We went to the Boo Belly Bash at the Old World Center and saw a number of very accomplished dancers in inventive, eccentric outfits.
I especially liked the idea behind Tibella's mad scientist outfit (complete with lab coat and chemist's goggles), but have some advice for her, should she want to wear it again in future:
* A rubber apron to take off and toss to the audience
* Thick black rubber gloves (also to toss). The apron and the gloves really go with the goggles.
* Some sciencey devices to dangle from the jangling dancer's belt: a micrometer, a glass and steel syringe, a light meter, an Erlenmeyer flask, things like that.
* Maybe something smokey inside the coat, or in a pocket...?
We only got one group of three (adult) trick or treaters tonight, which was disappointing. But they went away with butterscotch candies and copies of Mad magazine, so I trust the spirits of the ancestors were satisfied.
We had a really nifty jack o'lantern designed by a friend (we'll post a picture when we get it uploaded). Pity he couldn't come by tonight, but that's life.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Remember the dead."\\
Monday, November 01, 2010
Monday, October 25, 2010
Did I Mention I Was In "The Boy Friend" In High School?
Probably not. Geez, I hope not -- I have never thought of myself as the kind of person who refers very often to my high school years. Bad enough how often I start a comment with, "When I was in the Navy".
But the other day, Debbie Ellingsworth posted a photo from The Boy Friend on her Facebook page, and tagged it as having me in it (playing Lord Brockhurst, the dirty old man). So, I thought I'd mention it.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "At least you outgrew being a dirty old man before you became one."\\
Thursday, September 30, 2010
The Overton Wall
There's been a lot of talk lately about the Overton Window, the range of generally acceptable opinions and positions, the positions which will allow people, even if they disagree with your position, to at least take you seriously.
To say, "Welfare eligibility should be further restricted" is within the Overton Window. To say, "Welfare recipients should be given six months to find jobs or go to concentration camps" is outside it.
One of the great concerns people have is that the Overton Window keeps moving, and it moves according to the statements and actions of a relatively small number of people. When President Richard nixon announced that he would go to China to meet with Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, the Window moved to meet him. When it was revealed that Justice department lawyer John Yoo had written a secret memo providing a rationale for torture, the window moved.
But what happens to a pundit, candidate, blogger or water-cooler sachem, who misses the Overton Window?
Obviously, s/he hits the Overton Wall [my own coinage -- I Googled to make sure].
I hereby predict that Sharron Angle, Christine O'Donnell and most of their TEA Party classmates in the 2010 election are aimed squarely to the right of the Overton Window, some of them by as much as 45 degrees, and they are going to hit the Overton Wall good and hard.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Normally, I'd wanr you against making bold predictions, but in this case, I'll just suggest that a wise man would make some popcorn."\\
To say, "Welfare eligibility should be further restricted" is within the Overton Window. To say, "Welfare recipients should be given six months to find jobs or go to concentration camps" is outside it.
One of the great concerns people have is that the Overton Window keeps moving, and it moves according to the statements and actions of a relatively small number of people. When President Richard nixon announced that he would go to China to meet with Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, the Window moved to meet him. When it was revealed that Justice department lawyer John Yoo had written a secret memo providing a rationale for torture, the window moved.
But what happens to a pundit, candidate, blogger or water-cooler sachem, who misses the Overton Window?
Obviously, s/he hits the Overton Wall [my own coinage -- I Googled to make sure].
I hereby predict that Sharron Angle, Christine O'Donnell and most of their TEA Party classmates in the 2010 election are aimed squarely to the right of the Overton Window, some of them by as much as 45 degrees, and they are going to hit the Overton Wall good and hard.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Normally, I'd wanr you against making bold predictions, but in this case, I'll just suggest that a wise man would make some popcorn."\\
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Changing Habits
I have problems concerning material possessions. These manifest in various ways.
Over decades, I accumulated a large quantity of comic books. I always insisted that I was a reader, not a "collector", and that I kept the comics only so that I could read them again later.
And I did, sometimes in immense quantities. I still have fond memories of the months it took me to run through a complete (including reprints) set of the Legion of Super-Heroes.
But I kept the collection together for many years in a way that made it clear that I felt as though giving up any part of it would diminish me.
Then one day I realized that I simply didn't feel that way anymore. In fact, the existence of comics shops made me feel more comfortable about passing comics along to others who would appreciate them. It felt less like giving up a part of myself and more like releasing something back into the wild.
For years I carried money, checkbook, checks to be deposited and bills to be paid in a nice big zippered bank bag. I carried it around in my backpack for quite a long time, long enough that the bank that issued it no longer exists. Now, it's wearing out, and I need to replace it with...something.
Meanwhile, my back has been aging along with the rest of me, and I am being dragged toward carrying my stuff through other means than one big bag that I carry everywhere. So rather than look for another bank bag, I was shopping for a fanny pack like unto Kathe's, a good solid one that won't wear out in a single season.
As it happens, my mother had one she didn't use anymore, one she bought in Tunisia, made of leather. Couldn't ask for better, and I like the label [orange on black, with a little propellor plane and the brand name "XY", so I guess it's made for boys :{) ].
I still feel kind of bad about getting rid of the worn-out bag, though, but I discovered that I would feel better about it if I could keep a picture of it. Weird, I know, but I'm not too proud to use a crutch when I need one.
I couldn't find a picture of a purple bank bag online, though, nor of the Oregon State Bank logo. So I recolored a blue bag and recreated the logo from a sort-of-similar font by tweaking the letters, and here it is.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Use what works for you."\\
[I will add the photo of the bank bag as soon as Blogger gets over its spell of not having an "insert picture" button.]
Friday, September 10, 2010
Pastor Jones
Text of a message Kathe and I sent out this morning:
Pastor Jones is back in the news today (first he says he will, and then he won't), and we have decided to donate $20 to the local mosque for the express purpose of providing a copy of the Quran to someone who wants or needs it. We'll inform our local newspapers, also, in the hope that other non-Muslims will follow our example. Maybe we can out-weigh the "pastor's" destruction, for a net increase in the number of Qurans.
We are pretty damned short of money, but we will find $20 in our budget for this purpose, and we hope to persuade some of our friends to do the same.
Considering that "Pastor" Jones' church-and-used-furniture business only has about fifty members, our "action" may be bigger than his.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Comparisons are odious."\\
Pastor Jones is back in the news today (first he says he will, and then he won't), and we have decided to donate $20 to the local mosque for the express purpose of providing a copy of the Quran to someone who wants or needs it. We'll inform our local newspapers, also, in the hope that other non-Muslims will follow our example. Maybe we can out-weigh the "pastor's" destruction, for a net increase in the number of Qurans.
We are pretty damned short of money, but we will find $20 in our budget for this purpose, and we hope to persuade some of our friends to do the same.
Considering that "Pastor" Jones' church-and-used-furniture business only has about fifty members, our "action" may be bigger than his.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Comparisons are odious."\\
Saturday, September 04, 2010
Things I saw This Morning
While on my way over to look after Uncle Wesley this morning, I saw a couple of things that made me smile.
One was a woman picking up plums from the northernmost tree, the one with the especially juicy plums. I invited her to use the plum picker standing on our porch.
As I do invite everyone to do -- we don't have the energy to use our plums for anything this year, so please do come get them. Likewise the apples, and the filberts if the squirrels had left any.
The other was a group of...was it cats? No, as I got closer I saw it was five half-grown raccoons, crossing Monroe near 14th, and scurrying under the porch of a frat house.
How nice to see thriving urban wildlife -- and how nice that they aren't thriving under our porch.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Never pass up an opportunity to smile."\\
One was a woman picking up plums from the northernmost tree, the one with the especially juicy plums. I invited her to use the plum picker standing on our porch.
As I do invite everyone to do -- we don't have the energy to use our plums for anything this year, so please do come get them. Likewise the apples, and the filberts if the squirrels had left any.
The other was a group of...was it cats? No, as I got closer I saw it was five half-grown raccoons, crossing Monroe near 14th, and scurrying under the porch of a frat house.
How nice to see thriving urban wildlife -- and how nice that they aren't thriving under our porch.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Never pass up an opportunity to smile."\\
Friday, September 03, 2010
A Core Sampling
Samaritan Health Services (or as we like to call it, The Very Big Medical Corporation of the Mid-Willamette Valley) is building a new physical therapy facility just north of the intersection of Kings Boulevard and Walnut Boulevard. They graded the soil, poured concrete for the walkways, and drilled holes in said concrete for the planting of handrail support posts, and that's where Kathe and I come in.
The drilling resulted in many small cylinders of concrete being drilled out and tossed aside, and the other day we stopped by and collected a couple of dozen of them.
We're not sure what we are going to do with them: Lay them down corduroy fashion in a walkway? Set them upright like teensy pillars? Bury them until only their circular tops show, and use them as pleasingly symmetrical accents to the irregular slabs we lay down on our walkways?
But we'll think of something, as Arthur C. Clarke said of David Bowman.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "To think is not enough -- one must act."\\
The drilling resulted in many small cylinders of concrete being drilled out and tossed aside, and the other day we stopped by and collected a couple of dozen of them.
We're not sure what we are going to do with them: Lay them down corduroy fashion in a walkway? Set them upright like teensy pillars? Bury them until only their circular tops show, and use them as pleasingly symmetrical accents to the irregular slabs we lay down on our walkways?
But we'll think of something, as Arthur C. Clarke said of David Bowman.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "To think is not enough -- one must act."\\
Sunday, August 22, 2010
The Fien Experiment
I had this idea yesterday afternoon, just about the time Anne and Wes would have been having their automobile accident, I guess. I do hope that Anne will be in a position to take part.
I am going to try to recount off the top of my head what I know about my paternal grandfather, also named John Merritt Burt, and ask people who knew him (or who heard stories about him as they grew up) to expand and correct my recollections. I will also later on check available records, but as i said, part of this exercise is to see what I can come up with out of my own unassisted memory.
Have you ever tired to draw a map from memory? That is the sort of experiment I am trying here.
Merritt Burt and his brother Walden Burt were born in the 1880s, named after the two Methodist bishops in their parents' diocese. As a young man, Merritt decided he didn't like having a last name for a first name, and took to calling himself John Merritt Burt.
He joined the Navy in 1906 and left in 1912 with the rank of Boatswain's Mate 3rd Class. While in the Navy he learned to tie knots very well, and in later years was known to show off by tying knots with his toes. He also learned how to whistle the national anthems of all the world's naval powers, since when his ship was in port in Hong Kong he had to stand on deck at dusk while every ship in port lowered its flag in turn, its band playing, a process which could take as long as two hours depending on how many ships were in port.
He acquired a collection of handsome old-fashioned sailor's tattoos, of which there is alas no photographic record.
He was once put on bread and water for two days as punishment for punching out his immediate superior.
In 1917, he joined the Army and went to France as an infantry Lieutenant. He came back with various souvenirs, including his issued Enfield rifle and a plundered German Mauser rifle which remained in the family until they were stolen by a burglar in the 1970s.
After the war, he became a Treasury agent, and was kept busy during Prohibition busting up stills in the legendary fashion. He took a significant amount of copper home with him, and made it into various useful household objects such as the decorative work on a set of fireplace bellows which my parents used for many years. He never did make anything of the long-nosed copper alembic which became a favorite toy of my childhood. He also acquired, possibly also confiscated from a criminal, a long blackjack which he kept aeound the house, though the only use I know he ever made of it was in using its handle to give especially severe spankings .
Other highlights of his career as a "revenoor" included standing guard over the Golden Gate Bridge just after Pearl Harbor and finding a human brain washed up on a San Francisco beach (it proved to have been carelessly discarded after the shipboard autopsy of a sailor who had died of meningitis). He might have lost his job on account of a prank he and three male friends played, driving slowly around the San Francisco Mint as though casing the joint. They circled the building three times before a police car pulled them over and they were told to knock it off.
He worked in copper and in iron, and in wood. Once, while cutting a piece of wood with a table saw, he cut off half of his index finger. The stump of that finger was a memorable feature of his appearance when I was a small child, as was his clouded eye and his emphysemic wheeze.
He smoked for many years, rolling his own cigarettes with tobacco from a small cloth bag. He suffered from emphysema for some years, but it was lung cancer, presumably also from smoking, which finally killed him.
He married relatively late in life, and often regretted not being younger and more vigorous while his children were growing up. He fathered four children, two girls and two boys, one of whom was my father, George S. Burt. He often had a bad temper with his children, and frightened them with harsh criticism and physical punishments such as making them run home within the beams of his car headlights when they stayed out after dark. His favorite pejorative for his son George was "impertinent whelp", but you knew you were really in for it if he said, "I hope you're proud of yourself". His habit of flying into a towering rage with his children was, alas, passed on to his son and to his grandson -- I had to work very hard at unlearning it.
The children had a lively family culture, which manifested itself in various ways, including the invention of an imaginary language and culture. The kids gave themselves "Grorian" names, and may have given them to their parents also, but I do not know John Burt's Grorian name, if he had one. They also at some point gave themselves (or one another) "monster" names like "Thing" and "Creature". They named their father "Fiend With a Fearsome Face", usually shortened to "Fien", and they were still calling him that well after they were grown, and even after he had died.
Towards the end of a long day, he was fond of imitating a favorite expression of a neighbor, "Ahm tarred. Ahm tarred and ahm hongrey." His son did the same, and I have been known to say it myself. I have often wondered what other figures of speech and other habits I have acquired from him without knowing it.
He worked for the Treasury Department until he had accumulated just enough seniority, between his Treasury job and his military service, to qualify for a pension, and then retired. His wife was younger than himself, but she died of cancer more than a decade before he did.
After leaving San Francisco, he moved to rural Watsonville, and that is where he lived when I knew him, on a small acreage near what was proclaimed on its side to be "the world's biggest haybarn". I don't know if the land was an actual working farm, although that is how I thought of it as a child. The only thing I know for certain that he raised was bees.
