My talking dog

Ain't she cute?

My 'hood goes for a spin.

Saturday morning, while Sailor and I were in San Antonio, a small tornado came through my neighborhood.

In fine tornado fashion, my house is completely untouched, save that the leaves in my front yard have vanished. (No raking!) I lost a couple of small tree limbs, but nothing that wouldn't normally come down in a hard thunderstorm.

It apparently hit first about a half a block down the street, where it damaged a tree so badly it had to be cut down. The Redneck Neighbors had a layer of shingles ripped off their roof, and the neighbors on the other side of their house had the siding ripped off one end, which exposed the attic. The twister hopped over a few houses, then came back down and demolished several fences and tossed patio furniture around.

I've been looking for any mention of it in the local news, but there is nothing. Neighbor said that Channel 5 came out to our street and did a story, but I still can't find anything on their web site.

(edit) I found it! Link is here to the story

11 Reasons...

This was posted on my favorite bulletin board today. I had to share. Let's keep this meme going.


-------------------

From the Office of Strategic Influence:

A list of stupid republican arguments against gay marriage

1. Being gay is not natural. Real Americans always reject unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, and air conditioning.

2. Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.

3. Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.

4. Straight marriage has been around a long time and hasn't changed at all; women are still property, blacks still can't marry whites, and divorce is still illegal.

5. Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage were allowed; the sanctity of Britany Spears' 55-hour just-for-fun marriage would be destroyed.

6. Straight marriages are valid because they produce children. Gay couples, infertile couples, and old people shouldn't be allowed to marry because our orphanages aren't full yet, and the world needs more children.

7. Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.

8. Being gay is disgusting. Which is why lesbian porn isn't a 3.5 billion dollar a year industry.

9. Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That's why we have only one religion in America.

10. Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That's why we as a society expressly forbid single parents to raise children.

11. Gay marriage will change the foundation of society; we could never adapt to new social norms. Just like we haven't adapted to cars, the service-sector economy, or longer life spans.

Anathem

Subtitle: I still let my geek flag fly.

On a world that is not Earth, in a time that is not now, Neal Stephenson explores the divisions within society, faith, science, and the space in between. Anathem, his newest novel, will be as influential on the future of speculative fiction, as Snow Crash was for the Cyberpunk genre.

This is not a book for the faint of heart. At somewhere over 900 pages, the length is typical of most of Stephenson's novels, however, the challenge is not in the length but in the depth. The first few chapters are slow going. The author gives us a new vocabulary, new relationships, and new concepts to grapple with. There are helpful dictionary excerpts at the chapter heads, with others as placeholders within the text that help nudge the reader along. This language is the first barrier to cross, even as the story speaks of barriers being dropped. Don't be discouraged - if you can cross the divide between Saecular and Avout, you'll find yourself immersed in a world both strange and familiar.

Imagine a world where all scientists, mathematicians, theorists, and philosophers, collectively known as Avout, are secluded in monastic institutions, called concents, scattered all over the world. Each concent is named for a particular Saunt who made great discoveries in his or her field and inspired others to form an Order to advance that particular theory. As paralleled in monastic traditions, they call each other fraa and suur and spend their lives devoted to study in their chosen Order. They leave behind the saecular world (much like American/Western society) and live their lives in austerity, forbidden to access technology, enclosed behind a gate that only opens to the extramuros based on a set period of time. These periodic gate openings, called Aperts, define the maths, which are collections of people under different terms of service to the concent. Unarian gates open every year, Decenarians, every ten, Centenarians every hundred, and Millenarians, every thousand years. Each concent is centered around a clock that keeps time on a millennial scale, and the great gears of the clock are the mechanism that opens each gate of the math on its appointed year. Our narrator is a Decenarian named fraa Erasmus, living at the concent of Saunt Edhar, and we meet him in the days before his Apert, when he will rejoin the Saecular world for ten days after being secluded for a decade.

