Of Course I Had to Get Them

I tend to be a suspicious consumer when something is pitched via a side advert on any Internet space where I'm visiting. We all know the algorithms sites use can scrape your viewing and posting information and then tailor those ads to what might be interesting to you. They are as wrong as they are right. Real estate? Seriously? A website which purports to help you evict tenants who don't pay? Does this include stink bugs?

Facebook is horrendous for doing this. I get that this is how they make money. An ad you find interesting where you go to the web site and, perhaps, subsequently buy something nets them a fee for ad placement. Because of that, I tend to be hostile to anything which shows up in my feed. "You paid to place an ad there. If I want your product or service, I'll look you up." Except when this barrier fails.

I was doing alright. Apathetic. Unemotional. And then; well, look.

I got suckered in. But come on, how could I not resist? The problem is that, although each sock was listed at $2.00 each, by the time you added shipping and handling, the whole package, and I had to have each pair, although you could buy them separately, amounted to $16.00. That's hardly the advertised price of $2.00 each. I should have known better. But, in my defense, cat socks.

They are, actually, quite comfortable.

They aren't very tall.

My fat legs tend to distort the face. (Mija socks, above.)

This pair is as close to Pilchard as they got. There aren't any for Hamlet.

The numerical reality is that the final cost does represent what I think the quality is. They were $4.00 a pair or, we could say $3.50 each if I bought them in the store and paid sales tax. That's about what I pay for good socks. I have some 50 cent pairs and there's usually an issue with the seam at the toe. These don't have that issue.

They were in my feed for about two months during the summer and have since vanished; a reason they are unique. I've never seen anything quite like them and I found myself poking about in some sock websites at Christmas. Getting these also forced me to take a hard look at what I had in the drawer and decide if I really wanted to fix a few of the pairs with holes. I got rid of several whose elastic at the top had broken which allowed them to sink into my shoes.

The bottom line is that I shouldn't be swayed by stuff advertised on social media or on my news feeds. Generally speaking, I'm not. But I've allowed myself this one purchase because these were cats.

Beverage:  Dunkin Donuts tea

Deb

Could I Sustain This Idea?

My news feed contains the weird and the wacky, the curious and the odd, the informational and the intriguing. An article came through from a website called Atlas Obscura. It was about notebooks.

To summarize, (I should note, if you follow the link, this is the image on the page.) people, from the time of writing, kept notebooks. Within these pages, all manner of ephemera was detailed; from the comings and goings of ships, to  quotes found in books, to ideas, to mementos of events attended. Each of these is a record of a person's day; a person's life. Scholars look back on these books with great zeal because they help flesh out life in a long forgotten time. In combining these notebooks with official documents, a more complete portrait of an era can be created.

The author likened these notebooks to our collective obsession with chronicling our lives on Facebook, Snapchat, Pinterest and blogging. The minutiae of life we post with enthusiasm. I get the feeling these books weren't for public consumption, but rather to be referred back to when the authors had one of those, "Now what was I thinking? What was that idea?" moments. That happens so much more than we'd like to admit.

I like buying journals. I had, at one point, an affinity for writing things down and I have a drawer containing 3-4 empty journals, just waiting for me to crack their pages. I have this blog which could be the digital form of the zibaldone mentioned in the article. It's got me to thinking. I bought some colored gel pens because I like writing letters in different colors other than black or blue. What if I turned that like onto the pages of a journal? Would I keep it up or is this another idea to be dumped into the heap of ideas which never see fruition? Maintaining my blog could be enough for me, but I do love scribbling on paper. I'll have to think on this, but the whole concept is fascinating.

Beverage:  English Breakfast Tea

Deb

The Road Less Traveled

I'm sure I've done this before in a blog post from years past. I mean, I have this poem memorized, the whole thing.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
And sorry I could not travel both
To be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth

And took the other as just as fair
And having, perhaps, the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them nearly about the same.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh! I kept the first for another day
But knowing how day leads on to day,
I doubted that I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by
And that has made all the difference.

(Robert Frost)

Setting aside the metaphor for our journey through this life, I often think about this poem when I am traveling to far-flung job. I took a vacation to Minnesota over Memorial Day weekend. Tacked onto the front of the vacation was an inspection job of 5 homes near Dickeyville, Wisconsin. I know that place. I know how to get there, but I didn't know where the homes were.

Now, Dickeyville is not a huge metropolis. There is a grotto there. (I didn't stop. I should have.) Since it's off the beaten path, it's not very crowded. There are a couple of large gas stations and a couple of restaurants, but the town is not very big. I probably could have driven around and found the place where the homes were. But, because I was on the clock and I wanted to be efficient with my time, I looked up the addresses in Google maps.

MapQuest, Bing Maps, Google Maps; all web sites where you can get driving directions from point A to point B. Plug directions into your smart phone and a somewhat comforting female voice will say, "Turn left at the next intersection, in 500 feet." You get where you're going, usually. Sometimes relying on that comforting female voice instead of map reading skills will get you in trouble.

I don't care for verbal directions unless they come from someone sitting next to me, reading where I have to go. I'm very much old school in that I want my directions printed out. I can read a map. I know how to use that information. Map reading was taught in school. It was deemed a necessary skill to have. If our entire GPS network were to crash, I could still find my way to a new location because I know how to read a map and follow directions.

We do complain about the directions given out by online map services. "I think I can get out of my neighborhood," we say when the directions tell you to "go south and then turn right onto Liberty. Go two blocks and turn left onto Blanchard. At the 'y' intersection, stay to the right and go onto Willow. At the next stop sign, turn left onto President." Yes, thanks. I know that. I go that route to the Dunkin' Donuts. Companies have amended their directions so you don't have to print what you don't need. Sometimes, you have an option for a scenic, as opposed to direct route. Still, the directions can be head-scratchingly strange.

Thanks to Google Map's directions, I found myself on this road while heading from my home to Dickeyville.

This is Wisconsin Highway W near Shullsburg. The most direct route took me down 2 lane highways in south and southwest Wisconsin, very nearly deserted of vehicles.

The same was true of driving home from Minnesota. Although the directions seemed clear and the roads recommended were among the more well-traveled, sometimes, the signage can leave a little to be desired. I missed a turn and found myself heading east on nearly deserted roads.

Unlike the trip to Dickeyville, where I was on a clock, coming home, I had time to wander. I did think about turning on my phone's GPS to figure out where I was but I knew the interstate was south of me. So if I headed south, eventually, I'd find it and I could continue east and home.

Still, I took the one less traveled by. Did it make any difference? Probably not, but I got to see sections of the country I wouldn't see if I hadn't relied on "the most direct" and then missed a sign. I think we can close ourselves off from the joy that comes in the road less traveled. If you have the time to wander, I think it revitalizes the soul.

Beverage:  Irish Breakfast Tea

Deb

An Author of Note

See the photo and the by-line? My daughter is a published author. She writes columns for NFLSpinZone about the NFL. I really didn't realize how much she follows and absorbs and forms opinions on pro-football until I was visiting last October. Get into the car to drive to the wedding dress store and the radio is tuned to NFL analysis. She reads commentary. She follows teams. She plays Fantasy Football and follows certain players. She watched "Game of Thrones", but usually the TV is turned to ESPN or the NFL cable channels.

Her contract calls for a minimum of 5 columns per month. She covered the NFL draft, held in Chicago at the end of April and the first two days of May. Her by-line was on 5 columns in that time period alone. She's on Twitter and is followed by two running backs currently in the NFL. She's one of 2 women on a staff of 30.