He was a frail old man with a breathless laugh that was both comical and frightening to me as a child. I associated him with Boris Karloff, I think mainly on account of his squarish face, and perhaps also an air of mingled kindliness and menace.
He died when I was nine years old, but I hadn't seen him for some time by then. He was very sick, and I think my parents didn't want to expose me to his frailty, or perhaps to strain his health with my obstreperousness.
His last words were in response to a ringing telephone: "Uh-oh, that's Waldy." he was right: it was a call to let him know his brother had died.
Okay, that is as much as I can come up with right now. I will try to write more later, and I would appreciate any additions and corrections you folks might provide.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Don't delay."\\
I am going to try to recount off the top of my head what I know about my paternal grandfather, also named John Merritt Burt, and ask people who knew him (or who heard stories about him as they grew up) to expand and correct my recollections. I will also later on check available records, but as i said, part of this exercise is to see what I can come up with out of my own unassisted memory.
Have you ever tired to draw a map from memory? That is the sort of experiment I am trying here.
Merritt Burt and his brother Walden Burt were born in the 1880s, named after the two Methodist bishops in their parents' diocese. As a young man, Merritt decided he didn't like having a last name for a first name, and took to calling himself John Merritt Burt.
He joined the Navy in 1906 and left in 1912 with the rank of Boatswain's Mate 3rd Class. While in the Navy he learned to tie knots very well, and in later years was known to show off by tying knots with his toes. He also learned how to whistle the national anthems of all the world's naval powers, since when his ship was in port in Hong Kong he had to stand on deck at dusk while every ship in port lowered its flag in turn, its band playing, a process which could take as long as two hours depending on how many ships were in port.
He acquired a collection of handsome old-fashioned sailor's tattoos, of which there is alas no photographic record.
He was once put on bread and water for two days as punishment for punching out his immediate superior.
In 1917, he joined the Army and went to France as an infantry Lieutenant. He came back with various souvenirs, including his issued Enfield rifle and a plundered German Mauser rifle which remained in the family until they were stolen by a burglar in the 1970s.
After the war, he became a Treasury agent, and was kept busy during Prohibition busting up stills in the legendary fashion. He took a significant amount of copper home with him, and made it into various useful household objects such as the decorative work on a set of fireplace bellows which my parents used for many years. He never did make anything of the long-nosed copper alembic which became a favorite toy of my childhood. He also acquired, possibly also confiscated from a criminal, a long blackjack which he kept aeound the house, though the only use I know he ever made of it was in using its handle to give especially severe spankings .
Other highlights of his career as a "revenoor" included standing guard over the Golden Gate Bridge just after Pearl Harbor and finding a human brain washed up on a San Francisco beach (it proved to have been carelessly discarded after the shipboard autopsy of a sailor who had died of meningitis). He might have lost his job on account of a prank he and three male friends played, driving slowly around the San Francisco Mint as though casing the joint. They circled the building three times before a police car pulled them over and they were told to knock it off.
He worked in copper and in iron, and in wood. Once, while cutting a piece of wood with a table saw, he cut off half of his index finger. The stump of that finger was a memorable feature of his appearance when I was a small child, as was his clouded eye and his emphysemic wheeze.
He smoked for many years, rolling his own cigarettes with tobacco from a small cloth bag. He suffered from emphysema for some years, but it was lung cancer, presumably also from smoking, which finally killed him.
He married relatively late in life, and often regretted not being younger and more vigorous while his children were growing up. He fathered four children, two girls and two boys, one of whom was my father, George S. Burt. He often had a bad temper with his children, and frightened them with harsh criticism and physical punishments such as making them run home within the beams of his car headlights when they stayed out after dark. His favorite pejorative for his son George was "impertinent whelp", but you knew you were really in for it if he said, "I hope you're proud of yourself". His habit of flying into a towering rage with his children was, alas, passed on to his son and to his grandson -- I had to work very hard at unlearning it.
The children had a lively family culture, which manifested itself in various ways, including the invention of an imaginary language and culture. The kids gave themselves "Grorian" names, and may have given them to their parents also, but I do not know John Burt's Grorian name, if he had one. They also at some point gave themselves (or one another) "monster" names like "Thing" and "Creature". They named their father "Fiend With a Fearsome Face", usually shortened to "Fien", and they were still calling him that well after they were grown, and even after he had died.
Towards the end of a long day, he was fond of imitating a favorite expression of a neighbor, "Ahm tarred. Ahm tarred and ahm hongrey." His son did the same, and I have been known to say it myself. I have often wondered what other figures of speech and other habits I have acquired from him without knowing it.
He worked for the Treasury Department until he had accumulated just enough seniority, between his Treasury job and his military service, to qualify for a pension, and then retired. His wife was younger than himself, but she died of cancer more than a decade before he did.
After leaving San Francisco, he moved to rural Watsonville, and that is where he lived when I knew him, on a small acreage near what was proclaimed on its side to be "the world's biggest haybarn". I don't know if the land was an actual working farm, although that is how I thought of it as a child. The only thing I know for certain that he raised was bees.
He was a frail old man with a breathless laugh that was both comical and frightening to me as a child. I associated him with Boris Karloff, I think mainly on account of his squarish face, and perhaps also an air of mingled kindliness and menace.
He died when I was nine years old, but I hadn't seen him for some time by then. He was very sick, and I think my parents didn't want to expose me to his frailty, or perhaps to strain his health with my obstreperousness.
His last words were in response to a ringing telephone: "Uh-oh, that's Waldy." he was right: it was a call to let him know his brother had died.
Okay, that is as much as I can come up with right now. I will try to write more later, and I would appreciate any additions and corrections you folks might provide.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Don't delay."\\
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Dolls on the Walls
Someone I know on Facebook posted a photo of assembled figures from her desk, including a Japanese figure called "Unicorn Girl", with an odd dark-blue thing on her forehead that looked more like a pin stuck there.
This inspired me to make this comment:
On our bedroom wall, we have Rosie the Riveter, Sigmund Freud, Harry Mudd (the lovable crook from OS Star Trek), J. Jonah Jameson (with desk-pounding action!), some guy called Fuzz, a knockoff of Batman called Battle Man, Halloween Witch Barbie, a Sailor Moon knockoff called Meteor Girl, a Barbie knockoff in overalls that we pretend is another Rosie, Tarzan, a Martian Plant Man, a Basilisk, Sally (from The Nightmare before Christmas) and Mandarin Medieval Spawn (which we bought because of its incredibly elaborate costume).
We also have a tiny Superman; even tinier figures of Isis, Thoth, Anubis, Bastet and some royal sarcophaguses (in an "Egypt Toob" from Safari Ltd.), still tinier figures of three Apollo astronauts (and possibly some figures so tiny they escape the naked eye, but those are probably just dust).
We'd love to have a Princess Unicorn, because of a very tasteless inside joke that I won't mention here, except to say that it involves a comedian's misunderstanding of the name UNICEF....
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Since you couldn't play billiards with me, I suppose I am a sort of action figure myself."\\
This inspired me to make this comment:
On our bedroom wall, we have Rosie the Riveter, Sigmund Freud, Harry Mudd (the lovable crook from OS Star Trek), J. Jonah Jameson (with desk-pounding action!), some guy called Fuzz, a knockoff of Batman called Battle Man, Halloween Witch Barbie, a Sailor Moon knockoff called Meteor Girl, a Barbie knockoff in overalls that we pretend is another Rosie, Tarzan, a Martian Plant Man, a Basilisk, Sally (from The Nightmare before Christmas) and Mandarin Medieval Spawn (which we bought because of its incredibly elaborate costume).
We also have a tiny Superman; even tinier figures of Isis, Thoth, Anubis, Bastet and some royal sarcophaguses (in an "Egypt Toob" from Safari Ltd.), still tinier figures of three Apollo astronauts (and possibly some figures so tiny they escape the naked eye, but those are probably just dust).
We'd love to have a Princess Unicorn, because of a very tasteless inside joke that I won't mention here, except to say that it involves a comedian's misunderstanding of the name UNICEF....
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Since you couldn't play billiards with me, I suppose I am a sort of action figure myself."\\
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Going Back To School
I have been trying, in one way or another, most of my adult life to do this job, failing at this job, or recovering from failed attempts to do this job.
The reasons to stop trying to do this are obvious. But I continue to think that this is where I belong, so I won't quit.
And I am not the 21-year-old who couldn't be a Hospital Corpsman, or the 36-year-old who couldn't look after the residents of an assisted-living facility. Or the 45-year-old who couldn't get through nursing school. I am 49, not quite 50, and I am just going to find out whether I can be an acute-care CNA at Good Samaritan.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Be here now."\\
The reasons to stop trying to do this are obvious. But I continue to think that this is where I belong, so I won't quit.
And I am not the 21-year-old who couldn't be a Hospital Corpsman, or the 36-year-old who couldn't look after the residents of an assisted-living facility. Or the 45-year-old who couldn't get through nursing school. I am 49, not quite 50, and I am just going to find out whether I can be an acute-care CNA at Good Samaritan.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Be here now."\\
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Wish Me Luck, Wish Me Well
Starting my progress toward becoming a CNA2, aka Acute Care Aide, making an early-morning commute to Lebanon and a late-afternoon return to Corvallis.
Persons not resident in the Valley, please note that this means I'm driving into the Sun both ways. "And uphill all the way...."
This morning, I stopped at the light going over the freeway overpass and looked over at another driver, and suddenly wondered what I looked like, hunched over and squinting in my dark glasses, with my moustache waxed. Rather dramatic and/or comical, I should think.
//The Magic Eight Ball says, "Here's the World War One flying ace on dawn patrol...."\\
Persons not resident in the Valley, please note that this means I'm driving into the Sun both ways. "And uphill all the way...."
This morning, I stopped at the light going over the freeway overpass and looked over at another driver, and suddenly wondered what I looked like, hunched over and squinting in my dark glasses, with my moustache waxed. Rather dramatic and/or comical, I should think.
//The Magic Eight Ball says, "Here's the World War One flying ace on dawn patrol...."\\
Monday, July 19, 2010
A Small Rescue
Today I went to my parents' place, where I never know what I am going to do. Whatever they need, basically.
Today that included helping my father take a shower and get dressed, wash out his bladder through his suprapubic catheter, make him his breakfast and give him his pills.
It also included helping my mother put up plastic reflecting film on the east-facing windows to see whether it would keep the heat out while still allowing Dad to survey his domain (and the clouds above it).
And going south toward Eugene but stopping just short of actually entering the city (which sure did feel funny), to make a pickup at Jerry's. Next time, we'll be putting up handrails to make it easier for Dad to practice walking without his walker.
Last of all, I gave direction (not very well, I think) to a dump truck driver as he delivered a load of gravel to replace what washed away in last winter's flooding. Going ahead of the truck as it backed down the hill, I saw a patch of daisies right in the middle of the bridge.
I'd been looking at wildflowers by the roadside all morning, thinking about picking a few to put on the Sputnik's dashboard, and here were flowers which in moments would be buried under a load of gravel. I picked three and tucked them into my hat, and laid them on the dashboard later.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "A rescue is a rescue."\\
Today that included helping my father take a shower and get dressed, wash out his bladder through his suprapubic catheter, make him his breakfast and give him his pills.
It also included helping my mother put up plastic reflecting film on the east-facing windows to see whether it would keep the heat out while still allowing Dad to survey his domain (and the clouds above it).
And going south toward Eugene but stopping just short of actually entering the city (which sure did feel funny), to make a pickup at Jerry's. Next time, we'll be putting up handrails to make it easier for Dad to practice walking without his walker.
Last of all, I gave direction (not very well, I think) to a dump truck driver as he delivered a load of gravel to replace what washed away in last winter's flooding. Going ahead of the truck as it backed down the hill, I saw a patch of daisies right in the middle of the bridge.
I'd been looking at wildflowers by the roadside all morning, thinking about picking a few to put on the Sputnik's dashboard, and here were flowers which in moments would be buried under a load of gravel. I picked three and tucked them into my hat, and laid them on the dashboard later.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "A rescue is a rescue."\\
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Flowers in the Car
Some chapter in some Kurt Vonnegut novel is titled something like "When Cars Had Cut Glass Flower Vases".
When the so-called New Beetle (which like all true Bug lovers I despise almost as much as I do the post-1967 Super Beetle) came out, one of the few things I liked about it was that it had a bud vase.
The other day, Kathe spotted some interesting flowers growing by the roadside and wanted to take it home to show to me. She picked a sprig and laid it on the dashboard. She did show it to me, and the flowers sat on the dashboard for several days more, gradually drying out into a rather pretty image. The car smelled nicer, too.
Does anybody else do this? Or are we just being weird again?
//The Magic Eight-ball says, "Don't worry so much about what other people do."\\
When the so-called New Beetle (which like all true Bug lovers I despise almost as much as I do the post-1967 Super Beetle) came out, one of the few things I liked about it was that it had a bud vase.
The other day, Kathe spotted some interesting flowers growing by the roadside and wanted to take it home to show to me. She picked a sprig and laid it on the dashboard. She did show it to me, and the flowers sat on the dashboard for several days more, gradually drying out into a rather pretty image. The car smelled nicer, too.
Does anybody else do this? Or are we just being weird again?
//The Magic Eight-ball says, "Don't worry so much about what other people do."\\
Thursday, July 15, 2010
The Salmon Cage
My latest story, The Salmon Cage, has now been printed and mailed.
I hope my stomach will forgive me for doing this soon.
Hold me in the Light, folks.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Ars gratia artis."\\
I hope my stomach will forgive me for doing this soon.
Hold me in the Light, folks.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Ars gratia artis."\\
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Walking Around With Jim
Two years ago Jim, Kathe's ex, moved to Corvallis. I've been making friends with him lately: playing Xiangqi, studying Mars and taking an interest in other interests of his.
The other day, I absentmindedly drove over to visit Jim (although my habit has been to bike over), and Jim suggested that we drive to a park that was further than the ones within walking distance of his home, and walk around there.
