it's a bpa issue

and then there's the canned soup problem. apparently eating a can of soup every day for five days drastically increases your chance of heart disease and diabetes.

how can that be, you wonder? read this and be forewarned.

the other side of the coin is that everything has an issue these days so go ahead and do what you want.

colds and stuff

i'm one of those old-fashioned people who have always believed in aspirin. bayer aspirin.

other things have come along ... tylenol, advil, etc ... but i don't take those others. they just don't do it for me, and even though 'the experts' have just about ruined aspirin with their proclamations of dangers to children, it works for me even if it were to turn out to just be a placebo effect.

granted, i only take about four aspirin a year, but that's still better than taking four tylenol or advil as far as i'm concerned.

and now i read about this. you want to really be careful about using tylenol. watch your dosage.

bond ... james bond

a tiny floating island for all you dreamers out there.

faces

this is interesting, but i think the thing i like most about it is the music.

this shot is actually a little more interesting -- going up instead of down.

wait ... what are they doing ...

my cousin also sent me this:

"To save the economy, on December 30, 2011, Obama has ordered the immigration department to start deporting retired people instead of illegals in order to lower Social Security and Medicare costs. We are easier to catch, and will not remember how to get back home! See you on the bus. I wonder where we’re going?"

i thought it was funny, but on second thought, maybe we should start running. we won't get far, but we don't have to get on that bus willingly. after all, we're baby-boomers, the sit-down, let's protest, free spirit generation.

although like captain picard said, 'resistance is futile'. of course, that's when  his mind had been taken over by the hive or the cube or whatever it was. still ... never give up!

goin' to church

i'm not very crazy about country music, but my cousin sent me this so i listened. it's pretty darned good. and funny. amen.

sweet babies

do you like animal pictures? these are darling!

cooler today

interesting thing happened today. after i'd been at work about 2 hours, i realized i'd forgotten my underpants.

yes, i'd gotten dressed ... pantyhose, slip, skirt, blouse, vest, earrings, glasses, shoes. but i forgot my undies.

it was no big deal, although i felt this amazing freedom until i figured out what it was. and it would have maybe been a little risque except that my skirts come down to my ankles. hardly sexy. well, plus i'm 64.

still ... it was, um, interesting.

chemo brain anyone?

validation

and, i have to say... oh. no shit.

finally there's an article which says that chemo may damage the brain of a woman undergoing therapy for breast cancer. oh. no shit.

like the article says, "cancer patients have long complained of neurological side effects such as short-term memory loss and, in extreme cases, vision loss, and even dementia following chemotherapy." true.

and it goes on to say, "doctors have traditionally dismissed these complaints attributing them to stress caused by cancer diagnosis and treatment." also true. typical doctors.
the study was done using the drug 5-FU which, of course, was one of the three i had (cytoxan and methotrexate were the other two). you can read about it, but mainly it shows that doctors often ignore what women say. oh. no shit.

and yes, it did affect my brain. i never again was quite as quick, quite as accurate, or quite as confident of my work. goddammit all anyway.

chalk drawings

you know those street chalk-drawings that are always so cool? well, check this out. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2061268/Artist-draws-Chinas-terracotta-army-chalk-street-art-LEGO-men.html i mean, you can see it happening.

the thing you probably cannot see quite as well is the proportions they use. for example, the first picture is the whole. the second one is the history. the third one is the drawing before the coloring.

now, look closely. the corner closest to you is the corner farthest away in the completed drawing. it's the flip (top-to-bottom) of picture four. the little guy on the horse in number four, is the pink elongated sketch in picture three.

the perspective is amazing and probably only good from a very narrow viewpoint.

oh hell i'm going to drown....

this little ole' lady is a kick! http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2061452/Mary-Lee-Fine-86-drives-car-swimming-pool.html

reminds me of my oklahoma relatives' attitudes! cool!

if only ....

this little guy is only nine years old, but look how he can paint!  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2060098/Kieron-Williamsons-artistic-talents-paid-new-home.html

and this is ....

i love this picture! and the others are pretty darned good! http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2059670/Kate-Middleton-mouse-Johnny-Depp-cat-new-Famous-Faces-book.html

daily exercise

oh those chinese. this walkway is 4,700 above sea level, which doesn't tell us how high above the ground it is, but anything higher than 3 ft is too high for me.

i couldn't walk along this thing if i were drunk and securely tied to a higher point. no can do. nope. fini.

fun trip!!

well this is definitely cool! there's a lot of country in this country!!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2059124/What-trip-Photographer-captures-12-225-mile-road-trip-5-minute-video.html

you're going after the wrong guy

i really have never understood the idea of punishing those who've been abused, when they strike out at their abuser. the people who think that's the right way to handle things have never been beaten or severely punished or emotionally deprived, and i'd like to see if they'd still feel that way after suffering, themselves, a period of unexpected, unrelenting abuse. like this kid -- http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2058700/Did-snap-Star-student-university-standout-accused-beating-stabbing-mother-death-years-abuse.html -- it's just not right.

when in rome

i don't know, i just think it's weird. i mean, back in the day you always dressed up to go to church. you wore your sunday best. i always wore skirts. the husband says he always wore a suit.

i just saw a pix of maria and arnie exiting church and she had on leather knee-high biker boots, black tights, a black t-shirt, a grey shirt, and a black jacket. man, i am soooooooo out of it.

