Mrs. White's Thing

On my Pandora classical guitar station, there's a lute piece by John Dowland, the name of which is listed as "Mrs. White's Thing." It always cracks me up. I wonder what sort of thing we're talking about that Mrs. White has. :-D

There's a YouTube video of someone playing another version of the same piece, which is cool to watch because it's great to actually see someone playing a lute, which we don't get a chance to see very often. And it's a very pretty piece. This version is called "Mistress White's Choyce." (So the thing is a choice? Hmmm.) I would embed the video, but there's a bit of a problem. Because it has "Mistress" in the title, YouTube thinks that videos about dominatrixes (dominatrices?) are similar. Um, no. I really don't want that as part of my blog, so I'll just give a link here.

BTW, this is my classical guitar station on Pandora. I find it great to listen to while I write programs. Songs with words get in the way of thinking about the program I'm writing.

Since I used the word "dominatrix", I wonder who'll turn up here next! LOL!

Oops!

I did a boo-boo today. I was wondering why suddenly people were commenting here and sending me private messages on MTS about my post. Come to find out that it got picked up by Google alerts because I mentioned the name of that actor person.

I wasn't really hiding the post, but I didn't intend to make a huge deal out of it and certainly didn't want everyone in the fandom to read it. The point of this blog is to have a place where the fandom isn't and I can be just me.

I learned two things. First, don't mention his name in the blog. Second, change the setting so the blog doesn't get picked up by search engines. The second might take care of the first, but I'd rather be safe.

If there's anybody reading this who found the blog through the Google alert, you're welcome to come around. Glad to have you. But I'm not going to be talking about you-know-who here, so you might find it pretty boring.

Haddy Grimble!!

The warmest of wishes to all of my friends. This is a great time for lots of fun and laughter and all, but the following poem has always touched me and has been my favorite since I first heard it put to music on a Christmas album my parents had when I was little. It reminds me to have the audacity of hope.

I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) I heard the bells on Christmas Day Their old familiar carols play, And wild and sweet the words repeat Of peace on earth, good will to men. I thought how, as the day had come, The belfries of all Christendom Had tolled so long th' unbroken song Of peace on earth, good will to men. And in despair I bowed my head: "There is no peace on earth," I said, "For hate is strong and mocks the song Of peace on earth, good will to men." Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: "God is not dead, nor doth he sleep; The wrong shall fail, the right prevail, With peace on earth, good will to men."

Pointless venting

I've removed the post. It wasn't supposed to be broadcast to all fans of JM, but was addressed to the very few people who read this blog on a regular basis who don't have anything to do with the fandom.

If you missed it, just talk to some other people in the fandom. You'll likely find one who read it and they'll explain what it was about. It was not about JM, so you're not missing any tidbit of information about him.

Ecology and gays

Pope likens “saving” gays to saving the rainforest Mon Dec 22, 8:46 am ET

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Pope Benedict said on Monday that saving humanity from homosexual or transsexual behavior was just as important as saving the rainforest from destruction.

“(The Church) should also protect man from the destruction of himself. A sort of ecology of man is needed,” the pontiff said in a holiday address to the Curia, the Vatican’s central administration.

“The tropical forests do deserve our protection. But man, as a creature, does not deserve any less.”

The Catholic Church teaches that while homosexuality is not sinful, homosexual acts are. It opposes gay marriage and, in October, a leading Vatican official called homosexuality “a deviation, an irregularity, a wound.”

The pope said humanity needed to “listen to the language of creation” to understand the intended roles of man and woman. He compared behavior beyond traditional heterosexual relations as “a destruction of God’s work.”

He also defended the Church’s right to “speak of human nature as man and woman, and ask that this order of creation be respected.”

Dream knitting to music

A couple of nights ago I had a dream where I was knitting and listening to Vivaldi's Lute Concerto in D Major, specifically the Largo. I just love that piece of music. In my dream, the music was a pattern for knitted lace. Somehow the notes were instructions on when to do a knit stitch, when to do a purl, when to increase and decrease. The lace was incredibly beautiful.

This is a video of John Williams playing the whole concerto. The Largo goes from about 3:40 to 7:50 in the video. Can't you just imagine how beautiful a corresponding piece of lace would be?

Monday Movie Meme

This is from Nettl. You have to list movie favorites alphabetically choosing movie titles that start with A,B,C...and so forth. I found it was as hard to narrow down some to only one film for a letter as it was to find movies for all of them. (I really cheated on X.)

