Piggie's Perspective

Too much excitement for a Tuesday....

2010-10-19T20:41:00.003-04:00

I was sitting in the living room, minding my own business, watching the episode of Castle that I recorded last night when I heard a major scrabbling in the kitchen.

"Damn," I thought. "Astra's brought in another live bird." Hoping against hope, I got up and went to look. Astra's live birds have a tendency to perch on the curtain rod at the sliding glass door, so that's the first place my eyes went.

Was there a bird there? Hell, no! Staring back at me, just as astonished to see me as I was to see him, was a full grown raccoon hanging from the curtain rod by his front paws.

"Holy shit," said I, having no other words to cover the situation. I've had cat doors for twenty years or so. I've had cats bring strange things in through them; I've had cats that didn't live at my house come through them. But I have never, ever had a wild animal come into my house through one, despite the fact that I've had coons and possums wander on my porch in the immediate neighborhood of the cat door.

Well, I've never had a wild animal come through under it's own power and alive, anyway....although the occasional take out dinner of bunny tartare has come through the door, escorted by the chef.

I stopped to pause the recording (I have NO idea why, but it seemed important at the time), scooped up the cordless phone, and hustled my butt out to the garage and closed the door.

I then proceeded to call 911, and they dispatched a couple of Indy's finest to tackle the raccoon.

I figured what the hey, opened the big garage door, and the tailgate of my car, and sat down to wait. I noticed that Astra and Hillary were both out there with me, for which I was grateful --- I've seen what a raccoon can do to a cat half its size.

The officers entered the house cautiously. We could see that the raccoon was no longer visibly in the kitchen, and with that I withdrew back to the garage....while listening to one cop say to the other "I REALLY don't want to have to shoot it in the house..." and the other replying "Yeah, but I don't want to get bit, either."

After about ten minutes, they came back out. Very anti-climactic, in both a good and bad way, I suppose: there are no bullet holes in my house, but neither did they find the raccoon.

Presumption is that, being a pretty bright critter, Mr. Coon betook himself back out the same way he came in, having discovered that what he'd thought might be an interesting habitat of Free Dinner was infested with those pesky humans.

Did my own pass through the house (and closed the cat door, into the bargain). 'Pears they're right....but on caution's side, I closed the door to the quilt room. Having hunted cats in there, I know it's possible for a ccon to hide in there behind piles of fabric and never be seen by the cops.....so on the offest chance that he did go that way, at least he's confined. And since I know the cats AREN'T in there, if I hear any scrabbling coming from that room, we'll be calling Northwest District IMPD again.....

I'll also probably close my bedroom door tonight. But the cats have explored the house as carefully as the cops did, and I've not seen a single bit of freaking, yowling or growling, so I think he left.

Still, I've got WAY too much adrenaline coursing thru the veins for a half hour to bedtime.....

Oy! :)

Foo fighters 101

2010-02-28T14:35:00.005-05:00

Everyone has some craziness in his head. This is foo.

There is craziness that is created any time two humans, with their foo, interact. This, too, is foo.

There is craziness that is created any time a human being interacts with the rest of the world. This, again, is foo.

Foo exists. Foo must be dealt with. While the goal, always, is to live in the least foo possible, foo will never be eradicated.

But do not lose hope, grasshopper. There are certain principles that can assist us in our task as foo fighters. The first and most important is this:

DO NOT FEED THE FOO.

Like any stray animal, if you feed the foo it will follow you home. Let me say it again, for this is the crucial central principle:

DO NOT FEED THE FOO.

Foo fed is foo that will grow. Do not under any circumstances nourish foo.

And the second principle is related:

DO NOT SEEK ASSISTANCE FROM THE SOURCE OF THE FOO.

If the foo you are dealing with at the moment is owned by a particular person, do not attempt to fight the foo by appealing to that person's rational being or sense of logic. When in the grasp of foo, none of us has full access to rationality; we may not have any access to rationality.

Accept that they are currently possessed by foo. Seek solutions that do not require their assistance.

These two principles will do much to reduce the foo in your life, and the less foo there is, the easier it is to cope with the foo that remains.

If you don't know your history, you don't know your present....

2010-02-16T21:35:00.002-05:00

I know people who are of the "If you can't speak English, you shouldn't be allowed in this country" camp. People whose parents I grew up with.

Whose grandparents I knew; they were my parents' age, our neighbors.

And *their* parents I also knew: well enough to say hi to. Not much else. Not because I wasn't friendly; not because they weren't.

But because "hi" was about as far as we could go together in the same language.

I know people who are of the "If you can't speak English, you shouldn't be allowed in this country" camp. People who don't know their own family history as well as I know their family history.

How can you say "you should be deported if you don't speak English" when your own great-grandmother came to this country as a new bride, not yet 21 years old....raised a family, watched her grandchildren grow, lived well into her eighties.

And in those sixty-some years, never mastered more than maybe two dozen words of English.

Do these people REALLY mean their great-grandparents should have been deported? That they themselves should not have been born Americans?

Of course not.

They're just too ignorant to understand just how recently "they" was really "us." And ignorance is NOT bliss; ignorance is the road to destruction.

History marches on; the pouting ignorant will not stop it. They can only inflict pain, most of all on themselves.

Writers......

2010-01-20T23:36:00.002-05:00

For any passionate reader, there are fiction writers who stand out for a variety of reasons. (Non-fiction writers also stand out, of course, but often for different reasons....)

Writers whose technique you admire; writers whose characters you identify with; writers whose books you simply enjoy.

Then there is a shorter list of writers, much shorter: those whose work has had a profound effect on you. Whether their work has moved you deeply, or taught you something, or been associated with a particular time of your life; whether it has been there for you when times were bad or whether it has made you laugh hysterically when there wasn't much good around you, these works and their writers are etched more deeply on your soul than most of what you read.

Some of those writers---Louisa May Alcott, for example, or Laura Ingalls Wilder---have lived and died before you were born, or at least old enough to read. Some of them may have overlapped your life, but died before you discovered them: C. S. Lewis comes to mind.

And then there are the ones whose work you were well aware was entrenched into your being while they were still actively writing; writers whose death leaves you with a very real sense of personal loss. Asimov. Heinlein.

And this week, for me, Robert B. Parker. The world is just a bit dimmer place without him at his desk in Boston. He brought us a few series characters: Spenser with Susan Silverman and Hawk, Jesse Stone, and Sunny Randall spoke to us in a contemporary setting; Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch from a century back or so. There were other characters that had no series.

But his people all had something in common: their view of the world, and how it works, and what a person owes themselves. And I appreciated that view and learned from it.

I will miss you, Robert. May your soul and all the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.

Reviewing Stuff I've Learned Last Year......

2010-01-05T20:18:00.003-05:00

I don't function in chaos.

By that I don't mean that I need everything perfectly tidy and orderly and regimented; I don't have OCD, and yes, there's such a thing as TOO orderly that can make me twitchy as heck.

But I need things and processes and routines and plans to be reasonably orderly and predictable....even if the "predictable" part is "we're going to do this, that, and free-float on whether to do the other thing."

And it's not a judgment issue: some folks appear to thrive in chaos. They do wonderfully well in an environment where everyone does whatever they want to, working at cross-purposes, ignoring each other, no communication, as if each other isn't even there.

More power to 'em. But I've learned that I don't. And I don't mean "don't function well"; I mean "don't function" period.

It depends, of course, on how chaotic the situation is. I can slowly cease to function, or I can freeze almost immediately, if it's chaotic enough.

And it's not the appearance of chaos that I react to, as near as I can tell. I've been in situations that appear to be utterly chaotic, but a few moments watching the people will tell you that you're seeing an orderly but intense multi-tasking organism. I've even been a part of some of those---try backstage at any functioning theatre.

It's a combination of non-predictability and lack of communication I react to. The "nobody has a clue what's going on, what they're doing, or what anyone else is doing, and they don't give a damn that they have no clue, or see why you'd want one" syndrome.

It doesn't matter WHY I don't function in it. What matters is knowing that I don't. It's not good, it's not bad, it just is. And so I learn how to avoid it as much as possible, and how to extract myself gently when I happen to find myself in it.

It's a good lesson to learn. And I'm happy with it.

Thanksgiving: Sisters

2009-11-24T23:39:00.003-05:00

There are so many things to be thankful for this Thanksgiving, but the one that's on my heart today is sisters.

I'm not speaking of the ones that came from your folks being brave enough to do that reproduction thing more than once: surely wonderful, but I've not been blessed with any of those, so it's outside my zone of experience.

But for the sisters that we find along the way: the ones whose hearts and minds and spirits resonate with our own. The ones we share the triumphs and the failures and the truly horrendous jokes with; the ones that won't be able to bail us out, because they'll be right there with us.

For all of these I am truly thankful: for my sister in Florida who knows the deep dark schooldays secrets; for my sisters in Illinois who have been there for me in good days and bad; for my sisters in Texas who feed my spirit, and don't know each other, and should; for my sister in Missouri who moves my heart; for my sister in Washington who challenges my mind.

For my sisters in Indianapolis at St. Gabriel's and elsewhere. And for other sisters I've not mentioned, and sisters I have not met yet:

For all these, Lord, I am truly thankful.

Mister Fry Redux

2009-10-03T18:07:00.002-04:00

OK, now I've seen the whole show.

Wow.

I expected to be amused; I expected to be educated; I expected to be made to think. I expected to hear anecdotes of teacher experiences, stories of students, tales of the culture shock of a kid from Indianapolis private schools finding himself as a teacher in notoriously tough South Central Los Angeles, and the insights that came to him as result of that experience.

And I did; it was all there.

What I didn't expect was for Jack's stories of his experience to move me to tears. For the sad events to tear my heart; the accomplishments to give me joy.

Yes, I understand that Jack's a great teacher, a special teacher. Anyone who can not only understand the preciousness of these students, but share it with complete strangers in such a way as to make them feel what he feels cannot help but be, for it is those same skills that he uses to teach us about these kids. And to teach us to care about these kids.

If you're in Indy, you've got this weekend and two after to catch this show. If you're not, it's headed to an Off-Broadway run in November and December. "Must see" is thrown around way too casually these days, but that's what this is: a show that will not only entertain you, but feed your soul.

Way to go, Jack.

They Call Me Mister Fry

2009-09-29T19:59:00.002-04:00

Just saw a preview tonight for Jack Freiberger's They Call Me Mister Fry. Jack's one man show about life as a teacher in South Central LA --- a teacher whose background is white Midwestern privilege --- looks to be insightful and thought-provoking. It's worth taking the time to head to the Fringe building for the full show, I believe: showtimes, location, and all that nitty-gritty here.

Hope to see you there!

FringeNext: Come See Our Show or the Teddy Bear Gets It

2009-08-31T17:43:00.004-04:00

[FringeNext is the young performers, under 18, who may become the next generation of Fringe performers.]

Lyndsey Brown, Kevin Burgun & Christina Cardenas
Brebeuf Jesuit Prep (Indy)

These are excellent performers; the girls sing beautifully, together or separately, and they all act well. But the play ("winning" the Irish lottery---actually falling for an internet scam---and attempting to force payout of the "winnings" by threatening to guillotine the teddy bear taken from a child one of the girls is supposed to be babysitting, but has in fact left home alone) has, with apologies to Gertrude Stein, no "there" there.

The original songs were good. But the script was a meandering ramble. Even the core part of the "plot" didn't seem to exist: they did some background on the lottery "win", wandered off to high school life and getting in to college, and then shifted to "ok, time to shove the bear in the guillotine" so abruptly, and unexplainedly, that I was left wondering if they'd accidentally skipped a couple of pages of lines. Then having set that scene, pretty much went back to rambling from topic to topic with no dramatic tension until they reached the end of their time slot, with no denouement whatsoever---simply "okay, we're done now, thanks for coming."