The team she was assigned to cover, who needed a writer devoted to them, is the Cleveland Browns. We had a laugh about that but at the time she was getting married, Cleveland changed the team's logo and had a drama-filled end of March with their quarterback hirings. One might prefer to write about a team with very little drama, like the Packers, but it will not be dull for her once football season resumes.

Perks? Well, other than a small amount of cash at the end of each month, which is based upon her following, retweets of her comments and columns on Twitter and Facebook, and turning in her articles, there really aren't any. She doesn't get season tickets or any tickets, really, to the Browns. We won't be seeing her on ESPN talking head programs. I think the biggest perk is the joy and thrill of seeing her name in type and knowing that there are a lot of people reading what she writes.

If you'd like to read what she's written so far, even if you don't care one iota about pro football, you can go to this link. She said they had positions available for people to write about Big 10 football teams, but I would have had to write about Wisconsin or Purdue. Nope, I really can't and my interest in Big 10 football is not as deep as her interest in NFL football. I'm not inclined to do the research needed to write authoritatively about the subject. There are some things I know but that's not one of them.

I am so proud of Carole. She had a very bad 2012 and early 2013. Life has improved exponentially and 2015 is starting off to be fantastic.

Beverage: Fruit juice

Deb

With 25% More Energy...

...I can wrap 90% of my Christmas presents.

I shouldn't be surprised, but I am. Getting a full night's sleep without waking up once means there's more energy for things like wrapping gifts when I get home from work. I have one more box of stuff to go. There is a package missing, a flat that came on Tuesday. I need to find that. I remember bringing it in the house but where did I lay it down?

I love this wrapping paper. It's from Hallmark and it's one of their giant rolls. Hallmark wrapping paper is printed on the back with a grid for easy straight cutting, but I love this paper because I can use the design to not waste paper. I have a lot of small "wallet-size" gifts this year so I've had some strips left, but most of the time, I am spot on in paper usage thanks to the plaid. If I could find more like this, I'd be all over it. I use a paper until it's gone and then start on another roll.

The local grade school used to have a wrapping paper sale in September. The kids, and my daughter was one of them, would go door-to-door with books of paper samples. I always, always bought a couple of rolls, realizing that what the school took in from sales was maybe half of what I was paying. But the paper was good and heavy and they had some really cool designs. I think I got this roll about 3-4 years ago and it was, as I said, the big roll. I don't have a lot of huge gifts to wrap so paper lasts me a long time.

I'm waiting on a few more deliveries, but I'm done with my shopping. Yes, I did a lot of it via the Internet. For someone like me with endurance issues, Internet shopping is a godsend. Some things, like the books I'm giving, come from my local independent book store. Some things I've never seen anywhere. I might, if I had a shopping buddy, head into the nooks and crannies of local downtowns to see what I could find. Since I'm on my own, I shop online. I will wrap everything this weekend and package it for shipping. Monday you'll find me on line at the post office. Twenty-five percent more energy means I can last 50% longer.

I'll take it.

Beverage:  Dr Pepper

Deb

Scuffling Along

Some years ago, I bought a pair of slippers known as "scuffs" or "slides". You slide your feet into them and they have a covered front and a bottom and that's it. Easy on and easy off.  They have a nice warm upper and a sturdy sole. Those slippers have served me in very good stead, but are getting a little long in the tooth. So, I've been looking, for awhile, for a new pair. I'm picky. I found what I thought was the perfect pair, but they had a cardboard sole which wouldn't keep my feet warm if you heated it. I suppose I should not have expected much for their $5 price tag.

I put slippers on my birthday/Christmas list for a couple of years until I realized that, should someone actually buy me slippers, their idea of what I would like versus my idea of what I actually wanted were two vastly different things. It was then that I decided I should just search myself for what I wanted and not leave it up to chance.

The need to make a birthday/Christmas list meant I had to look for things. In searching a web site called fansedge.com for Iowa Hawkeyes stuff, I stumbled across these.

Using Retailmenot.com (and you are using this site or something like it when you order online, right? Right?), I got them for $11. That is worth it for slippers.

They were a bit uncomfortable on the first couple of wearings, until they conformed to my feet. Technically, there is no left or right to these, but, with repeated wear, the top molds to your feet so you wind up with a left and right pair. I know when I put them on the wrong feet.

Hello gorgeous. These have a hard plastic, non-skid sole that is covered by the black fleece. the top is light weight black fleece and the tiger hawk is embroidered directly onto the top. It's not an applique. Now that I have them broken in, they are warm, so very, very warm. Add fuzzy socks, like I did in the photo and my feet are wonderfully comfortable.

I keep the other scuffs around because their harder sole means I can wear them outside. The new ones are washable but I don't want to get them dirty or wet in going to the recycling bin or the mailbox.

Unfortunately, they didn't bring the Hawkeyes good luck as we won only 1 of the last 4 games since I got the scuffs. I would listen to non-televised games on my computer and watched the last 2 on TV. They may have been bad games, but I had warm feet.

Beverage:  Dr Pepper

Deb

Goodness Gracious Great Balls of Fire

I try to make time for blogging but, sometimes, my time is not my own. I've had a lot of things to do lately so although I have posts in mind and a lot of photos which scream "Blog about me!", that's as far as it gets. And then Mother Nature tosses a curve ball and, well, I think it was John Lennon who said, "Life is what happens when you were making other plans."

I had to go into the city very early last Thursday. We had a huge job which I needed to help do installations on. It was really cool in the city, and I don't mean temperature, although that hovered around 62 degrees. The fog off the lake was thick, like cotton. I love fog. I have photos. I'll get around to posting them.

Anyway, there was a phone call about a meeting Thursday night for this society to which my company belongs. My boss sighed and asked if I would go. He was too tired and he's got a 3 year-old who is being, well, a 3 year-old. Sure. It's overtime.

We've been going through a period of unstable air. It doesn't feel humid but the air is coming from the Gulf of Mexico and mixing with cool, dry Canadian air and we're seeing a lot of rain and thunderstorms. I kind of forced the meeting to break up when the setting sun suddenly disappeared behind a wall of blue black. I wanted to be home. Pilchard hates storms so I really wanted to be there for her. I managed to get home about 10 minutes after the line came through. Plus, I had been up since 5 a.m. I was tired and driving in a pounding rain was not my idea of fun. I got soaked running from the car to the house, but no matter. I was home.

The storm lasted about 30 minutes. I gave it another 10 minutes and logged onto the Internet and into World of Warcraft. I had a nice conversation with guild members until the corner of my left eye registered flashes. Uh oh. Another line of storms was coming. I decided the better part of valor was turning off the computer while this next wave passed.

The computer was off. I turned to my left to turn off the floor lamp. I have a lovely view of my backyard from my home office windows. Suddenly, there was a blue-white ball of light in the middle of my back yard. It had a band on the top that was snow white and a band around the bottom that was blood red. The rest of it was a swirling blue white. It looked like Sauron's eye, without the eye part, or a portal that you'll see in a video game. There was a sound with it like the sound of that firework which will be shot into the air before fireworks to let people know the show will start soon. I think it's an M80. It shook my house. It was all over in a split second. I can still see that swirling blue ball in my memory. It was about 3-5 feet in diameter.

My house never lost power, it didn't even blink. The neighbors behind me, however, lost power. In fact that whole west side of my block was without power after this. The flash was so bright, the street lights on either side of me went out. They came back in about 5 minutes.

I just sat here, blinking at the back yard. I thought to myself, "Ohhhh....kay. I'm just gonna go read a book." I turned off all the lights except the bedroom light, grabbed my book and read 3 more chapters before calling it a night. In the morning, I went into the back yard. No sign of anything scorched, nothing. I was pretty sure it had been ball lightning, but I was very surprised there was no sign of any scorching.

