Do You Believe?

I was reading an online discussion about whether it is a good thing to tell children that there's a Santa Claus. One side thought it was wrong to lie to children, while the other side thought that believing in the magic was a wonderful part of childhood. I never really believed in Santa Claus. It came across as a fun thing to pretend about, rather than a belief that a given person really existed. The pretense never went away, either. As long as we celebrated Christmas, my mom would give me one gift with a tag that said "from Santa."

I didn't really know why I didn't believe in Santa Claus, though. I was thinking that it was more of an attitude by my parents than anything else. Yesterday for some reason I remembered an incident, though, which was probably the source of how I viewed the jolly old elf for the rest of my life.

When I was little, cousins in one family were in a very difficult situation. My uncle was in the Navy and was at sea for months at a time. My cousins were 5, 7 and 9 years old and their mother just decided she couldn’t or didn’t want to care for them alone any more, so she abandoned them. The kids were placed in foster care. (Eventually they ended up living with our grandmother and my uncle retired from the Navy so he could be with them.)

I was five years old and my brother was seven. We didn’t have a real strong belief in Santa anyway, but there may have been something there at that point. Hard to tell. Our family wasn’t wealthy by any stretch of the imagination, but we had enough to get by on and our Christmases were pretty good. That year my parents came to my brother and me and explained about the cousins. They told us that our cousins wouldn’t have any Christmas presents where they were. If my parents bought presents for the cousins, there wouldn’t be as much for presents for my brother and me. We would still get presents, but there wouldn’t be as many as there had been in the past. They gave us a voice in how Christmas for everyone would be.

I want to stress that my parents didn’t put the whole decision on us. But we were part of it. And in order to make us part of it, they needed to tell us that there was no Santa Claus.

We agreed that it would be better for all of us, including our cousins, to have something, rather than for them to have nothing. My mom took us shopping with her to pick out the gifts for the cousins so we were part of the whole thing. The only thing I remember from that Christmas was when we went to the foster home to give the presents to my cousins. That was the most important part of the whole holiday.

A rare post

I'm not a good blogger. But I'm here once in a while.

I saw the doctor earlier this week and we talked about my migraines. He gave me a prescription for nortryptyline, which is supposed to be effective in preventing migraines. It's also an anti-depressant.

I took the first one last night and I feel like real ca-ca. Sort of like I'm wrapped in cotton batting or something and I've got low-level but constant nausea. This is the same way I've felt when I've taken other anti-depressants, for one reason or another.

Sidenote: When I was in the nursing home a couple of years ago, they berated me into agreeing to take an anti-depressant because they told me I was looney for being unhappy about being in the nursing home. I took them for a few days and then refused to continue.

I don't know what's going to happen. Maybe this horrible feeling will go away after I take these for a while. I'm not sure whether they'll prevent the migraines, either. I do have a feeling that I may have to choose between migraines every few weeks and feeling like crap all the time. We'll see.

Eighteen years, eight months and five days she was here. Eighteen years, eight months and five days she's been gone.

Bizarro world

Several weeks ago, my arm started hurting. It wasn't constant, but it was really painful. It was like the muscle was on fire and affected either the muscle just above my elbow or just below, but never both at the same time. On the right side. I'd had something similar not long before the whole badness with my innards started, except it was on the left side. It started and then, after several months, just stopped again, with nothing I could figure out as a cause.

When it happened before, I went to all sorts of doctors. I saw neurologists and rheumatologists and every other -ologist I could find. They gave me a whole list of things that weren't wrong with me, but not a clue as to what was wrong. I got a number of misdiagnoses -- someone said I had tennis elbow, which isn't even close to my symptoms. There was no injury or muscle strain or anything like that. It was a bit worse when I got stressed, but it didn't seem that stress caused the pain, just exacerbated it.

So when it started again, I was pretty upset. I was in some pretty severe pain and I knew there was nothing I could do about it. Some folks I talked to suggested minerals, especially potassium, so I made a point of trying to add more potassium-rich foods to my diet. I was taking a multivitamin with minerals, so I didn't think I needed to take much more.

Monday morning, just after taking my daily vitamin pill, I got to thinking about the previous bout with it. It occurred to me that I likely was taking a vitamin pill at that time, too, but ran out just as the whole intestinal thing started and I didn't bother replacing them. I had only started taking the vitamins again relatively recently. Then the strangest thought came to me. What if the vitamins were causing the pain?

I've not taken the vitamins since and the pain is almost completely gone. I've had a couple of twinges here and there and it's sort of generally sore, but not the excruciating fire that I had before. Jim thinks that maybe it's the minerals that were included so, once this is completely out of my system, I can try taking vitamins that have no minerals included. Then I can start adding things one at a time. At least if I get that pain again, I'll know to stop taking whatever I added most recently.

But how bizarre is it that a vitamin pill would cause this kind of pain? Weird!

Counting chickens

I found a job for Jim on the 'net that looks just about perfect. It's exactly what he has experience in, working for the EPA (a government job) and minimum pay would be 170% of what he was making before. Cool, huh?

It's in the general area of where we live -- close enough that he could commute for a while, but far enough that we would eventually have to move. It's just nice to think about being able to stay where we are until the lease runs out, rather than paying a penalty. The area is absolutely gorgeous. I like where we are now, but this is even better.

I started doing some online research on housing (we could afford a lot more than what we have now and possibly even buy a place). I keep telling myself that it's a good thing to look ahead and be prepared, but I have to be really careful not to count my chickens ahead of time. I don't want to be too disappointed if it doesn't happen.

The job was just recently posted and they'll be taking applications until the beginning of August, so I have a lot of time to both worry and count. Fingers crossed, though.

We're now a statistic

Jim just called to tell me that he has been laid off. He knew something was up because he got a call yesterday from the lab manager, saying that he wasn't to come in early like he usually does, but to wait until a meeting that was scheduled for 8:00 this morning. The meeting must have been a little early because it's now 7:40.

We'll be all right for a while. He gets a month's severance pay, and health insurance will continue for that time. Then he will get the back vacation pay they owe him, which is almost 8 weeks, so we have income at the same level through September. I doubt that we'll have insurance after this month, though. He said he has some paperwork that he's bringing home, so maybe there will be information there.

The thing that just kills me is that he gave so much to that company. Way over and above what anybody has the right to expect from an employee. On days when he was coming home "at the normal time", that would mean that he only worked 10 hours -- with no breaks -- instead of 12 or 14 hours. Several times he went four or more weeks at a time without a day off at all. And they shaft him.

On the up side, he has referred to the lab as "the bad place" for a long time. He joked about this being his opportunity to become a professional poker player. :-) At least we should be able to spend a few days of just being together before he gets into dealing with resumes and interviews and all that goes into looking for a new job. At least it's not cold out, and we don't owe any money to anyone.

I can't tell you how much I hate this...

... but I have to agree with [choke, gasp, gag] Sarah Palin.

I don't watch David Letterman, but I think somebody would have to be living under a rock not to have heard about the comments he made about Sarah Palin's daughter earlier this week. It is completely unacceptable. The reason I'm posting this is that I expect that at a later date some of the more conservative people I know will claim that this didn't bother me and no matter how much I might protest that it did, without dated proof that I wrote it, they won't believe me. So this is a "for the record" post.

This morning, Gov. Palin made two points in an interview on the Today Show which I had to agree with. First, she talked about how, during the most recent campaign, Obama asked that people keep families off limits. Mostly that has been respected, but not in the case of the Palins. I think that families, especially children, should not be mentioned at all and, if they are, only in the most benign manner.

Back in the early '60s, I remember a joke that mentioned a president's child, which I thought was pretty cute at the time and still do. I believe it was Stan Freberg who said that Krushchev had called the White House on the red phone and every problem between the US and USSR was solved within five minutes. Then Caroline called her daddy to the phone.

That's a cute joke that doesn't in any way denigrate the child, but rather was a comment on the presidency and referred to families everywhere. Letterman's jokes were very pointed, no matter which of the Palin daughters he was referring to.

Sidenote: I do wonder about some of Palin's supporters who are up in arms now and whether they were similarly up in arms when Rush Limbaugh compared the young teenage Chelsea Clinton to a dog. (Limbaugh lamely claimed that the incident was an accident when he was called on it, rather like Letterman's lame excuse of referring to the older Bristol Palin instead of 14-year-old Willow.)

The other thing I agree with Gov. Palin about is that this kind of joke contributes to an atmosphere where the denigration and abuse of women is somehow acceptable. It is an attack on all women, and especially on younger women. As bad as the personal attack on the Palin daughter (whichever one he meant) was, I think this is more serious. But not surprising.

