#306 I Found the Movie!

From entry #301: "Maybe 20 years ago, very late one night, I found a movie on TV.  Black and white, only two scenes in the whole movie, entirely in German (I don't speak German) with no subtitles.  I think the title translated as "The Bridge".  The most gripping thing I've ever seen.  It was about a home-defense squadron of children, lead by an old man, in the last days of W.W.II, charged with defending the bridge into the village from the advance of the American tanks.  I would dearly love to find it again." 

I found it!    It's "Die Bruecke", description at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0000646UM/ref=wl_it_dp/104-2764900-8557545?%5Fencoding=UTF8&coliid=ISKWOZBMLN0ZV&v=glance&colid=3EJBBGFSULMHZ .  The citizen reviewers have about the same opinion that I had.  Apparently there were a few more scenes than I remembered, but that's ok.  I suspect I wasn't paying much attention at the beginning.

I bought it.

Now I just have to buy a DVD player.

~~Silk

#305 Creating Fun, Even at Funerals

A while ago, Ted Koppel did a show somewhere in a very depressed area. I don't remember whether it was South America, Africa, middle east, but it was a hot dry area.  I don't remember the color of the people's skin.  There were no jobs, and families were struggling to stay together and stay fed.  And then Mr. Koppel said something that has bothered me ever since.

He was standing in the courtyard of a group of shared homes, with a cluster of small children around him.  One of the little girls was holding a dismembered doll.  The doll was missing all its limbs, or its head, or something major, I forget, and Mr. Koppel said, in a very sad tone, "This is the only toy for all these children."

Now, it wasn't "this is the only toy" that bothered me.  What bothered me was that he seemed to think that was awful.

There were all kinds of sticks and boards and dirt and rocks and pebbles and piles of rags around.  There was a well, with water.  For kids, those are the best toys!  With some sticks and a piece of board, and a wad of dried mud wrapped in rags, you've got a cricket game.  With some holes scrapped in the dirt and a handful of pebbles, you've got Mancala.  With a pile of rocks, you've got king of the mountain.  With sticks and the ground to draw on, you can play school.  Or play house.  With rags, you can make temporary "paintings", or rag dolls.  You've got the whole world for hide and seek.  With only two or three other kids you've got Tag, and Mother May I, and other games.  Games that require and teach cooperation and trust and fair play.  With a couple of Grandparents around, you've got stories.   These are the best toys!  They're almost lucky they don't have anything from a toy store.  (Note that they weren't starving.  Struggling yes, starving no.  They were well enough to play.)

Handing a kid a truckload of toys kills imagination and creativity.  When I was young, nobody had much, and some of my favorite memories are of the "playhouses" we scraped into a floor of pine needles, "this is the living room, and this is the kitchen, and...", and we pantomimed cooking and cleaning, and visiting each other, just like our mommies.  You need a truck?  There's a pine cone over there.  I played Hide and Seek with the little kids in the neighborhood right up until I went to college.  Our favorite time was just before dusk, when it was hard to see, and if you were very still, you could hide almost in plain sight.

So, "this is the only toy" isn't all that bad, and Mr. Koppel was wrong to imply that it was.

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One of those silly personality tests that go around asked if you had ever laughed at a funeral.  They seemed to think that was a bad thing.  I laughed at my mother's funeral, and smiled and giggled at Jay's memorial service.  Some people did look askance at me, but I wasn't ashamed either time.

My brother Duke has a son, Randy, from a short-lived hurry-up marriage at 18.  At the time of my mother's death, Randy was about 22.  He arrived at the funeral with a drop-dead gorgeous blond woman on his arm.  It was obvious they were very intimate, the way they looked at each other, the way he was so solicitous of her, the way they passed messages with a glance, the little touches on the hand or arm.  However, she was obviously at least 35 years old.  I was very curious.

After the service, out in the foyer, I asked my sister, "Who's the woman with Randy?  Isn't she a bit old for him?  What's going on there?"  She gave me a strange look and said, "That's JoAnn, his mother." 

I cracked up. 

Well, come on.  I hadn't seen her in more than 20 years!

So I walked over to JoAnn and Randy, and introduced myself to her, told her I'd have acknowledged her sooner except that I hadn't recognized her, and then I said, "You know, when you two came in together, I thought 'Hmmm.  Randy likes older women.  Well, at least he has good taste!' "

They cracked up.

~~Silk

#304 Save Kaysar!

Open letter to CBS:  Kaysar was just nominated for eviction on Big Brother 6.  He's gorgeous, and probably the most intelligent BB contestant ever.  If he goes, you'll lose a big portion of the mature (as opposed to "immature", having nothing to do with years) intelligent female audience.    

I'm ashamed to admit I've been watching, but the only reason I'm watching is to see Kaysar smile.  Yummy.

~~Silk

Link in this entry: http://www.cbs.com/primetime/bigbrother6/_guests/_kaysar/

#303 Zero Nails

One of the reasons that I had to purge yesterday's frustrations last night was that there was a spot of anger on top.  After I finished the cruise schedule, I was puttering around, and I found some old local chapter newsletters.  I was leafing through them preparing to throw them out, when I found something that really pissed me off.

Let me back up a bit.

When May's husband died, I called a certain local group officer and asked him to spread the word.  May and her husband went to only a few annual local activities, but for 20 years, they always went together.  Although he was not technically a member, he was well known to many of us "long term" folks, particularly those of us in the northern part of the territory.  This particular officer is relatively newer to the group, and lives near the center of population, so to speak.  One of the things that has annoyed me the past few years is an "in-group" mentality that seems to be growing.  There is a core of about 15 people who seem to think that they are "it", the only ones who matter, and everyone else is peripheral.  And this guy is one of the worst at keeping that going.  I am sort of on the edges of that group, in that I go to many of "their" events.

So, I call this guy, ask him to help spread the word, and I suggested that there be a notice in the newsletter.

His response left me speechless.  He informed me that "We don't usually do that.  I mean, if a member has passed away, we'll put a notice in, but not for family of a member."  I was shocked.  First of all, the statement itself was ridiculous.  Not to offer condolences as a group to a member who had lost a loved one?  Second, anyone who had been to any of NJ's several annual events for the past 20 years knew May's husband well.  But, of course, the "in" group doesn't often attend NJ's parties, which tend to attract the older (years of membership, not just age) group.

He must have noticed my shocked silence, and then remembered that when Jay had died three years before, there had been a newsletter mention.  So he said "Of course Jay was different.  He went to the dinners with you all the time, so we knew him."  Um.  The "in group" dinners, of course.  How dare I forget that "we" are the only ones who count.  (BTW - Jay had qualified for membership, and was invited to join, but we figured there was no point in paying double dues, so he had never signed up.) 

I pointed out that May's husband had been attending events with her for more than 20 years, and was well known to the older members.

At that, he realized he'd stepped in it, and he agreed to talk to the newsletter editor.

So, last night I'm leafing through old newsletters, and found one from a couple of years before May's husband died, and what do I find? 

Condolences offered on the death of guess who's father!  

As far as I know, his father was not a member, and had never attended a single event, and was not known to any of the membership.  And he had the NERVE!!! the GALL!!! to attempt to refuse the same courtesy for someone so well known to so many of us.  And even if May's husband were not known to us, he was still her husband!

I was so angry when I saw that, that I could have spit nails.  At him.  I may yet.

~~Silk

#302 That Silly List - Again

I deleted the original version of this entry.  It was a list of 160-some true-false statements about one's life, but this particular list was rather juvenile, not as good or revealing as the one I had received and passed on via email several months ago.  It took up more room than it was worth, so I scrapped it.

Appreciate my excellent judgment.  (I originally said "judgement", which is an inside joke, but very few people would get it, so I changed it.  But anyone who WOULD have got it  - please know that I tried!)  

~~Silk

#301 Patrick's Saturday Six

From Patrick's Place:

1. What was your favorite childhood movie?  When was the last time you saw it?

I don't remember any favorites from my youth.

First to fourth grades, we lived in a 16-square-block village in Pennsylvania, and Mom used to take me to the tiny village theater almost every week.  I seem to remember they were mostly low-grade westerns, but the theater gave a free piece of dinnerware with every ticket, and my mother was building a set of Willow Ware.  The only one I remember specifically was (I think) "The Greatest Show on Earth", about a circus, starring Cornell Wilde.  It was a multi-part serial, spread over several weeks.  It's the only one I remember specifically, but it was nowhere near "a favorite".

Fifth through seventh grades, we lived in Ottawa, Ontario.  Movies were $.15 to $.25, which I could save every week from my bus money by walking home from school every day.  Walking to school, too, saved another quarter a week, which bought a huge SugarDaddy to suck on during the movie, and a pomegranate to nibble on all week.  So we kids went to the movies every Saturday.   The bus service in Ottawa was excellent and cheap, and it was a safer time, so we kids went everywhere.  We used to cross the river into Hull, Quebec, and go French movies, which worried my mother until she found out that they weren't "French movies" (risque connotation), but just dubbed American movies, and if we took the ticket stub to French class, we got extra credit.  I saw a LOT of movies, but I don't remember a single one.