Are you still with me? Yeah, it took me about three days to read the first three chapters. The book has a handy glossary in the back, which was a big help. After the first few chapters, I got the hang of inferring meaning from context, and realized that most of the words had Latin roots that made sense once I figured it out. I was amazed at Stephenson's word craft. These words make sense, once I figured out that, for example, fraa and suur were based on the Latin frater and soror - brother and sister. Apert was a form of aperture, concent was convent, or perhaps, a shortened form of concentration camp...

The plot is wildly imaginative but perfectly plausible, and pulled me into the world of Arbre just as the protagonist is pulled into a world and a situation he finds equally as strange. Woven in between the Socratic theoretic dialogues is a fantastic adventure that leaves no epic stone unturned. Honor, love, redemption, mystery, martial arts, conspiracy and betrayal are there in spades. Stephenson, in the grand tradition of SF writers, also manages to sharply satirize the western world, and warn us of what possible futures await if we continue down path-X.

This book is dense with theoretical arguments, heavy science and philosophy, and examinations of topics ranging from Plato's allegory of the cave to the farthest reaches of quantum mechanics. Many of the Saunts mentioned in the book correlate with great thinkers we are familiar with, like Plato, Godel, and Descartes. Occam's Razor becomes Gardan's Steelyard, a Faraday cage becomes Bucker's Basket, and so on. I will admit that my eyes glazed over and I skimmed many pages of debates between characters defending their particular corner of scientific turf. It did spark my brain to play "guess the Saunt" from time to time. I tend to experience the same effect after reading any of Stephenson's novels -- my brain was considerably larger when I finally read the last appendix, and closed the cover.

This one is a keeper. I will likely re-read it once my brain has had a chance to settle after being so vigorously stirred. That apert should open in about, oh, ten years.

Turkey of a day

I'm having a bad case of the holiday heeby-jeebies, and while I'm sure it will pass, I'm thisclose to a Holiday freak out.

Thanksgiving, we'll be feasting with my Aunt, who is graciously cooking the meal, and didn't mind at all when I called and asked her if she was up to our visiting this year. We'll have plenty to talk about since our jobs are now similar (fund-raising) and she has a lot of stuff planned for us to do during our visit. I love the visiting, but the getting ready is nerve-wracking. I didn't get on the Best Cat Sitter Ever's schedule in time, so the dogs and one cat are going to the vet's kennel. Bill and I have been juggling vet visits, making sure that medicines for our geriatric pets are in order, and arranging care for the one cat who will stay at the house. I'm certain that Allie is going to nip and/or bite a tech at the kennel, and I'm hoping that Loki doesn't bite the tech who tries to give his meds. He bit the cat lady once, and I was mortified. On top of all this, Bill has a gravely ill family member, and I've been prepared to call the whole Thanksgiving visit off at a moment's notice. So yeah, I'm just a little bit overwhelmed.

After Thanksgiving is over, I'm making a point to spend more time with my friends. I want to spend some time just relaxing and hanging out, and I need to get out of my box for a while and go play. It's Fall in Texas, and the air is crisp and it's sunny and pretty. I need to get out on the weekends and get to the dog park, go on a photo safari, and go do something different for a change.

Then, I can take a deep breath and get ready for Christmas. Argh.


(On Edit)

Well that settles that. Bill's relative has passed away, and we have had to drop everything and make new plans. I'm staying home with "the kids" and he's traveling to the funeral. So that's that.

DIY Christmas

My favorite personal finance blog, Get Rich Slowly, has a lovely list of 34 Great Gifts You Can Make Yourself.

Getting a handmade gift is something I enjoy. Making handmade gifts is also a pleasure.

I generally do a mix of DIY and store-bought gifts, but I've been leaning more towards the DIY for some time. I started making batches of candy for my friends & family years ago. I love to make scarves, jewelry, handbags, and other fun stuff to let my giftees know that I'm thinking of them.

If I want to ninja a gift and keep it for myself, it's my best gauge for "giftability." For example, I once found tray with folding legs, with spaces for framed photos. I framed some botanical prints and gave the tray to my Aunt, but I honestly found myself debating whether or not I should just keep it, because it looked so cool. Someone told me that I should never give a gift that I wouldn't want for myself. I've held on to this principle, and discovered that in some cases, I'm a freak. Yeah, I honestly thought that cool toy I took to a yankee gift swap was the shit, and I was a little chagrined when somebody dissed it as the "loser gift" of the evening. Ahh, well.

