Eurovision Song Contest on Yahoo! News Photos
OH, dear. Joey, AKA the Accordion Guy, may need to know he’s got competition in the “Hot Accordion Player” category.
Via Manolo the Shoeblogger. The horror of the Eurovision Song Contest has come for your soul.
Yes, after all that, I forgot the damn power supply for the laptop. But not to worry, David says via text message that he’s sending a power supply next day air. And within 5 minutes, I got a delivery tracking number on my cell phone. We are SUCH GEEKS.
I had hoped to watch a downloaded episode of some show or other via laptop – I did not watch the Amazing Race finale last night and don’t know who won yet. If I get spoiled, so be it – I had a lot of other stuff to do last night. Most of the other stuff did get packed as listed and yes, it’s a lot to lug around. But I’ll be leaving a book or two behind, and there’s also a pair of antique-looking reproduction Tiffany lamps shaped like blue flowers that I thought Mom would like. I salvaged them from Steve’s house.
Which has been demolished by now, and is just a hole in the ground. Change is sometimes good.
I noticed an older lady traveler with a cane at the Starbucks just now – she was peering doubtfully at the labels in the pastry case Mindful as I am currently of vision issues and cute vintage ladies, I asked her if she needed help reading the labels. We had a nice chat – she declared proudly that she was in her 80’s, had had cataract surgery, and scar tissue lasered off, and more besides. Whoa, I just wondered if she wanted me to point out the blueberry scones. But she was also telling me via back channel that
although she couldn’t see that well, she was coping pretty well. I told her a little about mom and mentioned that today was my first full day wearing the new specs with the STEALTH TRIFOCAL lenses (grrr age grr). She laughed sympathetically and remarked that it comes to us all. Yes, I agreed, if we’re lucky enough to become old. It was a pleasant exchange. More later after arrival. My flight is delayed a little due to all the flight delays with yesterday’s weather – at work we were watching the very angry pendulous
black clouds with a little trepidation, while the lines lit up with delayed travelers and their woes. I’ll get in in time for a late lunch and hopefully an errand or jaunt of some kind.
While all the boring detail? So I can remember it – so there.
It’s the end of the trip – my time on the computer for writing was somewhat limited, because the only good time was later in the evening, and frankly I wanted to get to bed earlier most of the time. My arrival went smoothly – rental car pickup, getting to Mom’s and all that. She was very happy and surprised at how quickly I got to the house after I called from the airport to say I was in. She always thinks the traffic and the freeways here are much worse than they are, but that’s partly because she avoided them
when she was driving, and partly because there were so many changes and a lot of ongoing construction.
The first half-day we yakked for hours and tried to figure out what we needed to get done with the car while we had it. On the agenda: a big family birthday party with a ton of people from the other side of the family (people who were kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids of Mom’s brother Charlie). I hadn’t seen some of them in nearly 20 years, what with one thing and another (mostly, being too busy with family doings on our side on our quick trips to Salt Lake). That was a fixed-time goal – we knew we had that
to get to. And it was nice because it was a total fluke that I happened to pick this weekend for a flying visit.
Mom couldn’t get any doctor’s appointments or other jaunts set up, so we decided that Friday morning would be weeding a particular flowerbed right under her window in the morning, and a shopping excursion to all the big-box stores on the west side of town in the afternoon, followed by lunch and relaxing before going up to my sister Tudy’s for further relaxation. It was kind of a big day of stuff on Friday – next time, fewer stops, and more regular R&R are in order. Also, breakfast and lunch on a regular schedule
worked better on Saturday, because I overextended things a little on Friday, and Saturday morning.
My first night in my old room was oddly comforting and uncomfortable – the house is so much the same that it both soothes and bothers me. But Mom is comfy and has her routine, and if that routine is disturbed she gets tuckered more easily. Again, I’ll use the phrase “what with one thing or another” rather than go into detail about why it’s best to keep Mom on an even keel. That was another reason for this trip – I just needed to observe what works best and what could be improved for her.
We got into our jammies much, much earlier than I usually do, but we talked and discussed the news and debated a few issues, and in the end I took 2 melatonin and slept like a log the whole night – something I haven’t done in months and months. The morning included Mom making instant coffee and me being a coffee snob, but I drank it in order to get the caffeine drip going.
After some computer dinking, I went over to the neighborhood Starbuck’s just to go for a walk, got a big latte, and pronounced myself ready to take on the weeds. Did that until the morning sun came over the house and made it too warm to work, but up to that point I made a dashing figure with shorts, tank top, an incredibly battered and torn-up straw gardening hat, and an orange and black silk scarf as a sweatband. It was a lot warmer than it’s been in Chicago…a LOT warmer.
