Crappy Weekend Powers, Activate!

A bit pissed off this morning.  It's funny, how raccoons seem to set me off.

A few years back, a blossoming friendship died hard because the woman was looking to kill a family of raccoons that was living in a tree at the back of her property.  This was in the west, where raccoons aren't feared as high-risk vectors for rabies.  She was looking to kill them because, apparently, that was easier than NOT LEAVING HER DOG OUTSIDE 24/7, UNATTENDED.

Sorry.  You leave a dog outside, unattended, around the clock?  You suck, and you shouldn't have dogs.  If you don't want a pet that lives in your house, don't have pets.  I've known a lot of outdoor dogs, and I've never known one that doesn't drive neighbors crazy with the barking and scratching and howling borne of boredom and exposure to the elements.  The owners don't THINK the dogs are like this because the dogs often AREN'T like this when they know their owners are home.  But the moment that car leaves the driveway, Fido's barking his behind off, and keeps it up all day.

Anyway, back to the raccoons.  Signed onto Facebook this morning to find a post from someone (not the woman I speak of above) who is all about woo, religion, veganism, and all-around touchy-feely-ness.  A post detailing how she's looking forward to "eradicating" the raccoon under her porch, saying it's going to be "loud, quick, and brutal."

Under the porch?  That means there's a gap there.  Do something about it.  You have local wildlife rescues--call one.  They make repellants--use one.

I'm reminded of a FORMER Facebook friend who was all about woo and feel-good crap, always on about "karma" and "harmony."  Think "crazy lady with cats."  Well, this particular crazy lady had pet doors and allowed her cats to roam freely.  Because, gosh, who could be so cruel as to thwart their wanderlust?  One day, she comes online asking for advice on how to get rid of the birds of prey that have taken to hanging out in the big trees behind her house.  By her reckoning, they were there for her cats.  I said, "Since the birds belong there (and are protected), you might want to keep your housepets in the house.  It's safer for them all-around."

Bam, end of that--she didn't just ditch me, she blocked me.  Of course, that wasn't the first time I'd illuminated the contradictions between how she spoke and how she lived--this was the woman constantly on about environmental issues and climate change, yet she's got a big SWIMMING POOL in her Arizona back yard.  Talk about a spectacular waste of water, huh?

Anyway, now the Facebooker is saying that 50% of all raccoons have rabies.  Okay, whatever you say.  You've shown yourself to be resistant to reason before, and I'm too tired and stressed to push now.  But if FIFTY PERCENT of raccoons have rabies, you should probably call in a professional eradicator.  Just to be on the safe side.

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Speaking of stressed, still no answer from the landlord.  It's been--what?  Four days?  Four days, and no answer on the "will you renew the lease" question.  If you don't think THAT'S got me utterly pitched.  Plus the handyman, who has until TODAY to fix those cables, hasn't shown.  Oh, and we're UTTERLY out of money until payday.  We have enough pocket change to get some lettuce and potatoes at the Farmer's Market.  That's it.

What a mess.

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Almost my birthday.  No money to get anything I really want.  Usually I'd go for flowers--that's a fairly cheap, happy thing, but I have too many flowers already, and anything I might want we can't afford.  We did grab a five dollar plant at the Farmer's Market, but then broke it in the trunk.  LOL, don't I feel pathetic?  On the bright side, we found a female sparrow caught up in the stairwell at the parking structure, and she was beating herself nearly to death smacking against the windows trying to escape.  I caught her with my hat, hubby brought her outside, where she promptly flew into the glass door.  I reached down, pressed a finger against her chest, and she perched on my finger.  Took her away from the glass, and she just hung out on my finger for a few minutes until she had calmed down, stopped panting, and stopped trembling, and then she flew off, quite competently, seemed no worse for the wear.  I had a look at her--beak and vent seemed fine, I don't think she was damaged, just confused and scared.  I feel good about it.

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The repair guy just called back, said he'll be here in a half-hour.  I'm not feeling good about this--guy waited until the last possible moment (this work has to be done by TODAY), and he has a bad habit of not doing what he's supposed to be doing.  But he's the landlord's handyman, and that means he's who we go to.  We don't have the money to go to anyone else.  Wish us luck.