Socks!!!!

I finished my socks! They're really nothing fancy or anything, knitting-wise, but the self-striping yarn ended up pretty cool. And they fit.

I learned a lot while I was making them, especially about getting the stripes to match. I figured that they either needed to be pretty close to matching, or completely opposite of each other.

They are definitely worthy of being Nicki socks.

To Steph and Nettl

(who I think of as Kaye and Lynette)

Your anniversary is in a couple of days, but since tonight you're going out to celebrate it, I thought I'd post my wish for you today. I love this poem. I know that it's how I feel about Jim and I'm pretty darned sure it's how you feel about each other.

Tin Wedding Whistle by Ogden Nash Though you know it anyhow Listen to me, darling, now, Proving what I need not prove How I know I love you, love. Near and far, near and far, I am happy where you are; Likewise I have never larnt How to be it where you aren't. Far and wide, far and wide, I can walk with you beside; Furthermore, I tell you what, I sit and sulk where you are not. Visitors remark my frown Where you're upstairs and I am down, Yes, and I'm afraid I pout When I'm indoors and you are out; But how contentedly I view Any room containing you. In fact I care not where you be, Just as long as it's with me. In all your absences I glimpse Fire and flood and trolls and imps. Is your train a minute slothful? I goad the stationmaster wrothful. When with friends to bridge you drive I never know if you're alive, And when you linger late in shops I long to telephone the cops. Yet how worth the waiting for, To see you coming through the door. Somehow, I can be complacent Never but with you adjacent. Near and far, near and far, I am happy where you are; Likewise I have never larnt How to be it where you aren't. Then grudge me not my fond endeavor, To hold you in my sight forever; Let none, not even you, disparage Such a valid reason for a marriage.

Something's gotta give

I'm really in a quandry. My apartment is a complete disaster area. I have been trying to get it cleaned, although I can only work for about 10 or 15 minutes before I'm completely wiped out and have to rest. I did finally work out a system where I work as long as I can and then set the timer on the microwave for 10 minutes. That's usually enough rest time, but having the timer go forces me to get back up to turn it off so I get back to working rather than getting involved in something on the computer or knitting.

The trouble is that there's a lot of stuff that needs to be thrown away. Much of it should probably be recycled, but that's even harder to manage. The problem is that in order to get to the dumpster, I have to climb stairs and I can't climb the stairs with things in my hands. I have to hold on to the railing or I'm likely to fall. I'm seriously afraid to even attempt to go up the stairs without holding on.

I've asked Jim to do it and he says that I just need to put it near the door, but then he doesn't think about it when he comes home. He's been working so much -- he leaves home at 4:30am and hasn't come home until nearly 8:00pm every day for the past week -- that I don't want to nag him about it. He takes care of the regular day-to-day garbage without being asked, probably because it gets to the point where he doesn't have any place to put his coffee grounds in the morning.

It's getting to the point of being like those overly-cluttered places that you see on the news or in movies with crazy old people. I've never been like my mom whose house is almost scarily clean, but it's getting to me now. I'm starting to get depressed. Claustrophobic. And I can't forget even for a minute that the days when I was able to do just about everything on my own are gone, probably forever. Coming to terms with my own limitations is really hard.

No matter what I do, I'm afraid I'm going to hurt Jim. Nagging him hurts him. If I do it on my own, or at least try to, he'll feel guilty for not doing it. I could, I suppose, find a "handyman" sort of person and pay him to come in and do it, but that would make Jim feel bad, too. Above all, the last thing in the world I want to do is to make Jim feel bad in any way. He has been so good to me and he works so hard that the thought of adding any more of a burden to him of any kind is unacceptable.

So I'm pretty much between a rock and a hard place. Good thing he doesn't read my blog. :-)

A little Nicki story

One of the things that I love about little kids is that they take everything literally, not understanding the nuances of adult speech. There was just a commercial on tv that reminded me of a Nicki story.

She was about four years old. We were in the back yard at my parents' house and we could see that the neighbors were working in their yard. I knew that they were building a greenhouse out of redwood boards and heavy plastic sheeting. The boards were propped up against the fence so Nicki could see them. She asked what the Morgans were doing and I said, "They're building a greenhouse."

She looked at the boards and then looked at me and then back at the boards. Gently, obviously not wanting to contradict me but rather confused, she said, "I think it's red."

They still just don't get it

I threatened a while back to talk about politics here. I'm following through on my threat.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney is still going around on one television show after another, saying things like "I'm convinced, absolutely convinced, that we saved thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of lives," as a result of what have been called "harsh interrogation techniques" -- torture. He is saying that with President Obama's absolute forbidding of torture that Americans are in danger of another terrorist attack.

As far as I can see, never before in the history of our country has a former member of the executive branch waged such a campaign against the new resident of the White House. It's unseemly and it smacks of being a poor sport because the opposition party was the one that replaced him.

I've begun to wonder if Cheney is doing this as a way to, as they say on legal tv shows, affect the jury pool in case some folks get their way and those who authorized torture during the Bush administration are arrested and tried for their actions. Cheney is giving a defense to keep himself out of prison because he knows he broke laws in what he and Bush did.

The most striking thing about this, though, is that whether or not lives were saved is completely beside the point. This is a nation of laws and the only thing that Bush and Cheney vowed to preserve, protect and defend was the Constitution. Back in Dec. 2005, Bush claimed "As president, I took an oath to defend the Constitution, and I have no greater responsibility than to protect our people, our freedom, and our way of life." He was wrong. His responsibility was to protect, preserve and defend the Constitution.

I belonged to a politics discussion list for a number of years and at one point the discussion centered around the "ticking time bomb" scenario, where there is a bomb set to go off that will kill hundreds or thousands of people and you have a terrorist with you that you know is aware of that bomb's location. The question was whether, in that particular instance, torture would be okay.

The more conservative members of the list didn't see a problem with torture in any case, but definitely agreed that in this case it would be perfectly fine. At least one of the more liberal members said they would do it and plead not guilty if brought to court for their actions. I said that, no, neither one of those was acceptable. If I were in the position as outlined and if I fully believed that torture was the only way to get the answer in time to save people, I would use it. And then I would turn myself in to the courts, plead guilty to the charges of breaking the laws against torture, and accept whatever punishment was deemed appropriate.

There seems to be a pervasive belief that if one does a bad thing for good reasons, it ceases to be a bad thing. But I don't believe it to be the case. It's still a bad thing and before we do bad things we have to be willing to accept the responsibility for doing them.

Should Bush, Cheney and others from the previous administration be prosecuted and punished for their illegal actions? I don't know. Once again being a Libra rears up and I can see two (at least) sides. I think it's likely a mistake for a new administration to investigate and prosecute previous administrations. It sets a bad precedent. But it also sets a bad precedent for nothing to happen to people who break the laws, even if those people are at the highest level of government. Remember the whole thing with Clinton? Supposedly the reason he was impeached was because he broke the law by lying to Congress and not because he had a really stupid affair. In the '90s, the Republicans were all in favor of the absolute rule of law. Now... not so much, it would seem.

There was a person on Bill Moyers a week or so ago who suggested that what Obama should do is to pardon Bush and Cheney, even before charges are brought against them. It would avoid the problem of one administration prosecuting the previous one, but, in order for the pardon to actually go through, Bush and Cheney would have to accept it, admitting what they did. Sounds to me like the ideal solution.

Socks and Denial ... Denial and Socks

When Nicki was little, but old enough to understand that people gave each other gifts, it occurred to me that I should come up with something that she could give to me for Christmas, birthdays, whatever. When I was a kid, my dad had two things that he needed on a regular basis -- a key case and a wallet. Each would last about two years before wearing out and it went to me to be the one to replace them each Christmas. There was no surprise to it, but at least they were things that I could afford and it pleased me to see him use them on a daily basis.

At the time that I was trying to come up with something, I had just bought some knee-high boots. I realized that I needed to wear them with relatively bulky socks in order to be comfortable. I bought some and got a kick out of getting what I thought were extremely tacky-looking socks with crazy stripes, weird-colored argyles, strange patterns because I knew they would be hidden in the boots. I could look very "put together" and stylish, all the while wearing something completely outrageous.

It hit me that socks were something that Nicki could give me. She could have fun looking for the most outrageously tacky pair of socks she could find, they weren't very expensive for a child's budget and they were something that I knew I would be able to use. It was a very special thing between the two of us. I sort of let it be known in the family that no one else was to give me tacky socks. That was Nicki's domain alone.

