The New Year

I've been noticing that quite a few of the blogs I read regularly have not had any recent posts. Of course, neither has mine. Maybe I just lurk on a lot of slacker blogs (not Ginger, tho!), but more reasonably it's the holiday and new year ennui that leaves everyone saying,"Oh, the h*** with it".

I'm sitting in the living room with the MacBook while two hard-working guys lay ceramic tile in my kitchen. Having the entire kitchen pulled to pieces is way more disruptive than I had anticipated. We started demolition 5 days ago, and the house looks like Dorothy's house after she landed in Oz. There are narrow pathways to thread between cabinets, appliances, and boxes, and for cooking we have the microwave and the toaster. We nuked a casserole last night and then discovered we had packed all the serving spoons; all we have are plastic tableware. By the time it was served it was cold and had to be re-nuked. Tonight it's going to be a restaurant. The kitchen won't be useable until next week, probably Friday. I have a ton of stuff to throw out, I found stuff in the cupboards I didn't know we owned, like a presto hot dog cooker, and a belgian waffle maker, neither of which show any sign of ever being used. Goodwill will get whatever doesn't go in the trash, and maybe we'll be good for another 25 years here. Any future remodeling here will be done with a box of kitchen matches!

But other than this mess, I'm getting used to being retired. It is so cool to be able to work on a project without having to anticipate leaving it half finished until the weekend. I like being able to schedule appointments for the middle of the day instead of first thing or last thing a 5. I like running errands when I take my time instead of rushing in and out, and getting vexed if I forget something. But I never realized how far things have been let go, cleaning and organizing, yard work, and let's don't think about the attic, I'm sure I never sanctioned all the stuff up there, what is in all those boxes?

I've been able to work on the genealogy records, one of those jobs that you can't stop when you're working through, say, census records in a given area, not unless you plan on reviewing the same records more than once. So much more on-line sources, even actual images of the hand-written records. As a side note, never let anyone maunder on about the poor penmanship of the modern era, those census takers back in 1870 had atrocious handwriting! No wonder the transcribed records are unreliable. I never met my paternal grandfather, he and my grandmother were divorced back in 1922 when Dad was a baby. I discovered that he (my GF) was illegitimate, that the family name comes from his mother who was a servant at a neighbor's farm at the time he was conceived. And I discovered he lied about his age to get in the Army in WWI. And I found he is buried at Gettysburg National Cemetery. Interesting.

I once considered posting my genealogy files, but despite containing 1800+ relatives, it's still very much a work in progress. And probably will be, forever....I figure I'll use my knowledge to bore the socks off all the other little old ladies when I'm in my dotage. Meanwhile, I'll spare the rest of you!

This is the first day of the rest of my so-called life

This weekend just felt like any other one, but today! A Monday of permanent workless-ness! So nice.

On my last day, my co-workers took me (and the Hubby) to lunch, followed by a nice cake-and-snacks party, and a lovely gift of a fountain pen (which I collect). They are a nice bunch of people, and I like to think I did a good job for them these last 30 months. As for the two or three b****s that I barely survived back before this last job, I am secure in the knowledge that what goes around comes around, and that there will come a day when they are in need of a helping hand and they won't get it. PFFFTTTTT.

I am propped up here in bed writing this on the new MacBook. The screen is so much brighter than my desktop, and I can position it so I can actually read with my bifocals. I tell my family I don't need a thing for Christmas, that I have everything I can think of, most especially the freedom to pursue my interests full time.

And right now I think I'll pursue a snack.......

Five....

Today is my LAST Monday at work! I saw both my psychiatrist and my therapist earlier today, and they both remarked on how upbeat I sound today.

This weekend, I rounded up a batch of photos from our 2001 vacation to the Carribean, scanned or uploaded them to the MacBook, and began arranging them into an album. It's a small start on the photos, which include 36 years of our photos, all of my mother's, my mother-in-law's, my paternal grandmother's (she was a flapper in the twenties and some of her photos are a hoot!)and including various portraits and cabinet cards handed down from WAAAY back. Some of the cabinet cards are from the Matthew Brady studio in D.C., where my grandmother's parents lived. And many of them have no names on them, grrrr.... Of course the people who had them originally knew who they were, but now I am clueless. In some cases, I have simply guessed and in others I'm making them up, because after all, who is there to contradict me? And so my children and so on will have a lovely photgraphic legacy to pass along. I find it so sad when I find old family albums for sale in antique shops, to me it means there was no one left who cared, no one at all, to keep them in the family. The same with family Bibles, I would KILL (well, not really)to have a family Bible to clarify my genealogy searches. When I watch Antique Road Show, I marvel when I hear someone say, "Oh, this belonged to my great-great (X5) grandfather, my father left it to me." I mean, the main thing my parents left me were debts and furniture from Sears; oh yeah, and old photos....

Movin' right along, dum de dum

If you don't recognize the title, it's from the Muppets Take Manhatten movie, and the tune is bumping along in my head as I write this.

Just 5 days of work left. I've been working since September of 1972, barring some time off for babies, moving, surgery, etc. And I feel every bit that old, too. Lately I've been having dreams, more like nightmares, of trying to do some lab procedure and flubbing it up. I wake up and think, hummm, how DID I do that? Which is totally unproductive, since I have forgotten WAY more procedures than I ever learned (leaving me at a -9 in knowledge). I think this must be the work equivalent of the post-college dreams of having an exam in a class I forgot to attend all semester.

