Cars and Things

In answer to a couple of comments I got on the new car:

No, I will not need a stepstool to climb up into it! LOL. Anyway, I cannot stand to get in and out of a regular sedan; it feels like I'm crawling down into and then climbing up out of it. I like an SUV because you sit up straight and have a good view, and the Tracker is the smallest SUV there is, I think. So it's perfect for me.

How perfect? What would be my ideal car if I could get any car? Well, well, that's another story.

I would want to get some kind of hybrid, but, as per the previous paragraph, the only hybrids of the moment are sedans or big SUVs, and either way, they all cost way more than I would want to spend on a car.

I love to car shop as I drive along the road. I've been doing this forever, maybe everyone does. I remember thinking over 25 years ago while we were driving up to New Hampshire for vacation that what I needed was a van, but not a big one; why couldn't they make little vans? I remember also just loving the Jeep Wagoneer, the big boxy car that was kind of like an overgrown station wagon, in the way-early, pre-SUV days.

The other kind of car that I just adore is a small convertible sports car. This could not be more out of character for me, and I really only like the way they look. I would absolutely hate riding in any kind of convertible, or on a motorcycle. I can't stand the wind, or the noise, or even the smell of the other cars. Driving around these last couple of days in a car with its window stuck open is like torture. I never drive with the windows open.

I must have inherited this little quirk from my father. Jack's all-time favorite car was the 1957 Thunderbird.
This too must have been a looks-only kind of love, because he had very strict rules about what kind of car he would buy (aka, what kind of car we should buy.)

It had to be a sedan.
It could never ever be a convertible.
It couldn't be what they used to call a "hardtop." In other words, there had to be a post between the front and back windows to help hold up the roof.
It couldn't be a hatchback.
It couldn't be station wagon.

All of these rules, like almost everything else he did, were for safety. He assured us that if we were ever in an accident in a convertible or a hardtop, the car would turn over and we would be crushed by the unsupported roof, or certainly ejected from a car with no roof at all, or just squashed dead. It had to be a sedan because that was the kind of car that adults drive. It couldn't be a hatchback or a station wagon because they were too open, and anything you put in them could be seen, and was therefore an open invitation to thieves.

Yeah. But there was another thing. Every car he ever drove in my lifetime was a company car. He and his business partner, Murray, had started out just around the time I was born. It was just the two of them. At first, they bought a used Suburban -- not the monster SUV it is today -- so they could make deliveries, and if one of them needed it for something else, they took turns borrowing it. Within a couple of years, they each had their own personal cars, but owned by the business. Also by this time, Murray had contracted polio -- when I was about 6 months old, actually -- so Jack had to have a car with a big trunk, because he would be making all the deliveries. When he went car shopping, he brought a carton with him from his warehouse, the biggest size they used. If it fit in the trunk, he bought the car.

But by the early 80s, all the cars were downsized. The only car he could find that was big enough for him was the top of the line, super-sized Chevy station wagon.



And to his surprise, he loved it. Turns out it was the best car he ever had. It was huge, and it handled like a dream. He picked it up, I think, March 18, 1981, which was the day after R was born. A week later, he drove us home from the hospital in it. But ten years later, UPS was making all his deliveries, and he wanted to downsize, too. That's when he got the white Oldsmobile Ciera, the one that the Hubs drives now.

So, what's my dream car? Big enough so that I don't feel claustrophobic, high enough so that I can see over the other cars, not so big that I look like I'm trying to compensate for something. Not a sedan, I hate those. I like a hatchback, myself. I like a car with really good visibility. I'd also like a car that gets at least 50 miles to the gallon. Waiting for a hybrid that suits me.

My sister, btw, bought a Prius in March, but she almost never drives anymore, since her husband takes her everywhere. She's never put gas in it except to fill the tank on her way home from the dealership, and it still has less than 300 miles on it. Now that's a car.

WATCHING FRASIER :: ENTRY #1571

Randomly Catching Up

I am getting the "new" car tomorrow, so it appears. (I like to hedge my bets until things are definite.) Here's the picture from the website ad:



Let me see if I can fit in some of the stuff from the other day, not that any of it is important. Oh, tomorrow is the last day of my vacation, btw. Woop de doo. Monday doesn't count, since everyone has Labor Day off.

I finished listening to the Harry audiobook last night. I like Jim Dale's reading very much. And the book, of course.

Oh, the medical report. It seems that I have avoided the need for surgery, but no final decision yet. I am to continue the current treatment and see him again in a month, and he thinks at that point I'll be fine. So that's good. Not surgery that I was looking forward to.

I have an evil headache, and have had every afternoon this week. I'm just saying.

I'm sure I've mentioned before that I run into former students wherever I go. Once I went for a massage, and was lying undressed under the sheet, and the masseuse came in and said "Oh, do you work at XX High School?" Uh, yeah. The assistant at the doctor's office -- that would be the colo-rectal surgeon's office -- asked the same thing. I've said that the day I go to a new gynecologist and the conversation begins with "Didn't you used to work at ... ?" I'm moving to Alaska.

However, this was odd. I got a new exercise video (pause, insert your laughter here) called (keep laughing) Maui Pilates, which as it turns out is actually do-able by a potato like me, but as it started up and the young woman launched into her introduction and gave her name, I thought "Damn! She graduated about 10 years ago!" Anyway, it's not like I have to see her face to face, but it was weird. And she lives in Maui now, apparently. Good deal for her.

Both of my travelers are home, K with a bit of snotty attitude during the final phone call when I was trying to find out when her train was coming in so I could drop everything and pick her up (now who's got the attitude?) on Tuesday, and R when we picked her up at the airport last night. Wonderful trips for both. So that's nice.

What else can I tell you? It looks like I'm moving on to Husband #3, which would be the same human, according to the DNA, that I married 30 years ago, but he's having his second mid-life crisis, for lack of a better word, so he's morphing into someone new, as he did about 20 years ago. Not a mid-life crisis, really, since the numbers don't fit. This time, he seems to be shifting into someone interested in pursuing actual human relationships, which is nice, of course, but which is going to take a lot of adjusting on my part, since by now, I'm used to the work-obsessed, oddly-focused maniac I've had for the last 20 years. This is better, certainly, but you know, just because he's changing by the day, it doesn't mean that I automatically have the psychic connection to what's going on. If he's going to tell me that he's interested in different things -- the new one, if I understand him correctly, is cuddling -- he's really going to have to let me work on it. Not that these are bad changes, but you know, I have to change, too, and it doesn't happen in a minute.

Now that sounds ungrateful. Bottom line: men are just not like normal people. Male or female among you, you can take that however you want to. It's been proven in my experience, that's all I'm saying.

Okay, car tomorrow. Maybe.

WATCHING ELLEN :: ENTRY #1570

A Game of Musical Cars

Oy. I never got to write my entry last night for various reasons, although I actually had the sense to write down what I wanted to write about while I was waiting to get my nails done. However, I shall pass on most of that, perhaps to return at some future time, because last night when the Hubs got home, the crap hit the fan, car-wise.

Let me back track. I have said before that although we have three cars, they are all old bombs. The three cars have a combined book value of zero. The newest among them is my Tracker, which has over 125,000 miles on it.

These means that we are often bringing cars to and from the mechanic as if we're playing a game of musical chairs and hoping that everything will work out in the end. This week, we were supposed to have the Hubs' car in on Monday and K's on Tuesday, but the Hubs' stretched into two days, since they had to wait for a part, and when K got in from Boston last night, she said she needed her car today, so we picked it up and re-scheduled for Thursday. The Hubs had my car yesterday and I had his after I had swapped it for K's at the mechanic's in the afternoon.

Still with me?

When the Hubs got home, which was maybe 9.30, he said the passenger window in my car was stuck open. Again. We had this fixed last year, and the master switch for the windows on the driver's side, too. That one was a bitch, because it took them nearly a week to find the part. It's a ten year old car -- this weekend, I bought it on Labor Day -- and it's not like it was the most popular car ever made, so there aren't a lot of parts out there.

Last night, K and I perused the used car listings on the cable channel for cars. I found a suitable used Tracker at a dealer not far from here. There were actually several listings for Trackers; K says that's because we're the only people who buy them. Why was I looking for yet another one? Because it's a car I can buy without researching the model, the reliability, and so on.

And then, I didn't sleep all night. I hate that.

When I got up this morning, I went to the mechanic, swapped tomorrow's appoint for K's car with my car. He said he'd have to take the door apart to see what's wrong. Ugh.

And then I went and looked at the "new" used Tracker, and I put down a deposit on it. I'm going to bring it to my mechanic to look over tomorrow, and then, I hope I can have it on Friday or Saturday.

I hate this buying a new car. It seems like such a waste when my car works, all except the window. But things are just going to keep going. On my way home, the Service Engine light came on. And I don't have to care.

So K and I will be sharing her car until I get mine. Even if it stretches until next week, I can walk to work, if I have to. I probably should walk to work anyway. It's only about a mile away.

So that's my story. All the rest of my life will have to wait, for now. Some of them are good ones, too.