(The) Apartment
Beauty and the Beast (1947)
Casablanca
Donnie Darko
Edward Scissorhands
(La) Femme Nikita
(The) Great Escape
Harvey
Inherit the Wind
Jaws
Kolya
L. A. Confidential
(The) Maltese Falcon
North By Northwest
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
(The) Purple Rose of Cairo
(The) Queen
Rebecca
Sunset Boulevard
To Kill a Mockingbird
Unforgiven
Vertigo
We're No Angels (1955, with Humphrey Bogart)
(Malcom) X (I know it's cheating, but I couldn't find another movie I'd seen that started with X)
Young Frankenstein
Zardoz

Worldwide Children's Memorial

Once again, The Compassionate Friends have organized a worldwide candlelighting in memory of children who have died from any cause at any age. This year it's on Sunday the 14th of December. Candles are lit at 7 pm local time, creating a wave of light around the world.

It doesn't look like they got Congress to declare a special day this year, but I suppose it's understandable, given everything that's going on. While it's nice to have the day officially recognized, the important thing is that people remember.

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

The five-day forcast:

Some nifty internet stuff

In the past couple of days I've found some new things on the 'net.

First, there is this really cool game. It's pretty and clever and not easy. It has the potential of being very addictive.

The other thing is a useful and somewhat snarky way of passing on information to someone who hasn't bothered to look things up for themselves. Use the URL
www.letmegooglethatforyou.com/?q=
and add the search terms. So, if someone wondered if there were any sites that dealt with Mozart, you could give them the link

http://www.letmegooglethatforyou.com/?q=mozart

If you have multiple words in your search, connect them with a +

http://www.letmegooglethatforyou.com/?q=mozart+vienna

I think this is really cool!

Why not? I'll do it too.

I saw these on Nettl's and Steph's blogs, so I thought I'd join in. Italics means I've done it.

1. Started your own blog (duh)
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than you can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland
8. Climbed a mountain
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sang a solo
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea (I wasn't at sea, but the storm was)
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown your own vegetables
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitch hiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse (lots of partials)
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise (just a little one)
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
35. Seen an Amish community.
36. Taught yourself a new language
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelo's David
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance (more times than I can count)
47. Had your portrait painted
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in theater (I've kissed in the rain at a drive-in theater)
55. Been in a movie
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout cookies
62. Gone whale watching
63. Got flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check (more times than I want to think about)
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten Caviar
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had your picture in the newspaper
85. Read the entire Bible
86. Visited the White House (just drove by the outside and gave W the finger)
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone’s life
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a lawsuit
98. Owned a cell phone
99. Been stung by a bee
100. Read an entire book in one day
101. Seen more than 5 movies in one day
102. Spent a night in jail
103. Ridden a unicycle
104. Slept on the floor
105. Passed out drunk
106. Cheated a railway company
107. Lied about my age
108. Been South of the Equator
109. Been baptized
110. Been to Japan

I'm Changing My Name to Fannie Mae

I found this on Tom Paxton's site (there's an mp3 you can listen to on the page):

I AM CHANGING MY NAME TO FANNIE MAE
By Tom Paxton

Everybody and his uncle is in debt,
And the bankers and the brokers are upset.
Goldman Sachs’s, Merrill Lynch’s
Saw themselves as lead-pipe cinches,
Now they’ve landed in the biggest screw-up yet.
Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns and all their kind
Have turned out to be the blind leading the blind.
They are clearly the nit-wittest
In survival of the fittest––
Let me modestly say what I have in mind

Chorus:
I am changing my name to Fannie Mae;
I am changing it to AIG.
On this bail-out I am betting;
Just a piece of what they’re getting,
Would be perfectly acceptable to me.
I am changing my name to Freddie Mac;
I am leaving for that great receiving line.
I’ll be waiting when they hand out
Seven hundred million grand out––
That’s when I’ll get mine.

Since the first amphibian crawled out of the slime,
We’ve been struggling in an unrelenting climb.
We were hardly up and walking
Before money started talking
And it said that failure was the only crime.
If you really screwed things up, then you were through;
Now––surprise!––there is a different point of view.
All that crazy rooty-tootin’
And that golden parachutin’
Means that someone’s making millions––just not you! (to chorus)

A really great blog entry

I have just been made aware of a blog entry made by someone back in September. I know I have a very limited readership and I'm pretty sure everybody who does read my blog will appreciate this:

Jesus Christ quits Christianity after viewing Republican platform

I really wish I could write like this.