I have a bizarre love of gift baskets - I got unreasonably happy the other day when my boss gave me a fruit basket. I think they represent "plenty" and even "excess" to me, rather like the cornucopia of old. (And nothin' says Yule like a $6 pear from Harry and David!) I've made up some of my own baskets as gifts, and for my far-flung loved ones, I know that a commercial basket is more likely to survive the trip, so I try to choose something that they would like.

The one exception is my gadget-loving, early-adopter, techno-head mate. I think he'd be a little perplexed by a crocheted iPod cozy. I haven't quite figured out what to get him this year, but it's guaranteed to have a microprocessor in it somewhere.

Overheard in the office...

"Nobody can scream in the bathroom around here without being criticized!"

Voting the straight and narrow

I have done three things today that I have never done before. I voted early, I used an electronic voting machine, and I voted a straight party ticket.

My usual polling place is at the little elementary school down the street. I've lived here for 10+ years, and every two years I've walked out my front door with my voter registration in hand and my crib notes in another, and stood in line with my neighbors to vote. But not this year.

The Primary race was a madhouse. More people showed up to vote there than I've ever seen in all 10 years of my voting in my 'hood. We waited in line for hours, then waited another several hours to caucus for our precinct. I decided that this year, voting early was the way to go. So this time I got in my car and drove down to the fire station. This year they were using electronic voting machines and my hackles went up. I've always used paper ballots. As a former web application programmer, I'm a big fan of paper ballots. These, however, were not touch-screens, they appeared to work properly, and I reviewed my vote before I cast it, and it was correct.

This is the first time I've voted a straight party ticket for the Democrats. I'm an independent voter and always have been. Though I lean heavily democratic, there are plenty of local Republicans in city and county positions who are worth supporting. This year, these folks were either running unopposed, or their democratic challengers were polling at such a tiny minority I knew that a vote for them wouldn't affect my preferred candidate's job. There are three guys I am proud to vote for this year. My first pick is a National Guard Vet named Rick Noriega, and he's facing a tough Senate race against a weasely white guy, and needs my vote. The other two are of course, Obama and Biden. Even though there isnt' a chance in hell of them taking an electoral vote from Texas, I want to vote for the good guys.

So friends, let me encourage you to get your butts to the polls before Friday, so you won't have to stand in line for hours in the madhouse that will be Nov. 4. Vote for whomever you please, and remember if you dont' vote, you lose your right to bitch about politics.

Walking - the Home Stretch.

Home Stretch! I've raised my daily average steps to nearly 6,000 a day, and I can see that I'm not going to make Nome by the end of the week. Alas. However, it was a fun exercise and I'm glad I signed up and did it. Who knows, I may go balls-out this week and try to get in 9,000 steps a day!!

Walking trail update

Here's an update on where I am on my "Iditarod trail" walk. According to their metrics, I'm not going to make it to the end by Nov. 2, but I'm going to get pretty close!

Margaret and Helen

It's official. I have a blogger crush on Margaret and Helen.

Check it out: http://margaretandhelen.wordpress.com/

"I am 82 years old (83 in December). It’s time to hand the reigns over to the next generation and hope that we did a good job raising them. To Senator McCain I say, with love in my heart, sit down and shut up. You’re beginning to look like an ass and your answers sound like a cross between Barnie Fife and Floyd the Barber. "

Marks on the Land.

I got curious and went looking for the homestead where I lived from age 9 to age 15. I found it on Google maps, and I was amazed that the land was still recognizable, and I can still see the marks we left there, some 3 decades ago. Fences, a shed in shambles, a huge garden, the mark where the trailer once sat. Marks on the land that are also still on my soul.

