POEM: MIGRATION

MIGRATION

2014122651 - c2014 wlc

Prison cell, so dank and dark

A cage around a dampened lark

Morning comes and with it, light

But her beak is tied up tight

The day wears on until the night

Bringing with it newfound fright

Until the trembling of the lark

Ruffles feathers in the dark

The wind howls lonely as a wolf

Coming close, a clomping hoof

A snort, a scrape, a heavy breath

The lark assumes a certain death

But winter sometimes likes to jest

Blowing cold past heaving chest

Outside, the stamping of a hoof

Go now, go now, howls the wolf

Feathers stretched by unseen hands

Bars are shrunken into strands

Suddenly the wings are flying

Over mountains, death defying

To the lark the streams are smiling

Tears of joy is what they're crying

Clouds are wispy coloured strands

As she lands in outstretched hands

How blessed am I to see her alive

How I watched her body writhe

Painful ooze of something sanious

Now it's bursting light and radiance

In song described as happiness

Your joy is percutaneous

And now the happy makes her writhe

How blessed is she to be alive

Thankfulness

Too often I find myself complaining about... well, mostly, my perceptions about myself, to be honest.  Life itself is not being all that bad to me.  In fact, it's being downright /nice/ to me.  I simply don't always recognize that and complain about how it's not better in some way...

Anywho, I digress.  I am thankful right now that my mother introduced me to Gordon Lightfoot's music.  It's pretty good stuff.  I'm thankful, too, for my job... which I felt stupid at for a long time (and often still do) but this is /exactly/ what I've always /wanted/ to do... learn.  Sometimes I'm too freakin' tired to learn anymore, but when I'm not, it's really interesting to actually figure things out again.

Also thankful as usual for Dale, the cats, our house, and our transportation, and our health... my foot is far better than it once was, and we're aging... things are going to go downhill in time.  I'm thankful they haven't gotten overly bad yet and that we're not crippled or the like.  Egads, things could be so horrible for us, and they're not.

Just thought I'd blurb that.

~me

old antiquation

A guy at work often talks about his first handful of computing devices.  His history precedes mine by at least several years, but I at least recognise much of what he talks about.

A younger guy at work then laughs at us and in particular likes to poke fun at my "computer museum."  He rightfully guessed that I have a number of older computing devices at home that, while aren't worth anything at all, are worth volumes to me for their personal value.  I also revel in the fact that I have a punch card from some long-forgotten something, even though I never actually got to use punch cards nor seen a machine that uses them.  (The older guy at work has.  I'm not that jealous, though.  Those things were a pain in the petoobies.)

How did I broach this subject, anyway?  Well, this morning I was eating breakfast and thinking about how I seldom ever write anymore.  That reminded me that there are several letters I've written in the last year that were on my 1955 Underwood typewriter, or in ink scrawled onto today's version of parchment paper by a metal-nibbed dipping pen.  Then I remembered that much of my writing has been done on an IBM ThinkPad 755CD.  Why?  Well, first, it was my first laptop back in November of 2000.  I bought it (then) for $289 (or was it 389?).  It was obviously used, and it was about five years old.  It had Windows 98 first edition on it, but it was made for 95 and it wouldn't take 98se.  I remember that because I tried to put 98se on it after wiping out 98 and not having the disc... the guy never gave me that.  Amazing little laptop, though, for its time.  You could swap out the floppy drive with the CDROM drive.  It would only connect to the internet via a modem, however, which soon died on me - it was one of those single-slot pcmcia cards.  For whatever reason, the onboard modem never worked for me.  I eventually replaced the card with a different card so I could hook it up to my later network.  No idea what happened to that card.

The other reason I used this laptop for writing - even after I had other computers kicking around - is simple.  The keyboard.  I have always loved the feel of that keyboard.  There is something rewarding about the way the keys almost "click" beneath my fingertips.  They feel heavy, not membranous, which is awesome for a laptop keyboard since those ARE membranous.  It wasn't quite mechanical, but darned close in many regards.  I remember at the time not being sure I liked it because it wasn't like the mechanical keyboards or the deeper ones I'd gotten used to.  But it caught on quickly and I found I was very efficient on that thing.