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Getting frustrated with the reunion crowd.  I have a list of 113 names of folks we can't find.  Better than two-thirds of those people are ON FACEBOOK and have BEEN CONTACTED BY ME.  But they haven't come forth with their addresses, or, really, with any response at all.  I understand they may not be ACTIVE on Facebook (though a goodly number ARE, and, in fact, are active ON THE REUNION GROUP), but I'm getting more and more of the whole "They're on Facebook, why don't you just . . . " 

Shut.  The. Hell.  Up.  

Seriously, like I'm stupid, like I wouldn't have already DONE that?  I went to school with some powerfully stupid people.

Or some people who think *I'M* powerfully stupid.  

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Here.  Something ugly:

Quick note--repair guy's assistant just showed up, walked through the house, fifteen feet away from me, and I smelled the stench of cigarette within seconds.  Guy just stank up my entire house in twenty seconds.  If you think people can't smell it, you're wrong.  

How Much is Too Much?

So I screwed up and read the letters to the editor in my old local rag this morning.  Someone compared the Boy Scouts' discrimination against homosexuals with the old laws that kept blacks from staying in white hotels or eating in white restaurants.  Someone else came in and said (this is verbatim) "Gays are nowhere close to being discriminated against to the same level that blacks were . . . ."

Okay, awkward sentence structure aside, WHAT THE HELL?  Seriously?  That's like saying, "Sure, apartheid sucks, but it's not nearly as bad as what the Ottomans did to the Armenians, so let's not even bother worrying about it" or, at its heart, "cutting off four fingers is a human rights violation, but cutting off one isn't (or surgically altering a girl's genitals is wrong but doing it to a boy is A-okay)."  Can't we just agree that telling someone they can't partake in something because of their sexual orientation (or their religious affiliation, hello again, Boy Scouts) is crap and we shouldn't condone it?  Regardless of how it might compare to some other bit of nastiness?

(click here to view)

John Cole
Scranton Times/TribuneFeb 10, 2013

EditorialCartoonists.com

 
Just ate up the last of the Farmer's Market jam.  Shared it with the boy.  Amazingly tasty, and incredibly not diabetic-friendly.  To my credit, we've had that little 8 oz jar for four months, so it's not like I've gone completely crazy on it.  It was superbly good, and I look forward to another jar lasting us four or more months.

Also in my old local newspaper, I found an advert for a "women's health center."  We used to live right next door to it, drove by it every day.  But I never realized who owned the place until today.

Warning--this is about to get a bit gory and "woman-y."

When I had my boy, almost 15 years ago, it was a mess.  My labor didn't progress, even though I started with water broken (and meconium in the water) and contractions strong and two minutes apart.  I labored unmedicated for over 30 hours, though, at 25 hours, my  labor began to falter.  Then came the pitocin for a few hours.  Still no joy-I never got beyond five centimeters, even though the boy was fully engaged and ready to go.   So I wound up in the OR.  Turned out our boy's head was in the 99th percentile, circumference-wise.  He was over 9 lbs and had a head like a pumpkin, whereas I have a very narrow set of hips. I could have labored 'til the cows came home, but he wouldn't have made it out.  Anyway, when they finally wheeled me down to the OR (with my half-assed epidural in place--NEVER again!), there were TWO doctors there.  My usual OB, a great guy whom I like a lot, and some other guy I'd never seen before.  We were introduced (won't say his name, since it's too late to sue for malpractice), and I was told he was a doctor from the Clinic, and he would be assisting.

"Assisting."  Is that what they call that now?  Guy did a number on me and how.  Four days postpartum, I noticed some bleeding from the incision--only the left side.  I called my doc, but he was out of town.  I was sent to this guy, since he had "assisted" in my c-section.  He looked, he gently tucked a little gauze into it, and he proclaimed it "fine until Dr. S gets back on Monday."

Except he was either stupid or lying.  It was actually NOT fine at ALL.  It was, in fact, ruptured all the way down to the suture line at the uterus, and a GIGANTIC hematoma had formed.  Let's be real--he couldn't possibly have NOT known that, but he sent me home for THREE DAYS with this because he didn't want to hassle with it.  Imagine my HORROR when I hobbled into my doc's office on Monday to have him sink his entire hand into that incision and drag out gobbets of blood like liver.

Sorry, too much information?

A week (?) or so later, when my doctor's nurse was removing the staples, she said, "Oh, my GOD, what a mess--who closed this?  I thought Doctor S. did your section?"  I told her, and she clammed right up.  Her face went still and careful and she said, "Yes.  Well, I could tell Dr. S. hadn't done this--his staples are always neat and pretty."

