Why I Had Only One Daughter

Found here.

Alors...

Got a call from the hotel in Ottawa that we booked for this weekend.  Turns out they drastically overbooked, but hey, theres this other hotel you can go to.  So I'm thinking what, the good places are booked but this place still has openings? How good can it be? And then I find out that another serious storm is heading our way, possibility of 5-8 inches (which, even if its only 3, will be significant.  All of which is leading me to think maybe this weekend wouldn't be a good time to go traipsing up to the frozen north....

And then I mention to the woman who had planned to visit us, bringing her daughter along, that my wife was a little apprehensive, since neither of us had ever met her before, and she immediately says you're right, lets scrub this and do it only after we meet face to face.  Say, your next trip to Paris? Which is (only roughly) planned for next summer, when god-knows-what-else will come up....

And my daughter tells me that there was a murder in Blacksburg, involving two former members of the Corps of Cadets.  Hoo, boy.  And, oh yeah, she still hasn't found out where I might be able to stay when I drive seven hours south of here so that she can hang with a friend who's getting married soon.  Well, Jessica said I could stay with her! Great, and me?  She's working on it.

What. A. Day.

Observation

It would be nice to have a grandchild, I think.

FSR

I am really, really tired of hearing the phrase For Security Reasons.......

Selective Justice

Found here

.

Deported

Oh...

In doctors office for a blood test.

"You can just put your jacket on that hook."
"No, its okay, I'll lay it here on - "
"Um, that's a motion activated faucet."
"-the sink aw crap."

Nurse thought it was quite funny.

Two Weeks

Found here.

La Neige

It's nowhere like what I remember from when I was growing up, let alone the thunderingly high snow that would occasionally arrive when I lived in South Dakota -- once, I recall, I walked around outside the building on a Launch Control Facility, and the snow was so high over my head that I was suddenly glad that security guy had insisted that I take a radio, for all that I was, perhaps, twenty feet from the door -- but still:  it's whiting out.  Again.  Good news for kids who want the day off.  Bad news for kids who want to get out of school on time at the end of the year.

Me, I'm sitting here drinking coffee and studying French.  Again. Because even though it looks like I won't be going to France in June -- it was a long shot -- and even though our friends arriving in August will be speaking English, pour la plupart - still, next year, we will be going back.  So I need to keep trying, however frustratingly slow my progress is.  Even if the French word that comes to mind most often is merde!

Thoughts

Found on KGB Report, here

The President said we must stay vigilant against foreign threats...yet Justin Bieber remains a free man.
-Bill Maher.


Maybe if we all e-mail the Constitution to each other, the NSA will finally read it.

Too Loose

FINE!

High School | TX, USA

(Student #1 (a boy) has just asked Student #2 (a girl) to help him figure out why his girlfriend is mad at him.)
Student #1: “[Girlfriend] was in a bad mood the whole time we were at youth group last night.”
Student #2: “Was there anything different from normal?”
Student #1: “Um… I gave [Other Girl] a ride to youth group. [Girlfriend] was kind of rude to her, too.”
Student #2: “You gave a ride to [Other Girl], the cheerleader that you had a crush on for, like, two years, and you can’t figure out why [Girlfriend] is mad?”
Student #1: “Well, yeah. I mean, I asked [Girlfriend] if it was okay, and she said it was fine.”
(Every girl in class winces.)
Student #2: “Did she say it was fine or fine?”
Student #1: “Is there a difference?”
(Every girl in class winces again.)
Student #1: “What? She said I could do whatever I wanted, so I did.”
(More wincing.)
Teacher: “[Student #1], I am going to teach you the most important lesson you will learn in this room. Whenever a girl says ‘fine,’ ‘do what you want,’ ‘I don’t care,’ or ‘it doesn’t matter,’ she is lying. What she really means is that you should know that what you asked is a really bad idea and you need to figure out what she wants and pretend it’s your idea to do it that way.”
Student #1: “Really?”
All Girls: “Yes!”

Found here. 

Remembering.....or not

I used to read a blog by a woman who was a cancer nurse, and a cancer survivor.  Thyroid cancer, as I recall.  Last night I thought I wonder what happened to that blog?  And for the life of me, I can't remember the name..... though I think her cat's name was zoloft?

[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[

Found it.  Haiku of the Id.  Last updated.... a while ago.  [sigh]

Spending

Since I have been an adult, I have never lived paycheck-to-paycheck.  When I was a kid, I think our family did; I remember once when my family was on the verge of being evicted from subsidized housing because my parents could not afford to pay the rent.  As the saying goes, we never felt poor, but I think, now, that perhaps we were.  Since then, as a result of both I and my wife having professional jobs which paid well, and both having the tendency to be reluctant to spend (her family was also of the not exactly poor, but persuasion), we've done okay.  As we put it, when marvelling at the amount of money that we have now, when measured in comparison to what we read about the average assets of others, we're comfortably off. We're not rich, but we're at a point where we can buy things that are expensive without much thinking about it.  Not frequently, but we can do it.

It's a nice feeling, but, oddly, its also an uneasy one.  I find myself worrying on occasion that we're spending too much.  Since I retired, our annual spending has gone up about eight percent.  We've gone to France a couple of times.  We're paying for our daughter's college education. We've replaced some of the furniture.  Just yesterday we replaced a generic toaster oven whose heating element was beginning to fail with a new  top-of-the-line one -- a toaster oven so capable, we could probably do the bulk of our baking on it.  We're talking about replacing our leased minivan with a new one -- and finding that the top-of-the-line Honda Odyssey, with all the bells and whistles, is the one that catches our eye.

It worries me. Not because I think we'll run out of money, but because it doesn't feel right.  Last night, I dreamed that we were having some kind of minor but significant change made to the house -- I don't recall, something like replacement of the front door -- and when we went out and then came back, we found that somehow our front lawn had been replaced by a water garden. How nice, I thought, then realized that there were frogs in it. Large frogs.  And a burly guy telling me yeah, you're going to need to keep after them, else they're gonna take over the property.  They breed like anything. Just as I was envisioning myself in hip boots trying to scoop them up with a net, he added Course, you could pay us to take care of that for you. And I was actually considering it.