In other news, I bought a (used) MacBook to use on the massive photo album project I'm planning, and Crikey! I LIKE it. I may become an Apple convert -- probably the only conversion likely at this point! Back in the Old Days, when "mini computers" were first moving into work and homes (like 1980), my then-boss bought our lab an Apple IIe, and I re-wrote the program for our data analysis (a weighted fit log-logit program) to run on it, previously done on a mainframe. It was a darned complex program for a mini, but far too simple to justify running it on a main-frame, and I was way proud of it. I still have the code (in BASIC) somewhere. Anyway, when the Hub and I decided we should get a computer ourselves, he pointed out that all the government offices were going to IBM PCs, and to be able to work at home, an Apple would be useless for him. So we bought/made a 286/16 ("blindingly fast", don't you know?) PC from component parts, which ran on MS-DOS, of course, using a program called "Automenu" to start the various programs. For years I had a sign for my desk that said "I don't do Windows", but eventually we were forced to switch, starting with 3.0, I think. It didn't work any better then, simple as it was, than it does now, unfortunately. But all this time, I've toyed with the idea of having a Mac, and recently thought I'd dabble. I installed Parallels on it, which lets you run Windows on a virtual machine, mainly so I could load Family Tree Maker and take my family file with me when I go to courthouses/library to work on the genealogy thing. It was a little difficult, simply because I couldn't locate a bootable CD for Windows XP. I mean, here at home we have 5 computers running XP on them, but since XP comes pre-installed, with a partition on the hard drive for Recovery, NO install disks! Or so I thought, until I remembered the defunct (fried motherboard) Compaq laptop my daughter bought some 15 months ago (never buy a Compaq, trust me on this). Compulsive that she is, she had the thing IN its original box, with all the papers, manuals, etc. that came with it, and LO, there was an XP install disk, with the key code stuck on the bottom of the laptop. Given that it is DOA ($800 to repair!), I felt completely justified in installing that copy of XP on the MacBook. Did you know that it is real complicated to make a CD that is bootable? No more of the "format D: /s" to make it bootable; that parameter is no longer available for the format command. Instead you have to burn an .iso image to the disk (one program to create the image, another to burn the image in the correct sector) and then transfer the correct Windows file to it....I gave up. And making a copy of someone else's bootable install CD doesn't make the copy bootable either (well, duh). Anyway, the Mac now runs both OSs and I'm right pleased with myself. All that computer programming back in the early 70s wasn't a complete waste (keypunch cards, remember those days? No? Well, then I guess I'm older than dirt, after all....).

For my final week at work, I think I'll be doing it with a cold, rotten luck. I haven't had one in years, but today I've got a sore throat, and that "malaise" feeling that all is Not Right in Redhead land. I tend to get (somewhat) morbid when I'm ill, and along with the Muppet tune, I've got John Donne's Meditation 19 rolling around in my brain ("Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee..."). I had to memorize it for an English Lit class eons ago, and one thing about it, it's stuck in my memory forever, unlike more important information, like the names of my children. I think that my memory worked best when there was so little in it, why else would I still remember the poem "Winken, Blinken, and Nod" after 50 years? Not something I've had call to use much in the meantime...

Movin' right along

Counting Down

I only have ***15*** days of actual work left. December 15th is my last day, and I'm feeling a fair amount of unreality now. Friday (the day after turkey day), the Hub and I went to our bank and made the LAST payment on our mortgage. We actually paid it off 11 years early, having moved in here in Oct. of 1980 with an interest rate of 12 and one-quarter percent (not unusual for those days), and having re-financed it twice to take advantage of the much-lower interest rates, and to put an addition on the house. Starting Jan 3rd, the kitchen remodel will begin (already paid for), replacing linoleum with tile, and Formica countertops with Corian, and a Corian sink, new disposal, etc. Keeping the original cabinets, which need a little touch-up here and there, like new knobs and such, but they were top-of-the-line back then, and I still like them, dings notwithstanding. Of course, all this means having no kitchen for a week or more, and having to pack up all the kitchen junk in the base cabinets and move it all into the dining room (somehow), so that the tile will go under the cabinets, and more specifically, under the dishwasher. As it turns out, the weird black marks on the linoleum in front of the dishwasher and sink area are not caused by the backing of the throw rug; no indeed, they are caused by the dishwasher having corroded through its base, leaking under the dishwasher (mushrooms!!! Under the dishwasher!!!) and seeping betweeen the two layers of linoleum, and then mold forming. A total mess. A new dishwasher was installed, but this clearly only addressed the immediate problem and not the damage done by the leak. This latest remodel should be the last for the kitchen. Oh yeah, we're repainting too, starting with the (ewwww) ceiling. My ideal in a kitchen would be one with a big floor drain, and a reel-out steam hose you could use to BLAST AWAY at the greasy, cobwebby bits, ceiling to floor, cabinets, appliances, countertops, the works. Daily. Sort of like an operating room, all white tile and stainless steel and bright lights. Meanwhile, scrub, paint, and then keep scrubbing. I tend to work on housework the way they paint the Golden Gate bridge--I putter away at it, slowly making progress day to day, but never having the whole thing done at once, just starting over again and again and...

Our Thanksgiving was fine in all respects. Having once had only the two of us for it, then gradually adding more and more people (I think the high was 17), and then gradually having attrition back to just the four of us, Hub and I and the kids (now 25 and 26). For the first time, daughter R came in the kitchen and helped with that last hour's worth of pandemonium, peeling and stirring and setting the table and so forth, WITHOUT being asked. Then she and her brother began the clean-up. It always amazes me, how long the prep and cleanup take, when the actual eating is done in, oh, twenty minutes. You know the definition of an optimist? It's the guy who asks, the day after Thanksgiving, "What's for dinner?"

