Traveling again

I’m going to Arizona again tomorrow, for a week, for another of those ‘significant’ birthdays – my mother’s. This is not without considerable angst over leaving Mark to fend for himself, leaving the cats to their uncertainty all day long, and actually getting to airports on time in unknown Seattle traffic. I’m a nervous traveler. I’ve probably mentioned that before.

But as always I’m looking forward to being there. I have a great family – besides my mother, I have 2 sisters and a brother, all of whom have become dear friends, along with their respective spouses, over the years – and I really enjoy their company. All the nieces and nephews are sufficiently quirky to be fun to be around. And there’s Daisy, of course – the golden retriever. We’ll bop around the family compound in the golf cart and have a grand time.

Still, there is the airport to face before I get there.

And there will be a lapse in blog entries. Just so you know.

Rain

If anyone has been following the weather in the Northwest you may have noticed that we are having Rain – with a capital “R.” And maybe even all-caps, with exclamation points. In bold print. Italicized.

It’s really RAINING!! The kind of rain that makes you wish you knew how to build in cubits.

When you don’t have to be out in it, a rainy day is wonderful. It’s gloomy and dark; the rain sounds nearly drown out anything else. It’s almost like being snow-bound in a blizzard, except that I really could go out if I needed to. But I don’t. So I am sitting here looking out the window and wondering about the inequity of it all, and marveling at its beauty.

Rainy days at home make me want to bake cookies or watch a schmaltzy movie or take a nap all curled up in one of my Pendleton wool blankets, with my cats on top.

Sigh.

A new link on this page

Since Mark is using my computer just now too, my list of "Favorites" on my computer has grown to where I can't find anything anymore, and it occurred to me that I could put a link to the "Donate a Mammogram" site on the blog - so I did. Now it will be easy for me to click on that site daily after I check my blog publishing - and I hope I made it easier for others as well.

Dear Martha,

I see that you’ve created a list, “Martha’s top 30 how-tos.” In my new issue of Martha Stewart Living it is described as ‘the 30 things everyone should know.” Leaving aside the fact that they are actually things ‘to do’ rather than ‘to know’ (presumably English conventions aren’t among them) the list still falls short, in my mind.

Although ‘create a home safety kit’ (#1) and ‘tie a bow tie and necktie’ (#2) are also high on my list, as I’m sure they are on everyone’s, I do notice an absence of things like ‘get a job’ and ‘drive safely’ and ‘balance your checkbook.’ I wasn’t disappointed to see ‘whip up an omelet’ – in that exact wording, of course, but I have to point out that devoting 2 items of what appears to be a well-honed list to ‘turkey’ seems, well, irresponsible. ‘Carve a turkey’ comes in at #15 and ‘Prepare a roast turkey’ comes in at #16. Irresponsible, Martha.

But I guess I really have to wonder at #8 – Make a Bolognese sauce and #30 – Put together a crudité platter. I've gotten along in life just fine without even knowing what these are! Of course I don't run in YOUR circles... But then who does?

(Evidently you can download a how-to booklet and view video clips on the website, marthastewart.com - no link provided - we can't encourage this stuff.)

Happy Birthday, Judy!

Spring?

I saw the first signs of Spring as I was walking to the mail place today – dandelions sprouting, and some bulbs popping up, and some green showing on the shrubbery, and swelling of the buds on the rhodies – wow!

I do this to myself every year. Look for the small signs and delight in their promise – even though that ‘promise’ is still really months away. I spent so many years in Alaska where there was no sign of life in nature for 8 months out of the year that I am easily encouraged by a dandelion sprig.

Hey, at this point I need all the encouragement I can get.

Customer Service

I’ve been doing ‘recreational’ shopping this week – not because I need anything in particular, but just because I’m trying to improve my outlook. I wouldn’t say it’s been a stand-up success.

Actually, I’m looking for jeans – which is probably my mistake. (My sister once said she’d rather give birth than go to the dentist – and that sort of captures my feelings about buying either jeans or underwear – at least I’m not foolish enough to attempt the latter.) I probably should have fortified myself somehow for the task, instead of using the task to fortify me from other travails. Be that as it may, I’ve had a chance to observe ‘customer service’ (and I put that in quotes for a reason) and am dismayed.