This summer, my daughter is doing a study-abroad program in Paris.  This amazes me.  As I say to my wife, I grew up thinking that a trip to Chicago would be an amazing adventure, and this kid's been to Paris twice! She's a little nervous about negotiating the transfer from the airport to her school cum hotel, so we're thinking that I might accompany her. How long should I stay? I asked my wife. Well, she said, she'll be there for a month, but you probably don't need to be there the whole time. Say, just a week.  Later, it occurred to me: Am I turning into the kind of person who can say Yeah, I went to Paris, but it was only for a week?

I'll keep an eye on it. 

Computerization

Oh, goody.  The library has switched to a completely new computer system. Among other things, it asterisks-out when you type in the 14 digit library card number.  Good luck with typos. And, oh yeah, unlike the old one, it doesn't save it.

Fire?

This is the kind of thing that simultaneously irritates and fascinates me.

I am listening to a video on the BBC Languages web site. (The site is marked as 'not updated recently', so it could depart at any time!)

In the video, a man is giving directions to a driver. He says Vous tournez au feu à gauche, which means 'turn left at the traffic light'.  What makes it weird is that first, the word order is not what you'd expect -- a literal translation would be You turn at the light to the left, and second, the word for 'traffic light' is feu, which is literally fire.  There are other ways to say it, ways that use words like lamp and such, so, guys.... fire? 

 

Now I know the French arrange their language just to mess with my mind!

Peeking

I still don't like what he did, but I like what the NSA is doing even less.

Found at This is Historic Times, here. .

That guy

This isn't the only reason that I dislike this guy, but it's one of them.  Not that it seems to matter!

Battle Star

It's a quote from a fictional character on Battlestar: Galactica, and probably reflects the thoughts of a liberal screenwriter.  Still, I like it.

Guts

I wish I had a tenth of her motivation.

Outraged

Found at Jesue and Mo, here.

The thing is, it's not the Muslim population's problem if terrorists say they're doing their evil in the name of that religion.  Real muslims aren't like that, any more than real forensic scientists are like Abby on NCIS.  Most of them are doing it because it makes them feel powerful in a world where they have very little power.

Going to church

this church
this congregation of strangers
huddled over altars
carefully reading scriptures
they and I come together
to celebrate the sacrament
the sacrament of coffee
the scriptures of poetry
the altar of solitude

the communion of lonliness

 

Found at 1130 miles, here. 

Shopping

Two years ago, we were surprised to find that we needed to get a new van, quickly, because our daughter had totalled our existing one.  (Which always sounds like the van is a heap of steaming junk wrapped around a telephone phone; it wasn't -- but it was damaged moderately when she sideswiped a car.)  So the plan was that we would lease the replacement -- a Toyota Venza, as it turns out -- for two years, then pay it off and keep it.

Well, that's still kind of the plan, but since then we've come to the conclusion that as long as we'll still going to be in the business of occasionally moving lots of people or lots of stuff, a minivan is better than the sub-mini that is a Venza.  Don't get me wrong, the Venza is nice enough, it's just not big enough.  So this morning we went to Honda to see their Odyssey, which has gotten pretty good reviews, and then to Toyota to see their Sienna, which has also gotten pretty good reviews. We expected to like both, but to want to get the Toyota.

Oh, my.

I know that a lot of the difference is the difference in cost -- as equipped on the showroom floor, the Sienna was $33k and the Odyssey was $40K.  For seven thousand dollars, I expect to be wowed, and I was.  The Odyssey is a very nice vehicle.  I went through my checklist of things I like/don't like about the Venza, including things I wish it had, and in almost every category, the Odyssey was excellent.  In categories where I had nothing listed, such as ergonomic 'feel' of the console area, it was excellent.  The price makes my jaw drop, but it certainly had the chops to show for it.

Still, we like the Venza enough -- not completely, but enough -- that we assumed we'd like the Sienna, too.  The reviews are good, its made by the company that made the Venza - yeah, we're going to like it.  Maybe not as much as the Odyssey, but enough.

No.  Not enough. Even given that we expected it to be less impressive than the more expensive vehicle, we were surprised.  For example - when you reach for the hidden handle to raise the rear hatch door, you have a chance of touching the bulb instead (and if it's hot? Surprise!)  The cup holders in the front, on the center console, are good -- but they added two more, taking a space that could have been storage.  The rear-view screen is small and subject to glare.  The design of the dashboard array just felt clunky.  Knobs are not intuitively obvious.  Controls don't make sense.  The interior felt old, badly designed, as if they'd taken one from five years ago, slapped some trim on it, and called it done.  Not to say that the Honda just made sense -- I had to search to find out what the button marked LDW meant - but it seemed more intuitive, to both of us. I don't know if Toyota fired the design team that made the Venza, or what, but the design of the Sienna just isn't as clean.  The vehicle does the job - it just doesn't do it well.

Even the pricing seems off.  Toyota says zero percent financing for five years. Honda says one point nine percent financing for five years. Advantage Toyota, right? Except that in the small print, Toyota notes that if you're financing it, the total price for the van is about a thousand dollars more (even though the local finance person assured me that the price doesn't change if you're financing it). Now, they've got to make money, and if they're agreeing to wait to be paid, maybe that's part of how they do it.  And  maybe Honda does that bump too - but it struck me as being just a little bit sly.  It wasn't the price -- it was the price IF.... with an asterisk after it. 

So, we'll see.  This isn't to say we'll get the Honda -- price does matter.  But it makes it more likely that we'll decide not to buy at all -- just pay off the lease on the Venza and keep it for a while.  See what happens.