Friday, I come home from work and try to log onto the Internet. Nothing. I realize that my modem/router has no lights on it. The phone runs through the router so I have no phone either. Mike, the nice guy from AT&T who helped me was thrilled with my story. He is writing a book about lightning and said it was ball lightning. I called the meteorology department at College of DuPage and the student I talked to said it sure sounded like ball lightning. It doesn't usually leave scorch marks, either. It's a spot of concentrated electrical energy released. Well, this is all nice, but I want my phone and Internet back. AT&T would have someone out on Sunday.

Joe came out on Sunday. Step one is to make sure the signal is getting to the box. Because wasps like to nest in the boxes, he opened it up very carefully.

Looks pretty normal, doesn't it? This is what we saw when he opened it up.

Lightning had traveled down the phone line and into the box, completely frying the contents. It's charred. The wires inside are all fused together. The box acted like a ground, however, and the energy never went into the house. The modem/router took a surge and the power supply was toasted, but my phone, my computer, my TV, my electrical is all good. There is also no fire or scorch marks inside. I have had my miracle for this year and I'll take it. He jokingly said, "A new router isn't going to connect you to the Internet." Ya think?

The problem was that the pole where the phone line comes off was energized or "hot". Com Ed, our highly responsive electric company, and yes, that is sarcasm, needed to come deenergize the pole before AT&T could climb it. I was going to need a complete new line from the pole to the house, as well as a new box and he felt they should just string a new line to the office. He said I'd probably need a new modem/router, just to be safe. But, there was nothing he could do on Sunday until the pole was deenergized. He put in a ticket, took some photos, and we began the waiting game.

This morning, when I still didn't have phone or Internet I gave AT&T a call. Customer service was very apologetic. She couldn't see the status of my ticket, but she gave me a $35 credit because of lost service and a $25 Visa gift card. That will buy a number of lunches. She also said, "You don't have line insurance. I know it's at your discretion, but if they are telling you they need to string new line, you need to get this insurance. It's $6 a month and it means that if any line needs to be replaced, we do it for free. Otherwise, you're paying $93 an hour for the tech to be there. I'll make it retroactive to Thursday, when the lightning hit." I usually get upset when something is pushed like that but knowing that I would have to have a new line, I jumped on getting that. I can always call and cancel it, but it will have saved me a lot of money.

I called tech support and they had not heard from Com Ed. Also, my ticket was not expedited so that a tech would check on the line on Monday. So, the guy did that and Sherwade was at my house today at 8:45. Com Ed had done their part so he strung a new line to the house, installed a new box and ran a line directly to the office. No going through the basement with a phone line. He was at the house for 90 minutes. At $93 an hour, that would have been a bank breaker. It won't cost me a thing.

In a case of "some days you're the pigeon and some days you're the statue", the tech had finished everything, cleaned up and had just pulled away from the curb and ... the power went out. Seriously. I thought about running after him waving like a maniac, but, instead, I called Com Ed. As I was explaining to the gal what had happened, she said, "Oh ma'am. I see that 1700 people around you are without power. It's not AT&T or you." According to the flashing on the clock in the bedroom, power was restored about 45 minutes after I left for work.

Here's the new box. The tech said it's less wasp permeable. The brown on the siding is from the lightning. My vinyl siding probably helped prevent a fire, too.

I missed an eye appointment because I couldn't get the voice mail notice and I didn't know how to get my voice mails by calling in from another location. (It's also my fault for losing the card on which the time was written and not calling the clinic to verify the appointment.) I spent the weekend and the first 2 days of this week reading, cleaning, writing a letter that I discovered I couldn't print because my printer is hooked up, wirelessly, to the computer through ... the dead modem. /sigh I also finished the stitching on a wedding present. Now to finish the sewing on said present. I also cleaned. There is value to being without this modern contraption.

The tech said today that this end of spring beginning of summer has been horribly rough on phone and Internet. "We'd rather be out doing installations. Instead, we're climbing poles and doing repairs." I guess it's the price we pay for living in the Midwest.

So, I'm back. I have a lot of blog posts to get done. I will say that "Brave" looks really good when played on my computer. The only bad part is that I don't have space in my lap for Pilchard when I watch a movie on the computer. (Oh yeah. My TV is dying, too.)

Beverage:  Water

Deb

The First One, Photo 19

It was time to replace the bathroom rug. How often do you do that? Really? I don't believe you. (wink, wink) I think you're a lot like me in that it gets replaced every other month, maybe. I sweep the floor but put the rug back. It's a rug. It's supposed to be heavy duty.

I have 6 different bathroom rugs. Washing rugs is not a fun job. With cats in the house, the inside of the washing machine can get these balls of cat hair. Plus, my rugs are so old that the backing is coming off and I have to fish pieces of rubberized material out of the tub before the next wash. So, I usually wait to do a full load of bathroom rugs which means one needs to have more than a couple rugs to have a clean one.

I learned to cross-stitch and embroider when I was 8. (I still have my first project. Some day, I should get it framed.) I learned to crochet when I was 13. But I didn't pick up latch hook until I was out of college. I had just wed and we needed a bathroom rug. In one of the many craft catalogs I received was the above kit. We liked the design and colors so we got it. I'd never done latch hook before. This was a lot of fun to do.

The rug is approximately 35 years old. That's right, 35 years old. The rubberized backing has long been gone and when I brought this up from the basement, I finally ripped off rest of the edging material. Compared to other rugs I have, this has worn extremely well. The backing kind of creaks when I unfolded it and dropped it on the floor. My friend, Meredith, said I should get those non-skid rug mats to put under my rugs. I think that would be a good idea for this.

I haven't done a latch hook project in some time. They were seen as chintzy, as a fad, much in the same vein as macrame. I did that, too, for a time, but you can only make so many plant hangers before there's nothing left to make. Yet crafting, of any sort, really doesn't go "out of style". It can be adapted to new tastes and new styles. The explosion of Etsy and Pinterest Internet sites prove that crafty people can find buyers for their wares as well as inspiration for future crafts. I look at crafts and think, "I can make that". But, as we all know, just because we can make it doesn't mean we'll find the time to make it.

In the vein of rugs, here is a living room rug three weeks after a washing.

It's cat hair that you see. We really haven't had the moisture to create copious amounts of mud in my back yard. It's quite interesting that, after a winter that took us .4 of an inch from the 2nd snowiest of all time, it melted slowly so there wasn't flooding and we've not had rain to speak of. I will give this a wash in a couple weeks to start May off with clean rugs. Pilchard has been attacking them so I know she likes them clean.

Beverage:  Water

Deb

Fabulous Finds

One of the blogs I read, Little White Whale, is a collection of commercial web sites the author finds interesting. Sometimes, she has her own content, but usually, it's just a collection of links to other sites selling stuff. I like her quirky style but I'm little more than a voyeur because things are priced just a bit out of my capabilities.

Back in late October, however, she posted a link to a glass cluster ring that was quite striking. I have no use for rings at the moment. They just aren't something I wear right now. But the design was intriguing so I went to the creator's web site and wound up finding some unique earrings I bought Carole for her birthday. I never would have found those on my own. I like sending her things like this, that are not something you can get at the earring spinner at JC Penney.

Last month, the author did it again by posting a link which includes a stationary find. I was intrigued by the birthday card she used as an illustration and went to the company's web site. Oh glorious correspondence! I spent 90 minutes poking around the whole thing. I had to get something. These are not the Hallmark mass produced cards that I'm increasingly finding difficult to get a card that matches what I want to say. I love the quirk. I love the design. I love the colors. I settled on the word search cards and they came this past week.