Somewhere around 30 years ago, my mother and her new husband, Don, moved to 40 acres of high desert land near Fishlake National Forest and the small towns of Aurora and Salina, Utah. I'm not certain what prompted the move there, but I get the impression that it was a mix of the tail end of the self-sufficency movement, and a desire to be very far away from large population centers in case of dire events. (It was the height of the cold war, after all.)

We lived in a mobile home, and had a second, smaller mobile home for storage. There was no electricity. There was no phone. There were miles of often-impassable dirt roads between us and civilization. I started school there as a brand new kid in a tiny town. I, a smart kid from a big city, was ostracised immediately. Once they discovered that we were not Mormon, and had no intention of converting, I was shunned. I made two close friends, also social outcasts, and we stuck together until I moved away.

The farm started as two trailers and some land. Mom grew a garden around the trailer and she canned what we didn't eat. We added chickens, ducks, sheep, and goats, and mom's garden grew to a one-acre site that can still be seen in the photo above. We were very poor. As a result, the buildings around the farm were built from materials that were creatively aquired. I remember our goat barn was built from panels of wood with big red numbers painted on them - I think they'd been pricing signs from an old grocery store. We found the chicken coop on the side of the road and brought it home. Making something from nothing, and/or scraps of nothing, is a valuable skill that has stuck with me.

Our water tasted awful. I don't remember exactly how we got it, but I think we tapped into some ancient iron pipes that were left from a previous owner who'd lived there many decades before. After a brief period of roughing it, we had a septic system and flush toilets.

We had minimal 12-volt power that was delivered by plugging a cord in the the house to a 12-volt outlet on the bumper of Don's truck. Don installed a few 12-volt lights in the house, including one in my bedroom and one in my bathroom. For some reason I was never able to fathom, I was not allowed to use these lights. I learned to pee and shower in the dark. We used kerosene lanterns for all of our light, and mom and I did laundry in a galvanized wash tub with an old-fashioned agitator and wringer, and hung our clothes on a line behind the house. Our heat was provided by wood that Don and I cut and hauled nearly every weekend. We also bought coal when we could afford it.

After a few years, Don installed a Photovoltaic panel and an array of 12-volt batteries, so we had more reliable electricity. We got a lot of fluorescent lights powered by rechargeable batteries, which reduced our kerosene consumption. I finally got a light in my room that I could use! Later, he purchased a diesel generator that was fired up for special applications, like running the swamp cooler in the summer, vacuuming, and washing laundry in an actual washing machine. My sister was born in 1980, and I believe her arrival prompted the generator, as my mother was fed up with deprivation and refused to let her baby crawl around on a carpet she couldn't clean!

I have no idea if Don still owns this land. He sold almost everything he owned a few years ago, and moved to Mexico.

Friday Walking Update

Here's my Friday walking update. Look how far I've come! So far, I've walked around 71,000 steps since Sept. 20. I logged my biggest step count yesterday at just over 8,000 steps.

Friday Walk Progress

Here's my progress on the trail! I'm going to post a new screen shot every Friday, so I can brag on how far I've come :-P.

This has been a lot of fun, and quite eye-opening. I know that I have a sedentary job, and I'm a lot less active than I have been in the past, but wearing a pedometer every day has show me trends I never noticed. My average steps for an average day is around 3500. That's to and from work, up and around, farting around the house cooking dinner and doing house work etc. According to step-metering methods, this very low step count marks me as "not active." On days where I walk 40 minutes on the treadmill, or go to my Pilates class (love it so far) or even go out on my weekly grocery/shopping runs, my step count jumps up into the low 7000's. This is "slightly active."

Ouch.

Tell that to my feet & shins, when they hurt after hauling my ass around. According to the website, my overall average steps are 5600 per day. My goal right now is to raise that average by 2000 steps a day. More updates next Friday!

Walking the Iditarod Trail

Between now and November 1, I'm going to walk the length of the Iditarod Trail. Of course the walk is figurative. I joined the American On the Move website in order to take part in a joint program with the YMCA. For the next six weeks I'm going to be a pedometer-wearing, short-trip-walking fool. I like having a goal, so this will be a fun way to get me off my wide glide.