Dancing

Found on The Toast, here

The Names They Gave Me

Tasbeeh Herwees on January 15, 2014 

i.
“Your name is Tasbeeh. Don’t let them call you by anything else.”
My mother speaks to me in Arabic; the command sounds more forceful in her mother tongue, a Libyan dialect that is all sharp edges and hard, guttural sounds. I am seven years old and it has never occurred to me to disobey my mother. Until twelve years old, I would believe God gave her the supernatural ability to tell when I’m lying.
“Don’t let them give you an English nickname,” my mother insists once again, “I didn’t raise amreekan.”
My mother spits out this last word with venom. Amreekan. Americans. It sounds like a curse coming out of her mouth. Eight years in this country and she’s still not convinced she lives here. She wears her headscarf tightly around her neck, wades across the school lawn in long, floor-skimming skirts. Eight years in this country and her tongue refuses to bend and soften for the English language. It embarrasses me, her heavy Arab tongue, wrapping itself so forcefully around the clumsy syllables of English, strangling them out of their meaning.
But she is fierce and fearless. I have never heard her apologize to anyone. She will hold up long grocery lines checking and double-checking the receipt in case they’re trying to cheat us. My humiliation is heavy enough for the both of us. My English is not. Sometimes I step away, so people don’t know we’re together but my dark hair and skin betray me as a member of her tribe.
On my first day of school, my mother presses a kiss to my cheek.
“Your name is Tasbeeh,” she says again, like I’ve forgotten. “Tasbeeh.”
ii.
Roll call is the worst part of my day. After a long list of Brittanys, Jonathans, Ashleys, and Yen-but-call-me-Jens, the teacher rests on my name in silence. She squints. She has never seen this combination of letters strung together in this order before. They are incomprehensible. What is this h doing at the end? Maybe it is a typo.
“Tas…?”
“Tasbeeh,” I mutter, with my hand half up in the air. “Tasbeeh.”
A pause.
“Do you go by anything else?”
“No,” I say. “Just Tasbeeh. Tas-beeh.”
“Tazbee. All right. Alex?”
She moves on before I can correct her. She said it wrong. She said it so wrong. I have never heard my name said so ugly before, like it’s a burden. Her entire face contorts as she says it, like she is expelling a distasteful thing from her mouth. She avoids saying it for the rest of the day, but she has already baptized me with this new name. It is the name everyone knows me by, now, for the next six years I am in elementary school. “Tazbee,” a name with no grace, no meaning, no history; it belongs in no language.
“Tazbee,” says one of the students on the playground, later. “Like Tazmanian Devil?” Everyone laughs. I laugh too. It is funny, if you think about it.
iii.
I do not correct anyone for years. One day, in third grade, a plane flies above our school.
“Your dad up there, Bin Laden?” The voice comes from behind. It is dripping in derision.
“My name is Tazbee,” I say. I said it in this heavy English accent, so he may know who I am. I am American. But when I turn around they are gone.
iv.
I go to middle school far, far away. It is a 30-minute drive from our house. It’s a beautiful set of buildings located a few blocks off the beach. I have never in my life seen so many blond people, so many colored irises. This is a school full of Ashtons and Penelopes, Patricks and Sophias. Beautiful names that belong to beautiful faces. The kind of names that promise a lifetime of social triumph.
I am one of two headscarved girls at this new school. We are assigned the same gym class. We are the only ones in sweatpants and long-sleeved undershirts. We are both dreading roll call. When the gym teacher pauses at my name, I am already red with humiliation.
“How do I say your name?” she asks.
“Tazbee,” I say.
“Can I just call you Tess?”
I want to say yes. Call me Tess. But my mother will know, somehow. She will see it written in my eyes. God will whisper it in her ear. Her disappointment will overwhelm me.
“No,” I say, “Please call me Tazbee.”
I don’t hear her say it for the rest of the year.
v.
My history teacher calls me Tashbah for the entire year. It does not matter how often I correct her, she reverts to that misshapen sneeze of a word. It is the ugliest conglomeration of sounds I have ever heard.
When my mother comes to parents’ night, she corrects her angrily, “Tasbeeh. Her name is Tasbeeh.” My history teacher grimaces. I want the world to swallow me up.
vi.
My college professors don’t even bother. I will only know them for a few months of the year. They smother my name in their mouths. It is a hindrance for their tongues. They hand me papers silently. One of them mumbles it unintelligibly whenever he calls on my hand. Another just calls me “T.”
My name is a burden. My name is a burden. My name is a burden. I am a burden.
vii.
On the radio I hear a story about a tribe in some remote, rural place that has no name for the color blue. They do not know what the color blue is. It has no name so it does not exist. It does not exist because it has no name.
viii.
At the start of a new semester, I walk into a math class. My teacher is blond and blue-eyed. I don’t remember his name. When he comes to mine on the roll call, he takes the requisite pause. I hold my breath.
“How do I pronounce your name?” he asks.
I say, “Just call me Tess.”
“Is that how it’s pronounced?”
I say, “No one’s ever been able to pronounce it.”
“That’s probably because they didn’t want to try,” he said. “What is your name?”
When I say my name, it feels like redemption. I have never said it this way before. Tasbeeh. He repeats it back to me several times until he’s got it. It is difficult for his American tongue. His has none of the strength, none of the force of my mother’s. But he gets it, eventually, and it sounds beautiful. I have never heard it sound so beautiful. I have never felt so deserving of a name. My name feels like a crown.
ix.
“Thank you for my name, mama.”
x.
When the barista asks me my name, sharpie poised above the coffee cup, I tell him: “My name is Tasbeeh. It’s a tough t clinging to a soft a, which melts into a silky ssss, which loosely hugs the b, and the rest of my name is a hard whisper — eeh. Tasbeeh. My name is Tasbeeh. Hold it in your mouth until it becomes a prayer. My name is a valuable undertaking. My name requires your rapt attention. Say my name in one swift note – Tasbeeeeeeeh – sand let the h heat your throat like cinnamon. Tasbeeh. My name is an endeavor. My name is a song. Tasbeeh. It means giving glory to God. Tasbeeh. Wrap your tongue around my name, unravel it with the music of your voice, and give God what he is due.”

Growing Up

Look at that smile!