You can get 5 of them for $20. I can easily spend $3.95 on a large Hallmark card so $4 for quirk is well worth it. I can't tell you how awesome these are. They are embossed on heavy card stock, but will still mail for the price of a first class stamp. I took one look at all the letters and thought, "How am I going to find my message?" How about that? There's a key sent with the card.

These aren't simply birthday cards. These are anniversary, wedding, thanks, want to roll in the hay; any sentiment you want to express can be made on these cards. A lot of thought went into them. Gloria, the owner of Little White Whale says she looks for the bodacious and I have to say, these are bodacious. I just bought a bunch of thank you cards but I'm certainly looking at getting other cards from this company. I'll still frequent Hallmark. They have decent 99 cent cards, but for the truly unique, this has my vote.

Spring is supposedly coming and with that sandal weather. I have a couple pair of flip flops but, increasingly, I'm liking the whole shoe. I read where rheumatoid arthritis sufferers should wear full shoes, not mules (which I adore) or flip flops, but something with a back to it. I poo poo'd that but I'm coming around. I feel more secure in walking with a full shoe.

On Facebook, I follow posts from The Animal Rescue Site. It's a retailer whose products provide monetary donations to animals. You can, also, click daily and donate food. They will even send you email reminders to click daily. I find that bit too much as I get Facebook reminders. This site is part of a larger collection of causes sites, Greater Good, where you can donate daily or buy merchandise which has a portion of the profits donated to that specific cause.

Several weeks ago, they announced a sale of sandals. Whoop de honkin' do. These will just be flip flops or something similar and I have a couple pair like that. To my surprise, what was on sale was a pair of sturdy sandals with a back to them.

I had my choice of colors. There was a purple and gray colored sandal, but I went with black and white with purple accents because it will go with everything I wear. They don't much look like sandals which was one of the appeals of the shoe. But, looked at from the side, they certainly are.

These are enclosed enough that I can probably wear them to the office on days when I'm not going into the field. They are very sturdy, yet lightweight and the tread is what I expect from good quality shoes. I probably could wear these to the beach and into the water, if I so desired, not that I'm planning on going to the beach any time soon.

So these are my fabulous finds for spring, if spring ever gets here. The snow shovels are still in the kitchen because I'm superstitious like that, sandals or no sandals.

Beverage:  Scottish Breakfast Tea

Deb

Dona Nobis Pacem

I stumbled across this on other blogs I follow so I'm adding this to my blog today.

We're supposed to blog about peace and this is kind of an apt subject for me. So much has changed in my life since embracing "living with gratitude", which could also be "living with peace".

When we say we want "peace", the immediate thought is a world without war. That kind of goal, while nice, is too big for us to accomplish. Seriously. Unless humans get a personality transplant, there will never be a time of no war. But, changing yourself to reflect peace, now that's much easier to do. If enough people embrace peace, live with peace, live peaceful lives, then the overall goal of a world without war slowly become a reality.

So, I'm adding my small voice to the blogosphere today. I caught the girls sleeping near each other yesterday on the bed. It was no small miracle that I didn't notice them because they were at peace with one another. If these two can get along, we all can.

Peace.

Beverage:  Lady Gray tea

Deb

Such a Steal, Actually

I'm such a creature of habit. I was never that much "into" fashion. My joke is that "fashion means it's clean", instead of being something on current trend. I find what works and I stay with it, sometimes for decades.

I've had the same winter coat for a very long time. There really hasn't been a reason to change. It used to be a coat Carole wore to school. It was warm and it worked just fine for her. When she no longer wanted it, well, I could certainly put it to good use and I've worn it ever since. It's from Lands End which makes very good quality clothing.

But even good quality clothing just reaches the end of taste. This year, I wanted a different coat. The Lands End coat hits me at the waist. I wanted something longer. The Lands End coat has never had a hood. I really like hoods, mainly because I have a habit of misplacing ear muffs. I find them again but only when I'm looking for something else. So this fall, the one thing I wanted to do for myself was get a new winter coat. I also have to replace my boots and that's a have to as they have cracked and aren't waterproof anymore. Since I have to do that, I might as well replace the coat. The coat came first.

The Lands End coat is to the right. I've always liked the bright yellow color, Hawkeye gold, sort of. I've gone with a dark gray; pewter, it's called. The biggest problem with the Lands End coat is in the sleeves. Gradually, over the decades of use, they have shrunk, ever so slightly. For the last few years, there has been a gap where my gloves end and the sleeve begins. Plus, the elasticized ribbing of the sleeve ends constantly got hooked on the zipper closure of the pockets, tearing the ribbing. It's reached the point where the ribbing is so torn, it doesn't close around the arm anymore. The new coat has a hood, a removable lining and a two button adjustable closure on the sleeve ends. The sleeves are nice and long and the coat itself is about a foot longer than the Lands End coat.

But the best part was getting this coat for about 70% off. I have been watching sales and I hit it just right. I ordered it online from Woman Within. Things like this don't usually happen to me. When I want or need to buy something, it's usually not on sale. We were still getting 70 degree days when I bought the coat but isn't that when you should buy things, when it's not a necessity?

So the Lands End coat has been washed and is ready to be given away. I'm sad to see it go. After all, it's been a fixture in the closet for decades now. But, it's time. I am really happy with the new coat and kind of can't wait to use it. It's already been christened.

Beverage:  Yorkshire Gold Tea

Deb

Going Unplugged

It's been a very unique few days in the office. We're going through one of the many spurts of busyness that often hits us. We wait on calls to confirm appointments. The client needs things NOW. If I do this and Tara does that and Gene can do this, that means Mike can go here and we'll send Pam over there. But if we get a call about 'x', well, all bets are off on getting things done.

When I first started, this thing called "e-mail", wasn't the preferred method of communication. Phone calls and faxes and the post office got plans, specs, requirements and notes back and forth. We got company email in summer of 2001, the first office in the company to be connected via this Internet thing to the main office. My then boss dismissed this as little more than smoke and mirrors and it would never replace the fax machine as a work horse of communication.

And you're giggling or guffawing, right now, because I can hear you. We still do some things via fax, but most communication is first via phone and then via email. Appointments are scheduled through email. Contracts have been sent via email for preliminary approval. Requests for proposals are always sent via email. I do a small trade newsletter and all the information I publish in the newsletter has been gleaned from online sites who send me information via email.

The office email died some time on Thursday. We could not access it on our desktops. Mike could get it on his iphone but I don't have my smart phone synch'd to receive email. (I'm thinking that might be something I should do now.) He was the only person, from Thursday afternoon through 2 p.m. today, to see any kind of office correspondence. Good luck looking at plans on an iphone. He would forward things on to his primary personal account so he could look at them at home at bigger than 4 inches.

The degree of angst this produced was amazing. You'd think we'd been bombed back into the stone age, resorting to communication via smoke signals. Clients were reasonably understanding that we were working on the problem but lags in communication caused some to be less than charitable with our later than they wanted replies. "It's absolutely crucial to business to have a working email," I heard on several occasions. "This is horrible, beyond horrible, that our email is not working."

I suppose, in this day and age, that is a true statement. As I have dealt with needing to make appointments and exchanging information, I have some observations. Having email means less planning goes into preparedness. The almost instantaneous nature of email means that you don't have to build into your need for information, the delay by sending something via post. There is a huge amount of assuming that because you need something now, the receiver is just sitting around waiting for your contact. "I'm sending you 35 pages of documents. I need your proposal by the end of the week." Um...see above for how busy we are. In the past, you'd never hear that. The documents would come 2 weeks before the proposal was needed. I really, really wish that, sometimes, I could say, "Poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part." Email excuses the planner whose desk is a nightmare from being organized.