There's a great deal of performance potential here, but it needs a script that goes somewhere and does something.

Piggie's Rating: **** for the performers and the musical portion; ** for the show itself

FringeNext: Every Story Has a Song

2009-08-31T17:38:00.005-04:00

[FringeNext is the young performers, under 18, who may become the next generation of Fringe performers.]

International School of Indianapolis

This compilation of stories and songs was excellent, and the performers quite talented. The one thing I found distracting was the singers using sheet music for their songs: in a self-described "cabaret", I expect the performers to know their pieces (as they did in storytelling), and the continual movement of the music stand and flipping of pages in the sheet music was an annoyance which detracted from the overall effect of the performances.

Other than that, it was top drawer for a high school performance, and as professional as any Fringe performance---and more than some.

Piggie's Rating: ***
(Would be a four star without the sheet music)

Fringe: Tortillo!

2009-08-31T17:01:00.004-04:00

Avenging Orange Productions (of Indy)
written by Casey Ross

The concept here is interesting: a mystery of malfeasance in a snack food company, and the acting was mostly pretty good. But the script starts to lose direction about 2/3 of the way through the show, until it's trying to be a comedy, a mystery and an odd tribute to the late John Entwistle of the Who all at the same time---and thereby succeeding at none of those attempts.

I think Casey's got a great deal of potential, but she needs to be clear on where she's trying to go with a script and not get seduced by ideas of "and we can work this in...and we can work that in....." Looking forward to seeing what she comes up with next year.

Piggie's Rating: ***

Fringe: Simple Joys

2009-08-31T16:50:00.002-04:00

Jennifer K Sutton (of Indy)

This show was radically different from anything else in the Fringe: a light and easy dance, and a journey back to kindergarten. A refreshing interlude with audience participation.

It was a bit short, and perhaps light, for the Fringe setting, though.

Piggie's Rating: **

Fringe: The Rise of General Arthur

2009-08-31T16:43:00.003-04:00

Maximum Verbosity (of Minneapolis)

This setting of the Arthurian legend in modern Baghdad was a fascinating concept, but the execution seemed a bit off.

Phillip Andrew Bennett Low's "narration" may have been styled the way it was to set it apart from the "acting" parts of the one man show, but the rapid-fire monotone was counter-productive, a hypnotic drone that hindered the mind trying to absorb the information rather than assisting it. It made the narrative of the overall show hard to follow, and the rapidity of the narration made it feel that perhaps this was a show written to run 90 minutes which was sped up to fit its 60 minute time slot, rather than being cut or otherwise adapted.

I think he's got something good here, but I'd love to have a chance to see it again with the narration done a bit slower; there's more quality there to absorb than the style permitted.

Piggie's Rating: **
Done slower, it would have been a three or even four star show.

Fringe: New Vaudeville

2009-08-31T16:31:00.003-04:00

Midwest Emerging Artists (of Indy)

This show was really uneven, just like....well, just like vaudeville used to be. From the high points of Elliot Feltman (emcee and core of the show) and musician Joe Welch, the acts coursed downward until much of the show had the feel of tryouts for a high school talent show. In fact, everything I saw of the FringeNext (high school/youth) shows was of higher overall quality than this show.

BMX pro Andy Cooper's bicycle tricks were interesting, but extremely limited by the tiny stage, and seemed a bit lost in the vaudeville setting.

Piggie's Perspective: **

Fringe: Nevermore

2009-08-31T16:24:00.003-04:00

Twilight Productions (of Indy) @ MySpace

A dark show about writers, depression, and suicide; a Poe-and-poetical contemplation of where madness lies. Russell McGee's acting as "The Raven" (a Poe shade, certainly) was wonderful; Amy Pettinella's writer seemed less real, as if she believed nobody could tell her character was depressed unless she was Dramatically Depressed: her writing of the character was fine, but her portrayal was a bit strained.

Piggie's Rating: ***

Fringe: Mr. Charles, Currently of Palm Beach

2009-08-31T16:19:00.003-04:00

Assorted Fruits & Vegetables (of Indy)

This one's a bit of a specialty show: if you're amused by a bit of over-the-top gay camp, then Mr. Charles is an absolute hoot, and Ron Spencer plays him beautifully. The show does include full frontal nudity, and I did hear talk here and there from audience members that some folks were taken aback, perhaps even shocked by this. The warnings for the show did clearly state that nudity was involved, but (probably influenced by the poster which showed full rear nudity) "full frontal" wasn't expected by a lot of the audience. This was the last show I saw, at the end of the Fringe, and it was a glorious show to cap off the ten day experience.

Piggie's Rating: ****

Fringe: I Do, I Do in Delhi or How To Survive an Indian Wedding

2009-08-31T16:10:00.003-04:00

24th Street Players (of NYC)

This is a one-woman story of traveling halfway around the world to attend the wedding of a college friend's son. She captures the essence of the various players in voice and manner so that you forget that there's only one person on the stage; the story is warm and interesting without rambling or becoming overly sentimental.

Piggie's Rating: ***

Fringe: Phil the Void - The Great Brain Robbery

2009-08-25T03:58:00.002-04:00

Phil Van Hest (of LA)

Wow. I'd say Phil's "traditional standup" compared to the other comedy shows I've reviewed here, except that there's nothing traditional about Phil.

This is thinking man's standup: it's deeply thoughtful, not an exaggeration to call it intellectual, even---and funny as hell. Phil reaches for the highest common denominator and finds both the disturbing and the funny elements in life.

The phrase that comes to mind is "like Bill Cosby---only smarter."

Piggie's Rating: *****

(Get thee to a Phil the Void show *early*---Phil consistently sells out the house.)

Fringe: Wanda & Rhonda's Bitchin' Bingo Bash

2009-08-25T03:40:00.002-04:00

Tony McDonald & Adam O. Crowe (of Noblesville IN)
with links to Tony's facebook and myspace pages.

I stand in awe of Tony McDonald's writing. Wanda and Rhonda---the pair of middle-aged sisters that he and Adam portray---are women you know. He's got the authentic voice of these gals down, and he approaches them with compassion and affection, despite the fact that given the divergence between their views, one of them's got to have a pretty alien point of view from where Tony is. And the acting is equally affectionate; the honesty of the portrayal comes in part because they're not making fun of Wanda and Rhonda; at best they're teasing a bit.

And they are funny, but it's the warm and homey funny of reality, not a contrived, scripted funny.

Piggie's Rating: ****

Fringe: Hypothetically Stupid

2009-08-24T12:39:00.003-04:00

Doctor Spaceship (Matt Kramer and John Patrick Coan) (of Indy)

These guys were reasonably funny. Traditional "two guy sketch" type comedy. That should be enough, no?

There wasn't anything that stood out about them or their gags; nothing to make you remember them or seek them out again at a later date. They weren't bad, they just didn't excel.

Piggie's Rating: **

Fringe: The Attack of the Big Angry Booty

2009-08-24T12:27:00.003-04:00

This is subtitled The Adventures of Les Kurkendaal (of LA), with a couple of links to his pages at MySpace and facebook.

Les's tales of diet woes---his and others'---are funny. There's no question about that. But this is not just your everyday standup of laughing at other people, or in rueful recognition that we're included in "other people." Les manages to mix funny with compassion in a subtle fashion so that when he's done, not only has your funny-bone been thoroughly tickled, but your spirit has been fed as well. I enjoyed myself thoroughly, and will certainly look Les up next year if he's at the Fringe....but he also came across as a guy I wish lived in my neighborhood. All in all, a thoroughly pleasant experience, I definitely recommend it.

Piggie's Rating: ****

It's Fringe Time!

2009-08-24T12:20:00.002-04:00

What follows over the next week will be my reviews of shows at the IndyFringe festival. I'll admit up front that since I'm out of work at the moment, everything I'm seeing, I'm seeing for free---either because I'm working that venue, or because I'm using my freebies I get for working the venues.

That said, here's my definition of ratings:

* = can I get my time back I spent watching this?
** = it was okay for a freebie
*** = that was right fine for a freebie, and would have been worth paying for
**** = would go out of my way to see this for real money, for sure
***** = wow. why ain't these folks on tv?

Do they come with cages?

2009-08-02T13:57:00.002-04:00

I've been hearing things oddly for years. It's tempting to write it off to "old age", but it's been going on since far before I was old by anyone's definition except maybe a toddler.

It comes in part from minor hearing loss, I'm sure; it requires the intervention of distance from the source and background noise interfering as well. And oft-sloppy enunciation on the part of the announcer can also contribute. But it leads to mishearing things---usually advertisements---in a way that makes them far more interesting that anything that could have possibly been the actual intent of the advertiser.

I still want to know what Marie Osmond was selling, 20 years ago, that I heard across my mother's house as "Romanian underwear."

And I just heard a commercial for one of those "buy diet meals in quantity" companies that I'd swear included the line "order now and get free weasels for a week!" This has left me with a number of questions:

Is that a set number of weasels who come to visit for a week?
Or do weasels keep arriving at some set rate for a week?
Are the weasels yours to keep?
Do the weasels simply come to visit before wandering off through your neighborhood?
Or does someone turn up at the end of the week to collect the weasels?
If so, do they bill you for any escaped weasels?
Are the weasels litterbox trained?
If not, are the costs of having the house cleaned covered, or are you out of pocket on this one?
And finally, do the weasels bring their *own* meals, or are they going to be eating the diet meals you've just bought?

I'm not sure "free weasels" would be all that much of an incentive to buy their product....but I'm sure it's a more interesting concept than what they're actually selling. :)

Surreal Moments in Feline Observation....

2009-07-25T15:16:00.002-04:00

Making a salad. Oops, one crouton drops to the floor. Before I can pick it up, Astra pounces on it and starts chewing.

Hillary runs over to see what Astra's found.

"Grrrrr," says Astra. "This is MY crouton. I LOVE croutons. I'm going to EAT this crouton, and I am NOT going to share!"

"Mommy, mommy!" says Hillary. "Astra has a CROUTON! I'm the baby! I DON'T have a crouton! I NEED a crouton! This is a CRISIS!"

I give Hillary (age 3 months) a crouton. She dives into it.

I wander off to take out the garbage, and then return to eat my salad.

And notice that there on the floor are two whole, albeit slightly soggy croutons......

Series I'm Currently Reading....

2009-06-30T22:22:00.002-04:00

Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone series: had read this once before, up to whatever was current at the time (O is for Outlaw?). Currently ready to start the last book so far, T is for Trespass.

Marcia Muller's Sharon McCone series: Also had read before, up to whatever was current at the time. I'm currently up to "Both Ends of the Night", or 17 books down, 10 to go.

Sara Paretsky's V I Warshawski series. Probably only four or five books in the series when I last read it. I'm now up to # 10 (Hard Time) of 13.

Robert B. Parker's Spenser series: Hadn't ever read it before. Wasn't much moved by the tv series, but really got into it with the made for tv movies with Joe Mantegna. I'm up to "Walking Shadow", which is # 21 of 35.

Michael Jecks' Simon Puttock series: I think that had three or four books, if that many, when last I encountered it. I'm on the second of 24 now (The Merchant's Partner).

And as mentioned before here, Piers Anthony's Xanth series: have read the first book, ready for the second (The Source of Magic), 30 to go beyond that.

What I've been reading....

2009-06-28T14:53:00.003-04:00

I've been kind of systematically reading or re-reading book series for some months now.

Series that I've read everything available in in the last six months or so:

Walter Mosley's Easy Rawlins series. That's ten novels and a book of short stories; the opening book is Devil in a Blue Dress, which was made into a movie with Denzel Washington.

Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series. Have read everything but the newest (Finger Lickin Fifteen), and have skyrocketed on the library wait list for that one from 682 to 543---not bad for a book that's only been out a week or so. Because of the occasional additional book, this series is not fifteen books, as you might think, but 19.

Tony Hillerman's Jim Chee/Joe Leaphorn books. I wish there were a pile of these backed up, waiting to be published, but it doesn't appear that it's so.

Ariana Franklin's Adelia Aguilar series. So far still a distinctly short series---three books---but the idea of merging a female forensics specialist---if you can call anybody in medieval times a "forensics specialist"---with Plantagenet England is interesting if improbable.

Christopher Fowler's Bryant & May series: Six distinctly quirky books.

Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden series: I've not seen any of the televised Dresden bits, just the books, but they have my attention. Just noticed that the most recent book has come out since I finished reading the series, so have requested it from the library.

Jess Lourey's Mira James series: another infant series--only four books---but interesting so far.

Carola Dunn's Daisy Dalrymple books....

Vicki Lane's Elizabeth Goodweather books. Only four of them, but definitely reminiscent of Sharyn McCrumb's writing.

Terence Faherty's Scott Elliott series. Only four books, and came to this by accident, being familiar with his Owen Keane books.

Bill Crider's Sheriff Dan Rhodes series, a series I really love and wish there was more of...

And venturing from mystery to fantasy, been rereading Robert Asprin's Myth books.

Good reads all, and always actively collecting "where to go next" from here....

New Baby

2009-06-25T14:52:00.003-04:00

We have a new baby! Hillary* is about two months old and has just joined our household.

*: No, not that Hillary....while I have a great deal of respect for Hillary Clinton, our Hillary so far has not shown any particular talents in foreign policy (unless hissing is a foreign policy skill); what she is is a world class climber. So it's to Sir Edmund Hillary that she owes her name....

Books and Other Stuff

2009-06-24T14:04:00.002-04:00

OK: where have I been?

Somehow, I've managed to miss reading any of Piers Anthony's Xanth series for 32 years. I feel like I should really regret that.....except, of course, if I *had* been reading them all along, I wouldn't have them before me to read now!

Wow.

Need to stockpile a few books......the foot isn't healing. We've decided to bite the bullet----the job search is being badly hindered by repeated "let's wait another month and see if it's healing" stints----and do the surgery, put a screw in the foot.

Friday. Faster than I expected. But it's time to get this behind me and move on.

PARISH FESTIVAL TIME!

2009-06-13T14:35:00.002-04:00

(If you're reading this when it's fresh.....if you're in or near Indianapolis.....come and join us! St. Gabriel's International Festival.....)

Having oodles of fun in the pretzel/nacho/pizza booth. It really is an excellent way to meet people in the parish, and it's just plain fun.

To new friends. To happiness as a choice.

"Depression" is when a Recession bites YOU....

2009-06-07T00:25:00.002-04:00

....whether that's read as "economic depression" or "emotional depression"....

Haven't posted in a while. In the last six weeks I've lost two cats (Tondra and Sarah) and one job.....

And we're going into week eleven, if I recall correctly, of trying to get my Q@#$Q@ broken foot to heal. I think it's working---it's starting to hurt and I'm told by several sources, both doctors and them-as-has-btdt, that that's a sign of healing. I certainly hope so.

Doing my bit to heal it: wearing the dratted electrical bone stimulator every day....dancing on it at powwow in the sacred dance circle....

Doing a lot of reading...contemplating...praying...and I found a quote that's stuck with me:

Forgiveness means giving up all hope of having a better past.

(Apparently originally said by Jerry Jampolsky, although there are other candidates.)

It never occurred to me before, but that's a very real aspect of resentment. We think what it's about is wanting redress made in the present for past hurts, but it really isn't: we want intervention retroactively, past hurts fixed **when they happened**. We might settle for present redress, but it isn't really what we ache for.

It's odd: even when we grasp this, and know intellectually that the past *can't* be fixed, we don't immediately leap to losing the resentment and full forgiveness. It's a really strong example of the difference between knowing something in your head and knowing something in your gut.

Guest Blogger....

2009-04-24T17:34:00.003-04:00

Miss Baby Cakes, a/k/a adorable four year old granddaughter, has written up the saga of how we went and got dirt and filled the planters and planted the vegetables today....I shall post it exactly as she has written it:

./m/m/mvn.m;lnlllllll;;;;likiitfjuryghguyythgcccccckkkkkkbbbbbbbbujjjjhhjlhghhh
jjjjjfjfjfjjjhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhyyyyyyyy yyyyyyyhhkl;’
ujkklllll;;’’’l’k.njhcvbnm,bhdjhgfdghsgfdhuuhggghhhhhhhhhhhhibbbbzzzzxcvbnmmmmmm
,,,,…….////////////////////////////.mg
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo kkvgfegffhggfygkkkyjiiyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyuuuuuuuuuu
uuuuuuuuuuuuuyyy4p44444pppppppppppppppppppppp
ttttttttttttttttttttttttkrheeeegggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhcf

Tomorrow we *may* have the Saga of the Giant Horrendous Bumble Bee Monster and his attempt to conquer the back yard!

Ow ow ow ow ow

2009-04-02T21:57:00.002-04:00

Broke my bloody left foot last week.

Feel stupid. Feel pain. Feel frustration.

Did the first four days splinted and "don't put weight on it, wait for the orthopedic surgeon." Most of that in a wheelchair; "just use crutches and hop" is not my strong suit. What I found at my age was that the good knee and hip were just taking the brunt of all the hopping, and it simply increased the number of places I hurt.

Now I've got a boot that looks like it came from Frankenstein & Sons Outfitters; the good news is that it comes off for showers and sleep. The bad news is that slinging that weight around all day seems to be pushing my (steel/replaced) knee to the limits of its capability.

Oh well. What cannot be cured must be endured, or as they said in the old days, "offer it up....."

And so I shall. Nearly to the end of Lent, now.......

St. Paddy's Day!

2009-03-17T12:21:00.003-04:00

'Tis St. Paddy's Day, and a lovely day for all of us Irish.....and the Irish wannabes as well, of course. :)

Am I wearing green, do you ask?

Not yet, but I will be.....

What's today's task? Painting more living room walls. The lavender is done....

So what's today's color?

Surely you don't have to ask.....

'Tis GREEN!

May St. Patrick watch over us all: Erin Go Bragh to the lot of ye!

A small rescue.....

2009-03-10T18:10:00.003-04:00

Some folks work with rescuing dogs. Some folks rescue cats.

Some rescue eagles......probably someone, somewhere, rescues aardvarks.

It's 72 degrees today. Tomorrow, it will be 33.

It's hard to call taking a scissors to a plant a "rescue", but perhaps the blooms will last longer than they would if they froze....

Today's Quotation.....

2009-03-06T07:27:00.002-05:00

"...truth, as my uncle Roger used to say, is just one man's explanation for what he thinks he understands."

--the character Easy Rawlins, Bad Boy Brawly Brown, by Walter Mosley

***

I like that. The older I get, the less I believe in the idea of objective truth: we all color what we see based on our experience and expectations far more than we think we do, and that's true even when what's under discussion is a simple chain of physical events.

When we're interpreting human action and interaction, it goes right off the map into subjectivity. Sometimes we're aware of it; sometimes we aren't. But when even physics has no absolute objective truth (observers modify what they observe; Heisenberg's uncertainty principle), then it's impossible for philosophy or religion to do so. Not if they're absolutely honest, anyway.

Another Quotation I'm Contemplating....

2009-02-26T14:54:00.002-05:00

Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die.

---Malachy McCourt

Fame....?

2009-02-05T19:40:00.002-05:00

I know I'm famous.

Only by association, of course. Only the incidental fame that comes when one (or more) of the wildly self-centered exults....

"Lookie what **I** did! Lookie how I got **that** victim!"

I, of course, am playing the part of the victim.

I'm sure it's all over CatNet. Check the message board for "Cabin Fever Entertainments"; there may even be an out of focus webcam shot of me.

"See our housekeeper." (Yes, we're polite, we don't call our human a slave in public.) "See how she notices how adeptly we've batted the entire roll of garbage bags into the washing machine."

"Not once. Not twice. **Three times** she discovers the full roll of kitchen sized garbage bags in the washer and puts it back away. Isn't she smart?"

"Oops. Now see her taking the clean clothes out of the washer to put them in the dryer. FOUR TIMES, MOMMY!!" ("Mommy" is what we named our slave.) "We put the roll there FOUR TIMES!! Watch Mommy pull each water-containing individual bag out of the load! It's right there on MeowTube!"

Wittily yours,

Tondra'n'Sarah'n'Morgan'n'Astra......stars of the IndyCat League!

What kind of tracks are THOSE?

2009-01-27T19:37:00.003-05:00

Boy, those are weird looking tracks, aren't they? Got any theories what sort of critter makes those kinds of tracks? Looks like some kind of wild something....but what?

Those are Astratracks. This is what you get when a seven month old kitten joyously runs about trying to pounce the snowflakes as they fall......

Another Quotation that Struck Me.....

2009-01-20T10:13:00.000-05:00

Simple things are always the most difficult. In actual life it requires the greatest discipline to be simple, and the acceptance of oneself is the essence of the moral problem and the epitome of a whole outlook upon life. That I feed the hungry, that I forgive an insult, that I love my enemy in the name of Christ -- all these are undoubtedly great virtues. What I do unto the least of my brethren, that I do unto Christ. But what if I should discover that the least among them all, the poorest of all the beggars, the most impudent of all the offenders, the very enemy himself -- that these are within me, and that I myself stand in need of the alms of my own kindness, that I myself am the enemy who must be loved -- what then?

--Carl Jung
(referred to by Brennan Manning in The Ragamuffin Gospel)

Day Nine: January 20

2009-01-17T11:43:00.002-05:00

For our new President, Barack:

Lord, be with him always. The weight on his shoulders is more than a man can take; he needs you to carry much of that burden.

Give him all the gifts of your Holy Spirit:

Knowledge: for the job that he has been given requires that he knows much and learns far more. He must also know what he does not know, that he may find advisors to help him.

Understanding: for to know is not enough; he must understand the meaning of what he knows. He must comprehend what his advisors tell him.

Judgment: for he must take all that he knows and all that he is given and discern what is true, what is good, what is valuable. And he must be able to judge who is the best advisor in any situation.

Wisdom: for everything above is meaningless without wisdom to pull it together; wisdom to find what out of an overwhelming flood of information is truly important.

Courage: not only physical courage, for the job is dangerous no matter how many try to protect him, but intellectual courage, to be able to reject the "nice-sounding" solution that does not stand up to logic, and even harder, moral courage, that rejects the easy or convenient and holds out for the right, though all around him fight against it.

Piety: let him return the thanks and obedience to you which is your due, and let him remember that you are always watching what he does, for good or ill.

Fear (Awe) of the Lord: let him realize that this is his Sanity Clause: for he will spend the next years surrounded by those who will flatter him that he is the most powerful man on earth, that he holds the power of a god, that he *is* a god. Let him remember always that you are to him as he is to a single ant. Sustain his understanding of his place in the universe and his sense of balance. Protect him from the terrible temptations of ego that go with this job.

Love him, Lord Jesus. He needs to feel your love.

Comfort him, Blessed Mother. He needs your consolation.

Strengthen him, Breath of God. For the strength that he needs far exceeds the strength of the natural man.

Lord, Hear our Prayer.

Day Eight: January 19

2009-01-17T11:20:00.002-05:00

For the family of our new president:

All the assorted relatives by blood and by marriage. May they find it a blessing rather than a curse in their lives. May they find a ministry in being supportive of the First Family, and may they find you a source of all strength in resisting those who would nudge them into exploiting their connections. May they draw closer to each other in your love.