High school was on the mountain, on the AF base.  The base had movies every week in the tiny base theater, and there was a drive-in in the nearest half-decent town, so I saw a LOT more movies, but I don't remember a single one.

In college, the student union showed movies on the lawn every weekend all sumer.  One year, the guy in charge of selection handed a friend and me the list, and said "Pick 'em", so in fun, she and I selected every Rock Hudson/Doris Day movie ever made.  By the third week, the student body was searching for someone to lynch, but they never figured out it was us.

Many many movies since.  Few memorable. 

Now, about the only movies I go to are the "artsy" ones at Upstate in Rhinebeck, and I have enjoyed everything I've seen there (but there haven't been that many).

I think part of the problem is that I have never seen a movie that was as good as the book.  Maybe "Gone With the Wind" came close.

One major exception:  Maybe 20 years ago, very late one night, I found a movie on TV.  Black and white, only two scenes in the whole movie, entirely in German (I don't speak German) with no subtitles.  I think the title translated as "The Bridge".  The most gripping thing I've ever seen.  It was about a home-defense squadron of children, lead by an old man, in the last days of W.W.II, charged with defending the bridge into the village from the advance of the American tanks.  I would dearly love to find it again. 

2. Who is your worst enemy at the moment?  (First names only, please.)  Why is that person your enemy?

I define an enemy as someone who is out to hurt me, that I have to defend against.  There are a very few people I dislike, and I suppose there are a few people who don't especially like me, but none I'd call an enemy.   Hmmm.  Maybe G.W.B.  I do feel like I have to defend myself against him and his cohorts, but it's not, like, personal.

3. Which one of the following annoys you most when you encounter a new blog?
    a. Constant grammatical errors.  Yes!  I assume this includes punctuation errors.
    b. Constant spelling errors.  Yes!
    c. Contrived "street" language.  Yes! 
<<These three tie for first.  I'm mostly pretty easy-going, but one thing that will set me off is butchering the language, because unfortunately, others learn from you. 
    d. Too many "nothing happening today" entries.  Nah...That's ok.  It's real, it's life, and serves a purpose for the author (like for me, it lets Daughter know I'm still alive and coherent).

Although I dislike 1 to 3 the most, I will grit my teeth and muddle through if the topic is interesting.  What will cause me to hit the back button immediately is very faint light print on black backgrounds, or too much cutsy-poo artwork, especially if it's animated.  Not that any of that is bad, maybe others like it, but I find it extremely annoying.   

4. Take this quiz:   Which alcoholic drink are you?

You know, I think that's right?  My mother was champagne.  Comparing myself to her, I felt lacking.  No bubbles.  But wine's not so bad.

By the way, the above is an example of the faint print on a dark background that so annoys me.

5. What is the last thing you said to a person face to face?  Who was that person?

"Bye."  Thursday evening, to a friend.  That's the last time I've been out of the house.  I probably won't see anyone face to face today, either.

6. READER'S CHOICE QUESTION #59 from Debi:  When you shower, do you ever think of the Alfred Hitchcock movie, "Psycho?"   

Nope.  Never. And yes, I  have seen the movie, several times, and that scene never did bother me, not even the first time.  Maybe because of the way I grew up, where sudden senseless attacks were common.  I was inured to them.  Which has its advantages - I'm always the calmest person on scene during a crisis. 

~~Silk

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Links in this entry: 
http://journals.aol.com/pattboy92/PatricksPlace/entries/1223 ;
http://quizilla.com/users/truly-dippy/quizzes/%3F%3F%20Which%20Alcoholic%20Drink%20Are%20You%20%3F%3F/ ; 
http://journals.aol.com/camaroisle050856/TheAsylumUnpadlocked/

#300 Cruise Schedule

Another boring "just for me" entry.  I'm writing this to decompress from a frustrating afternoon and evening.

The packet for the Hawaiian Cruise arrived by courier early this past week.  There were 50 thousand pieces of paper and booklets and everything else in there.  It took me one full day just to go through it and see if there was anything I had to do.  There was.  Tours and excursions had to be booked at least 14 days before the sail date, AND I have to "pre-register" at least 14 days before.  Luckily, both jobs could be done online.

Naturally, I left it 'til yesterday (Friday, the 29th) to take a detailed look.  The sail date is 8/14.  Uh-oh.

I don't know why this "pre-register" stuff.  I'm already registered!  Everything they ask for on the preregistration form is already on the papers they sent me, but one piece of the info was on this paper, and another bit on another, and ... it involved a lot of shuffling through the stack to find it all.  Took me an hour to pre-register.  And it was actually fairly simple, if all the information had been in one place.  Like, uh, maybe already ON the preregistration form?

Then I turned to the tours and excursions task.  Edith, if you are reading this, I found a post-retirement job for you.  These people are in desperate need of a human factors advisor!

The itinerary, in the form of "8/14/05 Depart Waikiki 8:00 pm.  8/15/05 Dock Kauai 7:00 am.  8/16/05 Depart Kauai 3:00 pm. ...." was in a book of coupons for all the reservations.  Which would not stay open if you set it down.

I had long ago signed up for several "exclusive" tours and events (I'm not sure who's being excluded), and the dates, times, and descriptions for those were on a 5-page letter I had received several weeks ago.  They were listed by calendar date.

The descriptions of the additional possible tours, for which I had to sign up now, were in a tall narrow thick booklet on heavy shiny paper, with a flat glued binding - which meant that it was hard to hold it open with one hand and impossible to set it down and expect it to stay open, unless you took a chance on cracking the binding and having all the pages fall out.

Note that the book did not have an index or TOC to make it easy to find a particular tour.

The days and times of the actually available tours were not in the booklet, but on 4 pages printed on both sides of legal-length paper.   The names of the tours matched those in the aforementioned booklet, but the identifying numbers did not.  Also, they were organized not by day, but by island.  Like "Waikiki Day 1; Waikiki Day 2; Kauai Day 1; Kauai Day 2; Hilo [which is a city, not an island, confusing] Day 1 and so on, which was very hard to put together with the itinerary in the book of coupons.  They had a "start time" and "duration", which I'd have to interleave somehow with the five pages of exclusive tours and departure and docking times.

Agh! 

So I made me a chart.  I gave up working at the desk, and spread everything out on the bed (which means that from here on, everytime I reached for a particular piece of paper, there was a cat sitting on it).  I got some graph paper, and put the days across the top, by day and date.  Then I put the time, starting at 7 am and ending at 6 am down the side.  I pulled out the itinerary, and shaded in all the times we would actually be sailing (Kauai to Hilo is 18 hours! Wow!).  I wrote at the top of the shaded area where we were leaving from, and at the bottom where we were arriving at.  Now "Kauai Day 1" made sense.

Then I got out the five pages of exclusive tours, and marked them in with a straight line from the start to the end time.   Now I could see all the free time, when I could schedule other activities.  It looked like a lot of free time.   Too much free time.  Oh, sleep.  I drew a line across at the midnight point and wrote "go to sleep", and shaded below it.  That looked more reasonable.  (That's where most of the sailing time was, too (of course)). 

Now I have some basis on which to schedule some more excursions. 

For each day, I went to the multipage list of tours and I circled the start times of all the tours for that day's island that would fit into the available time (skipping all those that looked like they involved ATVs or zip lines or bathing suits or near-vertical climbs).  Then I went to the narrow description book and looked them each up, read the descriptions, and marked the most interesting one for that slot.  I noted the page numbers of the day's three most interesting ones on the legal-sized sheets (I don't know why "they" couldn't have done at least that).

ThenI marked my first choice on the chart with a dotted line from start time to end time.

After I got all done, I noticed that here and there I'd left myself only 45 minutes for lunch or dinner.  Many of the exclusive excursions included a meal, so I decided to reread the exclusive tour descriptions to make sure.  The first one I checked, I found to my horror that it included not only lunch, but a visit to XYZ falls among a lot of other stuff, and the tour I had chosen for the afternoon was - tada! -  to XYZ falls.  Agh! 

So now I had to go back and reread all the descriptions of everything I had selected to make sure I wasn't duplicating.

Luckily, I had done my chart in pencil.

It looks good now.  Except for the night of the luau, I have nothing scheduled from 5 pm on, most days actually end a little earlier, so I won't wear myself out.  Unfortunately, every day starts at or before 8 am (the "exclusive" Pearl Harbor tour starts at 7 am, the day after I fly in - ouch!), and I'm not a morning person.  Maybe jet lag will work to my advantage.