Now I’m not exactly fit and trim, but I’m not the fat lady at the circus either. I wear rather mundane sizes in the double digits – not unlike a huge percentage of the female population in this country who actually have enough money to shop for clothing. I don’t have to have special sizes, or tent fabric. I don’t generally shop in specialty stores for the well-endowed. But today I actually had a salesperson tell me they don’t have anything my size in their store. Sort of a “Julia Roberts – Pretty Woman – Nasty-Salesgirl-on-Rodeo-Drive moment.” At Dress Barn, of all places. Doesn’t “Dress Barn” evoke images of substantial size? Not the case, I was informed. I’d never been in a “Dress Barn” before, preferring Nordstrom’s or Macy’s or Coldwater Creek. I was ‘slumming’ at Dress Barn, I thought. Never again. It is interesting to note that there were NO other customers in the store, probably because everyone else in the mall was my size or bigger. (But now I’m just being mean.)

On the other hand, the young woman at Eddie Bauer was very helpful. I have to remind myself that the glass isn’t always half empty. There IS some light in the world.

But more often than not I seem to encounter apathy, disinterest, delays, confusion, and downright incompetence in the people I interact with in stores, aside from the outright rude. (And my husband wonders why I don’t just ‘ask someone’ when I can’t find what I am looking for...) I had formal and extensive customer service training when I started my first full-time job years ago. It included such topics as not keeping people waiting, being courteous, using appropriate vocabulary, being knowledgeable and reliable, and giving people ‘the straight scoop.’ The-customer-is-always-right sort of thing. I guess we don’t bother with training any longer.

But even without training – why wouldn’t people just automatically treat others as they would like to be treated themselves?

Screwed up again

I just re-read my last post and realized that I put it up without the spell check again and left a few key letters out of ‘claustrophobic.’ Why doesn’t someone tell me about these things?

Disconcerting

I've been neglecting my blog for a few days - not because I forgot about it, but because I am in a slump and don't have anything to say again. This has happened before, of course, but is always disconcerting to me.

Let's face it - I'm not happy at the moment. I hate uncertainty and, faced with it, have a strong tendency to 'doom and gloom.' We left Kentucky almost 2 months ago and our house, with all our furniture and possessions still in it, is yet unsold and we are still living in a little apartment with rented furniture and towels. I want to 'get on with it' and can't. The house has to be sold before any 'next step' can be taken. I want a new 'plan' and have no way to make one.

And I'm going bonkers.

I'm worried. I'm bored. I'm anxious. I'm claustrophobic, while at the same time uncomfortable going out where I keep getting lost. I'm just 'biding time' and know that isn't my strong suit. I need some action, a project, a direction, a goal that is actually under my own control.

Whew! There's nothing like being whinney and self-pitying to really get over the top, is there? Sorry. It's just all very disconcerting. Maybe tomorrow will be better.

A few thoughts on Getting Older

Try not to.

I know. That's only one thought. But it's mostly what I have. The flip response, that "getting old is better than the alternative," is probably from people who are less observant, and insensitive to change. And the other quote most often heard on the subject - "I still have everything I've always had, only 3 inches lower" - isn't any more comforting. In fact, it is basically the problem.

Sagging, slowing down, getting shorter, losing hair, losing muscle tone, getting spottier and 'wrinkle-ier', and less likely to do anything interesting on a weekend night is quite a bit to look forward to. Fortunately our eyesight also diminishes so we are less likely to notice our deteriorating condition. An older friend confided in me once that about the time her eyebrows were thinning out too much, she also couldn't see anything close up without reading glasses and couldn't pluck the strays even if they were there - a fair compensation, I'd say. Another friend was always out of bed at some ungodly hour each morning, not because he wouldn't have enjoyed sleeping in, but because everything hurt too much to say in bed. I'd say that was pretty sad.

And that's pretty much where I am. When Bed isn't comfortable anymore, well, what's a body to do?

Sweetness

I succumbed to terrible weakness yesterday – bought bakery cupcakes. We’ve been missing the ‘opportunity’ to bake and have sweet goodies, not because we always HAVE them, but because we always COULD have them, if we wanted them, but now, in our makeshift kitchen, we really can’t. (Did that make sense? Do I sound like Carol Bartz from Autodesk? See yesterday’s posting…) While dessert isn’t usually on our evening menu, the fact that it really can’t be is bugging us. (Well, me, anyway.)