For HorusJ

I saw this picture and thought of my good friend HorusJ.

Poppies

Ever since I heard this song, it is what comes to mind when Veterans Day is mentioned. If you haven't heard it before, get a hankie handy.



No Man's Land (The Green Fields of France)
by Eric Bogle

Well how do you do, young Willie McBride,
Do you mind if I sit here down by your graveside
And rest for a while 'neath the warm summer sun
I've been walkin; all day and I'm nearly done.
I see by your gravestone you were only nineteen
When you joined the great fallen in nineteen-sixteen.
I hope you died well and I hope you died clean
Or young Willie McBride, was it slow and obscene.

Chorus :
Did they beat the drum slowly, did they play the fife lowly,
Did they sound the death-march as they lowered you down.
Did the band play the Last Post and chorus,
Did the pipes play the 'Flowers o' the Forest'.

Did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind
In some faithful heart is your memory enshrined
Although you died back in nineteen-sixteen
In that faithful heart are you ever nineteen
Or are you a stranger without even a name
Enclosed in forever behind the glass pane
In a old photograph, torn and battered and stained
And faded to yellow in a brown leather frame.

The sun now it shines on the green fields of France
There's warm summer breeze that makes the red poppies dance
And look how the sun shines from under the clouds
There's no gas, no barbed wire, there's no guns firing now
But here in this graveyard it's still no-man's land
The countless white crosses stand mute in the sand
To man's blind indifference to his fellow man
To a whole generation that were butchered and damned.

Now young Willie McBride I can't help wonderin' why
Do those who lie here know why they did die
And did they believe when they answered the call
Did they really believe that this war would end wars
Well the sorrow, the suffering, the glory, the pain
The killing and dying were all done in vain
For young Willie McBride it all happened again
And again, and again, and again, and again

Peoples are the craziest monkeys

(The title of this post is one of my mother-in-law's favorite sayings.)

Monks brawl at Christian holy site in Jerusalem

JERUSALEM – Israeli police rushed into one of Christianity's holiest churches Sunday and arrested two clergyman after an argument between monks erupted into a brawl next to the site of Jesus' tomb.

The clash between Armenian and Greek Orthodox monks broke out in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, revered as the site of Jesus' crucifixion, burial and resurrection.

The brawling began during a procession of Armenian clergymen commemorating the 4th-century discovery of the cross believed to have been used to crucify Jesus.

The Greeks objected to the march without one of their monks present, fearing that otherwise, the procession would subvert their own claim to the Edicule — the ancient structure built on what is believed to be the tomb of Jesus — and give the Armenians a claim to the site.

The Armenians refused, and when they tried to march the Greek Orthodox monks blocked their way, sparking the brawl.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said police were forced to intervene after fighting was reported. They arrested two monks, one from each side, he said.

A bearded Armenian monk in a red-and-pink robe and a black-clad Greek Orthodox monk with a bloody gash on his forehead were both taken away in handcuffs after scuffling with dozens of riot police.

Six Christian sects divide control of the ancient church. They regularly fight over turf and influence, and Israeli police are occasionally forced to intervene.

"We were keeping resistance so that the procession could not pass through ... and establish a right that they don't have," said a young Greek Orthodox monk with a cut next to his left eye.

The monk, who gave his name as Serafim, said he sustained the wound when an Armenian punched him from behind and broke his glasses.

Father Pakrat of the Armenian Patriarchate said the Greek demand was "against the status quo arrangement and against the internal arrangement of the Holy Sepulcher." He said the Greeks attacked first.

Archbishop Aristarchos, the chief secretary of the Greek Orthodox patriarchate, denied his monks initiated the violence.

After the brawl, the church was crowded with Israeli riot police holding assault rifles, standing beside Golgotha, where Jesus is believed to have been crucified, and the long smooth stone marking the place where tradition holds his body was laid out.

The feud is only one of a bewildering array of rivalries among churchmen in the Holy Sepulcher.

The Israeli government has long wanted to build a fire exit in the church, which regularly fills with thousands of pilgrims and has only one main door, but the sects cannot agree where the exit will be built.

A ladder placed on a ledge over the entrance sometime in the 19th century has remained there ever since because of a dispute over who has the authority to take it down.