Then we went to the big box stores and I did the running around – the battery on Mom’s cordless phone crapped out and I thought a replacement battery would fix it (it didn’t). We also stopped at Home Depot to get some odds and ends of things to finish getting Mom’s deck set up for the summer – she needed yellowjacket bait and that kind of thing. I stupidly bought hummingbird food, pooh-poohing her insistence that ordinary table sugar was good hummingbird food. Yep, the ingredients on the expensive little box
of superfine “hummer food” said “100% Sucrose.” Well, duh-mit to Heck.
A stop at Costco was omitted, because it was clear that lunch was needed as soon as possible, Naturally, I made a wrong turn trying to get on the expressway, so we took a scenic tour of Salt Lake’s West Side and drove back via surface streets. Oh, well, at least we thought the new baseball stadium looked nice. We ended up at a very cute little Norwegian cafe near Mom’s house that she likes a lot. Excellent food – huge portions. Next time, plan to SHARE a half sandwich! We chatted and looked at Scandinavian knick-knacks,
and I thought about how I needed to be more attuned to the new rhythms of Mom’s life.
After some relax time, we packed up stuff to go up to Tudy’s house to hit the hot tub and have a bite afterwards. We had an appointment at Mom’s favorite hair salon the next morning so she’d look sharp for the big party, and I’d decided to get my hair trimmed. So Friday was our only chance at hot-tubbing, we thought.
Tudy has a wonderful, wonderful back yard, full of vegetables growing in raised bins and bird feeders and chairs and tables. There’s no lawn, just a really nice red pavement. It’s lovely. She has a terrific hot tub, too. That part (soaking) was wonderful, but it was a little hot and we stayed in too long. Next time, a time limit and a lower temperature would be better if I’m in there with Mom – it’s too easy to get yakking and lose track. It was really not that good an idea to parboil our mother.
After we got her out and she rested and cooled off, she was better, but it was another lesson learned. Both Tudy and I wanted to make sure she got the full enjoyment of the jets and massage features, but the length of time was more than she could comfortably handle.
Dinner was very simple and light, and we went home and got in our jammies again and yakked for a bit before turning in early, as it had been a long day. Again, I was surprised that I slept so well. I suspect that it’s drinking too much caffeine, especially in the copious mugfuls that I drink at work.
Saturday morning was supposed to be our “big day out,” and I didn’t want to get Mom overextended on energy too early in the day, so we got going BUT she didn’t eat anything before we set out, and I didn’t make sure she’d eaten. I don’t often eat breakfast (especially on a work day) so she didn’t, either. I’m not really sure why. She seemed to be taking my lead on that kind of thing, rather than sticking to her normal routine. We got out to the beauty parlor so she could get “fluffed and puffed,” which means an
old -fashioned shampoo and set. We went to this place she’s been going to for some years, because they do this kind of thing (and have a large and loyal clientele of older ladies), unlike a lot of trendier places closer to her house.
Mom was greeted, as always wherever we went, with great enthusiasm. They were VERY happy to see her there, and they knew all the details of my visit and my sisters’ doings, and happily caught up with her as she waited for her appointment. I ended up getting a trim from a very nice guy named Bryce, as Mom’s shampoo-set hairstyle required a little dryer and styling done. Then as as was paying, I saw they did eyebrow waxes for ten bucks and thought “Huh, I’ve never had my eyebrows waxed, although I’ve had
them professionally tweezed a couple of times.” So I had that done on a whim, just to see if it was that much faster – and it was, and I’m pretty happy with the result. I’m not a girly girl, but it was nice to splurge mildly on a little grooming.
After that, we looked around for some special glasses she thought a nearby craft store carried, and then instead of grocery shopping it was clear that she needed to eat. This was the morning when she didn’t eat because I didn’t eat… and she hit the wall at about 11am. So we went home and fixed a simple snack and took it easy. Mom then told me what she really needed from the nearby little gas-station grocery store, and I drove up there to get a few odds and ends of foodstuffs (it’s walkable, but it was
hot and I didn’t want to take a lot of time). When I got there, the owner guy had set up an outdoor kitchen and was cooking a selection of Thai foods – pad Thai, chicken Satay, and Panang curry. It smelled delcious. I grabbed the groceries and on a whim got pad Thai to go so Mom and I could share a taste.
Seriously, this was really, really good Pad Thai – and this guy sets up and does something different every Saturday at the Shop and Go near Wasatch Presbyterian. If you live in the Wasatch Hollow neighborhood, get over there if you can some Saturday, you never know what he’ll be cooking. Next weekend, he thinks he might do Indian food. If he cooks that anything like I had, it’ll be yummy and spicy and full of flavor.