The second observation is that we have become so dependent upon technology that when the office email goes down, when the power goes out, when our Internet fails, we do not have skills to do our work. There is a whole generation who does not know how to write letters by hand, how to make a typewriter work to print a label, how to pick up the phone and talk to a client because everything is done by technology. They cannot do their job without the LCD in front of them.

The last observation is that having all your email come to your phone means you are never without it. Think about the last time you drove some place and did NOT see someone driving while talking on their phone. What is so important that you have to yak it up while you are driving?

Going without company email has caused me to decide to do something I've thought about for a couple of years now. We always think we are a better driver than that guy in the next lane and this greatly comes into play when we are talking on our phone while driving. There are reasons laws exist to prohibit texting while driving and talking on cell phones while in school and construction zones. Ironically, in my Facebook Mythbusters feed, there was a test of the "myth" that you are a worse driver while talking on the phone than you are when you're drunk. You should watch this.

I have decided I will no longer talk or text while driving. It is so tempting to pick up the phone because you're driving down a straight highway at 65 mph. You'll be fine. Or to think, because you're going "only" 30 miles per hour, that you can handle the phone call and the stop and go traffic. I realize that my reflexes aren't what they used to be or maybe never were and if I have to listen to what you are telling me and pay attention to traffic, I simply can't do both. And, studies are increasingly showing that we humans aren't set up to multitask, period, let alone when we are at the wheels of a car.

So, I took the pledge. Sheila Simon, Illinois' current lieutenant governor signed this and I'm encouraging you to do so as well. If I'm in my car and you call my cell phone, you're going to get my voice mail. Leave me a message. I'll call you as soon as I can safely pull over or when I get to my destination. Whatever you have to tell me, even if it is a genuine emergency, I will listen to but when I listen to it, you will have my undivided attention.

Thanks to 2.5 days without email, I'm also thinking of having technology-free days, but that's a work in progress. Here's to reclamation of a small portion of my life and to being more fully aware of what's going on around me.

Beverage:  Dr Pepper

Deb

All You Need Is ...

a wooden spoon.

This past weekend was a blessing. While it did get hot enough in the afternoon that the AC kicked on, the mornings were so wonderful. I spent time deadheading the flowers and cleaned off the deck. I've mentioned before how robins are such dirty birds. The wildlife in suburbia comes to visit my deck on occasion and I find sticks and leaves and footprints and all sorts of things on the deck.

The birdbath needs to be cleaned this weekend. Blog post in that, for sure.

Anyway, when I clean litter boxes, about every 6 months, one of them gets completely emptied and swapped out for a different one. I put the emptied "used" box on the deck and let the rain and sunshine and fresh air clean it. There are no harsh chemicals and letting the sunshine beat on the box sterilizes it, after a fashion. I've had a box on the deck for 3 months now and it's time to rotate it back into use.

This box collected rain water and in that water, I found this.

He's about an inch in length. I should have pulled out a ruler to show relative size. He was "swimming" upside down, struggling to right himself. Eventually, he would have drowned. I got a wooden spoon, scooped him out and turned him over.

I have no idea what kind of beetle this is other than, well, he's tan. It's bigger than a June bug and those are a darker brown, tinged with red. I couldn't find any information on what kind of beetle this might be but, I admit to not searching for hours. The Internet is a marvelous place in that information is at your fingertips, but the sheer volume of information available can make a search more like a slog through molasses, uphill, in January.

Once he got thoroughly dried and warmed by the sun, he was off. Maybe I gave new life to something that should have been squashed. I don't know. But, it's an interesting insect, nonetheless.

Beverage:  English Breakfast Tea

Deb

I Guess I Need to Go Shopping

Gone are the days when "relaxing" meant a stroll about the mall. I just don't have the a) disposable income, b) the stamina or c) the inclination to wander about a mall. Increasingly, I find that I can do a lot of things online that I normally would have hopped into the car and driven to the mall.

I'm faced with the prospect of either shopping online or going to a mall because my purse and pocketbook are slowly falling apart.

I got this pocketbook several years ago. It was August 2010. Jessie and I went out to dinner and then went shopping for a new purse and pocketbook. What I had was falling apart. I found both a new purse and this at JC Penney. I also had with me, the leftovers from my dinner. I set that down amongst the purses so I could better search for exactly the right one. We were half-way back to my house when I remembered my lunch for work the next say was sitting amongst the handbags. I almost wrote that Penney's an apology note. I didn't mean to do that. It was 'out of sight, out of mind'.

So here we are, many years later. The fake leather on the strap of the handbag is cracked and slowly flaking off in very small pieces. Most importantly, the hasp on the pocketbook doesn't always open or close. I'm finding myself getting more than a little frustrated with the thing now. Perhaps there is a quick fix, but I don't know what it is. One friend suggested a big rubber band. My mom used to do that. She would carry a wallet that contained envelopes and receipts and other bits of paper. She had a big, fat rubber band around that mess and when she needed something from it, life and the line behind her, came to a dead stop while she opened it up and searched for what she needed. I'm not inclined to do that.

I've blogged before about cleaning out all the purses in my closet and weeding things down to just one, one that goes everywhere day in and day out. Oh I have a couple for fancy events and one that is shaped like a cat which I won't part with, at least, not now, but I don't have a half-dozen or more. You only use one at a time so why have more than one?

Yes, I have looked at purses and pocketbooks online. There are some really good deals out there. But this is, for me, very much an individual choice. The pocketbook has to hold the essentials. They have to be organized so I can find them. It also has to fit into the purse. This one was, in hindsight, just a bit too big for the purse. I often can't get it into the purse quickly. Jessie pointed that out all those years ago, but I liked both and have made them work, not quickly some days, but worked.

I guess it's time to head to the mall and look at purses. I'm not relishing this task. Wonder if Jessie is available next month?

Beverage:  Mixed Berry Seltzer

Deb

The Cult of Weather

This is going to be something of a tidy rant. You've been warned. (wink)

If you were anywhere near a TV or radio or the Internet and checking the weather yesterday, you know about the cold front that moved through the midwest last night. That front is currently in New York.

It's late spring and summer is next week. You'd have to be pretty dense not to realize that living in the mid-section of the country exposes you to some of the most rapidly changing weather on the planet. We get the cold air from Canada and the warm air from the Gulf of Mexico. When they meet each other, particularly in the spring, the churning dance produces some of the most violent weather ever seen. We choose to live here. As much as my knees acted up in March and April with the damp chill of spring mornings, I cannot imagine living in San Diego with weather that is uniform. It has its place, but it's not me.

So, I'm attuned and have been for most of my life, to the changes wrought by the weather in the land where I choose to live. But yesterday's events brought something to the forefront of my mind, something that is not, I think, a positive. We have developed a "cult of weather", as I'm calling it.

It started in the morning with announcements that thunderstorms with high winds and heavy rain would develop in the afternoon. Scientifically, we know this will happen because the sun heats the atmosphere. Heat rises where it meets the cold air of the upper atmosphere. The air doesn't have to be from Canada. Air temperatures at 30,000 feet up are not the same as in your back yard. We know what happens. We've known for decades. This mix breeds thunderstorms.