More recently, a spat between Ethiopian and Coptic Christians is delaying badly needed renovations to a rooftop monastery that engineers say could collapse.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081109/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_israel_brawling_monks

video on the original page

A case against gay marriage

Don't get me wrong. I'm completely in favor of everyone being allowed to marry whoever they choose, so long as both parties are consenting adults. But I came across a quote that made me think about the other side. This is from someone who is on a politics mailing list that I've been a member of, off and on, for a decade.

Sorry you don't like it. But the fact is, homosexuality is a mindset that would destroy the human race, if left unchecked. And the dislike of it, is the only force that has checked it... until now.

Another member of the list has this as one of his random quotes that appear at the end of his posts, so I don't have any more information about what this person was saying. Still, it caused me to think a bit about why anyone would feel that way.

The only reason that I can come up with is that there is an assumption that men don't like women. The only reason men marry women is that homosexuality is "disliked" and they have to have somewhere to stick their penises. Since they can't have their preferred partners because of social stigma, they settle for the lesser vessel. They're jealous of those who have the audacity to not care about social stigma and can have the kind of sex that all men secretly desire.

Women, of course, don't really matter in all this, but when men all start sleeping with other men, the only people for women to sleep with will be other women. And then there will be no more people. I have actually read claims that the "liberal agenda" is to eliminate the human race altogether.

Does any of this seem to coincide with the underlying motivation that anyone else has seen?

Deni's Dream House

I was going to do the meme that Steph did yesterday, but in thinking about it, I found that the "Furniture Shop" part ended up very long and more than what is appropriate for the meme. So I thought I'd just post it on its own.


If I had unlimited funds and good health, I would love to have a house built to my specifications. I would start with one of the George Barber houses, which were made in the late 19th century as mail-order kits. People would buy the lumber and other materials pre-cut and it was sent to them on a railroad car to be built on-site. There are quite a few variations of style and I'd have to look closely at them all to make my decision as to which one to start with.

But it would be more than just an historic exterior and floorplan. I would work with a designer who has expertise in historical interior decoration, to start with an accurate design for the time that the house was first built. This design would be completely on paper.

Once the first design was finished, I would work with the designer and an architect to show how the house evolved over the years. What things would change in the decoration? What gifts would be given to the family and what mementos would be added? What modern conveniences would be added? Every five to ten years of the history, there would be another decorating makeover, with treasured pieces being kept, without worrying about any anachronisms. I figure we'd work it through the mid-30s, with the most recent redecoration being in art deco style.

Once the 1930s structure and design was set, we'd work on adding as many 21st century conveniences as possible, while trying to maintain as much of the integrity of the design as possible. (There's no way I'm living without a microwave!)

It's not going to happen, but just thinking about it is fun.

Small town values

As sad as I was over the passing of Proposition 8 in California, this made me smile.

Some random thoughts on the election

First ... YAY!!!

That said, I'm trying to temper my enthusiasm. The last time I felt anything like this (June, 1968), things didn't go so well. I don't think it'll happen again, but, well, once burned....

At least it's a decisive win. With more than 2/3 of the electoral votes, there won't be court challenges. They would have to bring so many suits and win them all in order to affect the outcome, that it wouldn't be worth it. Which is something in favor of the electoral college. It might be possible to challenge 4 million popular votes, but not that many electoral votes.

I hope that those around the world who have assumed that all (or even most) Americans were racists have changed their opinions of us at least a little bit.

As I said to Jim this morning before he went to work, "That Mr. Obama is pretty good at speechifying. You know, he might have a future in politics."

In other election news, it looks like South Dakota won't take away a woman's right to choose, which is also a YAY!! California is teetering with their anti-gay-marriage proposition, but I still hold out hope. I haven't followed other propositions closely, so I don't know about them.

Here in Washington, the most important proposition was the Death With Dignity law, which is very similar to Oregon's law. It was very contentious with those opposed to it even hiring Martin Sheen to try to scare people into believing that it would mean that poor and disabled people could be legally murdered. It passed.

Almost all of the things and people I voted for went the way I voted. The ones that didn't were ones that I had no passion about, so I'm considering the whole election to be a win for me. :-)

I have some thoughts about McCain and his campaign, but I'll wait to express them. I know there some McCain supporters out there and I think it would be unnecessarily unkind to rub salt in the wounds at this point. I think he did make a nice concession speech.