Unfortunately for Mom, the battery I bought for her old phone wasn’t taking a charge, either, so it was clear that a return trip to Best Buy was probably in the cards, but when?
Tudy arrived with her friend Lou to pick us up for the party and we headed out via the freeway, right past Best Buy. She agreed to stop on the way back if we left early enough. We laughed and visited with Lou, who lives simply in Southern Utah and enjoys his visits north to his adopted family (short version: he’s a former patient of Tudy’s).
We arrived at the party and again Mom was greeted with great enthusiasm, and for me it was a topsy-turvy experience of seeing family members for the first time in 25 years or more. They all mostly live in Salt Lake, but divorce and busy schedules had intervened and often it was just too hard to keep up with all of my close family during visits, let alone extended (and extremely tenously extended) relatives.
It was just… great seeing everyone. It was a simple party with beer and sodas in a wading pool and food catered from the local grocery’ s deli department, but it was a fun time, especially when the smoke alarm went off when they lit the birthday cake for my younger cousin Tiffany (her mother Kim was celebrating a big birthday, too). Other young cousins that I had spent a lot of time playing with as a kid were there, and it was just so nice to feel that sense of kinship and shared memories with so many people.
After a suitable stay, we got going, as Tudy planned a much more elaborate grilled chicken dinner back at her house. We did end up stopping for a new cordless phone, pretty much over Mom’s objections, but she admitted that she did need a working cordless because she’d become used to toting it around with her. I ran in, called my husband David for advice while standing in the cordless aisle, and ran out 10 minutes later. We went home to relax for a bit and so I could get the phone starting to charge before going
up to Tudy’s for dinner.
We drove up past the place where the guy had been cooking earlier, and Mom was interested to see where it was. She was pretty intrigued with the whole idea, and so had our neighbor who had dropped by the deck to chat while she picked up her laundry from our clothesline (it was like that all weekend – neighborly chats and such).
When we arrived, Tudy had dinner ready to go on the grill whenever we were ready. She set a lovely table outside with all the nice picnic silverware and serving dishes and even had the screened thing that goes over the salad bowl to keep the bugs off. She’d made some smothered chicken that had been marinating overnight – and some corn cobs with slices of bread ready-buttered (in the family tradition) so that the hot corn could be rolled and buttered on the bread…mmmmmm.
We enjoyed the evening and the birdsong and the delicious chicken and the four of us (Tudy, Lou, me, and Mom) talked and talked about all kinds of things.
Mom let me know it was time to go, and we took off for “jammies time.” I puttered around while she sat in her recliner and watched the news… and then I heard something I hadn’t heard in a while…. the Red Green show was on! I had to watch that show, especially with Mom! So we watched that and laughed, and she decided to go up and stretch out and watch it upstairs. And I watched it downstairs and got thoroughly nostalgic, because it was a favorite when I lived in Seattle, and then Red Dwarf came on, another
Seattle-era favorite, and finally I watched part of a Monty Python episode (the one with the blancmanges from outer space). All this strongly reminded me of more than 30 years ago, sitting up watching Monty Python and other British shows with Mom on Saturday nights.
Strange, but true – British and Canadian sitcoms were a staple of my young adulthood and here I was, watching them again at Mom’s house. The next morning, the sense of being in a time warp was even stronger.
I woke up a little later than I had the other mornings and finally got awake enough to get up and go out to the stairway. The scent of maple-cured bacon floated up and knocked me into my childhood for a second – bacon cooking, and the smell of coffee, took me right back to 9 years old for a second, and all that was missing was the sound of Pop’s voice, kidding Mom about something.
I got downstairs and Mom was working on some eggs for scrambling and coffee, and I got the juice. She got the bacon on plates and I cooked the eggs in a cute little nonstick skillet that looked new, in plenty of bubbling hot butter. Mom got a tray out and we went out to the deck for the last breakfast of the visit.
And then after a little while of visiting, and more discussions, it was time to leave.
So now I’m home, back with my hubby and my kitty, who missed me. And I’m really glad to be home, but I wish I could spend more time with Mom, and run more little errands and sit around and gab on the deck. I hope to make more short visits – not sure when, but I hope I can work it out. Because I’ve really missed being around family, and I’ve especially missed spending as much time as possible with Mom.
Amazing Race � Recaps & Extras � Season 9 Episode 12″ href=”http://www.televisionwithoutpity.com/story.cgi?show=76&story=9345&limit=&sort=”>Television Without Pity � The Amazing Race � Recaps & Extras � Season 9 Episode 12
Here’s what Miss Alli had to say in the “recaplet to hold you until the recap goes live:”
“As is customary for TAR finales, we will only say this: blah blah blah, BJ and Tyler win, ick.”