So I bought cupcakes. Frosted cupcakes. Heavily frosted cupcakes, actually.

And this brought me to wondering about Sweetness and its relative loss in the sophisticated 21st century palate. My bakery cupcakes were frosted with the old fashioned ‘bakery icing’ that I’ve always loved; the kind that is so sweet it almost makes your teeth hurt. Wonderful stuff. You don’t get that very much any more. Now you are most likely to get something that is whipped cream with a little bit of sweetener in it – hardly able to stand up to the cupcake.

For me, the sweeter, the better.

I’m terribly outdated from the food trends of the decade. Read today’s restaurant dessert menu and you are likely to find description of desserts that celebrate their lack of sweetness. Magazine recipes focus on custardy, fruity things. Wedding cakes seem to be specifically designed not to be sweet. I fear for our future.

What is wrong with these people?

Quotable Quotes

Sorry, but I really got the giggles yesterday about this quote, from Autodesk Inc. Chairman and Chief Executive Carol Bartz, announcing her retirement:

"I feel great having been able to have been a leader in that way and doing what I can to be as much an inspiration or do whatever I can for women."

Huh?

I bet she was great on ‘leadership.’ And God bless the journalist who couldn't resist taking down the exact quote and reporting it.

And while we're on the subject of news quotes, yesterday’s news also had this gem: “This takes organ donors to a new height, to a new low, maybe. How much is a piece of me worth?” -- William Shatner, donating, to Habitat for Humanity, proceeds from the sale of a kidney stone he passed last fall. (Yes, someone bought it – the same folks who picked up the half eaten grilled cheese sandwich that looked like the Virgin Mary.)

Thinking Big

I was just captivated by the story in the news about NASA’s Stardust space capsule that returned to earth on Sunday after a 7-year, 3 billion mile trip to collect interstellar dust and comet samples. Imagine what it would take just to envision such a mission – and then to work out all the details, build and launch the thing and then sit around and wait for 7 years for it to come back. Now, of course, there are years of scientific investigation just getting started as NASA reviews the ‘harvest’ that was collected. What a project! Talk about 'Thinking Big!'

And all for Space Dust. The debris of the millennia.

Who could have thought, in the first place, that collecting it would help us understand our origins? What sorts of minds developed the mathematics and the physics and the propulsion? The optics and the engineering and the processes and the materials? Who could have put all the details together to make this happen? Somebody managed to get it up there in the first place… and then somebody got it safely down again! Intact!! Who thought of all the potential problems and then solved them? Who had the faith to push it through, and who had the guts to try?

Amazing, that such minds can develop; that people can think THAT big.

Birthdays

Today is my brother’s 50th birthday. He thought it was going to be ‘low key’ without all the ‘over the hill’ jokes, no doubt. Sorry – I blew your cover, dear brother. Happy Birthday!

Years ago my father hired a whole billboard ad to announce to the world a friend’s major ‘getting older’ birthday. And a friend of mine once took out an ad in the local small town paper when another friend hit one of those – it said “Lordy, Lordy, Jean Brown is 40.”

What is it about birthdays that brings out such mischief?

Seattle's Market

The little break in Seattle rains brought us back to Pike’s Place Market yesterday. The flowers, the fish, the arrays of jellies and jams, vegetables, nuts and honey, paintings, pottery, jewelry, candy – all just put a smile on my face. Fish vendors are chanting and throwing fish, street musicians are plying their trade on every corner. Cinnamon rolls entice with their smell. What a happy place! And I didn’t get a single decent picture. But these will have to do – to give you an ‘impression’ of the day.

The Dog Show

I was watching the Eukanuba Dog Show on Animal Planet last night and all I can say about dogs is this: they are ridiculous. Wonderfully so. Their enthusiasm knows no bounds. They are so KEEN on everything. Bright eyes, wagging tails; attentive and earnest. Ridiculous.