Plus, if I complete the trail, I get a free day of vacation. Woot!

I started on September 20th, and this is how far I've come:

I'm a little confused...

This bit of satire has been making the rounds via email. My boss sent it to me, and I thought it wouldn't hurt to post here, just for laughs.

__________________________________

I'm a little confused. Let me see if I have this straight.....

If you grow up in Hawaii , raised by your grandparents, you're 'exotic, different.'
Grow up in Alaska eating moose burgers, a quintessential American story.

If your name is Barack you're a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.

Name your kids Willow, Trig and Track, you're a maverick.

Graduate from Harvard law School and you are unstable.
Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you're well grounded.

If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees, you don't have any real leadership experience.

If your total resume is: local weather girl, 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you're qualified to become the country's second highest ranking executive.

If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2 beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you're not a real Christian.

If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you're a Good Christian.

If you teach responsible, age-appropriate sex education, including how to teach young children how to protect themselves against molesters, you are eroding the fiber of society.

If , while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other option in sex education in your state's school system while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant, you're very responsible.

If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family's values don't represent America's.

If your husband is nicknamed 'First Dude', with at least one DWI conviction and no college education, who didn't register to vote until age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA , your family is extremely admirable.

OK, much clearer now.

Avast, Me Hearties!

It be the old and venerable Talk Like A Pirate Day! Yarrrr!

In addition to being silly and fun, it's also a holiday of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, (May I continue to be touched by His noodly appendage) So grab a cup of grog and join me, mateys!

My job, and why I love it.

While I was busy being a lady of leisure this summer, I kept an eye out for job openings that seemed too good to pass up. I had just a few criteria for the new gig: 1. In Town--I didn't want to drive more than 12 miles one way to get to work. 2. After bad experiences with financial companies (Hedgefundieland and Ernst & Young) I would avoid financial firms. 3. The job posting could not hint that it was a high-stress position with the words: "prioritize" "multitask" or "upbeat, energetic & positive." It also had to be something of interest to me.

In July, I saw a posting for an admin assistant at the local YMCA. It said that previous experience in fund raising was preferred. I thought, "Sure! I've worked in a gym before, and it was great. This is a job at the main office, so heck, what have I got to lose?" So I applied. I sent off a resume and a little cover letter about the fund raising events I'd worked on for Ex-Boss. When I didn't hear back from them for several weeks, I shrugged, figuring that they'd found someone and just never contacted me. (This was typical of my job hunting experience.)

Six weeks later, I got an email from the boss, who apologized for being too busy to spit, much less interview, and was I still available? I interviewed with her, and then again with some of the other senior staff at the office. A week later, I was hired. Hooray!

I was surprised to find out that no, this isn't "just a health club." There are a ton of things going on in my city that are sponsored by the Y. Community development, programs for teens, after-school care for kids, and a big push to organize a community center on the "bad side" of town. My job is to assist my boss in getting grants and fund raising to pay for it. I am still laughing to myself that I bailed from private finance, only to land in non-profit finance.

The list of things I love about my new job will certainly grow, so here's the short list. Of course there's a health club, where people can work out. That's the part that everyone sees. I get to raise huge scads of money, not to enrich the rich, but to enrich the lives of the people who live in my city. The work I do helps people by giving them a computer lab, after-school care, tutors for their kids, sports programs for little kids, and late night basketball for big kids.

I also love it that I get to trail my boss to events and meetings with the movers and shakers of my city. (aside: I went to a ribbon cutting on my third day of work, and wound up making small talk with the Mayor. How cool is that?) Of course, I'm coordinating meetings and taking notes and preparing minutes and fielding phone calls - I am a worker bee, after all. It's not glamorous but I'm feeling more in touch with my community, and that's a good thing.

Another thing worth mentioning is that this YMCA doesn't take the "C" from the name and beat you over the head with it. One of my long-time internet.friends uses a tagline that reads, "Don't tell me you're a Christian, let me figure it out." I was a little paranoid that I was about to land in a nest of Christianists, but am delighted that this is not the case.