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Now, the human factors part.  We have computers now.  I'll bet a simple computer program could pull together the sailing times and "exclusive" tours from their data bases, and print out a personalized chart that looks like what I made up.  In all the free time slots, they could list all the other tours that could be chosen, that don't duplicate the exclusive tours, complete with the page number in the danged booklet!   Then to choose and schedule the additional tours, we customers would have to look only at that chart and quickly look up the descriptions if necessary.

Sheesh.  Get with the program, folks!

(Of course, the tours are nonrefundable.  So if you screw up the scheduling and don't make the tour departure, gee, tough luck.  That might work to their advantage.  Maybe they don't want to make it easier?)

~~Silk

#299 A Date?

I think I accidentally went out on a date last evening.

I haven't been dating, and I'm not sure I'm ready to, and if it had been clear that it was a "date", I might not have said yes to the invitation, or said yes but made it clear it wasn't really a date, which is sort of cheating, but ... whatever.

He had called out of the blue.  I don't often answer the phone - I hate telephones - usually let the tape get it, but our electricity had dropped earlier, which erases the outgoing message, and I had not yet put a new outgoing message on the machine, and Daughter yells at me when she calls and gets a beep and no message, and it was about the time when Daughter often calls, so I said "Oh, shoot (or something similar)" and answered the phone.

I've known him for about 15 years.  We worked in the same department for a few years, and I had given him a Mensa flyer and suggested he apply.  After I left The Company he joined Mensa, and so now I see him every month or two at dinners.  He's one of my favorite people, the voice of reason and conciliation on the Mensa Yahoo Group, in which he is quite active, and if he happens to be standing nearby when I arrive at Mensa dinners, I'll greet him with a hug.  (Odd, because I'm not a hugger.)  But I know very little about him personally.  One of my biggest complaints about the Mensa dinners is that there is little conversation - it's sit, eat, settle the bill, and run.  Any conversation tends toward the food, the next dinner, and gossip about whomever isn't there. 

So, he called, and I answered.  We chatted about nothing for a little bit, and then he asked if I'd like to go with him to that penguin movie at the Upstate, that last night was the last night for it (which we found out later was in error, maybe they extended it).    So I said yeah, that sounds good.  He seemed to assume that dinner was included.  Well, that's fine too.

As far as I knew, he was married.  I had met his wife about 6 years ago, but he always showed up at Mensa stuff alone.  That means nothing - lots of couples have separate interests and/or schedules.  It didn't strike me as odd that he'd called because that's one of the advantages of Mensa - if you want company, you have a ready-made source of like-minded companions.  I figured he had asked on the Yahoo group if anyone wanted to go with him, and someone had said "Try Silk.  She lives up there."

I checked Yahoo.  He hadn't put out a general call for company.  Hmmmm.  And then after I thought about it a little more, I remembered that there had been a long pause between the general chitchat and the invitation.  I remember that pause.  I've heard it before.  Eons ago. 

Uh-oh.

So anyway, we met at the sidewalk cafe next to the theater at 5:30, and somewhere within the first ten minutes he mentioned his ex-wife (two years ex), so that mental question was answered, we had iced coffee and hot wings, walked around town a bit, had dinner, went to the 9:00 showing (the planned 6:50 had sold out), sat and talked for another long while, noticed that it was now 11:45 and he had to get gas before the drive home, so we went searching for an open gas station, then to my car, where ... he leaned in the door and aimed for the lips and I dodged but he was faster than I was, so there were a few chaste pecks.  Very awkward, but that's ok.  It was kinda cute.

Damn.

I like him, and I would love to spend time with him, going places and doing things, but I'm not sure I want to go beyond that level.  Well, we'll see what happens.  He's partially retired now, too, teaching some classes here and there, so the days are rife with opportunity.

If I didn't scare him off completely.

~~Silk

#298 Cajun v. Creole

I'm still confused about the difference between "Cajun" and "Creole".

The only thing I know for sure is that "Cajun" comes from "Arcadian", and used to mean "Of French anscestry".

The "Creoles" were people of mixed French, African, Spanish, and Native American ancestry who were the original settlers of New Orleans.

One of them, in current use, simply means "native to New Orleans".

The other, in current use, means "of the swamps or bayous", sort of like "mountain man", or "hillbilly", means "of the mountains", where the connotation, good or bad, depends on the speaker and hearer. 

The guide in New Orleans explained which was which, but NOBODY on the tour really remembered which was which after the tour was over.  One of my sisters was born near New Orleans, and I remember thinking during the guide's explanation "oh, that means she can call herself cajun", which would imply that "cajun" is the one that means "native to", but that doesn't fit the history, where the creoles were the natives.  Oh, dear.  I could have thought "cajun" because she was born near, but not in, New Orleans.  I confused myself.

Cajun and creole cuisine are not the same.  One relies more on fats and spices than the other.  The creole dishes use more sauces.  The cajuns use more rice.  I don't remember which one "blackens", and you can't go by northern or tourist menus, because they confuse them too.  

The internet isn't much help, because as the guide said, the terms have changed meaning over the decades, so some websites have the original meaning and some have the new, and they conflict all over the place. 

Common sense and logic would seem to say that Creole is "native to", and Cajun is "bayou folks", but I seem to remember that common sense and logic didn't apply.

Sigh.  So confusing.  Maybe I should have taken notes on the tours. 

Not that it really matters. 

~~Silk

#297 Regrets from New Orleans

From the trip to the Mensa Annual Gathering, in early July.  Warning.  Travelogue.  Probably boring.

Guy wasn't there.

Red-Shirt was.

Instead of several small hospitality suites, they used one huge ballroom.  Noisy.  Not comfy, not conducive to meeting people, or group-involving conversations.  There was a smaller smoking hospitality room (a conference room), with no food or drinks except what people brought in, where the conversations did flow better, but the ventilation was ... not there ... and one didn't want to stay there long.

Conclusion - the hospitality rooms were not hospitable, making it harder for shy people like me to meet new people.  I didn't meet any new people.  Except Red-Shirt, and he makes my total negative.

New Orleans had some strong winds the day or so before we all arrived, and signs of cleanup - trucks full of tree branches, sounds of chainsaws - were everywhere.  So when it looked at first like Dennis might hit New Orleans, some people panicked.  By the weekend, all trains headed east and most flights had been canceled.  I heard there were no buses. 

People tried to extend their stay at the hotel, but the hotel said a) they would not extend reservations, b) they might have to evacuate those who were booked through already, and c) if they didn't evacuate, there would probably be no "services" Sunday or Monday anyway, that most employees would not be in.  They didn't say anything about what would happen to stranded people who would be kicked out, in the middle of the (supposed) hurricane, when their reservation was up.  By Sunday morning, when it looked like Dennis would continue its turn to the east, the hotel offered to extend stays.  A lot of people did stay longer, because their travel arrangements were a mess.  I hadn't planned to leave until Tuesday, so I was ok, but NJ had to stay over an extra day.

Food in the hotel - the awards luncheon Friday, the banquet Saturday, and the breakfast Sunday, was delicious, but way too expensive.  The banquet (steak that I cut with my fork!), for example, was $75.  As good as it was, it wasn't that good.  The evening we had arrived, NJ and I had eaten in the hotel dining room, and decided it was too expensive.  Meals outside the hotel, even in the French Quarter, were quite reasonable, and surprisingly good everywhere we went.

The night before I left, I was packing, and about 1 AM I realized I hadn't had dinner.  We had all received a $10 credit from the hotel to be applied to food or services, so I ordered a Waldorf salad from room service.  Now, one should not expect to pay more than $7 for a Waldorf salad anywhere.  In the room service menu, it was $15.  Well, ok, I get $10 credit, so that's ok.  Long story short - I missed the fine print, where they add x% to the bill for room service, and y% for the tip, and z% for something else, and ... the end result being that I paid $45 !!! for a tiny Waldorf salad (which has not much in it even when it's made right) complete with NO dressing!    They forgot the danged dressing!  By then I was so tired I just ate it.  With my fingers.

I had given myself the free Monday (the gathering ended at noon Sunday) to do other things,  like a swamp/bayou tour.  All swamp/bayou tours were canceled, in anticipation of high water from the storm.

I was fully aware that when NJ goes to Mensa gatherings, she tends to completely ignore all the Mensa programs, and just use it as a discount trip to whatever city.  A lot of people do that.  I, however, really did want to go to some of the talks.  Of the 200 or so talks and demonstrations offered in the program booklet, I had circled fifteen or so that I was really very interested in - but I somehow ended up ramming around with NJ instead.  (Which, understand, was fun, and I don't regret that.) 

So on the way home on the plane, I was thinking about how much easier it would be to go back on my own now, now that I know a little about the downtown, and what I would do, and I realized that I could do on my own everything that NJ and I had done, and more, but I would never again have the opportunity to attend those programs.  They are gone.  They are mourned.

Two in particular that I rue missing were on aspects of the Patriot Act.  Another was about subsidence, and about the pumps that keep N.O. dry.  Another on Voodoo, and famous priestesses.  Another on Cajun culture and customs.  Another on Mardi Gras costumes, how-tos.  One about where N.O. gets its drinking water.   A few political and financial talks.  All gone.  Gone gone gone.  Tsk.  