WATCHING FULL HOUSE :: ENTRY #1569

All In a Summer's Day

I had the kind of day today that I had during my summer vacations for the last few years, when there was no one around but me. Wait, that doesn't sound right. I mean, a day when I don't have to consider anyone else's time or schedule, like when K spent the summer taking classes in D.C., or the summer when both girls were camp counselors and gone all day. I got up when I wanted, I did what I wanted -- nothing exciting -- without having to say to anyone "Oh, do you want to go, too? Okay, I'll wait for you."

And I'm having fish for dinner, too.

But it is very quiet and, I'll admit it, boring. I do love having K living at home 90% of the time. Yes, it is time for her to be out on her own, and she's dying to be, but while she's a full-time student, that's just not possible. The good thing is that we all know there's a finite end to her education and an actual, good job is certain to follow. So that's something.

I also took this opportunity to go upstairs to her room, which I never do unless invited. I went there to bring up her dry-cleaning so it wouldn't be hanging in my hall anymore, and I took down her curtains and hemmed them. We only put them up, oh, a year ago, and were hanging all over the floor, but she couldn't be bothered with bringing them down, and this was my chance to go upstairs and measure and cut. The good news is that my sewing machine is working fine, because the pedal was on the floor during the basement floods in April and I was worried, but all worked perfectly. Even though the machine is 30 years old -- it's the first big thing I bought after we were married -- I'm sure I could have gotten a replacement pedal if I needed it, since it's a Singer, and you can probably get replacement parts for 130 year old Singers, somewhere.

What else did I do? I had a long list. Oh, I cleaned up the floor in the Hubs' room where he took up the carpet yesterday. It really needs to be sanded and re-finished, but there are about a million things to do in the house ahead of that on the list. Looks like it's time to pick up another room-sized rug at Bed Bath and Beyond for $29.00.

Otherwise, things are quiet. I have an appointment with the doctor tomorrow to see if my recent ailment is improved or if I have to have surgery. Euw. I think it's better, but not all better; maybe he'll give me another couple of weeks before we make the surgery decision. One can only hope.

This is something I know nothing about and only stumbled across, but I just want to say that Boxx, if you are reading, I hope things, whatever they are, work out and I will get to still read you and know you and have you for a friend. That's all.

Okay, then.

WATCHING FRIENDS :: ENTRY #1568

Taking a Break

Well, it's another quiet but unusual day.

The Hubs' birthday is in two weeks, and he is impossible to buy for. And here, he just got me this lovely gift for our anniversary in July, so I was in a quandary. Sometimes I get him things that I think he would just love -- in a few cases, things he had actually asked for -- and he looks happy and thanks me and never takes it out of the package. But you know, he's turning into another person lately, so ...

There was a 17" LCD TV on the front page of the Target circular this morning, so I went off and got it. Since there are no hiding places whatsoever in this house, especially for something that big, it's on the steps up to Katie's room, behind the closed door. And then, to my amazement ...

After he got back from his Sunday morning walk -- he goes miles and miles -- he asked if I was busy this afternoon, because he wanted to go ... shopping. Shopping. A pod person, indeed.

So we went. He has finally decided to get himself a decent chair to sit in in his little study -- a long story about why he has no decent chair -- but he didn't want to get one while the cats were still puking and pooping everywhere, and this was our chance. We went, armed with sale circulars, and found nothing, but then stopped in a third store and damn if he didn't buy himself a chair. Which I offered to go pick up Wednesday, since I still have this last week off and the delivery charges are insane, and it will fit even in my little Barbie car. And then ...

We came home and he ripped up the seriously awful carpet in his study that has been there since we moved in. The one with melted crayon here and there, in addition to the stains of cat effluvia, since this was K's room when she was little, and R's room when she was in the stage of writing on the walls and stuff with chalk. The carpet is gone, and we have decent hardwood floors, because the house was built before they decided that floors only had to be plywood because everyone was putting carpet over them anyway. Unfortunately, there are remnants of carpet padding stuck to the floor, so I'll see what I can do about that tomorrow. I have a long list of things to do tomorrow, but I think #1 just became picking up a bottle of Murphy Oil Soap and a new mop. I don't think that the Swiffer WetJet can cut through this crap.

So now I'm really glad I got the TV, because he seems to be in changing-his-environment mode, and that makes this a good time. I only hope he doesn't re-arrange the whole room once the chair is in to see his crappy, 25-year-old 15" with dials and a half a picture at its best advantage.

While he was ripping up carpet, I was flipping channels and saw an ad for tonight's big season finale of Big Love, which I watched last year and was really into, but I haven't seen a single episode of season 2, although I recorded them all. So I wondered what I was waiting for, and I just watched the first two episodes. It's very, very good, but it's kind of emotionally demanding to watch. I may only get in another one or two tonight, but I have a headache, so maybe not.

Boy, I have a lot to do tomorrow. Well, there's always Tuesday.

WATCHING BIG LOVE marathon :: ENTRY #1567

Feels Like a Long Day

Life is quiet when both of the children are away. Oh, wait.

So K did indeed get into Boston by train last night around 7.30, easy peasy. She called when she arrived, and I assume that she found her friends there, but she was traveling with someone else, so no real cause for worry there.

R, poor thing. Oy. Apparently they were not having good weather in Atlanta last night, flights were canceled, flights were delayed. She should have had a 6.35 connecting flight to Las Vegas, but since her flight from Newark didn't arriv3e until 6.30, she missed it. She called through the evening with various reports, and finally said that she had a boarding pass for the 10.40 flight. Which sounds great, except that flight did not actually leave until 1.30 in the morning. Anyway, she emailed at 6.30 am to say she was there and with her friends, so all is well. And she called after she got up (around 12.30) and didn't even sound tired. I, on the other hand, did not sleep well. I wasn't worried about her, but I didn't sleep soundly.

Anyway, I got an amusing phone call a few hours ago from my eldest nephew, who lives in San Diego. We said hello, how are you, and I said "So what's up?" and he said he was just hanging around at a friend's house in ... Las Vegas. I said, "Hey, R's in Las Vegas!" and he said he knew because he had just talked to his mother and she told
him, and he was calling to get R's cell phone number so they could maybe see each other later. Pretty funny; I guess I'll find out at some point if they actually found each other.

The Sibs and I did do Costco this morning, but it's terribly hot here today -- 89 still at almost 8.00 pm -- and awfully humid. I hate it when I go outside and my glasses fog over. I napped this afternoon, and copied stuff off the DVR to DVDs, or else just watched stuff. One of the movies I had was The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio. I liked it a lot; see it if you get the chance.

The Hubs and I went out for dinner, a nice surprise. He said he thinks we should go out to dinner once or twice a week. I must carefully scour the basement tomorrow for the pod this alien impostor came in. I'll bet it's a big one.

WATCHING RAYMOND :: ENTRY #1566

A Bit Quieter Today

Once again, I got up before the 7.00 alarm, and put myself together in something other than jeans. The Other Chai got here before 9.00, and we went off to pick up E and go to the funeral.

A bit of background here. I have known the Other Chai for many, many years -- when I was a junior, she was my student teacher -- and we have had times when we were very close and times when not so much. But I have been close with E since the day we met, which would have been around 1980 or so, and from about 1986 on, E and the Chum and I were inseparable at school. E retired six years ago, the same year Joel did, and I don't see her often because she is the world's busiest Jewish grandma, but when we do see each other, we are in sync immediately. E is the one friend of everybody that I would tell anything to, anything at all, because she is not one iota judgmental and is always 100% supportive.

E is also the biggest Disney freak I know. She has gone to DisneyWorld with her entire family every year since the year it opened. Back then, they stayed in a camper and the six kids (hers and her sister's) slept in a tent outside. Now, circumstances have changed, they have a timeshare with I don't know how many rooms, and eleven grandchildren between them. And they all go.

Oh, one more bit of background. For years and years, I tried to get E and the Chum to go on a quick DisneyWorld weekend with me, because the three of us were best buds and would have such a good time. End of background.

So you know, I made plans to go to DW with the Other Chai, and then the Chum said, Oh, can I come too? Well, yes ... grrr, why didn't you want to go before ... but it's all worked out. And then this morning, we told E that we were going and she got all excited and said "When? What are the dates? Maybe I can ..." Okay, now it's getting too complicated for me. I doubt that she'll actually come, because she's always either traveling or helping out with grandchildren (who will also be off of school that weekend), but it was a moment.

Speaking of complications, poor R is at this moment trapped in the airport in Atlanta, where her flight from Newark was delayed in arriving and her flight to Las Vegas took off early, of all things. She's on standby for a later flight tonight, but her travel plans are sure messed up. She says the hotel in LV won't let her friends check into the room because the reservations are in her name. Talk about grr. Well, she's pissed off but she's not panicking, because this is not the one who panics. This is one who handles things. And the other one is due into Boston by train in ... ten minutes. Both away with friends for a long weekend. It'll be quiet here, but I do have a trip planned to Costco with the Sibs tomorrow, so that's something.

Okay, folks. Have a good weekend.

WATCHING THE SIMPSONS :: ENTRY #1565

I Had a Busy Day

It was the kind of day that even when I was sitting down, I was busy.

I've been getting up at 7.00 for the last few days; the alarm is set, but I always wake up before it rings. Next week I'll have to move it down to 6.00. Anyway, I got up, got ready and dressed, and left for school around 8.00. I had a 9.00 meeting scheduled with the principal, but I thought I could get some things done in the library first.