The only down side is that I'm making less than half of what I made a year ago. I'm so glad I got so much of my debt paid off - I would never have been able to take this job otherwise. Granted, I'm going to have to adjust my ends to fit my means, but who isn't doing that nowadays?

Lastly, Can you say, "Free gym membership?" "Full Hour for Lunch" and "Five miles from home?" Yeah, baby!

Thought for the day

If it weren't for liberals, we'd all be singing "God Save the Queen" at baseball games.

End of Summer Yardwork Blues

A few weeks ago, Bill and I did a ton of work in the back yard. We put it off all summer because it is too rutting hot to be outdoors for too long, and both of us have an aversion to waking up any time before 10 am on weekend mornings.

I have several projects that need to be accomplished before the cold weather sets in. In Texas, that means I have until about November to get these done.

The first thing I'd like to do is turn my "compost pile" into an actual working compost generator. Right now, the pile of grass clippings and kitchen scraps is busy sitting around enriching the sand that's underneath it because I'm too lazy to go out and turn the pile by hand. I think the solution to that problem is to move the whole pile to the garden area and let it mulch/compost there instead. It's obvious that I need a better solution for my household composting. I've done some poking around and found several ideas for DIY compost barrels. I found an article in "You Grow Girl" and as luck would have it, I have an old rubbermaid storage container in the attic. I'm not sure how it will hold up in the summer but I'm willing to drill a few holes in it and give it a try. This small bin would be just for kitchen scraps & the occasional donation of grass clippings or mower-mulched fall leaves.

The second project involves removing the oleander bushes on the side of the house. They've been there since I bought the place, and I really don't like oleander. I'm saving to hire a pro to come cut them down, take out as much stump & root as possible, and then safely dispose of them. I don't want to handle the removal myself because oleander contains a deadly toxin that I'd rather not be exposed to. This shrub removal leads to the Spring project of building a raised garden bed in the area where the oleander is now.

Why the front yard? Because it's the only place that gets full sun all day. I've been trying to garden in the back but it's too shady. When I say raised beds, I'm not kidding. It would probably be better off described as a "platform" garden. I want the beds to be waist-high at least, so I don't have to bend or kneel to garden. Of course the whole thing won't be filled with dirt, just the top foot or so, but it would sure be nice to have some fresh compost to grow in!

The third project is to replace the low (2-foot) retaining wall between me and my creepy neighbors. It's all done with railroad ties, it's ugly, and it's not holding up. When my upslope neighbors replace their wall, we'll use the same contractor to do both sides at once. It'll also give me a chance to demolish Creepy's fence and build it on my side of the retaining wall, giving me another 2 feet of vertical privacy.

The one I'm most likely to accomplish is to clear out this season's dead bamboo. I have a lot of it to cut down, bundle, and set out for the city.

Relaxation in Action.

Sarah over at The Shady Grove snapped this photo of me, two days after resigning. We took a weekend trip to an art fair in Salado, "The Best Art Town in Texas!" We also met several of our online friends there, and had a good time shopping and relaxing and hanging out in our tiny, but very cool, antique cabin. I was engrossed in a Love and Rockets graphic novel.

What I did on my Summer Vacation.

This time last year, I was working as an assistant to a hedge fund manager and being paid more money in one year than I had made in the first five years of my career combined. However, I was working 10 hour days with the understanding that my work duties took priority over my personal life, catering to the whims of an increasingly eccentric billionaire. I had a health issue turn into a crisis, and during a month of recovery after surgery, I realized that I had to get out of there.

My reasons for leaving were clear: 1. The work was becoming unreasonable. I was managing intensely personal matters at the office -- things that should have been handled by the personal assistants (yes, plural) working from his home. 2. The economy was tanking and I couldn't, in good conscience, continue to work for a hedge fund that was participating in the type of investment vehicles that drove the collapse. 3. I was increasingly conflicted about working for a company whose sole business was to make incredibly wealthy people into insanely wealthy people.

