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.

The inauguration, the arts and education

I just saw this, which was published on Wednesday:

As I watched the inauguration yesterday, I was struck by something in addition to the historical significance of the event. When it comes to the highest degree of ceremony in our land, we turn to that which is often the first to be on the chopping block in tough financial times: the arts. There was singing, poetry, an ensemble of some of the most talented and accomplished instrumental solo artists in the world, discussion of the particular painting featured at the luncheon, grand marches played by a band. Because great societies are often measured by their progress in the arts, we seem to understand intrinsically that these things belong, yet we are often unwilling as a society to preserve them in our education system. For every artist who blessed the nation with their gift yesterday, there was someone who had initially recognized their talent, nurtured it, guided its technical preparation, encouraged its development. Someone introduced Yo-Yo Ma to the cello, and put Aretha Franklin on a stage. These things do not just happen by accident.

The next time you hear the flippant suggestion to cut the arts out of the schools because it’s “nice, but not necessary,” imagine yesterday without the arts… a walk to a podium, an oath, a speech, a walk to whatever comes next… no parades, no balls. Imagine the band members who played “Hail to the Chief,” told in middle school that music would not be offered in their school any more. Imagine if Itzhak Perlman never held a violin. Imagine the featured choir given over to the directorship of someone with no vocal training because the chorus position was cut. These things are happening every day, and someday we may be faced with a quickie courthouse ceremony rather than royal pomp and circumstance befitting a presidential inauguration. Think about it.

Jennifer Erickson

Orange County Public School Teacher

POTUS v. 44

A person on my knitting forum posted this and gave permission for it to be reposted:

Thank you for your upgrade to POTUS v44.

Our delivery tracking system indicates that your upgrade should arrive today.

We wish you all the best for your coming years with this enhanced version. We hope that you will be discovering additional rich features and robustness throughout the coming years.

Please remember not to hold back on your expectations for this version because of your experience with previous versions. POTUS v44 was redesigned from the bottom up, and will reach its fullest potential when charged from below. Its new inner growth module can respond to input in ways the previous version could not– the more you fuel it and the more you demand of it, the better it can perform.

But for today, just install POTUS v44, let it activate its bundled peripherals, and enjoy the sparkle as it re-energizes the country.

A thought for today

I happen temporarily to occupy this big White House. I am living witness that any one of your children may look to come here as my father's child has.
Abraham Lincoln, 16th president of the U.S. (1809-1865)

Dear Authors

and others. The phrase is "All present *or* accounted for" not "All present *and* accounted for." If everyone is present, then they don't need to be accounted for because they're, well, present. The point of the phrase is to say that everyone who is supposed to be there either is there or it is known why they're not there. It's kind of silly to say "Everybody's here and we know why."

While I have you here, I'll mention another one. Then is an adverb, indicating one thing following another. "This happened. Then that happened." If this, then that." Than is a conjunction and is used to indicate a comparison. "This is bigger/smaller/more/less than that." If you write "This is bigger then that" it makes no sense. And it's more evident than would be likely if it were a typo. I understand that you likely mispronounce it when you speak, which is why you misspell it when you type. The goal, then, would be to learn to pronounce the word correctly, which would help you to spell.

Thank you.

Love is ....

... the little stuff.

Jim likes to have cookies, but he buys cheap ones because he inhales them so quickly that he can't really appreciate anything fancy. (He still does the grocery shopping because I can't manage to walk around that long.) He likes chocolate. I don't. He gets the cheap sandwich cookies that are a mixture of chocolate and vanilla. There are three rows of cookies in the package, sometimes with more chocolate and sometimes with more vanilla. He goes out of his way to get packages with two rows of vanilla and one of chocolate.

Last night I noticed that he wasn't having any cookies when he normally does and I figured he just ate them all. I was just in the kitchen and was going to clean out the crumbs from the cookie jar. There are three vanilla cookies left in the jar. He left them for me.

Ah, true love!!

Old Fat Naked Women for Peace

If you wonder what some of those in the peace movement from the '60s are doing now, here's four of them that haven't changed -- and haven't lost their sense of humor either.

For my sweetie

As of today, Jim and I have been married for twenty-six years. I can't imagine what my life would be like without him in it. In fact, it's likely that I wouldn't even be here without him. I am in awe of the way he loves me and overwhelmed with the love I have for him. It just blows me away.

One evening, just as our relationship was beginning, Jim and I went out for drinks with a mutual friend. Someone put "Longer" on the jukebox and Jim started singing along. It was the first time I'd heard him sing and I was struck by his lovely baritone. Since then, I've always thought of "Longer" as being "our song."

Forgive the cheesy video that goes along with the song. It was the only live version of Fogelberg singing it that I could find.

44 bucks or 44 cans

There was just a story about a local food bank in Seattle where they are having a drive in honor of the inauguration of Barack Obama. They are asking those who are able to donate $44.00 in cash or 44 cans of food to their local food bank in honor of Obama being the 44th president. I haven't seen anything about it before and the only mention I could find online was this Facebook page, which also seems to be centered in Seattle.