Just before we were to leave, I finally remembered to check the oil in the car when the engine was cool. I found to my alarm that there was no oil appearing on the dipstick at all.
Now, I don't know a lot about cars, but I know enough to be aware that no oil on the dipstick didn't mean there was no oil in the crankcase at all, so I wasn't too alarmed, but I did know that I needed to get the oil restored right away. So Jim and I wound up driving to the Jiffy Lube at Ninth and Circle for our outing.
It turned out quite well, actually. Jim and I walked over to the far side of Highway 99W, to where it ran parallel with a bike path and with railroad tracks, and where a narrow strip of trees and grass bounded the western edge of the KMart's parking lot.
we walked along that strip of greenery, noting how effective it actually was at shielding the parking lot from the noise of the highway. We went along that strip, noticing things like store furnishings stowed in remote parking spaces, and a beaten path which had been "paved" with planks and sheets of plywood (and even a tabletop) which ran from the back corner of the parking lot to the railroad tracks and across to the highway. Jim and I were wondering who had created it and for what sort of traffic, and then two bicyclists politely called out and passed us. I watched them go over the path, portage over the tracks and then continue across the highway and into the parking strip behind the Plaza Nine shopping center.
Jim and I looked through the overgrown back fence of the KMart, which separated it from the front parking lot of the Home Depot, then turned around and returned to the oil change place (and yes, the Sputnik did run better after a change of oil and steering fluid, and looked better after a car wash), still contemplating the significance of the thin veneer of uncivilization that had made for such an enjoyable, if unplanned, expedition.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Enjoy what you get."\\
The other day, I absentmindedly drove over to visit Jim (although my habit has been to bike over), and Jim suggested that we drive to a park that was further than the ones within walking distance of his home, and walk around there.
Just before we were to leave, I finally remembered to check the oil in the car when the engine was cool. I found to my alarm that there was no oil appearing on the dipstick at all.
Now, I don't know a lot about cars, but I know enough to be aware that no oil on the dipstick didn't mean there was no oil in the crankcase at all, so I wasn't too alarmed, but I did know that I needed to get the oil restored right away. So Jim and I wound up driving to the Jiffy Lube at Ninth and Circle for our outing.
It turned out quite well, actually. Jim and I walked over to the far side of Highway 99W, to where it ran parallel with a bike path and with railroad tracks, and where a narrow strip of trees and grass bounded the western edge of the KMart's parking lot.
we walked along that strip of greenery, noting how effective it actually was at shielding the parking lot from the noise of the highway. We went along that strip, noticing things like store furnishings stowed in remote parking spaces, and a beaten path which had been "paved" with planks and sheets of plywood (and even a tabletop) which ran from the back corner of the parking lot to the railroad tracks and across to the highway. Jim and I were wondering who had created it and for what sort of traffic, and then two bicyclists politely called out and passed us. I watched them go over the path, portage over the tracks and then continue across the highway and into the parking strip behind the Plaza Nine shopping center.
Jim and I looked through the overgrown back fence of the KMart, which separated it from the front parking lot of the Home Depot, then turned around and returned to the oil change place (and yes, the Sputnik did run better after a change of oil and steering fluid, and looked better after a car wash), still contemplating the significance of the thin veneer of uncivilization that had made for such an enjoyable, if unplanned, expedition.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Enjoy what you get."\\
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Juneteenth
Not a holiday that has been widely observed around here in previous years, but it sure was tonight.
Fireworks were more or less continuous for a good fifteen minutes, finishing with four really impressive BOOMs which could only have been improved if they'd been used to launch garbage cans.
Good. It is our second Independence Day, and deserves proper recognition.
//The Magic Eight Ball says, "Yee-ha."\\
Saturday, June 05, 2010
A Moderately Disappointing Evening
But hey, not a total disaster, and it's good to vary your routine.
We went to Cloud 9 to see a performance by Allure, a group which advertised "modern belly dance", starting at 10:00 PM. We're not normally out at that hour, but we took a nap and went down there at 10:00.
At nearly 11:00, one dancer came out and performed, then vanished. When it got to be 11:40 and no second dancer was in sight, we left.
Oh, well. The apricot-habanero chicken wings were interesting, anyway.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Seek not, find not."\\
We went to Cloud 9 to see a performance by Allure, a group which advertised "modern belly dance", starting at 10:00 PM. We're not normally out at that hour, but we took a nap and went down there at 10:00.
At nearly 11:00, one dancer came out and performed, then vanished. When it got to be 11:40 and no second dancer was in sight, we left.
Oh, well. The apricot-habanero chicken wings were interesting, anyway.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Seek not, find not."\\
Friday, June 04, 2010
Now They Match
One of the less enjoyable aspects of my recent short stint as a Census worker was getting rear-ended and having to get the repairs done, collect from the other driver, filing paperwork since it was job-related, &c.
Fortunately, it wasn't hard to find a replacement bumper for the Sputnik, and we didn't much care that the gold bumper didn't match the dark-blue car.
Apparently we did care a little, since we bought a can of gold paint, and I masked off the new bumper and sprayed it down.
It came out fairly well, if I do say so myself.
Only problem is, it's obscurely embarrassing how it looks like a Subaru Outback. Not sure why we should care one way or the other, but there it is.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Put not your trust in appearances."\\
Fortunately, it wasn't hard to find a replacement bumper for the Sputnik, and we didn't much care that the gold bumper didn't match the dark-blue car.
Apparently we did care a little, since we bought a can of gold paint, and I masked off the new bumper and sprayed it down.
It came out fairly well, if I do say so myself.
Only problem is, it's obscurely embarrassing how it looks like a Subaru Outback. Not sure why we should care one way or the other, but there it is.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Put not your trust in appearances."\\
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Coversation After Visiting the Farmers' Market
...and before looking at Sadly, No!
"Did you feed the cat?"
"No! I suppose she told you so?"
"Yes, but I wasn't sure whether to believe it."
[And then later, while looking]
"So, I fed her. I gave her some wet, since even if she got some yesterday, she deserved some compensation for having to wait. Also, her water dish was dry, so I gave her some. But weren't you keeping a jug of water in the shed for watering her? I didn't find that."
"Yes, but lately I've been keeping it in the back hall."
"Oh, I saw that, yes."
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Value the small things."\\
"Did you feed the cat?"
"No! I suppose she told you so?"
"Yes, but I wasn't sure whether to believe it."
[And then later, while looking]
"So, I fed her. I gave her some wet, since even if she got some yesterday, she deserved some compensation for having to wait. Also, her water dish was dry, so I gave her some. But weren't you keeping a jug of water in the shed for watering her? I didn't find that."
"Yes, but lately I've been keeping it in the back hall."
"Oh, I saw that, yes."
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Value the small things."\\
Thursday, May 20, 2010
So Many Ways
There are so many ways for a human brain to go wrong. It's actually kind of remarkable that most of us are more or less fully functional.
My father has suffered a stroke which impairs his memory. Not sure if it's authentic anterograde amnesia, but something close. Also, he tends to lose track of where in his lifetime he is, constantly worrying about high school or graduate school issues, or about finishing his doctoral dissertation.
Constantly worrying -- he seems to have a positive need to worry about something.
One of my children is schizophrenic. He hears voices. He doesn't obey them, but some of the things he does to silence them get him into trouble.
I'm suffering from symptoms of stress, myself. So is my wife. Funniest thing. But I am trying to assess it as just one more psychological issue to address, rather than wallow in it.
Just got to hang in there, keep on trucking, never give up.
I don't see any other option available, anyway.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Life Goes On."\\
My father has suffered a stroke which impairs his memory. Not sure if it's authentic anterograde amnesia, but something close. Also, he tends to lose track of where in his lifetime he is, constantly worrying about high school or graduate school issues, or about finishing his doctoral dissertation.
Constantly worrying -- he seems to have a positive need to worry about something.
One of my children is schizophrenic. He hears voices. He doesn't obey them, but some of the things he does to silence them get him into trouble.
I'm suffering from symptoms of stress, myself. So is my wife. Funniest thing. But I am trying to assess it as just one more psychological issue to address, rather than wallow in it.
Just got to hang in there, keep on trucking, never give up.
I don't see any other option available, anyway.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Life Goes On."\\
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Someone At The Door
Kathe and I saw someone on our porch the other day. We were pleased, because although the "front porch book sale" has never been a hot performer, it's been extrememly inactive lately.
The person turned out to have lived in Corvallis years ago, to have passed our house often though she'd never met the people who lived there. This is fairly common, actually -- in fact, when Kathe's daughter Becca first invited me over, one of the first things I said was, "Oh, you live here!"
In fact, this person had once spent a rainy homeless night dozing under our cedar tree where it overhung the sidewalk.
She'd gotten into town the night before and been obliged to walk the streets all night.
Naturally, we offered to let her sleep here.
It's good to have someone else in the house, even for a little while. This place is obviously made for more than just two people.
//The Magic Eight-Ball Says, "When opportunity knocks, invite it in."\\
The person turned out to have lived in Corvallis years ago, to have passed our house often though she'd never met the people who lived there. This is fairly common, actually -- in fact, when Kathe's daughter Becca first invited me over, one of the first things I said was, "Oh, you live here!"
In fact, this person had once spent a rainy homeless night dozing under our cedar tree where it overhung the sidewalk.
She'd gotten into town the night before and been obliged to walk the streets all night.
Naturally, we offered to let her sleep here.
It's good to have someone else in the house, even for a little while. This place is obviously made for more than just two people.
//The Magic Eight-Ball Says, "When opportunity knocks, invite it in."\\
Monday, May 17, 2010
Somewhat Like Old Times
We met someone the other day. She had arrived in town the night before and had no place to stay, so we invited her to sleep in the upstairs room where various kids had lived over the years (although we most often call it "the boys' room").
It felt good to offer space in the house to someone. It's a big house, and clearly its proper nature is to be home to more than just two people.
It felt good to offer space in the house to someone. It's a big house, and clearly its proper nature is to be home to more than just two people.
Saturday, May 08, 2010
Blue Shirt
I bought some new shirts so that I would look more respectable while working for the Census.
I especially like the bright blue one.
A brilliant sky blue, like Superman's. And I always need a little Superman in me, and especially just now.
Having an excuse to buy that shirt is worth the hassle I have gone through to get a Census job, and lose it, and wind up with a different one.
The money is nice, too.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Enjoy what you find, even if it isn't what you sought."\\
I especially like the bright blue one.
A brilliant sky blue, like Superman's. And I always need a little Superman in me, and especially just now.
Having an excuse to buy that shirt is worth the hassle I have gone through to get a Census job, and lose it, and wind up with a different one.
The money is nice, too.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Enjoy what you find, even if it isn't what you sought."\\
Tuesday, May 04, 2010
I Liked Doing Census Work
It was interesting, challenging, an opportunity to try new things.
I knew it wouldn't last very long, but I have just learned that in my case, it is already time to end it.
Oh, well.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Forward."\\
I knew it wouldn't last very long, but I have just learned that in my case, it is already time to end it.
Oh, well.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Forward."\\
Sunday, May 02, 2010
Dances With Wolves
I took a break from running my Census crew (and I was really, really worn out) to finally* watch Dances With Wolves with Kathe.
Did me a world of good, I'll tell you.
Yes, after a day that really wore me down, I felt a lot better after watching a powerful, beautiful, uplifting film. And eating good food. And rubbing Kathe's feet.
Shortly, when Kathe gets out of the tub, I will go have a soak and go to bed.
Bet that will do me some good, too.
* Yes, "finally", as in, "I never did it before".
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Love yourself; get outside yourself and take action. Focus on the solution; be at peace."\\
Did me a world of good, I'll tell you.
Yes, after a day that really wore me down, I felt a lot better after watching a powerful, beautiful, uplifting film. And eating good food. And rubbing Kathe's feet.
Shortly, when Kathe gets out of the tub, I will go have a soak and go to bed.
Bet that will do me some good, too.
* Yes, "finally", as in, "I never did it before".
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Love yourself; get outside yourself and take action. Focus on the solution; be at peace."\\
Thursday, April 22, 2010
D-591
That's the form you fill out when you are involved in an automobile accident while on Census Bureau business -- like when I was rear-ended on Highway 99E in Albany yesterday, on my way to Salem for training as a fingerprinter.
I don't blame the other driver -- the car in front of me made a sudden stop, so I made a sudden slow-down, and so did she, only not quite enough.
The Sputnik's plastic rear bumper was shattered, but there was no other damage to the car or to me, so the bumper served its function admirably.
A couple of phone calls, and it appears that a bumper off a junked Escort can be obtained and attached for under $300 (touch wood), so not too bad.
There was a time when I would have suffered pretty severe traumatic reactions to a traffic accident, even a minor one, and worse yet I would have loudly denied any such thing. As it was, I did have some strange emotional responses, but I noticed them and calmed them. I really do like my post-psychotherapy self.
Today, I spent a total of ten hours helping batch-process enumerator trainees. That was pretty stressful, too, but I survived that, too.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "You are going on a trip -- oh, wait, you already did...."\\
I don't blame the other driver -- the car in front of me made a sudden stop, so I made a sudden slow-down, and so did she, only not quite enough.
The Sputnik's plastic rear bumper was shattered, but there was no other damage to the car or to me, so the bumper served its function admirably.
A couple of phone calls, and it appears that a bumper off a junked Escort can be obtained and attached for under $300 (touch wood), so not too bad.
There was a time when I would have suffered pretty severe traumatic reactions to a traffic accident, even a minor one, and worse yet I would have loudly denied any such thing. As it was, I did have some strange emotional responses, but I noticed them and calmed them. I really do like my post-psychotherapy self.
Today, I spent a total of ten hours helping batch-process enumerator trainees. That was pretty stressful, too, but I survived that, too.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "You are going on a trip -- oh, wait, you already did...."\\
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Census Work -- It's a Living
I'm training this week to be a Crew Leader for the 2010 Census, visiting and interviewing the people who haven't returned their questionnaires.