I was off this entire week, and got a lot of re-organizing done, and also a fair amount of reading and naps. I even did some Christmas shopping, washed and vacuumed my car, and the usual laundry. Which reminds me: I have a key hanger that has a spare key for pretty much everything. When I took my Miata to get its winter shoes put on, I thought I'd use the spare key so I wouldn't have to wrestle with taking the key off my keyring. I grabbed it, hopped in the car and OOPs, it didn't work. My guess is that it is the key for one of the other two Miatas I had in the past. So I popped by the Mazda dealer to get a spare key made, and guess what? They have a "chip" for security in the key, and to get a key made you have schedule a service visit, bring the car and ALL the keys with you, and have them program the new key. The cost? $115. For a spare key! Don't you think they should have mentioned this at the time we bought the car? Also, they told us that the main computer in the car has been recalled (we never were notified), and when the replacement comes in, they will call for us to schedule a time to bring the car back, along will ALL the keys, to be re-made (fortunately, for free). If we had known about the recall, maybe we would have saved some $$ by asking for another key THEN, but alas...

That's about it for now, I'll try to post more frequently now that I will be a Lady of Leisure. Maybe even post some photos! as soon as I figure out just how to do that.....

What are the odds?

Two weeks ago my husband and I arranged to meet at a local restaurant for lunch. I got there first, and was shown to a table, and I sat facing the door so I could watch for the Hub. As I was seated, I realized that at the table directly behind me, also facing the door, sat a man that I used to work for (D), whom I disliked, with three women from his department. We didn't make eye contact, so I didn't speak, just sat down.

So here I am at a table alone, looking over the menu, waiting. I swear I wasn't eavesdropping on D, there was just a wash of murmured conversation all around me. But have you ever been in a place, maybe a party, where you're wool-gathering, and suddenly someone nearby speaks your name in passing and your attention zeros in on that voice? That's what happened here--D said not just my first name, but first and last names. Over the next couple of minutes as I listened, I realized what he was saying. At first I thought, he DID see me, and now he's going to say hello, and I'll have to be polite back. But actually, he was telling the women about when I worked in his department, how I had taken 3 months of leave (FMLA, actually) following a suicide attempt that put me in the ICU, and how they terminated my position the day I returned; and that in response I had filled a grievance against the department, and then proceeded to tell them how the grievance went. And the longer I listened, the angrier I got, that here was this jerk revealing confidential information to other people, just as an entertaining story! He also mentioned that now I inspect his departmental labs for safety, etc. etc. I was in a quandary sitting there, deciding what to do. They had already been served, so inevitably they would pass directly past my table as they left and D would see me, and then think, did she hear me? And I wanted to tell him Yes, I DID hear him; and I wanted him to stop before more juicy tales emerged while I sat there feeling devastated. So I turned around, leaned over to look him directly in the face. He said "Hey, there's M now!" all hearty hail-fellow-well-met. I said, "You might want to think about changing the subject right about now." He said , "Huh?" and I repeated it. Then I turned around, and signaled the Hub, who had just arrived at the door. There was freezing silence behind me, and a few minutes later they fled past our table and out.

So what are the odds that I would be seated near someone I knew, and that without my own companion to talk to, I would overhear him, 4 years after the fact, talking about me? Could he have unconsciously registered me when I was seated, and that started the train of thought? Did he CONSCIOUSLY know I was there, and start the conversation so I WOULD overhear? They say eavesdroppers never hear anything good about themselves, and I guess this proves that.

But yesterday, I finished the annual lab safety inspections on his department, and there are all kinds of deficiencies, some of the ones I pointed out last year still haven't been corrected, and I will bring the most egregious violations to the attention of the administration. With prejudice, I might add. Ah, payback is a bitch.....

Newbie Drivers

I grew up in Miami Florida, or My-YAM-ee, and when I was home for the summer after my freshman year of college, I needed to find a job and get more $$ for school. I put in apps many places, but usually telling them you were leaving in September ended the interview right there. One of the places I went to was MacDonalds. At that time I was driving my parents big ole Chevy Stationwagon, and the view out the back was limited by that tailgate. Backing up in the empty parking lot in the pouring rain, I accidentally backed into a post, about 6 inches in diameter and maybe 30 inches high. It dented in the bumper, pushing it up against the tailgate, so that opening the tailgate would crease it. I didn't want to tell my parents, so I "forgot" to say anything that night. The very next day, Mom drove me to an interview downtown, where we had to park in a valet parking garage. After we came home my dad arrived home and parked his car behind the wagon and came in storming, "What the h--- happened to the tailgate?" And Mom said, Oh d---, it must have been that valet, I hate having to turn the car over to someone instead of parking myself, they must have backed out into a post and never said a word, I've a good mind to go back and demand they fix it, but of course they'll deny it was them, I guess we'll just have to get it fixed, etc. etc. for some time. As for me, I said nothing, other than, oh my, just look at that! etc. If they had seriously planned on making a fuss at the garage, I like to think I'd have 'fessed up, but I dunno...
Anyway, for YEARS after that, Mom would always say,"no valet parking for us, remember what happened to the stationwagon?" She said this very thing when she visited us in San Francisco, where nearly all the restaurants in the city had valet parking. So, did I ever confess? Nope. So if she's up there somewhere checking in on me, sorry Mom, it was an accident. I promise I'll tell you next time.....

