A Request???
Somebody actually requested that I give them a link to my blog?  Dammit.  That's just like my friends....ask me to actually deliver something, rather than just whinge.
So as I lay in bed the other AM, listening to NPR (what? I know, it's not nearly far enough to the left, but Al Franken is no longer broadcasting)  I was trying to understand (again) how Trump got elected.  I mean, I KNOW  the how, but I just can't wrap my head around the fact that one third of the voters in the US are still in love with him.  So I tried the "back up" method of determining the 'why' of anything.  So, 3 (or 4 - determined by which poll I read) out of every 10 voters still like their choice, eh?  My friend used to continually remark while changing the television channels at lightning speed, "Another example of the 'dumbing down' of the American population." So maybe now, with the election of this diseased lecher, the dumbing down is complete?  This may be a dystopian future to rival the progression of climate change.  Backing up one step from that, (and after agreeing with that premise) would it be genetics?  Like the copy machines, have we just printed out too many humans and the double helix is fading?  Or, is it our educational system?  Have the corporations in charge of developing and printing textbooks finally succeeded in turning out young humans mentally equipped to just read and believe commercials?  I'm hoping it's that last one, and not the first.  That would be ironic.  Just as we succeed at cloning, we have no educated intellectuals to clone.  So if it's the educational system, backing up one step from that, what would we do, and what would've caused that?  I know that Oregon schools are failing...all you have to do is go here:   https://www.kgw.com/article/news/investigations/oregon-has-one-of-shortest-school-years-lowest-graduation-rates-in-us/283-560012138  and read this eyeball blistering report.  So taking a step back from failing the students in schools, where does that put us? I think that if we could just understand the importance of educating as many students as we could, to a least a Bachelor Degree level, it would begin to put the brakes on the "dumbing down" of America.  We need to stamp out the "I don't have any kids in school - why do I have to pay this tax?" attitude, and realize that critical thinking (and so, critical planning) in the future adult population of the country will be more valuable than even Bit Coin.  So then I actually had to get out of bed, and watch "Let's Make a Deal".  Wayne Brady solves a lot of worries.  "It's Door 3!  Door 3, you maroon!"
    

All the Old Stuff

Friday, December 13, 2013

Time Flies Ms Noud

Time Flies Ms Noud

I just got a piece of junk mail telling me this in a two inch bold headline.  I wouldn't mind so much except that A) No one else at the apartment complex got one,  B)  it was from my doctor's office and C) it was on an over-sized postcard that everyone else could see.  I mean, what would YOU think if your neighbor pulled that out of their mail box and quickly slammed it into a much-too-small-pocket?   "Hmmm...Overdue electric bill?  Terminal disease?  Wow. That's one mean doctor."  I smiled and said "Oh, dental check-up time." 
Seriously though, I'm taking it as a message from God.  For years I have sat around saying things like "As God is my witness Prissy, I will never be poor again".  And "God I really need to exercise more."  And "God I really need to lose weight."  And "God, I should go to New Zealand fly fishing. Why not?"  Since there was no reply I am going to assume that there is no good reason not to go fly fishing in New Zealand. Of course there's really no good reason not to do those other little things I asked for help on, but the New Zealand trip thingy seems more like it would be in the province of  God's bag of tricks.  If He can pull off getting me to exercise and lose weight too, I won't be turning that down.
This all started because it's Christmas and I haven't received one Christmas card yet from my far-flung family and friends.  This year, last week, I went through my address book for the first time in a long time.  After picking up all the torn scraps of paper and envelopes that fell out when I opened it (that's what passes for 'putting you in my address book' to me) I sat down and mailed a Christmas card to everyone in there that I was kinda sure was still alive.  It's now three days later and I have yet to hear back from anyone.  How depressing!  I know people are busy or moving or dead but HEY!  Time Flies!  Don't they know?  Doesn't their doctor warn them?  Of course there's a few other mitigating factors, the biggest of which is the fact that at age seventy-three this is the first time I've ever purposefully done this.  All my other forays into Christmas greetings were frantic replies to cards that had been sent to me making me say "God I really need to answer this person." Suddenly  I thought maybe the card was a message from God!  Then I thought of all the other things I needed to get caught up on, and the easiest was to update my yearly blog.
Whew.  Got that monkey off my back.  Now for that trip to New Zealand - I'm ready God.

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Scratching, scratching, scratching

There is no salve that will cure someone of trying to do ink scratchboard technique pictures. I've stopped screaming for a moment and will be starting up again as soon as I put knife to scratchboard and realise that once more, my brain has forgotten to think in reverse. Or maybe is incapable of thinking in reverse, or is it inverse....or is it negative space I have to remember. Lets see, do I cut away everything that isn't in the picture? Scratch away the lines that form the picture? Scratch away the picture? How do I scratch in circles? Shouldn't it be called an " In-X-Acto Knife" when it's in my hands? How can I stop myself from reaching for the eraser when I screw up? Which is often. Oh wait...that doesn't look half-bad....oh no, now I've cut the dickens out of myself. At least I've stopped screaming, now if I could just stop bleeding....