Dog handlers, of course, are ridiculous in their own right – and it is here, with the handlers, where The Watching Of Dog Shows becomes truly entertaining. Handlers are usually completely inappropriately dressed (and don’t even get me started on the judges in this regard) for the task at hand – running with their dogs to show off the breed’s best gait. (Which invariably isn’t the handlers’ best gait.) It’s very hard to watch the dog when you have some heavyweight dowager in gold brocade and sensible shoes trying to run next to him. Very hard. There is entirely too much stuff bouncing up and down. And these are people who have devoted their lives to an individual dog that they train with, and groom, and fuss over. So how do they manage to misjudge how tall the dog is and hold the lead up so high that the poor dog, trying so hard to do his best, is forced to run with his head and neck cocked at an odd angle? And what do handlers have in their mouths that they keep passing on to their dogs in tiny bits? Yuck. Between that and the business with having to constantly hold up the dog’s tail, Handler isn’t a job I think I’d want. (Besides, I don’t own any gold brocade and wouldn’t know where to get any.)

The Best in Show judge is also fun to watch – and has to have the easiest job. There is obviously NO criteria by which a logical or informed decision can be made. So the job must be to simply stay upright long enough to go through the paces with each dog/handler and then point randomly at 4 of them at the end. It is all a matter of appearing to judge, since there is no real basis for judging the best dog of 7 or 8 completely different breeds. Just listen to the explanation that the announcer is trying to give of the process if you don’t think this is true. And watch the judge’s expression, of course.

Great entertainment.

Housekeeping

We really screwed up with housekeeping yesterday – it was our turn, and we weren’t ready. Frik didn’t manage to get to his ‘safe place’, Maddie got stuck under the bed again, and I was still brushing my teeth! Good grief. I was having to do all this cleaning up before they came – you can’t have housekeeping coming in to a dirty ‘house’ after all. And, honestly, I’d gotten hung up on writing on my blog and wasn’t paying attention to the fact that the morning was wearing away. Oh well. We survived. Frik made a desperate dash and managed to get to the space above the cabinets in the kitchen. Maddie soon saw her opportunity and followed. Housekeeping banged around and swept through like a tornado and we were finally left in peace again. To ponder, as it were. Poor Frik. But he’s safe for another 2 weeks.

Givers and Takers

My husband sent me a posting this morning from some 'newsgroup' that I can't trace back and couldn't credit if I had to, but I'm going to share the gist of it because it was 'thought provoking.' The article referred to the incredible blizzard suffered by the northern states - the Dakota's mostly - in early December.

We drove through the aftermath of this storm on our trip. We saw the miles of power line down because the poles had simply snapped in half from the strength of the wind and the weight of the ice on the lines. There had to have been a lot of people without power in that incredibly cold place. As we drove along the highway, we saw crews working on the lines, but there wasn't much progress to make - the ground was too frozen to put new poles in and there was simply so much territory to cover.

It was a devastating storm, the likes of which hadn't been seen before, even in this extreme country. It was a 'Category 5' sort of storm, "a historic blizzard of up to 44" of snow and winds to 90 MPH that broke trees in half, knocked down utility poles, stranded hundreds of motorists in lethal snow banks, closed ALL roads, isolated scores of communities and and cut power to 10's of thousands."

The article simply pointed out that nobody blamed the government. FEMA didn't even show up. And nobody demanded that they be provided with a cruise ship or replacement home to live in. Vouchers weren't issued. Geraldo Rivera didn't come, and CNN didn't place reporters every 10 miles to interview the 'victims.' (For that matter, Pat Robertson didn't tell them they deserved it either!) No one in Hollywood held a benefit concert. The people just cranked up their wood stoves, took in neighbors and strangers, dropped everything to search for stranded travelers, took care of their livestock, kept their children close and safe, and generally solved their problems and carried on as best they could. It wasn't a matter of hours or even days to make things right again - they are still working on it.

There are 'givers' and there are 'takers' in this world. There are problem solvers and there are complainers. Which is our government fostering? Which is our education system trying to produce? Which does our media celebrate?

A little extra time

I had to stay in bed a little longer this morning because Frik suddenly, and generously, decided to spend some time with me there. He came rushing into the room, bounced once on the bottom of the bed and before I knew it had settled on my chest and was purring into my face. Now that’s a lot of cat to have pressing down on one’s vitals, but the protocol is to be still and enjoy his company, so that’s what I did. And had a better morning for it.

Sometimes you just have to adjust your plans and go with the opportunities that present themselves.