Happy Hallowe'en

Yesterday was All Saints Day, so today is All Hallowed Eve, when (so the tale goes) the dead can return. In ancient days (isn't that a nice, all-purpose generic term for any past time where there isn't an actual date?) people went inside before dark and didn't open the door for any reason until dawn. Sigh. It would be OK with me if we all skipped the whole trick-or-treat thing. And yes, I went when I was a kid (for HOURS, too, with a pillowcase that got so heavy you had to sling it over your shoulder like Santa) and my kids went too. When they were very small, I told them it was for Big Kids, and when they got older I told them it was for Little Kids, but this was not a successful ploy and for several years I was forced to endure the tagging along as they raced from house to house. I told them if they forgot to say "thank you" after they got the candy, then I got the candy, so they made a game of always saying thanks very loudly. When my son got to be 11 or 12, he was six feet tall, and I told him (correctly) that people resent teenagers (or kids who look like teenagers) going door to door, because it's a night for the kids. He was disappointed, and I said, is it just the candy you'll miss? And he said, Duh, yeah. So I said, no problem, I'll buy all the candy and more than you would have collected, and he was "cool" with that. But one thing about those days is that I didn't have to pass out the candy, because I went with the kids, and now this is my lot in life. This is a corollary of Murphy's Law, that says any job you do twice in a row is yours forever. Because we have inside cats, and dancing with the open front door all evening is a great way to have the incomparable task of Hunting for Cats By Flashlight, I drag a chair out on the front deck, and sit in the cold for an hour WITH an entire bowl of CHOCOLATE sitting in my lap. My only problem was, what to do with all the candy wrappers? Coat pockets...

And of course, it's going to rain tonight, so the number of kids will be down, I'm sure, which makes for long stretches of sheer boredom. One of the neighbors decorates extensively for the day, and puts stereo speakeres out and plays sound effects like screams, clanking chains, etc. etc. The problem for me is, the clanking/booming sounds like a horse cast in its stall (that's when a horse lies down too close to the wall, with feet toward the wall, and can't get back up, just thrashes and thrashes) and the screams sound like panic-y neighs, so I flinch the entire time and go out to the barn several times to make sure all is well. If you're interested, the way you get the horse up when cast is to go in the stall, and carefully tie a rope to the fetlock of the hind leg on the bottom, back up, stand well clear, and PULL until you flip the horse completely over so his back is to the wall and then he can get his feet under him to stand. It's a great was to get kicked, if you ever need a little more pain in your life.

On another note, this marks (+ or - a few days) the two year anniversary of this blog. When I read back over the blog, here and there, I'm pretty pleased with it. The writing is OK and it has served its purpose for me, to have a place where I can mentally wander over different subjects, and express myself. It's nice to have readers, of course, and comments are always welcome, but in general it's having my thoughts (micro sized ones) clarified by writing them down that results in a post, not the desire for the ever-elusive readers. But to all twelve of you who read this regularly, much thanks. Your kind words or just seeing the meter click upwards gives me a kick, and I do go to each of your sites to read your thoughts too, inspiring me to post more frequently and helping me think of topics. If my stuff is occasionally boring as hell to you, that's OK too, it's not like I'm looking to win a prize, and it's not like you're paying for a sub-standard product.....

"Chocolate isn't the answer to everything. Chocolate is the question. The answer is "yes".

Meme

ME me me me me....oh.

1) Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 18, and find line 4.

"The techniques described below, however, give the analyst tools to explore many of these effects on paper, at a cost much lower than detailed field testing and laboratory analysis and far less than is incurred after an incinerator furnace has been installed and fails to operate satisfactorily."

2) Stretch your left arm out as far as you can and see what you touch.

An HP laserJet 4000. Ow.

3) What is the last thing you watched on TV?

Law and Order

4) Without looking, guess what time it is.
1:15

5) Now look at the clock. What is the actual time?
1:16

6) With the exception of the computer, what can you hear?
A fan, and a paper shredder.

7) When did you last step outside? What were you doing?
About an hour ago, on my way to the ladies'. And it's cold outside, too.

8) Before you started this survey, what did you look at?
A series of blogs.

9) What are you wearing?
Green turtleneck, green jeans, clogs (such a fashionista).

10) Did you dream last night?
Yeah, something about crashing my car. Or maybe it was the computer. Noisy, whichever.

11) When did you last laugh?
Reading the blog You Had Me at Idiot Check it out.

12) What is on the walls of the room you are in?
Posters "What I need to know I learned from computers" and "Maybe we are building a new world" and "Fabulous frogs".

13) Seen anything weird lately?
In West Virginia? No, do you think?

14) What do you think of this quiz?
It's an easy way to create a new post....

15) What is the last film you saw?
X-Men III the last stand. Let's hear it for Hugh Jackman, rowwwl.

16) If you became a multi-millionaire overnight, what would you buy?
I'd hire a full-time housekeeper. No, a cook. No, a chauffer. An accountant?

17) Tell us something about you that we don't know.
I'm really lazy (example: the meme)

18) If you could change one thing about the world, regardless of guilt or politics, what would you do?
I'd have all the world leaders meet and thrash out their conflicts mano-a-mano, with dull butter knives.

19) Do you like to dance?
Not at all. Two left feet. Maybe more.

20) George Bush
I think he deserves a fair trial.

21) Imagine your first child is a girl, what do you call her?
Draconia
22) Imagine your first child is a boy, what do you call him?
Apeteryx (a wingless bird with hairy feathers).

23) Would you ever consider living abroad?
Nope. West Virginia is about as "other worldly" as I can manage.

24) What do you want God to say to you when you reach the pearly gates?
"You look great for your age!"

Feeling old...

Yesterday several of us at work were involved in lab inspections. I knelt down next to our cart to get something off the bottom shelf, and I couldn't get back up. My knees just refused; there was nothing to pull on or to push against, there in the middle of the hall. Finally the professor helped me up. So embarrassing! I am determined to work on this, it is a terrifying feeling to not be able to get up. When my aunt was in her 80s she fell in the hallway of her home, and had crawl to her bedroom to pull herself up on the bed. I remember thinking, I'll never let myself get to that point ho ho famous last words. I have even lost 40 pounds over the last year, and still going, I'd like to lose another 30 at least, but the knees are way slow in noticing how much less flab they have to shuffle along. What exercises would I do to specifically work on 'getting up' moves? Is it stomach muscles, back, thighs, what? So very disheartening to lose this weight and yet feel clumsier than before.