Lots of work to do. They were just saying that Obama is heading back to the Senate to try to pass some more legislation to help the economy, even before he is inaugurated. No time like the present.

I say again... YAY!!!

Maybe Caribou Barbie got fed up

There has been a lot of talk in the past few days about Sarah Palin going "off message" and having the audacity to speak what is on her mind, rather than the scripted remarks that the RNC has fed to her. Good for her. I wouldn't vote for her in any case, but I'm rather pleased that she's starting to stand up for herself a bit.

What bothered me most about the whole $150,000 wardrobe thing and the makeup person thing was that it really does seem like the RNC is happy playing with their Caribou Barbie -- dressing her up and making her say what they want her to say. I don't think she's the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree, but no woman should be treated by men as just something to manipulate for their own agendas.

The whole thing just is another example of how little regard the RNC has for women in general.

Oct 22

Even though I'm on the fifth day of a migraine, I thought I'd post this:

Some birthdays

• 1811 Franz Liszt, romantic composer/virtuoso pianist


• 1845 Sarah Bernhardt, actress


• 1887 John Reed, journalist who reported on Mexican, Russian revolutions (his story is the subject of the movie Reds)


• 1917 Joan Fontaine, actress (Ivanhoe; Rebecca)


• 1920 Timothy Leary, Harvard prof, LSD taker


• 1929 Dory Previn, pop singer (Love Be My Cover)


• 1936 Bobby Seale, black activist


• 1938 Christopher Lloyd, actor (Taxi; Back to the Future)


• 1938 Derek Jacobi, actor (I, Claudius; Cadfael)


• 1939 Tony Roberts, actor (Annie Hall; Edge of Night; Lucie Arnaz Show)


• 1942 Annette Funicello, actress (Mickey Mouse Club)


• 1943 Catherine Deneuve, actress (Repulsion; Hunger)


• 1951 me


• 1952 Jeff Goldblum, actor (The Fly; The Big Chill)


• 1952 Patti Davis, aka Patricia Ann Reagan, 1st daughter (House of Secrets)


• 1996 Sofia Vassilieva, actress (Ariel on Medium)

Some other events on this day

• 4004 B.C. Universe created at 8:00 PM, according to the 1650 pronouncement of Anglican archbishop James Ussher (presumably, that was GMT)


• 2136 B.C. Chinese make 1st record of a solar eclipse


• 1692 Last hanging for witchcraft in the United States.


• 1844 The Great Anticipation: Millerites, followers of William Miller, anticipated the end of the world in conjunction with the Second Advent of Christ. The following day became known as the Great Disappointment.


• 1934 Charles "Pretty Boy" Floyd shot dead by FBI in Ohio


• 1936 1st commercial flight from mainland to Hawaii


• 1938 1st Xerox copy made


• 1957 First United States casualties in Vietnam.


• 1962 JFK imposes naval blockade on Cuba, beginning missile crisis (I thought my dad came home from work early because it was my birthday.)


• 1962 Pacific Science Center opens at Seattle Center


• 1964 Jean-Paul Sartre is awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, but turns down the honour.


• 1966 USSR launches Luna 12 for orbit around Moon


• 1968 Apollo 7 returns to Earth


• 1975 Soviet spacecraft Venera 9 soft-lands on Venus

Truly beyond the pale

Newsletter by Republican women's group depicts Obama with watermelon, fried chicken, ribs

RIVERSIDE, Calif. - A San Bernardino County Republican group has distributed a newsletter picturing Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on a $10 bill adorned with a watermelon, ribs and a bucket of fried chicken.

Linking Obama to demeaning racist stereotypes drew denunciations from various GOP officials after the illustration appeared in the October newsletter of the Chaffey Community Republican Women, Federated, the Riverside Press-Enterprise reported Thursday.

Diane Fedele, president of the group, said she had no racist intent.

"I never connected," she told the newspaper. "It was just food to me. It didn't mean anything else."

The Obama campaign declined to comment, saying it does not address such attacks.

The newsletter was sent to about 200 club members and associates last week by mail and e-mail. The club is a volunteer group that is not directly responsible to the state party, said California Republican Party press secretary Hector Barajas, who denounced the newsletter.

Fedele said she had received the illustration in e-mails and decided to reprint it to poke fun at a remark by Obama that he doesn't look like other presidents.