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Chewing, spitting and scratching.

OK I'll admit it, I'm only a part-time grandmother. The rest of the time I'm still 25. Still, I have to return to the current time period because I love baseball and I love my shining-dime-perfect grandson's Little League baseball games. Despite almost freezing to death, sitting very, very still in frog-strangling rain and sucking the life from four perfectly good, newly-charged camera batteries at least once (and sometimes twice) a week, I have to say the games have been eye-openers right from the season opener. You probably think, as I did, that the baseball pros have worked hard and learned all those really interesting moves; the stretches, the wearing of tight pants, the lumps in between the cheek and gum, the tugging at tight pants, the bottom slapping, the scratching in obscene places etc., but it turns out baseball players are born knowing these things. As soon as they get the uniform, even at age 5 or 7, they turn into tiny little A-Rods & Jeters. Of course there's a big gap between looking professional and being professional. About a 20 year gap as far as I can tell. Usually there's more interesting action in the folding chair sections among the parents than on the field...and in neither area is much professionalism shown. Gotta bring the family (barking, defecating) dog despite all pleas by the team coaches and managers. Gotta yell (belated, totally useless) instructions ("Keep your eye on the ball" "Throw it to first!" "Tie your shoes!" "Do you have to go to the bathroom?") to their kids. Then there's the freely offered "constructive" criticism ("If that first base coach can't get it right I'll have to go out there and give him a lesson." "If that moron could field, my kid would've gotten up to bat again.") for the other people on the field. I try to keep my comments short: "Nice hit" "Good eye" "Good swing" and only occasionally enlighten them with succinct phrases to brighten the coaches and managers day ( "What a Maroon!" "Since when is in-the-dirt a call strike?" "He had his foot on the bag, four-eyes!") etc. They are lucky to have me, the only sane grandparent there.

Saturday, November 7, 2009

A New Conspiracy Theory

I have noticed a sinister connection between the size of one's bankroll, and the ability to avoid confronting unwelcome visitors. If you have a large home, even with a large mortgage, you have four, maybe more, exit/enter points. If you are living in a tiny apartment, you only have, as the Allman Brothers and many others have bitterly pointed out, "One Way Out." For example, I live in rent-assisted, senior living place and I only have one door. Every time I leave, I have to face a cheery someone-or-other who wants me to "chat" and then "have a nice day". When I owned a tiny mobile home, I had two doors; a front and a back door, although, one was visible from the other. When I lived in a large, single family home I had four doors; front, side sliding glass to patio and garage door; a door on every side of the building. I recently visited a home that was huge (by my standards), the owners were rich (by my standards) and they had five exits!! Front door, two patio doors, a back door and the double garage doors (I only count those as one door, although, there was also a side door to the yard that opened off the garage. There were exits on five different sides of the building! So, the richer you are, the easier it is to make a clean getaway. Coincidence? I think not.

National Befuddlement Day Winner

Bought a lamp at the Salvation Army for $2.99. Took it home, put in a bulb from an older lamp and switched it on: nothing. "Must be a burned out bulb," I think. Picked it up to unscrew the bulb and it flashed bright and then went out. "Nuts! Now I DID burn out the bulb." I threw out that bulb and put in a new one. Nothing. I flipped the switch a few times. Nothing. I picked up to take out that bulb, and it came on, but very dim for a 100 watt bulb. I sat it down. I wiggled the cord. Still dim. Hmmmmm. "Well, that sucks," I thought, picked it up and it flashed brightly and went out again. Great. Now I blew another bulb. I unplugged it and tightened all the connections, put in a new bulb and plugged it in: nothing. Swearing, I unplugged it, wrapped up the cord and sat it by the door to return it. Later, staring at it from across the room, I thought, "Nuts. Now I either have to return it or buy new guts for it. It must have a bad wire someplace. Unless..............." you guessed it. It has an on/off switch, but it's a "touch control" lamp. I spent a little while rinsing barbeque sauce off the two lightbulbs I retrieved, and started to enjoy my new lamp. Life is hard; harder for some than for others.

October 16

Still alive.