"May you live in interesting times...."
I have never had anything like a managerial job (unless you count teaching a middle school history course). This is something totally new to me.
I kind of wish I hadn't read that blog post, though, about the guy threatening to greet census workers with a shotgun. I feel worse about the prospect of sending enumerators out to interview people like that than I would about going myself.
Oh, well. If I totally hate being a manager, or totally stink at it, it will only be for a few weeks. And if it turns out I like it, that will be something worth knowing.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Seek, and ye shall find."\\
"May you live in interesting times...."
I have never had anything like a managerial job (unless you count teaching a middle school history course). This is something totally new to me.
I kind of wish I hadn't read that blog post, though, about the guy threatening to greet census workers with a shotgun. I feel worse about the prospect of sending enumerators out to interview people like that than I would about going myself.
Oh, well. If I totally hate being a manager, or totally stink at it, it will only be for a few weeks. And if it turns out I like it, that will be something worth knowing.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Seek, and ye shall find."\\
Saturday, April 03, 2010
Drywall and Firewall
We're putting up drywall on the living room ceiling, getting sore arms, also getting the occasional faceful of plaster grit/dust/soot from the fire of 1948, gradually getting some ceiling covered.
As I write these words, we're taking a break with a mocha and an apple fritter, feeling perfectly entitled to do so (and it takes some doing to really feel entitled to an apple fritter, what with the grease and the sugar frosting), and I'm struggling with an infestation of "Vitsa Antimalware 2010".
It seems especially unfair to have to deal with a fake Vista program, considering I'm not even running Windows Vista....
Anyway, does anybody know what to do when a viral nasty walks right in past your Norton 360 like it was asleep on the job?
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Try to put computer viruses in perspective."\\
As I write these words, we're taking a break with a mocha and an apple fritter, feeling perfectly entitled to do so (and it takes some doing to really feel entitled to an apple fritter, what with the grease and the sugar frosting), and I'm struggling with an infestation of "Vitsa Antimalware 2010".
It seems especially unfair to have to deal with a fake Vista program, considering I'm not even running Windows Vista....
Anyway, does anybody know what to do when a viral nasty walks right in past your Norton 360 like it was asleep on the job?
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Try to put computer viruses in perspective."\\
Sunday, March 21, 2010
The Good Guys Won!
It just happens that I had a really good day today.
And it ends with the health care reform bill passing.
Thank you, Mister President.
Thank you, House and Senate.
Thank you all.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Remember the good days. They will help carry you through the bad days."\\
And it ends with the health care reform bill passing.
Thank you, Mister President.
Thank you, House and Senate.
Thank you all.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Remember the good days. They will help carry you through the bad days."\\
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Census Work
Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday this week, my mother is going to training as a census worker, so I am looking after my father the whole day, those days.
Tuesday, I took him into Philomath to the gym for his usual workout.
Wednesday, I took him into Corvallis to spend some time with his sister Ann and her husband. Also present was my wife Kathe and Kathe's former husband Jim (who by sheer coincidence lives in Ann's neighborhood).
Thursday, Dad didn't feel up to going out, so we wound up staying home all day. He doesn't have a lot of energy these days, but he does benefit from mental stimulation.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Do what you can and leave the rest."\\
Tuesday, I took him into Philomath to the gym for his usual workout.
Wednesday, I took him into Corvallis to spend some time with his sister Ann and her husband. Also present was my wife Kathe and Kathe's former husband Jim (who by sheer coincidence lives in Ann's neighborhood).
Thursday, Dad didn't feel up to going out, so we wound up staying home all day. He doesn't have a lot of energy these days, but he does benefit from mental stimulation.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Do what you can and leave the rest."\\
Monday, March 15, 2010
So What Next?
I am at loose ends right now. I haven't exactly been laid off from my caregiver job, but I have been assigned no clients. They say at work that they haven't taken a dislike to me, it's just that there are fewer clients, and none who are willing to have a man in the house.
I believe them. And I don't even resent the injustice of being rejected for being a man. Justice is not guaranteed in this life.
But it does leave me wondering what to do next.
I'm still promoting myself as a massage therapist, but it's not bringing in a sufficient income by itself.
I failed at the end of my first year of nursing school. That still hurts. I still feel a powerful desire to go back and prove myself, and to get the degree and the job that I feel called to do. But it's expensive, and a major challenge, and.... I just don't know whether I should climb into that particular meatgrinder again. I don't know.
I trained as a phlebotomist, in hope of getting more pay and more humane hours than I had as a caregiver. I keep on applying for jobs, but I haven't been hired yet.
I wrote a story and had it published almost twenty years ago. I finally sold another one. I'll have another story finished soon. I could make at least some money writing, if I could write more and faster. There was a time when I would have said that being a writer was the life I wanted. Now that I have had a taste, is it still what I want? I'm not sure.
Kathe said recently that I had always put her in mind of a history teacher. I was surprised -- it seemed like something totally out of left field. Until I remembered that I had, in fact, taught a history class a few years ago, while Kathe was on the board of a small private school. And I'd enjoyed it, too. But is that how I want to spend my fifties? I don't know.
It feels strange and wrong to be at such loose ends at my age. Here I am, forty-nine years old, married 25 years, my kids grown, and I don't know what I want to be when I grow up. But I am what I am, and my life has brought me to this place, and no other.
So what next?
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "You must, yourself, decide your duty -- and do it well."\\
I believe them. And I don't even resent the injustice of being rejected for being a man. Justice is not guaranteed in this life.
But it does leave me wondering what to do next.
I'm still promoting myself as a massage therapist, but it's not bringing in a sufficient income by itself.
I failed at the end of my first year of nursing school. That still hurts. I still feel a powerful desire to go back and prove myself, and to get the degree and the job that I feel called to do. But it's expensive, and a major challenge, and.... I just don't know whether I should climb into that particular meatgrinder again. I don't know.
I trained as a phlebotomist, in hope of getting more pay and more humane hours than I had as a caregiver. I keep on applying for jobs, but I haven't been hired yet.
I wrote a story and had it published almost twenty years ago. I finally sold another one. I'll have another story finished soon. I could make at least some money writing, if I could write more and faster. There was a time when I would have said that being a writer was the life I wanted. Now that I have had a taste, is it still what I want? I'm not sure.
Kathe said recently that I had always put her in mind of a history teacher. I was surprised -- it seemed like something totally out of left field. Until I remembered that I had, in fact, taught a history class a few years ago, while Kathe was on the board of a small private school. And I'd enjoyed it, too. But is that how I want to spend my fifties? I don't know.
It feels strange and wrong to be at such loose ends at my age. Here I am, forty-nine years old, married 25 years, my kids grown, and I don't know what I want to be when I grow up. But I am what I am, and my life has brought me to this place, and no other.
So what next?
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "You must, yourself, decide your duty -- and do it well."\\
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Wake Up And Smell the Coffee*
*[Because I can't think of a better header for this post than the one used on all eleventy-twelve other posts about the Coffee Party]
Kathe and I attended a Coffee Party at the Dutch Brothers on Monroe.
I doubt if we will regret it.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "This is your country -- if you can keep it."\\
Sunday, February 28, 2010
An Icre of Scized Sardels
[Recycled from 07:18, 17 March 2005 and from 10 October 2005, and from 21 March 2009, with new links added on 28 February 2010]
When I have the time, I like to haul The Oxford Dictionary of the English Language up here to the lookout tower and pore over its pages. It's a truly monumental work, its twenty volumes containing some three-quarter of a million words. However, it does not accept just any word. From time to time, some dictionaries have included words based on handwriting errors, incorrect interpretation of a foreign phrase or other misunderstandings. These rejected words are listed in an appendix, from which this partial list was extracted:
Dog-ray: A type of sea life
Compearer: A person not a party to a lawsuit who wishes to oppose the suit, and is approved by the judge to take part.
Exidemic: Synonym for epidemic (but doesn’t it sound like it might mean something beyond a mere epidemic?
Galverly: Energetically.
Goffish: Silly.
Gosting: The rose madder herb [John's suggested alternate definition: a color like unto rose madder].
Graduction: Marking with graduations.
Grout: Wild apple.
Guay: An unbridled horse.
Habenry: Some sort of decoration of the roof or eaves of a house.
Herebote: A military messenger.
Icre: A group of ten [John's observation: potentially a very useful word].
Investive: Enclosing.
Minutal: Diminutive.
Momblishness: Mumbling.
Munity: Freedom.
Phantomnation: An immaterial apparition.
Quadrune: A type of sandstone.
Sardel: A precious stone, apparently salmon-colored [John's suggested definition: a color close to salmon, somewhere between orange and pink].
Scize: To cut or penetrate.
Tendsome: Requiring much attention.
At the end of the appendix was a further list of rejected words with no definitions or explanations appended, including: abacot, cluttish, cone and key, congrument, cookmate, counterset, eposculation, lastery, papescent, segnotic, tip-cheese and topinch.
Naturally, I responded to this list of words which do not exist with a hearty, “Oh, yeah?”
I was instantly fascinated by the idea of rejected words, and resolved to start using them whenever a convenient opportunity arises, and I invite my readers to do the same.
If we all start using words like “gosting” and “munity”, just once in awhile, soon they’ll be getting hits on Google, being included in dictionaries, and will have been brought to life and legitimacy at last.
//The Magic 8-Ball says, "You can do this, if you have nothing better to do."\\
When I have the time, I like to haul The Oxford Dictionary of the English Language up here to the lookout tower and pore over its pages. It's a truly monumental work, its twenty volumes containing some three-quarter of a million words. However, it does not accept just any word. From time to time, some dictionaries have included words based on handwriting errors, incorrect interpretation of a foreign phrase or other misunderstandings. These rejected words are listed in an appendix, from which this partial list was extracted:
Dog-ray: A type of sea life
Compearer: A person not a party to a lawsuit who wishes to oppose the suit, and is approved by the judge to take part.
Exidemic: Synonym for epidemic (but doesn’t it sound like it might mean something beyond a mere epidemic?
Galverly: Energetically.
Goffish: Silly.
Gosting: The rose madder herb [John's suggested alternate definition: a color like unto rose madder].
Graduction: Marking with graduations.
Grout: Wild apple.
Guay: An unbridled horse.
Habenry: Some sort of decoration of the roof or eaves of a house.
Herebote: A military messenger.
Icre: A group of ten [John's observation: potentially a very useful word].
Investive: Enclosing.
Minutal: Diminutive.
Momblishness: Mumbling.
Munity: Freedom.
Phantomnation: An immaterial apparition.
Quadrune: A type of sandstone.
Sardel: A precious stone, apparently salmon-colored [John's suggested definition: a color close to salmon, somewhere between orange and pink].
Scize: To cut or penetrate.
Tendsome: Requiring much attention.
At the end of the appendix was a further list of rejected words with no definitions or explanations appended, including: abacot, cluttish, cone and key, congrument, cookmate, counterset, eposculation, lastery, papescent, segnotic, tip-cheese and topinch.
Naturally, I responded to this list of words which do not exist with a hearty, “Oh, yeah?”
I was instantly fascinated by the idea of rejected words, and resolved to start using them whenever a convenient opportunity arises, and I invite my readers to do the same.
If we all start using words like “gosting” and “munity”, just once in awhile, soon they’ll be getting hits on Google, being included in dictionaries, and will have been brought to life and legitimacy at last.
//The Magic 8-Ball says, "You can do this, if you have nothing better to do."\\
Friday, February 26, 2010
Blood and Embroidery
It was clearly a day for needles: donating blood at Stoker's Vitaworld in the morning, meeting with a crafting group in the evening to work on our sweaters.
Well, okay, there wasn't any needle business I can think of in between, but I doubt they would have added to the experience if they had.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Stick with it."\\
Well, okay, there wasn't any needle business I can think of in between, but I doubt they would have added to the experience if they had.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Stick with it."\\
Thursday, February 18, 2010
"Ignitor" is Not a Pokemon
I suppose it's a perfectly proper Latinate form for a loanword into English, but it seems wrong. Shouldn't it be "igniter"?
It definitely shouldn't be this hard to replace, or have to be replaced so often (every year or two years since we bought the dern thing). Still, it could be worse.
And today, for the first time ever, it was me replacing it instead of Kathe. Made me feel very accomplished, once I was done snarling and cussing and then done feeling guilty over making such a fuss over getting such a simple job done.*
* Kathe made me feel much better by admitting that the reason she usually changes the glowbar while I am out of the house is so she can get her own cussing and snarling done while I'm not there to hear it.
Oh, and I also just put myself laboriously through the process of checking my bank balance over the phone and double-checking it online, processes so extremely elementary that the bank doesn't even have a tutorial for it. But I managed to pull it off anyhow. And as a bonus, I confirmed that it really does hold a whole $125 more than I thought it did -- bills I thought were going to have to be deferred can be paid on time!
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Take life's little victories where you find them."\\
It definitely shouldn't be this hard to replace, or have to be replaced so often (every year or two years since we bought the dern thing). Still, it could be worse.
And today, for the first time ever, it was me replacing it instead of Kathe. Made me feel very accomplished, once I was done snarling and cussing and then done feeling guilty over making such a fuss over getting such a simple job done.*
* Kathe made me feel much better by admitting that the reason she usually changes the glowbar while I am out of the house is so she can get her own cussing and snarling done while I'm not there to hear it.
Oh, and I also just put myself laboriously through the process of checking my bank balance over the phone and double-checking it online, processes so extremely elementary that the bank doesn't even have a tutorial for it. But I managed to pull it off anyhow. And as a bonus, I confirmed that it really does hold a whole $125 more than I thought it did -- bills I thought were going to have to be deferred can be paid on time!
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Take life's little victories where you find them."\\
Thursday, February 04, 2010
Thursday Noon Concert
Kathe and I just went to the weekly concert up at the Memorial Union, on the OSU campus. We used to go there all the time with our kids, when they were little. We saw many small children running around, and some small children who were enjoying the music very much.