"It was strictly an attempt to point out the outrageousness of his statement. I really don't want to go into it any further," Fedele told the newspaper. "I absolutely apologize to anyone who was offended. That clearly wasn't my attempt."

Sheila Raines of San Bernardino, a black member of the club, complained about the image to Fedele.

"This is what keeps African-Americans from joining the Republican Party," she said. "I'm really hurt. I cried for 45 minutes."

Source

Right. She didn't connect those foods with racism. If you believe that, I've got this really nifty bridge you might be interested in.

Finished something!!

I finished the baby afghan I was working on. It's so satisfying to see something grow under my hands.

I'm not sure how well the color will come out in the pictures. The yarn is a combination of an off-white strand and a thin strand of baby colors. It looks to me like the colors in an opal.

Who do you love?

Sometimes it's handy to look at the issues apart from the candidates themselves. There's a little quiz sort of thing that lets you do just that.

Match-O-Matic

I came out with one McCain-ite answer. The rest was all Obama.

New project

I'm putting aside the cross-stitching for now. I need the magnifier/light combo, but it ends up making the frame too heavy and unwieldy. I know what I need, but I can't find it. I don't want one of those clamp-type lap frames. I want an easel sort of thing, with a shelf to prop the frame on, but all open in the back so I can access both sides. And everything being adjustable. I wish I could do carpentry.

So, for the time being I'm going to put it aside and go back to knitting. I've got some yarn left over from a baby afghan I made for a friend's daughter. It's the color "1323", in the last row on the page with the yarn. Baby colors. :) It's very soft and it's also machine washable and dryable. I wasn't sure that I would have enough for a good-sized afghan, though, so I'm pairing it with some off-white Dazzleaire that I got from ebay. (Dazzleaire was discontinued years ago, but it's really nice -- soft and also machine wash and dry.)

I'm going to use a free pattern I found on the 'net, that is a variation on the old feather and fan pattern. I like it because it starts in the middle and works outward, resulting in a square blanket. It's great to use that sort of pattern when you don't know exactly how your yarn is going to work out. I've made some that were intended to be wide, but then ran out of yarn before it was long enough, making the width longer than the length. Majorly weird.

This will go to a site a found last night called Miracles Happen which sends out items to young mothers in crisis. I liked the site because it's not associated with any religious group and she specifically says that she's not going to talk about the politics of choice. I like that. At the point when a baby is born, choice is rather a moot point. I tried to find a crisis pregnancy center locally to take something like this, but all of them that I could find were run by religious groups and did talk about their political opinions. I'm going to let her make the decision as to where it will go. It also lets me have a little distance emotionally, which is something that I need.

-------------------------

ION, a while back, Steph had a post about misheard lyrics. As I've been listening to Pandora, I remembered a couple from my past.

Dan Fogelberg's "Part of the Plan"
Correct lyric: "Someday we'll all understand" (emphasis on the "der" in understand)
What I thought: "Sunday will fall on Thursday" (Why or how this would happen never made any sense to me, but I thought it must be something very deep and poetical.)

The other one isn't actually a mishearing, but a misunderstanding of what the lyric meant.
George Harrison's "Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth)"
Lyric: "Keep me free from birth"
Correct meaning: "Give me freedom, starting at the moment I was born"
My interpretation, when I thought I might be pregnant and hoping I wasn't: "Keep me free from being in the position to give birth"

A Day in the Life

Yesterday we went out for our weekly late lunch/early supper. It's really the only time every week that I actually get out, aside from short walks in the apartment complex. We've only got the one car and Jim is using it during the week to go to work. Besides, I wouldn't trust myself driving still.

We went some place different than the normal list of restaurants, a little further from home. We drove on a road I hadn't been on for quite a while. I noticed several things...

• A hand-lettered sign on a telephone pole, advertising for a "BRAISTA" at one of the corner coffee places
• A larger home-grown sign over the door of a business in one of those little industrial strip-mall places that said "I am Da Boss". I'd love to find out what sort of business it is.
• A bumper sticker in the back window of a car that said: "Keep Portland WEIRD".
• On the door of the restaurant (actually a soup-and-salad place) were their hours: "Sunday-Thursday -- 11 a.m to 9 p.m; Friday-Saturday -- 11 a.m to 9 p.m."

(BTW, "A Day in the Life" was on the radio when we were driving. The station doesn't usually play oldies, so that was a nice surprise.)