Over the years, she gave me some of the most outrageous socks I could ever hope for. We would laugh together when I opened my present at how truly ugly some of them were, and she would laugh again when she saw me wear them. My last birthday before she died, she gave me a dozen pair of socks, including two pairs of Christmas socks and a Halloween pair with skulls and pumpkins.

Naturally, some of them have worn out over the years or been eaten by clothes dryers. I'm not much for darning, so when a pair has become unwearable, I've placed the remnants in a special part of a dresser drawer. With her being gone, I've been running out. I bought some at The Joy of Socks, but it's just not the same.

Since my relatively recent return to knitting, I've been reading about a lot of people making socks. I've never made true socks before. Some slipper-type socks, but not socks that anybody could actually wear with shoes. they require the use of really fine yarn and little tiny needles, both of which I have avoided like the plague.

I decided to give them a try, though. I bought some extremely expensive yarn and made my first pair for Jim, as the first thing I've ever made for him. He liked them a lot. I've just finished my second pair for him. "Just" as in within the past half hour.

I've been thinking about how Nicki liked to knit and it would likely have been a logical progression for her to learn to knit socks by now, continuing our tradition of tacky socks by making them herself, rather than buying them. There is quite a trend these days of rather outrageous sock yarn, including self-striping yarn. I got several different colorways of it and I'm going to make myself socks next. The first one is this combination of blues and purple and green called "Martinique." I know it's a form of denial to imagine that she's making them for me, but that's okay. Denial's what gets me from one day to the next, or, as Lennon said, it's what gets me through the night.

A bit of a dilemma

I'm on the staff of a message board where people come for support for a web-based portal. The portal allows users to create a whole website around a forum. There's a lot of packaged code that comes with the portal, but the real reason that it shines is that it allows users to write their own code to do all sorts of interesting things. My specialty on the support board is to help people with custom code and I often write whole applications for people. (I've got one currently that I started a long time ago which I need to get finished. I don't like it, though, so I keep putting it off.)

I get annoyed with people who don't ever come back and tell me whether the code I wrote for them did what they needed it to do or not. About a fourth of the people fall into that category. Half or a bit more of the folks I write for are really nice and both tell me that it worked and give me a nice thank you. And then there's the ones who get effusive with their thanks and their compliments on my coding skills. I get a little uncomfortable with those. They tend to overestimate my ability -- I'm not really that good at it, just better than they are -- and it starts getting almost creepy. I tend to think of the original movie Bedazzled, where Dudley Moore says to Peter Cook "You're wonderful! You're marvelous!"

I went to the message board today and found a new topic which had been started by another staff member. It was a poll, with the title of "Do you think JPDeni is the Major Mighty $foo?" ("Major Mighty $foo" has become synonymous with something like "da bomb".) The only options are some form of "Yes", along with "Who is JPDeni" and "What?"

I really hate this. It makes me mega-uncomfortable and all I want to do is go away from the site and never come back. At the very least, I want to delete the topic (which I can do because I'm on the staff) and tell them that I don't like it. But I also don't want to embarrass any one or make them feel bad, either the person who started the topic or the ones who have responded. I know the intention is to be complimentary and nice, but I just hate it.

It's not that I can't take compliments. I can. It's just that at some point it becomes too much. Also, when they do something like that, I feel like I'm obligated to do more. I've come to the point recently where I decided to back off a bit on the custom code. I don't have time any more to do anything for myself and so many things that people ask for are things that I really don't enjoy coding. With this, they've set a level that I'm supposed to live up to and, if I don't -- if I'm just a regular person -- then I'll have let people down. It's rather like the old notion of a man putting a woman "on a pedestal." It's kinda nice at first, but then she realizes that one step outside of a narrowly confined area will cause a very nasty fall.

I don't suppose I'll do anything. I'll just hope it blows over. I hope it's soon.

Happy May Day!

When I woke up this morning and realized that it was the first of May, I remembered something that happened when I was a little kid. For several years up to the time I was 10 or so, my mother and I would put together a basket of flowers -- just a little one -- to give to a special neighbor. The deal was that the flowers were to be given anonymously. I would tiptoe up to the neighbor's front porch, put the flowers down, ring the doorbell and then run away. I guess it's a nicer version of the flaming-bag-of-dog-poo trick.

It was a nice thing to know that someone got a little smile and something pretty out of the blue. I guess it goes along with the way my parents taught me the concept of "pay it forward" without knowing the phrase. Giving for the sake of giving is a reward in itself.

Side rant: I have read where people have said that, since giving makes the giver happy, it's really a selfish thing to do and that's why they don't give anything to anybody. It's hard to believe the lengths some people will go in order to justify the things lacking in their own character.

I don't know why or when our little May day tradition stopped. I guess we just forgot about it for a couple of years and it faded away. But it was a nice thing to do.

I was looking online for May Day traditions and couldn't find anything about leaving anonymous flowers. I can't imagine that my mother made it up, but possibly it was some regional thing in the small area where my parents grew up. Has anyone else come across this?

Sometimes I hate being a Libra

One of the major negatives about many Libras is that they are indecisive and I have that shortcoming in spades. Maybe that's why I like random things so much.

The issue at the moment deals with my lampshades. In my living room, I have a table lamp, a floor lamp, two luminator-type lamps on the fireplace mantel and a little accent lamp. All of them are brass. The lampshades on them at the moment are self-adhesive shades. The idea is nifty. There's stickum on the outside of the shade and all you have to do is lay fabric or paper or whatever on it and it stays. Instant interior decorating!

Except that for the past two or three years since I got them, they've just had the white paper on them that is there when you buy them. The accent lamp has printed paper on the shade and around the base. (It allows you to decorate pretty much the whole lamp.)

I'm a crafty sort of person and I know how to do a lot of different things, which is really the source of my problem. I can't decide what to do with them. I could knit covers in lace or aran cables or any other knitting pattern. I could cross-stitch some pictures. I could learn a new craft and make paper (something that I've wanted to do for a long time). I could buy some handmade paper. I could get some parchment and use my printer to print out Shakespearean words/phrases/sonnets, printing in either gold color or black. I could just buy some fabric.

I suppose the problem is that I don't really have a style. Mostly it's decorated in "I've been sick for two years and the whole place is a wreck," which ought to be a clue to me that I need to take care of the wreckedness before I think about decorating my lampshades. And I'm doing that gradually, but I'd like to make a decision one way or another about what to do with the lampshades so I have something to focus on.

Maybe I should just make a list of the possibilities and go to random.org to get them to pick one for me.

I don't have to agree with someone ...

... in order to admire them.

Mary Ann Glendon, a conservative Harvard law professor who was U.S. ambassador to the Vatican under George W. Bush, has announced that she will not be accepting the Laetare Medal at the University of Notre Dame’s commencement ceremony on May 17. In her letter to Notre Dame President Rev. John Jenkins, Glendon stated that she would no longer be accepting, citing the conflict with President Barack Obama’s presence as both a commencement speaker and a recipient of an honorary degree.

Glendon is staunchly anti-abortion, and she expressed disappointment that Notre Dame was awarding someone -- in this case the president of the United States -- whose position on abortion is so starkly different from Catholic Church's and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops'.

Abortion Foe Declines Notre Dame Award

I hold a completely opposite position than Dr.[?] (Ms[?]) Glendon, but I can admire her for standing up for the things she believes in. She is not trying to influence legislation or chance Obama's position. She is in a position to make her opinion known, so she's doing it. It would have been easier not to say anything.

The president's response?

“President Obama is disappointed by former Ambassador Mary Glendon’s decision," Spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki, "but he looks forward to delivering an inclusive and respectful speech at the Notre Dame graduation, a school with a rich history of fostering the exchange of ideas. While he is honored to have the support of millions of people of all faiths, he does not govern with the expectation that everyone sees eye to eye with him on every position, and the spirit of debate and healthy disagreement on important issues is part of what he loves about this country.”

Once again, I am glad that I voted for him.

I'm meming too.

So much for my grandiose plans. They sort of fizzled.

In the meantime (memetime?) I'll do the high school meme that Steph did today.

1. Did you date someone from your school senior year?
No. I didn't have even one date my senior year. In fact, I really didn't have any dates at all during high school. I had a boyfriend who was in the Air Force, starting as a freshman and going halfway through senior year, but there was never any calling-up-on-the-phone "Are you busy Friday night?" sort of dates. Oh, yeah. There was one of those dates, early in my freshman year. It was an older guy (18!) from our church. That's the only real date I had until I was 30, and Jim called me up to ask me out to dinner.