The organizers did a good job decorating.  There were piles of beautiful Mardi Gras beads everywhere, in metallic green, purple, and gold.  People were putting dozens of strings of beads on, and it was all very festive.  However, I was amused to overhear an actual Mensan say, in the hotel lobby, when asked if he wouldn't like to leave the beads in his room before going out for dinner, "Oh, no.  I'll wear them, look like a native.  Don't want to look like a tourist!"  Sigh.

We were issued badges that we had to wear to get into any of the talks, rooms, and events.  We were advised to remove them when we left the hotel.  When the gathering officially ended at noon on Sunday, most of the attendees were still in the hotel, being stuck until transportation resumed.  I think, out of the 1600 or so people still there, I may have been the only one to continue to wear the badge.  It seemed like a good idea to me, that since we were all still there it would be nice to be able to identify the people we could easily walk up to, and invite ourselves to dinner with, or whatever.

Or maybe they were all trying to hide from Red-Shirt....

~~Silk

#296 Good Stuff from New Orleans

From the trip to the Mensa Annual Gathering, in early July.  Warning.  Travelogue.  Probably boring.

New Orleans wasn't nearly as hot and humid as I had been led to expect.  In fact, it was downright pleasant.  It was hot, but there was always a breeze.  It rained a few times, but except for one brief downpour, it was always a light short sprinkle.  Altogether very pleasant - perfect, as far as I am concerned.  I'm happy hot, as long as there's a small breeze.

I went on a tour of the Garden District, which included a cemetery tour.  Everyone is buried in aboveground crypts, which I knew.  But the insides of those crypts are not at all what I had expected.  I had imagined shelves along the walls, with nice sedate coffins on the shelves.  Nope.  There's one side-to-side shelf across the middle, and a sort of floored pit in the bottom.  A coffin is placed on the shelf, and then "one year and one day" later, the crypt is opened, the body is removed from the coffin (if there is one), the coffin is burned, and the jumbled bones are dumped into the lower pit, with all the jumbled bones of the previous occupants.  The shelf is now ready for another family member.  If someone else dies before the one-year-and-a-day has elapsed, the new body is stored in rectangular cubbies (like big post office boxes!) in the wall surrounding the cemetery until the proper time has elapsed.  Apparently, the year-and-a-day is set by law.  

In the Garden District, I had naively expected gardens.  Two centuries ago, maybe, but not now.  The garden district was where wealthy Anglos built their mansions after the Louisiana Purchase.  The streets were laid out in square blocks, and each owner had one quarter of a block.  They built their mansions in the corners, and put beautiful gardens between the houses.  But when hard times finally fell on the south, the spaces between the mansions were sold, and now each block has a stately columned mansion on each corner, and smaller houses between them.  No more gardens.

Our guide pointed out architectural details, and gave us the history of the houses and their owners.  It was interesting, but not what I had expected.  I would have liked to have been able togo into one of them....  Because the ground is subsiding, the upkeep on these houses is incredible, like $6,000 a month!  Every so often they have to be jacked up while the foundation is rebuilt, and these are HUGE houses (They have attached 3-story slave quarters in the back).

As is frequent with any Mensa group, there was one member who monopolized the guide and annoyed and embarrassed everyone else with incredibly stupid questions.  Yeah, I know, "if you don't know the answer, there are no stupid questions", but when the answer should be obvious, or the question has nothing to do with the topic, or directly contradicts what the guide just said, then it's a stupid question.  Our SQer this time wore a bright red shirt.  Remember him.  He reappears.

The tour group had taken a trolley out to the Garden District.  It seemed awfully far out from the Old Quarter (a.k.a. Veaux Carre a.k.a. French Quarter), which back then would have been "The city", especially for the days of horse and carriage.  I guess these were "country houses"? 

The guide had said we should take the same trolley to the end of the line sometime - it's the route of the Mardi Gras parade, and would give a good taste of the varied architecture of New Orleans.  So NJ and I did exactly that, that afternoon.  It was nice.  We were amazed at all the strings of beads hanging from the trees.  I guess they don't deteriorate, and build up year after year.  Near the end of the line we passed Tulane, a nice historic-looking campus, and across the street from Tulane was a pretty park.  If we had known then that the zoo was in that park, we would have gotten off the trolley and gone to the zoo.  It's on my list for the next time I visit New Orleans.

That evening I was doing my volunteer duty at the registration desk when "Red-Shirt" showed up.  He wanted us to tell him how to get in touch with his dinner group.  Huh?
He had eaten dinner with some folks the evening before, and wanted us to tell him how he could find those people this evening for dinner.  We told him that if he hadn't arranged with them where to meet, or how to communicate, we certainly couldn't help.  We told him he could have the hotel desk call their rooms for him, or he could try putting a note on the bulletin board outside the hospitality room.  Nothing was good enough.  He quite literally wanted us to find the people for him.  Like page them or something (we had no facility for paging).  No, he didn't remember their full names.  He was angry and argued with us.  Seemed to think we were delinquent in our duties.  When he finally stomped off in disgust, I told the other guy at the desk about his having been on the tour that morning, and said that I wouldn't be surprised if the previous night's companions were hiding from him today.  He said yeah, "Red-Shirt" was well known at the national office.  He regularly drives them batty.   He always wears red or orange shirts - like that swami cult in the late '60s and '70s.

NJ hadn't signed up for any tours when she'd registered, and they filled up fast.  So when I said I would be going on a morning French Quarter tour, she expressed regret.  But fully 1/3 of the people signed up for the Garden District tour hadn't shown up, so I suggested that she be in the lobby when the group formed for the FQ tour.  Sure enough, again 1/3 were no shows, so she got to go, and she didn't even have to pay for it. 

That tour was again very good.  Lots of history and lore.  Unfortunately, for some reason, maybe the impending hurricane Dennis, none of the "house" museums were open.  Another thing I added to my "when I return" list.  

I was determined not to leave New Orleans without having walked down Bourbon (pronounced "burr-BONE") Street, had fried green tomatoes, and crawfish, and bignettes (is that like beignets?), donut-like pillows drenched in powdered sugar.  I got it all.  Everyone had raved about the pillowy things, so they were a bit of a disappointment - they are exactly like local fairground fried dough, just a different shape.   And I was happy to find that my own fried green tomatoes compare favorably with those of New Orleans.  The crawfish were tasty, but I can't imagine ever having to "peel" the durn things - they are tiny!  Lots smaller than the "crawdads" we catch in northern streams.

I had a lunch at the Commander's Palace, which is supposed to be one of the world's best restaurants.  The food did not impress me, but the choreographed service did.  There were four of us at the table, and for each course, four waiters appeared, and at some silent signal all four placed the food in front of us at exactly the same time.  Stuff like that.

There was a particular restaurant (something like Bennagen?  Berrigan? Battigun?) in the French Quarter where NJ wanted to have a dinner, but she couldn't remember where it was.  So one evening she and I walked - must have been miles! - up and down and back and forth every street, until we were thoroughly lost - and found it.  We'll never find it again!  But she was right - it was wonderful. 

I'd had a few more frustrating encounters with Red-Shirt, and I was telling her about it, when guess who was escorted to the table of five, right next to us!  We whooped with laughter.  She said maybe he's stalking me.  I pointed out that he never shows any kind of recognition when he sees me.  That makes stalking a little hard.  More laughter.

One morning, NJ and I went to the aquarium,  which was about three blocks from the hotel.  Toward the end of our pass through the aquarium, I rounded a corner and was stunned.  It was the first time I had ever seen jellyfish "in the wild" so to speak.  I had seen pictures and videos, and a few very small isolated ones in tanks, but this was the first time I had seen a whole bunch of huge ones, pulsing and undulating up and down, passing each other, transparent, gossamer, unbelievable alive, incredibly beautiful.  It's hard to accept that they really exist.  I was fascinated, and could have stared much longer, but we had to get back for (I think - the timeline is all screwed up in my head) the awards luncheon at the hotel.  Our local newsletter got the small chapter's award for excellence.   (Just incidentally, NJ and I are both past editors.)

NJ also wanted to do some shopping, so there was another afternoon we spent getting lost, eating a delicious dinner in a dive, dropping into antique and jewelry shops by the score, never finding what we were looking for.  We ended up walking along the river in the early evening.  All of New Orleans' streets were unexpectedly clean.  My feet were hurting (for some reason, my little toes rub on the side of the shoe, no matter what I wear), so I took my shoes off and walked barefoot through the riverside park and almost all the way back to the hotel without worrying about my feet, or stepping on/into anything nasty.   That was pleasant.

Oh, almost forgot - at one of the group meals, the breakfast, I think, I actually got to see it for myself!  Zanka auctioned off an ordinary one dollar bill for well over $1000.