I get all misty-eyed when I think about the relics in that "computer museum" of mine.  Do they all get used?  Not often.  I turn them on now and then just to keep their batteries alive and to wake up their antiquated, cold mainboards and make sure they still work.

The ThinkPad, though, I do occasionally sit down and fingerblab at.  The funny thing is that the only way for me to currently get stuff off it is to use a floppy disk for storage, and then shove the disk into a USB floppy drive (also IBM branded) and plug that into my main computer.  My main computer has an SSD and a hybrid drive, boots in under 17 seconds, and can run seven virtual machines on top of its own native OS - all at once.  It has 8 GB of RAM and runs on an i7 quadcore processor at 2GHz.  By current standards, probably about middle of the road to almost defunct, I'm sure, but it kicks a** even by today's standards unless you're a gamer or snobby enthusiast.  The casual user needs far less.  The ThinkPad, by contrast, was a single-core Intel 486 DX4 running at 100MHz and I think it has 16MB of onboard RAM plus a 4MB card plugged into an expansion slot that gives it a total of 20MB.  I remember it was an oddball number even at the time.  The battery was still Nickel Metal Hybrid and lasted about an hour even when it was new.  It quickly wasn't.  I've replaced the internal battery once in the last fourteen years, which cost me about a fourth of what I paid for the laptop.  But it still lives.  Oh, and the screen resolution is perfect for typing on a white-on-black DOS screen:  640x480.  Kids, don't try that at home.  Compare that to the high definition screens of today.  What do they call them again?  1080p and higher?  Who needs that, anyway?

Yes, I would gladly pull out my ThinkPad, and its old eccentricities, any day for a writing session.  And then slowly transfer all my blabbings to my main for longterm storage.  After all, floppies are known for their tendency to fail...

~nv

*love*

I don't even know how it's possible to love someone so much.  Yet, it is.

Tamazon

Okay, I'm not proud of this, but... I think I just bought tea on Amazon.  /sigh

cat's.. I don't know what, and oh yeah car accident

Gizmo just carried a bag of techie stuff (cables, cd's, etc) down the stairs and is now sitting on it.

WTF

In other news, I had a wee fender bender last weekend and I go back and forth between being proud of my reaction to it and then having sudden reactions to things that remind me of it.  Unfamiliar road, didn't know there was a hairpin turn there... the signage that was there, well, I thought all the curves were like in the sign - nothing at all.  Thank goodness the guardrail with nothing behind it spooked me, or I'd have kept going 35, which was already 5 below the speed limit.  I've done turns like that at 35 or even 40 before but I knew they were coming and they were when my tires were newer and could handle it better.  I think the major factor this time was being unprepared for it, though... isn't that why people usually have accidents?  lol.

So anyway, I go up around a couple curves after the sign and no biggie, see the guardrail and think, meh, I'll slow down a bit more, just to be safe... and as I go into the curve it occurs to me that the curve doesn't seem to have an end... belatedly, I realize it's one of those hairpins.  At that point I knew my car could handle such a thing but I knew the tires were no longer as grabby as they used to be, and wished I had been going even slower.  So, I simply hung onto the wheel and hoped for the best, trying not to take it too tightly... but running out of room of course.  I didn't brake, I knew better than that at that point, being in it already... glad I was forewarned about that mistake or who knows what might have happened.

As luck would have it, I didn't die.  But I did hear a horribly loud screeching sound and watched as the guard rail between me and the dropoff got closer, all the while maintaining what I was doing and not letting anything move for fear of making it worse.  At the last minute I felt my hands turn the wheel slightly toward the skid and for a split second I thought I'd get my control back.  But by then it was too late and I hit the rail, front right corner first.  I don't remember the impact or the sound it made.  I do remember that it hit and that the car's back end swung around to match.  Then the right rear corner hit.  I remember that sequence even though I don't remember the actual impact sensation, although the more I think about it the more I have the impression of hearing something and feeling a sliding or scraping with thoughts of "so this is what it's like to hit a guard rail, always wondered that."