2. Did you marry someone from your high school?
No.

3. Did you car pool to school?
I rode the bus. Both high schools were too far to walk and nobody had their own cars.

4. What kind of car did you drive?
Didn't have one until after high school. I got a 1968 VW Beetle -- Wooflie -- when I was in community college.

5. What kind of car do you have now?
Jim and I share a '95 Ford Aspire. Cute little thing.

6. It's Friday night... where were you (in high school)?
Usually at home. When my boyfriend was around, sometimes we would go out, but more often we'd just be home.

7. It is Friday night... where are you (now)?
At home.

8. What kind of job did you have in high school?
My senior year I had a steady baby-sitting job where I was the one at home when two little girls came home from school.

9. What kind of job do you do now?
I'm a professional slacker.

10. Were you a party animal?
No.

11. Were you considered a flirt?
No.

12. Were you in band, orchestra, or choir?
Not in high school. I played the flute in my elementary school band.

13. Were you a nerd?
Not really. I was probably thought of as "a brain," if I was thought of at all. I don't think very many people even knew I existed.

14. Did you get suspended or expelled?
Nope. One detention in freshman year for something I don't remember. It seems that it was something that I didn't have any control over, but nevertheless was a breach of the rules so I had to be punished.

15. Can you sing the fight song?
I can sing both the fight song and the Alma Mater from the first high school. We had to go to Friday afternoon pep rallies and I have a very good memory for songs.

16. Who was/were your favorite teacher(s)?
It's really hard to say. Probably my favorites were Mr. Jolosky (junior year German) and Mr. Basansky (senior year Russian). I don't think I thought enough of any of my teachers during my freshman or sophomore years to call any of them favorites. The best I could hope for was to have a teacher who wasn't an idiot.

17. Where did you sit during lunch?
Outside always. I hated being in the cafeteria, even when it was cold and rainy. I really don't remember freshman or sophomore year enough to be able to say, except that I know it wasn't inside. Junior year I remember being outside on the picnic tables with a bunch of people. Senior year I only went to four classes a day and left at lunch time. So lunch was at home or in the car while my mom was driving me to my college classes.

18. What was your school's full name?
Freshman-Junior: Atwater High School
Senior Year: Adolfo Camarillo High School

19. When did you graduate?
1969.

20. What was your school mascot?
Atwater: A falcon
Camarillo: A scorpion

21. If you could go back and do it again, would you?
If I could have a bit of insight so that I could make different choices, in a heartbeat. If it would just to relive the misery, no thanks.

22. Did you have fun at Prom?
No proms. The only high school dance sort of thing I went to was either freshman or sophomore year. Some semi-formal event that I got my boyfriend to take me to. It was okay. I got a nice dress to wear.

23. Do you still talk to your prom date?
No proms.

24. Who was your best friend?
Kathy Seeley in Atwater, but I hardly spent time with her after getting the boyfriend. At school in Atwater, I spent time with Grace and Richard. Then I moved and my friend was Kaye. (Steph)

25. What did you want to be when you grew up?
I was thinking about either a psychologist or a diplomat.

26. Any regrets?
Oh, yeah. Lots and lots.

27. Biggest fashion mistake?
Probably the flannel paisley/flowered Nehru jacket/bell-bottomed pants suit that my mother made for me from fabric sent by my boyfriend who was in Turkey. I still have it. (When she was in high school, I suggested that Nicki wear it for Halloween, as a hippie. She wouldn't even consider it.) Oh, and the culotte jumpsuit-y sort of thing that meant I had to get completely undressed in order to go to the loo. I wore it once.

28. Favorite fashion trend?
I liked bell bottoms. Still do. All the British mod stuff and the hippie stuff was nice.

29. Are you going to your next reunion?
I went to the twentieth, but I won't go again. It was interesting to see that the ones of us who had the most fun had been the outcasts in high school. The "soashes" (maybe that will get across the long "o" sound) and cheerleaders just sat around gossiping. The people I hung out with were people I knew from elementary school, though.

30. Who did you have a secret crush on?
Nobody. I think there may have been some crushes on me, but there wasn't anybody I was interested in who was in high school.

31. Did you go on spring break?
We had a week off school before Easter, but it was always just at home. The only one I remember is the one my senior year that was spent with Steph and Cher, with the three of us going back and forth between Steph's house and mine. Two whole blocks! (Steph, remember transcribing the words to "Atlantis"?)

Looking ahead

I've been thinking about what this blog should be. I'm not one to talk about the daily ins and outs of my life. There's nothing wrong with doing that and I often like to read what other people write, but it's just not me. So what's the point?

About 9pm every night, I am wiped out, falling asleep on the couch. I often have difficulty just getting through my brief bedtime routine. I drag myself into bed, turn out the light and suddenly I'm wide awake. Jim falls asleep pretty quickly, but I lie there in the dark for sometimes two or three hours, just thinking. My brain really starts working overtime about then and I get really philosophical.

I was thinking last night that I might just start writing out some of those thoughts. They're not fun, chatty things and it's likely that not very many people would like to read them. (Not that very many people come here anyway.) I think a lot about religion and politics and philosophy. Deep shit. ;-) But maybe if I write it out here I won't be thinking about it when I'm trying to sleep.

We'll see what happens. Maybe this'll end up just to be my own private diary, which is fine, too. I've never been one to keep a diary. I tried a number of times when I was a kid, but I just didn't have the discipline. And I won't do this every day either, but it's more likely that I'll make entries if I am willing to write about what I'm actually thinking about.

You have been warned. ;-)

A tempest in an iPod

I have been agog at the hullabaloo over the fact that President and Mrs. Obama included in iPod in the gifts that they took with them to London last week. You'd think that they gave Her Majesty a pile of dog poo or something. I got myself involved in a discussion of it on the politics mailing list I belong to and the insanity goes on and on.

Aside from the particulars of this gift-giving, which I'll get to in a moment, I have been informed that if someone gives two objects, no matter how unrelated those object might be, it is one "two-part" gift and not two gifts. And the gift that is lesser than the two is the one by which both are judged. Really. You don't believe me, do you? Well, this is a quote from a post to the list:

Or, you select a well-thought out wedding gift, say a silver bowl with a
particular pattern. Your husband thinks that's not enough and on the way to the wedding, buys a set of three dish towels. And leaves the tag on. Bowl, OK. Bowl and towels, cheesy.

The existence of the towels negates the OK-ness of the silver bowl. O-kay.

This all came up because, of course, the iPod was supposedly a cheesy gift. The fact that the Obamas also gave Her Majesty a rare autographed Richard Rodgers songbook didn't matter. The existence of the iPod made "the gift" (remember, even though there were two objects, there was only one gift) "cheesy."

Except for several things that have been ignored. Well, the fact that there was a Richard Rodgers songbook was ignored in most news reports, but there are still other other things. First, Her Majesty requested the iPod. Yes, that's right. She already had an audio iPod, which she seems to use quite a bit, but she wanted a video iPod, so someone from Buckingham Palace let it be known that Her Majesty would appreciate an upgrade. Second, while it was mentioned that there were a couple of speeches by Obama on the iPod, few reports mentioned that there was also video of Her Majesty's trip to the US in 2007 and even more video of a trip that she made to the US in 1957. It's nice to have film of one's travels.

Finally, there is the reaction from Buckingham Palace. Her Majesty wouldn't be likely to say that she didn't like the gift(s) she was given, but she could just not say anything, or say something noncommittal. A spokesman for the Queen said, "The Obamas, they scored a hit, particularly with the iPod, loaded with footage of the state visit from two years ago." That sounds like a successful gift to me.

Above all, though, is the focus on minutia like this in the midst of truly severe problems in our country and the world. I know that the conservatives are just trying to pretend that Obama is the oaf that his predecessor was, but it ain't gonna work.

An open letter to whoever is supposedly in charge of things

Dear Powers that Be-–

You really suck.

See, there was this extremely nice young man named Andy. He was bright, intelligent, witty, funny, caring, giving –- everything that is the absolute best that a young man should be and whole lot better than a whole lot of other people in this world.

He got a cavity in a tooth when he was in his late 20s and, like a whole lot of other young men of that age, blew it off for a while. It got infected and then he couldn’t blow it off any more, so he went to get it taken care of. This is something that most everybody does at some point in their life and, once the hassle of dealing with the infection is over with, should be just a mildly unpleasant memory after a while.