But what we've seen, with the advent of social media and the ability to make movies with a cell phone, is the rise of the everyman storm chaser. Once the province of people of science, now the average person can hop in a car and, with a computer or just a smart phone, keep tabs on the National Weather Service's radar and warnings and The Weather Channel's on-air personalities pointing to green screens and making prognostications. You, too, can be rightthere, when the winds start circling and the funnel forms. You, too, can get your name and your video shown on the nightly news. We think this is normal and we are addicted to it. We want more.

I followed the weather yesterday. I do want to be informed, make no mistake about that. If I had places to go last night, I would have wanted to know if heavy rain would have interfered with those plans. From Tuesday night onward, however, a graphic was sent around the Internet with the following information, "There is going to be a derecho Wednesday night that starts in Iowa and heads east. This weather event will impact 65 million people. Share this with those in its path." Huh?

Last year, a derecho that formed west of DeKalb and roared east caused billions of dollars in damage. I was, at the time, in a movie theatre with Pam watching "Brave". The thing about this event was that it sprang up 45 miles west of me with little to no warning. Millions of people were inconvenienced and thousands were without power. What did we learn? That yelling the equivalent of "there could be fire" in this crowded country is the way to go. We demand immediacy and the talking heads about weather are our new prophets and preachers. Let me take a moment here and let out a heavy sigh.

"Sixty-five million people are in the affected area." As yesterday went on, the rain predictions grew. Eventually, it was locally heavy rainfall totals of inches. Back in April, we had an inches event that flooded the neighborhood and the street by the office. We knew the potential existed, at the time, for heavy rain. There's no place for inches of water to drain when it comes down in minutes. So the prospect of inches again last night made me check the house and yard and batten down the hatches. The garbage cans were shoved next to the deck. The flower pots on the front steps got moved off the steps to the ground and I tipped over the deck chairs to prevent them being lofted and tossed.

In hindsight, as I was walking out my back door this morning and righting a couple of them to get off the deck, where they are isn't going to cause them to become airborne unless there is a tornado in my back yard. At the most, they would have been shoved next to the house or into the flower pots, but I believed the sentences about the forming of a derecho.

I'm embarrassed. I believed. From March through November, professional and amateur storm chasers will fan out from Texas through Wisconsin, Colorado to New York, Oklahoma to Georgia, all trying to see the elusive weather phenomena known as a tornado. We will sit, glued to our maps and our talking heads, watching them tell us, in ever increasingly shrill voices, about potentials and probabilities. We will believe. We analyze their maps, hoping we can figure out what they, who may have years more training than us, cannot; just where the storm cells will "pop". We grab our cell phones and stand in our doorways with them aimed at the heavens, when we should be seeking shelter, hoping for that one bit of film footage that gets the Channel 4 News Team to interview us on camera. We. Will. Believe.

Again, allow me a moment to sigh. The deaths of 3 professional and 1 amateur storm chasers in Oklahoma last month are now a footnote to the weather. I feel they and the manner in which they died have been forgotten in the drive to be in the right place at the right time. We have gone from, "This afternoon, conditions are right for strong thunderstorms with locally heavy rains and high winds to develop. Some of these storms could produce hail and may have the potential for tornadoes. Please check in with us and be prepared to move to a place of shelter should conditions deteriorate" to "OMG! ZOUNDS! 65 MILLION PEOPLE ARE GOING TO BE IMPACTED BY THIS STORM!"

You know what my impact was? It rained. That's it. It rained. No high winds. No hail. Not even inches of rain. It was a cloudburst and then it went away. Pilchard was fine all evening. We had a few flashes of lightning but she never ran to hide. There were heavy rains and winds south and west of me. Tornado sirens went off in various Chicagoland communities. It was nasty in places out there.

Increasingly, we are sounding alarms for potentials that never show, but we believe they will because we are believing what our prophets are telling us. We have developed, thanks to the awfulness of the past, warning systems that reduce death tolls from these major storms. This is tangible proof, life-saving proof, of what the early prophets, preachers, teachers and diviners worked to prove. I feel, however, that we have also removed the ability of people to make informed choices on the weather's impact. "Tut tut. It looks like rain" is now "Take cover! It could be the storm to end all storms!" The only thing missing is the running around waving our collective arms in the air. It's not quite Chicken Little, but it's so close.

I am a very small voice calling for a return to reasonableness. I do need to know if conditions are right for the development of severe weather. I do need to know if that weather impacts me. I do need to know at what point to head to the basement. I don't need my senses bombarded with ZOUNDS! and OMG! and graphics in reds and purples. At some point, the weather will become the little boy who cried wolf. I hate to see the result of that.

For the record, it's a beautiful day today, clear, sunny, mild. I didn't need the weather man to tell me that. I could see it when I walked out by back door. 

Beverage:  Yorkshire Gold Tea

Deb

Faster

It started with an email. My DSL service was going up another $3.00 per month come April. Splayed across the news have been ads for high speed internet service for less than half what I currently paid. Then, I started struggling with upload and download speeds. Chris, who helped set up the mac, commented on what he was seeing. "It's really slow," he said. I thought, "I'm paying x amount of money to sit here and, ultimately, decide I'll watch this video at work because it won't download." I have a new, fast, computer. Why is this taking so long?

Now, I am, very much, a creature of habit. I tolerate a lot of things that others wouldn't. I can adapt, very easily, to change but am not one to initiate that change. I guess that's why cats and I get along. They prefer what they have and change is quite scary to them. When forced to make that change, they adapt and move on. So, I have probably endured less than optimal internet because that means calling AT&T and changing things. Me initiating the call.

But when I had several problems with the game and with the guild web site which seemed to be directly related to the speed of my internet, I was presented with two options. Keep it as it was and endure or change and get something better. I decided to make the call.

At the end of last month, I got high-speed internet.

This is all wireless technology. There is this black thing, I assume that's the modem/router, that sits on the desk and there is a silver box that sits under the desk. I have bundled my home phone and internet into one package and saved over $100 a month. Now, I don't watch that much TV so getting improved TV service didn't make sense for me.

What has this meant, now that I've had over a week to get used to it? With my new computer, I see things more clearly. I rarely have to wait on downloads or uploads. There was no change in the phone other than the one in the kitchen no longer works and I need to think about what to do with that phone jack there. I still have the same number and didn't have to relearn voice mail settings, thank goodness.

The best thing is the reduction in my household costs. Faster service for much less money. I can get behind that.

Beverage:  Seltzer water

Deb

Merrie Christmas

Thanks to the Internet and this game, World of Warcraft, that I play, I have expanded my list of friends. Most of them I will probably never meet, but that doesn't make them any less of a friend to me. We share life stories, events, ideas, cares and woes just the same as if they lived next door to me. They are no less real.

So, the Christmas holiday approaches and, while I don't have to send them anything, I like to. I consider them my friends. We have shared time in this online game, gotten to know one another, and it means a lot to me to be able to send them a small token that symbolizes just what a friend they are to me.

Matt's one of my WOW friends. I'm not sure why I asked for and got his address but I have it. So, as I page through my address book looking at the names and trying to think of Christmas presents, I got to his name and it hit me. The. Perfect. Gift.

Now there is a story with this. In WOW, if you take the profession, engineering, you can make a personal helicopter, a Turbo-Charged Flying Machine. The EPA would not appreciate this thing as it belches smoke which is probably lethal. Only engineers can make them and only they can use them. One of the pieces they need is a hula girl doll which rides on the dashboard. Bingo. Matt would get the significance of the doll. Matt would get the joke.

Matt recently sent this photo. That's his car. He lives in Maine so the streaks are from a snowstorm. I never expected, when I sent the doll, that it would wind up on his dashboard. It wasn't very expensive and I figured it would just sit some place in his house until spring and then he'd toss it or move it to a box somewhere. I was more than okay with that. It was the joke between two friends that was the important part.