I have packed up and taken home all but the bare minimum at work, because there are now three of us sharing this small office--bum to bum boop-de-boop. Of course the boxes are just sitting there in the bedroom floor, whie I try to figure out what I am going to do with all that crap. When you've lived in the same house for 25 years, even the odd nooks and crannies have a waiting list for occupancy. This morning the youngest cat ventured into the walk-in closet ( a well known venue for entering the Twilight Zone) when I went to get my coat, so to lure her out quickly I produced the peacock feather. Oh gods, she was so funny. After watching her race in ever-smaller circles for a while, I whisked the feather back on top the bookcase out of sight (becuase she'll EAT it given a chance). And then the bean kept following my feet, looking up and wailing for the feather, staring at my hands to see if it would magically appear again. I'll have to get it out tonight for her to chase again, she sounded so bereft. Come to think of it, maybe if I chased around for a while, I'd do better at getting up off the floor?? Food for thought.....

FRIday!

So glad this week is over. I think I have walked through or past every foot of the million+ square feet of this place, with entourage no less. Today is sit-at-the-screen day, for the benefit of my aching arches.

Rain and more rain here. Our roof leaks; probably around the fireplace chimney. We've had it fixed twice, and each time it's OK for a while and then leaks again. So there is a nice red Igloo cooler open on the dining room floor to catch the drips while we consider the next move. To Arizona, maybe.

Both kids are looking for better jobs, and I sent them an email with the job posting web pages for the university, the hospital, the physician's office center, NIOSH, and Morgantown in general. It occurs to me that finding job openings is so much easier now with the Internet than when I was a job-seeking graduate. Then, you pretty much depended on the want ads, and spent a lot of time driving from place to place to meet-and-greet potential employers, who mainly hired their relatives, I think. That part hasn't changed. I think it must make for a lot more applicants per job, but doesn't help with the screening. I heard a funny story the other day. Our University is seeking a new president. Several years ago there were ten or so Eastern universities seeking a president, and this one guy sent out applications to all of them. He always made the final cut because on paper he looked fantastic--lots of high-level admin experience, academic kudos, lots of publications, experienced fund raiser, the works. But when he'd come for the interview, he'd stretch his arm out across the table, rest his head on it, and respond to nearly every question with "Oh, I don't remember.." or "Yes, I guess so.." in other words, a complete dud. And finally the universities began comparing notes, said, Have you interviewed this guy? Don't bother... It seems his main occupation was applying for jobs, not actually doing anything. Many places don't actually check references except on the final, or maybe the three final, candidates. So the resume/application looms larger and larger in getting the job you want, which is not necessarily a realistic picture of the candidate. I hated getting the first job, when everyone wants experience and overlooks the fact that they will still need to do training, because everyone does the work differently (and insists their way is the only correct one).

I parked this morning in a spot marked "compact car only"; that definitely includes the Miata. Next to me was a spot with the same sign, and in it a Yukon SUV was parked. Guess literacy doesn't necessarily correlate with ability to pay large car payments.

And speaking of literacy, how about the factoid that 30% or more of West Virginians are functionally illiterate? Recent discussions at work have centered on the re-signing of directories at the various entry points, since so many departments have relocated. I suggested color-coded directions, as simple as possible, because the clientele of this medical center may be illiterate AND mobility impaired. Can you imagine the frustration of someone using a walker, laboriously making their way to, say, the 3rd floor north, only to find out they need 5th floor south, because they mis-read 'otolaryngology'? But it was decided that "color" would compromise the "aesthetic" appearance of the hallways! Form over function once again. So glad I am retiring....

When I was kid, I once went to a friend's house to play. My dad told me he would pick me up at a quarter past 12, and that I should be standing outside waiting when he pulled up, no delay. So I kept watching the clock, when all of a sudden I heard his car horn! I dashed outside and got in the car, and he started in on me. "I TOLD you to be outside waiting at fifteen after 12!" And I said, "No you didn't, you said a quarter past!" He said, 'That's the same thing!" and I said, oh, I thought a quarter past meant 25 past......Logical, from a kid who hasn't done fractions yet, yes? So even when we think our directions are perfectly plain, mis-communication can occur.

Time oh time

Well, it's amazing how time flies (even when you aren't having fun). Things at work have been moving briskly along. My replacement has been hired, so we have a nice overlap to go over everything before I retire (my last day probably Dec. 15th). We plan on having a double celebration around then, me for retirement, and Hubby for paying off the mortgage. Next will be all the home upgrades (and barn upgrades) that we want to make, some DIY and some contracted. After a suitable goofing-off period, of course!

Two weeks ago we traveled to Hardy County Kentucky to visit my sister-in-law. She has been in Kentucky about three years, but this is the first time we've been there. She truly lives in the middle of nowhere, 12 miles to the nearest (only)gas station/convenience store, 18 miles to the grocery store/bank/florist. That's all that is there. Oh wait, a mexican restaurant, surprisingly good. They don't live anywhere near anywhere, including a city of any size. My memory of driving through Kentucky 25 years ago includes envy of all the rolling green pastures, tight even fencelines, opulent barns surrounded by statuary and loonnng gravel drives. But her part of Kentucky is all about poverty; even compared to some of the less choice locations in West Virginia, ramshackle barns, peeling paint on once-black fences, houses with old appliances in the yard, weeds, dead cars. Sad. I think Hardy County has the highest number of welfare families in the state, lowest per-capita income. All it is now is farms, there is literally no where to work, and farming a family farm as a sole income hasn't been possible for many years, anywhere. Even the cattle look tired. My sister-in-law does have two cute little calves, Jerseys, that she'll winter over for meat. Wisely she hasn't named them--never name a beast you're going to eat. One of those rules, like, never squat with spurs on.....