Kelly Thomas

Apparently, it's not excessive if a cop does it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Kelly_Thomas

Dark Night

Handling Change

As I write this, my cat is staring at me.  I would say reproachfully (because I won’t let her climb on my laptop)  but in addition to being indefensible -- why should I assign a human emotion to a cat? - is also implausible, because it implies that the cat can have opinions about me and what I do.  Cats, at least this cat, simply exist at the feed me/clean my litter box level. They don't have thoughts as much as reactions.   They're great fun, and I do very much enjoy having one, but as for being emotionally connected in any way, they're more like furry Pet Rocks. I like to say that cats have swappable intelligences – the animus that exists in my cat right this minute may be in the furry head of a cat in Singapore ten minutes from now.  When a cat goes away, getting into a zen-like state, it’s actually lost it’s propelling mind and is now running purely on instinct.  When the cat goes awake again, an intelligence has arrived – possibly the same one from moments ago, possibly one that was up to that moment in another cat.  It’s my explanation of why a cat can bolt into a room in a tearing fury and abruptly stop and begin to lick itself.  The old intelligence set the run like a bat out of hell switch, and then departed; the new one has flicked off the switch and now wants to explore the new environment, starting with itself.

But that's not what I wanted to write about.

I don’t like relying on other people, but what I suspect is that I don’t like relying on people whose behavior I cannot affect.  Romney said during his campaign that he likes being able to fire people, which he intended to mean that he likes making sure they’re doing their job, keeping the good ones and dumping the bad (unfortunately for him, it came out as another oblivious rich guy comment).  I feel the same way about the organizations that have encroached our lives like ivy, worming their way into the cracks of our lives, taking advantage of our inattention to establish a foothold.  For example -  I don’t really believe, but it’s helpful to act as if I do, that the organizations that go by names like pharmacy benefits managers should actually be called drug use reducers, because for me their effect is that they reduce the ease with which I can get drugs that I need.  Used to be, I’d get a prescription for insulin (and why should one need a prescription for insulin?  Do people think that it can be whipped into some sexy new mood alterer?), go to the drug store, come home with it.  Now the drugs are mailed out by a pharmacy benefits manager, which likes to operate under its own rules.  Every year or so, something significant about them changes – they get bought out by a different organization, they change  their name, they alter the way their web site works, they establish new requirements for their passwords – and you get to adapt to it.  There’s no benefit to you for doing this, but if you want what they control, you’ve got to do it.  This is why elderly people seem so flummoxed so often.  They lived their entire lives, each change being handled as they came along, but now the speed of change is increasing during a period that their ability to handle each change is decreasing.  They’re not stupid; they’re just overwhelmed.

So I’d like to fire these guys and just say here’s my money, give me the drugs. At one time, I could do that.  Now I can’t, and I dislike it.

Mes Nouveaux Vêtements...

I'm thinking that when I go up to Canada next month, I should be appropriately dressed.

Found here.

Dollahs

Expensive day.

Haircut (always feel like thats about 40% too much).

New battery for my daughter's watch.

Reservations for a major league baseball game (apparently the seats are made of gold), plus two nights at a hotel for us and our guests.

And now, my daughter just broke her glasses. I was just swinging it around like this -- grabs my glasses and demonstrates - and suddenly it broke.  

Sigh. 

Fire Firefox

Firefox has been crashing on me daily, sometimes two and three times a day.  I'm starting to think I'd be better off with browsers that I like less because they're less customizable.  At least - presumably - they'd stay up.

Playing Ball

It's been a long time since I bought tickets to a baseball game, and, based on what I just paid for four club level seats to an Orioles/Yankees game in August, it'll be a long time till I do it again....

Then again, no one forced me to do it.  And I do want these visitors to be pleased. 

Making Connections

Found at ODDMAN.

In The Arena

Found at ODDMAN, here.

Some New Yorkers

Found at ODDMAN, here.

Musing

It's a ways from being a thing, but apparently our daughter has met someone at school whom she really likes.  As in text for an hour or two non-stop likes.  She even let my wife say hi while she was Skyping with the guy, this evening.  Which brings me to the eternal question:

Its not "If he visits, where's he going to sleep?"  I know that one. 

It's "where will I get the noisemakers and tackstrips to put on the floor between his bedroom and hers?"

Folding

Breakfast

Got to say, having a coffee maker that you can set to start at a given time in the morning, and some frozen chocolate croissants that will be warmed up, risen, and ready to bake at the same time, so that we can have coffee and croissantss for breakfast..... is not at all bad.

Colorful

Takes about 15 seconds to see.....

NSA Nastiness

Regardless of what certain judges have stated, the scope of what the NSA has done to peek, pry, and poke into private communications scares the hell out of me -- and reading this article didn't help.

Resolved

I don't make New Year's Resolutions, for several reasons.  This year, I didn't, either.  But I've been thinking for a while that I want to try to cook more.  Not wildly different things -- I'm still the prefers peanut butter and jelly to lobster person -- but, a little.  So, for example, I picked up a copy of Fine Cooking while we were at one airport, because it has some recipes for chili.  And there are some French (more accurately, French-like) dishes that I want to try.  And I have a bunch of recipes that I've found and thought huh, that looks interesting that I want to try, too.

Plus, I want to read more.  I feel like I spend a lot of time on the net, and as a result, I have at least a dozen books that have been waiting to be read for quite some time now.  I'm sure that I won't read all of them; some will disappoint.  But still, I want to read more, and, hey, it takes time.  I'm not a speedy reader any more. It doesn't help that when I'm looking for 'comfort reading', I tend to reread books I've already read and liked, even if they really aren't all that good.

And of course, there's French, where if I do what I want to do, I'll spend about three hours evey day on it.  That's a lot!  Nous verrons.

Plus, there's exercise.  Hup, two, hup, two, hup....gasps.....looks for a comfortable chair...

None of these are resolutions.  Because I'm not actually much of a resolute guy....

Summer

I love this picture.

Well, Yeah...

I like where I live, generally, which is in a band of mild weather between the DC area and the Philadelphia area; not sure why, but it can be snowing in those two places, and all we usually get is rain.  It has to snow pretty hard in other places for us to get any.  You know, like the storm that blew through here a few days ago, which is still lingering in the form of rain. . Which made our drive to pick up a pizza, about two hours ago, look like not necessarily the brightest thing we've ever done - icy road and rain?  Incipient black-ice accumulation on the driveway? Yeah....

But we figured hey, we have to go retrieve the cat from the kennel (she didn't seem particularly delighted to see us, or to get back to our house), so how much harder could this be?  Um, several miles harder? Oh.