but isn't there something about the way you dress shows how you feel about yourself? yes, i know that times change but there are so many people out there wearing very unappealing, unflattering fashions. to say nothing of the hollywood crowd and their sleazy slutty creations. or ... maybe i'm just out of it.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2058394/Arnold-Schwarzenegger-gets-kissed-priest-church-outing-Maria-Shriver.html

system alert

a nation-wide test of the emergency broadcasting system will happen this wednesday, november 9 at 11:00 a.m. pacific. do not panic. it is only a test.

eight years earlier...

the husband discovered this cover when he was looking through a box which had been stored away. notice the date? prophetic, isn't it?!

the cut prediction

i got my hair cut last week.

that's a significant statement. i got my hair cut.

you see, back in 1995 a number of things happened and i decided the hell with hair stylists and started cutting my own hair. no, i have not had any training, but how hard could it be? seeing as how i just cut it the same length all over, it wasn't that hard, but after 16 years of holding my arms up for an hour and trying to see the back and sides and getting everything all even and stuff, i just said oh hell.

there's a gal in town who has a place by herself and i know someone at work who goes to her to get her hair colored. and she likes her, so i figured i didn't have anything to lose. so i went and she spent an hour cutting my short hair and that was about the amount of time i used to spend when a really good person was working on my hair. i mean, i had someone in a fancy salon one time cut it and it took half an hour and it was a lousy cut. i figure if they spend an hour, they're trying to make it good.

at any rate, she did a very good job and didn't try to sell me 'product' and even though i don't style it the way she blow-dried it, i am very satisfied with the cut. and that's how i figure i'm going to know i got the l.a. job. you find something you like, you lose it or it gets taken away. simple.

kids get sick

my older son and his family are sick this weekend. we were going to see about driving down and visiting, but no. i remember when the kids were little that being sick all the time was de rigueur. that's one more reason to have kids while you're young.

i wonder how that 65 year old mom did while the kid was getting to age 5....

green fences

we drove up to canada today to drive around and see people's yards. there are an awful lot of hedges up there. in fact, some of them are three deep! a hedge, a fence, another hedge. some of them are pretty and some are strange, some are wild and some are really thick. a lot of them are privacy hedges and shoot up 10+ feet in the air.

i wanted to show the husband to help him feel a little better about things if/when we put the house on the market. we have a two-year old hedge which is coming along nicely and is already more than 5 feet tall. since houses around here aren't selling, i figure we have as good a chance at having a canadian buyer looking at it as a state-side buyer. won't hurt, anyhow.

slinky

interesting? yes. fun to watch? certainly. worth $1 million? absolutely not.

what in the world is it that justifies that price tag? the engineering? the materials? the novelty? sheesh. get real.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2055238/Cheap-Halloween-costumes-Sorry-human-slinky-set-1m.html

patriarchs

disgusting. and yet ... not surprising.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2054420/Wife-sharing-brothers-haunts-Indian-villages-number-girls-decline.html

driving with a red line

i can't decide whether i think this is a good idea or not. is it helpful or just annoying? i think i wouldn't like it, at least not as it's presented.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2054620/Hi-tech-new-sat-nav-ditches-box-dash--projects-windscreen.html

oh, isn't this cute? punctuation marks -- some of which i know and several of which i do not.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/expresident/13-punctuation-marks-that-you-never-knew-existed

and once again the familiar litany -- stupidity. good grief facebook, get real. you are so fucked up.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2054737/Breast-cancer-survivors-outraged-photos-painted-breasts-called-pornography-Facebook-taken-down.html

just a couple more pix. moto man and his mother go riding.

moto man standing on a lookout with his sweetie and rio grande in background.

moto man standing on a lookout with his sweetie.

moto man and his 'rents at lookout.

moto man and his sweetie and mom.

i had a great two weeks off. except for the jerk who stole our credit card number and bought things with it. the flights to and from abq were uneventful, and flying first class is the only way to go.  we met the kids and ate, then whizzed up to sante fe and then beyond, to los alamos. l.a. is at about 7000 feet and is starkly lovely. i remember my dad talking about going to the boy scout ranch at piedmont nm. that's northeast of l.a. and i can see why he was so taken with the area.

l.a. itself is about 10,000-12,000 people and is incredibly vibrant. they have an excellent library, one grocery store (not counting the health food store on the edge of town), and a really big hospital. the humidity was about 12% and while my face loved it, my hands didn't.

we were going to see some cliff dwellings, but that didn't quite work out and there was too much else to do to wait around. we drove up to the caldera and i wanted to move in right away. not that there's anywhere to move -- it's a huge meadow resting just below mountain tops, but i would have been satisfied with kicking out the people at the visitor center, blocking off the roads, and having it all to myself.

just across from there, on the main road, sat two houses that survived this summer's fire. the trees behind their homes were burned less than 100 feet away. honestly, they just barely escaped the danger. (houses at bottom of tree-line)

so ... the trip was great. we checked on and identified the purchases which were made by the miscreant, and are now awaiting our replacement card. frankly, if the creep were caught and the sentencing were up to us, we would simply have him shot. we're sick of the bad guys going without justice. no patience at all anymore for the possibility of misunderstanding, bad childhood, etc. just shoot them all. but on a final note, here are a couple more pix of that lovely l.a. area.