The final straw was when I realized that my time no longer belonged to me. I was working for a company that demanded my attention at all times. I couldn't take lunch breaks, because I was required to be at my desk. (I ate catered food at my desk.) I couldn't go on vacation without making sure I had electronics and internet access, and was required to check in daily while out.

I turned in my notice and resigned at the end of the first quarter of 2008. When I quit, my stress level was over the top. It took a full month before I started to relax. My stomach settled (I think, but never confirmed, that I had an ulcer) and the muscles around my eyes and mouth stopped twitching. My blood pressure went down and my resting heart rate lowered.

For the next five months, I did whatever the hell I wanted to do, whenever the hell I wanted to do it. I painted my walls. I planned a major renovation to my property (stay tuned, it hasn't happened yet!) I went to museums. I took photos, went on trips with my friends, painted, made jewelry, and enjoyed the surge of creativity and artistic pursuits that came with complete freedom of time. I pampered my sweetheart to excess. I worked out at the gym, planned menus and cooked gourmet food, took sailing classes and otherwise became a lady of leisure. It was amazing.

I couldn't have done this without my amazing S.O. He knew the value of a summer off, having once had the opportunity to do so for himself. I couldn't have done it without putting a chunk of money in a savings account so I could keep the bills paid. I also had a time line - I knew that I would be looking for a new job at the end of the summer.

Professionally, I say that I took a sabbatical instead of a vacation. It was a rest from work, a chance to recharge, create, and assess where I wanted to go next and what I want to do. It's the time I took to realize that while the window office and the fat salary are awfully tempting, the amount of stress, sacrifice, and most importantly, the loss of time, are not worth it to me.

Coming soon: My new job, and why I love it.

Your papers, please.

You have the right to free speech, as long as you're not dumb enough to actually use it.

Have you heard what's going on in St. Paul?

According to the Indy-media reports, Ramsey County/St. Paul police are detaining people without charges and taking video cameras and other equipment. There have been FBI agents photographed at the scene. They are breaking down doors and waving guns at people who aren't doing anything illegal - but they are members of organized protest groups. While many have been release, some are still being held under charges like "conspiracy to riot."

The organizers and journalists aren't arrested, only detained, which means that they can be held for 48 hours. The consensus seems to be that the police and FBI are trying to get organized groups with video cameras off the streets.

The more I dig into this story the more I think I'll have nightmares when I go to sleep.

Democracy Now journalist Arrested

I-Witness Video members arrested. The NYC-based video collective is in St. Paul to document the policing of the protests at the Republican National Convention.

St. Paul newspaper story about the arrests


These images and scenes are downright dystopian, like something out of a science fiction movie about a bleak police state of the future.

Furoshiki

I have a mad hate for urban tumbleweeds. Y'know, those plastic grocery bags that blow around endlessly? Hate. I've found a way to take the ones I can grab and convert them into re-usable shopping bags. I crochet them into handy (strong!) shopping bags. I haven't done much else with them.

Believe it or not, my city council recently floated the idea of banning these. (Hooray!) Of course, in they were roundly defeated (Boo!) but it's a start. Of course I'll still use my reusable crochet bags, and I'll continue to steal more bags out of grocery store recycling bins so I can make more. I'm also looking for bag-alternatives for those times when I either forget to put the bags back in my trunk, or don't have a bag, etc.

Furoshiki looks promising. It's a Japanese method of using a square cloth (usually silk or nylon) and tying your bundles (wine bottles, groceries, melons, etc.) into a bag-like arrangement.
Here are some basic wraps. An article with more information and plenty of other links is at DIY Life

NY Times Story: The Anti-Restaurant

Do you like to cook? Do you watch too many Food Network shows? Do you think you could do better at running a restaurant than those idiots on Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares?

Looks like underground restaurants are all the rage in NYC. It has me pondering - would I be able to handle what is essentially a dinner party for strangers?

The Anti-Restaurant

I know that at some point I'd probably freak out a little from having total strangers in my house, eating food I cooked for them. The older I get, the more introverted I've become, and I don't think I could handle it.