After lunch we went over to Michael's Crafts to pick up some things for my cross-stitching. Like always, though, within 10 minutes of looking at stuff, I was starting to get dizzy and weak. We paid for the things that I had picked up and headed out to the parking lot. By the time we got to the car my vision was beginning to get cloudy. Jim unlocked the door and when I was able to sit down I was a lot better. Within ten minutes I felt fine.

Back at home, I fell asleep on the couch for a couple of hours while Jim watched college football and then worked on my cross stitch stuff for a while. Oh, the excitement of our lives!

Okay so I'm back

Do to an overwhelming public outcry -- well, okay, two people expressing mild dismay -- and coming across the Blogging Without Obligation badge-thing, I've decided that I may post from time to time. Maybe I'll wax philosophical from time to time and then I'll have everybody confused!

ION, I've not officially joined the group, but I'm following along with the 25 Things for Charity blog. I need to accomplish something -- to have something that I can hold in my hand that I have actually done. Also, I need to regain some of the manual dexterity that I lost when I was so sick. I seem to be doing pretty well with the knitting these days, most of the time. Cross-stitching is a bit more of a challenge because it requires using finer muscles. Also I've found that my eyesight isn't what it used to be. I had to get me a magnifier/light thingy to clip onto my frame. It makes things a whole lot better.

The election is just fucking depressing. I've stopped reading the politics mailing list that I've been on for years because there's nothing but constant sniping from both sides and rehashing the same arguments on the same topics for the umpteenth time. Of course, it's likely that my resolve to not discuss politics will last about as long as my resolve to stop blogging.

So here I am. I'll post again when the spirit moves.

And in the end....

I don't think I'm going to worry about updating this blog any more. I think this is the end of it. I wanted to be a blogger, but it's just not in me to do it. I can't count the number of times I have written posts halfway through or more and just abandoned them for one reason or another. Yesterday I was writing something that triggered a crying jag that lasted several hours. This is not of the good.

It's rather like when I was a kid. I was given those nifty little diaries with locks on them several times for Christmas from relatives and I always intended to keep them up. All of them had entries for the first week of January and then were just blank.

I'm a really great blog-reader. I think that's my role.

Why I support Barack Obama

He is a man of true class and style.



Compare the above to this about McCain:

Earlier this month [June 1998], at a Republican Senate fund-raiser, McCain told a downright nasty joke making fun of Janet Reno, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Chelsea Clinton....

"Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly?
Because her father is Janet Reno."

McCain's two-liner conveys some interesting insights into what he considers humorous (lesbianism, a young woman's physical appearance), particularly since it was delivered to a Republican crowd. Remember, this is the party that champions pro-family values.

http://www.salon.com/news/1998/06/25newsb.html

Spoons

I was cleaning out some drawers today, including the silverware (well, flatware) drawer and got to thinking about spoons. My grandmother kept a sugar bowl on her kitchen table that was filled with spoons of all different patterns. I don't know if they were various patterns she'd had during her life or she went to second-hand stores to find different ones. It was fascinating to me as a little kid to look at all the different handles of the spoons sticking out of that ornate, rose-covered sugar bowl. The reason she had it, of course, was that spoons were the one type of flatware that was most used, what with folks sitting around the kitchen table drinking coffee most of the day.

When dinner time came (in Nebraska, dinner was at noon), my cousins and I would set the table and we each would have our own favorite spoon that we wanted at our place. Invariably there would be an argument over one particular spoon. Funny the things that kids find to argue about.

Years ago I thought that I would have my own sugar bowl full of mixed spoons. There's dozens of second-hand/antique stores around here and it would be an easy thing to pick up spoons that are orphaned from their original sets. I don't know why I never did it.

The Quadrennial Bicker

There's a reason that I only had one child. It wasn't that it just happened that way. I planned it. The reason was that I remembered growing up with my brother and the near-constant bickering between us. At the time, it was annoying, even though I was part of it. In retrospect, I realized how it must have driven my mother near the edge. I didn't want to deal with the same thing with my own kids, so I guaranteed that I wouldn't have to. An only child has no one to bicker with.

This morning as I was watching the "Today Show" on television, I was reminded of that decision. There were the two men who want to lead the most powerful country in the world, bickering like children. "He said such and such." "No I didn't. You're the one who said something bad." "No I didn't." Blah, blah, blah. Bicker, bicker, bicker. I turned off the television.