That's right, the "assisting" doc had done the closing.  And left me with crappy staples and a huge bleeder.  And then let it ride over the weekend because he didn't want to have to clean up his own mess.  I suppose I should be thankful--considering the quality of his care, imagine what he might have done to me, had he really put some effort into it.

I thought a friend was going to this clinic now (I'd heard her mention it before I knew the doc in question was there), but she just let me know she's not anymore.  Nor is her mom.  They don't like the guy.  Good.  No, I don't dare make it my life's work to warn the world, but I'm definitely going to warn my friends off.  I had no idea he was still active and in the area.  If I'd known, I'd have warned my friends sooner.

Since it's a lost food weekend, we're experimenting--I've been wanting Sambusa for weeks.  A friend who posted pictures a few days ago (she calls them "Samosas," which isn't uncommon, but it's odd to my ears because they've always been Sambusa to me) didn't help ease that craving.

Not quite our recipe, but certainly representative

We don't have it often, maybe once or twice a year, but when we do, we usually have it stuffed with hamburger, green onions, parsley, turmeric, cardamom, cumin (I learned it from the Arabic, so it's "kammun" not "kooomin" or "kyoomin"), and garlic.  It's a recipe I learned from an old friend of a friend named Aziz Al Howifi back in the very old days.  My ex, who was Palestinian, made a good Sambusa, too.   Anyway, I've gotten distracted.  My point was that we don't HAVE any regular hamburger, all we have is a batch of taco meat we cooked up and froze a few weeks ago.  So, we're having . . .

MEXICAN SAMBUSA!

Yeah, green onions, taco-spiced hamburger, with Mexican blend cheese and maybe sliced tomatoes (or just salsa).  A search online tells me that this would be called "Indo-Mexican Fusion-style."

Please.  I don't have that much fartsy in me.  It's just Sambusa made with Mexican spices.  Get real.

Going to have it with black beans and Spanish rice.  My mouth is actually watering!

After much debate, we've decided to nurse the back door along until after September--we're afraid the landlord might peg us pains-in-the-behind and decide not to renew the lease if we hit him with that before.  It's not that he doesn't know about it--I've emailed him about it (and he's responded that he would "try to get something done") and spoken to his handyman about it.  But he's already replaced the disposal and the dishwasher.  I'm afraid tossing the door in the mix would make him want less bothersome tenants.  So I want the new lease signed before we get serious about it.

We've got a plan for getting the debt paid down.  If nothing disastrous crops up (like THAT would ever happen), we can have all the credit cards paid off in a year-and-a-half, and ALL the debt, including car and student aid, paid off in two years.  We've already got two cards zeroed, with another (plus a store account) being paid off next month.  As each card gets paid off, we roll its payment into the next card's, increasing how much we're paying.

Of course, if the government puts my husband out of work for weeks because they're busy posturing and trying to poke at my President, all bets are off.  In fact, should that happen, we're sunk.

And that's about it.  I've spent the day cleaning (with help, thank you Hubby!), am feeling better about my world.  Last bathroom tomorrow, and then I can breathe.  Well, except I have to call the dermatologist and the gynecologist and the radiologist to make appointments for various things I don't want done.  Which sucks a lot of the air out of my world.

Do not reprint without permission. © KAQ

Life is but a Dream

I've always had intense dreams.  Intense, sometimes scary, almost always interesting and fun to have.  I think it's because I have screwed up sleep cycles--my pineal gland has been toast since I was a child, and I've long (since I was seven or so) suffered from night paralysis.  In a nutshell, I wake up while I'm still dreaming and still under the effect of the whole "don't act out your dreams" paralysis.  Because I'm "awake," I hear sounds from around the house or voices on the radio.  Because I'm also in REM (it is an overlapping of REM and waking), those sounds and voices take on new (and sometimes scary) meanings, usually involving an intruder.  When I was younger, this "intruder" was often a demonic-type presence.  It seems my atheism has slain that dragon, and no imps or devils have visited me in years.  Only burglars and murderers.  Sleep paralysis of my variety (recurrent, with back-to-back episodes) isn't very common.  No one I personally know in my world suffers it as a recurring thing, though my husband did, as a child, have one amazing episode of the "old woman on the chest, strangling" variety--a very common theme.  Below is a painting that caught my eye years ago--it's a pretty accurate depiction of what many who suffer night paralysis feel they're experiencing when they struggle against the paralysis and its accompanying suppression of voluntary breathing. 