I haven’t actually seen the episode, due to my packing and traveling schedule, but I had already been spoiled when I opened up a newspaper and saw the winners’ names. I’m not unhappy; actually, they were my favorites but I always felt apologetic about this, because they honked the shit off of a lot of viewers.
I think they’re funny, but a lot of people think they’re insufferable, annoying, cloying, and famewhores.
And I can see that. I really can. So I’m not really over the moon about their win, though I would have sneered at an Eric and Jeremy first place, or shrugged at a Ray and Yolanda win, because they were always getting lost.
I’ll find out more tomorrow and maybe watch the episode. But I bet you the recap is much, much funnier.
Yes, well, my husband David rescued me again. He sent a spare power supply via next day delivery, so I was able to keep using the laptop on my trip.
It did come in handy yesterday, having the laptop and at least a dialup connection, because there was some community information and other stuff to look up for Mom. Also, I was able to fire off an email to the local newspaper’s circulation department to ask them to continue to put her paper on her porch, and not halfway down the driveway as they recently announced.
They put a flyer in everybody’s paper telling them that this was a great improvement, enabling the delivery person to drive by in their car and toss the papers “halfway up the driveway” instead of a pair of people walking and driving and tossing the papers more accurately onto the front stoop. Also, this innovation would result in newspapers being delivered up to half an hour earlier.
They called this “Quality Driveway Delivery.”
What this really means is my mom has to get completely dressed and go all the way out to the driveway to get her paper (which has an incline), instead of wearing her housecoat and slippers and stooping down on her front step. And frankly, I wasn’t happy about the thought of her having to go out in all weather (especially in the snow).
I wrote a couple of other emails on her behalf, and found out more information on a local land-use issue that’s been concerning her (we know the people that used to own the property – long story, next post). She seemed intrigued by the ability to look information up instantly (well, relatively instantly on dialup) and has promised to ask me to look stuff up for her after I get home.
Wouldn’t have been able to do all that without the AC adapter, so that was a huge help. And yes, it’s already securely packed in my bag.
More to do tomorrow morning – and then home to Chicago.
Yeah, I gotcher quality right here, Salt Lake Tribune.
Via: Flickr Title: Idiot forgot ac adapter By: GinnyRED57
Originally uploaded: 18 May ’06, 8.54am CDT PST
So. Off into the blue tomorrow on a fact-finding trip. It’s just a short weekend trip on my own – my husband David and my cat Riley will be batching it while I’m gadding around the urban wilderness of Salt Lake.
Books and Stuff To Read
Techery
Personal Junk
Clothes
Obviously, it looks like a lot, but all the books and tech stuff and junk fit into my messenger bag, and the duffel carry-on won’t be tightly packed. I might throw in a carry-bag for bringing back extra stuff, in fact. I can’t really say why I’m bringing all the gear; mostly because I’ll be staying at Mom’s house, she goes to bed early, and I’ll have a few hours to kill before bedtime.
Once upon a time, it was my home, but it’s a lot smaller than it used to be, and is of a charming but inconvenient design. I love it very much, and cherish the memories that permeate the walls (thus improving the paint job). Mom loves it very, very, very much.
Family legend is clear: my wish for a “white upstairs house with a fireplace” when Pop was househunting in Salt Lake while Mom and I were still in Albuquerque resulted in Pop buying a house that looked perfect on the outside, but was most definitely not perfect on the inside.
For instance: it had a charming brick chimney. Pop never noticed there was no corresponding fireplace in the living room. The look on his face was as blank as the wall on moving day when Mom or I asked about the fireplace.
The kitchen was a nightmare – there was an odd little breakfast nook that was open between the kitchen and the “dining room,” which had actually started out life as a tiny garage. It had an inconveniently placed door to the end of the living room, which was the original dining room, but which had become a sort of library or study that gave access to the patio, which consisted of cracked hexagonal cement slabs.
The bathrooms had horrid green linoleum. This still survives on the floor of the little angled cubby in my old room. The rest was ruthlessly purged.
The walls were a pepto-bismolic pink. This went well with the horrid green lino. Mom saw pictures before Moving Day. Ultimatum: white walls or no move. Pop painted the walls. And painted the walls.
We moved in to the little white upstairs house without a fireplace in 1962. I was 5.
