrals are likely to be.
For another, eBay has already disabled retaliatory feedback. Sellers can't give any but positive feedback to buyers anymore.
I don't know whether I'm more baffled by eBay's belief that they need to penalize previous neutrals equally with negatives, or by their belief that they are entitled to do it.
Legally entitled - maybe. Sure, these fat corporations can make their own rules, but in this case, they are not changing a rule from this point on -- they are taking a term that meant one thing, redefining it to mean another, and applying that to past uses of the term.
If the yes-or-no system wasn't adequate, it's wrong to reassign a value after the fact.
And it's nonsensical for that value to be identical to the value of another choice.
They could split every neutral. Add half a point to the positive numerator and half to the negative in the denominator. That would "include" it.
They could eliminate "neutral" and have buyers simply give a thumbs-up or thumbs-down. But if buyers dislike having to use simple extremes, that's understandable.
Other sites, like amazon.com, use a 4- or 5-choice spectrum. This would mean that "pretty good" and "great" wouldn't need identical values. Neither would "not so great" and "terrible."
--
Full permission is granted to any reader, to quote from this post. Use it.
Monday, May 26, 2008
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Using dreams
Once in awhile, no matter how long ago we quit drinking, we AA members still have a "using dream," in which we begin again, drinking or drugging. And wake up with a start and a cold chill, wondering, "Did I just flush my life down the john?!" For me they come at the rate of a couple times a year. Including last night.
Why? What does it mean? Is it just a way to renew my feelings of gratitude for the freedom my program gives me? Or is it a warning?
In my version of this dream (which may be pretty common), I don't dream that I'm overwhelmed by temptation. I don't say, "I want it, I mean to have it, pour me one!" Nope, in my using dreams, somebody hands it to me and I swill it without thinking. My dreams aren't about conscious decision-making, but about dimwitted unthinking auto-pilot behavior.
So possibly I have the dream when I've been playing with fire in some way. Maybe by longing for abuseable substances, but maybe with some other form of bad life management. Ignoring a cautionary message my smarter self is trying to hammer through my thick skull.
My latest temptation -- boy my blog is one thrill after another these days -- is cashew butter. Hey, for me it could be the road to perdition.
But it's s-o-o-o-o good. Oh wow. The colors.
I discovered a year and half ago, through dietary experimentation, that I'm allergic to peanuts. This was hard to face. Very.
I have to eat sugar-free and low carb. I hate low carb. In heaven, I fully expect my reward to be the ability to eat all the bread, potatoes, and flaky buttery piecrust I want. But it ain't an option in this life. On low carb, one can and should do small, sensible amounts of healthy complex carbs. I hate small sensible amounts.
Peanut butter is one thing I both loved with a passion, and was allowed on the diet. Besides, I've eaten vats of it all my life. This is one reason that I never attributed the -- um --- distress I experienced to my beloved peanut butter. A late-life allergy to peanuts is unusual but it happens, and I faced facts and gave it up.
Yesterday in the grocery store, I picked up a jar of cashew butter. Carefully, I checked the label. Organic stuff, and not processed with peanut oil, which nuts-in-a-can usually are.
Should I try it? I weighed the risk: at worst, I'd be looking at about three days of itchy misery but no danger, if my system handles it the same way it handles peanuts.
Took it home. Stirred it up. Spread it on a single slice of ultra-healthy whole grain bread, thickly enough so that I kept having to catch the ooze and lick it off my finger. It was delicious. It was magnificent. Forgive my emoting, but it's been a long, long time. [YouTube alert -- for those with slow connections]
By nightfall any reaction would be fully underway. I told myself, "Even if you can eat this stuff, that doesn't mean you can gulp spoonfuls out of the jar every day and overdo it, like you did the peanut butter. You need to do this sanely. Sensibly. As a treat, not a steady diet."
No allergic reaction. O joy! I missed my peanut butter so much, and here was a gift from God to compensate me.
That's very much the way I felt about alcohol when I first discovered it. And maybe that's why I had the using dream.
Overindulgence in cashews actually could be dangerous, if I end up in the emergency room with an allergic reaction. Botanically, cashews are nuts and peanuts are legumes, but most people with peanut allergies are sensitive to tree nuts too. Since there is a difference and since my allergy is mild, hives-oriented, and late-life, it was worth a try, but if I developed one sensitivity, I could develop another.