~~Silk

#295 Hairy Fish!

I just opened my dinner - the Greek salad I had bought yesterday at the diner, and - ACK! ACK!  - there are four huge strips of anchovies on it!  Big strips of stinky salty hairy fish!  Lying right on it!  Touching it!  All night!  Permeating! ACK!  ACK!

Actually, I like anchovies blended into like salad dressings and sauces, when you don't know they're there, but straight on I can't stand them.

Michaels' stuffed grape leaves are wonderful - so minty - and they use the best olives, and a homemade dressing (probably containing ground-up anchovies) - so I'll eat it and enjoy it.  And I'll remember to take the garbage out this evening, so those hairy fish get GONE!

~~Silk

(Yeah, I know it's not hair, it's bones, but it feels like hair in my mouth - ergo, hairy fish.)

#294 Disappointment

There was a man I had hoped would be at the gathering in New Orleans, and he wasn't.  (I'll call him Guy.)  I knew him from when we had both lived in the DC area, 20+ years ago.  I recently located him again on the internet and in the new Mensa membership roster.  He's living in California.  After I had left Ex#2, Guy had visited me in NY, and I had visited him in DC, but I found I was getting too intense too quickly, and I wasn't ready for that yet, so I had kind of let him drift away by not responding to overtures the way I should have.  He probably thought I'd decided I didn't like him that much, but actually I liked him too much, and I didn't trust my feelings.  By the time I was ready to look him up again, he had moved, and there was no internet then.

In the meantime there was Jay, and that was right and good.

Now, I wonder what stage Guy's life is in.  Maybe....?

But I can't just contact him out of the blue, like, hey, here I am.  I'm emotionally stable now.  Wanna play?  Oh, your wife?  Oops. 

Actually, I don't know what I want to do with him, and that's part of my problem.  It may be just simple curiosity.  What's he like now.  What's he doing.  We used to have some of the most amazing conversations, and I loved the way he made me feel, but I never felt that I knew the real him all that well, and that was part of the problem.  I think I may just want him back as an amazing friend (we have the same birthday). 

So I had hoped he'd just appear in New Orleans, and we could say "Wow", and start on new ground, whatever that ground is.  I guess it's significant that if he's married, it wouldn't bother me, as long as he's happy.  (Well, maybe not significant.  I wasn't jealous of Jay's former wife back when I thought he was happy with her.  Maybe I just want men I like/love to be happy.)

So.  I've got a year now to figure out some way to get him to the world gathering next summer in Orlando without him knowing it's me.

~~Silk

#293 Tremble

Something odd happened yesterday.  I had gone outside (very hot and humid) to trim the pyracantha and hack at some weeds.  With all the sun and all the rain, they were starting to block off the ramp to the front door.  I cleared a path, and then walked down to the mailbox and brought the mail up, took the mail in, and tried to drink some iced tea.

I couldn't get the glass to my mouth.

If I held my hands out in front of me, they were both steady.  If I gripped something lightly, they were steady.  But if I attempted to grip anything tightly with my right hand, it trembled badly, and as I brought it closer to my mouth, it got worse.  The iced tea was sloshing out of the glass.

Very strange.  Left hand was ok.  Right was trembly.  If I concentrated very hard, I could almost stop it.

It probably wasn't muscle tension from trimming the shrub, because I used the big loppers, and both arms get used equally with them.

After a while it calmed down a bit (or I stopped checking it, I don't remember), and I showered and washed my hair, dressed, went to the post office, took the van to Kingston for its (overdue!) inspection, shopped at Bed Bath & Beyond and Barnes & Nobel, and then went to Michael's Diner for a late lunch, and a Greek salad to bring home for today.

I was very surprised - the diner looked so different from what I had remembered.  I asked the hostess when they had redecorated, and she said, "Oh, about 8 years ago."  I was very confused.  Twilight Zone confused.  I'd been in often a year ago, and again only six or eight months ago, after dance class, and it didn't look like this.

Again I had a hard time drinking my water - my right hand shook badly when I tried to pick up the heavy glass.  No problem with the teacup, though.  It seems to be a tight round grip that sets it off.

It was much later that I realized why I was confused.  We didn't go to Michael's after dance class - that was the Texas Diner further down Albany avenue.  On the outside, they look very similar - both brick, entrance on side, P-shaped parking lot, long ramp.  But their locations and surroundings are very different.  Both diners have new names now, but anyone living in this area more than 20 years still uses the old names.  The cole slaw and tea are better at the Texas, but most of the food is better at Michael's.  On the other hand, the old Indian (or Pakistani?  He likes my saris) who owns the Texas flirts with us, and makes us feel appreciated.  Like he sees our real liveliness and beauty where others consider us ordinary. 

So far today my right hand is fine.  I can't even imitate what it was doing yesterday - I can't consciously move it that rapidly (which, by the way, is why I'll never get that fast "finger rattle" on the doumbek).  I don't know what was going on.  If it happens again I suppose I'll have to get it checked.

~~Silk

#292 Subscriptions

I belong to a local Mensa online conversation group.  Someone asked what magazine subscriptions others had.  I found the answers unexpectedly interesting.  Here's my response, copied (almost) verbatim:

Oooo- I'm interested in what subscriptions others have! Looks like a few people might have the same "buried in paper" problem I have, and your subscriptions might say more about the real you than any profile!

My standing subscriptions:
Harper's
The Sun
Smithsonian
Angels on Earth (a Christmas gift from SIL)
Scientific American
National Geographic
National Wildlife
International Wildlife
Natural History
Budget Living (highly recommended)
US News and World Report
Better Homes & Gardens (a hopeful? gift from FIL)
Mensa Journal
Various short story and original writings mags, as they come in and go out of existence
Various special interest newsletters, as interests come and go
TV Guide
Kingston Freeman

The first four I read in their entirety. The next six I scan for articles of interest, and usually actually read about half the mag. BH&G I just look at all the pretty pictures.

I am very interested in any recommendations any of you might have for short story magazines. The dang things keep dying on me, and all I have left now is Harper's, The Sun, and Angels. The first is hard work, the second is depressing, and the last is brain pudding. HELP!

BTW - I also have several years of (very old!) F&SF, Asimov's SF, and Ellery Queen magazines that I'll be looking to get rid of soon. If anyone wants to offer them a new home, let me know.

~~Silk

#291 Life Expectancy

I took this quiz (MSN), and got these results:  "If you continue maintaining healthy habits, you'll want to plan for a maximum life expectancy of 92 years or more."

Your "ideal" weight for maximum longevity is: 127 lbs. [I'd be happy with 135.]

The three biggest positive factors that you have going for you are:
    1. Age
    2. Gender
    3. Diet

The three biggest negative factors that you have going for you are:
    1. Family health
    2. Weight
    3. Smoking

[Does this mean if I lost weight and quit smoking I could make it over 100?  On the other hand, if I quit smoking and still managed to lose weight, then my stress level would shoot up, and the age estimate would drop again.]

Then I took this one (Blogthings):  It got me 79 years.  It says I'm "average".

                                         *********************
Judging by the questions asked, MSN might be more accurate.  Actually, I hadn't really planned on that much more time.  This could get awkward.

~~Silk

Links in this entry:
http://moneycentral.msn.com/investor/calcs/n_expect/main.asp
http://www.blogthings.com/whatagewillyoudiequiz/

#290 Men and Makeup

Just something I've noticed:  men who don't regularly see a woman actually putting makeup on, starting from a bare face, are completely clueless.  They seem to define "makeup" as "red lipstick".  Or in the case of excessively blacked-in eyebrows, as eyebrow pencil.  So if a woman is not wearing bright red lipstick and/or heavy black eyebrows, then, in many male minds, she's not wearing makeup.

I knew a British guy who swore loudly and often, that he'd "never date a woman who wore makeup!"  He thought makeup was terrible.  He wanted someone as clean-faced and natural as his mother.  Then one day he met and fell hard for a woman whom he described as the most naturally pretty woman he'd ever met.  He brought her to a picnic for us to meet.

We almost died laughing.

She wore heavy pancake makeup base, that had caked on her chin and smudged onto her sweater collar.  Rose blusher.  Bright blue eyeshadow, with a thick line of black eyeliner "out to here", top and bottom, and honest-to-gosh haven't-seen-those-things-in-ages false eyelashes!  With a ton of black mascara on them.  She looked like a Vegas showgirl at the end of a bad night.

But she wasn't wearing lipstick.

"It smudges when I kiss."

There's a moral there somewhere....

~~Silk

#289 Another Vocabulary Lesson - Loose/Lose

I've been reading too much online material lately, so much that I have begun to doubt my own use of the words "lose" and "loose".  It seems like almost everyone uses "loose" when writing of having misplaced something, to the point that when I use "lose", I question my choice of the word.  I'm losing? loosing? my grasp on those words!  "Lose", which I learned 59 years ago, has begun to look strange, to have no meaning! 