business doesn't always tell the truth

i know that the kids don't like it if i wash something (clothes) in hot water but when i was growing up, hot water was the way to go.

i found this article the other day which makes the point --

 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2050239/How-washing-machines-familys-health-risk-Low-temperatures-mixed-loads-spreading-dangerous-bugs.html

it's always reassuring to be validated.

get real

and then there's the mulims at seatac who thought they should get paid for taking time to pray. hertz asked them to clock out and back in if they needed to pray. they didn't. hertz fired them.

stupid fuckers. the muslims i mean. why on god's earth should they get paid to pray? i don't. come on special interest group, get with the program or go back east. we don't owe you anything.

the comments generally agree.  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2051914/Hertz-fires-26-Muslim-shuttle-drivers-refused-clock-prayer-breaks.html

oh, but i need to tell you about the food we had on our little cabin outing. we stopped in anacortes at this place called Adrift. it is a restaurant which buys locally and organic, and uses that stuff to produce excellent dishes!!  my favorite is the wee beet salad, which is so beyond yummy as to stun the imagination.

another place, in langley, is called the Prima Bistro and is, once again, excellent!! and our waiter was just so fun -- good-natured, affable, spoke french eloquently, and a sweetie.

we were both surprised by how much a few excellent meals had us filled up for, supposedly, days. is that typical of good food? fills you up for a long time? if so, i've been doing something wrong. not that i cook anymore, but i'm just saying ...

the girlfriend and i did have a good weekend. we drove up to white rock and stayed in a really nice hotel with a view of the water and wind surfers. we walked to all the shops and ate delicious food.

in particular i enjoyed a restaurant called the Deluxe. it was soooooo excellent. if you want to check it out, it might be good to get reservations. we got lucky (twice) since we didn't have them.

another excellent place was Le Vol Au Vent and yes, it was french. and excellent.

next door to the hotel was this little sandwich shop which made an excellent omelet for mary and an excellent sandwich for me. i think it was called Look's Watts Cooking, whatever that means.

we ate at Iguana's Beach Grill and Pearl Restaurant, but honestly i don't remember them, so i would not go back to them unless i couldn't get in to a number of other places. there was one place called a something-something snug and it was run by a scotsman i believe. if there had been more time, and more room in my tummy, i would have checked it out.

it was a fun time and thank goodness it's just across the border so i can avail myself of that good food whenever i take a notion! eight minues my friends, just eight minutes to a little bite of heaven!

the grandaughter had a birthday party last weekend. she's FOUR!!! kinda hard to realize. and she's just adorable and going to be a real knock-out when she's older. i mean she's beautiful now, and has lovely smiles and is a delight to be around. and she's smart, as in extremely. she will be a brilliant scientist or doctor or something if she just doesn't get way-laid by the ordinary. and wouldn't that be a shame.

little cabin

the husband and i just returned form a 2-night stay at a little cabin in the woods. it was (1) fun and (2) depressing. i mean, that's the way people used to HAVE to live. ackkwwk!!!

i mean, yes, there was an indoor bathroom and it had a kitchen with a stove, sink, frig, and microwave, and there was several beds upstairs and a fireplace downstairs and a tv with which to watch movies, but... it was waaaay too easy to see how it would have been 100 years ago. dust and cobwebs hanging from the support timbers, spiders and bugs inviting themselves in for a stay, using an outhouse, washing clothes someplace, and what if the unfriendlies come for a call?

honestly, how did humans survive??? it just had to be easier in the midwest than in the northwest.

a couple of things....

long time, no write. no time, short or long write. but ... just a quick note. the husband and i are going to rent an rv and take a couple of days to see how we like it. we may decide to get one.

i'm going on my annual girlfriend trip soon. that should be fun and probably not long enough.

we're heading down to visit MYS one of these days. got the 'ole first class tickets, just to make things a little easier. probably not much easier, but with flying any little bit helps!

the husband has been doing some interesting things with metal and paint. ask him about it. i'd show you a couple of pictures, but the hubby got a new camera and i don't know where it is or how to work it.

i miss having time to hold forth on subjects. maybe one of these days i can get back in the swing. nice to tell myself so, anyhow.

princess leia

carrie fisher -- loved her in star wars. i have no idea what kind of person she is, but she must be pretty funny. you can read this little blurb from her autobiography. some of it is hilarious!

kids!

i spent the day yesterday with MOS and the two grandchildren. it was great, as usual. we drove down to mt rainier and visited the visitor center at sunrise. such pretty pretty country!! it's an active volcano, even though it isn't spewing anything, but certainly looks like it is asleep.

you know how kids will misunderstand something? like, a guy the husband used to work with said he heard his daughter singing one day and the lyrics were, "everytime you go away, take a piece of meat with you". cracked us all up.

