did you pick up a gecko?

wow -- this is cool! they've figured out something small you can use to stick heavy things to the wall. i wonder how they'll price it

hand lotion

i am very particular about my hand lotions. a lot of them are really stinky. i mean, some fruity thing or some exotic something-or-other which totally makes me gag! other lotions are too greasy or too waxy.

but my daughter-in-law gave me this one which says it's for very dry skin but it doesn't claim a fragrance. it has one though. everytime i put it on i immediately find myself sitting in the weeds behind a big old barn on a gorgeous sunny day popping a new piece of bubble gum in my mouth. and i love it!

i mean, it sounds weird. but the fragrance is so clean and woodsy and happy and child-like. and i used the last of it last night. it's just sad.

wait! hold the phone! i just read the back of the tube. they say rainmakers of shea and cocoa butter, sunflower, soybean, ginseng, aloe, gentian root, murumuru, mango, kokum butter, boise oil, palmarosa, galbanum and grapefuit.

nah ... sunshine, bubble gum and weeds.

"But, Officer ...."

An officer responded to a homeowner’s call for assistance when the resident could not locate the source of an obnoxious persistent buzzing noise inside her house. Together they were able to narrow the list of potential culprits down to a single misbehaving appliance. Once again it turned out that the guilty party was the normally quiet one that you’d least suspect.

Police responded to a report of an occupied suspicious vehicle parked near a business late at night. The occupant was contacted and he explained he was living in his van and planned to be in the area for just a little while. He said he had been hiding from outlaws for years and years, and this town seemed to be a safe haven for the moment. The man agreed to change locations so the business nearby could enjoy the same feeling of safety.

An officer contacted a man in front of the police station, where he was asking for help getting to the next big town, after being deported from Canada. The gentleman turned out to be wanted by the state of Oregon Parole Board on a felony warrant for parole violation. He was provided a ride to said town and a safe warm room in jail, quadruple occupancy.

Police received a report of a suspicious vehicle parked just off the road at a business. The arriving officers contacted a young adult motorist who had driven off the road, damaging his car as he crashed into the nearby landscaping rocks and shrubs. In the process the driver suffered substantial distain and numerous disparaging remarks from his carload of young friends. His wounds were dressed by traffic citations and a collision report.

this is how you do it

i'm sure you've noticed how they pack a lot of air in those potato chip bags. and you've probably had to get a pair of scissors to get them open. and you can forget about pulling the sides apart because the seams are welded together. well, it's possible to just push the sides together to get them pop open. and does it work? yes. and where do they open? on the bottom. what happens then? you get greasy salty chips all over your clothes. is it hard to shake the pieces of chips out of your clothes? no. will you do it that way again? no, i'll use scissors.

high up in the sky

okay, so this guy is going to go up  to 120,000 feet and then dive toward earth and part-way down he's going to be going 690 mph. at what point does he start to burn up? this is so bizarre. if he doesn't burn up, how can his body withstand that speed? i'll take an enclosure myself, thanks.

the loss of individuality and one-ness

is this a day you'd like to be scared? i suppose you'd think it was scary only if you had any brains. this article talks about merging computers with our grey matter and carrying on. oh ick. if you read down the paragraphs, it just conjures up sci-fi at its scariest.

and supposedly it's going to happen soon. but then, as richard smalley says, "When a scientist says something is possible, they're probably underestimating how long it will take. But if they say it's impossible, they're probably wrong." that feels like a totally accurate statement. so ... ick.

kids play!

so here's this little 18-month kid playing table tennis. sort of. but he hits the ball like a pro even when he's not watching. and he's a cutie.

on the other hand my grandson could do that. only he'd hit the ball to hawaii. that kid's got power.

flowers that glow along with the bride

at first i thought they were pretty when i read the article, then i went to their website and decided they were kind of spooky. making the flowers pretty would take a little talent so that they didn't end up looking spooky.

vary inteligunt

i wonder if he does this more than once (as in, it's a regular feature) or not. it's pretty interesting to watch high school kids give answers to questions a peer asks. some are downright funny. and some make you wonder. and, oh yes, canada is a state.