John Henry Fuseli--The Nightmare

Speaking of atheism and demons and sleep paralysis, below is a perfect example of people taking a completely, rationally explainable phenomenon and turning it into something supernatural.  Sleep paralysis isn't  a  mystery, this isn't the 13th Century.  We know what causes it, and even what causes the sensation of being threatened.  We know what parts of the brain are active and stimulated, and we know that, in such a highly susceptible state, our brains will assign subjective meaning and characteristics to what's happening.  Which is why, when I was a believer, I interpreted these feelings as "demonic" or "evil."  As an atheist?  I interpret them as an intruder, someone who has broken into the house.   

The last couple of nights, my dreams have been pretty over-the-top.  Night before last, I dreamed I was in my old '73 Mustang, with my nearly 80 year old Mom driving.  If you'd ever been in a car driven by my Mom, you'd know this is a variation on the "I'm trying to drive from the back seat or the passenger seat" dream.  It's a completely helpless, out-of-control feeling.  It's not an age thing, though her age isn't making matters any better.  It's just a "my Mom" thing.  She's an awful driver.  She always has been. 

Anyway, so we're driving along near Willard/Perry, Utah (though the scenery is totally wrong), and she fails to stop in time at a red light, bumping the 69 Camaro in front of us.  We touch bumpers--not too hard, but hard enough.  The driver of the Camaro leaps out, and, while he seems quite jovial and cheery, there's a hardness there, an authoritative, overbearing tone that let me know that jovial ends and asshole begins the moment we cross him.  He tells us to pull a u-turn and find a place to pull over, and we do so. 

Or we try.  My Mom misses safe pull-out after safe pull-out, racing along this road with only a thin strip of shoulder and a steep, sandy embankment.  She finally pulls over, nearly putting us over the embankment and into an impossibly clear, deep sinkhole/crater/lake far below.  We pile out of the car, and suddenly my sister and her daughter are with us.  My Mom steps into the sandy bit beyond the shoulder and starts slipping.  I yell at her to get back up onto the shoulder, get out of the sand, and she tries, but--well, she's almost 80.  My sister grabs for her, but that turns disastrous--you see, my whole family seems to have this "once someone lends you a hand, go limp" thing going on, and when my sister catches hold of Ma's hand, Ma goes limp and down she goes.  I start screaming for help, but, of course, it's a dream and my screams are hoarse and ineffectual.  I make it to the edge and look over, and I can see, though a hundred feet of crystal clear water, my Mom.  She's lying on the bottom of the lake, wearing the most gaudy jogging jacket--it's got one large star in a blue square on one side, with red and white stripes on the other.  Yeah, that's the sort of detail that sticks in my head.

So, next thing you know, I'm in a cavern below the lake, and rescuers are scurrying about.  A pair of cops walk by, and one says, "This one's a gomer--we're not ever getting her out, and I'm not about to risk more men trying."  I gasp, and the other one looks at me, then says, "Oh, smooth, Mike.  Good job."  I sit down, looking at (not sure how) my Mom's body at the bottom of the lake, and, for the first time in years, I get the "Mommy!" sensation. You know the one--your body curls, your chest aches, and all you want is your Mommy to hold you?  Yeah.  Not a good dream.

Last night's dream was better--I was using Charlie, our Cairn Terrier, as a bludgeon to fight off rabid raccoons while hubby was busy losing our cigarettes one at a time.  No, we don't smoke anymore.  No, I would never use Charlie as a cudgel.  But it was a strangely amusing dream. 

Hoping to hit the Farmer's Market today, get some more of Becky's Pastries' amazing breads.  The spinach and feta is good, though a little heavy on the spinach for me, but the cinnamon rolls and the apple cinnamon bread (just butter it and stick it in the oven for a few minutes to wake up that cinnamon!) are incredible.  And even the spinach is very good, with a rich, sweet-ish taste and a texture that allows for retoasting multiple times, and if you like spinach, it's perfect!  Becky's is at various Farmer's Markets, including Leesburg and Manassas.  If you're in the area, get yourself some!  You won't be sorry.