MOS told me about some things his 3 1/2 yr-old has said.   rather than 'my heart is beating', she says 'my heart is beeping'. rather than 'sunscreen', she says 'sunscream'. and rather than 'hair salon', she says 'hair so long'. entirely appropriate and innocent. and funny!

sick of them all

my father was a good man who believed in equality and tolerance, and that's the way he brought up us kids. over the years, however, particularly the last ten years, i have become less accepting.

for example, asians who cross the border here in our town have appalling bathroom habits. in the restrooms of the state park on the border and in the restroom in the port of entry, many asians stand on the stool seat to go to the bathroom. often they miss. their weight breaks the stool seat. i have no tolerance of this behavior. if they do not know any better than to go to the bathroom this way, keep them out of the country.

muslim people are a new group which is losing my good faith. at an elementary school in ft collins colorado recently, the american flag was lowered and the saudi arabian flag was raised. there is no reason that should have happened. and then there was the incident at the new york theme park. a group of muslims made plans to go to the park and when the women wanted to ride some of the rides, they were told they could not unless they removed their head scarves. in fact, they had been told that many times before their group arrived. it was a safety issue. and the muslims turned it into a hate issue.

ANY group of people who live in this country but will not honor our flag, speak our language, and pledge to uphold the values this country holds, should leave and never come back. or be thrown out, whichever.

i'm really sick of people in other countries being down on americans, and sick of people in this country being down on americans. political correctness has become a disgusting joke and a way to file law suits. americans are good people with many religions and ways of life. but when you want to walk all over us, and put your beliefs ahead of ours, go live someplace else.

off, off, and away

wow -- if speed is your thing, you should probably watch this video. this guy rushes along in the sky at about 120 mph. it's interesting to watch, but when he flies by the guy on the ground, you get a better idea of how fast he's going. faster than i'd want to go. i mean ... mistake? splat!

crazy weather

egads, it's been unbelieveably hot here lately! i mean, last week our temps got up to 77* and 78*!! that's the hottest this year!

i have to stay inside and drink ice water.

i haven't been blogging lately -- kind of have lost interest. probably because i've been playing games.

HP Games by WildTangent has been taking up my time. i played a lot of free games and finally decided (since you can't play them anymore after their one or two free times) that i would 'buy' into the whole thing.

there were several choices -- $7 for 50 coins with 12 mth subscription, etc -- but i decided to do the 50 coins for $10 with two mth subscription. after you've fulfilled the number of months, you just keep on paying them until you say stop.  i didn't really want to be tied into a yr if i got bored with it.

so i've been playing a lot -- jewel quest and its permutations -- and occasionally chuzzle deluxe.  jewel quest is just pretty good -- it forces me to think.  and chuzzle is fun.  the games i like are usually 5 coins at a time, so i can have fun for about a dollar. pretty hard to beat that! plus the two times i've e-mailed customer support, they've been great!! a business which tries to help! Zappos is another business i throw money at because they really seem to be wanting to make it right for the customer. plus it's free shipping, coming and going. pretty hard to beat that, too!!!

how's the water today?

seasteading. hear of it? when i first read about it this morning, i thought it was a cool idea. then i went to the website and read their initial blurb. now i'm not so sure.

"That's why we work to enable seasteading communities -- floating cities -- which will allow the next generation of pioneers to peacefully test new ideas for government. The most successful can then inspire change in governments around the world."

sea-cities is a concept which sounds interesting and i'd like to read more about how they'd work around nature. but .... each with their own government in an effort to see what works best and apply it to countries around the world? for some reason i don't think that'll work.

i mean, small vs huge, vested interests vs no choices, money vs poverty. i just don't think it will translate. especially because, human nature being what it is, someone will want to be king -- it wouldn't surprise me if they all ended up that way....the head guy and all his little subjects.

but if they just want to build the little cities and have them operate as american states -- go for it. i think that sounds cool!

i'm gonna make you walk the plank

yo, ho-ho. i didn't know this was going on. but it looks like a lot of fun!

grandkids

i drove down and visited the grandkids yesterday. THEY ARE SO CUTE!  and smart!! it was a very enjoyable day. i wish i could post pix, but the mama doesn't want any on a blog. ah, well.

nightmares of the day

so. it's hot. you're hot. you decide to go swimming. you jump into a slow-moving river and splash around. if, sometime later, you start feeling sick, go to the doctor immediately although it's probably already too late to save you.

we live on an alien planet with things that are out to get us.

music man

just now the husband was listening to 'cat's in the cradle' by harry chapin. i thought chapin was so great and was really sad when he was killed in a car accident. his songs really resonated for me, both their messages and their fun, and the singing was excellent. especially that guy who sang soprano on that one song. the husband and i got to see him in concert once, or was it twice. once anyhow, and it was so beyond cool -- omaha, 197x. i wonder what he'd be singing now if he hadn't died.

from short hair to long in 38 seconds

this clip is pretty clever -- and fun to watch!

not my humor

am i out of step? do i need therapy? this trailer did NOT make me want to see this movie.

they always quit making the ones you like

well that sucks. i have a pair of shoes (the ebb tide slide) i wear when it rains -- they're the Mion brand -- but apparently the company is now defunct (i wonder what the story is). a website i was looking at had 5 stars on all the reviews except one, and i love them (because they're widely functional), so what happened? obviously they were popular. crap -- isn't this always the way!

pulling back the shades

there are people who have scars, and people who don't. this website shows a series of pictures of young women who have had breast cancer. some of the pictures are interesting, some are strange. i think at least one of them showed reconstructed breasts with formed nipples and tattooed areolas. one of the pictures looked a lot like my own scars.

it was good for me to see the pictures because i've always felt like i was the only one who did not have reconstruction or implants. i feel like my decision not to was medically sound, but i've always missed my former look. not that i was bountious, but at least i was comfortably female. i'm still female, but i'm not sure i'll ever be comfortable with the changed me. and yes, it's been 19 years.

