Dames and a princess

I have a hard time believing it when I’m sick. You know, that I’m really sick.

Oh, I never was one to show up for work with a 102 degree fever or a blinding headache, or during the worst days of a bad respiratory infection.

But even when the evidence of my senses is well into the “preponderance” area – even clear past “beyond a reasonable doubt” – I usually have this idea that I can’t be, like, really sick. Even after I’ve taken the indicated or prescribed drugs, checked with my doctor’s office, crawled into bed or plopped myself down on the living room sofa to wait for this too to pass. I believe it’s really some kind of mental funk or moral failure. Yeah, I know. But still.

Today I’m not running a serious fever, but I feel lousy. I didn’t sleep much last night, finally gave up trying, plopped down in the living room and watched my latest DVD from Netflix, Mrs. Henderson Presents. It ended a little before dawn, and I found the memorial service for Princess Diana – already in progress – being aired live on BBC America. I was stunned when it was rudely interrupted by a commercial for some kind of hot tub, but luckily I found that MSNBC was airing the service without such disgusting nonsense. I wouldn’t have gotten up early to watch the service, but I’m glad I got to see it.

During the final hymns I hopped off the love seat, had coffee, cereal, and ibuprofen, and read the morning paper. Not believing I’m really sick. Then finally went to bed and slept all morning. Now at 1 p.m., I’m up again, and wandering around the house with a headache. And things I need to do.

Because it’s not like I’m sick or anything.

More about Mrs. Henderson below the fold.

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Character

It’s what you do when you don’t have to do anything at all, that makes you what you are when it’s too late to do anything about it.

–R.J. Gary, Texas Utilities

Having things to do and places to go this morning, I’ll just post this and run.

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Remember. Again.

 

It’s hard to believe that Katrina’s landfall on the US Gulf Coast was two years ago today.

Flag image from Greg Peters

  The people of NOLA and the Gulf Coast haven’t given up.   I’m betting – and hoping – that national leaders in all walks of life will emerge from their ranks.  

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I lost 106 pounds

Today. For twenty-five bucks.

At Curbside Data Control.   I drove there with four full boxes of papers to shred, the result of my Big Scan (and sort) project.

The nice folks at Curbside dumped all the paper into a locked bin, weighed it (106 pounds), rolled it off to the shredder and issued me a certificate of destruction. 

Meanwhile, back at the condo, I’ve reclaimed a corner in the study, which last week was stacked high with boxes of papers and books. 

Now it’s blessedly empty. 

I’m sure the feng shui is improved.

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Excuses, excuses

“The society which scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because philosophy is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy. Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.”

—–John W. Gardner 

“I made a mistake.”   ”I was insane at the time.”

So, who said that?  Bone idle grifters?  Sad and stubborn addicts or alkies, grubby from their roll in the gutter?  Your lazy-ass sister-in-law, who never met a vacuum cleaner she could operate or passed up a chance to max out her Visa card?

Nope.  It’s way scarier.

Mr. Mistake is long-serving Idaho Senator Larry Craig (Republican).  He was busted in the men’s restroom in the Minneapolis airport on a charge of soliciting an undercover cop for sex.  He entered a guilty plea to a lesser misdemeanor.  Which he now says was a “mistake.”  United States Senators make our federal laws and decide matters of major national importance.  He’s been doing this for twenty years, and can’t understand what he’s doing when faced with a misdemeanor?

Ms. Insanity is Lisa Nowak.  Who was a member of the US ultra-elite astronaut corps, until she was busted for stalking a romantic rival with the terrifying focus and competence you’d expect of, well, a combination rocket scientist and superior athlete.  Now her lawyer plans an insanity defense.  Afer she whined in court about how haaarrd it is for her to deal with that electronic monitoring ankle bracelet.  Like, she has to change its batteries.  And it chafes.  One can only wonder how she managed all that rocket science.

I will not generalize from these events that our lawmakers don’t know much about law, or our elite officer/scientist/athlete astronauts are nuts.