As the front end bounced left and I realized I'd regained traction somewhat, I steered toward the road and realized there was a ditch in front of me.  This was almost a blur:  I felt like I flew over the end of the ditch and onto the road.  It was like a miniature turbo boost out of Knight Rider.  But then I felt the back right tire angle the car backward.  I was now angled in the ditch, still moving, like the front left tire was hanging onto the road or whatever was actually under it, and the opposite corner was dragging itself through the ditch.  At that point I distinctly remember thinking, in words:  "I didn't die!  Now I'm not having my pride hurt in this damned ditch!"  I gunned it (I was in second gear so who knows how that even helped) and I bounced three times at that angle.  Next thing I knew, I was on the road, wobbled in the back for a moment, and then kept going.

I remember passing two cyclists a curve or two later - I was driving very slowly now, both because I realized I had no idea what lay ahead and because I was shaken up, plus I wasn't sure what damage had been done to the car - and one turned to look at me.  I gave them both as wide a berth as I could, which is actually pretty normal, but I was thinking how they must be afraid of me if they heard any of that.  I'm sure the sound carried through the gore.  I mentally apologized to them for causing any concern and was soon at the top.

I was probably in a state of shock.  I was pretty numb but my thoughts continued and my eyes were watchful, which is good, because I just kept going.  I had the presence of mind to see the downside of the hill and check my brakes.  I took note of the fact the car wasn't shimmying, that the tires felt ok - nothing flat - and that I had two warning lights on... hill assist and traction control.  No engine lights.  The only thing that told me something was damaged was the sensation that I was dragging a bumper or fender or something.  It didn't sound serious, although in hindsight I probably should have stopped to make sure it wasn't falling off... but all I could think about was getting to safety.  To me, safety was another half-hour away, out of the unknown area I was in.  Not on the side of a gap that I had almost killed myself on.

Turns out it was the right front fender liner scraping the tire.  I discovered this when I arrived at my destination a half-hour later, parked, and finally dared to look.

Damage estimates are less than I'd expected and frankly, the damage isn't nearly as severe as I'd expected, either.  For the next two days I went through bouts of "I didn't die" immediately followed by "the ditch was kind of fun."

Then I was at work, talked to the insurance adjuster, and he told me a story of his own.  I got off the phone, and didn't think much of it.  My colleagues were out somewheres when out of the blue I began to sob.  I felt it crashing down on me so I grabbed some tissues and hid in the server room.  I sobbed uncontrollably for several minutes but eventually regained my composure, blew my nose, and ventured back out.  I thought that would be the end of it, but it hasn't been.  About once or twice a day, something will trigger it.

The other night my bowl of ice cream slipped.  I kept it from spilling, but the fact I lost hold of it sent me over the edge.  My heart began to race and I saw the guard rail all over again, heard the screeching.  I cried for about a half hour.

For whatever reason, when these outbursts occur, I want to be in my car, and badly.  I feel like it's my safety zone.  Stupid, right?  The same car I was in at the time, and I want to be in it?  You'd think I'd want to avoid it!  But I want to sit in it, touch it, make sure it's ok, be surrounded by it, hear its engine rumbling, change gears.  I don't want to drive around any curves, especially to my left, but I know that'll pass eventually.  I just feel like I /need/ to drive my car again.  But, I was smart and deposited it at the body shop as soon as I could to avoid damaging it any further or taking unnecessary risks in case there was something wrong I didn't know about.

A friend pointed me toward PTSD.  I do have some of the symptoms of this, but given it's been just under a week, I'm guessing these episodes will lessen and eventually fade.  I didn't die, I wasn't even injured... and in fact, I drove away.  The entire time, strangely, I knew I was safe and would be OK, even despite the grim realizations that something bad was about to happen and the thought I keep thinking over and over:  I didn't die!  But I still want my car back and left curves still make my stomach funky and my heart race a bit.  Scuffing cart tires at work set my heart off and I have to hold myself in check.  Slipping ice cream bowls.  I even got set off a little bit by tossing an egg carton at the recycle bin and seeing it slide around the corner edge before falling in.