When we drove home, it was through torrential rainstorms courtesy of Ernesto. Usually deluges where you can't see the car in front of you only last for a brief time, then stop or at least slack off. But this went on and on, all 7 hours it took to get home. We had rented a nice Cadillac, which handled the road nicely, I must admit. When Hub went to pick it up, the young guy at the Enterprise desk asked him where we were going. He said, Kentucky, and the guy wanted to know which states we'd be driving through. He replied, uh, Kentucky? It touches West Virginia? Clearly renting cars does not require geography skills.

The pool is once again closed for the season, I wish we could keep it warm enough to use for longer. Once I looked into getting an inflatable dome to cover it, it would keep it warm and decrease the bug/leaf problems, but I'm afraid the wind ripping up the valley would carry it far far away. It would end up keeping company with the assorted grill covers, trash can lids, towels draped on the railings, and umbrellas that have deserted us for greener pastures, somewhere. Once the kids were "camped out" in the backyard and we nearly lost the tent, kids included! No, not really. Only the tent, during a food run into the house.

Last week, daughter and I went to see Nickle Creek in concert, I understand that while they aren't precisely breaking up, they won't be touring together, starting at the end of the year. It's too bad, they are one of those groups where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Incredible musicians, and above average vocalists, mostly. Funny, too.

No one much at work today here at the university, last night WVU beat Maryland in the stadium across from the med center, and I think a lot of folks partied a little too hardy afterwards. Scheduling week-night games is all about TV coverage, and not about the logistics involved in getting employees out of the med center and getting 60,000 vehicles parked in their spaces. Not being a football fan, it's just a big nuisance when we have home games, even on the weekends; one can only stay home, or do a quick errand after kick-off. When I worked in the blood bank several years ago, my shift would end usually just as the game was letting out. I wanted to shout, "I WORKED, LET ME OUT FIRST!" but I just sat and sat until some kind soul would let me into traffic. And it always surprised me, how many people would come to the hospital cafeteria to eat lunch before the game. I mean, how festive can a hospital lunch room be? Aren't they supposed to tailgate? Anyway, this weekend should be quiet, everyone nursing hangovers.

Blog explosion confusion

I thought I understood the way blog explosion works. They have recently started "blog links" which I don't understand, but willing to give it a shot in the interest of increasing the number of readers. I enrolled, copied the HTML and pasted into my template and re-published by blog. I now see -- nothing different. Did I do something wrong? Is there an error in the HTML code? Has blogger not started this feature yet? Beats me. All this can be so frustrating.....

Ab-Reaction

So someone DID ask me about the battery recall. I leaped up onto my chair and shouted "I'm not going to take it anymore!" Then I closed my applications, logged off the server, shut down Windows, powered off the computer, undocked it, and prepared to HURL it out the window! Except by then everyone had wandered away, I was feeling kinda foolish standing on my chair getting the seat all dusty, and anyway the window was closed. So I sat back down and mused on our tendency to latch on to any piece of information and BEAT it to death. Take the JonBenet thing,you'd think we had wrung the last drop out of that sorry mess long ago, but apparently there is still a little more to come. And digging up Jimmy Hoffa, how many of you out there even remember who he was and what he was doing that got him so comprehensively eradicated, raise your hands? That's what I thought. And what would they know if they did find his bones? Well, that he was killed. A long time ago. Duh. Maybe we do this because our own lives are so dull, we take vicarious pleasure out of the lives and events of other people? The global version of gossiping over the back fence. It would be nice to blame the media for the feeding frenzies, but you know they only give us what we want.

Maybe if we could learn to take what we hear with a handful of salt, and wait for the whole story instead of just the 20 second sound bite, we wouldn't be so pulled here and there by the winds of speculation and hysteria.

But what do I know? Maybe if we didn't have the media to feed us, we'd sit around a fire and make up tales of gods and demons to entertain ourselves, the stuff of legends. Then gradually they would stop being legends, become "historical fact", we would argue about whose version was right, found organizations based on our version, go to war to kill the guys who believe something else. Yeah, maybe we would do that.

Has anyone heard anything about a big quake in California?

The Latest Word(s)

OK, now I know all of you drive, right? So you won't mind if I point out a couple of teeny problems. First, when an emergency vehicle is hard on the siren, lights a-flashin' behind you, and the person in front of you courteously pulls to the curb, you DO NOT think "Ah HA! They have pulled over so I can whisk past them!" INSTEAD, you too pull to the curb, in consideration of the person in the ambulance/burning house/being mugged, etc. Are we clear? And then, when a whole line of you are edged to the curb for said emergency vehicle, and the coast is now clear, you DO NOT say "ME first!!" but instead everyone pulls back into traffic together, it's only sensible. Got it? I'm so glad we had this little talk.

I have been Laid Low by the dreaded migraine monkey, who apparently takes special notice of those times when I am Most Stressed to visit. As if regular headaches aren't enough to work through, now I have a throbbing headache with nausea, bright light and loud sound sensitivity, and a strong desire to lay in bed with a pillow over my face. Very limiting, what one can do while wearing a pillow. I have a Special Medicine for just such times, which I failed to refill after the last bout, hello? Did we think it would magically reappear in the medicine cabinet, hmmm? And still wait up for Santa, too, do we?