see me? see me?

this is hiLARious! you have to watch this puppy playing dead.

body art via tattoos

oh my god. it's beautiful, but so strange.

there's always a monster

wow! those killings in norway .... what an unbelieveably sad thing. most of them were young people who had their whole lives ahead of them.

and what a monster breivik is. from what little i've read, i've concluded he must be a spoiled, insecure, egocentric, deranged creep. he wanted to get people's attention and warn them about islam. i guess i haven't found the part where it explains how killing a bunch of norwegians helps his cause.

but did you see the most he can be sentenced for is 21 years?! appalling! and yes i read that they can extend it every five years by five years, but good grief. the whole thing just makes you shake your head and wonder 'what in the world'.

insanely twisted

are you one of those who likes to play games? i loved zelda but never really got into mario, etc. probably because the others were too hard. i mean really, who likes to die, over and over?!

here's a clip of one of the newer games. i probably wouldn't get very far with it, so meh, but i looooove the clip and the music!!! the visuals remind you of tim burton, but it's michel gagne. and the music -- dimmu borgir. never heard of him, but surely we'll hear more!

of course, watching that led to this which will probably be great for pre-teens. i got a kick out of its 'future western' sound.

i know EXACTLY where this came from

so i'm driving through this beautiful wooded area and my mom says, "i bought a restaurant."  "WHAT?" "it was a nice place and only $35,000." i go into the kitchen which is adjacent to a large room which has fold-up tables and fold-up chairs with many windows and sunshine streaming in.

the L-shaped kitchen is a mess, with dishes everywhere (clean as well as dirty), a grill and stove somewhere, two small refrigerators along one wall. mom says she bought it yesterday and i'm thinking there's a lot to do and didn't the people even WASH the dishes before they sold it so i start washing them while the others are standing and talking. then mom finishes frying three eggs, two large and one small, and sprinkles them with some strands of green/white stuff and tells me to take them to the people who are waiting.

i go into the dining room and it's filled with people. i have no idea who gets the eggs, so i wander over to a table of three and ask them if they ordered eggs. they smile and say yes, so i lay down the plates. as i start back to the kitchen, i notice there are several other tables of three people. oh crap! but everyone is talking and no one seems concerned except for one guy sitting by himself. i go over and ask if he's been helped and he says no, but he'd like an egg.

so i go back to the kitchen, which is heaped with dirty dishes again, and look for the grill which has disappeared. i have to clean off a surface to find the grill, then open a frig to look for eggs. there's no eggs in there, just a whole bunch of different kinds of cheeses i've never heard of. finally i spot a large object which looks like an egg covered in a number of layers of brown mud. i pick it up, turn around to the grill, crack the shell and an egg comes out but it proceeds to go from plenty of egg to almost no egg, which i'm desperately trying to fry before it disappears completely. it doesn't take long for it to be done and i open the frig again looking for the green and white 'sprinkles'. i can't find them anywhere. i close the frig and ask mom where they are. she says i'll have to find them myself. i say can't you help me figure all this out? and she says nobody told me anything, you just have to figure it out yourself.

so i head for the dining room with this ridiculously-small egg with sprinkles and just outside the kitchen door is the man i'm headed for. he smiles and says he's run out of time and has to go and i turn back and grab half of a kolache and a napkin and say you need to eat something and as i'm handing it to him, he says thanks and takes a piece of cinnamon toast off the plate in my other hand, saying he'll take that too. my benevolence is suddenly affronted by his nerve, but he walks out and i think well maybe he'll be back sometime and actually pay for a meal.

i go back in the kitchen and try to organize things, but everytime i get a space cleaned off and start on another, it fills up again. i head over to the sink but i can't find it. finally i have to lift up a couple of counter-covers and try to start washing dishes. someone says they'd like to use the bathroom but they don't know where it is. i ask my mom and she says it's through the door and around the corner. i go through the dining room, through the door into a messy bedroom and around a corner into the bathroom which has a couple of kids taking a bubble bath. there are toys everywhere and i'm surprised the public has to use this bathroom.

the dream goes on with old friends of my mom stopping by to chat and finally i decide to just take a break. i don't see how i can keep helping her with this place when i have a life of my own, but if i don't help her she won't be able to get it done. as i walk down the street, i finally have a look at the town. her restaurant is on a little side-street which joins the main drag which is only about a block long. it's jam-packed with businesses and restaurants. i walk to the end and can see that a company is excavating a huge mountain with large pieces of equipment and rock-blasting going on and desecration of the earth, etc.

i turn back down the street and notice new construction. aha! that's why those people wanted to sell the restaurant -- after the new place got built, their business was going to die. that's exactly what's going to happen to my mom's business and what then? does she just close her doors? what about paying taxes on the place? so much to worry about in this bustling tiny town in the middle of a wooded nowhere with big business bearing down.

summer fun

so ... you like taking pictures? or, rather, posing for pictures? leisure diving provides a whole new experience.

cool!

our young friend sent us this lovely, uplifting video. love the shots, love the music. wished i'd been able to widen view, turn camera, descend, etc. -- alas, but ... joy!

a good deed, indeed

don't you just love the stories where a wild animal is in need of help, and people actually help them? this story is about the whale who was all tangled up in fishing net. good video, too.

really??