Nothing bad happened.  This time.

Makin Music

Want to direct your own musical group?   Try this.

Differences

Outside the window, it's 76 degrees and the air conditioner just kicked on.

Tomorrow, we fly into an airport that's on the bottom edge of a fierce snowstorm. 

I'll be the one in shorts.

Gender-specific

I read Funny Times, which is a monthly newspaper that's a collection of humor - cartoons, articles, what have you.  I usually enjoy most of it, sometimes all of it, but I've never had the urge to write to an author before this month, when they carried an article by Roz Warren, a librarian and a humor writer, on the idea that men are from these books, while women are from those books. 

Warren says she has learned that it's possible to predict the gender of a reader from what they're checking out.  Bodice-rippers?  Almost certainly female.  War novels?  Other side of the aisle.  But why? she asks.  If each type of book is keyed to a given gender, why not read the books of the  'other side' just to see what they have to say to you?  You might learn something interesting.

Here's her original article, which she was kind enough to send to me.

Tardis.....

Funny?

Elementary School | Smalltown, GA, USA

(I am an intelligent child, but easily get bored after getting my work done. One day, one of the student teachers decides she is tired of me talking to my friends after I am done. She tapes my mouth shut with duct tape. I went home and told my mother, who decided to take me to class the next day.)
Mom: “Are you [Teacher's Name]?”
Teacher: “Yes, ma’am. How can I help you?”
(My 5’1″ mother proceeds to grab the teacher’s shirt and pull her close.)
Mom: “If you EVER touch my son again, I will crush your windpipe so fast you won’t even REGISTER why you can’t breathe!”
(My mom lets go of the teacher, who drops to the floor. As my mom goes to leave, she sees the principal coming over.)
Mom: “You may wanna pick your teacher up off of the d*** floor.”
(That was the last day I ever saw that student teacher. She quit and started working at her family’s restaurant!)

I admit, it did strike me as funny, initially.  And then it didn't.

Cadeaux

I received two amazing gifts today.

The first, from a friend in southern France,  amazed me -- a box with French cookies, French candy, and a bottle of French wine.  Unbelievable, I thought, and I still do.  Incredibly generous.

The second, from a Canadian friend,  stunned me -- a simple Christmas card saying that she really liked knowing me.  This floored me. I am always a little startled when people actually like me, and when it's someone that I've never even met.... wow.

If these had been all that I received this year, I would have had ample reason for gratitude.  My language partners are awesome people.

Feline Induced Guilt

In two days we are packing the cat off to a kennel for a week.  I am pretty sure she didn't like it there, last time.  Now I look at her and think sorry, cat......

Religion

I'm not sure if I've ever believed in religion -- at least, since I was able to think for myself.  It seems to me that it's always seemed onerous.  I've never seen the point of it.  This does not mean that I was a brave young thinker; quite the contrary, I went to Catholic religious services all the time when I was a kid, and even briefly fostered the classic Catholic thought of becoming a priest.  But once I was out of high school, that participation decreased markedly, except for when it served a secondary purpose, such as getting me away from the regimentation of Air Force basic training.

My mother was deeply religious; my wife is also religious, although less so.  I have asked her more than once what she gets out of it, and she tells me that she feels a sense of community, and that she has the feeling that she's not alone in having problems.  I know that some people mock this attitude, stating sternly that they are the captains of their life, but I have no problem with something that gives such relief.  It just never seems to work for me.

I'd like to say that my conclusions and feelings are the result of thoughtful observation and contemplation, but they're not.  They're more the feeling that it takes effort to participate in religion, and I don't see benefit flowing in the other direction.  Sure, I dislike things about religion generally and the Catholic church specifically -- all that money flowing in, no public accountability?  no one thinking that maybe having unmarried men in charge of children couldn't be a problem?  -- but thats not the reason I don't like to participate.  The reason is: I just don't get it.

I cringe when I read, in an article about the current pope, that parishioners at - I think - a Canadian parish speak brightly about their newfound sense of hope and participation, a newfound desire to participate, with this new pope.  I think shouldn't that come from the religion, not the person running it?

Still: maybe this pope is a first, faltering step toward reinfusion of the human values back into the Church, getting it away from worrying about things that it can't change or about which it should not care, thinking more about caring and less about dogma.  If so,  I wish him well. Certainly,  I like what I hear of him.  I'm sure he's still way more religious than me -- but I get the sense that he's a real person, not a fixture on a throne.  I think that's a good thing.

Make it.....

Grinching It

I'm not saying that I'm the Grinch.  But this morning I learned that one friend's mother has cancelled their holiday party because she is divorcing her father; a second friend was unable to talk with me today because she is very sick; and a third has said on Facebook that it 'might be necessary for her to forget him' - the him, presumably, being her boyfriend. I may not be the Grinch, but perhaps I'm a carrier?

I was in a tearingly bad mood last night, the result of a bad experience in a hotel, and one or two other things, but these people have me beat, hands-down.  I wish I could do something for them.

Darth's Bike

I've no desire to ride a motorcycle, let alone to own one. I'd do serious damage to myself and to others.

But if I *did*...... this is the one I'd want.

Sandy's Place

It would be inaccurate to say that I need a place like this, near here..... but I certainly would LIKE one.

 

Observation

Most things labelled 'hilarious' are at most mildly amusing.

Ah!

I always think it's funny when I go to add a new site to Feedly -- and it's already there!

Though at least this time it confirmed something that I'd heard, did believe, but didn't understand:  what's in mincement.

Now I just would like to know why it's called that.

NORM!

Interesting article about stores who want to do what I'll call the CHEERS move = I enter, they know immediately that I'm there, they know what I like, they make me offers designed to appeal to me. Everybody knows my name.

Healey Cypher, the head of retail innovation at eBay, tells a story about a bookseller who was convinced that online commerce would kill his business: ‘‘I said to him: ‘How do you know when someone’s in your store? You don’t, unless they bought something, and then only after the purchase. What if you had a platform for the first time ever that said, ‘‘This person is in your store, they like these things, they bought these things on your web store, and here’s an offer you should give them based on their purchases’’? 