//The magic Eight-Ball says, "Sometimes you have to walk away from downtown to go downtown together."\\
//The magic Eight-Ball says, "Sometimes you have to walk away from downtown to go downtown together."\\
Saturday, January 30, 2010
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
Kathe and I went to see it tonight.
I will admit, I went in dread that it would be a mess, because so much was said about how it was completed as a tribute to Heath Ledger, who died during filming. I feared that this was a "sell" for a film that would not stand up on its own merits.
It does. Go see it. Even if you didn't like Time Bandits or Brazil, although frankly, you should have.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Tastes differ."\\
I will admit, I went in dread that it would be a mess, because so much was said about how it was completed as a tribute to Heath Ledger, who died during filming. I feared that this was a "sell" for a film that would not stand up on its own merits.
It does. Go see it. Even if you didn't like Time Bandits or Brazil, although frankly, you should have.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Tastes differ."\\
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Bad Day
I had a bad day today. I wept and cursed and upbraided myself for sins real and imagined. I could barely get to sleep (and wrote a retroactive post the next day).
I don't know why -- although I have plenty of things to cause me anxiety and concern:
--My father's health is bad. Quite bad indeed. More on this if necessary.
--I am not exactly laid off, but all of my sources of income are greatly reduced, and I have a couple of really big problems that could be helped greatly if I had more money*.
--I have several other problems that I'm not going to go into here.
* I also don't have any money to arrange a session with a therapist....
As I said, I don't know why it all came down on me at once today, but it sure did.
Anyway, not a good day. But maybe tomorrow will be better.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "And when will it happen next?"\\
I don't know why -- although I have plenty of things to cause me anxiety and concern:
--My father's health is bad. Quite bad indeed. More on this if necessary.
--I am not exactly laid off, but all of my sources of income are greatly reduced, and I have a couple of really big problems that could be helped greatly if I had more money*.
--I have several other problems that I'm not going to go into here.
* I also don't have any money to arrange a session with a therapist....
As I said, I don't know why it all came down on me at once today, but it sure did.
Anyway, not a good day. But maybe tomorrow will be better.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "And when will it happen next?"\\
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Metropolis
The other night, Kathe and I went to see the newest restoration of Fritz Lang's Metropolis, at the Darkside Cinema.
Even in the butchered form it has been seen in for most of its life, Metropolis is a masterpiece. Its restored form is vastly better.
And if you live in this area, you could certainly do worse than to go to the Darkside Cinema.
I must call up my 8th Grade teacher, who is so fond of Metropolis, and make sure she knows about it.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "The heart must mediate betwene the head and the hands."\\
Even in the butchered form it has been seen in for most of its life, Metropolis is a masterpiece. Its restored form is vastly better.
And if you live in this area, you could certainly do worse than to go to the Darkside Cinema.
I must call up my 8th Grade teacher, who is so fond of Metropolis, and make sure she knows about it.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "The heart must mediate betwene the head and the hands."\\
Thursday, January 21, 2010
A Very Nice Evening
Kathe and I spent the evening at a Meetup.com group in Albany, where everyone brought a sewing project and we sat and talked and sewed and had a very good time.
We spent a good couple of hours sewing on our sweaters, and telling everyone present the story behind them. They told us about their own projects, their jobs, their kids, recent vacations (one to Vietnam), &c.
Nothign special, just an enjoyable evening and a chance to meet new people.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Making new friends is a special occasion indeed."\\
We spent a good couple of hours sewing on our sweaters, and telling everyone present the story behind them. They told us about their own projects, their jobs, their kids, recent vacations (one to Vietnam), &c.
Nothign special, just an enjoyable evening and a chance to meet new people.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Making new friends is a special occasion indeed."\\
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
A Very Nice Afternoon
Kathe and I just spent a delightful hour or so with our friend Lana, at the downtown Beanery, where we also ran into various other people we know: Paula, Marie, Rui, a couple of others we know by sight but I couldn't put faces to their names.
We drank mochas and ate a panini and talked about whatever we felt like. It was swell.
We wish we could sit down and spend time that way with more of our friends.
If you should happen to be one of our friends and would like to meet us for coffee or come over and get your feet rubbed or whatever, please let us know.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "It can't hurt to ask for what you want."\\
We drank mochas and ate a panini and talked about whatever we felt like. It was swell.
We wish we could sit down and spend time that way with more of our friends.
If you should happen to be one of our friends and would like to meet us for coffee or come over and get your feet rubbed or whatever, please let us know.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "It can't hurt to ask for what you want."\\
Saturday, January 16, 2010
See(k)ing Egre(t)s(s)
One of the benefits of the work I have been doing helping my mother look after my father has been increased opportunities to drive along Highway 99W between Corvallis and Bellfountain. It's really some very nice country.
I like driving past the Winkle Buttes. I like seeing the hills which are surmounted by the Mysterious Big White Thing. I like seeing the occasional wildlife, including deer, Great Blue Herons and Snowy Egrets and occasional life-forms that I can't identify ("What's brown and long-legged and weighs about 100 pounds and doesn't seem to be a deer?" "I don't know." "Me neither").
The other day, I saw a largish gathering of egrets (I don't know whether they flock, ever, or if it was just a dense accumulation of egrets at a strangely attractive swampy patch). This inspired a train of thought that ran through many different regions, including Robert Heinlein's novel The Door Into Summer, and the thought that Professor Kirk's famous wardrobe must surely be a snowy egress.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Keep your mind on the road when you're driving."\\
I like driving past the Winkle Buttes. I like seeing the hills which are surmounted by the Mysterious Big White Thing. I like seeing the occasional wildlife, including deer, Great Blue Herons and Snowy Egrets and occasional life-forms that I can't identify ("What's brown and long-legged and weighs about 100 pounds and doesn't seem to be a deer?" "I don't know." "Me neither").
The other day, I saw a largish gathering of egrets (I don't know whether they flock, ever, or if it was just a dense accumulation of egrets at a strangely attractive swampy patch). This inspired a train of thought that ran through many different regions, including Robert Heinlein's novel The Door Into Summer, and the thought that Professor Kirk's famous wardrobe must surely be a snowy egress.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Keep your mind on the road when you're driving."\\
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
A Good Day
I just had a spa day, apparently: since getting out of bed this morning, I had a massage (a trade, with a local practitioner of long standing but with whom I'd never traded before), got a haircut and had an EMDR session with a practitioner of *that* art. Hadn't meant to so indulge myself, but I sure am not going to ap...ologize for it. After the year I've had, I deserve it.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Know your worth."\\
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Know your worth."\\
Friday, January 01, 2010
Top Ten Good News Stories From the Muslim Nations
10. Saudi Arabia opened its first coeducational college campus, the King Abdullah Science and Technology University. In a country where the sexes have been so separated in public that some have spoken of 'gender Apartheid,' this move, which came from King Abdullah, provoked raging controversy. When a prominent cleric criticized having male and female students on the same campus and the teaching of modern scientific theories like Darwinism, the king summarily fired his ass. It may seem a small thing, but many big social processes start small. Most Americans forget that Princeton U. did not become coed until 1969.
9. Qatar is on track to average 7.5 percent per annum growth for the next few years. The natural gas giant is a cauldron of development activity. It permits Aljazeera satellite news to remain the most open and controversial media outlet in the Arab world. It is expanding the 'Education City' complex, in which many American universities maintain campuses, and which serves as a key educational hub for the Gulf and its region. (This robust expansion contrasts with the difficult times higher education is facing in Dubai).
8. A Pew Forum on Religion and Life poll finds that American Muslims are unusual in the degree to which they are integrated into mainstream American society and demonstrate moderate attitudes, condemning religious extremism and violence. They differ siegnificantly from the profile of Muslims in the UK and Germany, e.g, in these regards. (Muslims in the US are generally from higher class origins and are better educated and wealthier than is typically the case with European Muslims).
7. The information revolution is making strides in the Arab world. A University of Maryland Poll finds that "the use of the internet continued to grow, with 36% stating that they use the internet at least several times a week and only 38% stating that they never use the internet (compared with 52% in 2008).
6. Albania has averaged 10 percent a year growth for each of the last four years, and was the fastest-growing economy in Europe in 2009. It held elections in 2009, and although they were imperfect, an EU report described them [pdf] "as meeting most OSCE commitments," despite flaws. The European Union seems to be giving the country a nod in its application to join the EU. Albania has an especially aggressive government policy toward implementing alternative energy and wants to be the first green country in Europe. It depends heavily on thermal and hydroelectric plants (perhaps too heavily). Brussels concluded this year, "The government took measures towards the development of the sector by issuing licences for the construction of seven wind farms with a total installed capacity of about 1360 MW and one 140 MW biomass thermal power station." Albania, a country of 3.2 million, is 70-80% of Muslim heritage, but a majority of the country is non-religious. That is, these European Muslims are more secular than German, Spanish, Italian, Greek and Polish Christians.
5. The small Gulf oil monarchy of Kuwait took steps toward greater democracy and rule of law. Women were given the vote in 2005, and in the May parliamentary elections, 4 women were for the first time elected to the 50-seat parliament, and fundamentalists only gained 16 seats, down from 24 previously. As Greg Gause points out, in December parliament was allowed to go forward with a vote of no-confidence in the prime minister, which he survived. What is significant is that he is from the ruling Al-Sabah family and it had previously not been considered dignified to subject a high official from the family to such a vote.
4. Indonesia, the most populous Muslim country in the world at about 230 mn., had successful parliamentary elections in 2009, further consolidating the country's decade-old democracy. Secular parties did better this year, and support for Muslim fundamentalism dropped, both in the voting both and in opinion polls. President Barack Obama's enormous popularity in the country is credited by some observers for a sharp decline in approval of Muslim militancy. Indonesia has become the world's 19th largest economy, and it, Saudi Arabia and Turkey are the three Muslim-majority states in the G20.
3. Turkey, which averaged 5.8 percent a year economic growth between 2002 and 2008, was slowed but not devastated by the world's financial crisis. In these 6 years it has moved from being the world's 26th largest economy to being the 17th largest. It is on track to be the second fastest-growing economy in 2010, after South Korea, according to OECD projections. The democratically elected Justice and Development Party government continued to govern with considerable popularity. Despite severe tensions between Ankara and the Kurdish minority in the southeast, the ruling party took the bold step of pushing for more Kurdish rights.
2. Stability returned to Lebanon. Successful parliamentary elections, untainted by Syrian interference, were held in June, and a national unity government was formed in November after a lengthy negotiating process. The Lebanese army intervened forcefully and in a timely fashion to nip potential sectarian flare-ups in the bud. The 13,000 UN troops patrolling the south helped back the Lebanese army, and despite tensions with Israel on the part both of Palestinian militants and the Shiite Hizbullah militia, there was no significant clash on thbe southern border. Prime Minister Saad Hariri recently visited Damascus, building on earlier diplomacy by Maronite Catholic president Michel Suleiman, a former general, and reducing regional tensions. Lebanon is probably now about 70% Muslim if the children are counted. The year 2009 saw the return of musical and cultural festivals and the country of 4 million attracted 2 million tourists, the best year ever. Lebanon's banking and real estate sectors were slowed but by no means devastated by the global financial crisis, since they had adopted conservative investment policies as a result of bad experiences during the years of instability in the last quarter of the twentieth century. The country was on track to grow 6 percent in 2009, down from 8.5 percent in 2008. The brutal Israeli assault on Lebanon's economic infrastructure of summer, 2006, set the country back three decades, and it will take time fully to recover. But despite fragility and a few clashes and small bombings, it is fair to say that at the moment, your biggest problem in Beirut is that you can't get a timely reservation at the better restaurants.
1. A considerable proportion of the Iranian public resorted to concerted street and cultural protests against the stealing of the June presidential election by incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Crowds demanded popular sovereignty and democracy and condemned dictatorship. Among the largest demonstrations were held just last Sunday. It is the greatest political awakening in Iran for 30 years. (Well, OK, you heard about this one, but not as much last weekend as it deserved; the corporate media go on vacation from news at awkward times.)
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Look for good news, don't wait for it to come to you."\\
9. Qatar is on track to average 7.5 percent per annum growth for the next few years. The natural gas giant is a cauldron of development activity. It permits Aljazeera satellite news to remain the most open and controversial media outlet in the Arab world. It is expanding the 'Education City' complex, in which many American universities maintain campuses, and which serves as a key educational hub for the Gulf and its region. (This robust expansion contrasts with the difficult times higher education is facing in Dubai).
8. A Pew Forum on Religion and Life poll finds that American Muslims are unusual in the degree to which they are integrated into mainstream American society and demonstrate moderate attitudes, condemning religious extremism and violence. They differ siegnificantly from the profile of Muslims in the UK and Germany, e.g, in these regards. (Muslims in the US are generally from higher class origins and are better educated and wealthier than is typically the case with European Muslims).
7. The information revolution is making strides in the Arab world. A University of Maryland Poll finds that "the use of the internet continued to grow, with 36% stating that they use the internet at least several times a week and only 38% stating that they never use the internet (compared with 52% in 2008).
6. Albania has averaged 10 percent a year growth for each of the last four years, and was the fastest-growing economy in Europe in 2009. It held elections in 2009, and although they were imperfect, an EU report described them [pdf] "as meeting most OSCE commitments," despite flaws. The European Union seems to be giving the country a nod in its application to join the EU. Albania has an especially aggressive government policy toward implementing alternative energy and wants to be the first green country in Europe. It depends heavily on thermal and hydroelectric plants (perhaps too heavily). Brussels concluded this year, "The government took measures towards the development of the sector by issuing licences for the construction of seven wind farms with a total installed capacity of about 1360 MW and one 140 MW biomass thermal power station." Albania, a country of 3.2 million, is 70-80% of Muslim heritage, but a majority of the country is non-religious. That is, these European Muslims are more secular than German, Spanish, Italian, Greek and Polish Christians.