I am writing this on a Dell laptop, model Inspiron 600m, bought between 2004 and now, and if ONE MORE PERSON asks me about the battery recall, I will be forced to react violently. No, mine isn't one of the pyrotechnical batteries. Darn. I think it would be lovely irony to have the computer in the safety office burst into flames, don't you? It would be all of a piece with the labs in the Eye Institute that don't have an eyewash, the same labs with door numbering in beige-on-beige waaay up high on the door frame, so that the only way to read them is to squint sideways or use your fingertips to feel the numbers (thereby confirming that you NEED to be in the Eye Institute). This is part of the same medical center that has only one handicap-accessible door, which is NOT anywhere near the handicap parking area. That still has signage throughout the buildings that point the way to departments and offices that moved elsewhere some 10 years ago. I'm sure they will get around to updating any day now. As soon as the indigenous porcine population begins to defy gravity.

Meanwhile, here's hoping everyone out there is being thoughtful, kind, and reverent, remembering the Golden Rule (he who has the gold makes the rules) and prepared to watch those pesky civil liberties be tattered beyond recognition by those ever-helpful folk in Washington, who know Better Than Us What Needs to Be Done to keep our country safe. Riiiight.

Crotchety

I've decided that I'm becoming more than a little grumpy. Maybe it's just a natural part of getting older. I find that I don't have any enthusiasm for (most)new things. Specifically, I'm tired of construction.

This is a little town (by my standards)of 25,000 population; twice that when the university is in regular session. For reasons I cannot understand, little Motown is undergoing a boom. Everywhere you look, there are hundreds of luxury condominiums going up, two new malls (giving us a total of 4), mega theater complexes (making it two, and unless I'm just watching the wrong films, I've never seen more than 25 people in a theater at either of them when I've been there). They are putting in a 19 story apartment complex downtown (the tallest building by 10 stories), adding a Sam's Club, a Wal-mart Super store, 8 or so new restaurants (Chili's, Olive Garden, Cheddars, etc.), this in addition to the 25 or so we already have. And of course, you can't build all this stuff without roads and plumbing/electricity and so on, so every major road is being torn up, widened, re-paved, torn up again, utilities run under, re-re-paved. The medical center is adding a new $20M research building, and a new neurosciences institute building; they've almost completed a major (2 years and counting)renovation and expansion of the medical library which will now be a 'learning center'. The univ. has broken ground for a new research 'park' in conjunction with various businesses. The local pharmaceutical firm has built a huge recreational complex, with equestrian space, outdoor amphitheaters, and so forth. There are plans to built a live theater, a museum, and who knows what else. An 'intermodal public transportation facility' will be tying university buses, PRT, and city buses together.

And I keep thinking, where is the money coming from? And what do the Powers That Be know that the rest of us don't?

But no matter how much they build, you still won't be able to find a parking space.

Grumble grumble.

Those were the days, my friend....

When my son was small (lo, these many years ago), around 10, I surprised him as I was coming out of my bedroom late one evening. I caught him heading for the computer room (to play games), and he immediately looked guilty when he saw me. He said, "I thought you had gone to bed?" and I said " I thought you were doing your homework?" to which he smoothly replied, "Then I guess we're both disappointed."

When he was in 3rd or 4th grade, we got a note home from his (parochial) school, saying that he was not paying attention in class, being rowdy, and so forth. And I thought, C? I don't think so...mostly what he did in class was sneak books out of his bag and read during class. So without saying anything to him at all, I took him for a haircut, and got him some nicer clothes (ones that weren't such ankle beaters), and made sure he looked tidy going to school. Sure enough, the next note said what a great improvement they had noticed in him. And I thought how often teachers form unconscious judgements of their students, thinking the taller kids (which he definitely was) should act more mature, the tidy kids to be better students, the sloppy kids to be a troublemakers, and so forth. His was a good school, and the teachers all above average, but still, it isn't a good policy to assume that they are always right, or that they see some side of your child he doesn't show at home. I had a friend who (back in the day when schools did corporal punishment) said if the sisters spanked him, it was a given his dad would too, once he got home. No explanations listened to, or even voiced. I sure hope we're past that stage. Schools are such an unnatural environment, emphasizing conforming yet standing out, cooperation and competition, certain behaviors that are never fully explained,behaviors that conflict with what they are taught at home, and overall denial of the validity of a different point of view. My over-all memory of school days, especially the early years, is one of bewilderment, and a total inability to see that all the other kids, popular, pariah, smart, or dumb, were all bewildered too, only different in how they showed it. I wouldn't go back to those days for all the money in the world.

Well, OK, just this once

I am going to give up apologizing for the infrequency of posts here. After all, I am the Creator and I Follow No Rules But My Own. I have Spoken.

July is proving to be hot and rainy, and so everything seems to smell faintly of mildew. Whenever I read about the extinction of 'x' number of plant species a year, I always wish I could pick the ones to go extinct, with mold and mildew topping the list. What possible ecological niche could they fill? Are there predatory species who feast on mildew? If so, can I get some? Soon? I remember one memorable summer in Miami when I was a kid, it rained 30 inches in 30 days. You needed a snorkle to walk around outside, and everything was green, including you. No wonder the roaches in florida are so huge, they have to be big enough to float without drowning.

We did try to open the pool over the fourth, but scrubbing the walls of the pool, 27 feet in diameter (if I remember the right formula, that's 85 feet in length, 48 inches tall = 339 square feet) did us in. We intended to replace the liner this year, until the installer said it would cost $600 in labor, and that he needed to be able to reach the outside of the pool all the way around -- which means pulling up a deck 85 feet around; so we passed this year. May try DYI next year.

The horses are enjoying these lazy days of summer. It's far too hot to ride, too buggy. On Memorial day we started the 'turn around turn out' which means we keep them in the barn (shady, fans in every stall, bug sprayed)during the day, and turn them out at night (so if there are thunderstorms we can quicky get them in). The two mares are both white-faced and blue-eyed, so bright sunlight is hard on them anyway; if for some reason they are out in the sun, I put those fly mask/sun bonnet things on, it makes them look like aliens, but keeps the flies off and the light down. One time I forgot them, and when Blondy saw me approaching with them in hand, she rushed over and THRUST her face into it, so I guess it suits.