Was the event life-changing?  Probably not in the grand scheme of things.  I will certainly be far more cautious on unknown roads in the future.  I always thought I was pretty cautious as it was, but it's possible I was less cautious simply because of what I drive, knowing how it usually handles so well.  I know and knew that the best handling car in the world can't take sharp corners just willy nilly, but with the curves beforehand, it didn't occur to me there'd be such a sharp corner so close by.  I guess another lesson is that if you don't know the road well, and you see a blind curve, assume it's a hairpin and slow the heck down even more.

But... I still want to drive that car.  When I dropped it off, it felt like my hands and feet had been severed.  It's an extension of my body now, and while I have been reacquainted with my old truck, it's not the same thing.  The truck is separate from me.  The car... well, let's put it this way.  I know it was the car that hit the guardrail, but while it was all happening, it was I who was hitting it, even though I felt no actual pain and knew the car was around me.  The car was me and I was it, getting through the worst and then limping away, proud to be resilient enough to do so after such a thing.  Only now do I feel bad that it's damaged, a separate thing from myself.  I want it back.  I want to know it's ok.  I want to feel safe in it again.

I didn't go over the cliff.  The guard rail held.  I didn't end up on my side in a ditch.  I wasn't injured.  The car will be repaired.  I'll get it back in due time.  It'll look fine and drive fine (although I am going to get new tires; I don't trust the current ones after skidding sideways on them).

But things could have gone horribly wrong up there, far worse than they did, at any point in that experience.  I think that's why there's a part of me that is absolutely petrified and reacting to anything that reminds it of what might have been.

That's just going to take some time to get over, I know.  I just hope I can keep it in check and only allow it to be totally nuts when I'm alone and able to hang over a sink while it pours out of my face.  I like running water, it's comforting, always has been when I was that deeply saddened by something... usually a pet's death.  I've always had this two-day delay before my emotions dare to surface over an event (save for death, that seems to come out pretty fast).  I've read about this... it seems to be a survival instinct.  Something bad happens, your mind has to deal with it first and keep you out of danger.  Then you can feel.  It's not a bad thing and probably has kept me safe many times.  It's probably what makes me (usually) a very good driver... someone cuts me off, and my body does what it needs to do, it doesn't simply react and veer off the road.  It probably kept me alive last weekend.

The emotions are tough.  I'm glad I'm having them, though.  They mean I survived.

~w

Winging it

So I get home today, look at the carpet, and start moving stuff off one corner of it.  Then I pull it back, grab a carpet knife, and start slicing and dicing.  The white paint that I expected to cover the entire floor... didn't.  Turns out there's actual hard wood under all the crud in quite a large area.  Not in horrid condition, either, although someone obviously knew they were going to carpet over it and didn't take care to avoid getting white paint everywhere.  We think this is because there's damage by the front door.  Possibly even a hole there, I dunno.  There was always a hump like someone carpeted over a welcome mat.  Turns out the hump is a piece of plywood with old kitchen tile (the original kitchen tile, mind you) tacked down on top of it.  Either they wanted that in front of the door, or something happened to the hardwood there and it's a makeshift cover.  Dale reminded me that there was water damage that required some reconstructive surgery at some point in the house's past, so perhaps it's related.  Regardless, we've decided to have the floor refinished so the rest of the carpet is gonna come out.  This might take the rest of the summer and fall but it'll happen.  The hardest part is moving all the crap out of the way.

On top of all that, we're not sure if we are going to repaint or not.  I'm telling Dale, if we want to do it, now is the easiest time.  Move all the stuff, paint, and then have the guy refinish the floors.  It won't get easier than that.  We wouldn't even use dropcloths.  The baseboard would be off, the walls would be bare, nothing in the way.  Now's the time to do it.  But it makes it feel much more daunting.  We just repainted the kitchen's back wall.  It was definitely some work we're not keen on doing again so soon.  So we may leave things as they are as far as that goes and just do it the long way over time.  Of course, doing all this as soon as we moved in would have been best.  I knew that going in and didn't care.  At the time.  LOL.  I look at it this way... instead of moving, we get something very different done in the house and it's like moving without as much back-breaking hassle.