it seems like all of a sudden, doctors here in the northwest are worried about people having enough vitamin d. the husband and i both have to take supplements. yes, it's cloudy here most of the year but no one suggested we have that checked until recently. it seems strange, but then there's been speculation that mozart died of vitamin d deficiency. you not only can die from lack of vitamin d, it increases your risk of infections and a whole host of health troubles.

we're thinking about moving.

just like nebraska

we never hear thunder around here. and you'd think, with all the rain we get, we'd have thunder. but we really only hear thunder about once a year. maybe twice.

so just now, when i'm taking clothes out of the dryer, i hear thunder. memories from the past. anyhow, i stop by the bedroom door and the husband (who's in bed already) says, 'hunh.'

i say, 'thunder!'

he says, 'good thing we're not'n kansas.'

i think, 'huh?!' then i realize he'd said, 'good think we're not camping.'

mental grins. and yes to both.

it was fun

a month ago i took 2 weeks off from work. i don't remember taking 2 weeks together before, but i really needed to do it. the first week i spent recovering from the stress at work and when the second week rolled around i was ready for my 2 weeks. ha!

at any rate, the daugher-in-law, the grandkids, and i headed over to orcas island for a 2-day get-away. we took the ferry over, stayed in a 2-bedroom cabin on the water (which afforded gorgeous views), and visited little shops where we made excellent purchases.

it was sooooooo much fun to spend time with her and the grandkids, and i'd love to make it a regular practice. i'm not sure how often we could get away, but i really want to do it!

my grandkids are so cute, smart, adorable, clever, adept and all those other adjectives that make people want to puke. they just happen to be true with MY grandkids!

takes me back

i recently moved my rocking chair from the library into the living room. i will move it back later, but for now i am totally enjoying smelling my roses while i read. i also enjoy hearing the trains go by (the husband's bane).

i've never paid much attention to flowers, but these roses (which we bought on a whim) are small but packed with odiferous value! they are what roses used to be and while i'm reading, their beauty wafts in through the open window. heaven!

no writing?

you don't have to learn how to write in indiana anymore. that's amazing. at my headquarters office there is a department which sets out rules for us to follow for correct grammar, how to write a memo, what form of address to use for who, yet there's a state which no longer needs to teach writing skills?

i'm pretty much stumped by this decision. it's not as if we walk around with keyboards on our arms. and even if we do in the future, that situation isn't here yet. one more nail in the coffin for this country, as far as i'm concerned.

sure i think keyboard skills are important. but i also think writing is important. there are any number of scenarios in which a person would be without a keyboard and might need to communicate or remember something.

indiana is crazy-thinking, but then our schools have been messed up for a number of decades. sheesh!

hand me that washcloth

ahem. excuse me but have you washed your belly button today? it seems that tiny little area of our bodies, which we mostly ignore, can harbor a wide variety of bacteria. i thought the article was pretty funny when one guy had some bacteria which had only been found in the ocean. curious!

what time is it?

Nature is amazing but it seems to have gotten more-so recently. all those pictures of the arizona dust cloud which devoured phoenix -- whoa, nellie!  check out these three videos if you're curious.

Dust Storm Cometh. And eateth. And smothereth.

no dessert, thanks

americans are a lot more overweight today than there were in 1995. the state with the highest obesity rate is mississippi and the lowest is colorado.

blah blah blah and then on down the article is this statement:  "Some groups say such behavioral initiatives are not enough, arguing that food manufacturers and restaurant chains need limits on how they market to children."

oh good grief. where did this start? this thing of making everyone else responsible for your decisions? i hate it. if people get overweight how can that be the fault of a restaurant or manufacturer? get real. people can leave some of their food on the plate, or take it home in a doggy bag, or just quit eating out if there's too much temptation.

letting/making/having other people be responsible for us undermines our integrity. enough already!

wear protective gear

i've always heard that kudzu was a bad plant, but hogweed is a terrorist. if you come upon it, immediately head the other way and make sure your loved ones are with you. the plant's sap can cause third-degree burns and if it gets in your eyes, it can blind you.  ick!

will the judge toss it out

awwww, poor little convicted killer has his itty bitty feelings hurt? the word 'inmate' is causing him mental anguish?

he's suing n.y. state for $50 mil. because the term has bothered him for a long time. awww, poor guy.

and he's eligible for parole in two years. could it be that he's looking for a nest egg? nah, surely not this poor, defenseless, downtrodden, pitiful soul.

let us pray.

watch your step, little guy

i usually check out msnbc.com for my news, but recently have discovered the english site, mailonline.com. it often has more news about the u.s. than the other site, however i've seen more simply terrible articles on it recently.

so i have to say i'm just really sick of demented parents horribly abusing their kids, incredibly narcissistic celebrities, criminals who walk when they are unbelievably guilty, completely clue-less and wicked business persons, disgustingly self-centered politicians, the miranda warning, disturbing weather trends, and plastic surgery.

that said, i found this story about the elk being gentle with a small marmot very nice. even if he just got it out of the water because he doesn't like wiggly things in his drinking bowl, it was still nice.

little bitty baby steps

i always wanted to be a ballerina ... and now i can?

finally!

finally an idea of what's going on (from the albuquerque krqe.com station) (a straight line from los alamos to white rock is about 6 miles) ...

be a boy scout!