For Michelle, Malia and Sasha: give them the strength to deal with the restrictions on their lives, the regimentation, the mass of people who so often stand between them and the husband and father they love. Let them draw closer together and cherish the time that they are all together as a family. Let them find you in the dark moments and the bright moments, and know that their Heavenly Father holds them all in his hands.

Lord, Hear our Prayer.

Day Seven: January 18

2009-01-17T11:08:00.002-05:00

For those who serve their country in the military: May they feel your presence, Lord, and receive strength from you to do what they have to do. May they also feel the loving arms of your Mother, Mary, and remember always that force is something that should be applied only in time of true need and no more than necessary. Let them be gentle when they can, and see you in the people they help.

For those who make the decisions about the military: Let them remember that our young men and young women are a precious resource, not to be squandered without need; let them remember also that the use of military force is meant to be a last resort, never a "just because we can." Let them see us as others see us occasionally, and remind them that what they hold is not just power, but vast responsibility. Let your hand be on their shoulders and your voice in their ears when they make such decisions.

Lord, Hear our Prayer.

Day Six: January 17

2009-01-16T20:20:00.002-05:00

For all those who cover not only the inauguration but the government for radio, television, newspaper, blogs: may each media member strive to report fairly, to emphasize the positive while neither hiding the negative nor particularly seeking out the negative for sensationalism and scandalmongering. May they seek the truth, and to educate the people to the truth, while providing honest hope where it is to be found. May they take the time to find and to remind us about what is right in our country and among our people with even half the energy they expend to spread despair and panic with Chicken Little-ism. May they resist the corporate conglomerates' attempts to bias the news in any way; may they be open to God's call as a prophet to our society.

Lord, Hear Our Prayer.

Day Five: January 16

2009-01-15T11:38:00.002-05:00

For all those whose work in government does not depend on who's in office, or on being appointed: May those who labor in the civil service never forget the meaning of the word service. Not that they should deal with individuals in a servile fashion, but that they remember that it is their country that they serve, and that to do so is a privilege which must not be abused. May they see Jesus in each of the citizens they interact with each day, and be moved to a gentle touch even when the message they must convey seems harsh.

Lord, Hear our Prayer.

Day Four: January 15

2009-01-15T11:28:00.003-05:00

For all those who will be appointed to positions, whether in the Cabinet, or the Judiciary, or at lower levels in various agencies: may God's hand be in the choosing, and in the approving, and in the hearts of those appointed. May they understand well the arena in which they work; may they seek to understand it better; may their attention and intention be focused on the work that needs to be done rather than political expediency, favors, or building a lucrative personal future. May they attain wisdom and balance, and hear when God speaks to them.

Lord, Hear our Prayer.

Day Three: January 14

2009-01-13T22:28:00.003-05:00

For the "keepers" and "minders" whose job it is to schedule the President and his family: may they find peace in the midst of chaos, serenity in the height of pressure. May they find time for God in their day, and may they be open to His direction in maintaining balance. May they feel called to make sure that the President hears always from more than the rich and the powerful, from more than the sycophant and supplicant. May they find the time and means to schedule the prophets and poets as well as the boon-seekers and the powerbrokers.

Lord, hear our Prayer.

Day Two: January 13

2009-01-13T22:23:00.003-05:00

That those whose mission it is to protect the President and his family may know God, and find strength in God. For the long hours and difficult assignments; for the strains that mission cause with friends and family; to face the dangers that they must face every day. May they know Your strength and support in their lives, and may they feel the loving arms of Mother Mary consoling them when the nights are especially long cold and dark.

Lord, Hear our Prayer.

Day One: The Novena for the New President

2009-01-12T14:46:00.002-05:00

Today, January 12, Day One.

That all those who participate in decisions about our economic future understand that at this time, even more than at other times, what counts is what is best for ALL of us----it is the common American who is far more vulnerable in tough times than the powerful, and it is the common American, not the wealthy lobbyist, that our representatives are elected to consider and protect. Let them be aware of the magnitude of their responsibility, and alive to it.

Lord, hear our prayer.

Thought Processes

2008-10-26T09:39:00.003-04:00

It's occurred to me over the past several months that while you hear terms thrown around---particularly in election years---about "right thinking" and "wrong thinking", I'm not sure how valid those terms are. Thought is a process, not an event, and generally what folks mean by "right thinking" is not that your process is particularly good, or that the steps meet some obscure objective correctness test, but that your conclusions are "right", also known as "in agreement with the person judging the quality of your thought."

And of course "wrong thinking" is "you don't agree with me, you MUST be doing it wrong."

But unless we're actually talking about "you are (according to the rules of logic) taking the wrong steps in processing a syllogism", I don't think those are valid terms.

We "think" about things in a variety of ways; the things we think about are also widely varied. It makes sense to me that, then, the important measure of how we think about some particular thing is whether or not it's productive.

Seems like most folks tend to think about just about everything in their life in the same way: some folks deal with everything emotionally and/or intuitionally, and their language reflects that. "I feel that Sam is the correct candidate" "I feel it will be a long time before he gets that raise" "I feel that 20 people will respond to our party invitation" and so forth. And it works for them, more or less---well enough that they tend not to stop and look at where it fails and why and...oops, wrong group. :) Well, they tend not to feel where it doesn't work and do something different.

Then there's the analytical folks, and it may well already be long obvious reading this blog that I'm in that bunch. Always have been. Not a fence sitter but severely in that camp. Which of course means that sooner or later it should occur to me to stop and analyze exactly when and where stopping and analyzing doesn't work, no? :)

Later rather than sooner, I guess. All that has been to lead up to this point: I've been trying to figure out why trying to sort out certain people/events/situations throughout my life has always failed. It's always become a circular morass with no solution---something of a logical equivalent to dividing by zero. And I've finally found the mantra that covers the situation.

You cannot apply logic to dysfunctionality.

Long version has something to do with dysfunctionality by its very nature being a form of chaos, and logic assumes coherence. Doesn't matter. The point is that dysfunctional families, dysfunctional households, dysfunctional people, dysfunctional friendships, dysfunctional work situations, dysfunctional parishes---whatever---do not operate by any logic other than an internal, twisted version of logic. Usually one living in one individual's mind, to which the other inhabitants of the situation learn to imitate well enough to function in the situation. And that learning is so subtle and gentle, they don't realize that what they're learning in "getting to know the place" is the rules of its dysfunctionality.

(That may be true of all situations, and there may be no true functionality anywhere. But I'm referring to the more severe cases, situations which tend to be destructive to many or all persons involved.)

But that's not "source code" to the logic, it's just a "workaround"---so that the longer a person is outside that dysfunctional situation, the more of an "outsider" they become---if the situation is past, they lose their understanding of how it functioned; if it's current, they lose their ability to blend back in, and/or the rules continue to evolve without them, so that they no longer have the correct key, nor can they.

Doesn't entirely matter. What matters is acquiring the ability to derail the brain from that circular trap by repeating the mantra.

You cannot apply logic to dysfunctionality.

You cannot apply logic to dysfunctionality.

You cannot apply logic to dysfunctionality.

You cannot apply logic to dysfunctionality.

Here endeth today's lesson. :)

Kids Just Take Over Everything.....

2008-09-14T14:21:00.003-04:00

Some five weeks or more after taking the desktop computer to the Apple store for hospitalization (it was *before* Sweetpea was born!), it's home and fixed.....

And the baby of the household seems determined to make the leap that that makes the laptop HER computer. Doesn't seem to matter how often she's evicted. It's HERS, thank you. To type on, dance on, sleep on, and try to catch those funny characters on the screen.....

Baby Cakes: The Movie

2008-08-21T16:41:00.002-04:00

New Grandbaby!

2008-08-21T16:25:00.002-04:00

She's here, I've seen her, I've held her....and the picture above is by her big sister, Baby Cakes.

Miss Sweet Pea is here! And she's adorable, as all grandbabies are of course........ :)

A Bafflement to Me.....

2008-08-21T16:14:00.003-04:00

Here's a question that's been in my head for a while, now, and I've posed it to a number of people over the years.

Nobody's ever had a usable answer to it; I throw it out here in case someone reading this has one.

Why do companies send you bills for a specific amount, for which their known policy is "we do not accept partial payments, payment is due in full only".....

.....and then put a box on the payment slip for you to fill in that says "Here' s how much I'm sending."

"Hey! Ya owe us $128.37! We demand that you send us $128.37! No more! No less!"

"So! How much ya sending us, huh?"

Only company I know of that doesn't do that is American Express. They presume their customers are bright enough to understand the rules......

A Quotation that Struck Me.....

2008-08-09T18:02:00.000-04:00

Kin-folks! They are such homey sounding words and strong, too, and sweet. Folks who are akin---why they need not even be relatives or “blood kin!” What a vista that opens up! They are scattered all over the world, these kin-folks of ours and we will find them wherever we go, folks who are akin to us in thought and belief, in aspirations and ideas, tho our relatives may be far away.

--Laura Ingalls Wilder, Missouri Ruralist, 5 August 1916

More Tails of the Cat Door......

2008-08-09T07:29:00.004-04:00

[Post edited 8/21/08 to add mug shot of The Culprit....]

Wednesday night, sound asleep.

The cat door is right next to my bed. The only cat who uses it is Sarah. It's now permanently set to "can enter, cannot exit" courtesy of Astra's adventure.

(Astra, as we know, would love to, but she's not permitted. Morgan's too afraid of ending up homeless again to go out unless I'm less than a foot away, and Tondra won't use the cat door, although she loves to go out.)

I wake up enough to hear the thwack-thwack of the cat door being used, think "Sarah's in", go back to sleep.

I hear a crash, half open one eye, see shadowy form of cat in dark having knocked down the extended platform at the window. Think "Way to go, Sarah", go back to sleep.

I hear the sounds of a major cat fight in the hallway. There are still signs of less than perfect harmony in the household, with half the cats being resident less than two months, but it has always been hissy fits up until now. I think "Okay, somebody's having a major disagreement about the pecking order" and get up to go make sure nobody's taking unfair advantage of the kitten.

And realize that it was NOT Sarah who came in. It was a grey and white cat who lives somewhere in the neighborhood.

He/She had stuck his head in the cat door before, seen me reading, and vamoosed. Silly me, I thought that had taken care of its curiosity. In retrospect, knocking down the platform was probably related to "what do you mean, this door doesn't work to get back OUT? I gotta get OUT right now!"

Middle of the night, I'm chasing a cat who doesn't belong there all over the house. I have Astra behind closed doors, and the front door propped open, but this cat keeps going past it to try to insist on going out the living room window. Eventually, he figures it out and scoots out the door. I then spend the next hour cleaning up the disaster he's left in his path.

Hopefully, that's his last adventure with the cat door. We'll see.

Catspiracy Theory.....

2008-08-05T19:17:00.001-04:00

Astra's been exploring every inch of the house, including the indoor side platform of the window-mounted cat door. She's shown some fascination with looking out the small clear window bit of the cat door, and so I suppose today was inevitable.

I came home from work and did my standard routine of finding and saying hello to all the (now four) cats as I took my clothes off in preparation for a shower. (Working in non-air-conditioned splendor in summer means that first thing on the agenda when getting home is a cool shower....) About the time I was grabbing a towel and heading into the bathroom I realized that only three cats---three relatively LARGE cats---had checked in.

I did a bit of a fast pass at the house calling Astra, but had to wait until after my shower and getting dressed for a serious kitten-hunt. Of course, since she hadn't responded inside, the odds were pretty good she'd finally explored the cat door, which I hadn't thought she'd try this young. And as soon as I opened the sliding glass door to the back yard, I was greeted by a kitten bounding out from under some of the flowers, yowling her head off, telling mommy about her day.