But you, PtB, decided that for this particular young man, this minor lapse in judgement would not end there. Oh, no. You had to make the infection travel to his heart muscle and put him in the hospital. But you wouldn’t even let it rest there. Once the immediate effect was over, this infection kept doing its nasty work over the course of five years or so. And now he’s dead. Because of a fragging cavity in his tooth.

I didn’t know him well. I only chatted with him a couple of times. But he touched me and charmed me like he did every other person that he came in contact with. He went out of his way to do things for people. This week, since he’s been gone, I’ve found out even more of the things he did. When he was just a kid in high school, a friend’s brother died. Andy took it upon himself to help his friend through his grief, to the point of sleeping on the friend’s floor so he could be there if he was needed in the night and starting up a memorial scholarship in honor of the lost brother. Even now, his family has asked that donations be made to this scholarship fund that is in the name of someone else, rather than setting up one in Andy’s memory, because that’s what Andy would want.

PtB, there are a whole lot of people walking around that this world could much more easily do without and who have done much more unwise things than letting a cavity go for a bit too long. I can even give you a list of ones that I know personally, if you'd like. But did you take them instead? No-o-o-o-o. You took Andy’s parents’ only child. We’ll never know the people who won’t be helped now because he’s gone. I know that the world as a whole is a whole lot dimmer place because this light is now gone.

So, PtB, you truly suck.

Signed,
Someone who wishes she could see him one more time

Extreme knitting

I am amazed at the different things that truly creative people have come up with, using knitting as a basis. The mind boggles.

This is a piece knitted out of surgical tubing (must be pretty rigid stuff so it doesn't kink) and then colored water is pumped through. Beautiful!

Fluid Sculpture from Charlie Bucket on Vimeo.

If the video takes too long to load, you can see it here.

I just don't get it

I got my weekly copy of the online newsletter from a genealogy organization I belong to and there was a section about Facebook. The newsletter says, "Social networking sites allow users to interact with each other." Um, well, I think I'm able to interact with people without using Facebook or any other social networking site. I chat online, I write emails, I'm on several email discussion lists and I frequent a number of online forums.

Is there anybody that uses a social networking site who could give me a reason that they are any different than what I already do?

Sunshine go away today...

... I really don't feel like dancing. We switched from rain to sun and, just like always, I've got a migraine. This one's extra bad, so I don't expect to be around much until Saturday.

I vant to bite ...

I realized recently that there are a lot of really classic books that I feel I know inside and out, but have never read. Bad Deni! So I'm working on remedying that. However, I have a problem with reading these days. I probably need new glasses, but until I get them I find it difficult to focus on a page. Also, my mind tends to wander a lot. Old age, I guess.

I have found that audio books are very good for me. I can knit while I listen to them and I can maintain focus much better. The quality of the reader is always a factor, but when I've got a good one, it's great.

I have signed up for an audible.com membership, but silly me I forgot that the county library system has audio books online to check out. You download the file and it's good for three weeks. I guess if you aren't done with it by then, you have to check it out again and re-download it.

Right now I'm listening to Dracula. I know the story inside and out, of course, but I didn't realize the way the story was told -- in the writings of different characters. There are multiple voices in the reading, all of which are excellent. The only trouble I ran into was when one of the women readers was reciting a speech by Van Helsing (Mina had transcribed the speech into her journal) and it just was tedious. Van Helsing is a bit tedious anyway, though.

One of the things that I found interesting, aside from just the way the story is told, were the little details that have been left out of all the movies. There is much more texture to the characters than i had thought before.

I've got about three hours left to go.

BTW, Steph, I've finished your tea cozy. I just need to find a button for it.

A lesson in restraint

I have this character flaw. I am compelled to correct anything that I see as being patently factually incorrect, especially when it comes to history and even more so when it comes to genealogy. It causes almost a physical discomfort and preys on my mind.

At the same time, there is the concept of asking oneself "Is it true? Is it kind? Is it necessary?" before saying, well, just about anything. One person I found said that it's okay to speak if at least two of those criteria are present.

In an online community to which I belong, there is a place to discuss genealogy. A person posted yesterday that her 27th great grandfather was Julius Caesar and she is also a descendant of James Polk, the 11th president of the US.

I thought back to things I've seen about Rome -- I, Claudius and Rome -- and I couldn't remember Julius Caesar having had grandchildren. So I looked it up. Julius Caesar had a daughter Julia by his first wife. Julia had one child who died, unnamed, after only a few days. Caesar also had a son Caesarion by Cleopatra, but Octavian (later Augustus) had the boy killed at the same time that Mark Antony had to fall on his sword and Cleo made an asp of herself. There seems to be a suggestion that Brutus (you know, the "honorable man" who killed Caesar) was actually Caesar's son from a dalliance with Brutus's mother, but Brutus only had one child, too, who died in infancy. Therefore, there are no progeny of Julius Caesar. It possibly could be that the descent is through an adopted child (those Romans adopted people left and right, even when the adoptee still had parents), but even so, the idea that any line could actually be traced back to 44 BC stretches credulity.

Since I was already Googling, I thought I'd take a look at James Polk. That's only going back 200 years or so, and we do have records from then, so there's a possibility this could be true. One visit to Wikipedia was enough to tell me that Polk never had children and was believed to have been sterile because of an operation he had as a teenager.

So.... I can post this on the message board or not. Using the criteria above, yes, it is true. Necessary? Probably only to ease my own discomfort about having unchallenged wrong genealogical information on the 'net. Kind? Probably not, no.

The devil's advocate (or maybe just the devil) in me suggests that, maybe this was intentional, to see if anyone would challenge her. For her to have picked two people that have no progeny seems to be quite a coincidence. Her claim for a source is "a relative who pretty much makes her living by genealogy" and maybe she's saying that professional genealogists are not worth paying for. But overall, I think this argument is just me trying to make up a justification.

I'll get over it, but it will likely bother me for a while. I have to keep telling myself that not giving in to my compulsions will make me a better person.

Genealogy stuff: the Irish

Sorry. This is really rambly. I started to write one thing and ended up in a completely different place. A well. It's my blog. :-)

I've been going back and filling in some of the data I was missing on some folks. In particular, I was focusing on Jim's Irish ancestors who were in Boston from the mid 1850s. I'm used to having grown up in your basic middle-class household and it's odd for me to be looking into families where the norm was abject poverty. I have a great deal of respect for these people and admire the fact that they just managed to get from day to day.

One was Jim's great-grandfather, John McLaughlin. He was in the first generation of American-born children, his parents, Jeremiah and Catherine (McKeon) McLaughlin, having come from Ireland sometime before 1853. Neither of John's parents could read or write, although Jeremiah may have learned later on in life. At the age of 14, John was finished with school and working as an errand boy. He must have learned his way around the city in that job, because the next time he appears on a census, he was 24 and listed as a "hack driver." I have a very Dickensian sort of image, transplanted to America, of a man in a tall black hat with a frock coat. He first was listed as having that occupation in 1880 and was still driving a carriage forty years later.

John McLaughlin must have done pretty well at his job. He managed to raise eleven children and at one point there were seventeen people living in the house that he owned. There was John, eight unmarried adult children, one married child, her husband and six of John's grandchildren. It must have been a large house, although it would have been incredibly crowded.

The other one that has touched me recently was John's mother-in-law, Ann McKee Vass. I don't know a whole lot about her, except that she came from Newfoundland with her husband William and at least one child Catherine. I stumbled onto a bit of information just by chance the other day. I was trying to find the Vass family in the census, but they just weren't there for some reason. There was a listing for Ann Vass, though. I investigated and found that, when the census was taken in 1870 she was in the "House of Industry" (a prison) on Deer Island in Boston. I contacted the office of the city archives in Boston -- spoke to a very nice young man -- who found the record for poor Ann. She was there from May through August of 1870. She was charged with being a "common drunkard."

Poor Annie. I really feel for her and can imagine how she would try to escape the squalor around her by drinking. I wonder what the precipitating event was that landed her at the "House of Industry." Maybe she refused the advances of the cop on the beat or was involved in some sort of brawl.

She lived for eight more years after she got out of jail, dying in 1878 of "apoplexy." That was the term used for any sudden death that began with a loss of consciousness. It's likely that she had a sudden fatal heart attack or a stroke.