I will say that these two people have demonstrated their utter lack of fitness for their jobs.  Ms. Nowak no longer has hers.   One assumes that the fine folks in Idaho will take care of Mr. Craig’s situation ASAP.

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Mercy

Abby, who blogs at Bad Dogs and Such, explains why we are so repulsed by Michael Vick’s acts of cruelty to animals.   It’s worth a read – or two.  HT to Law Dog for the link.

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Will I need a passport?

 The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.

—– L. P. Hartley

No scanners, or shredders, not so many lawyers per capita, and identity theft not aided by computers. 

After three full days slogging away at The Big Scan, I’m down to the paydirt of old personal and family letters and pictures.  Including the one above – and I’m not in it.  I’m probably older than you, but not that old.  

The picture is of a tailoring course taught by the Home Ec teacher at a public high school in the late 1940′s “for anyone interested.”

Interesting picture.  There could be a story there.  Or stories.  No passport required.

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Several times in a row

I’ve just spent 12 hours on The Big Scan project (see below). I’m tired but happy. I’ve accomplished a lot today.

Just now I found this favorite Miss Peach cartoon strip, from the late 1960′s or early 1970′s.   I wonder if today’s editors would replace “dumb” with “stupid” . . .

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Hold the ice, the fire – and the paperwork

It isn’t necessary to imagine the world ending in fire or ice. There are two other possibilities: one is paperwork, and the other is nostalgia.

——-Frank Zappa

I have too many pieces of paper in my house. They are corralled into boxes or file folders, pending The Big Scan – a project I thought would be finished by now. TBS means I use my lovely little Fujitsu ScanSnap S500 scanner (pictured closed and opened – scroll down for the other photo) to scan all those documents I wish to retain, after which I can recycle or shred almost all of the hard copies. I will end up with only a storage box or two of paper – not bad for a lifetime as a middle-class American homeowner working in a paper-based profession.

But as we know, life is what happens while we’re making other plans. In this case:

• The new desktop PC was acquired in March and runs Windows Vista.
• The Fujitsu scanner – acquired in the days of Windows XP – wouldn’t work with the new PC without new Vista drivers and software.
• Fujitsu didn’t release the Vista updates until July.
• In July I downloaded and installed the ScanSnap Vista updates – just before the new PC suffered a hard drive failure.

Now the PC’s home with a new hard drive, the scanner is working, and yesterday

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My heart isn’t breaking here

Lisa Nowak doesn’t seem to get that she’s no longer an Astronaut Princess, and that the judge may not give a rodent’s rear end what the lovely Lisa likes or doesn’t like.

HT to Babs for the news that ex-naut Nowak – arrested in Florida after driving from Texas to stalk a romantic rival – wants her court-ordered electronic monitoring ankle bracelet removed. It’s a condition of her bail that she wear it and that she stay away from the woman she stalked.

Nowak whines that it causes abrasions and isn’t waterproof and the batteries run down. Holy cats. It’s an ankle bracelet. It’s not rocket science, honey. This woman was selected and trained by NASA to fly space missions – and she can’t handle changing the batteries on a small electronic device, putting on a bandage to cushion her ankle, and wrapping the thing in plastic when she showers?

Pleeze.

Full CNN story is below the fold, if the link’s expired.

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You’ll have to eat that cupcake outside, sir

Let’s see. You work, play, pay taxes, and manage to live past your 65th birthday. You may be no genius, but you are smart enough to come in out of the rain and choose the food you eat.

Not so fast. If you live in Putnam County, N.Y., the County fathers and mothers don’t think you can tell a strawberry sprinkle doughnut from a serving of grapes. So in order to save their senior citizens from themselves, they banned doughnuts from the menu at the county’s senior citizen centers, which serve about a thousand lunches a day.

However, the beneficiaries targets of this nanny state ban are fighting back. They got up a petition and when presented with it, the authorities changed their tune. Now they say the problem is that much of the donated goodies were well past their sell-by date – even moldy. Oh, and the people serving the food can’t figure out if it’s moldy?