It looked like a bomb had done off in there. The custodians picked everything up off the floor -- chairs, trash bins, you name it -- to clean, but nothing is put back yet. It took me several minutes just to find my chair. I went down to the office at 8.30, where the Colleague told me that the principal was coming in later today, i.e., 9.30 or later. Swell. I had another meeting scheduled at the central office at 9.30, not to mention a million things to do.

So I left, made my return at Staples, picked up coffee, and went over to the central office to hack out our last issue with the new library software. Back to the high school around 10.15, where the great man not only saw me, but had his calls held while I was in there with him. So that was nice. Had a nice long talk with him about all kinds of issues, including my displeasure with our secretary/staffing issues last year. So we'll see how that goes.

Left, made a brief stop at home and then to the Apple Store. Long story, I came across a portable hard drive I wanted to use, but couldn't find the cable, and it needs some very odd firewire cable. Hence the return at Staples, and three stupid trips yesterday to a computer store to buy the wrong thing and return it, wash, rinse, repeat. But they had the cable at the Apple Store, which is where I bought the drive last summer. And then to the computer store for the last return.

And then home, to change to go to Joel's wake.

The Other Chai arrived before 2.00, as we were going together. K was supposed to go with a friend, but he was called away at the last minute, so she went with us. As we were leaving the house, she said -- the fashion expert -- "You know, crocs aren't formal." What can I say, it's all I had. She's right, but I didn't have anything else to wear.

The wake was quite the experience. I didn't know any of Joel's family -- cousins -- although he had spoken of them, but I do know his friend, W---, who in the obituary was listed as his "lifelong friend." As I wrote the other day, they were friends since they were little boys. So we went over to him when we got there to express our sympathy, and here's the conversation we had, but of course, with real names:

As we took each other's hands and embraced -

"W--, I'm so sorry. I'm Chai; we've met several times."

"Oh, Chai! Joel LOVED you!"

I turned a bit and said "And this is my daughter K; I think you've met a few times, too."

"Oh, of course, K! Thank you so much for coming!"

So are we talking about another wonderful person, or what? K had asked me the other day if I thought Joel -- who was Mr. H. to her -- knew how many people loved him. I said I thought he did, because he loved so many people, and he knew it was reciprocated.

And, boy. The place was pretty well packed, and mostly with scads of other retired and current staff members from the high school. It was like a reunion. In that sense, it was wonderful, and I think Joel would be happy to know that we were all seeing each other. Some of the retirees have a little group and they see each other all the time; Joel was among them, and I know they will continue to include W---. I saw one of my all-time favorite people; I wrote about him a long time back, but I'm not looking for the link just now. He was my teacher in 10th grade, and the Hubs and I met in his class; he later became a treasured colleague. He retired maybe 15 years ago, so when can I ever see him? At wakes, of course.

So that was an interesting experience. The funeral is tomorrow morning, a mass. I don't think I've ever been to a funeral mass. I'm thinking it will take some time.

Anyway, after we got home and the Other Chai left, I conceded to K that I cannot wear crocs to church tomorrow, so we went to DSW and I bought a pair of black shoes. With little bitty heels. Hopefully I shall survive this experience.

We had dinner out, and I am exhausted. And achy. But I have a portable hard drive that works, I have black shoes, and I saw many people today who are very dear to me. With a lump in my throat, as they had in theirs, but dear nonetheless. I expect I will see more at the funeral tomorrow. One of my favorite students of all time was also close to Joel, he and the boy's parents were good friends. The "boy" is now ... let's see ... 30, and works in the city, I think, so he was probably going to the wake tonight, but I imagine he will be at the funeral tomorrow. The last time I saw him, in fact, was at Joel's mother's funeral. It will be another bittersweet meeting.

WATCHING LAW & ORDER :: ENTRY #1564

Getting My Rant On

and then, back to my regularly scheduled life. But first, a word of thanks to the many kind folk who left me lovely comments on yesterday's entry on the loss of my friend. Knowing that I have you as my friends too is very comforting.

So, the rant. I promised to talk about "the Chinese Poison Train, aka, How the American Economy Fucked Itself." They are very closely related, if not, in fact, the same thing.

It was Calvin Coolidge who said, as president in the 1920s, that "the business of American is business." In other words, what's good for our big corporate entities is what's good for the everyday working man. This has been part of the philosophy of American capitalism for quite some time. However, in the era just before Coolidge's, the average working man had achieved a great many advantages through the protection of the American government. First and foremost, labor unions had developed to protect him. He had to be paid a decent wage, work decent hours, and in time, receive decent benefits. Legislation had been passed so that he knew that he and his family were consuming safe food and drugs. It was all tied in together. The cost of consumer goods was passed along to the buying public, and the cost reflected labor and the safeguards required by the government. And so it was for some time. All we had to worry about, we were told for years and years, was the dreaded red menace: Communism! If communists succeeded in their goal of world domination, capitalism as we know it would cease to exist, and we would all drown in a sea of socialized farms, factories, and *gasp* medical care.

So where are we now? Let's see. This whole "global economy" thing has been an absolute disaster for this country. It means that anything than can be more cheaply done or produced in another country is outsourced. One of the reasons that Wal-Mart does this is so they can sell goods more and more cheaply, which undercuts the ability of anyone else to produce the same goods, thereby giving WM a complete monopoly over that item. Once they have that, they can charge whatever they want. But as long as they have any competition at all, their goal has to be to lower their prices. How do they do that? By having goods manufactured in other countries, where

there are no labor unions
there are lax safety regulations, if any at all.

(Wal-Mart, of course, is not the only offender here, but they are the entity most famous for doing this to drop their prices and undercut the competition. All the other companies do it primarily to increase their corporate profit, which of course, WM gets also.)

We all know how terrible it is that goods used in America come from foreign sweat-shops, child labor, and so forth. What we tend to forget is that these are all jobs that used to be done by Americans, in American factories. Those jobs are gone, mostly. It's a lot cheaper to pay an Indonesian child 50 cents a day with no health insurance or pension than it is to pay a full-grown American adult what he or she would demand for the same job.

What about China? China, of course, is a Communist country which is now the biggest driving force in the global capitalist economy. Funny, eh? They can get away with a lot because their people have no recourse because they live in dictatorship. (Hey, why didn't we think of that? Ooh, coming back to that one.) This Poison Train thing is just a little bit too ironic, I think, and would even be funny if it weren't so serious.

(But I have to say, I am getting a real perverse satisfaction watching what's happening to Mattel. Because once they're finished with all the recalls and all the lawsuits, I bet they're going to find out that it would have been cheaper to make their Barbie dolls in the good ol' USA after all.)

Either China is collapsing under its own weight, or they won. It would seem that the Communists somehow have won control of the American economy, they just did it by remote control, by appealing to the greed of corporate America and the opportunities allowed them by the "global economy." And America? Soon it won't matter how cheap the goods are that our corporate giants are producing, because there won't be Americans who can afford to buy them anyway, because they won't have jobs. Ah, they forgot about that. Gotta have consumers if you want your shit consumed.

And the good old American work ethic? It's still there, I think, but it's getting harder and harder to practice it. If you have to work like a dog and end up with fewer benefits and less money than if you were on welfare, well, why would you? The presidents of Wal-Mart and Mattel can even do that math. So who on earth is going to do that stuff?

Well, the only people who will are the people for whom it's still a step up. The people who would make less doing the same work in their home countries. But for some reason, we don't want to let them in (although we want them to work for us when they're here, because they work cheap -- no unions -- and we don't have to pay any benefits for them.) I believe that for the most part, Americans will not do the the jobs that Mexicans, for example, are eager to do, and do well. These are people with a work ethic, let me tell you.

I have no answers. I believe that the cause of all this, really, is the belief not among ordinary Americans but among corporate America that "the business of America is business." Corporate America believes that as long as they are in charge and they are getting rich, nothing else matters. It will, though, sooner or later.

By the by, I have read many articles recently -- I can find the links, but can't get them now -- about a very quiet movement that took place in the 1930s in the hearts and minds and boardrooms of corporate America to support the kind of changes that were taking place in German and Italy and to try to bring about those same changes here. In other words, they were hoping to stage a quiet Fascist coup that would take over the United States. I am not making this up. Many large corporations, including, I think, Proctor and Gamble, were in this group. They thought things would just go better in the U.S. if they were in charge. They even had support from some members of government, including, notably, the senator from Connecticut, who was ... drumroll, please ... Senator Prescott Bush, whose son and grandson went on to ... well, you know.

This is deep and this is bad. But because I am the eternal optimist, and I just added a quotation from Barbara Jordan to my title header the other day, I think it will be okay in time. We have just got the best damn Constitution, and I think the people of America are essentially good. Not too smart all the time, but good. I think we'll be okay.

But this sure stinks, doesn't it?

WATCHING ROSEANNE :: ENTRY #1563

Vale, Magister

The rant I promised you today will have to wait until tomorrow. My friend Joel died yesterday. I can't believe that I've never written about him before, but I searched the archives at my old diary and I couldn't find anything. I used the search term "Latin", because it would have come up in anything I wrote about him.