Haircut hassles, and other ‘moving’ inconveniences

I was SO congratulating myself in Kentucky for finally finding someone who could do a great haircut – and now I am searching again. We need a new doctor, a dentist, an eye care provider, a pharmacist and a veterinarian. We need someplace for oil changes and a grocery store that has the right brands and varieties we are used to. This moving business is complicated.

So I found a beauty salon at random in the phone book – listed at a place I actually thought I could find – and called to ask if they might have someone who could do a good job cutting thin, fine, straight hair. A very ‘Chinese’ lady assured me “don’t worry – we fix you up good.” Not that this comment was immediately inspiring, but, in fact, she seems to have done so. Well, actually the jury’s still out on that, but I’ve tucked her business card away for the next time and will hope the result is worth it.

Finding a doctor has a different set of criteria, of course. I simply want an MD who can speak English sufficiently to understand and communicate medical information. You wouldn’t think that would be so hard a bill to fill, would you? Wrong.

I can’t wait to start looking for a vet.

We got a referral to a dentist in California when we first moved there and we loved them – the whole office staff, the dentist and hygienist… and they even had Architectural Digest in the waiting room. What more could you want? But somehow, after my first visit there, I still had the latest issue of their ‘waiting room’ magazine in my hands when I left their building, not realizing I had it. (I usually bring my own reading material – never wanting to be without, of course.) When I got home and saw that I had it, I called them right back to apologize and let them know I’d bring it back in the morning. I told the receptionist I was so embarrassed. “You were so nice to me and then I stole your magazine!” She laughed and asked which magazine it was and when I told her she said it was OK – as long as I hadn’t walked off with Soap Opera Digest they’d forgive and forget. I had a great time with them every time I had an appointment after that.

More adventures await, I guess.

Just a ‘Marker’ for me

This is a posting more for myself than anyone else – I’m just marking my 200th posting and recording other ‘blog statistics’: 6 months in ‘Archives’, 187 comments and 2385 hits since the counter went in.

Walking in the Rain

It rained all day yesterday and we finally decided last night to brave it and walk to the mailbox (about 2 miles, maybe) anyway. On the way back we were waiting at an intersection for the ‘walk’ light, standing under a bright streetlight, holding up our golf umbrellas, shining our flashlight forward, and when the light changed we started across the street. Unfortunately the lady in the big Lexus SUV who was turning left across our crosswalk decided to go as well. Mark was ahead of me and she went right for him! I screamed, he yelled, she kept coming. He pointed his light at her, she kept coming but slightly altered her course, causing the people in the car waiting behind the crosswalk for the light in the other direction to duck their heads down. I kept yelling, she kept coming, Mark jumped out of the way and she headed for me. By the time she reached me she had at least slowed down – and I started pummeling the roof of her car with my umbrella.

I’m not sure what made me do that – “Don’t threaten me and mine” I guess – but she sure was surprised. So was Mark. He laughed at me all the way home.

Did she just not see us – lights and umbrellas and all? Was she just in a hurry anyway? She surely saw us at some point before she almost ran us down but she didn’t really seem inclined to stop anyway. But mostly, what did she think of a nearly-little-old-lady beating her up with an umbrella? We’ll never know. She didn’t stop.

‘Tis the Season

I received my “e-organizer” from my tax preparer this morning. If I didn’t HAVE a tax preparer, I would probably have already received my tax forms from the IRS directly. In any case, it’s a sure sign - it’s tax season. Oh goody.

(It is also, incidentally, Sweepstakes season and white-sale season and exercise-mania season, but those all pale in comparison.)

I have a fantasy about taxes – that we should all be able to designate our own allocated amount of taxes to those parts of government service we feel best serve our own philosophy of, well, government service. We could actually, and personally, support the military, education, welfare, health care, foreign aid, research - or not. Those who feel strongly that the National Endowment for the Arts is an appropriate use of government funds can designate that their dollars go to that organization. Others might want to support roads and infrastructure, the IRS employee payroll, National Parks and Forests, Public Television, or a pay raise for their Congressional delegation. Maybe someone would finally make sure that pothole at 4th and Main got filled in.