Listen up, folks!  "Loose" (the "s" is pronounced as "ess") means to FREE something.  "Lose" (the "s" is pronounced as "zee") means to MISPLACE it. 

When you set a dog free from his leash, you LOOSE him.  You loosened his bonds.  You set him loose.  If he runs off and fails to return, you LOSE him.  He is lost.  You suffer a loss.

It might help to associate "loose" with "noose".  Please loose me from this noose.  Loosen the noose.  Otherwise, I am lost.  My family will lose me.

Please, if "lose" looks strange to you, too, look it up in a dictionary.  Help save an important word.

(Insert silent scream here.)

~~Silk

#288 The AG, Part 1 - Getting There

It's more than a week since I've returned from the Mensa Annual Gathering (the "AG") in New Orleans.  Even while I was there, the days all blended together, and I'm beginning to forget even major events, so I guess it's time to document the week, before it's all gone.   Again, this is for me, for diary purposes.  Read on only if you are a glutton for punishment.

I met NJ at the Newburgh airport on the way to N.O.  She tapped me on the back as I was putting newly purchased ID tags on my luggage.  We both screamed and jumped up and down.  Last time I had talked to her, back in maybe April, she said she wasn't going because she couldn't find a flight that didn't involve a multi-hour layover.  She finally found one that had a plane change with a one-hour layover in Cincinnati.  My flight, on a different carrier, left a half-hour later, with a change in Philadelphia, arriving a half-hour after hers.

I had taken three "disposable" cameras.  At the security station, I took them out of the carryon and put them into a little bowl.  As usual, my gate was at the far end.  I walked to the gate.  Then I walked back to pick up the cameras.  Then I ran to the gate. 

In Philadelphia, repeat from "At the security station".

I felt like I had walked to New Orleans.

I hate traveling.  I hate airports.  I hate airplanes.  The Newburgh to Philadelphia (and return) flight was a commuter flight, and the seats were so narrow I couldn't shift my bottom (my feet don't touch the floor), and there was no support for the small of my back.  I stuffed my purse behind my back, but I really worried that it was going to put my back out, and then I'd really be in trouble.  

NJ and I had agreed to meet "at the airport shuttle desk" in New Orleans.  We didn't know that there were seven shuttle desks.

Her flight was delayed about 40 minutes.  Mine was delayed 10 minutes.  Which means we arrived about the same time, at two different gates, at opposite ends of the terminal.  We each then discovered that there were seven shuttle desks.  She shrugged, declared it a lost cause, got on the shuttle, and went to the hotel.  I found out that her flight had been late, so I dragged my bags the length of the terminal inside to ask for her at all seven desks.  Then, since I knew she couldn't go an hour without a cigarette, I dragged my bags back the length of the terminal outside, looking for her.  Then I had to drag them back to her end, because that's where the shuttles left from.  I worried about her, and felt bad leaving without her, but by then it was more than an hour since  we had landed.

I felt like I had walked to the hotel.

I found NJ sitting in the bar in the hotel lobby.

She came to the hotel desk with me while I registered.  I had reserved a luxury room, high up, great view, king-sized bed, smoking, for that night, Wednesday, through the next Monday night.  They had screwed it up, and had me leaving Monday.  I couldn't get that room through 'til Tuesday.  So they put me in a different (smoking) room, smaller, two queen beds, 20 floors lower.  When NJ had made her reservations, there were no smoking rooms left, so when she saw that I was getting one, she asked if she could get one, too.  She got MY luxury room!  At the same group rate!  Because she was leaving Monday!   Whoa!   You can bet that for the next week I didn't let her forget that was MY room!  MY refrigerator!  MY view!  MY bed!  Harumph!

The kicker came when the airlines and trains canceled service Sunday and Monday because of the hurricane, and she couldn't leave until Tuesday, anyway.  The hotel had originally said they couldn't extend any reservations, then changed their minds when reservations were getting canceled because nobody could get into New Orleans, either.   

I coulda had that room!

~~Silk

#287 No Longer a Slave to Linens!

I don't remember how often my mother changed our sheets when we were young.  What I do remember is the roughness (they were starched, dried on a clothesline, and ironed, often by me), and had a seam in the middle.  Sheets wore out in the middle, so my mother used to cut worn-out sheets down the center, and then sew the two sides together on Gramma's machine.  We kids got the seamed sheets.

In college, in the dorms, once a week a clean flat sheet and a pillowcase would be left outside our doors.  We were to move the top sheet on our beds to the bottom, put the new sheet on top, and and put the used bottom sheet and pillowcase outside the door.  The bed had to be made before you left the room.  If you didn't leave a sheet and pillowcase out for laundry, or if the bed wasn't made up, you got a demerit.  Some girls didn't change the bed.  They'd just put the clean sheet back out.  Some went even further, and slept in a sleeping bag on top of the made bed.  No chance of demerits for them!

In my early 20s, I dutifully changed my sheets every week or so. 

Then during the 13 years of marriage to Ex#2 I changed the sheets and mattress pads an average of 5 times a week (he used to sweat buckets at night, plus he had a severe continence problem).   I did laundry almost every day, even when I had a full-time job with excess overtime.

After leaving him, I washed sheets "when they seem to need it".  I was so tired of changing beds and washing linens. 

With Jay, it was again back to once a week or so, but he always helped change the bed, and often helped with laundry, even though I wasn't working.  The last nine months of his illness, I was changing the sheets, pads, and pull sheets on his hospital bed two to five times a day, but I didn't mind.   He wanted to do as much as he could himself, so when he spilled his cereal or juice, it was ok.  Or when he threw up, or didn't ask for the urinal soon enough, or whatever, it was ok.  I just changed the bed again.  It was ok.

Now, there's just me to consider.  I don't remember when I last changed the sheets.  It could have been days or weeks or months ago.  I don't keep track.  Mostly I just change them when there's too much cat hair in the bed.  What the heck - I'm mostly clean when I go to bed.  And it's just me I have to deal with.  I can live with me-ness.

All this came from my recent stay in a hotel.  I told the maid she didn't have to change the sheets until I left.  Changing sheets every day is a waste of energy, water, time....
and totally unnecessary.

I remember ... um ... a member of my family.  She lived in a warm climate, and had three daughters, and a swimming pool.  (Wow.  Good job hiding her identity!)  The girls took showers or baths morning and evening and sometimes in between (their skin's gonna fall off!) and after being in the pool.  They seemed to have an absolute horror of a normal body.  They always used a separate towel for their hair, and they NEVER EVER used a towel twice!  They'd just drop them in a pile on the floor.  By the end of every day,  there were twelve to twenty towels in a soggy pile on the floor, which their mother had to wash.  Every day.  That doesn't include the mother's and father's contributions.

I asked the girls why they didn't hang the towels to dry, so they could reuse them, and they said "Eeeeeuuw!  Those towels are dirty!"   I said "Gee, when I get out of a shower, I'm clean.  You're not?"

All I got for answer was a dirty look.

~~Silk

#286 Storm - Four More Trees Bite the Dust

We had a slambang of a thunderstorm this evening (Monday).  It started with far-off thunder, that got closer and louder as the afternoon wore on.  When the thunder started to shake the house, Miss Thunderfoot headed for the basement.

We got very bad wind before the rain.  The trees in the woods were bent over at right angles in their middles, and those are black locusts.  They don't bend all that easily.  And they weren't whipping.  They bent and stayed that way!

When the rain came, it was so dense I couldn't see the trees at all anymore, and they're only maybe 12 feet from the bathroom windows.

The whole show lasted less than an hour, after which I went out to survey the damage.

Three trees have broken about 15 feet up.  Two of them, a black locust and a wild cherry, have their upper 2/3s lying across the driveway.  The third is the big tree down by the road.  The top half of that one is hanging down its trunk.  (It's too bad it stayed attached at the break.  If it had fallen onto the street, the town would clean it up for free.)  A young locust (maybe 12-14 feet tall) near the bottom of the driveway is partially uprooted and leaning across the driveway.  There are broken branches on the ground all over the yard.

That's just the stuff on the "lawn".  There's probably a lot more trees down in the woods.  I saw some suspiciously open areas in the greenery.

I made a halfhearted attempt to drag the trees off the driveway, but they wouldn't budge.  Doesn't surprise me.  I suspect 30 feet of black locust is rather heavy.   I can still get out, if I have to, by driving across the grass, around the branches, but I'm expecting delivery of a large package soon, and I'm not sure I want the UPS truck on the lawn.  I'm sure if he sees my tracks in the grass, he'll figure he can do it too.  (Hmmm - just realized he probably won't get past the uprooted tree leaning across the drive at the bottom.  Ne'mind....) 

A thought - most of these trees have been here for 80 years or more.  In the first 10 years Jay was in this house, no trees fell.  In the last 10 years, since I moved in, this lot has lost 27 trees (not to mention those damaged, or those that fell in the woods) to wind, or to snow that fell while there were still leaves on the trees.  Is it me and my luck, or has the weather really gotten so screwy?