Joel was a big man with a deep voice, perhaps the deepest voice I have ever heard in person; he was also one of the most gentle and shy people I ever knew. But I didn't know how shy he was until years after we had become friends because of this: On my first day on the staff at the high school, I was terrified to go into the faculty room in the morning, but I did, and I sat in the smokers' room and lit up, and the next thing I knew, this giant man with intensely blue eyes sat down next to me and was my friend. He had a fabulous laugh and an interesting backstory, which was that he had spent about ten years as a teaching brother in a ... I guess monastery is the right word .. not far from here. He had given that up, and since then lived at home with his parents; I guess he would have been in his mid to late thirties then. He did all kinds of interesting crafts; one of his jobs in the monastery was to make the brothers' robes, so they taught him to sew. We talked often about the various craft projects we were doing.

The following December, as I have written elsewhere, my sister gave birth to twins, had seizures the next day, and then went into a coma for a week. I had to go to work every day because ... well, because I had to, and Joel held my hand whenever I came into the faculty room and told me he was praying for her. Although this is not my thing, I knew it was his and that he was sincere, and so it meant something to me. I never forgot that. A year or so later, his father died, and I had someone help me figure out how to send a mass card. Joel was incredibly touched by that, and commented on it even years later.

We were mostly faculty room buddies, although for my first few years there, we also had the same graduation night duty, so we hung out then, too. When I became pregnant with R, he was incredibly excited. Once, we were sitting side-by-side in the faculty room and I felt the baby kick, and put his hand on my belly so he could feel it. Tears came to his eyes. You realize that this is a man who never married and was never going to, and was never going to have children. Again, this was something he brought up years later, and thanked me for letting him have that experience.

Was Joel gay? A good question, and one of the school's eternal mysteries. He was certainly not straight. He actually lived in the same house his entire life, except for those few years at the monastery, so he lived with his parents, and then his mother, and then alone. He had a very best friend whom he always introduced as "my buddy W---", but they had been best friends since they were little boys, and their parents were close friends before that. They never lived together, although they often traveled together and socialized, more or less, as a couple. I don't know if sexuality was even in Joel's make-up, though. It's possible that they were non-sexual soulmates. It is, of course, irrelevant.

When he was being honored for 25 years in teaching, he refused to go to the dinner because he couldn't bear to be the center of attention (except in the classroom), but my friend E and I convinced him to go. He sat between us. Someone got up and made a lovely speech about him, after which he came to his feet at the table, intoned a deep and nearly silent "Thank you", and sat down. He was too shy for more than that. He did not go to the dinner when he was one of the retirees six years ago.

He taught, primarily, Latin, and secondarily, Spanish. Some years he also taught German. He also spoke and read Hebrew, read classical Greek and some Aramaic, and I believe, finally Italian. He was insane in the classroom. He had funny names for each and every child, did all kinds of routines, and showed every class every year "The Clash of the Titans", to which he added his own running commentary.

When my oldest nephew came to the high school and took Latin, Joel was delighted. The year he had each of my sister's twins in class -- one in Latin, one in Spanish -- he was beside himself, as these were the very recipients, along with their mother, of his prayers years earlier. My own R somehow managed not to get into his Spanish class, but my K was a Latin student, and she and Joel developed quite a bond. He adored her. When she became ill during her junior year, he was a rock for me, and would attend administrative meetings about her as representative of all her teachers and would hold my hand under the table. He retired just before her senior year of high school.

Several months later, K and I were at a craft store and I saw him across the store, and nudged her and pointed to him. She dropped everything she was holding and raced across the store into his arms, shrieking as she ran "Magister! Magister!" That's Latin for teacher, or master, which is how his students addressed him in class.

Religion was a very big part of Joel and who he was. He attended a Catholic church that focused closely on the Jewish roots of Christianity. Although I had always known this, I was unprepared for what I heard when I attended his mother's funeral; I can't recall the details now, but there were so many loving references to the Old Testament and to Jewish customs and traditions. I know I once had a discussion of anti-semitism with him, and he was appalled by it and in fact couldn't understand Christians who were anti-semitic. "Listen," he said. "I follow a Jew. Case closed." Faith was real and deep and just obvious to him. And comforting. I was told today that he had fallen on Sunday, at home, alone, and when someone came and found him Monday morning, his face wore an expression of peace and happiness.

You know, if you've read two words of my site, that I follow no organized religion and have a somewhat disorganized sense of my own personal faith, which is strong nonetheless. And today, I believe that Joel is with Jesus. It's where he deserves to be, and where he is without a doubt.

K and I are going to the wake on Thursday and the funeral on Friday. He has no family left at all, but W--- will be there, as well as decades worth of our colleagues from the high school who loved him, and, I suspect, many former students as well. A former student once mentioned him by name as the teacher who had changed his life, in a letter that was published in Newsweek. Joel was so embarrassed, but the rest of us were like, well, of course.

I'll be back tomorrow.

WATCHING FRIENDS :: ENTRY #1562

I'M GOING TO DISNEYWORLD!

YAY!

The Other Chai was here today and we got on the speaker phone with the Disney travel people and we booked the trip. It's a little convoluted, since there was NO HOTEL in the park that was available for the four nights we want, so we have three nights in our first choice and the fourth night someplace else altogether. But both of them are deluxe resorts, and I have never stayed in a deluxe resort there, so WOO HOO. And I can call them back every week or so to see if there's been a cancellation and we can change it to either of those hotels for all four nights.

The other thing is that we made the flight reservations, and that also turned out a little goofy. We decided to fly out of the smaller airport closer to where the Other Chai lives, which is better for a whole variety of reasons, but the only non-stop flight to Orlando leaves there at 8.00 am. Oy. So I'll spend the night before at the O.C.'s house, from which we will venture north to the airport the next morning before 5.00 am. Which is reaaaall early. But's it's a nonstop flight, and there was a website special: the flight is $59 for each of us.

Wow, right? Then on the return, there was only one non-stop available, for $300 something, so we took it, and guess what? All they had left was Business Class, which is what? FIRST CLASS, BABY! So all told, once you add in the taxes, it came to what a regular flight out of Newark would have cost, except we are flying First Class on the way home. And since flying first class is on my list of something I want to do at least once before I die, I am very excited. Okay, it's not like flying first class to Europe, but I was never going to do that anyway. All I wanted was at least one first class flight to or from DisneyWorld. And here it is.

(I also realized today that booking the trip was one of the other things I wanted to accomplish this summer, so that's good, too.)

It was a different experience for me because, as I realized afterwards, part of the Disney experience for me has always been getting the best deal I could find, and we didn't do that this time. We didn't go way overboard, only about $300 more than the super-cheap I had been looking into, and we're getting a lot more. (Although we probably will end up sharing beds, at least in the first hotel, unless I can change that between now and then, but none of those rooms are available at the moment. But the second hotel has three.)

Okay. Breathe.

So I had a good day. If you missed last night's political rant and review, check here. if nothing else happens in the next 24 hours, I'd like to share my thoughts on what they're calling the Chinese Poison Train, aka, How the American Economy Fucked Itself.

Good night.

WATCHING LAW & ORDER :: ENTRY #1561

Talking Trash

I'm going to talk a little politics while it's fresh in my mind. There must have been a debate on Sunday that I didn't know about, but I caught the replay Sunday night on C-Span. A word about the debates: I think I've watched every Democratic debate, but maybe only a bit of one of the Republicans. This is for two reasons, maybe three. One, I never seem to know when a Republican debate is going to be on. Two, I think there are fewer Republican debates than Democratic. And three, let's be frank, I'm not voting for a Republican because I know from the get-go that I disagree with all of them, so there's no need for me to watch them debate so that I can make an informed choice of my preferred candidate. The answer is none of them; they all infuriate me for one reason or another.

But tonight I'm going to give my run-down on the Democratic candidates, all of them who appear regularly in the debates. These would be, in no particular order except the way the were standing in the debate I just watched (Iowa):

Dennis Kucinich
Joe Biden
Bill Richardson
Barack Obama
Mike Gravel
John Edwards
Chris Dodd
Hilary Clinton

Okay, that's it, eight. Let's start by saying a polite thank-you to Mike Gravel for everything he did for us 35 years ago, and then let's send him home. 35 years ago, he was da bomb, and I wanted to vote for him in 1972. But now, bye-bye former Senator Gravel. Enjoy retirement.

Next, Chris Dodd and Joe Biden, whom I group together because I think they have the same equal shot at the presidency: none. And there are lots of things I like about Biden, and a few I like about Dodd, but they are not going to be president. They should, however, have positions of importance in the next administration, especially Biden, because he's smart and has lots of interesting experience.

The front runner, they say, is Hillary Clinton, and I'm sorry, I just can't get behind her. For one, I don't agree with several of the positions she takes, and that's big. For another, and this isn't original with me but I can't remember where I heard it; maybe Bill Maher said it on Larry King, but I'm not sure. I think there's an excellent chance that the right wing/religious fundamentalists/Karl Rove et al. or someone has some juicy dirt on the Clintons that they've been saving for just such an occasion. I want to vote for a president who is as beyond reproach as anyone who's lived an actual life could possibly be. It's not Hillary. I got no problem with having a woman for president, of course, but not this particular woman. (Speaking of 1972, I so wanted to be able to vote for Barbara Jordan one day, but it was not to be.)