beware trojan horses

did you see there's a new form of virus which can infect your computer from an e-mail just by opening it to read it? you don't have to have an attachment or anything. now, that's scary.

i'm planning on reading my e-mails from now on just using the reading pane.

the mile-high club?

oh good grief. we are totally losing our perspective here. two airplanes humping? on the cover of a magazine? no sense in studying anthropology ... we're back to being cavemen.

don't leave home without it

did you ever want to see someone caught in an avalanche? this gal was snowboarding and triggered an avalanche and used an airbag to keep herself on top. it's interesting to watch. curious that the whole thing was filmed, but i don't suppose they had that all planned out.

can this be real?

my oldest younger brother sent me this story and pictures. it's hard for me to imagine, and i'm left wondering how often this happens.

The law of the wild says kill only when you are hungry. Photographer Michel Denis-Huot, who captured these amazing pictures on safari in Kenya's Masai Mara in October last year, said he was astounded by what he saw:

"These three cheetah brothers have been living together since they left their mother at about 18 months old," he said. "On the morning we saw them, they seemed not to be hungry, walking quickly but stopping sometimes to play together. At one point, they met a group of impala who ran away. But one impala youngster was not quick enough and the brothers caught it easily."

the ideal ... maybe?

OMG, doesn't it seem like it would be lovely to live in a little town which had sidewalks but no streets? you have to go by boat. the video is nice but it made me wonder what the downsides were. and what in the world are their roofs made of?

string 'em all up

14,000 vs 460 million. i agree that $14,000 seems a little low to compensate for a ruined holiday, ruined clothes, frightening experience, inconvenience, etc. but $460 million? fucking lawyers are the leading cause of insanity in this country today. okay, one of the leading causes. sheesh.

sports and ads

are you curious about the superbowl ads? go here to see some short clips. i thought the priceline ad was dumb. very dumb. but i enjoyed the chevy ad -- poor baby. the audi clip was interesting. the volkswagon clip required effort on my part.

evil dictates

i quit liking amazon x-years ago when it was revealed they marked the cost of things differently for different buyers according to some system none of us knew about. now they are telling companies they have to price their items the same no matter where they sell them. i still don't like amazon. they are draconian.

current art

i think i've seen stuff this alex pardee person has done because the hugely fat and skinny-fingered images feel familiar, but i'm just not sure. all the same, if you want to see his take on superheroes, look here.

don't ... uh ... read

who knew that reading would cause the apocalypse? this short film is interesting, i guess, but mainly i don't get it. and i didn't think it was as funny as the reviewer did (as in not at all). it must be an age thing.

play that funky music

i guess the moral of the story is to always support your kids in what they want to do. or at least in what they're good at. this 8-yr old is pretty good. and cute.

oh joy!

do you like color? i do. and i enjoyed watching this little thing. they're dancing!

toddlers!

absolutely adorable little british baby girl -- father wants her to say he's her favorite. very cute video!

where's the sled? the snow shoes? the blanket?

i wanna move to alaska!! 172 inches of snow and counting! yay!!!

they live in a different world

they're being punished if they didn't cry after the death of their horrible leader. i just have to shake my head. sick, sick, sick.

a flaw in the system

okay wait. so this one sleezy mother kills her twin daughters and she's probably going to end up in jail for life. and then this sleezy dad beats his 6-month old baby and renders his blind and brain damaged and he gets eight years.

just what kind of justice is this? yes the mother should be put away for killing the babies. but the father should be castrated at the least. eight years is absolutely no punishment for the horror of what he did to that kid. it's beyond disgusting.

the future from the past

this is so neat. all the highways and byways and flyways and the way they get back to the top and how very clever. i wouldn't have been able to envision this thing at all. metropolis 2 is fun to watch -- those cars are going so fast and why don't they fling themselves off -- and i really, really like the music. check out what mahogany says at 5:18.