5. The small Gulf oil monarchy of Kuwait took steps toward greater democracy and rule of law. Women were given the vote in 2005, and in the May parliamentary elections, 4 women were for the first time elected to the 50-seat parliament, and fundamentalists only gained 16 seats, down from 24 previously. As Greg Gause points out, in December parliament was allowed to go forward with a vote of no-confidence in the prime minister, which he survived. What is significant is that he is from the ruling Al-Sabah family and it had previously not been considered dignified to subject a high official from the family to such a vote.
4. Indonesia, the most populous Muslim country in the world at about 230 mn., had successful parliamentary elections in 2009, further consolidating the country's decade-old democracy. Secular parties did better this year, and support for Muslim fundamentalism dropped, both in the voting both and in opinion polls. President Barack Obama's enormous popularity in the country is credited by some observers for a sharp decline in approval of Muslim militancy. Indonesia has become the world's 19th largest economy, and it, Saudi Arabia and Turkey are the three Muslim-majority states in the G20.
3. Turkey, which averaged 5.8 percent a year economic growth between 2002 and 2008, was slowed but not devastated by the world's financial crisis. In these 6 years it has moved from being the world's 26th largest economy to being the 17th largest. It is on track to be the second fastest-growing economy in 2010, after South Korea, according to OECD projections. The democratically elected Justice and Development Party government continued to govern with considerable popularity. Despite severe tensions between Ankara and the Kurdish minority in the southeast, the ruling party took the bold step of pushing for more Kurdish rights.
2. Stability returned to Lebanon. Successful parliamentary elections, untainted by Syrian interference, were held in June, and a national unity government was formed in November after a lengthy negotiating process. The Lebanese army intervened forcefully and in a timely fashion to nip potential sectarian flare-ups in the bud. The 13,000 UN troops patrolling the south helped back the Lebanese army, and despite tensions with Israel on the part both of Palestinian militants and the Shiite Hizbullah militia, there was no significant clash on thbe southern border. Prime Minister Saad Hariri recently visited Damascus, building on earlier diplomacy by Maronite Catholic president Michel Suleiman, a former general, and reducing regional tensions. Lebanon is probably now about 70% Muslim if the children are counted. The year 2009 saw the return of musical and cultural festivals and the country of 4 million attracted 2 million tourists, the best year ever. Lebanon's banking and real estate sectors were slowed but by no means devastated by the global financial crisis, since they had adopted conservative investment policies as a result of bad experiences during the years of instability in the last quarter of the twentieth century. The country was on track to grow 6 percent in 2009, down from 8.5 percent in 2008. The brutal Israeli assault on Lebanon's economic infrastructure of summer, 2006, set the country back three decades, and it will take time fully to recover. But despite fragility and a few clashes and small bombings, it is fair to say that at the moment, your biggest problem in Beirut is that you can't get a timely reservation at the better restaurants.
1. A considerable proportion of the Iranian public resorted to concerted street and cultural protests against the stealing of the June presidential election by incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Crowds demanded popular sovereignty and democracy and condemned dictatorship. Among the largest demonstrations were held just last Sunday. It is the greatest political awakening in Iran for 30 years. (Well, OK, you heard about this one, but not as much last weekend as it deserved; the corporate media go on vacation from news at awkward times.)
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Look for good news, don't wait for it to come to you."\\
Contact Light 2009
[If all goes well, a slightly different version of this newsletter will accompany our year-end cards]
Contact Light 2009
A Blackberry House Production by John M. Burt, 960 SW Jefferson Avenue, Corvallis, Oregon 97333 USA
john_m_burt@hotmail.com // katheburt@hotmail.com // burtfamily@live.com // john_m_burt.blogspot.com // thesweater.blogspot.com // johnandkathe.blogspot.com //
It's been a pretty good year, over-all. We're living together and having fun, in a variety of ways. Kathe continues to work as a process server. John continues to work as a caregiver and massage therapist, and hopes soon to be working as a phlebotomist (that's the person who draws your blood when the doctor sends you to the lab for a test). He took the course and passed with outstanding grades, but hasn't yet landed a job. We are continuing to work on one of our long-term project, the Coffee Shack Book, a task which is made easier by Kathe's job, which allows scouting the entire mid-valley area for new coffee shacks, and also allows John to ride along when he's not otherwise occupied,
Our son Walden and our grandson Richard Loy Gentry are both living in Corvallis. We don't see a lot of Walden and even less of Dick, but they both seem to be doing well.
Our daughter Asnakech is living in Portland. Our daughter Mestowet is living in Georgia near Atlanta. There is more we could say about family matters but...they are family matters. Here and now, let it be enough to say that there are other people we hold in our hearts, also.
We have no pets unless you count the elderly cat we feed in the shed. We inherited her from a former neighbor, and I don't think of her so much a pet as a feral animal we feel sorry for. It's hard not to, looking at her. She's more or less friendly and appreciative, but she will never be a house cat. Last winter she disappeared for several days and returned minus her tail. We think maybe the local raccoon ate it.
John's father remains in poor health, but his mother looks after him diligently and with energy. John helps out a lot, and is grateful for the opportunity.
As always, we continue to work on the house. And, as always, it is not finished. The roof, foundation and exterior walls are sound, though and those are the most important parts.
The community art theme for da Vinci Days this year was fish. We disdained the precut fish patterns the organizers offered, opting instead for our usual contribution, a collage, assembled on our usual schedule, atthelastminute. We've done worse. http://www.davinci-days.org/
After years of hearing compliments on our "signature" sweaters, and telling people as much of the backstory as they would hold still for, we decided we needed to have cards printed up telling the tale. We still don't have the cards, but at least we can give them the Web address of the sweaters' blog: http://thesweater.blogspot.com
We are so sorry we missed the chance to pick up the "Rude Hippy" story from Craigslist; it would have been an excellent addition to the sweater blog.
Oh, you haven't heard it?
Apparently, we offended someone by not talking to them long enough when they commented on the sweater (there was just one, until last year), and they posted on the Craigslist rant page. A wonderful rant, about how we were probably liberals, and self-centered, like all liberals, and didn't have time to be polite to someone who stopped us on the street to comment on the sweater (described as "technicolor barf"), and besides, I was too thin and John was too fat, and so on and on. Probably they said "That's an ugly sweater" and we replied, "Sorry you don't like it," and walked on, entirely unaware that they wanted us to stay around for further derision. Rude us. Actually, the community appreciation seems to be picking up.
We didn't really observe Christmas this year, but we did mark New Year's with, among other things, a new digital camera, with which we took the attached photo.
Well, here's hoping next year will be even better. Especially that health-care thing.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Take a cup of kindness."\\
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Fried Noodles and Fudge
Kathe and I went to the Mongolian Grill last night, a rare enough outing for us to be worth mentioning. We had a coupon, made sure the tip was calculated according to the full price rather than the discounted, ate lots of noodles and veggies and meat, and had a good time.
When we got home, we found that our son Walden had come by and left us some of his latest batch of fudge. It was good.
The fudge was wrapped in aluminum foil marked NOM NOMS, so I sent him a text saying, "Thx 4 da noms kthxbaignite." He replied, "Youve been spending too much time in the tubes."
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "hes probly rite u kno"\\
When we got home, we found that our son Walden had come by and left us some of his latest batch of fudge. It was good.
The fudge was wrapped in aluminum foil marked NOM NOMS, so I sent him a text saying, "Thx 4 da noms kthxbaignite." He replied, "Youve been spending too much time in the tubes."
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "hes probly rite u kno"\\
Friday, December 25, 2009
Sunday, December 20, 2009
We Can't Find Our Christmas Card List
So if you are expecting (or would like to get) a card from us, please e-mail us at burtfamily@live.com and give us your current address.
Saturday, December 12, 2009
My Bookmarks, As of December 2009 (Part 4)
Category: Funny Things
http://www.4chan.org/
http://www.amptoons.com/blog/
http://www.badscience.net/
http://drmcninja.com/
http://emailsfromcrazypeople.com/
http://beatonna.livejournal.com/
http://questionablecontent.net/
http://wondermark.com/
http://xkcd.com/
http://myrightwingdad.blogspot.com/
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "'Funny' is a matter of taste, I suppose...."\\
http://www.4chan.org/
http://www.amptoons.com/blog/
http://www.badscience.net/
http://drmcninja.com/
http://emailsfromcrazypeople.com/
http://beatonna.livejournal.com/
http://questionablecontent.net/
http://wondermark.com/
http://xkcd.com/
http://myrightwingdad.blogspot.com/
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "'Funny' is a matter of taste, I suppose...."\\
Friday, December 11, 2009
My Bookmarks, As of December 2009 (Part 3)
Category: Fantasy, Science fiction, Comics Books, Movies, &c.
http://www.asofterworld.com/
http://c.urvy.org/?date=20080329
http://www.darkhorse.com/
http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php
http://girl-wonder.org/
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HomePage
http://io9.com/
http://www.misterkitty.org/
http://www.bigredhair.com/
http://pinktentacle.com/
http://precur.wordpress.com/
http://nosmokingintheskullcave.blogspot.com/
http://superdickery.com/
http://hoodedutilitarian.blogspot.com/
http://www.therobotspajamas.com/
http://www.thewaythefutureblogs.com/
http://warren-ellis.livejournal.com/
http://www.webcomicsnation.com/
http://luchins.com/
http://www.strangehorizons.com/
http://superfuturefriends.blogspot.com/
http://www.tor.com/
http://www.plaidstallions.com/
http://www.robmacdougall.org/
http://supergee.livejournal.com/
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Just how long is this list of yours, John?"\\
http://www.asofterworld.com/
http://c.urvy.org/?date=20080329
http://www.darkhorse.com/
http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php
http://girl-wonder.org/
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HomePage
http://io9.com/
http://www.misterkitty.org/
http://www.bigredhair.com/
http://pinktentacle.com/
http://precur.wordpress.com/
http://nosmokingintheskullcave.blogspot.com/
http://superdickery.com/
http://hoodedutilitarian.blogspot.com/
http://www.therobotspajamas.com/
http://www.thewaythefutureblogs.com/
http://warren-ellis.livejournal.com/
http://www.webcomicsnation.com/
http://luchins.com/
http://www.strangehorizons.com/
http://superfuturefriends.blogspot.com/
http://www.tor.com/
http://www.plaidstallions.com/
http://www.robmacdougall.org/
http://supergee.livejournal.com/
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Just how long is this list of yours, John?"\\
Thursday, December 10, 2009
My Bookmarks, As of December 2009 (Part 2)
Blogs
http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/
http://myrightwingdad.blogspot.com/
http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/
http://www.oliverwillis.com/
http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/
http://www.pamshouseblend.com/
http://pandagon.net/
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/
http://punkassblog.com/
http://www.sadlyno.com/
http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/SavageLove?oid=2017620
http://whatever.scalzi.com/
http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/
http://www.strangehorizons.com/
http://susiemadrak.com/
http://portlytruestories.blogspot.com/
http://www.theagitator.com/
http://thisislikesogay.blogspot.com/
http://www.weareallbadgers.com/index2.htm
http://wikileaks.org/
http://zeldalily.com/
I notice that some of these links are in the wrong folders. I must do something about that one of these days....
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "What, there's more?"\\
http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/
http://myrightwingdad.blogspot.com/
http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/
http://www.oliverwillis.com/
http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/
http://www.pamshouseblend.com/
http://pandagon.net/
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/
http://punkassblog.com/
http://www.sadlyno.com/
http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/SavageLove?oid=2017620
http://whatever.scalzi.com/
http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/
http://www.strangehorizons.com/
http://susiemadrak.com/
http://portlytruestories.blogspot.com/
http://www.theagitator.com/
http://thisislikesogay.blogspot.com/
http://www.weareallbadgers.com/index2.htm
http://wikileaks.org/
http://zeldalily.com/
I notice that some of these links are in the wrong folders. I must do something about that one of these days....
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "What, there's more?"\\
Wednesday, December 09, 2009
My Bookmarks, As of December 2009 (Part 1)
Audio
http://www.620kpoj.com/main.html
http://www.opb.org/radio/
http://www.otr.net/
http://www.youtube.com/
Blogs
http://acephalous.typepad.com/
http://alicublog.blogspot.com/
http://theangryblackwoman.com/
http://supergee.livejournal.com/
http://www.balloon-juice.com/
http://bitchphd.blogspot.com/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
http://www.cogitamusblog.com/
http://crookedtimber.org/
http://echidneofthesnakes.blogspot.com/
http://science-professor.blogspot.com/
http://www.feministe.us/blog/
http://www.feministing.com/
http://frugalfag.com/
http://hecatedemetersdatter.blogspot.com/
http://hugoschwyzer.net/
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/
http://joemygod.blogspot.com/
http://kateharding.net/
http://konagod.blogspot.com/
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/
http://lefarkins.blogspot.com/
http://www.miamiherald.com/leonard_pitts/
http://majikthise.typepad.com/
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Don't you have anything better to do?"\\
http://www.620kpoj.com/main.html
http://www.opb.org/radio/
http://www.otr.net/
http://www.youtube.com/
Blogs
http://acephalous.typepad.com/
http://alicublog.blogspot.com/
http://theangryblackwoman.com/
http://supergee.livejournal.com/
http://www.balloon-juice.com/
http://bitchphd.blogspot.com/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
http://www.cogitamusblog.com/
http://crookedtimber.org/
http://echidneofthesnakes.blogspot.com/
http://science-professor.blogspot.com/
http://www.feministe.us/blog/
http://www.feministing.com/
http://frugalfag.com/
http://hecatedemetersdatter.blogspot.com/
http://hugoschwyzer.net/
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/
http://joemygod.blogspot.com/
http://kateharding.net/
http://konagod.blogspot.com/
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/
http://lefarkins.blogspot.com/
http://www.miamiherald.com/leonard_pitts/
http://majikthise.typepad.com/
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Don't you have anything better to do?"\\
Sunday, December 06, 2009
Sunday Go To Meetin'
I went to the Quaker Meeting this morning, which I used to do regularly, and have been trying recently to start doing again, with limited success.