The question is: Can I do cashews in moderation, or is my basic tendency to overdo everything gong to take over? Will this treat be like alcohol, which I have to stay entirely away from, or like carbs, which I have to learn to do in moderation? We'll see.
Why? What does it mean? Is it just a way to renew my feelings of gratitude for the freedom my program gives me? Or is it a warning?
In my version of this dream (which may be pretty common), I don't dream that I'm overwhelmed by temptation. I don't say, "I want it, I mean to have it, pour me one!" Nope, in my using dreams, somebody hands it to me and I swill it without thinking. My dreams aren't about conscious decision-making, but about dimwitted unthinking auto-pilot behavior.
So possibly I have the dream when I've been playing with fire in some way. Maybe by longing for abuseable substances, but maybe with some other form of bad life management. Ignoring a cautionary message my smarter self is trying to hammer through my thick skull.
My latest temptation -- boy my blog is one thrill after another these days -- is cashew butter. Hey, for me it could be the road to perdition.
But it's s-o-o-o-o good. Oh wow. The colors.
I discovered a year and half ago, through dietary experimentation, that I'm allergic to peanuts. This was hard to face. Very.
I have to eat sugar-free and low carb. I hate low carb. In heaven, I fully expect my reward to be the ability to eat all the bread, potatoes, and flaky buttery piecrust I want. But it ain't an option in this life. On low carb, one can and should do small, sensible amounts of healthy complex carbs. I hate small sensible amounts.
Peanut butter is one thing I both loved with a passion, and was allowed on the diet. Besides, I've eaten vats of it all my life. This is one reason that I never attributed the -- um --- distress I experienced to my beloved peanut butter. A late-life allergy to peanuts is unusual but it happens, and I faced facts and gave it up.
Yesterday in the grocery store, I picked up a jar of cashew butter. Carefully, I checked the label. Organic stuff, and not processed with peanut oil, which nuts-in-a-can usually are.
Should I try it? I weighed the risk: at worst, I'd be looking at about three days of itchy misery but no danger, if my system handles it the same way it handles peanuts.
Took it home. Stirred it up. Spread it on a single slice of ultra-healthy whole grain bread, thickly enough so that I kept having to catch the ooze and lick it off my finger. It was delicious. It was magnificent. Forgive my emoting, but it's been a long, long time. [YouTube alert -- for those with slow connections]
By nightfall any reaction would be fully underway. I told myself, "Even if you can eat this stuff, that doesn't mean you can gulp spoonfuls out of the jar every day and overdo it, like you did the peanut butter. You need to do this sanely. Sensibly. As a treat, not a steady diet."
No allergic reaction. O joy! I missed my peanut butter so much, and here was a gift from God to compensate me.
That's very much the way I felt about alcohol when I first discovered it. And maybe that's why I had the using dream.
Overindulgence in cashews actually could be dangerous, if I end up in the emergency room with an allergic reaction. Botanically, cashews are nuts and peanuts are legumes, but most people with peanut allergies are sensitive to tree nuts too. Since there is a difference and since my allergy is mild, hives-oriented, and late-life, it was worth a try, but if I developed one sensitivity, I could develop another.
The question is: Can I do cashews in moderation, or is my basic tendency to overdo everything gong to take over? Will this treat be like alcohol, which I have to stay entirely away from, or like carbs, which I have to learn to do in moderation? We'll see.
Monday, May 19, 2008
Ain't Nobody's Bizness If I Do
Lucky readers! Here's a post almost as exciting as watching water boil.
A current bandwagon onto which plenty of cartoonists and news sources seem to be jumping is that of mocking bottled water buyers : "Why, bottled water is nothing but tap water sold at ridiculous prices to idiots!"
On the left you see the end product of 2 liters of my local tap water boiled down to half a cup.
On the right is 2 liters of the much-maligned Aquafina [TM], boiled down to, actually, less than one-half a cup. PLEASE NOTE: I tried to to catch the pot and remove it from the heat at the exact same point for each type of water -- that is, I tried to distill each to precisely one half a cup -- but waited a minute or so too long.
A current bandwagon onto which plenty of cartoonists and news sources seem to be jumping is that of mocking bottled water buyers : "Why, bottled water is nothing but tap water sold at ridiculous prices to idiots!"
On the left you see the end product of 2 liters of my local tap water boiled down to half a cup.