I love it when the gift is appreciated like this. I hope it gives him a lot of happiness when he drives to and from work. He doesn't play WOW anymore but I hope it reminds him of the fun times we had, all those times that his character beat up my character in battlegrounds or the time he had to wear that awful sweater in Ironforge.

And yes, she does the hula. I wouldn't send one that didn't.

Beverage:  Huckleberry tea

Deb

Cleaning

There is a tradition to thoroughly clean one's domicile twice a year; spring and fall. This spring, I cleaned thoroughly because Carole and David were coming for Memorial Day and Niles' wedding. I had not done the fall cleaning, however.

It's been a rough fall for joint pain. My knees have been giving me a great deal of problems and pain. I don't have the pain in my hands, shoulders or feet and ankles, but the hips hurt getting out of bed in the morning and the knees hurt period. Cleaning, the thorough kind I really wanted to do, just wore me out because I can't stand for long periods of time. I have to break the cleaning sessions into smaller chunks and it sometimes doesn't feel like I'm getting anything accomplished.

I also have to be careful about the amount of cleaning products I'm exposed to. My allergies seem to be in high gear this fall. I've been waiting for the hard freeze to kill the pollens outside, but interior allergens can be as bad or worse than anything you find outside. I have to watch how much stuff I use and how long I'm exposed to it.

In Target, on Wednesday, I was thrilled to see that J.R. Watkins had put their cleaning products for sale in the store. Watkins is a Minnesota brand and Target is headquartered in Minneapolis. It was probably a perfect fit for growing the Watkins brand. It's usually sold via door-to-door salesmen. We had a "little old man", I don't remember his name, who handled our Watkins products. He was stooped with what we now know is osteoporosis, and drove this battered gray station wagon in which most of his products were stored. I have raved about their vanilla and spices before. I have their degreaser for heavy jobs. It's wonderful. I've used some of their other cleaning products and they are mild but very effective and without the chemicals I seem to have problems with.

But, as good as they are, they still have to resort to chemicals in some ways to clean some things. Many natural cleaning aids, vinegar comes to mind, do work but aren't as effective in some situations. My goal this weekend is to thoroughly clean AND get the window insulator plastic up on the windows. I'm going to be washing windows and trim around the windows. I have Windex, but I just don't want to breathe that stuff in for an afternoon.

Almost as if it knows, the Internet coughed up an article about using this as a cleaning aid.

Plain old Coca-Cola. The mystic formula of real Coke has a grease cutting ability that is supposed to be exceptional. I've known of stories that say you can use a can of Coke to clean your toilet bowl. (It looks really gross and no, I didn't photograph it.) I decided this was as good of a time as any to conduct experiments.

A case at Target was $5.99. That's kind of pricey. If you watch sales, I know you can get it for less. That's still 50¢ a can for a cleaning agent. The last bottle of toilet bowl cleaner I purchased was on sale for $2.49 for 24 ounces or 10¢ an ounce. A can of Coke is 4¢ an ounce.

I'm not completely sold on Coke as a toilet bowl cleaner. Unless you shake the can, you'll not get it under the rim, which should be cleaned every time you clean the bowl. I felt I had to use twice as much water because of rinsing out the toilet brush. My bowl looks clean, but is that a product of the Coke or would I get the same result if I just scrubbed the bowl with the toilet brush. I clean the bowl once a week. In terms of value, a case of coke is good for 12 weeks of cleaning as you're supposed to use a full can. I buy a bottle of toilet bowl cleaner about once every 4 months because I'm not using 12 ounces of the product. The chemical stuff is, by far, the better value for this cleaning.

Where Coke has really impressed me is in washing windows. Part of sealing the windows for the winter is washing them and the trim. I'm just using plain water to wash off the trim. I take a couple of paper towels, tip the can of Coke and pour a "handful" onto the towels. That's used to wash the window.

"But the sugar in the soda will leave a residue, won't it?" Well, if I just leave the Coke on the window, yes. There is a wind today and the outside air temperature is 32 degrees colder than yesterday. I started in the bedroom and washed the top half of the window first. I followed the Coke windows with a sponge immersed in water and then dried off each pane. I didn't notice a difference between the Coke washed and the just regular washed with water window.

Then I went to the cats' room. This used to be Carole's bedroom. We repainted the walls and windows, leaving paint residue on the windows. We always meant to scrape that off, but it never happened. She also had stickers on the windows as kids will do. Over the years, those have dried and fallen off, but the imprint has remained. Windex hasn't been able to get that off the glass.

Since I'm not in this room much, except to change litter, I haven't spent time cleaning the windows. They were quite dirty. Imagine my surprise and delight when the Coke infused paper towels removed over half of the dried paint; dissolved it right before my eyes; the sticker residue, insect parts and all the dirt and grime. For a control, I washed one pane in just plain water. It did get most of the grime but not all of it, some of the insect parts and none of the paint. I followed up with Coke. Each pane is rinsed with plain water and then dried with a paper towel. I wound up spending some time on this window simply because the Coke was dissolving the old paint every time I wiped across the panes. Technically, I don't really "care" about these back windows, but, wow. They sure sparkle now.

I've got a bunch more windows to wash and I will, for sure, use the Coke followed by water method. There are absolutely no fumes. Yes, it takes a bit more time to wash the window but not breathing in Windex fumes is, I think, worth it. I have no idea what Windex is selling for at this time. I bought some months ago when it was on sale, a big bottle so I have quite a bit to use up. I can't tell if this is a bargain but, after 2 windows, I've used about a third of a can. Perhaps I would use more if I was doing the outside of the windows. I am impressed, to say the least.

The last thing I'm going to try is defrosting the windshield with Coke. The article said pouring part of a can of Coke onto a frosted over window removes the frost. Follow with your washer fluid. I think there will be frozen Coke residue on your car that you probably will want to wash off but, for someone like me being able to easily make the windshield clear will be a godsend. I've had to scrape three times already and it does hurt the hands a bit in the morning. I'll let you know how that goes.

There is one thing I do wonder. Who decided to use Coke to clean their windows? Were they sitting around after pizza one night and someone looked at their can and said, "I wonder if we could use this to clean the windows?" And why Coke and not Pepsi or Dr Pepper? It's probably a good thing that I've not seen that you can use Dr Pepper to clean windows. I don't think I could use it for that.

Beverage:  Um...the rest of the can of Coke

Deb

Doing It Right

The clock radio came on. "This is AP Radio news. I'm..." I forget whose voice it was this morning. "The nor'easter that battered the east coast from New Jersey to Cape Cod is headed out to sea."

Wait...

What?

This is the first morning in what, 2 years, YEARS, that I have not awakened to some sort of political story leading off the morning news. Yes, Hurricane Sandy shoved the politics from first place, but they became second place so I don't count that at all. I rolled over and looked at the radio. I thought the Mayan apocalypse wasn't until December. AP news had NOTHING, not one thing, on politics in the news story. I keep looking around for Dr. Who or wondering if we've all been sent through a black hole into another dimension where the election is upcoming and we get to do this again...like...January 1st. (shudder)

Yesterday, on my Facebook page, I wrote, "Now that this 'lection thang is over, let's get back to what really matters; pancakes, waffles or donuts for breakfast." I got some wonderful comments from great friends. One of them, Mike, agreed that it was time for bacon comments and "moar lolcats on teh Facebook". 

I thought about that and decided, yes, yes we do need more cats on the Internet since "everyone" knows the Internet is just tubes filled with cats. So, I have decided that I will try to photograph them once a day for the next 2 weeks. They know the camera on the phone by now and I expect there will be attempts to hide and not so subtle "Oh lord. She's photographing me again" looks. I took this one last night.