Oddly enough, I was thinking it was about time to do some trimming and weeding.  Looks like that will be put off for a while, while I wrestle trees.

~~ Silk

#285 To the CarnivAOL!

The first edition of CarnivAOL is up, with pointers to journalers' own favorite entries.  'PLittle' obviously read everything submitted, and individually introduced each and every entry.  Although we much appreciate all the links, I do hope he hasn't bitten off more than he can chew.  I have a feeling this could expand exponentially.... 

~~ Silk

Links in this entry: http://journals.aol.ca/plittle/CarnivAOL/

#284 Sooty Nails

A strange thing happened to my fingernails in New Orleans.  They turned gray. 

I washed and washed them, but they got grayer and grayer as the days passed.  By the time I came home on Tuesday, they looked filthy.  I was so ashamed of them, I kept my fingers bent to keep the nails tucked into the palm.  

On Wednesday morning at home, I brushed them with an old toothbrush and super whitening toothpaste, and they got almost clean.  (If that hadn't done it, I was prepared to use bleach, even if it would make them brittle.  Better gone than ugly....)

Then I ran my fingers through my hair.  I run my fingers through my hair a lot - it's a habit.   My fingernails immediately turned gray again!  Whatever crud was causing it was in my hair! 

When I was travelling with The Company, in NYC I'd get grit on the scalp, and have to brush my hair hard every evening.  In Chicago, it was an oily deposit, and I'd have to wash my hair every other day (as opposed to my usual 3-5 days between washings).  It's been at least a decade since I'd spent any time in a city, and I'd forgotten how bad the air can be.  The New Orleans gunk seems to be like soot.  Yuck!

It explains why I started sneezing as soon as I got off the plane, and didn't stop until I got home.  I sneezed two or three times an hour the whole time I was in N.O.  I'm not normally a sneezer.

To think people actually breathe that gunk, all day every day, and don't even notice!  (And this is coming from a smoker!)

I guess I'm a country mouse.

~~ Silk

#283 Weekend Assignment #68:Viva la France!

Scalzi's Weekend Assignment #68:  Take a moment to appreciate something French. Tell us about that French thing you most appreciate. It could be anything, from a particular French wine to your favorite French filmmaker to the fact they like Jerry Lewis more than we.

It has to be Mont Saint-Michel, one of my favorite places.  The photos are from the first several hits on a Yahoo search, almost all tourism sites, so I'm sure they won't mind my using them to extoll the virtues of the place.

Mont Saint-Michel is a tiny (a half-mile in diameter) rock island off the coast of France.  During low tide, the island is surrounded by sand, and the edge of the sea is so far away you can't see it.  Twice a day, the tide comes in at faster than 3 feet per second, and at high tide, there's about 45 feet of water surrounding the island.   Jay and I had walked on the sand during low tide, after consulting the tide tables posted at the gates.  (It wasn't until I visited the tourist sites looking for photos that I found out that every year, people die in the quicksand out there!  Ouch!  Nobody mentioned quicksand to us....) 

There's an interesting abbey at the peak, and a village climbs the rock all around.  This isn't a place you want to visit for a few hours from the mainland.  The best way is to stay at least two nights in a B&B on the island.  At night, it becomes quiet and magical.

~~Silk

Links in this entry: http://journals.aol.com/johnmscalzi/bytheway/entries/4425

Photos from and other information at:  http://www.normandy-tourism.org/gb/02ville/M/MtStMichel.html ; http://www.monum.fr/m_stmichel/visite/index.dml?lang=en ; http://xenophongroup.com/montjoie/st-mont.htm ; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mont_Saint_Michel ; http://www.le-mont-saint-michel.org/ ; http://www.virtualtourist.com/travel/Europe/France/Basse_Normandie/Mont_Saint_Michel-2271913/TravelGuide-Mont_Saint_Michel.html

#282 Shooting BBs

(Later edit: I put something in here that was told to me in confidence, and no matter how annoyed I am, if I keep doing that, no body will ever tell me anything.  So I've deleted those bits.  You'll notice where.)

Well, I'm back from New Orleans.  I have all kinds of mixed feelings about the trip, so I'll have to wait a while to write about that.  But there's one thing that I am so very steamed about, and I'm not likely to get past it until I express it, so here goes.  Daughter, this concerns a mutual friend, and it's likely to tick you off, so stop here.  For anyone else reading, it will be boring.  This is for me only.  Once I write it, I can release it.

I'm really tired of BB. 

She organizes the gift-wrapping at the Barnes & Nobel every Christmas, donations to go to the Mensa scholarship fund.  That's good of her.  It's an hour and fifteen minute drive for me, so to avoid the rush hour traffic, every year for the past four years I have volunteered to arrive at 11 am, and stay until closing at 10 pm.  Note that it has also snowed every one of those days!  Last year was literally a blizzard.  Everyone else volunteers for a two to four hour slot.  There are supposed to be a minimum of two people at the wrapping table at all times.  BB has difficulty getting people for the 9 am to 11 am slot, so she has the nerve to be pissed at me because I won't commit to earlier than 11 am!   Note that she never gets up before noon

She always shows up late for her own slot, late in the afternoon, forcing someone else to stay an hour or more later than their commitment.  Then, she wraps the packages so sloppily that the rest of us are embarrassed to accept a donation.  I'm sure most of the packages she wraps get rewrapped by the customer later.  Several of us have tried over and over to show her how to make creased corners, but she refuses to pay attention, and she continues to scrunch the paper and bunch it at the ends, and then uses yards of tape to hold the mess together.   Books end up wrinkled loose trapezoids.  That isn't easy.  She also will wrap a book using three or more taped-together scraps of paper (patterns NOT matched).  We'll tell her to use a new piece cut to size.  She'll say she's trying to conserve.  We'll say "We can use the small scraps on small packages", but she won't listen.  My God, Woman!  These are customers!  Not relatives!

There's one other woman who has persevered through the years, who also stays for most of the day, and she just moved out of the area.  We two were the backbone of the wrapping operation.  I think I shall not volunteer this year.  As much as I enjoy the wrapping, I simply cannot watch BB wrap one more package.  She's going to be very angry with me, but too bad.  She's a slob.

As I mentioned, she never gets up before noon.  She can't get to sleep before dawn.   She's been whining about this "sleep problem" for all of the two decades I've known her.  I have now, finally, concluded that she won't do anything to correct it because it's convenient for her - this way, since her husband goes to bed at a reasonable hour and gets up early to go to work, she can easily (...deleted...).   And her husband is not the type to insist.  She's gonna be in big trouble if he ever goes on shifts, or retires!

She and her husband (one of the nicest sweetest nerds you'll ever meet) were in New Orleans.   He did the morning tours alone.

I talked with her on Wednesday, while I was doing my volunteer stint at the registration desk.  I talked again with her Thursday outside the hospitality room.  And again on Saturday, after the banquet.  I was wearing my green sari, and she commented on it.  She was telling some woman about how she teaches bellydance in the county adult education program (which ticked me off!  She is extremely poor technically - jerky hip thrusts, no grace, she's a COW! - one of those people who took a few classes twenty years ago and thinks she knows enough, and is now ruining some potentially good beginners.  I'd dearly love to sign up for one of her classes and find out for sure exactly how bad it is.  (Hmmm.  I just realized I KNOW the women who have been teaching the Ulster county classes, and none of them are her!))   Anyhow, I spent most of my time in the company of NJ, and NJ and BB absolutely hate each other.  So it wasn't until Sunday that I spent any amount of real time with BB.

NJ was tired Sunday and went to bed early.  I went down to the lobby to see if there were any dinner groups forming, and found BB's husband sitting with two other guys.  They were planning to go somewhere for dinner, so I asked if I could go along.  Pretty soon BB and another woman arrived with some restaurant flyers.  BB was surprised to see me - having not seen me since my stint at the registration desk!  Huh?  Did I make that fleeting an impression Thursday and Saturday?

For the next 90 minutes, she and the other woman read brochures at us.  They couldn't decide where to go for dinner.  I couldn't believe it.  As 9 pm approached, I finally said hey, let's just cross the street into the French Quarter and follow our noses.  Almost any place is bound to be good.

We ended up going to a place on the English side.  It was listed in their brochure as a tourist trap.  Therefore it must be good?  I didn't get the logic, but it was too late for me to be on the street alone, so I had no choice.  We met a waitress coming out for a cigarette as we were going in, and one of the guys asked her what was good, and she wrinkled her nose and said "You don't want to eat here."  The others panicked.  I just figured she wanted to go home soon, it was less than an hour to closing and she didn't want to start over with us.  Anyway, we ended up at the buffet at Harrah's Casino.  Disgusting.  After all that discussion, and wonderful food in the Quarter, we end up at a place that looks exactly like the Chinese buffets in every strip mall on the east coast. 