Now I know she was out there because she got a bit too adventurous. But I still can't help picturing Sarah, Tondra and Morgan banding together:

"Look, you're a kitten. You need to learn things. You have to go to school. Mommy told us to tell you, really. Just go thru that door and wait a couple of minutes, and the school bus will be right by. I promise. Really." (Shove.)

They just didn't look innocent *enough* when I came in, I guess. One of those moments when you wish for a webcam.

Year Two....

2008-08-02T11:36:00.003-04:00

...been a year now in Indianapolis. And that whole year has been mostly about finding my feet, trying to land on my feet after what felt like falling out of a mid-air jet crash without a parachute.

As starts go, it's been okay. So what is year two going to be about?

Don't know yet. Fine tuning, certainly; maybe less treading water just trying to stay afloat and more choosing where and how to swim.

By the way, Astra seems to have her Whole Name now: Astra V. Khat.

Astrakhat as in Astrakhan. V. as in Velcro. :)

it Never Rains But it Pours....

2008-07-30T18:40:00.003-04:00

....also known, I guess, as when you dream of a particular face that you've never seen before, and then it turns up in your life needing a home, you have to let it stay.....

So welcome to Miss Astra. A stray, abandoned at the house of a co-worker, she's rapidly taking over the house and trying to win over all her big sisters.....

Oh, and by the way, it looks like I aced both summer school classes. Woohoo!

New Baby (?)

2008-06-26T16:15:00.002-04:00

Tondra's getting up there in years.....17, quite respectable for a cat.....and all in all, is doing quite well for that age.

Sarah's seven now, at the prime of adulthood, and having lost her large wetlands to play in that she had at our last house, is really hard up for *attention* and a *playmate*.

She tries to play with Tondra. Tondra isn't interested. When she gets to be enough of a royal pain in the tail, Tondra hauls off and clocks her one. But that's the extent of the interaction.

Sarah needs a playmate, clearly, although equally clearly she doesn't want one---she wants the one she already has (me) to stop this silly going to work thing and stay home all day and play with her.

That's obviously not going to happen.

With all the flooding we've had in southern Indiana, we're also having an adoptable animal crisis. We have several counties whose humane societies are desperate to adopt out critters of both the feline and canine variety.

So today friend Ellen and I betook ourselves down to Morgan County, to the humane society in Martinsville. And when we came home again, we were three: me, Ellen, and Morgan LeFeline, a ten pound, two year old, black and white female. ("Morgan" she came with; "LeFeline" I bestowed on her on the way home.....a girl's got to have enough name to be able to hold up her head around Tondra Shadowcat and Sarah Jane Sparklecat Getouttathere!) And I always did like Morgan LeFay.....

Not the Only DSL Company in Town...but AT&T Sure Acts Like It is

2008-05-08T14:57:00.000-04:00

Monday, May 5th. 6:40 pm.

My AT&T DSL goes down. I call AT&T’s customer service number. After wading through a lengthy voice mail, I reach a recording telling me the Indianapolis area is experiencing an outage expected to last until 10:15 pm.

I hang up, and continue to try to connect around 10:15 pm and later. At midnight, I go to bed.

Awake again at 3:45 am. I have a final examination I’m supposed to take online on Tuesday. I reckon I’ll sleep better if I know the system’s back up, so I go poke at it. It’s not. I call AT&T again. I get someone named Jules in some customer service center overseas. Based on the accents of the various people I speak to there, I assume it’s India.

After a half hour of diagnostics with Jules, he decides it’s a modem fault, and tells me someone will call me in the morning to schedule a visit to see and probably replace the modem. He gives me a case number, which I record.

Tuesday, May 6th. 1:30 pm.

No telephone call. It is not morning anymore.

I call AT&T again, with the interminable menus and waits. I get a female person named Sam. She says nothing was ever done to ask anyone to come look at my modem, has no faith that the modem is the problem, insists on an hour of “try this, try that.” After an hour, she decides that maybe I need to talk to one of their Mac specialists. Didn’t get that name. Mac person wants to start over from scratch. No progress a half hour later. Mac person escalates me to Don, second tier. Second tier appears, by the sound of it, to actually be in the US.

Don tries another half-hour’s worth of stuff. At the end of all this, he comes to the same conclusion Jules did, actually: there’s something wrong with the modem. He creates a trouble ticket and promises someone will call me within four hours. He takes both my home number and my cell number to ensure I’m reachable. He gives me the direct connect number for the department that actually sends people out.

Wednesday, May 7th. 10:30 am.

No telephone call. It is not between two and six pm on Tuesday anymore, by quite a bit. I call the direct connect number. No voice menus, but still a lengthy wait. I get Sheila. No explanation of why I wasn’t called, but it doesn’t sound like she’s surprised. She tries poking at the modem again from her end, with no difference. She allows as how this is not the first case of this precise problem they’ve seen today. I begin to suspect it’s something that AT&T has broken in their outage/security upgrades to the Indianapolis area system.

Sheila tells me the earliest anyone can actually come out is Thursday. I tell her I have to work Thursday afternoon and need them to come in the morning. She calls Deb in scheduling to try to get that done.

After a full hour, including holds, I’m told that no, they cannot come out when I’m off work; they are only available when it means I have to take off work---and with my manager going off work for a medical procedure, this is not a time where I can take off to deal with this. Which, given the days I have to be there because he won’t be, and I’ll be needed, means “you’ll be offline over a week.”

I tell Sheila this is not acceptable, and she says she will escalate it to her manager and they will call me back. Reluctantly, I hang up the phone with no visit from tech support actually scheduled. It is 11:35 am.

12:30 pm.

Sheila calls back, wonder of wonders. Her manager says no, I will have to take off work or wait until Tuesday. Reluctantly, I agree to take off Thursday afternoon, that being the only part of that time frame where that’s even possibly doable at work.

Thursday afternoon. 2:30 pm.

Jason & Jason arrive at my door. These guys are clueful, courteous, tidy, and competent. Yes, the modem is broken. They replace it, make sure everything’s detangled in terms of IDs and passwords, make sure both machines are back online and working perfectly. We’re good to go: I’ve found where the competence at AT&T hides. Too bad I can’t just get these guys’ number for my next problem, if any.

The Huntress is Still on the Prowl

2008-05-08T14:56:00.001-04:00

I’d wondered whether Sarah was still a hunter since we moved to Indianapolis. Deprived of the large park area to roam in, she’s chunked up a bit. And while I kept her inside for a couple of months after we moved, I knew it was inevitable she’d get out sooner or later, and that for my sanity and hers, I was going to have to let her out. So I installed a cat door--the sort that actually installs in a window--and waited for the inevitable joy of her bringing in prey. Dead, if I was lucky.

It’s not that I wanted her to hunt. I just understood that there’s a primal huntress alive and well in this particular cat, as there had been in her sister, Tondra, in her heyday. At 17, though, Tondra had long since conceded the hunting tasks to Sarah.

It was autumn, still prime hunting time, but nothing. Winter, nothing, but I thought perhaps that was due to lack of available prey: birds gone south, mice hunkered down warm in some inaccessible hole.

Spring. I wondered if perhaps the cat door being at window height meant that she might be catching something, but could not manage to get it into the house. That would be lovely, from my standpoint. I pretty much stopped thinking about it. Until Tuesday.

I was putting up a curtain rod over the great room window that faces into the back yard. Because I was doing so, I just happened to see a cheerful Sarah bouncing through the back yard with a mouthful of bird.

Before I could even consider doing something about it, I watched her bound to the bedroom window and prove that she had no trouble going through the cat door with a mouthful of prey, at least bird-sized prey.

I had no idea whether this bird was live or dead; it wasn’t moving, but I have enough experience to know that’s not especially relevant. And if you’ve read earlier entries in my blog, you know that I’m terrified of live birds in the house. I had to catch that cat before she opened her mouth.

I ran into the bedroom, where she’d just jumped down from the window. I swooped down on her, picked her up, and ran to the kitchen, where I opened the screen door and shoved her into the back yard, closing the screen behind her.

I noted her offended look as I then sprinted back to the bedroom to lock the cat door. That done, I could take my time returning to see how things were progressing. In the kitchen, Tondra was showing interest in going out and watching the proceedings, so I let her out. I then returned to my curtain rod and front seat view of the back yard.

Sure enough, after looking around for a good place to be and not finding one that appealed to her, Sarah bounded back to the cat door and attempted to bring the bird in yet again. She was not happy when she discovered that she couldn’t come in, but my problem was solved, and I turned my attention to the hardware---until I heard squawking. I peeked out the window to discover the bird flying away while Sarah tried to catch her in midair.

OK: I guess we’ve established she still hunts. And that the bird was live and quite healthy.
Which seems to make it inevitable that one of these days I’ll come home from work to find an avian critter staring at me, inside my house.

Woids! Woids! Woids!

2008-04-25T18:51:00.002-04:00

If, when you're all worn out, you're exhausted.....
........when you're bright and chipper and full of pep, are you hausted?

If taking a bad situation and making it worse is exacerbating it.....
.......is the process of improving the situation acerbating it?

If, when it's time for bed, you extinguish the candles......
.......when it's time for romance, do you tinguish them?

(Alternatively, if to stand out from the crowd is to be distinguished....
......is to be just like everyone else to be tinguished?)

If you drive 45 mph past a school, and are exceeding the speed limit....
......do you keep your mama from complaining from the back seat by ceeding?

Just more of the weird word wonderings I do when I'm overtired and underslept.... :)

Really the Same? Or An Illusion?

2008-04-02T18:16:00.003-04:00

It occurs to me, as I dine on leftover "bisketti" made like that of my childhood, that Everybody Knows that "spaghetti" and "bisketti" are the same thing; the latter's just a "cute" kid's way of saying spaghetti.

You know, I'm not so sure about that.

Spaghetti has long pasta strands that require a bit of coordinated twirling with a fork.

Bisketti has the pasta broken into short bits, and may have been cut even smaller by Mom, Grandma, or in time of desperation, yourself.

Spaghetti has a sauce---one of many possible sauces---ladled in a pool atop the center of a pile of pasta.

Bisketti has a sauce---always red sauce, with meat, unless it's Friday in Lent---mixed in, thoroughly, and if you're really lucky, has had time for the pasta to *absorb* the tomatoey goodness.

Spaghetti has a whole possible range of spiciness.

Bisketti is seasoned, definable as something other than plain tomato sauce, certainly, but not "spicy" in any recognizable sense of heat.

Heck, by those standards, there's less difference between spaghetti and ravioli (restaurant or homemade ravioli, not canned) than there is between spaghetti and bisketti.

I vote that those are two separate dishes, for sure. Bisketti's a comfort food. Spaghetti is an adult dining experience.

Sometimes I want spaghetti. And sometimes nothing will do but good ol' bisketti.

OK: It's Cute Once, Don't Do It Again Department.....

2008-04-01T11:54:00.002-04:00

Note to self:

Never, NEVER again sign up to take a class---online or not---that crams 16 weeks into 8 weeks if you're already working 30+ hours a week and taking two other "conventional" classes.

Just don't. This way lies madness.

Especially if the class is heavy on papers.

I may not see daylight again until May.

Oy.

Bubbles!

2008-03-13T10:55:00.003-04:00

Somehow (tiny fingers playing with the camera and turning all the knobs, I suspect) I ended up taking a movie of Squeegles at the Zeum in Naperville when I meant to be taking a still.

Quality ain't what it could be, since I was taken by surprise. Still, here it is....

Somewhere along the line, I'll get more of the "Zeum" pix up.....but I think we'll be skipping the ones Little Squeegles took.

You see, the only time Little Squeegles got her hands on the camera in the museum was when Big Squeegles was Using the Plumbing Facilities. Which is now digitally commemorated.