I find it seductive, but also scary.  I do want them to recognize me, but I don't want them coming up to me and saying here's a book that 83% of the people who bought that last one you bought, the one you got at the airport book kiosk in Bozeman, say they liked, too.  You should buy it.  I want anonmymity until it helps ME.

The Burka Avenger

She's freaking awesome.

 

The Pakistani superhero—and star of the animated series Burka Avenger—won international acclaim this year for both her gender (she’s the first female Pakistani superhero) and her mission (she fights corrupt politicians, using books and pens and knowledge as weapons, in an effort to promote girls’ education). The Urdu-language series is now in talks to go global, and may soon be broadcast in 18 languages in 60 countries.

Found here.

Maybe We Should...

...do this in those places where small-minded people have chopped music budgets.

Progress?

 

Fouind at ODDMAN. 

Contacts

I realized today that I have more French-speaking friends than English-speaking ones. They tell me things, and I'm getting, at least a little, involved with their lives.

This week, I ordered gifts from Amazon.Fr for the children of one conversation partner whom I visited last summer.  He was pleased, and  tells me that they want to call me to thank me.

A different French correspondant found two weeks ago that her sister had attempted suicide.  She has no idea why, and tells me that their family is shattered by the news -- as was the family of a second  correspondant who told me a few months ago of the suicide of her sister.

A new contact tells me that her boyfriend thinks things are okay between them, and wants to continue, but she's not sure if they should.  She wants to do right by him, doesn't want to let him down, but she's just not sure.  She's  so tense about it (and other things) that she grinds her teeth at night, to the point where she broke a tooth.

Another tells me that her parents are getting divorced -- and the mother has asked her if its okay with her.  She would rather not be involved at all. While a woman in the north of France tells me of the birth of her second daughter, and sends me pictures.   I'm arranging for flowers to be delivered to her home.  Do I do that with my own family?  Never even occurs to me.

I feel for all of these people.  For some reason that I can't explain, they're more real to me than people in my own life. 

A French Story

Round Food

Our project last night.....

Liberal Arts

In A World....

Stories

Every so often, if I am lucky, I read something that is so well written, I have to stop before the end, just to let the sheer pleasure of the words percolate through me, and so as to stretch out the period of enjoyment of the piece.

The Case of Death and Honey, by Neil Gaiman, in the collection A Study in Sherlock, is such a piece.

Limber

How is this even possible?

Loops and Giggles

I know, that title doesn't make sense.  But I'm not in a particularly creative mood.

Two days ago, energetically demonstrating to my mento how I'd seen a teenage boy fling himself forward, I flung myself forward, and crashed to the ground, banging up my wrist and the little fingers on both hands.  Not entirely sure that I didn't break the finger on one hand, though, since it pretty much works even though it's still swollen, I'm guessing not.  I dislike getting reminded that I'm getting older.

My blood sugar readings are way high.  I'm telling myself that its connected with that prolonged swelling.  Wish there was a way I could just ask a medical person.  But then again, I've found that medical people are just as bad as others at making something up when they aren't sure - like the nurse practitioner who assured me that my bent toe was arthritis (I think it was a badly-fitting shoe, since the curve of the toe precisely matched the curve of the  shoe's inner sole).

I baked caramel, as I've done before, and decided to make a double batch.  Found you can't do that.  At least, I can't.  Overnight, it was still soupy.  I redid it,making a single batch, and it was fine.  Then I made a batch of chocolate caramel, and it failed -- because somehow I tried to use the last two steps of the first one's recipe to finish it.  Again, I redid it and it worked just fine.  But it irks me to think of all the eggs I wasted.  And then there's the filled cookies I made, that came out more like filled scones.  They're actually not bad, but not what I wanted to make.  Two tries on that one, too. Batch of flour and eggs wasted then, too.

Daughter's a bit unhappy because we're not going to get a christmas tree this year.  There isn't a good reason to have one  -- for the three weeks we could expect a tree to live, we'll all be gone ten days, and she'll be gone two days.  Didn't make sense.  Cuts no ice with her.  I think she sees us as shredding memories of her youth.

People who put microfuses into strings of christmas lights -- the kind that require tweezers to get out - should have their fingers glued together.  Ttwo of the three strings of lights on our small artificial christmas tree - don't work.  If we hadn't spent so much money on gifts, I swear I'd pitch it and get another.  Might do it anyway.  Maybe we should just go artificial for the big one, too.  I do love the aroma of a real tree, but after a while -- I don't know, it just seems a bit strange to haul it home, stare at it, and then pitch it.  After all that effort...... 

Cat just walked across the keyboard, leaving little hairs as she went.  Glad I have this stupid little plastic sheath on it. I do not want to have to replace the keyboard again.

Jack Vale

I don't normally like the idea of 'pranking', but this guy is amazing.

Caramelled

This morning I discovered that if a recipe for caramel will bubble up to about 60 percent of the pot after you add milk and butter, doubling the recipe will result in creation of a moderately messy stovetop.

My Kind Of Place

hot water

Showers should let you preset a temperature and not start flowing until that temperature is deliverable....

Writing

My mother used to make lists.  Things to do, things to remember, how to do things.  Some of the lists were fairly lengthy.  Others were short -- reminder that the hot water turned to the left, while the cold water turned to the right, for example.

I've been working my way through our new Bose radio -- building a playlist in Windows Media, getting the Bose to stream it from the PC to its own speakers.  Generally, its easy to do, but, like the Apple It just works (but it doesn't), the way to get it to work isn't always obvious.  I'm sure, after a few days, it'll be 'intuitively obvious', but now, not so much.  (Why, for example, can I say 'play' for a Playlist, but in Bose, I have to pick a song to start with?)

So as I find things, I make a list.  For example, my current list:

UPDATE CD INFO (DOWNLOAD USING WMP)
RIP CD TO WMP LIBRARY
FIND ALBUM IN WMP LIBRARY
RIGHT CLICK AND SELECT 'ADD TO'

The list helps.  But, of course, I'm not my mother.  I don't need the list.  It just helps.

So far.

Bliss

Over the weekend, I finally made it to Kramerbooks in Washington, DC.  And now I know why people I speak so highly of it. I'll take it over any three story Barnes and Noble, anytime.