I wonder if any of us would choose to support a $2MM grant to study rat migration patterns or the billion dollar budgets of the US Department of Education, for that matter? How far would the farm subsidy program go with “designated” funds? Anyone interested in paying Dick Cheney's salary? Would all the odd little military bases in prominent congressional districts still have funding, even though they may not have purpose?

Would bombers be built, space missions launched, or publications printed? Would there be money for fuel to fly Air Force One all over the country? Would we still have to empty our pockets and submit to a personal search to enter a Federal Court building? Would the NSA be snooping our phones and email?

How did we get into half of this stuff anyway? And why aren't we fully supporting the other half?

I think it would be very revealing of what our true national priorities are. And since it is likely that every one of us would be outraged at the result, I think it would be a good beginning at government reform.

“Truthiness”

I’d heard about The American Dialect Society before – a group of linguists who sort through ‘new’ words in the English language and bring them to light and, possibly, to dictionary inclusion. They were in the news again yesterday, having just announced their ‘word of the year’ – a word “that best reflects 2005”:

• Truthiness, the quality of stating concepts one wishes or believes to be true, rather than the facts. “Truthiness” means “truthy, not facty.”

In an editorial aside, members suggest that until we manage to get ‘truth’ back together with ‘fact,’ we “aren’t going to make a lot of progress.”

I don’t know about that. I think many of our politicians and business leaders – accountants, for example, or environmentalists – have made a great deal of progress by separating the two. (If progress is defined by personal gain, of course.)

It’s a killer of a concept, isn’t it? Think of the applications – the implications. Imagine how often ‘truthiness’ is the prime consideration as research statistics have been culled, cited and quoted in support of a particular position that has significant political or economic impact. Or how often ‘truthiness’ has guided the direction of a particular news story that has enough human interest to be a potential Pulitzer Prize winner? How much of Global Warming is ‘truthy’ not ‘facty?’ How much of what we ‘know’ about central banking, about the United Nations Food Program, about immigration, or nutrition, or cancer, or education reform is leaning toward ‘truthy’ and short on 'facty?' The Korean stem-cell researcher turned out to be a fraud, exposed just recently. You have to admit that the Food Pyramid was a bit of a mess. Truthiness at its finest.

So my hat’s off to the linguists for giving us a new way to talk about this!

Oh yes, one last marvelous bit of inspiration from The American Dialect Society:

“In a runoff for the most creative word, “whale tail,” the appearance of a thong above the waistband, beat out “muffin top,” the bulge of flesh hanging over the top of low-riding jeans.”

Not my best week

I didn’t have a great week – some incredible hassles with incompetent businesses – Sprint and DHL – interfered in a major way. But now that some of the problems are resolved and I can think about better things, I realize that I never got a picture posted from last weekend’s excursion to Hurricane Ridge! There was snow!! Lots of it. I chickened out driving in it (left the car’s chains in Kentucky) and we didn’t stay in it long but it was pristine and beautiful and that always gives one pause for thought. So here it is.

Getting Lost

I went to AAA yesterday to get my new Washington membership, and the very kind person there loaded me up on area maps – seemingly dozens of them. “We don’t want you getting lost out there” she said. If only she knew.

We actually HAVE been lost, in the course of the last few weeks, in about 5 of the areas she gave us maps for. But I suspect the maps wouldn’t have helped really. We are directionally challenged. It doesn’t help that, this far north in the winter, the sun rises and sets in the south. It probably doesn’t hurt either though – we aren’t really paying attention to that sort of thing when we are lost. We generally focus on closer landscape features – street signs, for example – and then don’t know what they tell us about the actual direction we are going. This is why Todd hates to walk in the city with us – he strides purposefully forth in greatest confidence while we are huddled on a street corner gesturing at distances and peering at our map, then turning the map upside down and trying again… He’d rather not be associated. It has gotten so bad that Todd and Mark generally ask me which direction I think we should go and then head off in the opposite one. Oh well. I try.

Yesterday, after actually finding my way to the AAA office, I decided to see if I could find the ‘bigger, newer, better” Freddy’s store in Redmond. Big mistake. Huge. It seemed like I kept choosing the lanes that turned into ‘right turn only’ and then had to turn and got, well, turned around, and then the street I was forced to turn on would take a bunch of turns itself and pretty soon it was hopeless. I did come upon the Freddy’s – and it was great – but then couldn’t find my way back. I hate ‘turns.’