I don't think i've ever seen an emergency plan quite like this one. i went to http://inciweb.org/incident/2385/ to see what they had to say about the fire. they were reminding everyone of the 3-step process to be ready for emergencies:
1. ready -- clean brush from around your home, get your supplies together in one place, plan your escape route.
2. set -- pack your vehicle with your emergency items, i.e., the six Ps: people, personal computers, pets, pills, papers, and pictures.
3. go -- leave early and follow your plan.

hmmm ... personal computers. nope, i don't recall seeing those in action plans before. by papers i assume they mean passports, birth certificates, social security cards, etc, and by pictures they mean your possessions so you can make claims to the insurance companies. but personal computers? i must be really out of touch. i mean, yes, absolutely, i'd take mine. i guess i'm just surprised it's one of the top six things. like i said, out of touch.

not enough time to make smores

well, there's a wildfire just southwest of the little town MYS lives in. i saw it in the news this a.m. and texted him when i got to work. later he got back to me and said they were watching things and that evacuation at that point was voluntary.

about 2+ hours later he texted back and said they were heading out. the 'voluntary' had just turned 'precautionary mandatory', with the intent of erring on the side of caution rather than ending up running for one's life.

so they're in santa fe waiting to see what the conclusion of the drama will be. let's hope the fire missed them by a wide margin! (he's going to post pictures if he gets a chance -- http://vyncentvega.livejournal.com/)

glenn miller and benny goodman and tommy dorsey .....

do you sit and think about the old days? do you ever yearn to go back to the simple life? if you decide you want to wash your clothes by hand, think about putting together this neat idea of a spinner. it may help you do the job, and then, of course, hanging everything up to dry is the finishing touch.

i really do wish i had a clothesline so i could hang stuff up outside. if our yard was bigger, maybe .... but no, the seagulls would just poop on the clean clothes. oh well, when we move to new mexico .....

won't do any good to flip off this car....

what the hell does this headline mean:  Green light given to Google as changes to the law make driverless cars legal. nevada apparently is leading this new paradigm shift.

it's odd, really, because this is the first time i've heard of this concept, and yet just three weeks ago i could swear i saw a car going down the street, with no one in it, as i drove to work.  i thought it was beyond strange at the time, i mean, there must have been some rational explanation for what i thought i saw, but .... maybe not?

(i'm not sure i need to drive in a parking garage at 44 mph which is what the video shows.)

anyhow ...... curious new thing.

we've been blind-sided

well, this is interesting.  if you're in the habit of telling all on facebook, or in your blog, or showing all through pictures or videos, or exposing yourself somehow on some other public 'net place, even ebay, you could be jeopardizing a future job.  the federal trade commission has given 'Social Intelligence Corporation' permission to check applicant names (as well as user names) online, for those employers looking to check on prospective employees. the ftc reasons that the company complies with the Fair Credit Reporting Act even though the information is stored for seven years. yes, you can protest a finding, but by then the job is long-gone.

1984 reigns again.

stormchaser

some really great pix of a couple of tornadoes in nebraska.

water...canned veggies...deck of cards...bomb shelter

so many mysteries, so little time....

stuxnet says it all.

wheeeee.....

all you need to fly through the air is a jetski, a muffler pipe, and a couple of other little thingys....

drive, hover, fly ....

if you're wondering what the car of the future will look like, here's a pix:

say what??

so if a tornado comes through and dismantles your home down to the ground with nothing left except concrete blocks forming an outline of what used to be there, what would you say if fema denied your claim due to insufficient damage? to quote their letter, "Based on your FEMA inspection, we have determined that the disaster has not caused your home to be unsafe to live in."  hmmm, what home?

apparently fema got in trouble from the gao because they gave out too much money after hurricane katrina so they are being so ultra-conservative as to be stupid. now that they've been at both ends of the bell curve though, you'd hope they could find the middle.

not so peaceful after all

wow! we always thought that having a fish tank was a relaxing, mind-less thing, but they can be very dangerous. this young girl's scratch may cause her to lose her hand. honestly, it's a wonder human beings survive.

did you hear it click?

happy birthday to you, happy birthday to .... there's something wrong ....

crash, bam, twist, kerplunk

are you a fan of car racing? do you think it's intriguing to watch car crashes? well, this one's pretty interesting -- the driver walked away, but it's hard to imagine how he managed that. to say nothing of the people on the other side of the barrier. i guess the gods were feeling favorable to everyone.

silly old bear...

upcoming movies that hep, good-natured, old people might enjoy: Super 8, Mr. Popper's Penguins, (the new) Winnie The Pooh, or Cowboys & Aliens.

it's almost here!

sci-fi is just about here. you can use a laser and printer to make clothes. well, a bikini, at least. this is so cool! it's almost like in the movies! (but gees, that model is way too skinny!)

free time

oh. and here's one more called seasons. it's nicely done (and succinct).

okay. i just can't quit watching. here's a short in which i really wondered what was going to happen.

music in black and white

do you like interesting, curious, strange, or totally weird music videos? if so, go here. if not, move along....

don't scratch it

so. you've had that little dark spot on your arm for awhile and you're not sure if you should go see a doctor about it or not? well, go ahead. might as well find out what's going on and do something about it.

if you're still not sure you really should go to the doctor, take a look at these pictures. you just really don't want to mess around with melanoma, and the other types need to be treated, too.

i have a couple of little places that i have checked every couple of years. they just say to keep an eye on it. hmmm, that makes me feel so much better??

what'd i say?

apparently the queen of england's husband is know for making very un-PC comments. if you've a yen for that kind of thing, read (and laugh) here.

make music!!!