blindfolds and heads in the sand

i've been curious about physic things for as long as i can remember. someone is always wanting to call it bunk, someone else claims it's all true.

i've experienced the kind of thing in this article as have an awful lot of people. i enjoyed the article and would love to see the scientific world accept this stuff, even if they don't understand it. americans will probably be the worst about accepting it though.

i still remember one time when my girlfriend and i were staying in canada and were driving from somewhere back to our camp. all of a sudden i realized we were going the wrong way. there were no signs and i had no idea where we were or where we were headed since she was driving and i wasn't paying any attention, but i KNEW we were going the wrong way. so i told her we needed to go back and get on the right road. we turned around and went a few miles back and sure enough, she had missed the turn.

i actually attribute this more to a strong sense of magnetism in my body than a physic thing because i knew we should be going north and i felt that we weren't. but still .... it's all strange.

nature's art

if you like pretty colors and interesting creatures, check out this underwater video.

if you're full of ennui, watch this

the husband likes these guys. they're pretty funny. i watched this video of a road trip after i watched the one the husband sent me about their christmas songs.

google! of course!

have you seen this store-front-lights thing? the e-mail i got it in showed it from 1:14 on and i knew what i was seeing but wasn't sure of the purpose. then i watched it from the beginning and that, plus the end, made it all clear. it was simply a commercial.

but, whoa! what a commercial. way to go, google! (love the colored squares!!)

love their fun!!

you need to enjoy google's holiday search page.

people in glass houses

i just can't decide -- i mean, would you or would you not be bored in this house??

yeah, right...

stop protecting the jerks

so these guys are in a packed stadium playing a game and a loonie runs onto the field to attack a player. the player quickly responds to the threat, knocks the guy down and kicks him a couple of times. wrong response apparently. they threw the player out of the game.

the ref said knocking him down should have been enough. but i have a problem with that. listen ref, go after the bad guy, not the victim. this coddling of the bad guys and their rights really needs to stop.

if someone is going after you, you should not get in trouble for responding. a strong response might make the next guy think twice about running onto the field in the first place.

way to go!

i love this story and everyone is so happy for her. the puck went through dead-center! she was meant to have that truck!

too late for her

i will be simply amazed if this child grows up to be a productive member of society. she is clearly spoiled and probably demented if she's gone this long without discipline or direction. my guess is that she will commit some crime and end up in jail, or become a tough guy's mol and end up being killed. so be it as long as she doesn't come in contact with me and mine.

merry whatever and happy whenever

the franking commission staff must be a bunch of unamerican bozos.

the midwest rocks!!!

i LOVE stuff like this -- it is so totally and wonderfully American!

i don't feel like it

this is a really cute article about a guy who tried getting more in touch with his feelings. not a bad thing for guys to try. and if they could do it with this kind of humor, all the better.

no ... wait ... come back ...

i know, i know. it's just mean to laugh at little kids. especially when they're ... hahaha ... sitting on Santa Claus' lap ... hahaha ... and being a ... hahahahahaha ... kodak moment!

ears to the music ...

did you know that cows like music? if not, see this.

i can't what?

hahahaha .... this is not a surprise.

"One reader said that these religious 'leaders' give Islam 'a bad name'"

true. so true.

but WHERE is the pretty?

i've always thought of texas as dirt and mesquite bushes -- bleechk! then my cousin sent me this link and now i'm impressed. neat video! (and that cowboy had on a WHITE shirt -- wonder if his wife saw him leaving the house in that?)

yawn...

well, nevermind. jasper fforde's first two books were pretty good, but i just finished the third one and ... yuck. finished as in, read the first 71 pages and skipped through the rest. ho-hum and yuck. oh well.

back and forth and backandforth andback andforth

oh this is way too much fun!!

look at this video from harvard natural sciences and watch how a series of pendulums, each a little longer than the others, are in sync then get out of sync as time whizzes by. it's interesting and fascinating, as well as oftentimes funny.

thanks to my ex-boss max for the link!!