I am really glad that I was there today, though, because one of the members said something that I really needed to hear:
He said something to the effect that Quakers talk a lot about the Light Within, but that he was much more concerned with the Light that forms between people, if they allow it to. He said this was one of the most precious, even miraculous aspects of being human, and tragically all too vulnerable. By comparison with the vulnerability of human relations, the Light Within is relatively easy to nurture and to heal.
As I said, that was something I needed to hear.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Thank you, John".\\
I am really glad that I was there today, though, because one of the members said something that I really needed to hear:
He said something to the effect that Quakers talk a lot about the Light Within, but that he was much more concerned with the Light that forms between people, if they allow it to. He said this was one of the most precious, even miraculous aspects of being human, and tragically all too vulnerable. By comparison with the vulnerability of human relations, the Light Within is relatively easy to nurture and to heal.
As I said, that was something I needed to hear.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Thank you, John".\\
Home Again
But we will be going back to Portland again next weekend.
Why will we be going back to Portland? Go ask the Magic eight-Ball.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Reply Hazy, Perhaps Because of Embarrassment."\\
Why will we be going back to Portland? Go ask the Magic eight-Ball.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Reply Hazy, Perhaps Because of Embarrassment."\\
Saturday, December 05, 2009
At the Montavilla Motel
In Portland to take care of various errands and see various people, will be returning to Corvallis, probably late, staying tonight at the Montavilla Motel, one of Kathe's favorites.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Hurry back."\\
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Hurry back."\\
Friday, November 27, 2009
Things They Sell At The End of the Aisle
Things like inflatable tongues,
mustard-squirting mouths,
ketchup-squirting nostrils
and toothpaste-squirting dogs.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Goodness me."\\
mustard-squirting mouths,
ketchup-squirting nostrils
and toothpaste-squirting dogs.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Goodness me."\\
Thursday, November 26, 2009
John and Kathe's Blog
Come to our new joint blog, especially if you're one of our favorite people.
But really, even if you're not.
And our circle of favorite people is actually wider than you might think.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "You don't have to like someone for them to like you."\\
But really, even if you're not.
And our circle of favorite people is actually wider than you might think.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "You don't have to like someone for them to like you."\\
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Strange Days
But then they are all strange these days. Just had a big mouthful of very comfortable but still disturbing work done at Sunset Dental. I suppose the phenomenon of giving more attention to pains and fears past is one of the hallmarks of trauma, and that was definitely the case for me just now. But I already knew I was working my way through a great deal of trauma.
Sitting in the Creekside coffee shop around the corner from the dentist's, cautiously sipping mildly warm mocha through a straw, my clever upper lip compensating for the lack of active support from my squashy lower lip. waiting for Kathe to give my doped-up self a ride home.
Still thinking about the trauma aspect of dentistry. I can tell that a lot of the anxiety and trepidation I feel as dental work approaches is compounded of long-ago dental work, as well as other medical procedures, my fear of being out of control while someone else decides what to do with my body, my shame and fear at the condition of my body, and so forth. Lots of issues.
It helps that I am better now at recognizing all of these things, and recognizing them as separate things tht I can deal with individually. That does help, some.
I look forward to my wife's arrival and a safe ride home, but I also relish this private time, this isloation here at a coffee shop where I not only don't have anything I should rush off and do, but am under doctor's orders not to try to walk home, much less drive, on my own. It's kind of cozy sitting here like this in this peculiar state of isolation, not unlike the way I feel when I am up in my imaginary lookout tower.
I should spend more time up there.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Don't forget, the rent is due on that thing."\\
Sitting in the Creekside coffee shop around the corner from the dentist's, cautiously sipping mildly warm mocha through a straw, my clever upper lip compensating for the lack of active support from my squashy lower lip. waiting for Kathe to give my doped-up self a ride home.
Still thinking about the trauma aspect of dentistry. I can tell that a lot of the anxiety and trepidation I feel as dental work approaches is compounded of long-ago dental work, as well as other medical procedures, my fear of being out of control while someone else decides what to do with my body, my shame and fear at the condition of my body, and so forth. Lots of issues.
It helps that I am better now at recognizing all of these things, and recognizing them as separate things tht I can deal with individually. That does help, some.
I look forward to my wife's arrival and a safe ride home, but I also relish this private time, this isloation here at a coffee shop where I not only don't have anything I should rush off and do, but am under doctor's orders not to try to walk home, much less drive, on my own. It's kind of cozy sitting here like this in this peculiar state of isolation, not unlike the way I feel when I am up in my imaginary lookout tower.
I should spend more time up there.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Don't forget, the rent is due on that thing."\\
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Agricultural Equipment, Some Made from LEGOs
Kathe and I went to the Ag Expo at the Linn County fairgrounds. We really liked the LEGO farm equipment.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Sounhds like fun."\\
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Sounhds like fun."\\
Monday, November 16, 2009
News From Asnakech and Tesfaye
Good news, as it happens: He is staying with her in Portland, clean and sober and not endangering her lease.
It's been awhile since we'd heard anything at all about him, so this is very good news indeed.
Hang in there, Tes.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Take very good care,"\\
It's been awhile since we'd heard anything at all about him, so this is very good news indeed.
Hang in there, Tes.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Take very good care,"\\
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Ghost Buicks in the Sky
Driving down Interstate 5 to Springfield for my phlebotomy class, I saw something truly marvelous: a small plane was coming in to land at the Eugene airport, dropping down through low-hanging clouds into almost-clear air. Its twin headlamps lit up the fog in front of them, sending out long beams that were visible from the ground.
I have seen planes of all sizes coming in to land, but never one that looked quite so much like a phantom automobile.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Driver, change your ways, or...."\\
I have seen planes of all sizes coming in to land, but never one that looked quite so much like a phantom automobile.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Driver, change your ways, or...."\\
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
My Father Is Not The Man He Used to Be
But then, who is?
There was a time when, if I heard that my father no longer enjoyed reading science fiction, that he now found bizarre images and concepts disturbing, I would have said that this man simply couldn't be my father. But I have learned to be more tolerant of the idea that people do change, and not always for the worse. Or anyway, not entirely for the worse.
The other day, I sat with him while Mom was out with her sister, and he stared out the window at the clouds. I had noticed him commenting on clouds quite often lately, but hadn't really paid it much attention. But as I listened to his continued and attentive description of the clouds as they rolled by, I understood that he had an appreciation for the patterns they formed and re-formed which most people never have the patience to develop.
It reminded me, in fact, of a scene I had read in a story years ago, in which a man sees what the reader is clearly meant to recognize as the Beatific Vision, although the culture he comes from doesn't have that concept. The man was entranced by the ever-changing image (which, again, the reader will understand better than the character, because his culture also doesn't have the technology to create false-color images of the photosphere of the Sun), but eventually becomes just a tiny bit bored. It is a tribute to the writer's skill that it is clear that the fault lies with the viewer and not with the vision -- if his mind were better prepared, it is implied, he would be content to gaze upon that ever-changing sight eternally.
So, in spite of the pain and tragedy of my father's decline, and in spite of the inconvenience and heartache that the entire family is feeling, there are some bright spots, good experiences that he could not have had otherwise. No, it doesn't make up for what he has lost, not even close. But he is as he is, and things are as they are, and the wise thing to do is to take things as we find them and appreciate the good things when we see them.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Once a man was being chased through a forest by a tiger, and scrambled up a sheer cliff to try to escape. As he reached the top, he saw above him a second tiger. He looked at the tiger above him, and the tiger below him, and then he felt the root he was clinging to begin to give way. Then he looked to his right and saw, clinging to the cliff, a strawberry bush, with a single ripe strawberry growing on it. He reached out and picked the berry and ate it, and said, 'Oh. That's delicious'."\\
There was a time when, if I heard that my father no longer enjoyed reading science fiction, that he now found bizarre images and concepts disturbing, I would have said that this man simply couldn't be my father. But I have learned to be more tolerant of the idea that people do change, and not always for the worse. Or anyway, not entirely for the worse.
The other day, I sat with him while Mom was out with her sister, and he stared out the window at the clouds. I had noticed him commenting on clouds quite often lately, but hadn't really paid it much attention. But as I listened to his continued and attentive description of the clouds as they rolled by, I understood that he had an appreciation for the patterns they formed and re-formed which most people never have the patience to develop.
It reminded me, in fact, of a scene I had read in a story years ago, in which a man sees what the reader is clearly meant to recognize as the Beatific Vision, although the culture he comes from doesn't have that concept. The man was entranced by the ever-changing image (which, again, the reader will understand better than the character, because his culture also doesn't have the technology to create false-color images of the photosphere of the Sun), but eventually becomes just a tiny bit bored. It is a tribute to the writer's skill that it is clear that the fault lies with the viewer and not with the vision -- if his mind were better prepared, it is implied, he would be content to gaze upon that ever-changing sight eternally.
So, in spite of the pain and tragedy of my father's decline, and in spite of the inconvenience and heartache that the entire family is feeling, there are some bright spots, good experiences that he could not have had otherwise. No, it doesn't make up for what he has lost, not even close. But he is as he is, and things are as they are, and the wise thing to do is to take things as we find them and appreciate the good things when we see them.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Once a man was being chased through a forest by a tiger, and scrambled up a sheer cliff to try to escape. As he reached the top, he saw above him a second tiger. He looked at the tiger above him, and the tiger below him, and then he felt the root he was clinging to begin to give way. Then he looked to his right and saw, clinging to the cliff, a strawberry bush, with a single ripe strawberry growing on it. He reached out and picked the berry and ate it, and said, 'Oh. That's delicious'."\\
Saturday, November 07, 2009
Nora Ree Gror?
When my father and his siblings were little, they invented their own language, or anyway their own vocabulary (the grammar was, AIUI, German, as were any words they needed to complete a sentence which they hadn't made up), as well as a history for the country where it was spoken, the prehistoric civilization of Gror, which perished in a terrible war with the Rontrunes.
Anyway, the other day I saw an e-mail from my aunt Anne, and figured it was high time that Grorian had its presence online, no matter how small it might be.
Arseela: Fascist
Baen: No
Banya: To hate
Geen: to engage in reproductive activity
Gern Vasha: to like (Grordeutsch corruption)
Glind: Genius
Gnool: Mother
Grorian: An extinct civilzation
Ir: Yes
Lehr: Red
Na: Me
Naesor: to be
Ngosee: George Burt
Niklava: New
Nora: to like or desire
Nosan: to kill
Nosan ree: Go kill yourself
Ree: You
Ree naesor slorn: You are an idiot
Reesan: Communist
Rezh: Father
Rontrune: Cornishman
Sheel: Mother
Shula: Light
Slorn: Idiot
Vasha: to have
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Nora ree geen?"\\
Anyway, the other day I saw an e-mail from my aunt Anne, and figured it was high time that Grorian had its presence online, no matter how small it might be.
Arseela: Fascist
Baen: No
Banya: To hate
Geen: to engage in reproductive activity
Gern Vasha: to like (Grordeutsch corruption)
Glind: Genius
Gnool: Mother
Grorian: An extinct civilzation
Ir: Yes
Lehr: Red
Na: Me
Naesor: to be
Ngosee: George Burt
Niklava: New
Nora: to like or desire
Nosan: to kill
Nosan ree: Go kill yourself
Ree: You
Ree naesor slorn: You are an idiot
Reesan: Communist
Rezh: Father
Rontrune: Cornishman
Sheel: Mother
Shula: Light
Slorn: Idiot
Vasha: to have
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Nora ree geen?"\\
Friday, November 06, 2009
We Aren't Going to OryCon
Kathe and I went to last year's OryCon, but various circumstances have led us to decide not to go.
Sometime before the end of the year, we expect to visit Portland, though, and see some people, and like that.
Just no OryCon. Oh, well.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Do what you can and leave the rest."\\
Sometime before the end of the year, we expect to visit Portland, though, and see some people, and like that.
Just no OryCon. Oh, well.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Do what you can and leave the rest."\\
Thursday, November 05, 2009
I Don't Blog About Work
I have worked as a massage therapist since 1985, with more or less success. To supplement my income, I have also worked as a nurse's aide, and I am currently training as a phlebotomist.
The most hours of work I do, and the most money I earn, are both under the auspices of Home Care and Elder Services, giving in-home care to the elderly and the incapacitated. I really appreciate the honesty and consideration I have received over the years from Kathy, Deborah, Anna and now Tia.
There are often times I would like to make a post about an interaction I've had with one of the office staff, or one of my fellow caregivers, or a client. These are all things that really would not be embarrassing or invade anyone's privacy or betray any secrets. But if I started doing that, sooner or later I would inadvertantly post something I shouldn't. And even if I never did, the staff or the clients who knew I was blogging would wonder if I might.
So I just don't blog about work, or anyhow not in that way.
But it's not because I am ashamed of my work, or find it boring, and not because I don't appreciate the people I work with. Quite the contrary, I am trying to spare them worry and possible embarrassment.
And anyway, work is hardly the only aspect of my life that I don't write about here.
//The Magic Eight-Ball sasy, "Walk with caution."\\
The most hours of work I do, and the most money I earn, are both under the auspices of Home Care and Elder Services, giving in-home care to the elderly and the incapacitated. I really appreciate the honesty and consideration I have received over the years from Kathy, Deborah, Anna and now Tia.
There are often times I would like to make a post about an interaction I've had with one of the office staff, or one of my fellow caregivers, or a client. These are all things that really would not be embarrassing or invade anyone's privacy or betray any secrets. But if I started doing that, sooner or later I would inadvertantly post something I shouldn't. And even if I never did, the staff or the clients who knew I was blogging would wonder if I might.