When you're committed to sitting where you're sitting, you cannot confiscate a camera from a toddler dancing just out of your reach, snapping shots of you sitting there, drawers around your ankles.

**(sigh)**

Fortunately, digital shots don't have to be sent out for some stranger to giggle at as they develop them....that's an image I could live without. :)

Life in the Arts.....

2008-03-07T06:54:00.003-05:00

.....or how not to grow your community theatre (thereby insuring it's just you and your buds, undisturbed.)

A new calendar year dawns. You are contacted, out of the blue.....

Newbie: "Hi, I'm new in these parts, and I'd really like to come help out at your theatre. I have experience. Can I come play?"

You: "Are you a member? You have to be a member. It's $15 a year. Here's your membership form. It includes a place to mark what areas you want to volunteer in."

Newbie: Sends in membership form with money and areas marked.

You: "Thanks, you're now a member of our theatre for the next six months." [We didn't mention that our membership year is by season, and there's no discount, no matter how far into the season we are? Too bad, we have your money now.] "By the way, here's the form to order season tickets." [They're on the same basis: half the season's over, tickets are same price they were last summer before the season started.]

Newbie: Once bitten, twice shy, does not order "season tickets" for the back half of the season.

You haven't said they have to buy tickets to come and play, and they probably don't---you're just hoping in their enthusiasm they will.

You: Add them to the mailing list for new shows and auditions. Never contact them again. When they don't re-join, either don't notice at all, or mutter about how "they must not have been VERY interested, after all...." and feel self-righteous about not having wasted the time actually responding to them.

Just a hypothetical scenario, of course......no real community theatre would act that way, would they? Certainly not any here in beautiful Indianapolis.......

It's Curtains for You!

2008-03-05T23:35:00.004-05:00

Well, I should be in bed.

But I just couldn't resist seeing what the finished curtain panels would look like; I had to piece one.

Of course it's going to acquire backing and batting and get quilted and bound, but this is the core piecework.....

I think it's going to be very cheerful: I like it.

Not Dead Yet!

2008-03-05T16:26:00.002-05:00

Just nothing momentous.....

Closed the campus last night....after I spent an hour and ten minutes making the 25 minute drive there in a sleet storm....

So no idea when that midterm will actually happen. Presumably Easter week (gack, like there's not enough going on that week...)

Electric's done. Ceiling fixing next.

Working on curtains for the great room. Furniture rearranged; some new picture frames bought and pictures redone and hung. Pix online eventually.

Trying to make weekly posts in a spiritual blog. We'll see how that goes. So far managing to get it in on Sunday or within 24 hours thereof, but that's only two weeks....

Da Stove!

2008-02-23T20:32:00.005-05:00

Og!

Invent!

Fire!

Og Roolz!

Erm, sorry, not quite caveman...(ahem)...cavewoman department.

But the stove, she works! She gets hot enough to invoke blower! She commits beauty (and warmth) upon the room!

Woohoo!

Death of a Fireplace

2008-02-21T19:20:00.003-05:00

Nothing like buying a house in a significant part for the fireplace only to discover it's a firetrap that should have burned the house down 35 years ago. **sigh**

It's gone, now; torn out, and the underlying construction of it as it came down started to make one suspect that the room it lived in (an add-on 15-20 years after the original house was built) was one of those semi-clueless owner-and-brother-in-law projects.

Once we had the fireplace out, the first other thing that became apparent was that they weren't much as electricians, either. Bare wire splice in the ceiling---I really don't like looking up at live bare copper wire. **sigh redux**

Call electrician. What started as "tear fireplace out and replace with woodstove" project is getting pricier by the minute.

Stove should be here tomorrow and installed, blizzard/ice storm permitting. Electrician next week. But it's going to end up with a number of outstanding electrical issues fixed that I knew I'd have to deal with sooner or later.

Then I suppose I have to find someone to repair the ceiling. **trinity of sighs**

Eventually, I'm going to redo the terminally-70's panelled walls in there, and that room is going to ROCK. It will all be worth it in the end....if I survive.....

Once the stove is in, I'll try to get some pictures up.

Weird Weather!

2008-01-30T08:14:00.000-05:00

From 53 degrees and slightly rainy to wild high winds and tornadoes on the ground.....to 16 degrees and violent snow blowing horizontally, in two hours.

In January.

That was last evening; today it's off to work in {shudder] nine degree weather.....

View from my bedroom window:

Dunno what to do with that, especially in this cold. {re-shudder} Oh, well, off to work!

New Beginnings: Employment

2008-01-27T15:46:00.000-05:00

....got the job I'd been waiting to see if I'd get....

Is it just me, or do you never get over that initial nervousness? It's like the first day of school....not being sure how to present, how it will go, what to do.....

Not scared. Eager. Anticipation. Kind of a mental loop of "Oh wow oh shit oh wow oh shit oh wow!"

First job in my new field, and me still in school. Deep breath.

I go in tomorrow morning for the drug test scheduling, pounds of paperwork filling, and so forth......

Meanwhile, I've gone on a rampage of piecing baby quilt tops. Started out light on inspiration, then picked up speed and actually found some.

Baby Quilt Tops

They're not in the order I made them, but in the order I photographed them, more or less. You might be able to sort the poorly-inspired from the later stuff, I dunno.... :)

The Clueless in the DELL

2008-01-23T16:24:00.000-05:00

The joys of getting a divorce, complicated by the fact that my ex has changed from a male human with a masculine name ("Guy", shall we say) to a female human with a feminine name ("Girl", for blog purposes).

Between us, we had subscriptions to six different Dell publications (puzzle magazines, mystery magazines, sf magazines). Time was, my four subscriptions were under my name ("Piggie", for our purposes); his two were under his name ("Guy").

I noticed somewhere along the way that somebody in their subscription department had decided to "tidy up" subscriptions to the same address/same surname, and all six subscriptions had started coming to "Piggie/Guy Surname", but didn't think much of it. I hope they held out for matching surnames at least when they made the decision, and didn't "consolidate" the accounts of folks in different apartments in the same building...

Fast forward to divorce/separate households. Lovely online forms; I try to change the ex's subscriptions to her new address and the name on hers to her new name.

[You would THINK someone at Dell had heard of divorce. Hell, I'd be inclined to assume someone at Dell has HAD a divorce their very own selves! But apparently not.]

Dell refuses to change the name, insists on moving ALL SIX subscriptions to the ex's new residence.

I move mine back and try to change name AGAIN; it moves all six, insists that the subscriptions MUST belong to "Piggie/Guy", will not change that. I sell house and move, change address, try to change name again.

To this day, still getting all six subscriptions at my address, all to "Piggie/Guy", cannot get that changed, cannot get them separated. Have decided the only way out of this morass is to let ALL subscriptions expire, but half suspect they will attempt to resurrect "Piggie/Guy" even as a new subscription. Attempts to contact customer service and reach a human online have accomplished precisely zip.

Having managed today (with the investment of time, patience, and a hands-free headset) to get the AARP accounts sorted out and the existence of Mr. No Such Person Not Married deleted (yes, I have physical possession of a membership card in that name), I'm contemplating tackling Dell tomorrow by phone.

If I'm brave.

Wish me luck.

New Beginnings

2008-01-19T22:03:00.000-05:00

And a new semester has started, and a new phase in the RCIA class.....

It so happened last week that the youth group bake sale and our first week of break-out discussion were on the same week, so Kathy, who was leading our discussion, picked up a few cookies at the sale for our own sort of "community sharing", sharing some of the community-type characteristics of the Eucharist.

I thought that was pretty cool, so I made banana bread tonight to take for tomorrow's break-out discussion......

I'm having a bit of trouble getting my head in gear for the new semester. One of my classes got cancelled; another doesn't start until March. Of the other two, it's not that I'm unenthusiastic about the material---I'm not. Just having trouble getting back into the homework mentality.....

It'll come. Just feeling a half a bubble out of plumb at the moment, and very alone.

Update: Make-It!

2008-01-17T17:22:00.000-05:00

I've been reminded by Lil Squeegles that the appliance in question is NOT called a "microwave", it's called a "make-it."

I sit corrected. :)

Job Description of a Gramma

2008-01-08T01:50:00.001-05:00

Part of the job description of a Gramma is that they Fix Things. Making Everything Better is our specialty.....even if it's just repairing our thrift shop kitchen.

Lovely workplace, it is, except that the microwave worked a tad iffily in the absence of a door.

One Gramma, two screws, one sidewalk chalk bin lid, one cable tie and a bit of yellow duct tape later, the microwave has a door.

Better get really good at this Gramma stuff: second grandbaby on the way!

But this one will always be Gramma's Special Baby Cakes.....even when she's sixteen and would much rather not be. :)

Loose Ends before the New Year....

2007-12-31T15:44:00.001-05:00

I suppose I should mention that Christmas wasn't nearly as horrific as I was braced for it to be.

All in all, it was pretty good: only one present in that class we all know, where you stare at the present and say to yourself "What made you think that was appropriate for ME?" while politely thanking the person for the lovely present......and lots of lovely desirable stuff.

No uneasiness or stuff that can be best defined as insufficiently lubricated human interaction. On the other hand, I did apply a certain amount of Captain Morgan Lubricant when I started to stress out, and it worked admirably.

Anyway, the pictures are here:

http://www.faloshi-studios.com/xmas1.html

Oh, and to my vast astonishment, and probably everyone else's, I actually got all my genealogical webpages updated! (last update date was "31 december 2001" before this)

http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~piglet/

Death and Destruction....feeling like Robert Oppenheimer....

2007-12-31T15:23:00.000-05:00

Arose Saturday to find a handful of very small ants wandering about in the bathroom.

Made a mental note to get something chemical to treat the situation, when next I sallied forth to the store, stomped a couple of them, and went about my business.

Noticed that by Sunday morning there were several dozen, and still only in the bathroom; as best I could ascertain, they were coming up alongside the heat vent.

Felt the need to tackle it with chemicals, and explored what I had available. Nothing logical for the purpose, but what the hey, try what's at hand.

Zotted the buggers (cringe, sorry) with Windex Multi-Task and waited. They had some difficulty wading, but otherwise continued. Tried Niagara Spray Starch in desperation.

By Sunday evening, there were probably a hundred ants, many of them Very Clean and/or with Rigid Posture, but otherwise quite healthy-appearing. They were starting to explore the world outside the bathroom. It...er....bugged me (re-cringe) too much to let it ride until Monday morning.

So after a complete waste-of-time Colts game, at nearly midnight, I braved the cold to tackle the 24-hour Kroger on a quest for Insect Toxicity. Found a selection of sprays; chose the least expensive, least obnoxious sounding scented one (yes, bug spray now comes Perfumed To Be Mistaken For Air Freshener) and headed for home.

Applied the spray most thoroughly to the floor and lower four inches or so of the walls of my small bathroom, turned the fan on, and closed the door, lest I take myself or either of the cats out with the ants. Tiptoed in one last time, about an hour later, for the pre-bed rituals, saw a few ants still moving, zotted them again.

Closed door, went off to sleep.

Arose on Monday morning and betook myself to the bathroom.

Wow.

A floor dotted with corpses of small ants. Nothing moving at all.

Wait: three ants, in the small area between the heat vent and the wall. Had the poison not worked? No, these were explorers from the home colony, looking to see what had happened to the battalion they'd sent forth the evening before, who had not returned home.

And all I could see was their horror at the devastation: the death and toxicity they saw around them; the shudders I surely imagined---for they were too small for me to see such movement, even in the unlikely case that ants can shudder.

And then they betook themselves back down the heat vent, quite possibly fatally poisoned themselves, to report back to the home colony and die.

A necessary victory over nature inside the house, but one I find I'm not terribly proud of......