 

I have my Hawkeyes throw on the recliner right now. She curls up and lies next to me. This weekend is "Black Out" day when the Hawkeyes play Purdue. Everyone coming to the game is encouraged to wear black. I believe Pilchard has that covered. The other caption for this is "Camouflage cat. You're doing it right". 

Beverage:  Rooibos tea

Deb

Bwee Bop Boop. Connection to Reality Secured

"Now, with these guys; there's gonna be a lot of them. Just dps them down until their health turns green. Then they back up. After that, there's two more. Just dps them down, too. When they're done, we run up the stairs to the boss," said the guy who was leading the 5-man group running through a dungeon event in World of Warcraft on Monday night.

I knew the dungeon. I'd been in here before. I backed my character up a bit and took aim at the mean baddies attacking us. Twenty-five came at us. We knocked them all down. Then came the two larger mobs. The one started off with a flurry of punches and kicks. The other started to do his spinning attack. He spun...

and spun...

and spun...

and spun. I looked at my colleagues in this dungeon. I couldn't see Sprucemoose or Theudis. I could see Vervaine and she seemed to be stuck in an endless cycle of spell casting. Eromar stood off to the side, his character's left arm raised in perpetual healing stance. I realized my pet, a dinosaur named "Gimmzilla", was standing in one place, swaying back and forth. I was being disconnected from the game.

I play on a Mac. Apple computers are extremely stable in the internet gaming environment. Plus, my connection to the internet is extremely stable. It is very rare for me to be disconnected. It happens so one just gets out of the game and reloads. Even rarer is the need for me to shut down and restart. But, on Monday, my attempts to reconnect were met with nothing. I wound up completely shutting down, counting to 10, and restarting. Nothing. Then I noticed the modem/router. It's the top piece of equipment in the photo.

During the gaming session, I had become aware of a clicking noise. Unable to put my finger on what it was, I finally decided it was my office chair and that a little WD40 later in the week would fix that. As I was troubleshooting why I couldn't log back onto the internet, I noticed the power light on the modem would go red and then green. This color change was accompanied by a click. Now, I'm not a techie by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm fairly certain modems shouldn't "click", nor should their power light alternate red and green. That's when I noticed the DSL and Ethernet lights were not lit. This is definately not good.

I pushed the reset button on the back of the modem, plugged it in and no lights came on. Oh dear. I took the thing into the bathroom where I knew the outlet worked. Nothing. My heart sank. It sunk faster than a 2 ton stone in water. I was fairly certain the modem/router would have to be replaced. The piece that had died cost me $115 3-4 years ago. I couldn't even remember how long I'd had this. I did not have $115, not by any stretch of the imagination.

I shut down the Mac, picked up a magazine and spent the rest of the evening stewing over my options alternating with reading. The internet is important to me. It's become hugely important to be connected to it. But, I remember when a computer was a machine that took up a class room. I went to college when the only computer available for students to use was a machine in one room that was attached to a dot matrix printer. It played a really cool Star Trek game but you could only use it for 2 hours at a time and then, only from 6 a.m. to midnight as the building it was in was closed from midnight to 5:50 a.m.

I know how to survive without computers. Plus, I have internet access at the office. It's not like I'm totally cut off. I just wouldn't be online at night. I looked at the stack of magazines to my left. It's been whittled by 3/4. I can buy a new modem at the end of the month and, in the meantime, finish off the stack. It will be hard on weekends as I won't be able to stream Iowa Hawkeyes play-by-play, but I also have my phone and it's somewhat acceptable. I seldom access the internet via my phone, although I can. The resulting view is too small for my liking and my fat fingers can't type very well on the keypad. I can do this. Fifteen days. I can do this.

I posted, via this phone, a note to my WOW guild's Facebook page, apologizing for my sudden departure and explained what I thought was the problem. I also said that replacing the modem could be problematic. The next day, I was in the guild's web site chat room and was fairly ambushed by guys who work in computers for their various companies, all wanting to a) diagnose the problem and then b) find a solution for me. Several different modems were found online, all with prices around $40. Forty dollars I can handle. They all agreed that going to an AT&T store would result in my being sold something woefully overpriced and probably "a piece of *&^#", to use Squidchin's colorful language. He finally said, "Gimm, just go to the Micro Center over on Ogden. Take the old one in and they'll get you set up." Thoryn looked at their web site and found the bottom one. "That's what you need, Gimm. Print this page out and tell them, but have them verify everything."

Off I went. I walked into the store and when asked if I needed help, I said, "The guys in my WOW guild told me to come here, that you'd help me. This died last night." The salesman looked at me, smiled and said, "What server do you play on?" Inside I'm thinking, "Yes, SCORE! He understands!" He looked at the piece of paper and asked a couple of questions. "Yup, this is the one you want and even you can set it up." I did have to call AT&T because I had written down the wrong user name and password for the modem. The guy who helped me was very polite and efficient and I was back up and running in an hour.

A friend of mine has been having problems with her left wrist. It was in a velcro cast and she's taken steroids and anti-inflammatories. Nothing seemed to work. She finally went to the doctor who put the wrist and arm up to 3 inches above the elbow in a cast. She's to wear this for 5 weeks. He hopes complete immobilization will allow the tendon to heal. Prior to the visit, she was online looking at all the things it could be, from a simple sprain to bone cancer. She had worked herself into a huge worry and was actually scared of what the doctor could find.

How does this relate to my modem? While not to diminish her cast, she's left-handed so life is, shall we say, more "interesting", this is not nearly the worst thing the doctor could have done or told her the problem was. I sat in my chair on Monday night, carving out the worse-case scenario for the modem. I'd be offline at night for fifteen days until pay day and I could replace it. We both did the same thing. "What's the worst that could happen? Okay, let me mentally think that over so I'm prepared."

Make no mistake. There are times when you need to be prepared for anything. If you choose to drive in a blizzard, you need to consider what if you get stranded. Are you prepared for that? But in all situations, considering the worse case in everything will drive you batty. Yet I can do it time and time again. "I don't want to be blind sided by something I wasn't prepared for," I tell myself and friends who ask why I considered the worse case. The problem with the mind set is that it doesn't allow for those same friends to offer helpful advice. Never once, in my ruminations over hot tea and a magazine, did I consider that I know quite a few people who might have sound, sensible advice that would result in a solution that was inexpensive. I never thought of them. It was all about walking into the AT&T store and finding out that a replacement modem would be $157.93 and that I'd have to be on the phone for 90 minutes to get it set up. Worse case.

My friend in her cast and I realize we do this all the time. A little set back is not a "little" set back. It's a do or die, fight or flight chance for major decision making. I think it's because we've made decisions that have turned out to be not so great and which resulted in greater messes needing to be cleaned up. We missed one piece of information that, of course this is hindsight, was there and we discarded it. We didn't think everything through. What this does to us is slows down our decision making. It prevents us from clear headed analysis. I don't mean that every decision should be a quick, "Meh, this'll do," but I know I need to not make everything so grave. I know I need to not see everything as a worse case scenario.

I have endured and slogged through a lot in the past 15 years. This climb to where I am has given me skills I didn't have before. I get through things, events, problems, because I know I can. It may not be pretty, but I figure it out and go on. I look back at the modem event and realize I need a reality check here. This wasn't just about connecting back into the Internet so I could play the game. This was about connecting back into reality. Not everything is do or die and I have a large circle of friends who have a lot of information between them. I need to stop, breathe and ask.

Beverage:  Homemade Cherry Coke

Deb