Mom transformed the house over the years. More painting, a refinished wood floor in the dining room courtesy of the monstrous belt sander she rented and ran herself, a remodeled kitchen with the door moved to allow better traffic flow, new appliances in better locations, and the nook transformed into a pass-through counter with stools on both sides and cupboards above and below. A green shag carpet that was a novelty (it had to be raked!) was replaced with a shorter carpet in a more neutral color. The old windows
came out and a big new bay window went into the living room, and Mom began collecting bits of colored glass and doodads that stick onto the window with clear plastic vacuum cups. They’re flowers and birds and little old-fashioned knick-knacks in leaded glass. Furniture came and went over time but was always comfy.
After Pop died, part of the insurance money went for our one real extravagance in those years: she found a little man who knew how to open up the wall and install a fireplace, where it obviously was meant to go, because the flue, firebox, ash dump, and other needful things were all there. He knew money was tight, so he threw himself into the spirit of things and scrounged for used brick and salvaged a big old wooden beam for a mantelpiece. Mom refinished it and rubbed linseed oil into the beam, and then added
brass cuphooks and hung some old English horsebrasses and bits and bobs of antique fireplace stuff in iron and copper. Cozy nights in front of the fireplace became a big part of the charm of being at home. New Year’s Eve became a tradition of building a big fire, watching the “New Years Eve In Old Vienna” with Walter Cronkite, and clapping along to the Marshal Radetzky March, then falling asleep in front of the fireplace.
Mom’s favorite room is the living room – she spends a lot of time checking out the world through her bay window. Her second favorite “room” is probably the deck in the summer, which replaced the old patio slabs about 20 years ago. It goes across the back of the house and is partly under cover. She’s got a bunch of hummingbird feeders and windchimes; when the weather is nice, she leaves the screen door to the deck open and just sits and listens.
It’s a cute house, and a sweet house, and an inconvenient house. But when visitors come for the first time, they come in the living room, look at the fireplace and the light streaming in from the bay window, colored by all those whimsical doo-dads, and the muscles in their faces relax. And they invariably say something like, “This is the homiest little house in the world.”
Well, would you want to leave the homiest little house in the world? No, I wouldn’t either. It may be possible to work with the impracticalities and adapt, overcome, and achieve a more comfortable and safe setting “in situ” for Mom. Have to see for myself.
There are a lot of products and possibilities out there; one idea that comes to mind is some sort of stair lift (David mentioned this tonight over dinner). And in Googling around, I see there are choices. Still, the name of this company gives me pause. Didn’t they used to make… tanks for the Nazis? Or was that some other Germanic company named Krupp? However, these
guys seem to have the right idea – through this network, local dealers sell and install either new or used stairlifts. Hmm. And then there’s the laundry problem… the basement steps are horrific; rickety, narrow and dark. But a combo apartment-sized washer/dryer could be installed upstairs in my old bedroom’s closet, which backs up to the plumbing wall of the upstairs bathroom. Venting wouldn’t be difficult. Hmmty hmm.
Yes, that’s what this is all about: choices, possibilities, and options for an elderly parent that won’t drive her middling-elderly daughtren and grandchildren nuts with worry. And being able to discuss these options without making her feel like she’s being railroaded to the old folks home. And helping her stay connected with friends and family, and not be isolated just because she can’t bat around town behind the wheel of her own car anymore.
Yeah. So, off tomorrow, back Sunday.
iTunes: Dennis Kamakahi: Aloha Ko’olau: ‘Ohana [4:28]
iTunes: Coldplay: Don’t Panic: Parachutes [2:16]
iTunes: Synergy Brass Quintet: If Ye Love Me, Keep My Commandments: Masterworks For Brass From The Baroque And Renaissance [2:17]
iTunes: Frederick Fennell & The Cleveland Symphonic Winds: Radetsky-Marsch for orchestra, Op. 228: Stars & Stripes [2:19]
London Underground Tube Diary – Going Underground’s Blog
Yesterday when coming home, I noticed there was something weird about the people coming up the escalators at Leicester Square (they weren’t dressed as Santas – that’s the best escalator picture I could find for this chilly time of year in London – I was freezing at work yesterday!).
No-one on the up escalator was actually moving. It was as though someone had pressed a pause button on a video. After a few seconds of surprise and looking around at each other, they realised the escalator had just stopped and as there was no sign of it starting again, they had to walk up.
There was no explanation as to why it had stopped and some people may have welcomed the exercise. But I wonder how many of them about to walk onto the suddenly halted escalator had “Escalator Wobble”?
From a post some time ago I reported that scientists at Imperial College with too much time on their hands had done a study on this “They have got to the bottom of “broken escalator wobble”. You know the sensation you get when you step onto an escalator that isn’t working although you think it is and you lose your balance or get a bit dizzy. Apparently it’s the conflict between what the brain knows is going to happen (no movement) and what it thinks is going to happen, based on previous experience (movement). We all speed up when approaching an escalator, so when it isn’t moving we stumble. The Professors at Imperial didn’t test this on escalators though (although I’m sure they had plently of broken ones to choose from), but on sleds in a laboratory.”