I really really really want to like John Edwards. I liked him last time, and I think he has pretty much everything it takes. So why isn't he the front runner? It's as if he has some secret weakness that keeps him from rising to the top. I would be happy with him as our president, but I don't know if he has what it takes to get himself there.

I adore Dennis Kucinich. I like that he's out of the box; he says everything in a completely straightforward, no bullshit, not-politician-y way, and he addresses the issues that need to be addressed. In each question he answers though, he spits out some quick fix program that he's got all worked out already, and "when I'm in the White House" that's what going to happen. Uh ... doubtful. The president has got to play politics with Congress to make things work, and I'm doubtful that Kucinich has those skills. But I'd like to have him over for dinner, or get him to speak at a school assembly.

I got two left, eh?

I had decided this morning, before I watched this debate, that I was going to have to get behind Obama. I agree with most of what he says, and his only real flaw is lack of experience. Think about it: this is not necessarily a fatal flaw for a president. It's not as if he's on his own. He's surrounded by advisors. If Barack Obama were president, and say, Bill Clinton was the Secretary of State, and the rest of these Democratic hopefuls were strategically placed, he'd probably be pretty damn good.

Except he said a few things tonight that I did not like. So I'm still re-thinking him.

And Bill Richardson? Let's see. He's been a cabinet member, he's the governor of a troubled state, he's negotiated treaties between countries, he was the ambassador to the United Nations. And each time I've seen him, he's said things that are 100% what I agree with.

So where does that leave me? The best Richardson can hope for is a vice-presidential spot, and I'm okay with that. I do think he'd make the best president out of this crop of bozos, but I'll settle for v.p. With Obama? Maybe, but that's an odd ticket, our first African-American candidate for president paired with a v.p. candidate with some Latino roots. (Although I'm guessing not the first to have had a mother [in his case] or a grandparent from Mexico or another Hispanic country.) Richardson is also pretty straightforward in what he says, and I think that would help anyone he's running with.

Which leads me back to John Edwards, who is whiter than white (sorry, a derogatory term I generally avoid, but we're in political context here) and comes from a very humble background and who is very human and for whom poverty and the average people are a key issue. All good. I think there will be a certain amount of chaos when his wife dies, but they surely know it's coming, and they will have planned for it as best they can. That is some amazing family they have there.

So I guess I'm hoping that Edwards will step up to the plate and take charge, and that Richardson will be his running mate. Perhaps Obama will shape up more, too, but I don't see that as a ticket as likely to win.

And if the Republicans run Fred Thompson, the most absurd candidate ever, I don't know what I'll do. At least we all know what an asshole Giuliani is already. Thompson, it's like they're keeping him hidden until they can spring a full-blown campaign on everyone, which I'm sure is all kinds of illegal. And I also believe that the reason Karl Rove is resigning is to take charge of the Thompson campaign, because if Thompson wins, it's like the whole Bush team is still in charge. He's not a politician, not really, he's an actor. He'll do whatever Cheney tells him to do. And we already know how that kind of thing plays out.

Remember, folks, you heard it here first.

WATCHING --- :: ENTRY #1560

Summer?

Well, today was not a nice day, overcast, but I think worse is coming tomorrow, when it's supposed to be raining all day, with temps in the low 60s. That is not summer weather, folks. I don't know what it is, maybe spring. It doesn't smell like autumn yet, though, so I'm guessing we'll be having more summer before it's over.

So I got me two weeks left of what's been a very lackluster summer vacation. You know, I always overplan for the summer, but what this summer turned out to be was essentially three things:

1. having IBS for about a month and then its after-effects and complications
2. losing BooBoo and dealing with that
3. reading a lot

Okay, so the first two were unanticipated and unavoidable -- well, I could have skipped those cheeseburgers in early July, but who knew -- and the third was the one thing I plan for every summer but never do. So I'm not saying that I'm disappointed, or unhappy with the summer in general, because I'm not. After all, I didn't have to go to work for 10 weeks or so. And I did get to go on a vacation, to someplace I've wanted to go for a long time. Just that in general, it's been lackluster. I'm not looking forward to going back to school, particularly, although I am looking forward to getting paid. (Ah, there's another perk of retirement: the pension checks come all year round, not just during the school year.)

And I have no huge plans for the next two weeks, either. It looks like I'm not going to make it into the city to see OldFriend, though, because of one thing or another, which is disappointing. I've got more to read, another appointment at the Apple Store, lunch with the Other Chai tomorrow, and nothing else fun. Maybe I'll get to fit in another lunch with the Sibs somewhere.

WATCHING FORREST GUMP :: ENTRY #1559

Yawn

I am incredibly tired today, as if I slept not at all last night, which is not the case. I did sleep, but in fits and starts. I don't know if I was restless or if the Hubs was, but he must have gotten up a dozen times, and I was aware of each time. I think this is a new way of life for him, not sleeping well. All his life, he put his head down on the pillow and slept like a rock until it was time to get up, but not anymore. I guess now he has some sense of what it's like to be me, sleep-wise, anyway.

He did, in fact, figure out how to put the lamp together last night, and changed the tail-light on my car today. So I guess he can function without sleep, although I think he didn't go into the office today, which is the first Saturday for a very long time that this is true. He seems to be starting to get the work-is-not-all-there-is-to-life message recently; it's only taken him 54 years. (Well, three weeks short of 54 years.) He did some grocery shopping in the morning, came home and mowed the lawn, and has otherwise been sitting out in the yard all day, reading or doing puzzles. Good for him.

K and I went to Michael's this morning (a craft store) to get some things for her room, mostly picture frames. We also wanted to get pillow forms so she can make throw pillows out of cute t-shirts she doesn't wear anymore, but they didn't have them, so we have to look elsewhere tomorrow. Anyway, I turned down an aisle and there was one of my younger colleagues from work, extremely pregnant and glowing like crazy. I knew she was pregnant -- she's due in November -- and boy, did she look terrific. This is someone who has an adorable three year old, but has otherwise had horrible pregnancy experiences, stillborn twins a couple of years before her son was born, and two late-term miscarriages, one also before he was born and one since. But she looks happy and good and whenever I see her I want to tell her to sit down and put her feet up! Anyway, we greeted each other and hugged and such and then she said to what looked like the empty air: "But she can't hear you!" at which point another one of our colleagues came from around the corner. I guess when she heard my voice she called out "I can hear you!", but of course that was lost on me. It was very good to see them both, and I guess they were happy to be out on a Saturday morning on their without their one-each adorable little boys. So that was my adventure of the day.

R spent the afternoon here, but we did not go to Wonderful Niece's because the kittens have moved on for now. What she has is a backyard that is somehow a haven for feral cats, and there are often mother cats there with litters. Animal control in her town wants nothing to do with this. So she and her husband will catch cats when they can and take them someplace, I don't know if it's a local vet or a shelter, and get them spayed or neutered, and then bring them back. Even so, there are still litters, and they try to find homes for the kittens when they can, and always find homes for kittens that appear to be separated from or abandoned by their mothers. They have two themselves (as well as two dogs who came from some other rescue place). They won't take the kittens away too young, of course, and sometimes the mothers move on with them before they're old enough to take, so they had a litter earlier this week but not today. This is all just as well for R, who's going away next weekend, and is planning to get her kitten, from whatever source, the weekend after Labor Day. There are many pet supply stores in the area that have kitten/cat adoption days once a week or so, and there's some kind of shelter in her town, so she'll certainly be able to find one when she's ready.

K is now upstairs hanging things on her walls. The walls upstairs are made out of tissue paper. This does not bode well.

It was an incredibly beautiful day today. It's anybody's guess what tomorrow will be.

WATCHING QVC: PHILOSOPHY :: ENTRY #1558

Rumble, Rumble

There are severe thunder-storm warnings all over New Jersey, but my county is mysteriously not colored-in on the map, so I guess we're okay. That noise I'm hearing outside, as well as the static in my hearing aids, must be something else altogether. In fact, our sky is oddly brightening, after growing darker and darker all afternoon.

I finished my reading Kavalier and Clay about a half hour ago, and gave a lazy thought to pulling my car into the driveway before the rain started when I suddenly remembered that I had left one window wide open, so that pretty much took choice out of the picture and I bolted outside. Window up, car in the driveway. But now that the rain seems to be letting up -- I do not understand this weather forecast -- I may yet be going out again. Whatever.

K has been working intermittently on her room, but it looks pretty good. I was just up there trying to help her assemble a floor lamp we picked up yesterday at Target, and which is going back tomorrow unless the Hubs can figure out how to put it together. Those wordless pictograph directions will get you every time. There's something there not quite clear to me, and I'm generally good with this stuff, but the Hubs is very good with this stuff, he just doesn't like anyone to know about it.

My Disney reservations are screwed up, what a surprise, because what was available a month ago isn't available any more. I have a tentative booking for the wrong room and the wrong dates, and I'll straighten it all out when the Other Chai is here on Monday. At this point, I don't even know what flights to look up.

I went no farther today than to little downtown Bizarro Town, to the hardware store in the morning and then to the bagel place for lunch. My first mission of the day today was to fix a broken drawer in one of the Ikea dressers K has upstairs. If you're a big Ikea buyer, then you probably already know that dresser (and other) drawers are their weak point. They're made in such a way that if you fill them with the capacity that they are made to hold, the bottom will fall out. I talked to one of the managers at Ikea about this once, and he agreed with me and suggested ways to fix it. I had to work around that because I don't have access to some of the tools I would have needed, but I think the brackets I put on under the drawer bottom should work.