I know that not everyone who voted for Obama would be able to do this, but it would be fantastic if as many as possible could. It would really show how much we support our new president. Maybe we can spread the word and make this into a national -- even worldwide -- phenomenon.

Movie meme

Marc over at Aurel's Laurels came up with a nifty little meme. The funny thing is that most of his answers are identical to mine. Still...

If I lived on a desert island, and could only watch one film featuring each of the following stars, these are the films I would chose....

Cary Grant, Arsenic And Old Lace

James Stewart, Harvey

Humphrey Bogart, The Maltese Falcon

Audrey Hepburn, Sabrina

Bing Crosby, The Bells of St. Mary's

Katherine Hepburn, The African Queen

Marlene Dietrich, Witness for the Prosecution

Clarke Gable, It Happened One Night

Ingrid Bergman. Casablanca

And, if I could add one more star and film of my own choice it would be:

James Cagney, Angels with Dirty Faces

(notice that Bogart is in five of these movies!)

Pass it on, choosing films for the stars listed , plus one of your own....

A bit of background

I've been assuming that the only people who read my blog are a couple of folks that I've known for years and who know me inside and out. Lately I've been aware of some others reading it who might be wondering about some of the things I have alluded to. I've tried several times to write "the story" here, but I just fall apart and can't. I did, however, write a very bare-bones version for another group of people and I thought I'd copy it here. I hope you don't mind the recycling.

My daughter Nicki was 18 when she died. She was also 8 months pregnant. She died from a complication of her pregnancy called "eclampsia." (Some of the older folks might remember something called "toxemia" that they used to talk about pregnant women getting. Same thing.) She was under a doctor's care and had been hospitalized twice in the months before she died, but she was doing pretty well. On a Saturday night she said to my husband (I was out of town, visiting Steph) that her feet were swelling up again, but she had an appointment to see the doctor on Monday, so she would just wait until then. When my husband got up the next morning, he found her. She had got up to use the bathroom in the night, went into a seizure and died.

December 2008 marked the 18th anniversary of her death. Hard to imagine that much time has gone by. I think of her every day, wondering what she would make of things happening in the news or on the soap opera we used to watch together. Some days are harder than others, often for quite odd reasons.

One of the questions that people often have is about eclampsia and what the cause is. Nobody knows for sure. There are a lot of possibilities, but none have been proven to be correct. That's one of the most difficult things for me. It's hard to accept that she's gone without knowing why. I don't suppose I ever will.

I don't have any other children. I had an only child by choice, and, even if I'd known that I was going to lose her, I probably would have made the same decision.

I don't mean to be depressing and maybe nobody has wondered. But in case anybody has, that's it.

I'll show you mine...

Steph asked for people to share pics of their desktops, like we used to in the olden days, when we connected to the internet via Morse code. ;-) Well, here's mine, after a bit of tidying up.



I also have sound files from Casablanca, which I used for about a week before they became annoying.

I've had this wallpaper for several years now and this morning I thought about changing it, but I couldn't think of anything that I would prefer.

5 Questions

I asked my friend Steph to interview me, giving me five questions. The rules are at the bottom of the post. Here's the questions and my answers:

1. What is your recipe for a long relationship of any kind?

Laughter. You can get through anything with another person if the two of you can laugh together. It's deeper than it may seem at first glance, though. Before you can truly laugh with someone, you have to trust them. Laughter makes you vulnerable. It also requires a certain kind of respect, especially to know the difference between laughing at and laughing with.

2. Like fellow blogger Jaq (Byzantium's Shores), you've lost a child (feel free not to answer this if you don't want to!). What got you through the worst of such a terrible loss?

Lemmings. Truly. I bought my Amiga computer a few months after Nicki died, just as the initial shock was beginning to wear off and the magnitude of my loss was hitting me. I got a copy of Lemmings and I spent hour upon hour, day after day for months just playing the game. I had set up the computer in Nicki's room and it was perfect. It forced me to completely focus on the game so I couldn't think about the grief. It gave me a sense of immediate accomplishment when I would win a level. And it's cute as the dickens, so I could imagine hearing Nicki's response.

I believe that there is actual physical damage to brain cells when there is this kind of level of emotional trauma and it takes time to physically heal before there can be any emotional healing. Playing the game allowed me to escape long enough to start that physical healing, rather like a broken arm being in a cast.

I was fortunate in that I could afford to do that. I didn't have to worry about taking care of anyone else and I didn't have a job that I had to go to.

3. If there is one happy day in your past that you could return to, which one would that be?

Just one, huh? :-D That day we went to the Ballard Schoolhouse is right up there. The other one that comes to mind is a day when Nicki got into trouble and I grounded her for the rest of the day. Just because she wasn't allowed to go outside didn't mean she had to be miserable, though, and we ended up having the best time. Late in the day found me lying on the floor on my back, reading to Nicki while she popped grapes into my mouth. That night when she went to bed, she said, "Mom, could I be grounded again?"