It just occurred to me that there is a real connection between Ann and my brother-in-law, Michael. Of the four boys, Michael was the one who was an alcoholic. He went through a very difficult time. But he came through it. He went to AA and worked the program better than anyone I've ever known. He was the one person who truly had that "serenity to accept the things I cannot change" that is in the AA prayer. I would have long conversations with him on the phone, complaining about all sorts of things. He would understand and never make me feel small for my petty complaints, but yet he managed to pass on just a bit of that serenity to me. And then one day, as he was getting ready to start work (he was a chef at a big hotel in Boston), he suddenly collapsed and died. He was 38 years old. They called the paramedics immediately, but he was just gone. Apoplexy. They said it was a heard defect and there was murmuring that it was caused by all his hard living before he went into AA. It never seemed right, though.

I wonder if there was a genetic connection between the alcoholism and whatever the specific heart problem was. Could there be a linked gene? If there is, then this particular condition would likely been seen in other alcoholics and passed off as being caused by the alcoholism. (Which could lead me into one of my stock tirades about people attributing causality to correlation, but that's a whole 'nother subject.) It makes logical sense. I wonder if there's any way to ever find out.

Nicki Story: Christians and Lions and Cookies

I said a while back that I thought I'd share Nicki stories from time to time. Many of the stories I have are from when Nicki was little, but the one I thought about this evening was from her last few months.

I was involved in the theater department at the local community college. For the fall semester I had the position of assistant director for a production of Shaw's Androcles and the Lion. For those who are unfamiliar with the play, it's the old Aesop's fable about a slave removing a thorn from a lion's foot, only to later be saved by the grateful lion. In Shaw's version, Androcles is a Christian in early Rome and he finds himself in the Coloseum facing the lions, one of which is, of course, the one he had helped.

Nicki went with me to rehearsal several times, really enjoying the whole process. She got along great with the actors and the director, fitting in immediately with the whole group. It was nice for me, too, to have an assistant of my own.

We opened on a Friday night and I went to the opening night cast party for a while, mening that I slept late on Saturday morning. I woke up to hear rummaging through something. It took quite a while to identify the sound as being Nicki looking through a box of cookie cutters I had collected over the years. Just as I was about to get up to see what was going on, she appeared at the bedroom door.

"Mom?"

"Yes?"

(Holding out a little cookie cutter.) "Is this the only lion cookie cutter you have?"

I laughed. "Yeah. I didn't think I'd need any more than one."

She disappeared back down the hall and I decided to stay in bed for a while. She sometimes got nervous doing cooking when I was around. Finally, after I heard the mixer stop for a bit, I got up. There was Nicki, rolling out sugar cookie dough and using the little lion cookie cutter. She had lions all over the place, some on cookie sheets, ready to go into the oven; some on cooling racks, nicely browned; some already cool and stacked neatly.

She saw my puzzled look and said, "These are for you to take to the cast of the play. This way you can throw the lions to the Christians."

The reason I don't program for pay

I write a lot of little programs for people on a support website. It's all volunteer. People try to pay me -- people have even told me that I'm stupid for not taking money -- but I don't want them to give me anything. I'll never make enough money doing it that Jim would be able to stop working and we have enough to live on at the moment, so it's not necessary. Also, I like the idea of "paying it forward" which is what my dad taught me to do before anyone ever knew of the phrase. When I help someone, the thing that I ask is that they help someone else. Most people still can't manage to think beyond their wallets, though, so I also suggest donating to a children's charity or Habitat for Humanity. A number of them have said something like "I already do that" with no indication that they would do anything in response to my helping. That's up to them, though.

But there is a more selfish reason that I don't program for pay. I hate clients. I truly hate them with a flaming hot passion. If they are paying me, I can't just dump them. This way, when the flaming hot passion becomes too much, can turn my back on them, ignore them, pretend that they are not part of my world.

Why, you might ask, would I hate clients? Case in point. A couple of weeks ago, someone said that they wanted a page for their website which would allow users to sign up for time slots during some sort of competition thing. Not a clue what the competition is about, because it doesn't matter. I laid out what I thought would be a good structure for what had asked for. He thought it was just kewl! I went to work on it. Then he added a little request for an administrator to be able to sign up people as well as the individuals signing up for themselves. That took me a bit of time to conceptualize, but I finally got it.

I tested the code, got it working and posted it to the message board for the guy to copy and paste into his web page. He posted that he would try it and get back to me. (I find that rather annoying. It would be better if he would just do it and post when it's done. But that's my own thing.) That was a week ago. There are other biggish projects that others have asked me for, but I don't want to start on a new one until I have the last of the tweaks done on this one. So I posted a question about it. He posted back. Hadn't even looked at it, didn't know what to do with it.

I wrote out a long explanation of how to create a new page on his site with the portal that we're using. By the time I got it done, he posted that he'd figured it out, but then had another question. Which I answered. Finally he got it in the page and got back to me. The next sentence was the one I am so used to and why I hate clients. "That's really great, but..."

He wanted me to add the ability to put in a lunch time for the judges when no one could sign up. I had a choice. I could rewrite about a third of the code and have it be clunky, or I could make it elegant and rewrite the whole thing. I chose clunky. I posted the new code. The response "Oh, this is wonderful. You're getting really close. Now, what I need you to add is..."

What he needs me to do, actually, is completely rewrite the entire code. Oh, I can use bits and pieces, but the concept has changed and definitely the method of entering data has to be different. Oh, yeah, and I can't use the database table I was using and will likely have to create a new table. On top of it all, he said he needed this one thing "or" another thing. I hate that! Do you want something or don't you? This or that? Do I choose? What if you're not happy with my choice? Will you demand that I rewrite it again? Actually, what I find is that when people write "or" they mean "and" -- they want them both.

I told him that I would rewrite the code once more and that, before I did it, he needed to decide what features he wanted. Once I get it done, that's it.

People don't understand that most of the time adding just one thing that seems really minor can be a major change to the code. And sometimes it's difficult for me to conceptualize what needs to be done in order to accomplish the change. I have a structure in my head and it can be really hard to create a new one.

I guess the thing I need to do is expect it and not even try to start out with a finished product because I know that they'll want it different no matter what I give them at the beginning. Also, I suppose it's part of my ego. It's almost as if they're saying that I did it wrong and I don't like to make mistakes. I do all the time, actually, but I'd really rather it not be pointed out in a public forum.

Home again, home again...

...jiggidy, jig.

No major problems at all. I got tired walking in the Newark airport -- I swear it must have been four miles from the gate to baggage claim. I had to sit down three times before I got to an area labeled "Customer Care." I figured that, since I was a customer, they could care. I asked if I could get transportation to the baggage claim area and they got one of the golf carts. It was at least as far as I'd already walked.

I had a great time with my friends who I knew from previous conventions and online. They were fantastic. I only told a couple of people that I was going to be there, so most folks were surprised. It was pretty great to have people's faces light up just to see me. Everybody ought to have an experience like that at least once in their lives.

The people that I mostly hung out with took really good care of me without being smothering. When I needed to sit down, they helped me find a chair. When I was hungry or thirsty, they got me what I needed.

The picture is when I gave the celeb I was going to see (I don't dare mention his name or the blog will be inundated with other fans) a package of smoked salmon. It sort of has become a tradition. I was telling him that he had to share it with his manager, the man sitting next to him. J (the celeb) said that he was on a protein-only diet and this was a treat he could actually eat. He wasn't sharing it with anybody.

On the trip home, I got the airline to bring out a wheelchair, which allowed me to not only get to the gate without falling down, but got me through the security line fast.

It took several days for my muscles to stop hurting. But I think the end result is that I'm physically stronger. The good it did to me emotionally is beyond measure.

Why I love Seattle ...

... aside from the weather.

I can't embed the video, but here's a link to raw news video of a pod of orcas in Puget Sound from today. We went whale-watching once and it was just incredible to see these beautiful beasties out in the ocean where they belong.

If you look closely at the video, you can catch glimpses of the two babies who are new this year.

Up, up and away

I'm off tomorrow morning to fly across the country. Newark, New Jersey, here I come.

This will be the first time I've actually been in the physical company of friends since Jim and I met Steph over in Spokane two years ago. Since then it has been just family and medical professionals.

I'm excited, but my excitement is tempered with abject terror. I'm not afraid to fly, exactly. The idea of a plane crash, if it crosses my mind at all, doesn't scare me in the least. The fear is that I don't know what my body is going to do. I'm in a constant struggle to try to get it to act in somewhat socially acceptable ways, but many times it's a losing battle.

I'll consider the trip a success if a) I don't pass out (and all the loveliness that goes with that) and b) I make it to the loo in time. Low expectations. :-)

I'll be back on Monday night.

