#20 The bird did it?

  "They" are blaming that big fire in California on a raptor that hit a high tension line, and fell to the ground in flames.  That makes me angry.  It is not the fault of the bird.  The bird is not "to blame" for anything.  It was the high tension line that started the fire.  Human hubris.  We screw with Nature, then blame Nature when it does what comes naturally.  The bird is as much a victim as anyone or anything else that burned.

A high tension wire is like a huge lit match just waiting to zap something.  What the heck are they doing passing through forests?  And then you clear the land around and under the wires, encouraging rabbits and other raptor-bait varmints.  The bird had to hit two wires to "burst into flame", so why weren't the wires farther apart than the wingspan of the largest birds that the cleared area would attract?  Blaming this on the beastie is like setting a lit candle on the sill of an open window, then blaming the curtain when the house burns down.  

(And how did they determine a flaming hawk "started" the fire, anyway?  His charred remains were probably near a charred bush.  Maybe a biblical burning bush started the fire.) 

#19 Jay Didn't Lie!

Had lunch with May and NJKC yesterday.  NJKC was going to a political fundraiser today, so the conversation got around to light political topics, and I mentioned the letter from the Republican National Committee that had arrived for Jay, that implied that he was a past member and donor, and my concern that he had misled me.  May said she got the exact same letter about the same time, and she knew for a fact that she had never been a member and had never donated.  ...And then it went off to other political fundraising topics.  I don't think May realized how powerfully her offhand comment affected me.  So Jay didn't lie.  The RNC did.  The (fill-in-your-favorite-epithet)s!  (But now I've got hurt feelings again.  If Jay got the letter, and May got the letter, howcum I didn't get the letter?  And I want to be called for jury duty, and almost everybody I know has been called within the past year or two, but I haven't.  I feel invisible!) 

#18

Some actor was interviewed on TV today, and he said that the hardest thing about working (on several movies in succession) was maintaining a personal relationship, which I thought was very perceptive of him.  Then the reporter said that the woman the actor had been dating is an interior decorator.  And then I thought "Oh, good.  Has a chance of succeeding.  She probably has more control over her time, not like another actor ("actress" seems to be no longer "PC").  That's why relationships between two Hollywood-types never seems to last.  Neither of them is able or available to work full time on the relationship.  I'm not convinced they ever had the time to learn how to work on it, anyway."  

Then I had the feeling that what I thought was somehow not right, that I had, in thinking that, betrayed some feminist rule.  "There's something wrong there.  I'm uncomfortable thinking that."

Well, I was right.  You both need to be available to each other, not on a schedule, but as needed.  When it's celebrity+celebrity it's awfully hard even to know when you're needed, let alone be available.  When it's celebrity+noncelebrity, if the noncelebrity is willing and able to take a bit more of the load, to be more sensitive to needs, more willing to communicate needs, and able to make the availability happen, then it has a better chance of succeeding.  Doesn't matter which is male or female.  So I wasn't thinking that her career was less important than his, only that she might be in a better position to give more.

Where my disconnect came in was from my old resentment against an ex-husband who informed me something like two months after the 1970 wedding that field experience in his division would enhance his career, so we were moving.  It didn't matter that I liked my job, or that I was on a fast track where I was, or that my division had no positions "out there".  It also didn't matter whether I wanted to go or not.  In the early 1970s, if a husband accepted a work transfer and left for another city, and the woman refused to relocate with him, she was guilty of desertion, not him.  The family home traveled with the man.  Not just legally, also socially.  It was a way of thinking.  Women didn't really have careers.  So I comforted myself with the thought that our marriage was already showing signs of very big trouble, and it was up to me to make this sacrifice and maybe save it.

So when I was uncomfortable with my thought about the actor/decorator, I think I was actually afraid I was thinking that I wanted her to do what I did.

No.  Not at all.  She doesn't have to give anything up.  I just thought she'd have a better ability to be aware.  

#17 DBA

Got my DBA ("Doing Business As...") today.  As usual, the legal terminology is not so straightforward - they don't officially call it a DBA.  They call it "an Assumed Name", which sounds kind of shady.  "Hi there new customer.  I'm doing business under an assumed name.  Wanna see what's in my car trunk?"  Another thing that made it seem shady was that the county clerk's office doesn't stock the application form.  I was sent across the street from the court house to a deli/newsstand to buy the forms.  They had XXX magazines out in plain sight (I startled a browsing lawyer-looking guy when I rounded the racks looking for the form).  I finally had to ask for the form at the counter next to the door, and the woman pulled a folder out from under the counter.  They must be XXXX, huh?