I now have about fifteen books waiting to be read.

Yes, We're Listening

Apparently, a friend of a friend designed this for use on t-shirts, Facebook, etc. and was issued a cease and desist order by the NSA…

Here’s goes nothin’…

(Image and comment found here.)

This is not particularly funny, but...

I can read it! (Found here.)

 

(Okay, okay, I had to look up M'en fiche....)

Mailings

First batch of cards are in the mail.  Thirteen to France, one to Australia, and one that's only going a couple of blocks away -- but it's a Hanukkah card.  Cool.

Roughly fifty to go. 

It's A Yiddish Thing

The Sexy Side of Hanukkah -- powered by Cracked.com

Printable

I should have guessed that things were going too well.  Our printer just decided that it's not going to print BLACK any more.  Lots of ink in the cartridge, of course.....

You Always Wave Back

Found at Oddman.

Mail

So strange to get a package where the return address is People's Republic of China.

Pa amb tomàquet

Good stuff, and very easy to make. 

French bread, toasted lightly.
Add crushed or diced tomato, rubbed garlic, olive oil.
Excellent!

(Want a written recipe?)

[shrieking theme music]

Found at ODDMAN....

Thinking

There are times when I suspect that I think differently than other people.  I don't know if I really do, or if its just that I expect and assume things that normal people don't expect and assume.

For example, we had a meeting about three months ago at our bank with the fellow who oversees the administration of the money we have with it.   After the meeting, which included a second guy who spoke at length about financial concepts that sounded deep to me but might have been lightweight to him, I said to the first guy that this was all fun, but all we really needed from him was a) how much money can we expect to have at this time next year, in five years, and in twenty, and b) is he seeing anything in our spending patterns, or in the external environment, that would make him drop those values.  I don't think that these are complex questions.  I do know that they require certain assumptions to be made, and that the assumptions have to be qualified by probability, because, hey, nobody knows.  Fair enough.  And I'll allow that grinding these numbers out takes time and effort, even if all we want to see is the absolute highest level summaries, because even if a large part of it is just rolling formulas forward in Excel, it takes effort.

But what I really don't get is why, when he delivered to us a bound report listing assets and projections, he studded it with terms such as capital risk value and Nominal Value, and included incredibly dense charts showing the progressions over years of income and expenses..  I really don't.  I think it should have been perfectly clear that we didn't want details, we wanted big picture.  Appropriately cautioned, Your Mileage May Vary, yes, but still: don't give me numbers unless they are needed to explain something that needs to be explained.  Or you need action from us, based on them. Is this hard to understand?

Maybe it is.  Or maybe my expectations are just strange.

Gamblling

Observation

Studying French is not fun, but when I went two days without doing it, I missed it.  I understand exercise can have that effect, too, although I've never experienced it.

...and not.

Well, the bright, shiny new Lenovo is back in the hands of Staples again.  I imagine that times like this, they regret having a 'return for any reason at all' policy.  In this case, we were getting used to Windows 8, when an upgrade to 8.1  made the PC's touch screen stop working.  And, oh yeah, you can't roll back to Win 8.  So we rolled back the whole thing.

Doing a GSearch, looking for buzzwords like "touchscreen not working" and 8.1, it appears that just about every brand has users whose touchscreen worked under 8.0 that fails under 8.1.  Some of these can get it to work again, some not.  Charming.  Hence our decision to back away quickly.

On our Win7 PC side, I ordered the replacement keyboard.  Should be here in about 10 days. Until then, I'm using an external keyboard.  A bit awkward, but it's better than the keyboard that I destroyed.

Food Names

Found here at  22 Food Words You Might Be Pronouncing Wrong




(Not brooshetta? Really?)

Close to Ecstasy

It's been an interesting twenty four hours.

First, I found that the reason that the new laptop, which came with Windows 8 and which I upgraded to 8.1 because I wanted to get the Start button (maybe it doesn't come with 8.1; it certainly didn't come to me) - anyway, the reason that the scrollable touch screen doesn't scroll anymore is a known problem after an upgrade from 8 to 8.1 .  I don't know if its Win 8.1, or individual devices, or what, but I found several posts on a Lenovo site talking about The scrolling worked and I did a Win 8.1 upgrade and now it doesn't, WTF???  Along with a plethora of do this do that do this tap your foot and whistle suggestions, some of which worked for some people and not for others. Hum.  So I'll be calling Lenovo's tech support today, and if they can get it working, good, but if not, I'm scrubbing the files I transferred (OBTW: the good news is that unlike in the past, the easy file transfer utility really does work; twenty seconds after I started it on the Win 7 and the Win 8 PCs, they were talking to each other through my network -- but verrrrrrrry slowly.  As in, the time estimate for file transfer went from 3H45M to about 5H15M over the course of an hour.  What is this, a byte every other second?  There is a cable you can buy that allows a direct connection between the two, and its abut $20; the direct connection allows faster transfer, and I'm thinking sure, we can do that -- and then I notice that it says it can't be used for transfers from 64 bit systems.  Which my Win7 system is.  Why?  I have no idea.  I mean, I have a hunch, but it really doesn't matter, I can't use the cable).  So I kind of don't want this problem to be fixable, so that I have a morally pure reason for returning the PC.  But I'm going to at least try.

Second, I finally got the damaged keyboard out of the Win7 PC -- the first site that told me how to do it was completely wrong, so wrong that there must be another computer called an HP62; either that, or they just screwed up; the second, a video, clearly showed how to do everything but disconnect the cable from the keyboard to the motherboard; and a third site mentioned when you are ready to unplug the keyboard, lift the little brown tab, which will unlock the keyboard cable from the motherboard. I did that, and it came right off. So right this minute I am using an external keyboard, and it's working just fine. (As long as the damaged keyboard had still been connected, the external keyboard worked but not all the time).  And I just ordered a replacement keyboard from someplace in China, cross my fingers.

But still.  Considering that twenty four hours ago I was glumly thinking about possibly having to spend much time and effort to move files over to the Win 8 PC, to be followed by tossing the Win 7 one, which I really like, and now it looks like I can keep it after all -- I am not a person who can easily be ecstatic, but this morning, I'm close.