The Phelps name is vindicated

One of my great-great-great grandmothers was named Dorothy Phelps. I've been able to trace her ancestry back to an immigrant ancestor, William Phelps from Crewkerne in Somerset, which is cool. The Phelps family has the single nicest given name I've ever come across. One of my ancestors had a sister named Delight. With all of the bad stuff that has come down from my repressed and oppressive Puritanical New England progenitors, that was a nice surprise.

William Phelps, the immigrant, was one of the founders of Hartford Connecticut. I once read a list of the laws from that city and they would go very well with my previous post. The list of things that were punishable by death is astounding and children were not exempt from execution.

Not long after I found out about my connection to the Phelps family, I heard about Fred Phelps, that sleaze that runs godhatesfags.com (I won't link to it) and is known for going to the funerals of AIDS victims, celebrating and carrying their hate in signs. These creeps even demostrated at the funeral of Mr. Rogers (of "the neighborhood") because he never came out on his children's show condemning homosexuality to little children.

I've been a bit reluctant over the years to claim my Phelps heritage, both because of William of old and Fred in contemporary times. I don't know whether Fred is from my same family, at least. There were five apparently unrelated Phelps immigrants from England to America. My hope is that Fred is from one of the others.

Today I found out about another Phelps descendant, though, which gives me a great deal of hope for the family. Again, I don't know if she was a descendant of the same progenitor that I am, but she's someone I would be pleased to claim as my own.

Mary Phelps Jacob was the inventor of the modern bra, for one thing. It seems that she got a new dress that was quite revealing and the whalebone stays of her corset showed through. So she, with the help of a servant, sewed together some silk handkerchiefs and pink ribbon to make a more attractive undergarment. The resulting style was a big hit among her ritzy friends and everyone wanted one. Her bra had no support, however, resulting in a rather flat-chested look. It was the impetus for the popularity of the non-buxomness of the flapper era.

She created a business and used the name Caresse Crosby (she was married to a man named Crosby then). Although she went through a number of different surnames through the rest of her life, she kept the name Caresse as her given name.

As for the surnames, her first husband was Richard Peabody who, it is said "had only three real interests, all acquired at Harvard: to play, to drink, and to turn out, at any hour, to chase fire engines." She had two children by him and then fell in love with Harry Crosby. She divorced Dick (apt name) and married Harry. Her second marriage was quite tumultuous and ended when Harry committed suicide in a lover's pact with a young mistress. She later married Selbert Young, who was nearly 20 years younger than she, but she eventually divorced him and lived on her own.

While she was married to Harry Crosby, she started the Black Sun Press in Paris, which published books by Hemingway, William Faulkner, and Dorothy Parker, among others. She was friends with Henry Miller and took over as a ghost writer for him when he felt he could no longer fulfill a contract he had made to write pornography for an Oklahoma oil baron. "Caresse's smut was just what the oil man wanted-no literary aspirations-just plain sex. In Caresse the agent had found the basic pornographic Henry Miller. Caresse churned out another 200 pages, spending her time writing while her husband, Bert Young, fell into a drunken stupor every night."

Part of me wishes I could have lived a romantic, avant-garde sort of life like that. I don't think I'd manage it, though. It's a nice thing to think about, but I really don't think I have the temperament for it.

Still, Mary Phelps Jacob is a nice contrast to Fred.

Glad I'm Living Now

It's sometimes fun to romanticize about the past and wish that we lived in a simpler time, but then things about that simpler time come up and we realize that maybe the modern world ain't so bad after all.

In doing some genealogy research, I found the following about a brother of one of Jim's ancestors:

In a court record dated 7 September 1642, "Thomas Granger [Jr.], late servant to Love Brewster, ... was this Court indicted for buggery with a mare, a cow, two goats, divers sheep, two calves and a turkey,

at which point I laughed out loud. I think the turkey was the thing that set me off. Then I kept reading.

and was found guilty, and received [a] sentence of death by hanging until he was dead."

This was a boy who was 16 or 17 years old. He was a servant, as were his parents, so nobody cared exactly how old he was or anything else about him.

I daresay (is that one or two words?) that a lot of people I know would not have made it to adulthood -- including myself -- if we had lived in the 17th century.

Surrealistic Pillow-time

Last night I had a dream where Rufus Sewell was a real estate agent. He told me about how he sold a house to Neil Young. He also said his favorite Neil Young song was "Reason to Believe."

At that point, I woke up and said out loud, "But 'Reason to Believe' is by Rod Stewart!'

My first lace

I mentioned making a lace scarf in my previous post. Well, here it is:



I'm not sure how clear it is. I'm so used to seeing it that the heart pattern is very obvious to me. The reason that I made hearts -- not usually my style -- is that I'm wearing it to a Valentine's weekend event. At least it's not pink!

The yarn is a hand-dyed bamboo rayon in lilac. The hand-dyeing makes the colors vary a bit, which gives a little more interest than just a flat color. The bamboo is really soft and nice to work with. I understand that it stretches when it's in something heavy, but the mesh in the scarf should be all right.

This was quite a challenge and probably the most difficult thing I've ever knitted. Usually I'm able to look at the instructions in a pattern and visualize how each stitch will come out. Not this time. I just had to work on faith that it would do what it said it would. And it did. :-) There are some errors here and there. At one point I realized I had dropped a stitch about 100 rows earlier. I wasn't about to take out all that knitting, so I fudged a fix for it. I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who would ever be ablt to find it.

Taking on this project was rather like when I studied calculus. I did it because it was something that had always scared me a little -- both lace knitting and calculus. Once I actually tackled it, I was able to do it, though. Actually, calculus was easier than lace knitting. :-) But the knitting was more fun and, unlike calculus, I may just try it again in the future. I have some lace weight alpaca that really wants to be made into something pretty.

Only for knitters: My own row counter

I looked all over the place to find a row counter that I liked. For decades I used the "hash mark with a pencil on the pattern" way of keeping track of rows, but I'd often lose the pencil or lose the paper and then I was stuck.

I love looking at all the pretty row counters they make now that are metal rings and lovely beads, but there's something about them that bothers me. I don't know what it is, but it may have to do with my metal allergy. I see metal stuff and automatically make the sign of the cross as if I'm warding off vampires.

I loved the idea of a row counter made from yarn that I found on Fran Marr's site, but it seems to be gone now. It was simplicity itself, made from a piece of scrap yarn, with a series of loops tied in the yarn to hang from the needle. The trouble I had with it, though, was that my loops never seemed to line up right. Also, I'd get lost as to which way I was going and I wanted to be able to see which row I was on at a glance.

So I made my own:



I used Fran's idea of a series of loops, but instead of yarn, I strung seed beads onto Stretch Magic cord. I put different colors in the loops for counters, allowing me to know right off what row I'm on when I'm counting.

The counter has 10 loops, so can count up to 10. Greater numbers are possible by using the little Clover stitch markers. I use that one green one as my "10s" marker. I move it down one loop each time I hit the 10th loop.

The doubled orange markers can be used however you want. You could use it as a "100s" marker, allowing you to keep track of a thousand rows all with just one counter. Theoretically, you could keep track of ten thousand, a hundred thousand or a million rows, if you were so inclined. Or you could use it to keep track of the number of pattern repeats or decreases or increases or whatever else you need to keep track of. (I wish Clover made more colors of their stitch markers.)

I usually keep mine one stitch in from the edge so it doesn't fall off. In the picture, if I was actually knitting something, this would be row 246.

On the Super Bowl

Steph wrote a post about her experience with Super Bowls and I started to write a comment to it. Then I realized that what I had to say was too long for a comment, so I'm writing my own post.

When Jim and I were first married, he liked football a lot. I don't. Not even a little bit. I remember a Super Bowl just a few weeks after our first anniversary. I wanted to be in the room with Jim, but I could ignore the television just fine while reading. I had a Dean Koontz book -- Darkfire, IIRC -- that I was near the end of. It was a very engrossing, exciting part of the novel, with the lead characters being chased through the streets of New York by demons. I didn't even know there was a television on. Until, of course, Jim hollered "Did you see that pass?!? Wow!" So I stopped reading, looked up to watch the replay and agreed that it was a very nifty pass. Then I went back a couple of pages to get back into the story. About the time I got to the same sentence again, he hollered that I needed to once again watch what had just happened.

This went on and on until I finally realized that I would never find out of the characters escaped from the demons if I stayed there, so I went to read in the bathtub. ("I ... crawled off to sleep in the bath.")

Jim hasn't watched football at all for a number of years, though. I'm not sure why he lost interest. We also used to watch basketball, but not any more.