AAAAAAAAAHHHH! I am reminded of a most unpleasant experience I had once: a full-blown panic attack on a public-transportation escalator. This was on a trip my husband David and I took to Washington DC some years ago.
The escalator wasn’t running at the Dupont Circle Metro stop, and I had to walk down. I have a depth perception problem that is most noticeable when I’m trying to decide if it’s safe to step onto a moving escalator to go down (up is no problem). Something about the vertical treads moving away and dropping down doesn’t play well with my head and I can’t help but hesitate long enough for people to pile up impatiently behind me. Also, I’m always anxious I’ll step on an edge and not on a full tread, so I have to wait, wait, wait, until the timing is right and I can put my foot down. I can’t depend on my eyes to tell me when it’s safe, I actually have to step on kind of like when you time your entry into a moving jump-rope on the playground. You know: “One and two and three and go.” And it’s almost as bad going down a long set of stairs. Double the discomfort when walking down stationary escalator treads – those stripes become positively “vertigal.”
Dupont is one of the deepest stations and the escalators are very, very long. The elevator wasn’t working (dammit) and I realized that I had no choice but to walk down the escalator. This didn’t seem so bad; I thought it was better than riding a long moving escalator, actually.
I thought wrong.
By the time I was a third of the way down, I perceived the treads as a long, gleaming Ramp of Impending Doom, down which my brain was convinced I was about to slide. So I leaned way, way back to try to see the tread edges better. Just made it worse. Then I totally froze up in fear, with a bunch of exasperated commuters behind me. All I could do for a minute was turn sideways, close my eyes, and motion for people to go around me. David looked like he couldn’t believe his eyes. Meanwhile I was gripping the rubber handrail so hard my fingers started to hurt. Finally, the press of people lessened and I was able to get moving. This time, I tried to look more or less straight ahead and step down “blind.” It didn’t help my wacky perception that all the surfaces in the corners of my eyes were smooth, gleaming stainless steel. That just made it worse.
I was in a flop-sweat panic by the time I got to the station level. It was one of only two panic attacks I’ve ever experienced, and to this day I have to wait until NO ONE is behind me as I step onto a down escalator, because being rushed makes me anxious.
For some reason, this doesn’t bother me as much when I’m wearing contacts – the escalators on the London Tube didn’t faze me, but if I’m wearing glasses and sandals instead of contacts and closed-toe athletic shoes, forget it.
Riley was so frickin’ cute just now.
His favorite bag is starting to get pretty battered – I’ve been sort of helping that tear in the bottom corner, hoping that he’d start playing with it. Tonight, my wish was granted.
Sometimes he likes to just sit on the flattened bag, but tonight when I opened it up a little, he went in and out a few times. David and I went about our normal evening routines… but then the bag started rustling and cracking a lot more than normal. I moved to where I could see him, and caught a glimpse of him leaping into the bag.
“Where’s Riley?” I inquired. POP! Out came his head as he craned his neck out of the tear, to see what was going on. The fur on his head and neck got smoothed down flat, making him appear very young and winsome. AAAAAAAAAH!!! I started to laugh hysterically, while grabbing for the camera.
He popped back in the bag. But not to worry, he kept popping his head in and out of the bag, so eventually I got a couple of pictures once the g*#!@&m flash went off. Here, he’s clearly tired of the attentions of the media.
And in a later picture, he goes all Greta Garbo on my ass. Such a funny cat.
Via: Flickr Title: *&!#@!! Papparazzi By: GinnyRED57
Originally uploaded: 15 May ’06, 10.16pm CDT PST
Was this a good idea or not? I was tinkering around with that last, big post and realized that ecto had announced that the latest version was available. There are some updates I’ve been waiting for in the new version, so I was all set to download it and give it a whirl.
A caveat: it required that I uninstall my previous version of ecto. I didn’t want to lose a huge amount of settings, data, and that one big draft post, so I finished it as “Adventures in Paradise, Part 1.”
I did the reinstall – during this process, I got a warning about a shared file – did I want to delete it or not? One option was “if you are not sure, click ‘no’ ” so that’s what I did.
According to the specs, V 2.0 was supposed to go get whatever version of .NET if it needed an update. It did not do this during the install, and there was some sort of non-fatal error during the process. When I went to start it, however, ecto threw a fatal hissy. So I found in the readme.txt docs (really, guys, this isn’t supposed to be that difficult) where to download the needed .NET version. Again, there was some sort of odd error during the installation of .NET. Whee, etc.