Other than that, I'm caught up on my laundry and my floors are all clean. I do not understand the concept of bathroom cleaning, however. Even if I know that my bathroom is antiseptically clean -- and that's a stretch; it's not an operating room -- I don't seem to have the skills required for it to look clean. I can't quite explain this, but I can scrub and scrub and I know it's clean, germ-wise, but it still doesn't look right to me, whatever I do. Or I need to care a lot less than I do, which would also be a stretch, because cleaning is not something I generally care about at all. Another paradox.

Next on my hit parade here is a book called Born to Rule, which is about the five granddaughters of Queen Victoria who became reigning consorts in various European countries. God, I hope it's easier to read than to explain. K had gotten part-way through it and then it was misplaced in the great Basement Disaster in April; she said she stopped reading when it started to talk about Alexandra in Russia because she knew that story was so sad. So we'll see how far I can go.

I must see if I can get both my car and K's car inspected next week sometime, which is a big pain in the ass, since there are always long lines at the inspection stations, and it's hot. And I have a tail-light out, so I have to get that fixed first. For some reason, my car, which is a Tracker, is prone to burning out headlights, and since this is the fourth Tracker we've owned, the Hubs and I are both very handy at replacing those; I actually keep a spare in my glove compartment. I don't know about a tail-light, though; I'll have to see if he knows how to do that. If not, I have to take the car in to my wonderful mechanic sometime next week.

WATCHING FRIENDS :: ENTRY #1557

What's What

My achievement of the day was finally getting the Other Chai on the phone and making firm plans to make firms plans for DisneyWorld. In other words, she's coming here for lunch on Monday, and as she put it, bringing her credit card. So we should have reservations of some kind on Monday. I am very excited.

In other news, K has been working on her room upstairs like a crazy person, which is a good thing because this is something she pretty much reserves for once a decade. Though with any luck, it'll take this time and she'll prefer to live less cluttered. Uh huh. Anyway, I know that one of her hopes is that if she can get the room into really ship-shape condition, we will let her get a kitten and keep it upstairs. (Her upstairs "room" is actually bigger than R's two-room apartment, since it's the whole upstairs of our house except for a narrow attic space.)

I'm sure glad she's doing something about her living environment, but sadly, the kitten is unlikely to happen. This is even more sad because Wonderful Niece, who's involved in Kitten Rescue of a sort, has a litter on hand, and R is probably going there on Saturday to get one for herself. My heart breaks for K, who can barely remember life without a cat in the house -- she was 7 when we got BooBoo -- but the Hubs and I are just not ready right now. There are things we have been planning to do for a long time when we were post-cat, and this is the time. Furniture and stuff like that. I swear, when she moves out at some point, I will procure for her the cat of her choice. I've already told both of them that I will get them set up when they get their first cats, you know, get them the litter box, bowls, whatever else they need. I have a carrier to give each one of them. But not another one in our house, not now. Not yet.

So she's working and I'm reading. I also printed out some of those pictures I got yesterday from my niece's wedding, and framed them and put them on the piano. (Nobody plays here. The piano's function here, as it was in my mother's house, is to have pictures on it.) I've also been listening to Harry whenever I'm in the car, but I'm not taking any long trips these days, so it's slow going. But I've always enjoyed Jim Dale reading the books, so this is good, too.

And that's that.

WATCHING something :: ENTRY #1556

It's Later Now

and so, on to other things. I did a variety of things today, got a variety of things done. I still absolutely need to get into a good stretching and exercise routine, because I'm walking around like I'm 90.

One of my tasks today was to get a good pair of walking shoes. There's a New Balance store not far, so the Sibs and I went there. I looked at a few, and then the salesperson brought out these. They look kind of like Herman Munster shoes on my feet, but they're very stable, and I don't feel like I'm rolling from side to side when I walk in them.

Another task was the jeweler, finally. Is my grandmother's ring secure enough to wear every day? He says yes. Then I showed him the diamond circle on a chain that the Hubs gave me for our anniversary, and he said a) that the chain is perfect and very secure and I don't need a better one, and b) that the pendant is really nice and unusual and he hasn't seen one like it before. Wow. You should have seen the Hubs glow with pride when I told him. "So I done good?" he asked. Yes. It's good. To tell the truth, since he's never bought real jewelry before, I was a little afraid that he'd been taken, but it turns out not. So, good.

I FINALLY got some of the pictures from Wonderful Niece's wedding, which was only two years ago June. The only picture I had asked the photographer to take was one of my sister's three kids with my two, since we had taken so many different poses and pictures of the five of them over the years, and I finally have it. I felt a little bad about not asking Little K to be in the picture, too, since he's officially one of the cousins now, but I just wanted one final one of the group of five. I have, however, been asking my sister for a good picture of Little K to put on my piano with the zillions of other family pictures I have, since the last good shot I have of him was taken when he was 8, and there was one good one of him in the wedding shots, so I'll print that out tomorrow -- I need to buy ink cartridges -- and put it in a frame. Of course, he's 17 now, so a two-year old picture looks like someone else, but it'll have to do for now. I've asked her for one of his prom pictures and one of his senior pictures, but I don't think they have those yet, so I'll have to harass her some when they come in.

I have house things to do tomorrow and calls to make. I've set my alarm for 7.00 for three days since I only have a few weeks left before I have to wake up at *gasp* 5.30, and I'm working my way there gradually, but let me tell you, I am dragging through the days. I may let myself sleep a bit tomorrow; I know I won't go past 8.00, so I can afford a day off.

Off to read more Kavalier and Clay. Very well written.

WATCHING WILL & GRACE :: ENTRY #1555

Clarification

So I understand that my TMI was more like Not-Enough-I, because I guess I'm squeamish about all this. So here's what's going on and nothing else, and if you don't want to know, skip the entry.
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I didn't have hemorrhoids, other than the normal hemorrhoids that everyone who's over a certain age and/or ever had children have, but they're not a problem and don't require treatment. What I've got, probably as a result of the IBS attack I had for about four weeks, is anal fissures, which is cracks in the skin around the anus. For this I need to soak in warm water four or five times a day, and use medicated suppositories two or three times a day, all for two weeks, at which time it is either healed or I need surgery on what can only be described as MY ASSHOLE.

There ya go. WATCHING THE NANNY :: ENTRY #1554

Welcome to Tuesday

and welcome home cosmic and the empress! Now, can we make an official rule of some sort: nobody get sick! Okay, now that that's settled.

Okay, let's see now. I was out this morning -- I'll get back to that -- and when I got home there was a message from my vice-principal, which indicated that things were all f--d up, as usual. I called her back, the upshot of which was that I had to go into school this afternoon. I wasn't there long, but this v.p. is veeerrry strange, and I had to spend too much time in her company. (About ten minutes.) With any luck, I did straighten something out, something that was supposed to be taken care of in January, but never was, and about which I left strict instructions so that it could be done during the summer without me. Unfortunately, the buck got passed to the v.p. without any of the accompanying information, and so. I also got my "Welcome back to school!" letter over the weekend, which did not brighten my spirits, because they are all fucking crazy there. (I know, where is my consistency?)

Tomorrow I am hopefully going to the shoe outlet to get some new walking shoes as well as to my sister's jeweler, finally, to check the integrity of my grandmother's diamond ring (that yes, I will wear every day once I know the setting is secure) and to get a sturdier chain for the neat diamond circle thingy the Hubs gave me for our anniversary. So that's a day with the Sibs, which should be nice.

What's bumming me today is my visit to the doctor this morning, and if you're not up to TMI, this is the time to escape. I happen to like this doctor very much; he's the guy who took out my appendix last year. I went to him for ... removal of ... something embarrassing, which it turned out was not my problem. I have a different problem. He wants me to medicate this new problem for two weeks in a couple of ways and then go back to see him, and if my problem has not been solved, the answer is surgery. YUCK. It would be outpatient surgery and clearly not serious, but first, I do not want surgery on this particular part of my body for any number of valid reasons, and also I don't want to take time off from work right after the school year starts. I suppose I should have gone to see him two weeks ago, but how was I supposed to know that? So I am very bummed by that.

And there you go. Too much TMI? Sorry. I promise less tomorrow. Tomorrow I'll talk about jewelry and feet.

WATCHING LAW & ORDER :: ENTRY #1553

Progress

So they told me where to find it at the Apple Store and now I can type è and ç and ñ and all kinds of stuff. But thanks, Harriet V, for that webpage, because I was looking for that, too, and now I've bookmarked it and I have it. I only hope this looks normal once I post it!

So there's an article in today's Newsweek about the 25 hottest colleges and universities, and when I saw it on the cover, all I could think was "Don't let the college Little K wants to go to be there!" because once a school gets mentioned in an article like this, they get flooded with applications. Well, it wasn't, but surprisingly, the college R went to was. So that was unexpected, and cool.

I may have to write more later, because I know there was something I was going to write about and I had it in my head all damn day and know I have no idea. So, maybe later.