#16 Another day without incident?

I turned the TV on after the bath, and was actually surprised to find that nothing had blown up. 

#15 Do Contributions Corollate to Votes?

While I was in the bathtub I read an old news magazine and found a site you can go to, to find out who donated how much to which presidential candidates.  At FUNDRACE.ORG you're supposed to be able to search on either name or address.  So, naturally ...

Name didn't seem to work at all for me, but address was interesting.  I put in "a" for the street address, and then some interesting zip codes.  The local area folks donate small amounts - like $250 each.  But if you head down to the next (small) city south, the donations are entirely $1000 to $2000 per.  Military types donate a consistent $250 each.  Bushies almost always donate at least $1000, most give $2000, but there seem to be a lot more people donating smaller amounts to Democratic candidates. (Many of the Democratic candidates have since dropped out.)  The pattern seems pretty consistent throughout my small sample.  Republicans are getting more money, but Democrats are getting more people.  I wonder how significant this is. 

The site gives name, address, amount contributed, and to whom.  I find that scary.  (Maybe it's the military upbringing.  I wonder if all those folks at APO addresses are aware that everyone can find out who they support.) 

 

#14 Back Out

I don't remember Thursday or most of Friday.  My lower back went out, so I couldn't sit at all, and could barely stand.  The nerves that work the lower belly were apparently afflicted, so I had horrible cramps if I stayed upright too long, and was pretty constantly nauseous.  It wasn't just the lower back, I had pain just above and just below the shoulder blades, where the old injuries are, but they alone wouldn't have knocked me out.  There may have been something else going on;  I had muscle pain everywhere, and I may have had a slight fever.  I did manage to drive the van down to the mailbox every day.  Very strange.  I don't remember doing it, but ... the mail and newspaper are here ... and I couldn't possibly have walked that far. 

Everything is fine today.  I finished Skeletons on the Zahara while I was flattened.  It did get better about halfway through.  The characters became more dimensional.  Perhaps less strictly true to the original journals, though.  I guess sometimes it's necessary to sacrifice truth for the story. 

Dad Kolb called while I was writing this.  He's trying to get his telephone and address lists corrected.  He sounded very confused.  (He had been very sharp when I talked with him on Father's Day.) It took almost 15 minutes for him to write down and read back the phone number correctly - and HE called ME! (Apparently after a few wrong numbers - when he got me, he wasn't sure it was me.)  Carolyn and I have corrected his lists several times over the past five years, and he is still using the old list we thought we'd destroyed.  Carolyn has moved since the old list, and Marybeth and I have had our RD boxes changed to street addresses and our area codes changed.  It's very frustrating that he keeps finding the old list, but can't find the new - and we put it everywhere!  I suspect that he does find the new list and rejects it because it "doesn't look right".  Alzheimer's tells him the old familiar addresses are the right ones, so he keeps searching until he finds them.  Luckily, my local PO people have been kind enough to deliver his mail to me regardless of how it's addressed (which is amazing because it's sorted right down to the carrier level in a monster sorting center God knows where!  Plus he always leaves the last digit off the zip code).  He has 24-hour home aides now, and I don't understand why the women don't help him more with phone calls and addresses.  (On the other hand, I do know him, so maybe I do understand.)

Thursday I ate nothing - just diet iced tea, water, sugar-free fruit juice, and asprin.  Friday I had 1/4 cup of creamed spinach and 1/4 cup pureed cauliflower (from Tuesday's doggie-bag).  Saturday, I had 1/2 a baked potato, two peanut butter crackers, and about 1.5 cups of coffee ice cream, but the ice cream doesn't count because when I brushed my teeth that evening it ...um... left me.  Nothing yet today - I'm just not hungry (or maybe I'm just afraid my food will reject me again).  And yet, when I step on the scale, I haven't lost an ounce!  That used to be the one good thing that would have come out of an illness - a flat belly that would stay flat for a week or two.

Well, after several days in bed, I am in great need of a nice long bubble bath, with book.  The CD "In the Garden of Souls" is 62 minutes long, so I'll put that on and soak for an hour.