Finally, got ecto to start. Began this post, clicked “save as draft.” and exited. I wanted to see how it behaved.
10 minutes and a reboot later, I finally got ecto restarted. Just now, however, I found an ecto mini-icon in the system tray, somewhere it didn’t live before back when it was just a pup of a version number 1.8.8.
Hmm. However, there are all kinds of interesting rich text buttons to explore, including (joy! bliss! Rapture!) numbered and bulleted lists. But not, alas, blockquote (although there is “indent”), but that’s okay: to my great relief, all my settings, blogs, and html snippets made it into the new version after uninstalling the previous one (but not, however, deleting any of the companion files that were in the same directory).
When I started the installation, I was:
In switching back and forth between rich text and HTML version, I can see a hell of a lot of unnecessary <code><p></code> tags.
I wonder if my fancy image templates made it over?
Ooh! Me likey! This handles images a little better than before – fewer steps, and it displays the image in the entry window in Rich Text view, rather than just the code. It still does that in the HTML view. The picture, by the way, is from a womens’ shop up in Makawao, Maui, where I spent a lot of time, dollars and sweat buying a pair of board shorts. I liked the lanterns when I first walked in.
Except… WHOA!!! Not good. When I checked the HTML view, some of my template code was repeated a bunch of times. Not, not, not good. Did I do something wrong, or is this a bug? I have to check my image upload templates now.
That is really odd behavior, and I may have to report it as a bug if it’s not something I need to fix in the template. Basically, the cursor seems to be stuck in the image’s DIV if I’m in rich text mode. I have to flip into the HTML view and put some text in after the closing tag in order to keep it from doing this.
Let’s try something else. How does this indent deal work?
The ecto 2.0 is officially released and available for download! It has been a long development process, far longer than I anticipated or wished, but I think the result is pretty good. Although the application does not look much different outwardly, there are many code rewrite under the skins. This upgrade is free for all registered users.
But getting out of it is harder than it looks. Again, I had to go into HTML mode. I think I have to click the indent button a second time to tell it where to end.
And now, to see if this new version posts or not.
All the obvious hints aside, yes, we were gearing up for a return trip to our second spiritual home, Maui. This time we're staying in Napili, an area north of the Ka'anapali area that's s supposed to have good snorkeling. We had an uneventful flight, although a cramped one – it was absolutely jammed full of elderly group travelers from Wisconsin. After some delay in getting the rental car, which we may swap out again later, we drove up around Macgregor Point, and encountered our first whale, and our first Na Pali traffic jam.
It's been one of my peeves for years – development on Maui is dictated not so much by the people who have to live here, but by the big landowning interests. So roads didn't get built because they needed to be, they got built as afterthoughts around the edges of valuable land. Then when the local agriculture-based economy got switched over to development for tourism (big landowning interests again), the roads remained underfunded, badly routed, and soon became massively congested. We got stuck in a slow moving crawl, but once we inched past Lahaina, it eased up. Never did see an actual REASON for the delay. We kept an eye out for whales, watched for interesting things along the way, and managed to tune in NPR and lsten to "Car Talk." Hey, some things we do on vacation are a lot like the things we do on weekends.
This post is going to be VERY VERY LONG. Basically, it's one big post for the whole two weeks, that will be updated frequently but not published until just before our ::sniff::: return. To see the whole thing, see the extended entry… See you at the end!
It seems my husband David has fallen into a life of crime; he sent an email to his mom just now telling her that she had left her red umbrella in our car, and he was holding it hostage for some mushroom barley soup.
David’s parents had heard good things of an exhibition at the Milwaukee Public Museum called “St Peter and the Vatican: The Legacy of the Popes.” They bought tickets and we arranged to meet at the Hyatt on Lake-Cook Road, where we’ve found it convenient to rendezvous with other friends in order to take one car north to the Bristol Renaissance Faire or other points in the direction of Cheeseheadland.
So, in squally weather, we met up and drove north, chatting about this and that and planning a possible future outing to see WWDTM, where my mother-in-law can content herself with shushing me for laughing too loud as she has done at improv comedy shows in the past (sometimes with a family member actually performing at that very moment). Because of the rain, Leah had brought her trusty red umbrella, in case we had to trek some distance to the museum from parking. Also, the original plan was to stay in Milwaukee for dinner.
With the able help of our onboard GPS, Edna, we arrived at the museum, parked in the underground garage, got ourselves sorted out, and had a nice lunch, all the while discussing the kinds of family ephemera that are the bread and butter of daily existence. Leah, for example, is becoming an art maven; she’s lined up speakers for a an art club she belongs to in her area and was telling us about her “gets,” and how even the people who turned her down were so lovely and gracious, she apologized for even asking.