However, it gives me a neat idea for a dinner party. What if I invited a bunch of friends to my house for dinner, and asked them to each bring 1 ingredient of their choice, in a quantity sufficient to feed a bunch of people? And then, when the ingredients and guests arrived, made up recipes based on what they brought? That might be kind of fun.

The late, lamented, Son of Thanksgiving festivities were similar to that. On the day after TD, we asked everyone to bring the leftovers from their family feast, and let their friends devour them. That was a ton of fun - one year we had enough half-and quarter-servings of pie to fill the entire dining table. (Fondly remembered as Son of Thanksgiving - House of Pie!)

So no, I'm not about to start an underground restaurant, but the article did remind me that I love to cook for my friends.

Reader Response: War Stories

Email received from Christy...

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I hate Generation Kill.

Byron has been on it from the beginning, and I watched the 1^st two with him, and I decided I didn’t have to tolerate the hatred and mean words used by the soldiers, nor did I have to blow it off as ‘entertainment’.

Oh yeah, and I was married to, and lived amongst men just like that for 6 years… no thank you. Agreed, people will always feast on war depictions as entertainment and that simply is what it is. However, I don’t.

Next; Bagdad Hospital. Possibly the single most important documentary I have ever seen. There is no bravery compared to what the EMT’s and doctors working Iraq are doing. To be murdered for treating both Sunnis and Shiites, wow. Our doctors refuse patients due to religious moral conflict and get away with it. Those doctors serve everyone because they are doctors. Our country could learn from them.

War Stories

My partner, "Beau" and I don't watch a lot of television. We're not the sort of people who turn it on for noise and let it screech and rumble in an empty room while we go about our lives. When we sit down to watch something, it's usually planned, recorded on the DVR, and we make a point to sit down and give the show our attention. A few weeks ago, Beau heard about HBO's miniseries "Generation Kill," and decided he wanted to watch it.

Over the next few days, he watched all of the previous episodes available via digital download, and he enjoyed the show. I watched a few episodes with him, and overall, thought it was time well spent. Six episodes in, and he's now chomping at the bit to see the next.

Thursday evening, we sat down and he called up the list of "Generation Kill" episodes hoping to find the newest posted. It was not. He was disappointed, so I took over the remote and took a look through HBO's available documentaries. One of them was "Baghdad Hospital: Inside the Red Zone." I selected this for viewing.

"Is there anything else on?" He asked.

"I think this looks interesting," I replied.

He hesitated and mumbled something.

"Hey," I said, "This is a documentary. This is real. This is a guy with a camcorder in Baghdad. This is the war through his eyes."

Beau replied that "Generation Kill" was adapted from a book written by the Rolling Stone reporter portrayed in the series so it was also real. I pointed out that the series was a TV show, all of those people were actors, the blood was fake and the gunshots were squibs, and it had certainly been idealized at some point in the process. "This is as close to real as we'll get," I said, pointing at the television. "If you're going to be entertained by war, then sit down, watch this, and be entertained."

It was an engrossing documentary, humanizing the daily reports of market-bombings and militia violence. It showed the faces of doctors who are trying to do everything with nothing. It showed people who are living at the hospital because they have no safe place to go. When the credits rolled, we sat together and talked about what we'd seen.

I have no doubt we'll continue watching "Generation Kill." But at least in my case, I'll be watching it with the images from Omer Madhi's video camera still fresh in my memory.

At first, I was taken aback at how quickly the media scoops up war stories and churns out American heroes with a side dish of patriotism. I cringe at what feels like exploitation of soldiers and civilians alike. But on second thought, cloaking war in entertainment is universal human nature.We know the names and exploits of centuries-old kings and heroes, knights and generals, warlords and invaders. We are still entertained by their legends. We aren't the first civilization to be entertained by war stories, and will certainly not be the last.

Lost and gone forever

I used to have a blog before Blogger got eaten by Google. I tried to go back to it after several years of not posting, but for whatever reason, Google doesn't want to turn loose of the old blog, so I'll just back away and let it disintegrate into the ether. It doesn't matter - there's nothing to see here. Move along.