Linguistic Oddity: Intermission

2007-12-23T16:27:00.000-05:00

[I'm fascinated by language. I think I'm going to start interjecting the odd bit of wordplay in this blog; they'll all be labelled "language."]

Two words. Cognate equivalents. But they aren't even the same part of speech. What does that tell us about gender equality?

effeminate
emasculate

One's an adjective: effeminate is how something or someone *is*. No matter what you do---remove her ovaries and breasts, change her behavior to super-macho, you cannot "effeminate" a woman.

But the other is only a verb: see a rather butch female walking down the road, you don't say "Ooh, doesn't she strike you as a bit emasculate?"

Something to ponder.........

Irreconcilable Similarities.....

2007-12-22T16:09:00.001-05:00

The divorce process was a bit weird....first we sat through a couple of other cases, one of which was truly bizarre. Echoes of Monty Python.

Wife. Husband. Lawyer. Interpreter.

Judge explained to the husband that he was in default, so it was all right if he wanted to be there, as long as he understood he Wasn't Actually There. He decided that since he Wasn't Actually There, perhaps he should be Not Actually There, and departed...

Wife spoke no English; lawyer spoke no Spanish. Ergo, interpreter.

Interpreter had problems grasping that he had to a) always tell the court what she said and b) not tell her what the "correct" answer was that she should be giving. Judge explained repeatedly, but we kept going through the same steps, same dance...

Lawyer asked her all the pro forma questions in full bore legalese. Whenever her response was that she didn't understand the question, he would ask it again, word for word the same, but slower and more loudly. When the judge suggested he use simple English, he didn't seem to know what that was---or would simplify entirely the wrong part of the sentence.

For example, he would take the sentence "It is your belief that there is no chance that future attempts at reconciliation will be successful, is that correct?" and would "simplify" it to "You think that there is no chance that future attempts at reconciliation will be successful, is that correct?"

Finally the judge stepped in and told the translator to translate "You don't think you'll be getting back together ever?" The lawyer couldn't grasp that.

Also, since the husband was in default, pretty much anything the wife asked for, she'd have gotten. Instead, her lawyer asked that her divorce be made final with *nothing* settled: no maintenance, no child support, no visitation, no custody worked out.

Judge ripped him a new one, not even lowering her voice, in front of everyone: made it very clear that she didn't believe the lawyer had made much effort for the client to understand what was going on, and that the client likely didn't understand what the lawyer was doing, and refused to settle.

Then it was our nickel.

Got asked the standard question about "irreconcilable differences", and "....future attempts at reconciliation." Okay, I understand courts are fairly solemn, and I did resist the temptation to do the Carol Merrill "voila" presentation aimed at my now-female ex and respond with "ya think?"

But I couldn't help it; I still answered with something along the lines of "Gee, I really don't think so" on the reconciliation.

Wasn't until after we left that I realized that the correct label wasn't irreconcilable differences. It was irreconcilable similarities: I wanted a marriage with one from column A and one from column B, and had found myself in a marriage with two from column A and nobody in column B at all.

Anyroad, we capped off the day with a dinner in Greektown and then getting reasonably tiddly. Other than that, not much significance........

Single again.....

2007-12-20T00:14:00.000-05:00

Well, the divorce is final, for whatever that's worth.....

it's totally anticlimactic, just an accounting detail. Can't see where it makes any difference in my life in any practical sense except for the IRS part of the deal.....

Now to survive the whole Fambly Crispness Holly Day in one (emotional) piece and we'll be fine....

did some serious grandbaby time after finals were over (1 A, 2 Bs, 1 C, I've seen worse semesters...)

Just in time for snow......

Babies rock :)

SNOWY APPLE JUICE!

2007-12-05T15:47:00.000-05:00

View from my kitchen, this morning....

Holidays

2007-11-24T21:32:00.001-05:00

It's been a weird year. New beginnings indeed.

End of a marriage.
Spouse changing sex.
Sale of a house.
New house.
Starting school.
New directions.

It means holidays are going to be difficult: maybe moreso than in the past. Then again, maybe not. At least I'm not dealing on a day to day basis with anyone ELSE's "Old Christmas Issues".

Anyhow, having survived Thanksgiving without deep depression, thought I'd do Christmas prep before diving back into school and the approaching finals.

Pictures are here: http://www.faloshi-studios.com/holidays.html

Indianapolis?

2007-11-24T21:21:00.000-05:00

Had the granddaughter for a bit this week, culminating in the family Thanksgiving dinner, which was a great good bit of fun. We spent a day at the museum again, met some New People (for her), and just generally played quite a bit.

She kept talking about apple juice, though, even when she a) wasn't thirsty b) wasn't drinking or c) was drinking something else, and it was a bit of a bafflement.

Until Thanksgiving. Until someone asked her about Going To Grandma's House. And Where Grandma Lives.

Apple Juice. (Indian) Apple Juice, Indiana.

Reminds me of my childhood.

We were driving to my grandparents' house, which was in Apache, Oklahoma. I did the standard "are we there yet" often enough that my dad explained that we would have to go through Anadarko first, and I should watch for Anadarko before asking again.

But I kept asking.

Every time we went under any sort of overpass, actually.

His frustration increasing, he finally asked "WHAT did I tell you about asking again?"

And I replied, "You said it'd be after we go in a dark hole......"

My parents found it far funnier than I did, oddly enough......

Felines and Religion......

2007-11-09T20:39:00.001-05:00

I happened to look over at the end table, this evening, to note Sarah Jane Sparklecat Getouttathere sitting on my notebook of notes from my RCIA class. She was reaching down with one paw, flicking through the pages---the ways of cats are mysterious on the best of days. While she was doing this, she was also bathing her chest.

Cats and religion? What's their take on it all?

Well, apparently Sarah's take is that she's Cat-lick.

[groan at will, she said, ducking mightily......]

More Weird Signs......

2007-10-27T04:00:00.000-04:00

It's not my area of expertise by any means, but somewhere along the line I got the impression that the whole spiritual purpose of the general Hindu/Buddhist world view was tranquillity, becoming one with the universe, detachment from the world and the things thereof.....

Now it might be that that doesn't exclude emotional exuberation, but somehow I've always read it as doing so. So it struck me as funny when I got behind a car the other day whose spare tire cover read

OM WOO

Hmm. "Ommmmmmm. Woo!!" Seems incongruous, no? :)

It's another one of those "letters missing" bits, and the car dealer the guy bought his car from's called Tom Wood. But it's much more interesting reading it the way it appears on the car :)

WWND?

2007-10-14T17:40:00.000-04:00

Driving through downtown Indianapolis the other day, as I do on the way to class, I noticed a sign I assumed had one letter unlit and it got me to thinking.

Ok, if we specify modern day and age, an urban setting, what exactly would Noah do? You'd need a big---garage-sized?---space to build in without too many walls getting in your way; you'd need an address and a sign so the folks shipping in all the exotic not-native-to-Indianapolis pairs of critters had somewhere to send them to.

Something very like---perhaps exactly like---the large establishment with the well lit sign that said:

ARKING

Hmmm.

Obscure talents and functions....

2007-10-09T10:11:00.000-04:00

Everyone has a variety of things they're Particularly Good At.

Some of them are good, some are bad. Probably most of them just are: no moral quality built in whatsoever.

Some are useful, some are not. And some it takes a long time to recognize as being a special function, something that one does that not everyone does.

I've realized that one of mine is providing a habitat for homeless itches. No Itch Left Behind.

The program's headquarters are right between my shoulder blades, with major subdivisions housing unfortunate itches established on both shoulder blades.

I've always found this to be somewhere between mildly irksome and downright irritating, depending on the aggression level of the itches involved, but that was a biased and self-centered view of the situation. Looking at it all from a different perspective---the perspective of the itch---it's a community service, and one for which I should be proud to suffer a bit from time to time.

So we smile, and put up that front when dealing with the itch community in public, and accept the Itchitarian Award.......

....and in the darkness of the night, when no one is looking, plot murder most vicious against the fiercest of the itches.......knowing that it will soon be forgotten and another itch will move into its home..........

Meanwhile, back at the ranch.....

2007-10-09T10:04:00.000-04:00

Haven't posted since before the move, so here's the "previously on Boston Legal" bit for what's gone on since May....

Sold the house (July)
Bought new house (July)
Started school (August)

Now we're up to mid-terms.

Grandbaby came to visit this weekend for the first time since the move. Took her to the Children's Museum. She had an absolute ball....

Guess I'm settled in now. Time to write some more.

54, huh?

2007-05-30T16:14:00.000-04:00

Not a witty title, particularly....

Haven't said anything lately because I haven't had anything to say. I'm stuck stuck stuck waiting for this house to sell---not "doing nothing", still packing, still cleaning, et cetera, but still, utterly mired down.

Can't buy my next house until this one sells. Can't do anything with my future until this house sells. Stuck stuck stuck.

Happy stuck birthday.

On the other hand, got some people up to a *third* viewing. My insurance guy predicted the house would sell "before the end of May"---well, it's got 32 hours and change to make that. Love to see it happen, not holding my breath.

Since the beginning of this process, I've heard a voice in my head saying "June...June...June." I'll settle for that, especially if it's early June.

On the brighter side, I ****DANCED**** at powwow! I can dance again! It's been years, and I have missed it SOO much.

Next Saturday, my daughter and I are taking my granddaughter to powwow. She has her first dance dress, now; I spent the last week sewing it. I am so looking forward to dancing with her, both of us in our ribbon dresses.

So happy birthday to me......

My Day Takes Flight.....

2007-04-03T21:21:00.000-04:00

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm terrified of birds, at least when they're indoors. And free.

Wild birds, loose in the house---hysterics time. I've gone through a thousand permutations of panic-and-get-someone-else-to-fix-it over the years: closing up the room the bird is in until somebody else is home, leaving the house until someone else comes home, you name it. Except now, there's no one else home, or ever coming home.

About five o'clock this morning, I was awakened by some banging and squawking that experience told me meant that Sarah the Siamese had come through the cat door bringing Company, presumably Unwilling Company. And the volume level said that she'd chased whatever it was upstairs, and was now chasing it back downstairs.

Well, another thing people know about me is that I Don't Do Mornings---at least not 5 am, unless it means I haven't been to bed yet. So I got up, closed the bedroom door, and said "I'll deal with this when I get up."

Eventually, of course, I did just that. Got dressed, came trucking downstairs, looking around cautiously. One or another of the cats had barfed at the bottom of the stairs, and I thought "Oh, maybe all it was was two cats arguing..." and headed for the kitchen for the paper towels.

Screeching halt.

There on the kitchen curtain rod, cheerfully hopping back and forth, is a full grown male robin, looking quite healthy, if spectacularly bored.

Well, one of the prices of responding to birds in the house by panicking is that either you're outside, locked in the bathroom, or sitting with a blanket over your head when the birds are being caught. You have NO clue what the procedure is. So I called my daughter Beth and asked her what to do.

"Just throw a towel over it, then kind of wad up the towel and take it outside."

Uh-huh.

I get a towel---and a box, just in case I need it to put over either his head or mine---and head into the kitchen, where I discover what happens if you throw a towel over a bird who is hopping back and forth on the rod of cafe curtains.

He just goes behind the curtains, then flies out and back up on the curtain rod. No Significant Progress Here.

OK, Plan B. Hmm, Beth didn't have a Plan B. Well, what can we come up with?

The bird is in front of a *window*. Windows go outside. Let's work with this....tiptoe over, gently open window....tiptoe outside, and pull off the screen. Now we can go back inside and shoo him out the window.

Well, maybe we could do that if Taliesin and Sarah didn't immediately park on the windowsill with big "Hey, Birdie, Birdie!" grins on their little cat faces. We've found parameter #1 in the intelligence of this bird: he ain't that dumb.