smooth groove

Groovera is still, of course, my favorite music station. i just listened to a track by Silk on tim's facebook page. very smooth, very nice.

honestly, one of these days i simply have to get an i-pod so i can gather (read: buy) the different musics i love, and listen to them!

graffiti wars

got this from the husband. it is totally cool!

i want one!

okay then, i'll take one holodeck in my mountain get-away, and one in my library here in town. i'll get one for the kids, and maybe buy another house to put one in there, too. but i don't want the green monster.

down, down, and away....

did you ever want a wingsuit? it's pretty clever. about the only way i'd use one, though, would be if i were in mountainous terrain and needed to escape from really evil people. but they'd have to be REALLY evil.

it's right there in front of you

i haven't seen anything recently which has made me change my mind.

here's one muslim's quote:  " 'I have to pray. I have no choice but to break the rules.' "

and here's the other article's headline:  "Saudis fear there will be ‘no more virgins’ and people will turn gay if female drive ban is lifted"

face it. they are different from us in a way that threatens the fabric of our society. it's not like the irish immigrants or the blacks breaking out of slavery. if the direction doesn't change, these people will be the death of the america i was born in.

starting with the eyre affair

okay, i can now report on Jasper Fforde: he's delightful! if you want an easy read, one which provides laughs, is silly, and has things that don't make sense but it doesn't matter, join Thursday Next on her adventures.

to read ... perchance to laugh ...

do you like to read? to read funny stuff? to read funny sci-fi/fantasy or mysteries?

i have really, really gotten a kick out of janet evanovich's series about stephanie plum. MYS and MOS like the stuff that terry pratchett writes. and, seriously, who wouldn't?

well, here comes someone else that i'm checking out. i just signed up for the library to tell me when the first three of the thursday next series by jasper fforde is available. the series sounds like fun. (see number 8, just ahead of one of my favorite tv series -- inspector poirot.)

see the bad guys win

be careful what you eat -- it may be moldy. see this article about food companies who take food which really should be thrown away, and simply trim it up or repackage it and put it out there for purchase. it's called reconditioning.

but the thing which is really worse, to me, is the last paragraph: "The case ended five years later when ABC was ordered to pay damages to the chain because the producers did not make their intentions known, they misrepresented themselves, and they trespassed on company property."

i am so sick of that kind of response. the criminal does something bad, someone investigates or defends himself, and that poor poor misbegotten criminal gets paid lots of money.

this country is messed up.

vroom, vroom ...

this technology, on the other hand, is interesting.

it's in the toilet

oh good grief. men and their games.

paper, rock, scissors

it amazes me that we EVER do business with the bad guys (will we never learn?) and in the end it may bring us down.

i mean, they simply do not see things the way we do (neither china nor the middle east) so we need to quit trying to deal with them. 'but they have things we want'. yeah, and that's a big part of the problem, isn't it.

regardless, who was the idiot who decided we should be friends with china? oh wait ... the business community was a strong driving force. uh, huh ... greed is good for us, right?

poor australia -- we now are putting marines on their lands. and they don't want us there, but aren't they being short-sighted if they think that the world over there (china, the middle east, indonesia, and australia/new zealand) can get along peacefully. oh just hell. poor all of us.

but, but, they have a right to know. (sheesh)

hmmm, okay. so now some scientists have created a flu virus which is deadlier than anthrax, and could wipe humans completely off the earth. and they're arguing as to whether or not to tell everyone how they did it.

honestly. whether it's the 'bad guys' or the 'good guys', there's just no saving us from ourselves.

he's so intelijunt

yoga is the work of the devil.

really? i did not know that.

just how different is it?

hey honey, do you still want to go up in a flying saucer?

how do you do that?

wow -- i  love this gal's drawings! in my next life, i want that talent!

bad people are out there

online shopping:

1. change your passwords regularly.
2. don't use ordinary passwords.
3. place orders on a secure connection.
4. never click on links in an e-mail.
5. keep your security up-do-date.
6. keep a copy of your order process.
7. check your credit card statements often.

go here for more info.

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!