Dad and David and I visited the Butterfly Wing environment, and I noted that it ain’t the heat, it’s the humidity as I regretted dressing for the outdoors, rather than the indoors. Lovely butterflies, though. Then we visited the bugs next door. I took a picture of some sort of stick insect thing. There were some rather horrible millipedes that were as big around as a garden hose, except with self-propelling feet. Also: glow in the dark scorpions!!! Who knew that scorpions glowed under UV light? I spent my summer vacations in Grand Junction being scared of scorpions, and I DID NOT KNOW THIS. We spent some more time after lunch wandering the ground floor/first floor area, which seemed like a modern “take” on museums, with a lot of dioramas of scientists doing all different kinds of scientific field work and specimen prep work.
Finally it was time to go upstairs to the special exhibition area. We all ended up getting audio guides – usually David and I pass on them at the Art Institute shows we go to with his parents – and we started with a full-size mockup of the original, ancient tomb of St Peter, which was discovered years ago buried deep under the high altar at St Peter’s Basilica in Rome.
The narration in the audio guide was straightforward, but lacking in a lot of detail. The exhibits moved through the period of the “old” basilica of Constantine to the “new” basilica that we know today, with some background on the many popes and artists that worked and struggled to build it. Then the treasures started showing up – some very beautiful things, and some things that were just… overwhelmingly ornate and “bling-bling.” There was a timeline with historical context in several of the rooms, but most of the exhibits just showed one jeweled tiara after another – one had a good story, though. Napoleon held one pope more or less hostage – he was forced into exile for years – and Napoleon gave him a papal tiara that included the world’s largest emerald… and deliberately ordered it made several sizes too small to fit that particular pope. That had to be one of the world’s most expensive practical jokes.
After finally completing our pilgrimage ( the last room contained several items that had belonged to John Paul II, and there was a bronze cast of his hands that visitors were encouraged to touch), we escaped to the rest of the museum. For a while, we all sat discussing the exhibit, next to a very Santa-like gentleman with a tremendous big white beard. Not wishing to offend everybody within earshot of the misgivings we’d all felt as we went farther and farther into the exhibit, we chatted about silly things with the guy next to us. When we got up to leave, he said to David “Come back when you can grow a proper beard.” Wandering, wandering, wandering, the guys got ahead of us somewhere after the European Village area and we were on our own, my mom-in-law and I, We looked at static diorama after static diorama (the ones on the first floor are animated or have a little interactivity)> Leah and I started to form the opinion that something was not quite right in museumland.
It seemed that although there were many, many items in the individual exhibits, from countries and cultures the world over, there was very little explanation or context. And where there was a sign or a description of the items in the case, it was set somewhere hard to read. Leah remarked that the older part of the museum, which consisted of a series of galleries with cases full of textiles, or ceramics, or masks… had a very Sixties feel. Lots of dioramas, no story. No captions. I wondered if the museum felt it was better to send people through in an escorted group with a docent or something – in many cases, I knew a little about pieces or artifacts because I had seen similar things in the Royal B.C. Museum – and so did Leah. Around about the time we were wandering through various cultures in Asia, I received a text message from David:
“Where are you?” he sent.
“India,” I replied.
So we wandered along and took our time, but the lack of basic background information had begun to pall. Finally, after strolling through Meso-America and the South Pacific, we met up with the guys at the crossroads of Africa and Australia, and agreed that it was time to head out. I did take some time to admire the dramatic Pow Wow diorama – the dancer’s figures are really amazing. But we all agreed that we were weary of looking at things without learning very much about them. We decided that rather than hang around for another 2 hours waiting to have dinner at some place they’d picked in Milwaukee, we’d drive south to a restaurant near where their car was parked.
After a lengthy discussion of the Vatican exhibit in the privacy of the car, we all came to the same conclusion – that all that tremendous wealth displayed in the Vatican, and in all the many many churches of Europe, was beautiful, but a terrible waste of resources that could have gone to relieve poverty over the centuries. At least some of the modern popes have dispensed with SOME of the paraphernalia, most specifically the jewelled, embroidered, woven-silver fabric tiaras – a modern pope decided to sell his and give the money to the poor. Since then, no more funny beehive-shaped pope hats. Anyway, all the ostentatious display of wealth and power left us feeling a little jaded.
We had dinner at Wildfire, where the beef barley soup was good and all the entrees we chose delicious. It was a very, very nice meal. David talked about home-made soup with his mom, and we all groaned comfortably when the dessert tray came around. No, thank you.
After we said goodbye and headed home, David discovered the forgotten red brolly in the back seat. It’s ours now, until his mom pays the ransom.