By the time I'm back in the house, I'm not sure where he is, until I spot Floofy staring. Bird's in the back room, just sitting, looking.

As it happens, the back door of our house is in that room. So I open the (wooden) door, and go outside to prop the screen door. Bird seems to get at least part of the concept, as he decides that the wooden door makes a great perch.

I come around the house and back in the front door and look at him: he's two feet away from freedom, sitting on top of the wooden door, looking anywhere and everywhere except outdoors. Parameter #2 in the intelligence of this bird: he ain't that bright, either. :)

Eventually, by wiggling the door from time to time while telling him repeatedly "Stupid, the door's open...", he managed to get the idea and flew away......leaving me to close the door and go back to dealing with cat barf.

Which I guess is pretty anticlimactic if you're reading this, but it was kind of a big deal from my end........

A New Holiday....

2007-04-02T06:43:00.000-04:00

This week Jews and Christians are ramping up into the spring holiday season with Pesach and Easter, and leaving the pagans behind, since the Vernal Equinox has already passed.

Your average pagan, however, is generally Up For A Good Party at any time, and rather dislikes being left out of things. In this vein, I'd like to propose a new holiday.

The Official Hatching of the Solstice (or Equinox) Peeps.

The original Peeps, of course, are the baby chicks, and we all know that baby chicks come from eggs. Since they're all related, no matter what odd shapes they come in, I think we can assume that as unlikely as it may appear, *all* Peeps come from eggs.

So given that eggs, baby chicks and many other less-than-religiously-obvious "Easter symbols" have their roots in pagan antiquity.......

Pig hereby pronounces that All Peeps are Laid on Solstices and Equinoxes (depending, of course, on their holiday associations).

And that this week is the Week of the Hatching of the (spring) Peeps.

Is "Access" Enough?

2007-03-27T03:32:00.000-04:00

We have a pretty binary concept when it comes to handicapped accessibility in this country: locations either is or they ain't. I had an experience last Saturday night that brought home to me the idea that maybe that's not quite enough.

I was invited to the Lund Theatre at Dominican University in River Forest, Illinois, to see the Waswagoning Dance Theatre, which is an Anishinabe group worth going out of your way to see. Excellent show. But on arriving, I discovered that the Lund prides itself on being handicapped accessible---the parking area has a variety of "handicapped entrance this way" signs pointing you to the ramp, from their *three* handicapped spots (which were full long before I got there). And it's a lovely ramp, which I didn't take---now that I'm recovering from the knee surgery, stairs aren't as much of an issue as number of steps I have to take, and the ramp is easily four times the length of the stairs.

Unfortunately, the first thing you see when you enter is a sign saying "All bathrooms downstairs." A combination of visual inspection and asking around tells you that it's a very steep set of stairs, and there are no elevators. Now operating with a cane, I can do that, if slowly and carefully.

The theatre itself is beautiful, and obviously not new. That combined with being a part of an educational institution with not much money, I suppose, is how they managed to come under the hardship provision of the ADA: there really isn't anywhere, in any practical sense, to put an elevator in the building. And since there's no way to do so, and no way to get a wheelchair downstairs anyway, the money of course hasn't been spent to make either the outer bathroom doors nor any stall doors wheelchair-wide or provide rails.

But imagine yourself limited to a wheelchair, come to see a play that may last two hours or more, making the journey to this theatre having been assured that it's "handicapped accessible." And it is, of course---you will have no difficulty entering the building, or entering the theatre in your wheelchair. That's not going to be a hell of a lot of consolation when you desperately have to pee, and there's nowhere you can possibly go.

Seems to me that we need at least two handicapped classifications: "handicapped accessible" and "minimally" or "partially handicapped accessible."

"Handicapped accessible" would mean "you can come here in a wheelchair and do absolutely anything and everything anyone else can do."

"Minimally/partially handicapped accessible" would mean "you can come here, but there are things other folks can do here that you won't be able to." This would warn you that you might need to call ahead and see what those limitations are: "you can get into our theatre to see the play, but you won't be able to get to our art display on the far side of the lobby" may be quite all right with you, since the art display isn't what you came for. But "you can see the play, spend half a day, buy a great deal of consumable liquid at our concession stand, but you won't have anywhere to pee" just might be a dealbreaker.

Equinocturnal......

2007-03-21T02:01:00.000-04:00

In a year that's chock full---perhaps overfull---of new beginnings, when better to take a bit of time to focus, contemplate, meditate, open one's mind and heart to the new, than an equinox?

Time for a bit of ceremony, a bit of ritual....a letting go of the cold dark winter. A fertilizing, being open to new growth...even if I don't know where it's going.

Time to be a wildflower---or a tomato. However it works out.

House is on the market. No nibbles yet. Not a clue how long this process will take.

Can't seriously look at replacement houses until this one sells. Have my eye on one, but who knows if it will still be available? I try to be one with the universe and will it to be available when I am available, if it is the house I'm meant to be in.

Can't make plans either to go back to school or find work without knowing where I'm going to live. Hanging fire, packing boxes......

Wonder where it will all be by the time of the summer solstice?

Wake up, Little Susie!

2007-02-27T09:32:00.000-05:00

I read in the Sun-Times today that the Gary city clerk Suzette Raggs just had to run into the mall for a minute. Just a minute, for cryin' out loud. No big deal.

And do please note that she did NOT park in any handicapped spots. She certainly wouldn't do anything of THAT sort---we all know that's not legal. No, she parked in the "stripy bits" between handicapped spots....in her official car with the official (police) plates.....

Handicapped van owner (and the local cop he called) only had to wait an hour for her to come out, so that the van's doors could be opened and the ramp extended. How is that an inconvenience to anybody?

You know, there are few things that will concentrate your attention on how folks park in handicapped areas quite as much as having handicapped plates or placard yourself. And I've noticed a great upsurge in this lately---the idea that it doesn't count as parking in a handicapped spot if you stay out of the marked spaces and only park in the "stripy bits".

Am I the only person in this country who vaguely remembers that at some point in her upbringing, she was taught "if asphalt is painted with parallel diagonal yellow stripes, it means NO PARKING"? It's beginning to seem that way.

This event happened at Westfield's Southlake Mall on route 30, over on the edge between Merrillville and Hobart. For those of you who have never been there, I have to say I'm really surprised that she managed to do this.

Surprised because Southlake seems to have had a policy for the last three or four years of "repurposing" many of their handicapped parking spaces. Going there for a quick run into Build-A-Bear, I scope the parking lot---the area where handicapped parking usually is near a mall entrance.

You can see by the lot paint that they USED to have handicapped parking here. Apparently, however, it attracted handicapped people, and I'm guessing that might not be the heaviest shopping/biggest spending demographic out there.

It's been "fixed." Half of it is "Kid's Club Parking" (Yes, we're a nation with an obese child problem. Best way to fix it? Under no circumstances make a kid walk further than 20 yards from their car into a mall!), the other half is "Pregnant Women Only Parking" (marked as "brought to you" by a maternity shop in the mall.)

If you're handicapped and need to run into Build-A-Bear, the Correct Solution is to park somewhere else, by some other entrance, and walk the length of the mall to get to your store---that the reason you have a handicapped card is that you have a demonstrated *need* not to walk long distances only applies to car-to-mall, apparently. Intra-mall mileage on your tootsies doesn't count.

That's the Correct Solution by way of Mall Management Think. It's not the Piggie Solution.

There is no official status to "Pregnant Women Only Parking."

There is no Gummint Agency in charge of handing out nice pink Pregnant Placards.

Piggie parks in the preggers spaces. Piggie is, after all Demonstrably Female.......if visibly presumably post-menopausal. But look at all those news stories of older women and babies........how can you know for sure?

If questioned by mall personnel, they get only my name, rank and serial number. I ain't peeing in the cup. That said, exactly how are they going to prove I'm *not* pregnant? :)

Leaving my mind on idle, unsupervised......

2007-02-25T16:25:00.000-05:00

Scenario: Tom Sawyer and his friends, in their later years, go to visit a radio studio. They look around at all that is new and different since the pre-Civil War days of their childhood.

Finn is particularly fascinated with the table of various gadgets, boxes and machines used to make live sound effects. He turns to his friend, who has spent far more years in the big city than he.

"Tom, what do they call that?"
"Foley, Huck!"

Counter INTUITive?

2007-02-22T14:31:00.000-05:00

Last week I did time in the hospital having my left knee replaced, which doesn't have anything to do with this story, except to explain why I would do something as bizarre as actually shutting down my iMac. And for the second time in the hair over two years I've owned the iMac, shutting it down has caused it to fail---it's going to have to go into the shop and get a new power supply before it boots, and that won't be any time real soon, because of the aforementioned surgery: can't drive quite yet.

Not a big deal; I can function for quite a while on the laptop. Probably the biggest issue is financial---Quicken resides on the iMac and not on the iBook, having come with the G5. The actual files are backed up nicely on an external hard drive, but I can't read them without having Quicken installed.

The obvious solution is the one I choose: go to Intuit's website, order the 2007 edition of Quicken as a CD, snail mail, $10 extra for second day air. Maybe it's a manifestation of my dinosaur status, but I prefer the CD in hand to the licensed download as a software purchase method.

Today the package arrives. I open it and inspect the invoice: Quicken 2007 Mac CD Direct. Yep, that sounds right to me---just what I ordered. Pick up the disk, prepare to insert it in the disk tray of the iBook to install it, reading it in passing: Quicken, 2007 Basic, Windows XP/2000.

Argh.

Inspect the various instructions on the label. Sure enough, "Wrong Shipment - incorrect material received" is one of the categories listed. I check more closely to see what I'm expected to do: pack it up, ship it back, pay the postage myself.

That doesn't quite cut it. Let's try a bit of telephone contact before we go down that road.

Several telephone menus later, I'm connected with a customer service guy somewhere in the Middle East - to - India sector. To protect his identity, we'll call him Abu Dhabi.

I explain that my invoice says "Quicken/Mac" while the disk says "Quicken/Windows." Mr. Dhabi begs my patience while he looks up my order. "Yes," he agrees. "You ordered the Mac version. Is there anything else I can do to help you?"

I explain that yes, I meant to order the Mac version. However, that isn't what they shipped. What I have in my hand, accompanying that invoice, is a Windows disk, and that is a problem.

"Well," asks Abu, "Did you install it?" A deep breath later, I explain that one CANNOT install Windows software in a Mac OS environment.

"Oh," he says. "Please hold for two minutes while I find out what the best offer I can make is."

Best offer? I wait, wondering exactly when Mr. Dhabi confused himself with Howie Mandel. Two minutes later, he returns.

"I have my best offer here," he advised me cheerfully. "We can send you the disk you ordered."

I'm still contemplating that "best offer" concept, but the solution seems acceptable---it appears it will get what I've already paid for into my hands without my being expected to hobble to the post office with my walker to return at my expense their mistaken order. 'Twill do. But Abu is not done.

"Would you say that my customer service was okay?" he asked me.

"Sure, I suppose so," I responded, wondering where he's going with this.

"I need for you to stay on the line for a few minutes, then, to take a survey and confirm that my service has been Above and Beyond Expectation, please."

Above and beyond expectation, indeed.

My original expectation, of course, involved Intuit managing to ship to me what I ordered on the first try. That is already beyond help---and I freely admit, through no fault of Mr. Dhabi's. But having Intuit manage to send what I actually ordered on the second try isn't capable of being Above And Beyond Expectation. At best, it meets Minimal Expectation.

Above and Beyond Expectation? That would have required, I think, tossing in a free copy of QuickBooks. Or solving the problem the other way---by sending me a Windows computer for the software to be installed on.