The compromise is that there will be “limited amounts” of doughnuts, cakes and other such goodies provided – but (I am not making this up) they will have to be eaten “elsewhere.”

I can see it now. Sheriff deputies patrolling the lunchroom.

“Step AWAY from the chocolate glazed, ma’am.”

“You can’t eat that piece of cake in here, sir. I’m going to have to ask you to take it outside. I’ll hold it for you while you stand up and collect your walker.”

Complete story below the fold.

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This week’s serving of insanity, international dept.

WordPress.com blogs have all been blocked in Turkey. By lawyers representing a nutcase activist (see this blog post for some information). Who seems to threaten slander against anyone who dares write about him in an unflattering light.

I hope WordPress gets un-blocked soon.

Update:  An article about it all here.

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Even if there was enough room in the condo

I don’t think I’d have a pet camel.  The BBC has the scoop.    And while we’re on the subject, I also learned that in addition to house cats, the introduction of camels to the land of Oz has resulted in huge herds of feral beasts.  Scary.  Stories below the fold if the links expire.

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Cranky Prof’s been reproducing again

It happened early and via emergency C-section, but mother and baby are recovering.  Mother at home, preemie baby (the Squeaker)  in the NICU making progress on the breathing and other issues.    If there’s anything to heredity, the Squeaker is going to have a wicked wit.  Best wishes to them both.

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More learning by doing

I learned about interarticular ankle fractures and avulsion fractures of the metatarsal, by doing them.  Both of them.  Ten months apart.  Now I’ve learned about bursitis.  Of the hip, yet.  Yee-ouch.  Serious pain, people.

Thanks to my primary care doc’s prompt diagnosis and treatment, the serious pain part is over.   If you’ve never had this problem, I hope you never do.  Just take my word for it, OK?  Save your boundless curiosity and zest for life experiences for other things.

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Saving Grace – Everlast

Saving Grace – Everlast

I’m loving the song as much as the series.

. . . Street wise from the boulevard.
Jesus only knows that she tries too hard.
She’s only tryin’ to keep the sky from fallin’. . . .

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Grace, Earl and the Company

I’m enjoying my first real summer off since I was a kid. No work. No school. The dog days of summer aren’t over yet. When it’s frizzling hot outside, I try to keep cool indoors. Where I can read and watch TV.

Summertime TV has come a long way since my childhood when all we had were reruns of network shows. Now the cable channels offer original programming, even in the summer. First I found AMC’s Mad Men.

Now, two more fine shows are on my must-see list now, both on TNT:

The Company, a 3-part CIA drama on Sunday nights. Young idealists, old masters of covert operations, moles, double agents, beautiful women, Yalies, the KGB – all the usual suspects in any Cold War spy story are here. The first episode kept my attention for the whole two hours as the action shuttled primarily between Washington D.C. and East Berlin in the post-WWII era. I’ll tune in this Sunday for the next one.

My favorite new show, Saving Grace. This series, starring Holly Hunter, has something to offend everyone. Grace Hanadarko is a hard-charging Oklahoma City police detective who drinks, cusses, drives a Porsche way too fast, shoots pool, has an active sex life (some critics have said “promiscuous” but

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Mad for Mad Men

I’m enjoying the new series on cable channel AMC: Mad Men. Nancy Franklin’s take on it in a recent New Yorker pretty much sums up why:

Have any states yet legalized marriage between human beings and TV shows? If so, I’m going to throw a few things in a bag and run off with “Mad Men,” the new drama on AMC set in the world of advertising at the dawn of the sixties—and encompassing New York life, and marriage, and sex, and repression, and what America was and was not. It is gorgeous in every way. As it should be—it’s the spawn of all those handsome, stylish office movies that were made in the fifties. Like those movies, “Mad Men” is smart and tremendously attractive, and it stirs you more than it probably should. It may not be deep, but if you’re a certain age and have a certain sensibility and certain fantasies of what New York used to be like (thanks to those movies) it hits a deep place in you, like a straight-up Martini made of memory and desire.

And of course, Jon Hamm as Don Draper. Gorgeous indeed.

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