WATCHING LAW & ORDER :: ENTRY #1552

First Time for Everything

The MIL called a few minutes ago, and after talking about the weather for a few minutes, she asked how we were coping with the loss of the cat. You could have knocked me over with a feather. I believe that this is the first time in the 30+ years that I have known her that she has ever initiated a conversation about something sad. I was almost too surprised to answer, but I did, and we shared the experience of being catless for several minutes. (She lost her last one maybe five years ago, after a lifetime of always having a cat, and made what I think was a sound decision not to get another one. She's got a full-time job on her hands looking after her husband.)

Slight change of reading plans, not that anyone cares, but this is a diary, after all. I'm reading The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, by Michael Chabon, which apparently won a Pulitzer Prize -- it's got a gold medallion thingy on the cover that says "Winner of the Pulitzer Prize", so there you go -- and I really don't know how I missed this one until now. It's a novel, but it's essentially the story of two Jewish boys in the 1930s, one of them a refugee from Nazi Europe, who create a comic-book superhero. Hmmm, where have I heard that before? You know, I could make a list of the things that have obsessed me in my life, like Star Trek and Harry Potter and the Beatles, but Superman would have to be at the top of my list, either chronologically or in order of importance. Superman occupied my consciousness from the ages of 7 to 17, and I have long known the story of Joe Schuster and Jerry Siegel and their creation of the prototype of the superhero. Anyway, the book looks good so far; I'll let you know how it turns out.

I have my few errands set for tomorrow morning, and my list of questions for the genius at the Apple Store. One of the things I've never quite found on the Mac is the little application that was called Character Map in Windows. I read a tantalizing little article the other day that tells me where to find something comparable in Office and other programs, but that it doesn't exist as a standalone app. What I want to know is, how can I put an accented character here, in Blogger? That's just one question; another funny thing is that I was told when I bought the machine that I never need to defrag, that they'll take care of that at the yearly tune-up. Cute, but I don't want to leave the machine there for 24 hours for the yearly tune-up, so they need to show me how to do what maintenance I need to do. And a few more things here and there.

I've got me a bit of a headache now, so I'm going to take something and go read some.

WATCHING NEWS :: ENTRY #1551

Pretty Day

It was actually a beautiful day today, no humidity, lovely breezes, not terribly hot. K and I went for a walk in one of the county parks nearby. We didn't walk for very long, given my stamina limitations, but if I want to build myself up, I have to do it in increments. Anyway, I wanted to show her a particular part of the park that she's seen from the road but never close up, and it was closed for renovations anyway. So we'll catch it another time.

Other than that, we made some returns at the mall and stuff like that, but then we watched a movie that we rented last week but had forgotten to watch. Stranger Than Fiction. Anyone seen it? It was really a most unusual movie, and very much worth seeing. K said she thinks it's the best movie she's seen this year. I recommend it highly.

And in other news -- no other news. Before I start my next book, which is The Founding Brothers, I decided I needed a little background. Wait. This is what made me feel the need for a little background:

GOP Bigotry Rears Its Ugly Head

I was particularly irritated by Congressman Sali's statement that

[Those] ... changes ... are not what was envisioned by the Founding Fathers.

and that

Sali says America was built on Christian principles that were derived from scripture.

I do not believe this to be true, but I'm working my way through Common Sense by Thomas Paine and The Federalist Papers to see. The fact is that the guiding principal of our founding fathers was primarily capitalism. As for religious principles, Thomas Paine was the philosopher of the Revolution and Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, and neither of these men considered himself a Christian. They both declared themselves to be Deists, which means they acknowledged belief in God and went no further. I think this was not uncommon among the learned men of the time, which includes, of course, those known as our "founding fathers." Benjamin Franklin could not have been a Christian unless he was the greatest hypocrite in the world. The one I need to find out about is James Madison, since he was the primary author of the Constitution. (And of The Federalist Papers, which is why I'm starting there.)

Most of the early settlers of this country were adventurers or capitalists, pure and simple, and came here to make money. The Puritans who settled Massachusetts only wanted religious freedom for themselves, not for anyone else. However, religious tolerance was indeed a founding principle in the states of Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, and were always common in New York and New Jersey, although those states weren't particularly founded for that reason, although the Dutch who settled these areas were generally tolerant of all religions, even at home. They just discovered early that letting everyone take part meant good business.

History lesson over. I'm boring tonight, but that article got me very angry. There's a lot going on in our so-called government now that makes me angry, but I'm trying to keep it in check. I'll just sign off for tonight with this from School House Rock's "Fireworks":

Like Thomas Paine once wrote:
It's only common sense (only common sense)
That if a government won't give you your basic rights
You'd better get another government.

WATCHING A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN :: ENTRY #1550

And Then ...

One of my new favorite websites of late is the incredibly stupid cheezeburger cats. When I first saw them I would just roll my eyes in disgust, but you know ... sometimes, it just makes me laugh.

Strangely, I have not eaten dinner tonight, nor have I felt the need to. It's about a quarter to eight; maybe later. I'll throw something together, but I'm not that hungry. (Why am I thinking of the line in Friends, a flashback show to when Monica was fat and says that she's not hungry and her father says "She's finally full!") Mostly, I just nosh a lot, but I don't think I've had anything for the last few hours. Maybe I'm finally full.

So my strange splurge of the day, other than the facial which was totally wonderful and not a splurge but a necessity, was that I bought a Dyson hand-held vacuum. I could have gotten a full-size Dyson, but do you know what those things cost? FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS! For a vacuum cleaner! I have a perfectly good Kenmore canister vacuum, but it gets very heavy to lug around, and I had a good coupon, so I got one of these, you should pardon the expression, little suckers. I charged it for three hours, as per the directions, and it worked for three minutes. So now I'm charging it overnight and we'll see. The directions, by the way, are in pictographs, no words. It took me forever to figure out how to charge it and put it together. The precautions -- you know, don't let an animal operate the machine, don't use it in the bathtub -- are printed in eight languages, but in order to assemble it, you have to be fluent in hieroglyphics.

It rained all day today, but apparently much less than was anticipated, so New York City did not grind to a halt and take over the news. It was just rain.

I'm really glad that I'm reading a lot this summer. Next, I've got two histories here, both Revolutionary War era, one novel, and one sappy Mitch Albom. Not sure which way to go next. I'd also like to re-read the newest Harry before school starts, but I'm listening to it in the car, can't do both at once, that's very confusing.

Oh, I suppose I should eat something before it's time to go to sleep.

WATCHING something :: ENTRY #1549

More of the Same

Honestly, did I do anything today? I made a very brief trip to the ShopRite for one or two things, and I finished washing and putting away all the cat towels. And ... that's it.

Which is okay. I took a nap, and I picked up my next book, which is one I have read before but not for a long time; I saw the movie on TV when I was in junior high school and then I found the book in the school library there. Maybe it was my first year at the high school; anyway, I'm pretty sure we don't have the book in my library anymore. I got it from an Amazon seller. It's called Bridge to the Sun, by Gwen Terasaki. The movie, an unbelievable weeper, starred Carrol Baker, I think, and James Shigeta. It was based on the book, which is the true story of a woman from Tennessee who, in 1931, married a Japanese diplomat, and who thereafter lived through World War II as an American in Japan. A great love story in addition to the situation she was in, and a great movie -- melodrama, but enjoyable -- if you ever get the chance to see it.

They're predicting nasty weather for tonight and tomorrow again, and New York City is already on alert for the havoc they expect it to cause in their public transportation system. I just talked to R, who said she brought work home to do tomorrow, and that her boss has basically said to them that he knows that no one can make it in if it rains. This is crazy; I don't remember anything like this happening before. But it shut down the city subway system for hours yesterday because of flooding, and commuters from many of the outlying areas just found that their trains or buses weren't running. Very strange.

And that is it. It's finally turned into the quiet summer I'd anticipated, although I do have some plans to make, if I can. I'll let you know.
WATCHING MASH :: ENTRY #1548

Catching Up

In fact, I seem to be caught up. I still haven't tackled the BIG PROJECTS I had hoped to get to the summer (i.e., the basement), but otherwise, I have a blank to-do list. I'm having a facial on Friday, I have an appointment at the Apple Store Monday morning to take care of a few computer details (I STILL LOVE MY MAC), and I have an appointment for a ... *ahem* ... procedure on Tuesday.

In other news, the new living room curtains are up, I got new couch pillows, my living room looks as good as it's ever going to. I could actually invite a stranger -- or someone I know, more likely -- into my house and not die of mortal embarrassment. My kitchen is clean and neat. You know, I had said very early in the summer that I usually clean as soon as vacation starts but that I didn't do it this year, and I've also had issues with it not feeling like summer vacation. My house has now achieved my desire level of clean/neat. So that feels very good.

I went to the chiropractor again today, and I'm giving it the old college try, but so far I don't so much see the point. The only good thing is that if my back goes out, I can get an appointment with someone who knows me right away, more or less. Otherwise, it's just weird. But I'm going.

We had insane thunderstorms last night and this morning, which were cleared up by eight or nine, but which had done their damage by then. There was a tornado in Brooklyn, which is not so terribly far from here, maybe 25 miles, if that, and all the city commuters were totally screwed. R's train line was flooded, but fortunately for her, there was a power failure on her block, and by the time it came back and she was ready to leave for work at ten, the trains were running again.