On the right is 2 liters of the much-maligned Aquafina [TM], boiled down to, actually, less than one-half a cup. PLEASE NOTE: I tried to to catch the pot and remove it from the heat at the exact same point for each type of water -- that is, I tried to distill each to precisely one half a cup -- but waited a minute or so too long.
Yet it only proved my point better. The Aquafina is more concentrated, and yet still much clearer than the tap water.
My point is not to claim that the cloudy ingredients in the tap water are toxic. I have no idea what they consist of. There is no need whatsoever to condescendingly inform me that H2O containing NO dissolved matter is virtually nonexistent, that My Government Cares About Me, and that "simple minerals" are harmless and nothing to worry my pretty-old little head over.
I don't claim otherwise.
Another concession: The bottled water industry is self regulated, while municipal water plants have to meet government standards! Yippee. Well, anyway, no argument there either.
Nor do I claim that the environmental toll exacted by the process and by the plastic bottles is worthwhile. I don't know. To determine that would require more than just the hard figures of environmental cost. It would require an equally hard set of figures as to the benefits of drinking the bottled stuff.
Those figures don't exist. They probably cannot exist because :
1. health impact caused by gradual exposure and by delayed effects is hard to quantify;
2. the water in each service area differs, both in processing technology used, and in the stuff the raw product contains;
3. health effects also differ from person to person. Those seriously troubled by kidney stones, for example, need to avoid many dissolved minerals that are harmless to most.
My one and only point is that "purified" water is not "just" tap water. The price I choose to pay for a bottle of Aquafina is for the purification process, not for its source water.
However mentally challenged we may be, this concept is simple enough that most buyers do kind of grasp it in our slackjawed way.
That means the pundits probably know it too. This is what bothers me. There are honest arguments with which to criticize bottled water. But the cute images of a tap directly filling a name-brand water bottle are dishonest arguments and insult my intelligence.
Meanwhile, I dislike the taste and smell of my local water. I do not entirely believe in the healthiness of this yellowish muck in it. I am sure it meets government standards but I have long taken government standards with a grain of sodium chloride, as being based on acceptable risk weighed against unavoidable budget limitations. They define "acceptable." I don't get to.
I'll keep buying it and taking the bottles to the recycling center. That'll have to do.
--
If I need it, here's my disclaimer: I have no financial, nor any other, tie -- political, business, family, NUTHIN' -- to any product, company, or agency mentioned in this post. It is purely my opinion, and is strictly about my personal observations and preferences.
My point is not to claim that the cloudy ingredients in the tap water are toxic. I have no idea what they consist of. There is no need whatsoever to condescendingly inform me that H2O containing NO dissolved matter is virtually nonexistent, that My Government Cares About Me, and that "simple minerals" are harmless and nothing to worry my pretty-old little head over.
I don't claim otherwise.
Another concession: The bottled water industry is self regulated, while municipal water plants have to meet government standards! Yippee. Well, anyway, no argument there either.
Nor do I claim that the environmental toll exacted by the process and by the plastic bottles is worthwhile. I don't know. To determine that would require more than just the hard figures of environmental cost. It would require an equally hard set of figures as to the benefits of drinking the bottled stuff.
Those figures don't exist. They probably cannot exist because :
1. health impact caused by gradual exposure and by delayed effects is hard to quantify;
2. the water in each service area differs, both in processing technology used, and in the stuff the raw product contains;
3. health effects also differ from person to person. Those seriously troubled by kidney stones, for example, need to avoid many dissolved minerals that are harmless to most.
My one and only point is that "purified" water is not "just" tap water. The price I choose to pay for a bottle of Aquafina is for the purification process, not for its source water.
However mentally challenged we may be, this concept is simple enough that most buyers do kind of grasp it in our slackjawed way.
That means the pundits probably know it too. This is what bothers me. There are honest arguments with which to criticize bottled water. But the cute images of a tap directly filling a name-brand water bottle are dishonest arguments and insult my intelligence.
Meanwhile, I dislike the taste and smell of my local water. I do not entirely believe in the healthiness of this yellowish muck in it. I am sure it meets government standards but I have long taken government standards with a grain of sodium chloride, as being based on acceptable risk weighed against unavoidable budget limitations. They define "acceptable." I don't get to.
I'll keep buying it and taking the bottles to the recycling center. That'll have to do.
--
If I need it, here's my disclaimer: I have no financial, nor any other, tie -- political, business, family, NUTHIN' -- to any product, company, or agency mentioned in this post. It is purely my opinion, and is strictly about my personal observations and preferences.
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