In every election since I've been old enough to vote, it's been the same sort of thing. Every time I start out favoring one candidate over the other, but by the time the election actually rolls around, I'm so sick of both of them that it's hard for me to cast a vote at all. I end up voting for the one who has annoyed me slightly less than the other. A couple of times I was so fed up that I just didn't vote.

I had hopes this time, naive as I am. McCain pledged to keep to the "high road" during the campaign and Obama said the same thing. From what I see, McCain started down the low road first, but now Obama has followed him down and I have no respect left for either one.

Oh, I'll vote for Obama. There's no question. But unless he manages to pull himself up out of the muck, I'll have to hold my nose to do it.

And I think both of them need to sit in the corner for a while and be sent to bed without their supper.

A tricked out name tag

I was watching the noon news and saw, for the umpteenth time, a commercial for an insurance company which says they compare their prices to those of other insurance companies. They show an example of what someone saved, with more than two hundred dollars between the price from the advertiser's company and the nearest competitor. The woman on the ad says "That's a new pair of shoes." A new pair of *shoes*? Actual human beings pay more than two hundred bucks for a pair of friggin' shoes? I know, I know. I'm not your average fashion plate, but paying that kind of money for anything that you wear just to impress other people is, well, stupid. And, frankly, obscene.

Sometimes people are really cool

I've been working on my genealogy site and trying to find some more information. Every once in a while, I just toss in a relative's or ancestor's name into a Google search to see what comes up. It's pretty surprising what you can find

A couple of weeks ago, I entered the name of a cousin of my father, whose maiden name was Areta Wolters. I was surprised to get a hit at all. A woman had posted a message back in 2003, saying that she had picked up a baby book in an antique store that had belonged to Areta. She was looking for relatives who would be able to "give it a good home."

I wrote to her and, after she verified that I really am one of Areta's relatives, offered to send it to me. She wouldn't take any money to reimburse her for either the original cost of the book or the shipping. She said that all she wanted was to get it to where it should be.

It came in the mail yesterday. It's just great to see all the names of people that I know so well and more pictures to identify. Mostly, though, it's nice to get reassurance that there really are cool people in the world who are willing to give of themselves while asking nothing in return.

Come into the world alone?

A couple of days ago I was watching some movie and there was the line that we've all heard dozens of times: "You come into the world alone and you leave it alone." Really? Has anyone since Adam and Eve (if you believe that sort of thing) actually come into the world without someone else being in the general vicinity? Am I the only person who had a mother present at her birth? I kinda don't think so.

As for leaving it alone, there are a lot of people that do that, but not everybody by a long shot.

The silliest things bother me. :)

It's all a matter of perspective

Yesterday being the fourth of July, there were some human interest-type stories on the Today Show dealing with the revolution. One of them reminded me of a little funny that happened the first time I went to London.

I had a day completely on my own, which was great. I bought a pass to one of those open-on-the-top tour buses and rode around the city, getting off and on at various places that I wanted to visit. On one pass through the city, I passed by a row house with a little blue sign on it that said that Benedict Arnold had lived there. (Research tells me the address is 62 Gloucester Place, Marylebone.) There was a line on the sign that I was certain I had misread it, so I took another trip around the city to come up to it again. Sure enough. Included on the sign was a description of Benedict Arnold as "American Patriot." :-)

I wonder what the reasoning behind this is. To be sure, Benedict Arnold was a patriotic American revolutionary at the beginning of the war. As a general, he successfully lead his troops against the British at Saratoga and Quebec. Maybe they were just focusing on his early career.

Or maybe they are using the term "patriot" to refer to the fact that his patriotism changed to a different type later on, when he offered to hand over West Point to the British for £20,300 and a brigadier's commission. Had his co-conspirator not been found and hanged, the plot would have succeeded and it's likely the revolution would have failed. Arnold did continue to fight in the war, on the side of the British. This would make him a patriot to the British cause and an American by virtue of where he was born and lived.

For those who may not know, the term "Benedict Arnold" in the US is equavalent to the term "traitor." Calling someone a "Benedict Arnold" is exactly the same as calling them a "Quisling." Can you imagine how people would react if Quisling was referred to as a "Norwegian Patriot" somewhere in Germany?

I just think the sign is humorous. It is one of those instances where just a little research might have done some good, though. Maybe "American revolutionary" would have worked better.

BTW, the Today Show segment was about the great-great-great grandson of Benedict Arnold.