The up side of Super Bowl Sunday is that it's a great time to go to the grocery store. And if you're not worried about O.D.-ing on cuteness, you can turn on Animal Planet and watch The Puppy Bowl. (Halftime has kittens.)

All Through the Night

Jim was just watching reruns of the first season of The Sopranos and at the end of an episode, his daughter Meadow was singing this song in a choir. It's such a beautifully sweet song. I found it by a young Welsh singer, in the original language:



Translation:

Sleep my child and peace attend thee, All through the night Guardian angels God will send thee, All through the night Soft the drowsy hours are creeping Hill and vale in slumber sleeping, I my loving vigil keeping All through the night. While the moon her watch is keeping All through the night While the weary world is sleeping All through the night O'er thy spirit gently stealing Visions of delight revealing Breathes a pure and holy feeling All through the night. Love, to thee my thoughts are turning All through the night All for thee my heart is yearning, All through the night. Though sad fate our lives may sever Parting will not last forever, There's a hope that leaves me never, All through the night.

I made a little toy

I really like to write little bits of code and this is something I've been thinking about for a while. It's just a little game thing -- well, no, not a game because a game usually means someone wins. There's no winning with this. It's a toy.

It's called The Exquisite Corpse and it was invented by surrealists in France. I've read that Henry Miller played it. It can be a very fun thing to do.

My code is here, in my "testing ground" for all codes. It's a completely free site, so sometimes it gets slow. You don't have to register to play.

The code isn't finished, but right now it would really help if I could get some folks to go over and make some entries. Instructions are there, but it's super easy. I'm just starting to run out of words.

The First Couple

This is an article from the New Yorker this past week. It makes me even more proud to have been a part of bringing these two people of true quality into the White House.

On May 26, 1996, Mariana Cook visited Barack and Michelle Obama in Hyde Park as part of a photography project on couples in America. What follows is excerpted from her interviews with them.


MICHELLE OBAMA: There is a strong possibility that Barack will pursue a political career, although it’s unclear. There is a little tension with that. I’m very wary of politics. I think he’s too much of a good guy for the kind of brutality, the skepticism.

When you are involved in politics, your life is an open book, and people can come in who don’t necessarily have good intent. I’m pretty private, and like to surround myself with people that I trust and love. In politics you’ve got to open yourself to a lot of different people. There is a possibility that our futures will go that way, even though I want to have kids and travel, spend time with family, and like spending time with friends. But we are going to be busy people doing lots of stuff. And it’ll be interesting to see what life has to offer. In many ways, we are here for the ride, just sort of seeing what opportunities open themselves up. And the more you experiment the easier it is to do different things. If I had stayed in a law firm and made partner, my life would be completely different. I wouldn’t know the people I know, and I would be more risk-averse. Barack has helped me loosen up and feel comfortable with taking risks, not doing things the traditional way and sort of testing it out, because that is how he grew up. I’m more traditional; he’s the one in the couple that, I think, is the less traditional individual. You can probably tell from the photographs—he’s just more out there, more flamboyant. I’m more, like, “Well, let’s wait and see. What did that look like? How much does it weigh?”



BARACK OBAMA: All my life, I have been stitching together a family, through stories or memories or friends or ideas. Michelle has had a very different background—very stable, two-parent family, mother at home, brother and dog, living in the same house all their lives. We represent two strands of family life in this country—the strand that is very stable and solid, and then the strand that is breaking out of the constraints of traditional families, travelling, separated, mobile. I think there was that strand in me of imagining what it would be like to have a stable, solid, secure family life.

Michelle is a tremendously strong person, and has a very strong sense of herself and who she is and where she comes from. But I also think in her eyes you can see a trace of vulnerability that most people don’t know, because when she’s walking through the world she is this tall, beautiful, confident woman. There is a part of her that is vulnerable and young and sometimes frightened, and I think seeing both of those things is what attracted me to her. And then what sustains our relationship is I’m extremely happy with her, and part of it has to do with the fact that she is at once completely familiar to me, so that I can be myself and she knows me very well and I trust her completely, but at the same time she is also a complete mystery to me in some ways. And there are times when we are lying in bed and I look over and sort of have a start. Because I realize here is this other person who is separate and different and has different memories and backgrounds and thoughts and feelings. It’s that tension between familiarity and mystery that makes for something strong, because, even as you build a life of trust and comfort and mutual support, you retain some sense of surprise or wonder about the other person.

Just another day

Or maybe not. I actually got to *do* something!! :-D

Saturday is our out-and-about day, when the errands are run and we go out to a mid-afternoon meal. (We haven't decided whether to call it lupper, linner or dunch.) The things that we needed to do were to go to the yarn store and pick up another skein of yarn for my current scarf and to go to the cable tv office to get a replacement remote controller. This second thing was the impetus for the rest of the day.

The cable office is in the town just south of us, about 10 miles away. Another 10 or so miles down the road is the Muckleshoot Indian Casino. We haven't gone very often and hadn't been in at least a couple of years, but when I mentioned that we needed to go to Auburn, Jim got that mischievous twinkle in his eye and said, "And then we could go to the Muckleshoot to eat."

Yeah, right. To eat. :-) Well, they do have several nice restaurants in there, so we could eat, too, but there's no point in driving all that way and not doing a bit of gambling.

So I got my yarn, which they wound for me, and then we got the new remote. Then off to the Muckleshoot. Since we were last there, they added another building. Impressive. The new building was the closest to where we parked, so we started in there, but the restaurant were we wanted to go was at the other end of the place. This new building is separated from the old with an enclosed, but unheated tunnel. I did notice that the new building was completely non-smoking.

As we walked into the old building, the smell of cigarette smoke hit me. I had noticed that there was a "no smoking" sign on the door that we went into, so I was a bit confused at first. Then I remembered that the smoking part is just the other half of the building. Somehow cigarette smoke doesn't pay much attention to signs. I normally wouldn't have noticed, but I think the fact that I haven't been around any smoking at all for a couple of years has made a difference.

Still, the place where we wanted to eat was in the smoking section, so we forged ahead. Had the best bacon cheeseburgers ever! The people there are always so nice, too. I know that when you work in a gambling establishment, you have to be nice to the customers, but these folks just generally seem friendly above that. Whoever does their hiring does a good job.

After our meal, we played video poker for a while. There were a couple of different people who sat at the machine next to me who were nice and Jim, the stranger and I would all root for each other when we had the potential for a great hand. Finally we ran out of what we had intended for video poker and the smoke was starting to get to me, so we went back to the new building where the air was clear.

We sat down at a "Three-Card Poker" table and played for a good two hours. Jim did better than I did and had to pass me over some chips. Normally when I'm not doing that well at a table, I get up to leave, but the dealer was a very friendly person and I like the game. \

About 7:00 fatigue hit me and I suddenly needed to go home. Good thing we had headed toward where we were parked so we didn't have too far to go. Jim cashed out his chips and we came home.

Today, I'm feeling the effects. :-) My muscles are sore and I've got a bit of a sore throat, probably from the smoke. But I'm so glad we went. It's the first real day out I've had since we met Steph in Spokane two years ago for the film festival. Also, we did our part to stimulate the economy, probably paying the wages for several workers for several days. Patriotism, you know. ;-)

Today we're off to Jim's mother's place. She has bought herself a refurbished laptop and needs me to set it up for her. I just don't know how I'm going to deal with such a social calendar!

A little different perspective

Just now I was reading Obama's message on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade and my eyes filled with tears as my heart swelled with pride over being a small part of the reason this person is the leader of our country. I thought for a moment about those who do not feel that Obama's presidency is good for the US, who wanted McCain or even someone more conservative. It occurred to me that there are those in this country (a small number, no doubt) who felt the same way about George W. Bush as I feel about Barack Obama. I suddenly felt sorry for them. I imagined how I would feel if, when Obama leaves office, there is someone diametrically opposed to him filling his shoes.

I've been quite frustrated with a small minority in places I visit who have taken it upon themselves to pop the balloons as most of the country celebrates. At another time, I might have thought of them as "buzz-kills". I've also thought of them as being petulant children who didn't get their way so they're going to go out of their way to make everybody else as miserable as they are.

I was going to suggest that they might mellow with time as they see what actually happens with Obama in power. Some might, but I'm pretty sure that others will stay exactly as they are now, stubbornly refusing to believe that anybody but someone who agrees with them can have a positive influence on the country.

BTW, I know that people I love and respect will disagree with me on this, but I feel it was wrong for people in the crowd to boo Bush on Tuesday. I wish they would have had the style and grace that our new president and his wife showed to George and Laura.