So I just don't blog about work, or anyhow not in that way.
But it's not because I am ashamed of my work, or find it boring, and not because I don't appreciate the people I work with. Quite the contrary, I am trying to spare them worry and possible embarrassment.
And anyway, work is hardly the only aspect of my life that I don't write about here.
//The Magic Eight-Ball sasy, "Walk with caution."\\
Last Friday
Kathe and I went to the Old World Center to see the annual Halloween performance by the Corvallis Belly Dance Performance Guild. As usual, the dancers were skillful and (mostly) well-practiced, and as in previous years, their Halloween-themed costumes and routines were impressive and/or amusing.
I ran into someone I wasn't expecting to see, didn't know she was a belly dancer. It was a bit odd to see her in such a different setting, and very differently dressed. But that's Corvallis for you.
Anyway, we had a good time. We don't have enough of those lately.
Maybe we'll go to more of their Wednesday night performances, the way we used to.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "You will have a good time."\\
I ran into someone I wasn't expecting to see, didn't know she was a belly dancer. It was a bit odd to see her in such a different setting, and very differently dressed. But that's Corvallis for you.
Anyway, we had a good time. We don't have enough of those lately.
Maybe we'll go to more of their Wednesday night performances, the way we used to.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "You will have a good time."\\
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Remember the Dead
[Recycled from 09:54, 31 October 2004, and from 31 October 2005, and 2006]
This evening, we will be giving out what we usually give on Halloween: a plastic bag containing a comic book, a small toy, a piece or two of candy, and this card:
Remember the Dead
This is the night when the ancestors return to receive the hospitality of the living.
If we show them proper courtesy, with gifts and food, we will have their blessing through the coming year. As long as we honor the dead, they remain with us. Of coruse, if we fail to welcome them with proper courtesy, things may not go so well . . . especially tonight.
It is all too easy to ignore death and pretend it doesn't happen. But hiding from our fear will only make it greater. Better to choose a time to face our mortality -- and defy it.
So to memorialize the departed, and to confront our own fear of death, throw wide your doors tonight, and heed well the words of the evening's honored visitors:
"Trick or Treat!"
//The Magic 8-Ball says, "Have a mini-Snickers, Grandpa."\\
This evening, we will be giving out what we usually give on Halloween: a plastic bag containing a comic book, a small toy, a piece or two of candy, and this card:
Remember the Dead
This is the night when the ancestors return to receive the hospitality of the living.
If we show them proper courtesy, with gifts and food, we will have their blessing through the coming year. As long as we honor the dead, they remain with us. Of coruse, if we fail to welcome them with proper courtesy, things may not go so well . . . especially tonight.
It is all too easy to ignore death and pretend it doesn't happen. But hiding from our fear will only make it greater. Better to choose a time to face our mortality -- and defy it.
So to memorialize the departed, and to confront our own fear of death, throw wide your doors tonight, and heed well the words of the evening's honored visitors:
"Trick or Treat!"
//The Magic 8-Ball says, "Have a mini-Snickers, Grandpa."\\
Friday, October 30, 2009
War of the Worlds
[Recycled from 11:57, 30 October 2004, and from 30 October 2005]
Not nearly enough people saw the excellent film The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai: Across the 8th Dimension, but those who did were treated to Buck's stunned realization that all of the members of the conspiracy he had uncovered had registered for Social Security cards in Grover's Mill, New Jersey, on November 1st, 1938 -- the day after the supposed "Martian invasion" hoax!
I sat there in the theater, thinking, "That's not right -- although Orson Welles' War of the Worlds broadcast was intended as a Halloween fright, it actually went out on October 30th, the regularly scheduled night for the Mercury Radio Theater show. But since that was a Saturday show, November 1st would have been the next business day, so he's right after all."
My next thought was, "Good grief, I know all that stuff!"
What can I say? I'm very fond of the story, both the novel and the radio show. One of my great pleasures over the years has been tuning in repeats of the original broacast every Halloween. Alas, radio stations are now a bit reluctant to put voices on the air decribing the devastation of New York -- one more thing to tax Osama bin Laden with -- but the tapes are still there, and so is the book (the 1953 film and the 1987 TV series I never cared for all that much).
[Update, 2005: Twisting the dial on Halloween this year, I brought in part of a CBC broadcast of the Martian invasion of Ontario -- what fun! I also didn't think much of the 2004 Spielberg film, I'm afraid.]
[Update, 2014: Someone challenged me, and I find I was wrong: the Mercury Theater was a Sunday show, so October 31st was a Monday, and that would have been the proper date for immediately registering for a Social Security card. http://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/?year=1938]
//The Magic 8-Ball says, "Across the gulfs of space, intellects vast, cool and unsympathetic regarded our Earth with envious eyes and slowly, surely, drew their plans against us . . . ."\\
Not nearly enough people saw the excellent film The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai: Across the 8th Dimension, but those who did were treated to Buck's stunned realization that all of the members of the conspiracy he had uncovered had registered for Social Security cards in Grover's Mill, New Jersey, on November 1st, 1938 -- the day after the supposed "Martian invasion" hoax!
I sat there in the theater, thinking, "That's not right -- although Orson Welles' War of the Worlds broadcast was intended as a Halloween fright, it actually went out on October 30th, the regularly scheduled night for the Mercury Radio Theater show. But since that was a Saturday show, November 1st would have been the next business day, so he's right after all."
My next thought was, "Good grief, I know all that stuff!"
What can I say? I'm very fond of the story, both the novel and the radio show. One of my great pleasures over the years has been tuning in repeats of the original broacast every Halloween. Alas, radio stations are now a bit reluctant to put voices on the air decribing the devastation of New York -- one more thing to tax Osama bin Laden with -- but the tapes are still there, and so is the book (the 1953 film and the 1987 TV series I never cared for all that much).
[Update, 2005: Twisting the dial on Halloween this year, I brought in part of a CBC broadcast of the Martian invasion of Ontario -- what fun! I also didn't think much of the 2004 Spielberg film, I'm afraid.]
[Update, 2014: Someone challenged me, and I find I was wrong: the Mercury Theater was a Sunday show, so October 31st was a Monday, and that would have been the proper date for immediately registering for a Social Security card. http://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/?year=1938]
//The Magic 8-Ball says, "Across the gulfs of space, intellects vast, cool and unsympathetic regarded our Earth with envious eyes and slowly, surely, drew their plans against us . . . ."\\
Saturday, October 17, 2009
George and Dorothy's 50th Anniversary
This is a photograph of my parents, George and Dorothy Burt, on their wedding day, October 21st, 1959. When they observed their 50th wedding anniversary today, Kathe and I brought a print of this photo, with a story written by Kathe superimposed over it. That story is below.
The Love that Never Gave Up
There was a boy whose Father was very Old, and as he grew older himself, he resolved that he would never be an Old Father, because it wasn't much fun for the son, and it couldn't have been much fun for the father either.
So as he grew up, he made plans. First, he must make a place for himself in the World. He must find good and rewarding Work, and then he could marry and start a Family. So he went to College, where he expected to learn many things and find something he would like to do for his Work
He found it very difficult, and he had to leave the College. He next tried the Air Force, but it didn't agree with him, or he with it, so he returned to College. It was hard, but he Didn't Give Up. He tried, and again he tried, and he got his Degree. About this time, he decided that he was well-enough along the way to his Work that he could marry, and start to be a Young Father.
But that did not work out well. He and his wife soon parted. But he Did Not Give Up on marriage either. He met another young woman, one who was well-familiar with Not Giving Up. Her parents had been refugees, people without a home. They were so poor that the famous Church Mice were richer than they (at least the Church Mice had a roof over their heads). But they Did Not Give Up, and gradually they became successful, and they raised a large family of boys and girls who Never Gave Up.
Although the man and his new wife started a Family very soon, the man found that to do his Work, he needed more Degrees. So he returned to College again. Again he found it hard. And now it was very hard, for he and his wife had several small boys to take care of, as well as the studying that was necessary to obtain the Degrees. But the man and his wife Did Not Give Up.
In the fullness of time, the man gained his Degrees, and found his Work, and he and his wife raised three happy, healthy boys, and later they had many Adventures.
And when the man was Very Old, and his wife was almost as Old, they looked back at their life together, and saw that it had been very good, and that they had children who were happy in their Work, and grandchildren who were happy and healthy.
And it was all because of the Love that Never Gave Up.
But why do you say that it was the Love, that Never Gave Up?
What was it, my children, but the Love? The Love this man had for his children long before they were born, that he was determined that they should have a better life than he, and that they should have what he had always wanted, a Young Father. That Love Never Gave Up, and it accomplished a Fine Thing Indeed.
All of us will pass from this earth, and our places will be taken by others, but what better thing can people say of us, when we are gone, than that our lives were driven by Love?
[I couldn't simply post the image itself because it is a .pdf, which Blogger won't support]
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Go ahead, make me scrye."\\
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Phlebotomy Resources
These are sites that might be of use to phlebotomy students, placed here for the convenience of my classmates.
Miscellaneous Resources
http://library.med.utah.edu/WebPath/TUTORIAL/PHLEB/PHLEB.html
http://www.accd.edu/sac/nursing/r2201/pedsg/heelsticks.htm
http://www.austincc.edu/mlt/phb/phb_links.html
http://www.plcofdenver.com/html/general.html
http://www.phlebotomypages.com/phlebotomy_resources.htm
http://www.ehow.com/way_5207554_phlebotomy-tutorial.html
Educational Videos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yS2iOF7AGo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRqxy_2g0NQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ecu2ZewPoNM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJHGzQXerSc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERu0vjDEVDw
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Look and see for yourself."\\
Miscellaneous Resources
http://library.med.utah.edu/WebPath/TUTORIAL/PHLEB/PHLEB.html
http://www.accd.edu/sac/nursing/r2201/pedsg/heelsticks.htm
http://www.austincc.edu/mlt/phb/phb_links.html
http://www.plcofdenver.com/html/general.html
http://www.phlebotomypages.com/phlebotomy_resources.htm
http://www.ehow.com/way_5207554_phlebotomy-tutorial.html
Educational Videos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yS2iOF7AGo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRqxy_2g0NQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ecu2ZewPoNM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJHGzQXerSc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERu0vjDEVDw
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Look and see for yourself."\\
Sunday, October 04, 2009
A Gathering of Willamette Valley Poets
Kathe and I attended an event called "A Gathering of Willamette Valley Poets", part of Oregon Poetry Month, at the invitation of our friend Lana, whom we met by shopping at the bead store where she works.
At the event, we heard Lana join a group in a charming humorous recitation, and heard some other friends of longer standing read their works, as well as a number of people we didn't know.
It was fun. I wish more people had been there. I wish Kathe and I did things like that more often. Well, if we cultivate the habit, liekly we will.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Practice what you want more of."\\
At the event, we heard Lana join a group in a charming humorous recitation, and heard some other friends of longer standing read their works, as well as a number of people we didn't know.
It was fun. I wish more people had been there. I wish Kathe and I did things like that more often. Well, if we cultivate the habit, liekly we will.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Practice what you want more of."\\
Saturday, October 03, 2009
Going To Phlebotomy School
Well, as Moses said when he stood before the Red Sea and raised his hands, I sure hope this works.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "May Hermes guide your hand."\\
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Flag This Entry
The other day, Kathe and I were out delivering papers (that is, Kathe was delivering legal papers, and I was riding along), and we passed a lot full of waving flags.
Now, as it happens, I have long had a special fondness for the so-called Fort Moultrie flag:
"So-called" because the current consensus of opinion is that what actually flew over Fort Moultrie during the American Revolution was something more like this:
The display was flying the latter, but when we stopped and I asked about the former, the owner confirmed that he had that one, too.
So today we are flying the Fort Moultrie flag on our porch, where it will join the rotation with the Stars and Stripes and the U.S. Peace flag:
Next on our list, when we can afford it, is the Earth-from-space flag:
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Remember that the symbol is not the object."\\
Now, as it happens, I have long had a special fondness for the so-called Fort Moultrie flag:
"So-called" because the current consensus of opinion is that what actually flew over Fort Moultrie during the American Revolution was something more like this:
The display was flying the latter, but when we stopped and I asked about the former, the owner confirmed that he had that one, too.
So today we are flying the Fort Moultrie flag on our porch, where it will join the rotation with the Stars and Stripes and the U.S. Peace flag:
Next on our list, when we can afford it, is the Earth-from-space flag:
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Remember that the symbol is not the object."\\
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
No Self-Serve In Oregon
Thanks to which, we don't have to put up with things like this:
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Count your blessings."\\
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Count your blessings."\\
Wednesday, August 05, 2009
Opening Night of Twelfth Night
Kathe and I went up to the OSU campus to see Bard in the Quad's first performance of Twelfth Night.
We both enjoyed it, in spite of Kathe's feeling poorly.
//The Magic Eight Ball says, "You could do worse on a Summer night."\\
We both enjoyed it, in spite of Kathe's feeling poorly.
//The Magic Eight Ball says, "You could do worse on a Summer night."\\
Monday, July 27, 2009
Happy Birthday, Lana
Lasy night, Kathe and I went to the birthday party of Lana, whom we met awhile back at her DayDreamers bead store I had to leave early and missed the live entertainment, but Kathe says it was pretty impressive.
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Do what you have to do."\\
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Do what you have to do."\\
Thursday, July 02, 2009
Jake and Claire Are Here
It is good to have Kathe's eldest son and his wife here, and not just because Jake works like a yeoman of Trojan extraction when he gets up on the roof, and not just because Claire does all the cooking and makes me glad she does.
I wish we saw more of all of the kids. I wish we saw the existence of more grandchildren. Grump. grump....
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "If you keep talking like an old man, your knees will never stop hurting."\\
I wish we saw more of all of the kids. I wish we saw the existence of more grandchildren. Grump. grump....
//The Magic Eight-Ball says, "If you keep talking like an old man, your knees will never stop hurting."\\
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