When we were in the hotel lobby, BB had been saying that she was extremely sensitive to cigarette smoke (so why did she choose to sit in the smoking section?) and said that some of her coworkers at the library go outside to smoke, and the smoke on their clothes when they come back in has actually caused her to faint three times in the past week.  Oooo, such sympathy that got.  Her husband was very concerned.  So we got to the casino, and the tobacco smoke was so dense you couldn't see the length of the room.  BB announced to the buffet cashier that she must be allowed into the "Private Dining Room", because she is so very sensitive to the smoke drifting into the main dining area.  So that's where we ate.  She's got to be at least 250 pounds now, likely a lot more, and I was disgusted that when desert time came, she went off to the buffet and returned with like seven desserts!

During dinner, the other couple was talking about the finer points of gambling, and BB got interested.  After dinner, they all, including BB, headed off into the interior of the huge room with all the slot machines.  Now, I am a 40-year smoker.  But the smoke was so dense in the casino that my eyes started to burn and water, and I started sneezing.  BB was oblivious to the smoke, and was excitedly hopping from machine to machine.  She didn't look anywhere near fainting. 

There had to be a thousand machines, all of which made noise, and all the noise blended together into one loud fractured constant chord that hurt my ears.  I stood the noise and the smoke as long as I could, then I told BB's husband that I was going to have to leave because "the smoke is really burning my eyes, I can't take it any longer."   I hope he understood what else I was saying.  As I walked away, I heard him say to the other couple that I was leaving because of the smoke, and they all turned to look speculatively at BB, who was happily burbling away.  I hope they didn't say anything to her.  Then she'd have had to fake a faint and it might have ruined her evening. Tsk.

I think BB feeds him, and all the rest of us, a constant load of BS, anything that makes life easy or exciting for her, whatever will get her what she wants.  She doesn't have problems when it's not convenient.  (I noticed that she was able to get up in time for the Friday Awards Luncheon, where she collected an award for the newsletter editor, who was unable to attend, even though there were four other people present from our local group who normally get up before noon who could have gone up to receive the award.)  Woe to anyone who corrects or exposes her.  I'm sure, having pointed out that the casino smoke was too much for even me, I am now on her sh*t list.  And it's time someone clued her husband in.  He's too nice and too naive to have to put up with her crap.

(He'd never leave her.  Besides his niceness, she has him convinced that she is emotionally fragile - which she also had made no effort to do anything about.  I just wish he'd look her in the eye and demand an end to the crap.)

At one time we were friends.  I helped them move into their new house about 8 years ago, and stripped the built-in cabinets for them.  She confided in me that (...deleted...), and that when she and husband first got together, they agreed that she would do NO housework.  Of course, that was when she also  worked full time.  Now her "sleep problems" preclude a real job (and ...deleted...), but she still does no housework.  Their house is unbelievable.   I was shocked to find that she opens the little pull-tab cans of cat food, and then puts the can down for the cats to eat out of  as best they can.  They must have leather tongues.  But she's not about to wash cat dishes.  And I'm really tired of hearing about her menopausal symptoms.  They started about 12 years ago when I first mentioned mine, and they are still going on for her.  Somebody should tell her that eventually it stops, dang it!

I had always thought NJ was too hard on her - they have bumped heads over Mensa issues in the past - but now I think NJ is right.  BB is a manipulator, an attention-grabber, a credit-hound, and a drama queen.  I've really had it with her.  Finally.

The reason I'm having so much trouble is that I once liked her, and it's hard to give that up.  Also, this much personally-aimed nasty feeling doesn't fit my self-image.

~~ Silk

#281 Yawn.................

I keep saying this, and it's like no one believes me:  I am writing in this thing for me.  Only me.  I am making no attempt whatsoever to make it interesting to anyone other than me.  I mean, hey, I named it after a pile of rocks! 

Daughter checks it daily to make sure I'm ok, but I don't expect even her to read everything.  (First clue - if it's  more than a screen long, RUN!)

I discovered a long time ago that if there's something kicking around in my head, simply writing it down gets rid of it.  It's like the paper (or virtual "paper") serves as secondary brain storage.  Gives a different meaning to "out of sight out of mind."  Amazing how well it works.

It's also a diary.  If I need to know when was the last time I whatevered, I can check the hardcopy and find out.

I don't care if anyone else makes the effort to read it  (and yes, it can be an effort, because it is of interest only to me).  That's not the point of it.  I'm not looking for readers, or approval, or affection, or whatever it is that many other people who do write for readers are looking for.

I am amusing myself.

So why don't I take it private?  Because you are welcome to visit my virtual kitchen anytime, but if I'm scrubbing pots at the time, I expect you to quietly sip your tea and let me continue scrubbing pots.  I'm not going to lock the door just because I'm scrubbing pots.  Anyone can visit.  If you want to be entertained, go next door.  If you're interested in how I scrub pots, stay, and welcome.  We might accidentally learn something.
 
                                                 *********************
I will probably not be updating for the next 10 days or so.  Arrangements have been made for Miss Thunderfoot and the lawn, perishables have been eaten, mail will be  held, valuables have been stored, comfy clothes have been hemmed, house will be boobytrapped, and I'll be off.

~~ Silk

#280 Two Spam Lists

I had been feeling terribly neglected because I'd never received one of those "Nigerian Letter" emails that we've been hearing about for years.  Wassa matter?  I'm not honest or compassionate enough to attract the attention of a scammer?

Well, some website that I went to maybe four weeks ago must have got me on the list.  I've been getting various forms of the letter at the rate of three or so a week lately.  It's always the widow of some government official killed by rebels in some revolting country who needs help getting hundreds of millions of dollars out of some secure account, anonymously.  

Even if I were stupid enough (or greedy enough) to respond, I wouldn't, because I'd wonder how a hated government official in an unstable African country amassed that much money anyway, and why did it have to be hidden?  It's likely dirty money, taken from the mouths of starving babies, and I don't want it, and "I'm not going to help you get it, either, lady."

Oooo, I'm such a prig!

Speaking of lists, when I sold the Highland house, the new buyers couldn't get a conventional mortgage because the house wasn't finished yet, and they couldn't get an occupancy permit.  They'd have had to get a construction loan, which would have been much more expensive.  So I offered to carry a private mortgage for them, for 1% more than the going bank rate but less than half the construction rate, until they finished the interior and could get a bank mortgage.  (That extra 1% was to encourage them to switch to a bank loan as soon as possible.)

That was August 2002, and they paid me off in full in April of 2003 (which was sad, because I was getting used to that nice check every month).   However, every month since September 2002,  I get from three to five (snail mail) offers from various mortgage companies offering to buy the private mortgage.  I thought it would taper off after a few months, but it hasn't.  I'm still getting getting three to five offers a month, more than two years after it was paid off.

The loan companies offer to buy the mortgage from the holder for, say, 90% of its face value.  The letters they send sound like you are in great danger of the borrower defaulting, and then you will get nothing, whereas if they buy it from you, they assume the "risk", and you "get the money (90% of it, anyway) immediately".  

What they don't tell you is that if you hold a 30-year note for say $100,000 at say 6%, over the course of that 30 years you will receive, well, I'm not going to figure it out, but let's just say it's a heck of a lot, like several times the value of the initial loan.  And if the borrower craps out, you won't lose any money because you could foreclose, and you don't have to sell the house for more than the balance of the loan.  Auctioning a $260,000 house for an opening bid of $100,000 shouldn't be hard.  So there's really not much risk.  For the mortgage companies, buying a private mortgage at 90% is a great deal.

So I thought I was on a list somewhere, maybe a list that the county puts out.  I thought I would eventually "age out" of the list.  Last week I called one of the letter-senders, and begged them to tell me how to get off the list.  I mean, I have to PAY for garbage collection!  They said there's no list. 

Then I saw the infomercial.  The one that tells you how you can make a gazillion dollars a year putting mortgage companies in touch with private mortgage holders.  This is how it works - you troll the county records looking for private mortgages.  Then you alert banks and loan companies to the existence of that loan.  If the bank buys a $100,000 paper for $90,000, then you (the troller) get a few thousand, too.  

The fact that my loan has a higher interest rate than most, and the house is appraised for so much more than the balance, apparently makes this one so attractive to the trollers that they get too excited to notice that it's been paid off.  I'm on not one list, but a hundred lists.  Or a thousand lists.  However many trollers there are.  Since it was a 30-year mortgage, and the trollers aren't very smart, They'll likely keep me on their lists, and keep trying.  I may be getting these letters for umpteen more years, and there's apparently nothing I can do to stop it.

Can I sue somebody for harassment?  The woman at the mortgage company I called said that if I tell a company not to send me any more letters, then they are supposed to respect that.  But I'd have to tell each company individually.  I wonder how many mortgage companies there are?  So far, I count at least 150. I'm sure the trollers know of more.

Maybe I could sue the infomercial people....

~~Silk