Time Flies Ms Noud

Time Flies Ms Noud

I just got a piece of junk mail telling me this in a two inch bold headline.  I wouldn't mind so much except that A) No one else at the apartment complex got one,  B)  it was from my doctor's office and C) it was on an over-sized postcard that everyone else could see.  I mean, what would YOU think if your neighbor pulled that out of their mail box and quickly slammed it into a much-too-small-pocket?   "Hmmm...Overdue electric bill?  Terminal disease?  Wow. That's one mean doctor."  I smiled and said "Oh, dental check-up time." 
Seriously though, I'm taking it as a message from God.  For years I have sat around saying things like "As God is my witness Prissy, I will never be poor again".  And "God I really need to exercise more."  And "God I really need to lose weight."  And "God, I should go to New Zealand fly fishing. Why not?"  Since there was no reply I am going to assume that there is no good reason not to go fly fishing in New Zealand. Of course there's really no good reason not to do those other little things I asked for help on, but the New Zealand trip thingy seems more like it would be in the province of  God's bag of tricks.  If He can pull off getting me to exercise and lose weight too, I won't be turning that down.
This all started because it's Christmas and I haven't received one Christmas card yet from my far-flung family and friends.  This year, last week, I went through my address book for the first time in a long time.  After picking up all the torn scraps of paper and envelopes that fell out when I opened it (that's what passes for 'putting you in my address book' to me) I sat down and mailed a Christmas card to everyone in there that I was kinda sure was still alive.  It's now three days later and I have yet to hear back from anyone.  How depressing!  I know people are busy or moving or dead but HEY!  Time Flies!  Don't they know?  Doesn't their doctor warn them?  Of course there's a few other mitigating factors, the biggest of which is the fact that at age seventy-three this is the first time I've ever purposefully done this.  All my other forays into Christmas greetings were frantic replies to cards that had been sent to me making me say "God I really need to answer this person." Suddenly  I thought maybe the card was a message from God!  Then I thought of all the other things I needed to get caught up on, and the easiest was to update my yearly blog.
Whew.  Got that monkey off my back.  Now for that trip to New Zealand - I'm ready God.

Scratching, scratching, scratching

There is no salve that will cure someone of trying to do ink scratchboard technique pictures. I've stopped screaming for a moment and will be starting up again as soon as I put knife to scratchboard and realise that once more, my brain has forgotten to think in reverse. Or maybe is incapable of thinking in reverse, or is it inverse....or is it negative space I have to remember. Lets see, do I cut away everything that isn't in the picture? Scratch away the lines that form the picture? Scratch away the picture? How do I scratch in circles? Shouldn't it be called an " In-X-Acto Knife" when it's in my hands? How can I stop myself from reaching for the eraser when I screw up? Which is often. Oh wait...that doesn't look half-bad....oh no, now I've cut the dickens out of myself. At least I've stopped screaming, now if I could just stop bleeding....

Chewing, spitting and scratching.

OK I'll admit it, I'm only a part-time grandmother. The rest of the time I'm still 25. Still, I have to return to the current time period because I love baseball and I love my shining-dime-perfect grandson's Little League baseball games. Despite almost freezing to death, sitting very, very still in frog-strangling rain and sucking the life from four perfectly good, newly-charged camera batteries at least once (and sometimes twice) a week, I have to say the games have been eye-openers right from the season opener. You probably think, as I did, that the baseball pros have worked hard and learned all those really interesting moves; the stretches, the wearing of tight pants, the lumps in between the cheek and gum, the tugging at tight pants, the bottom slapping, the scratching in obscene places etc., but it turns out baseball players are born knowing these things. As soon as they get the uniform, even at age 5 or 7, they turn into tiny little A-Rods & Jeters. Of course there's a big gap between looking professional and being professional. About a 20 year gap as far as I can tell. Usually there's more interesting action in the folding chair sections among the parents than on the field...and in neither area is much professionalism shown. Gotta bring the family (barking, defecating) dog despite all pleas by the team coaches and managers. Gotta yell (belated, totally useless) instructions ("Keep your eye on the ball" "Throw it to first!" "Tie your shoes!" "Do you have to go to the bathroom?") to their kids. Then there's the freely offered "constructive" criticism ("If that first base coach can't get it right I'll have to go out there and give him a lesson." "If that moron could field, my kid would've gotten up to bat again.") for the other people on the field. I try to keep my comments short: "Nice hit" "Good eye" "Good swing" and only occasionally enlighten them with succinct phrases to brighten the coaches and managers day ( "What a Maroon!" "Since when is in-the-dirt a call strike?" "He had his foot on the bag, four-eyes!") etc. They are lucky to have me, the only sane grandparent there.

A New Conspiracy Theory

I have noticed a sinister connection between the size of one's bankroll, and the ability to avoid confronting unwelcome visitors. If you have a large home, even with a large mortgage, you have four, maybe more, exit/enter points. If you are living in a tiny apartment, you only have, as the Allman Brothers and many others have bitterly pointed out, "One Way Out." For example, I live in rent-assisted, senior living place and I only have one door. Every time I leave, I have to face a cheery someone-or-other who wants me to "chat" and then "have a nice day". When I owned a tiny mobile home, I had two doors; a front and a back door, although, one was visible from the other. When I lived in a large, single family home I had four doors; front, side sliding glass to patio and garage door; a door on every side of the building. I recently visited a home that was huge (by my standards), the owners were rich (by my standards) and they had five exits!! Front door, two patio doors, a back door and the double garage doors (I only count those as one door, although, there was also a side door to the yard that opened off the garage. There were exits on five different sides of the building! So, the richer you are, the easier it is to make a clean getaway. Coincidence? I think not.