Stopped for a bit just now to have a nice talk with the Sibs, who is away for a few days with her hubs and their youngest, Little K, to look at colleges. (He's starting his senior year next month.) Looks like they may have found a good one, just by dropping in to see the school his father went to, so that would be nice, if he liked it and they know he can get in. Interview tomorrow; he's a very personable kid with great grades and excellent activities. Fingers crossed for Little K.

And now it's late, so I'm posting and collapsing.

WATCHING LAW & ORDER :: ENTRY #1547

The Next Day

So it goes. Yesterday was, of course, very stressful. We had come to realize by mid-afternoon on Sunday that sweet Boo had entered a decline, and for us to make him continue to endure it would be cruel. He weighed just over 3 pounds, and had not eaten more than a teaspoon's worth of baby food in days. And so it was.

It is strange to live here without a cat, although I grew up without animals, and so I was used to it at one time, and for a long time. I almost hadn't realized how many adjustments we had made here to living with elderly, ill animals, but even yesterday afternoon, I took the towels off the furniture and began the rest of the cleaning that I would have to do. Today, I took down the living room curtains to wash them -- Boo would brush against the edge as he slipped past to take his place on the window-ledge -- but then I saw that they were dry-clean only, and since they were cheap to begin with, I went out and got replacements for probably less than the dry-cleaning would cost.

You know, my motivation to "de-cat" the house is a strange one, which I'm sure I've mentioned before. My sister's husband is intensely allergic to cats, which means that not only can he not enter my house, my sister won't, either. Well, she will now, I guess. She has said that if she comes into my house, she has to wash her hair when she gets home or her husband will react to the cats when he hugs her. Hmmm. I'm going to assume this is true; I certainly saw his intense reaction the one time he did come into my house and said, gasping and with red, swollen eyes after about two minutes "Do you have cats?" So I know his allergy is real, I just don't know how real it is second-hand. And of course, all their grown and out of the house children have cats, including the one who is the provider of the so-far only grandchild. Does he visit there? Of course he does. Does he react? Well, yes, I believe he does that, too, although they make some adjustments or other to help him out.

Anyway, I have vacuumed like mad, changed or cleaned the curtains and the slipcovers, washed the washable floors, thrown out two pillows on the couch that I could not remove the cat-hair from, and ... what else? I don't know. My house looks very clean, as long as you don't examine the tiles in the bathroom too closely, but that's not cat related.

My bedroom door is standing open now, as is the door at the base of the steps up to K's room. They were both closed before to limit the areas Boo would randomly poop in. We noticed last night while we were eating dinner that we could step away from the table for a moment without moving our food to some protected place that he wouldn't jump to. (The stove is the only place he never jumped to.) And so forth. Our lives are easier, but out hearts are heavier. It will take some time.

Those little beasts just get right under your skin. This is the only post I'm going to write about losing him and making those adjustments, so I'll go on for a tiny bit more. But no more after today.

It is their strength and their weakness, you know, that they get under your skin. It's their weakness because, under normal life conditions, they cannot outlive us, and this will break our hearts. It is their strength that we can come to love an animal so, almost as if they are people.

BooBoo was the cat that listened to my daughters' teenage angst, and the cat that curled up at my knees when I came home from the hospital after my brain surgery and I was too weak to walk around, so he stayed where I was. He was not generally a cat who curled up next to you, although he always curled up to R. She was 10 when he was born, one week after her 10th birthday, in fact.

Okay, I'm rambling, and I want to be done now. I live in a cat-free house, and it is very strange. As much as I hoped that some day I would no longer be a slave to elderly, ill animals, I knew that I would be devastated when the time came to make that transition, and of course, I am. I didn't realize how much of the house was centered around them, and of me. My stomach is at peace today for the first time in a long time. Of course, there's nothing left after yesterday, but whatever.

Moving on. So it goes. Thank you all for your kind words.

WATCHING ELLEN :: ENTRY #1546

Sad Day Today

Goodbye, my little man.



See you on the other side.


WATCHING --- :: ENTRY #1545

Out of the Storm

The annoyance of the day is that last night a bolt of lightning hit a generator at the county's main water treatment facility and so we are supposed to boil our water today. Actually, that's not the big annoyance, that honor goes to Bizzaro Town and its reaction to this minor crisis.

I woke up this morning, brushed my teeth and washed my face, and then came into the family room and turned on the TV news. After a moment, I heard about the lightning and the water treatment plant, and the announcement was made that all "United Water" customers -- I don't know if that's the right name -- needed to boil their water before drinking. Well, we use bottled water for drinking anyway, but the thing is, we get our water from B.T. At least we get our water bills from the town, and I've never seen anything to indicate that the water comes from anyplace else. We've got towers and tanks and a treatment facility here in town, and so ... Anyway, after a half hour or so, I called the police department and said "Should we be boiling our water?" and the answer was "Oh, yeah!" Uh, swell. Then I looked at the public access TV channel and it says not to use tap water for a few things, including, of course, brushing your teeth. Swell. Anyway, I figure I was still getting water that sat in our own pipes overnight, so death is not imminent, but hey: isn't your town supposed to tell you stuff like that? Don't we have some kind of fancy phone system for this very purpose?

Turns out we do. The call came around 3.30pm. Boil your water, yada yada yada. Gee ... cough cough choke ... thanks.

So anyway, last night K went into the city to meet R because they were going to a movie that's only playing there. She drove her car to R's apartment and took the train from there so they could come back on the train together. I was being cool mom last night, and never asked what time the show was, or any other details. I was proud of me. No need to ask grown children for every little detail just because one of them lives at home. Cool, cool, very cool.

Until the storm started. Oy vey, there was house-shaking thunder for two freaking hours. Sometimes no rain, sometimes monsoon rain. And I'm thinking, they're out in it and K is going to drive home in it. And according to the radar on the weather sites, it isn't even drizzling in the city, so they don't even know about it.

I did not truly panic, but I did call them around 10.30 -- they were on the train on their way home -- just to tell them what was going on. All was fine, K got home fine, no problem. And as the Hubs pointed out, although R would persevere through anything, K would not do anything she didn't want to do. If the storm was bad, she would spend the night at R's. Very true.

So here's the story that's been in my head since then, probably too long, but a good one. At one point, I was the leader of both their Girl Scout troops, and the council that oversees our area was offering a "survival" weekend at its camping site. There would be some badge involved. R was in 9th grade, I believe, so K was in 6th. The only other girls who wanted to go, as it happens, were R's best friend Lauren and K's best friend Chrissie. R and Lauren had already begun extensive camping training via Lauren's father's Explorer post, which is a co-ed branch of the Boy Scouts. Okay, so we get to the camp and there are maybe 30 - 40 girls involved all together. They are taught various skills throughout the day, including building a temporary shelter. As dinnertime approaches, we -- all the girls and the various assembled leaders -- get the scenario from those in charge:

These girls are traveling on a plane, which crashes. No one is injured. They will have to fend for themselves overnight with the materials they have with them. Fortunately, the first thing they will find once they're on their own is a cabin with a variety of food in it.

R and Lauren can barely contain themselves. If they are Scouts and they are traveling with tarps and rope (which we were told to bring), wouldn't they have tents, too? This is too logical for the Girl Scouts in charge, who dismiss this comment. Not to mention the lunacy of your plane crashing as part of the Hansel and Gretel fairy tale, a house conveniently full of food nearby, abandoned. At six, all the girls troop off into the nearby woods. At 6.30, the heavens open up with monstrous rain and thunder of earth-shaking proportions. At 6.45, a very small party of girls shows up in the mess hall where the mommies have been hanging out and doing crafts. The party includes:

one of the "senior" scouts who is in charge out there, who is not older than R and Lauren
R and Lauren
K and Chrissie

and K says "I'm not doing that. I'm not building a tent out of a tarp and sleeping under a tree in a storm. I'm just not doing it."

The head leader says, threateningly, "You won't get your badge!" and she says "I don't care." I ask Chrissie how she feels and she says it doesn't matter to her one way or another, she'll do whatever K does. R and Lauren, satisfied that the two younger ones are taken care of, go back out and pitch their "tent" and sleep in the rain all night. (They had already done their best to grab food for the younger ones, too, in that cabin which turned out to contain mostly candy and other non-nutritious stuff, but they had nabbed a giant sausage or something to share.) K, Chrissie and I head back to our designated platform tent, which is nice and dry. I call Chrissie's mother on what had to be my first cell phone to tell her that her kid is okay. We three have a lovely evening together.

The next morning, we find out that by about 8.00 that night, the senior scouts out there had chickened out, and had gone through the woods gathering all the girls up and bringing them to sleep in the nice dry cabin. They only missed two out there. Guess who? That would be the two intrepid campers who both came down with mono within the next month or two. Yeah.

So when I remembered that, I thought you know, if the weather's bad, R would push on through, but K? She'd say in a red hot minute "I'm not doing that." She knows what's what. That night at the camp, I was equally proud of both of my girls, one for standing her ground and the other for being a tough cookie. I was basically shunned by the other leaders for the rest of the weekend, but you know, one of the things we want for our girls is to not take crap from anyone and be pushed around when they know better. There oughta be a badge for that too, no?

WATCHING some science show :: ENTRY #1544