"Upgrading"

I assume that I am not the first to notice that the abbreviation for windows 8 would be....W8. Pronounced... Well, you can figure it out.

W8. Based on what we've had to do so far with this installation, it sounds like a Really Good Idea. 

But hey, at least it's not Healthcare. gov...

phonebloks.,.,

http://www.notimetochill.com/phonebloks/

Bill Bailey

....is an amazing guy.

Meatloaf with...

Made this tonight.  Quite good. Found here, and slightly modified.

Meatloaf with Sausage

3/4 pounds lean ground beef         1 pound ground pork sausage
9 saltine crackers, crushed            1/4 green bell pepper, diced
1/4 onion, finely chopped             1 large eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 T Worcestershire sauce          1/2 teaspoon yellow mustard

1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar, divided     1/2 cup ketchup

Heat oven to 350°.    Lightly grease 8x8 baking dish
Combine first 8 ingredients and 1/4 cup brown sugar in a medium bowl just until blended.
Place mixture in baking dish
Shape mixture into a loaf.
Bake at 350° for 1 hour.
Remove from oven, and drain.

Stir together ketchup and remaining 1/4 cup brown sugar; pour over meatloaf.

Bake 15 more minutes or until a meat thermometer inserted into thickest portion registers 160°.
Remove from oven; let stand 20 minutes.
Remove from baking dish before slicing.

Wait...Wait

Who are those guys?

Muslims

Found here.

Stray Thoughts

Reading The International Bank of Bob, about the Kiva microlending system.  He's describing the virtually indescribable wealth of places like Dubai and the UAE -- hotels with archways almost as tall as the Arc du Triomphe, vending machines that dispense small bars of gold -- and how, after a while, such sheer extravagance sickened him.  Normally, I think oh, you don't really mean that, but his style rings true.  So far, it's a fascinating book.

Working through a page by page word by word translation of a French novel.  It's hugely tedious, but the delight that I feel when I actually understand a sentence -- not just got the gist of it but actually understand it -- is pretty awesome.

Saw a 'recipe', if I can call it that, which we'll probably try:

- take a can of frozen Grands biscuits
- slice each individual biscuit into quarters
- fry the quarters in hot oil
- roll in cinnamon sugar or regular sugar
- serve

Daughter's struggling with two courses at school, called us last night almost in tears. We got her calmed down, but it really rips you up to hear that.  You want so much to help her.

Had the cat in a kennel for two days while a bedroom was painted.  She hated it -- when I physically picked her up on my return, she didn't just rest in my arms, she sank her claws into my jacket.  The 'cat kennel' part was just a small room with some cat toys.  I doubt I'd have liked it much myself.  And then I think yeah, and we're planning to put her there over the holidays for a week while we travel, and I feel guilty.

I told a French friend that I might (probably won't, but might) be coming to France next year to spend a month in a small apartment.  The goal is a 'total immersion' experience.  She said then you have to come to see me.  And the cool part was, she meant it.  Probably won't happen, even if I do come -- the apartment is in south-eastern France, near Marseilles, and she lives next Paris, about 5 hours away -- but still, it's a pleasant thought.

We're replacing a Corian countertop which cracked, probably because it wasn't mounted properly.  The cost made my jaw drop.  Were it just me, I probably would have lived with the crack until it shattered -- granted, not the brightest plan. 

This Week

It's been an interesting week.  Most of it was good, some, not really.

In the not-really category, it turned out that despite essentially being given a blank check for the marking period in one subject where he's failing, the mento still did not turn in materials.  I was flabbergated.  We had words afterward, the next time we met.  From now on, I'm scaling my efforts down to what I can physically see.  This means that each and every time we meet, I'm going to ask him to dump out his bookbag, and we are going to sort stray materials. Every time.  I don't think it will change him, but it's what I can do, so I'm going to do it.

In the good but hard to believe category, I mentioned to a French conversation partner that I was musing about coming to France for a month, just to immerse myself in the language.  She told me, a week later, that she'd talked to her grandfather, who happens to have a furnished apartment next to his house, and he'd said that I could stay there, free, for a month if I wanted.

I've therefore become newly interested in upgrading my French skills, to the point where I've picked up two new partners -- one, a French woman living in Spain, and the other, a Canadian woman living in Quebec.  I was a little afraid that there would be a problem with the Canadian accent -- I told this to a French partner, who sniffed and said Canadian French is nothing like REAL French  -- but as it happens, the Canadian woman doesn't have Skype, so we are communicating via email.  She's a pretty interesting person. I also picked up as a partner a woman in Morocco (though I don't know how often we'll talk), and I apparently lost a person in southern France, who hasn't responded to a couple of notes over the last two weeks. Ah, well.  It's still good.

I also started listening to a French language film -- I understand about a quarter of it, unless they're muttering, which they do from time to time. And yes, it has subtitles.  I'm also working my way through a French-language novel, bumping up my vocabulary skills. I read one page today!  This is all good. 

Also today, the painters arrived to start work on the bedroom that we're redoing in expectation of visitors this summer -  our friends from France.  They're actually going to stay in the other bedroom, which has a larger bed, but now we'll have two rooms - one newly painted with a rather nice shade of pale green - just in case they bring a friend.

So, things are good.  Generally.

Still

I thought it was March that arrives like a lion.  Last night, November arrived with high winds, and during the night we were pelted by more winds accompanied by heavy rain.  Now it's about ten to eight, and the sky is just barely light.  I guess it's good that we're switching the clocks back in a couple of days. Still, it's a depressing day.

Now I hear that despite the load on the system, very few people actually signed up for OCare so far.  People like me desperately want to believe that they wanted to, they just couldn't get in to do it. Though finding out that there are in fact people who are losing their insurance, because their insurance company is dropping their policies that don't match OCare standards -- that's pretty depressing.  I know, I know -- its a big deal, it takes a while for these things to get working, Medicare probably had the same initial problems.  Still.  It's depressing as all heck.

And last night only two kids showed up for trick or treat.  Granted, one of them had a fabulous costume -- I think her mother loves to play dress-up with her daughter, because she was wearing a costume, too -- but still.  Two.