One way I know I'll be missed when I retire--my candy jar. I keep a one gallon jar filled with candy, not just the hard stuff that comes in 'variety' bags, but miniatures of real candy; i.e., chocolate. I refill it about once a week. It tickles me, because although I can't see the jar from where I sit, since it's in the outer office, I can hear every time someone gets candy because it has an old-fashioned click-grip canning jar lid. It amuses me, for various reasons, and so I never mind the cost. Gotta go with anything that makes the day go faster.

Same old

I really wish I could type better. I took typing in high school, lo these many years ago, on a manual typewriter (you can still find a few at flea markets; I can't type on them either). I cannot type now without looking at the keys. They haven't moved around, qwerty is still in the same place when I look at them, but it's a crutch to look at the keys. I even got a copy years ago of Mario teaches typing, ostensibly for the kids, but I used it too. Even then I couldn't break myself of looking at the keys. It was demoralizing to type poorer than a 10 year old. You would think that I would make fewer mistakes that way, slower but better accuracy, but that isn't the case, after I look up at the screen, there are dozens of errors. So I am a compulsive spell-checker (although you wouldn't guess that from some of my previous posts). Of course, spell checkers don't catch real words in the wrong useage, like hear for here, or there for their. And judging by the number of times I see it used, no one seems to know when to use its (possessive) and when to use it's (contraction for it is). I've been known to stand waiting for an elevator and pull out a pen to correct a 'For Sail' sign (call evnings) on the bulletin board. I also find it surprising to see how many errors there are in printed copy, thousands and thousands distributed all over the county with "Hemren's Plumbing" when you know they mean Herman's. I've even had dreams where I am trying over and over to type something, but the light is too dim to see the keys, so I carry the keyboard to the light (must have had a LOOONNG cord)only to realize the letters on the keys are all rubbed too faint to see. I call these sorts of dreams, frustration dreams. I have lots of them.

And speaking of frustration, I bought a new Palm Lifedrive PDA last week, and with it, an aluminum hard case. I have found the problem with soft-ish cases is that I accidentally press keys and turn the Palm on when I'm rummaging in my purse, so it uses up the battery too soon. Anyway, the PDA slips right in the hard case, but I'll be damned if I can figure out how to open the aluminum 'door' on the face. The best I can do is pry at it with my thumbnail, and somehow that just doesn't cut it with me. I even had my son the mechanical genius take a go at it, and he agrees it's hopeless. So back it goes. Who designs these things?

Bye for now.....

All sorts of things, mostly of interest only to me, have been happening, and I haven't posted here in ages. I hate it when the blogs I read haven't been updated in weeks and weeks, but I am secure in knowing that the 6 or so people who stumble across this blog won't have even noticed.

Let me see. Tuesday the 6th was our 36th wedding anniversary, I'm not sure if that is an accomplishment or just a tribute to inertia. For my gift, I got a kiln. I don't have anywhere to put it, but that never stopped me from buying anything in the past, did it? The 6th was also the day of our big training session, in which I had to give a 20 minute talk on laboratory auditing. I managed to get through it without swallowing my own tongue or fainting, and I attribute that success to Xanax. I just stood there thinking how friendly everyone looked, so nice..... The 6th was also the day my son's new Dell computer arrived, he hasn't come up for air yet. Last weekend my daughter bought a new car, a Suzuki Something, so clearly we as a family are doing our part to advance the Economy and the rise of Western Consumerism. Yesterday the Hub and I met with the retirement lady to talk about the best way to manage my vast reserve of retirement savings. Basically we agreed that having me work another 10 years probably won't help much in my long-range goal of regular purchases of support stockings and laxatives, so I guess I'm good to go in December. Won't that make for a terrific holiday, knowing that I won't have to go back to work in January?

Speaking of death, when I handled my mother's estate (such as it was) in 1999, my sister was convinced that Mom had purchased a life insurance policy that named her as beneficiary. Given that all of Mom's 'important papers' were filed in any one of hundreds of paper grocery bags in the spare bedroom, it came as no surprise to me that no such policy could be found. I called any insurance company Mom had ever written a check to, and couldn't find this mythical policy, but that didn't stop my sister from thinking I was stiffing her. What exactly I would get out of leaving any insurance unclaimed I never did figure out. But trolling through the internet recently, I found a site that, for a (fairly modest) fee, will contact 100 of the top insurance companies to check for an unclaimed policy. So I decided, heck, why not go for it? Although my sister died in 2004, and finding it still won't do me any good, it is one of those nagging little things that floats into my mind in the middle of the night when I'm trying to get to sleep. Did my sister delude herself into thinking that Mom and Dad, who were barely making ends meet, would lay out money for an insurance policy that would allow her to squander even more cash? Did Mom tell her that she had done so just to placate her, did Mom think she actually had done so when she hadn't, did she really buy insurance and then lose the policy? Puzzling. I don't actually think the search will turn up anything..... Back in 1953 my parents purchased four cemetary plots in the National Memorial Park in Falls Church, VA. Exactly why they bought them in VA, when they lived in Miami, were only in their 30s, and why FOUR lots, I've never been able to figure. At any rate, there they sit, now worth some $5000 each, I'm told, and that's another nagging little detail to ponder during the Insomnia Hours. I am resolved to leave my affairs all tidy for the kids/husband to handle, no weeks and weeks of sorting through piles of papers including receipts for a 25 cent part for the old '42 Packard.

Although they will have to decide what to do with the kiln.