There wasn't a lot to this entry.  Not a lot substantial, anyway.  I was going to talk about a post I spotted online from a Romney fan who proposed splitting the country in half, with the good, hard-working, moral Romney fans in one half, and the rest of us sick, lazy deviants in the other.  But then I thought, "Why?  Why even bother?"  So I'm not going to bother.  Have a happy Saturday!

Hope, Hope, Hope

Just got off the phone with my Mom.  She spent the day zipping (in as much as her almost 80 year old self "zips") from place to place trying to figure out the taxes.  They were NOT filed.  Deep breath.  Keep calm.  Yeah.  Anyway, so she wound up at H&R Block.  Dropped $140 to have them do her taxes.  She owes nothing, but is out 140 bucks.  I told her to keep Christmas to herself, no sending checks for us.  She'd better listen, too.  140 dollars may not sound like much, but to her it's a couple weeks worth of groceries. 

From there, she hit the attorney's office.  They faxed the tax forms to the Trustee, and, according to them, all is well.  Ohhh, I do hope that's the case.  I'll keep an eye out for her this next tax season, get her set up with the free tax preparation.   What a mess.  Let's hope the disaster has been averted!

Just julienned one of the gigantic farmer's market carrots to go with pasta tonight.  ONE carrot made enough for everyone!  A shout out to Romanza Italian restaurant in Wendover, Nevada's Montego Bay Resort--had we not eaten there, we'd never have thought to julienne veggies and mix them with our pasta.  Never would have thought to course-grind Parmesan and asiago and then bake it into amazing little crisps, either.  Of course, we've added our own spin (via herbs and the like), but the ideas came from you.  So thank you, Romanza! 

Our mega-carrot, all cut up for pasta.  That's a half-gallon of apple cider for scale.  Whole lotta carrot goin' on!

A Butterfly for Bucky

If you don't get the reference, forgive me.  If you DO get it, forgive me even more.

9 am found the whole family at our new optometry office.  Eyes dilated, puffs of air, this-one-or-this-one?  I'll let you in on a little secret--I love the optometrist's office.  Always have, ever since I was a kid.  I have no idea why.  I wasn't even given a driver's license until I was 27 because, according to the public schools, I was close enough to "legally blind" as makes no odds.  The sad/funny/enraging thing?  I'm not anywhere near legally blind--in fact, at the time, my vision was 20/20 in the right, 20/23 in the left.  But I've astigmatism and really struggle with small letters.  11 years I was denied a license!

While a vicious eye infection (which the clinic doctor insisted I didn't have, which left me without treatment for a week-and-a-half) did a number on the vision in my left eye (20-125 instead of 20-23 now), my overall vision is still good enough that I don't require glasses to drive (according to state law).  Plus, I have this cool monocular-type thing going on with my eyes, where my left eye is crap for distance vision but great for close up, while my right is fabulous for sharp, clear distance vision and lousy for close up.  Together, even at my age, I can see great distances AND still read most fine print.  It was so refreshing to have an optometrist say to me, "We could fit you with glasses, but why?  I just charged someone five hundred dollars for contact lenses that do exactly what your eyes do right now!"  So the whole visit was ten bucks, and she says my eyes look amazing--optic nerve nice and tight, no glaucoma, no degeneration, all healthy and happy.  She offered to write a letter to the DMV removing my "needs corrective lenses" notation.  In more good news, our boy's eyes are perfect, and even hubby's eyes have leveled off--maybe even improved slightly.

After the eye-doc's, we went to the farmer's market in Old Town.  Brussel sprouts, ears of corn, Winesap apples, carrots, and amazing bread and rolls.  But still no Muscadine grapes!  What is UP with that?  We found them a month or so ago at Walmart . . . ONCE!  None anywhere since.  I'm feeling very put out about that.

Came home to find a Tim Kaine campaign flier on the porch.  I need to call them and tell them not to bother--we're already voting for him, so no need to drop the pennies on trying to convince us.

Here are some carrot pictures:




No, Charlie doesn't get to have the carrots!




One of the monster carrots from the farmer's market--no, that's not a miniature water bottle.



Not a lot of fall color yet, though we did see some spectacular, blazing trees over by Vint Hill near Gainesville.  Here's what I have in my yard, though! 

My wonderful mums!

Love it here.  Scared to death about the car inspection, but still love it here. 

Oh, and if you were wondering about today's title's reference?  Here ya go, but I advise against it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nny3aQBU8Ec&feature=related