I blame my youth in Tucson. Tucson is laid out in a grid – straight parallel and perpendicular lines all going east/west or north/south and all aligned with the mountains. You always know which direction you are going. Unfortunately, such ease didn’t foster any innate directional indicators in me – and this is the result. Clueless.

Today I am studying maps for the next great adventure – which will turn out to be great in spite of the fact that we will surely be getting lost.

Wrath

Gee, it looks like God is smiting people for Pat Robertson again. Frankly I’m surprised. Not that I’m a fan of Sharon or anything, but I just don’t quite get the connection. Or, rather, I think ‘the connection’ could be made for any bad thing happening to anyone, and so probably there is no connection at all. Three children died of bird flu in Turkey yesterday too. I wonder what THEY did? God evidently decided to punish Lou Rawls for something as well - his death was announced in the news today too. Presumably Pat Robertson’s own parents are deceased. I wonder what sin they committed to deserve this punishment, this ‘wrath of God?’ The tsunami was a tragedy, probably because Pat didn't know anyone there, but the hurricane in New Orleans was God smiting the heathen. There must be sufficient paid-up 700 Club memberships in Florida that THEIR hurricanes are just random acts of nature though. Good grief.

Life is hard enough sometimes. We don’t need paranoid schizophrenics making their sick pronouncements on our news. Someone needs to take this guy gently off in a straight jacket and put him someplace where he can do no more harm.

At loose ends

Do you know what you do when you are displaced and at loose ends? Watch more TV. I wouldn't really say it was interesting, or even a good way to spend time. But it is there and mind numbing. There are repeats of every imaginable show. There is much selling, even more preaching, and virtually constant (if inaccurate) weather reporting. They must have had a ‘special’ on John Cusack this week, because there is a different John Cusack movie showing on no fewer than 4 channels at the moment. (I actually hope that John Cusack isn’t ‘at loose ends’ himself to watch TV, because that would be a really mind-bending experience for him, I’d think.)

Having the TV on muffles all the noises as well as relieve the boredom. So what IS that person doing below me with the bathroom fan? How could they NEED the bathroom fan on that often… and for that long? OK. I don’t really want to know. That’s why I’m watching TV. I don’t really want to know.

We’ve never had good apartment experiences. In California we were in an apartment for several weeks while waiting to close on our house and the person or persons below us started cooking Indian food every morning at 8am. It always smelled the same. Every day. All day. Very spicy – but always the same. Did they really eat the same stuff for 3 meals a day every day? (I’m probably being very un-P.C. just now, huh?) But close quarters does that to you.

We’ve been to the bookstore a half dozen times in the few weeks we’ve been here but obviously we’ll need to go again. I’m at loose ends. Bogged down in frustration. Starting to like John Cusack movies. Next I'll be binging on reality TV. Good grief.

The Rose Parade

We got up early to watch the Rose Parade two days in a row. Who knew that it wasn't actually going to be on New Year's Day this year? (Well, probably a lot of the people who were paying attention, but not us.) It turns out it is never on Sunday - something to do with horse conflicts and the 'no rain on my parade' good luck charm that, evidently, didn't work this time. Nevertheless, we finally managed to see it and got immediately entranced with the 'numbers' game.

There were 48 floats, 25 marching bands (and for each we learned how many times they'd played in the parade, how many members were marching and how many bake sales they had to have in order to get there,) 23 equestrian units, 3 official vehicles, two floats that had to be towed because of last minute technical problems - all marching in a parade that is 117 years old. There were 4 new official roses, one new queen who used to be 17 years old but on that day had just turned 18... and they all marched the 5 1/2 mile parade route. Each float boasted a 'number' of flowers, volunteers who worked on it, hours it took to make, times its sponsor has 'sponsored' a float in the parade... There were stats I can't recall on how many flowers and from how many countries.

Amazing. Wasn't that all interesting?

(I am almost irresistibly tempted to make this a comparison of how the media treat real news because it is so compelling... but that would mean I'd be sarcastic right out of the chute, so to speak, in the new year. So I won't.)

It doesn't really matter, because the floats were incredibly beautiful, the designs were inspired, the bands were 'heart-swelling' and the sheer volume of rain was awesome. It was a great day for a parade!