THIS is absolutely the coolest thing in almost forever!!!  Google rocks!  And you can play it back! (on 06.09.11)

gees louise....

my cousin sent me this link -- http://www.wimp.com/vegetablemarket -- and i don't want to spoil anything, but you really need to see it to realize that some people live in crowded circumstances.

this is rich

you heard about the gal who went to a theatre in texas and was texting and they threw her out? excellent handling!

here's the article about what happened. the theatre people decided to use her phoned-in message to them (after the fact) as a way to let people know they don't tolerate that stuff. expletives not deleted.

way to handle the spoiled person! (and, if you're interested, here's a look at it from a business perspective.)

oh look! up in the sky ....

oh cool! we're going to be able to see the northern lights tonight! i'm not sure where i should go to get the best view, since they're supposed to be along the northern horizon and there are evergreens all around our neighborhood. i suppose i should just drive out into the country. of course that would be about 2 a.m. and border patrol would probably drive up and ask what i was doing. still, it would probably be worth it!

tolerance?

okay, we're supposed to be tolerant and even welcoming of the muslim religion, regardless of how different at least some of their tenets are? hmmmm, well, i'm having a hard time being tolerant of this idea of sex slaves.

i mean, nowhere does the article say this policy would work for women as well as men. what? oh, well, ahem, of course there are other objections, too, you know.

oh good grief

i think it's curious that the new-and-improved versions of ms updates are crap. i've got this ms office suite 2010 and it's got that new-fangled 'ribbon' on it rather than the old-fashioned toolbar. horrible. it's for mutton-headed people. you have to click all over the place to find what you need,and it's a time-waster, especially if the old way suited you just fine. i figure these new things are for whiners who want everything handed to them, but it really burns me up that it throws the rest of us to the wolves. 'we're just making it easier and more attractive to you' -- no you're not.

i don't know how far back any of you remember, but the computer we had back in 1995 had an excellent assortment of fonts. nowadays it's mostly crap. i mean, who in the universe needs calibri (which is the default for god's sake), batang, dotum, gungsuh, iskoola pota, leelawadee, nsimsun, shruti, or traditional arabic? get that shit off my computer and give me decent fonts i can use and play with. what good does it do to have a bunch of foreign-sounding fonts that look a lot alike in their milquetoast way?

just more of the business people thinking they know what's best for us, and that makes for a very unimaginative nation of people. not good. not good at all.

see and hear

so. you sit outside at night in your yard in the big city, look up at the stars and think, wow -- there are so many. but what you don't realize is that light pollution from the city lights is really obstructing your view of the sky.

if you've never been fortunate enough to look at the midwestern sky, out in the country, at night then you'll be awed by the videos this guy has put together.  enjoy. (and listen to the music, too)

it's just wrong

this is typical of the kind of crap that happens anymore in this country: since i lost my hard drive, i had a new one put in and a new ms office set of suites. i've always customized my programs so that the stuff i use most is at my fingertips. i also often go to the explorer tree to find things quickly or refresh my memory about something.

in this new setup, however, the 'tree' is all clogged up with crap that is simply annoying and unimportant to me. and for the first time when i look at 'properties', i can see it is set up to not let me change something. it says i need permission. WTF?!! so i asked my computer guy about it and he said microsoft got tired of people messing things up and blaming them, so they made it so you can't mess things up.

that just totally pisses me off. i've always been able to look at and change things, but overnight i can't. there's something wrong with the idea that a group of people are messing with things so everyone should be closed out. i've seen that attitude before and it's just disgusting. someone is afraid to penalize a few wrong-doers, so they shut something down for everyone. that's chicken. and lazy. and makes all of us into babies that have to be taken care of and protected for our own good.

that's a terrible paradigm and one that's frightening, too. i'm not sure where the following paragraph originally came from, but it certainly seems to accurately spell out the rise and fall of a country like ours:

The first stage moves from bondage to spiritual faith. The second from spiritual faith to great courage. The third stage moves from great courage to liberty. The fourth stage moves from liberty to abundance. The fifth stage moves from abundance to selfishness. The sixth stage moves from selfishness to complacency. The seventh stage moves from complacency to apathy. The eighth stage moves from apathy to moral decay. The ninth stage moves from moral decay to dependence. And the tenth and last stage moves from dependence to bondage.

little ones

the husband and i just watched babies. i wanted to see it when it first came out, but it just didn't happen. that's actually probably a good thing though -- i laughed uproariously when hattie's dad put her on the slide and she rode her little car-thing down the slide and on away down the park until she upended into a sandpit. i don't know why i thought that was so funny. but anyone at the theatre would have given me really dirty looks and maybe called the cops thinking i was a child abuser.


that little episode aside, gosh! the husband and i are amazed that anyone in mongolia or namibia survives. or that their family jewels do, at the very least. what living conditions they have!! it wasn't unusual for the little boy in mongolia to wander among the cows, pants-less. and the kids in namibia were forever sitting in the dirt, pants-less. and the flies!


i'm just very very glad i had my kids where i did and that we have lived the way we have. blessed are we!