4. If you could live anywhere in the world, and it not be an inconvenience in any way to any one, and money were no object, where would you choose?

Hmmmmmm. I really like it here, but I think I'd rather live in the city than the suburb. As long as I could travel to other places, I would be happy to come home to Seattle.

5. Before blogging, what, if any, was your main mode of personal expression?

Mostly the message board for the actor who shall remain nameless. :-D I've had a LiveJournal account for several years. And I talk to Jim a lot. LOL

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

The Rules

1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the
questions.
3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else
in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five
questions.

A plug for a friend's blog

I just have to put in a plug for Reason and Brimstone, which is the blog of my friend Julie. She takes the most incredible photos, playing with light in a fascinating way. In particular, take a look at 42 minutes (give or take a few seconds). Be sure to click the photo to get the larger version.

Julie also takes beautiful bird photos. On her main page, if you scroll down a bit, you'll see my favorite of a hummingbird feeding from a bleeding heart. So very sweet.

Sometimes I'm not very bright

We've been getting Designed Dinners for several years. These are the ones where you put together (or have other put together) gourmet meals, which you then keep in your freezer until you're ready to cook them. It's more expensive than just buying food at the grocery store, of course, but since there's only two of us, it's not too bad, and it gives us some variety in what we eat instead of being stuck in a rut of the same five or ten dishes in rotation. Also, I don't have to buy a whole jar of a new spice when I'm likely to only use it once.

For the month of December, they included a prime rib roast as an option and I thought that would make a nice Christmas dinner. (We would rather not do Christmas at all, but Jim's mother is kind of lonely and we do it for her at her place.) When it came time to go do the Designed Dinners thing, the Sunday before Christmas, we were snowed in and couldn't get anywhere. It didn't really matter because we were still snowed in on Christmas day, so even if we'd had the roast, we wouldn't have been able to have the dinner at my m-i-l's.

Saturday there was enough of a thaw that Jim was able to go pick up the dinners for the month, including the roast. I put it in the refrigerator to thaw out in time, which it did. Yesterday, I cooked it. It's so nice to have this really great cut of meat in a marinade of red wine and oil with herbs. Smelled great as it was cooking.

Everything went off without a major hitch, although it looks like I need a new meat thermometer. It said that the meat was "medium" when it was still pretty rare. We had to put the sliced meat into the microwave for a bit to cook it some more for Jim who likes his meat non-pink.

We got home about 6 o'clock and I was feeling really tired. I managed to stay awake until 8, just by force of will, but then decided to just go to bed. Slept like a log. Woke up with a migraine.

It was particularly bad this morning, not only with the pain in my head but barfing as well. I managed to take some of my mega-aspirin, which is all I have these days to deal with them, and went back to bed. As I was lying there, I was wondering what the trigger might have been. I'm still trying to work out what it is that I should avoid in order to prevent these things. I thought, "The only food type trigger I have is red wine and I never drink--- Oh. My. God. The roast."

Yeppers. I think that's it. Whether it was the smell of the wine when I first got it out of the packaging or the tannins in the wine that would have stayed on the meat, I don't know. But I'm pretty sure that it was the wine in the marinade for the roast that was the culprit this time. And likely was dozens of previous times over the years without it even occurring to me.

Damn! I know there are several other meals that are in the freezer right now that have a marinade that includes red wine. I can't just throw them out. I'll probably have one after this migraine is over just to confirm my suspicions, but I don't know what I'll do if my suspicions are confirmed.

On the up side, if it is what I think it is, this is something I can avoid relatively easily. It may mean that I will never be able to go to a place that has candles on the tables, just in case they use a red wine marinade. It may even be that I can't be in a room where red wine is being served. I don't know how sensitive I am. I'll have to do some experimenting, but my immediate gut reaction is to just avoid being within a mile of red wine just to be safe.

That said, Happy New Year! :-)

Strawberry jam

Somewhere lost in the mists of time, we got one of those food gift things, probably from Jim's brother. One of the things in it was a little jar of strawberry jam. It got put into the cupboard and hidden by other things. A while back, I was straightening the cupboard and found the jar. I like strawberry jam, so I thought I would have some.

This is one of those little bitty jars, maybe an inch and a half tall and even less in diameter. Very difficult to get hold of. I don't do too well with opening jars anyway, and this was even worse. I whacked it with a knife handle and tried my little rubber jar opener. Nothing. I ran it under hot tap water. Nada. Over the course of several months, I have tried it probably a dozen times.

This morning I got up while Jim was still home. I was making some breakfast, including an English muffin and I thought it would be great to have some strawberry jam on it. He's usually the jar opener, so I brought it out to him, all the while saying how hard it was to open because it's so small that it's hard to get hold of... yadda yadda yadda. He takes it. Does a little twist and hands it back to me. Viola! [sic]

The English muffin with strawberry jam was very good. :)