Yesterday, a coworker called me at the office asking me to restore a bunch of user files from backup.  I said, "Sure, give me ten minutes."  I went into my backup files and... the user files were not there.  None of them.  When I first began working there, that entire directory wasn't being backed up.  I eventually noticed this and thought I'd fixed it. I could even swear I'd restored something to verify this.  Apparently my memory is worse than I thought it was.  I had to admit to my colleague that the user had lost two years of work.  Then something occurred to me.  "Give me a while," I told my colleague.  I went in and found our safety net.  /This/ backup is pretty much the backbone of the backbone, a last-chance of all last chances.  Not the easiest to restore from but if all else fails... well, you get the idea.  After some finagling (this was the first time I'd tried this), I got to where I could see the user's files, but I had to do some really fancy footwork to get them back to where they needed to be.  After almost three hours, I had resolved the issue by calling another colleague and he had this wonderful idea of using two virtual NICs on the same VM to transfer the files.  It worked beautifully.  In four hours' time, I went from being angry at myself for overlooking the original problem to being somewhat afraid of being fired for not doing my job properly to being ticked off at myself again to being hopeful and finally excited that I figured it out in the end (even if had help - it would have eventually occurred to me, but the help sped things up).  And, happy the user was happy.  I'm still fighting with our backups, which have been wonky anyway.  I swear I thrive on winging it, though.  Tonight I logged in and started a backup, which lagged as it has been for days now (UNACCEPTABLY FAILING IN THE PROCESS GAHHH), then in sheer desperation, I uninstalled the antivirus while the two fought.  I said, "Fuck you both, play nice," the antivirus wanted a reboot, I told it no, it killed off my backup and stuck its tongue out at me, and I swore some more as I watched three hours of painfully slow backup just disappear on me again.  Then, more determined than ever, I restarted the accursed backup despite not rebooting and now it's moving much faster - my goal.  So hopefully I get my backup tonight.  Damned computers.  Even virtual ones are frustrating.  Perhaps more so!

Meanwhile, my sd card slot has failed me completely and so has the usb headphones driver.  Or it's something in the usb hardware.  Either way, I'm really ticked off at macs right now because both items work fine on other computers.  Dammit.

But, I have a nice cup of tea, my backups are running nicely (for now), and I can wiggle my toes on cool hardwood floor, grungy though it may be at the moment.  Life is good.  Even if I have to threaten it with a carpet knife, an unwieldy uninstall, and a rather kludgy restoration at times.  :D

~w

POEM: Opening

OPENING

2014071201 - c 2014 wlc

Going out to meet some friends

I feel their faces, glowing smiles

Fully of happy sunlit ventures

Not whatever money buys

As the mem'ries cascade through

Time and space they do traverse

I feel Your touch so deep inside

And start to cry as we converse

There are no words, no imagery

Just a wordless touch of soul

In several seconds' time of talk

I've been shown my life is whole

I sit here driving, crying still

My heart alight with Love, Your Will

Words attempt to make their way

But are, as always, pale display

food essentials

I've often thought of food essentials for easy dinners and such.  I think my staples are the following.

~DRY~

Spices (marjoram, basil, thyme, rosemary, cumin, coriander, cayenne, curry, cajun)

Flour

Salt and pepper

Baking soda

Rice

Olive Oil

~FROZEN~

Crock pot chicken meat

Crock pot Soup stock

Peas, Peppers, Corn

~REFRIGERATED~

Butter

Milk

Heavy Cream (can also be frozen)

Mayonnaise

Lemon Juice

Shredded cheese

Eggs

~FRESH~

Onion

Garlic

Salad Greens

Celery

Carrots

Ginger

Potatoes

With the above, I can make chicken and rice in various incarnations - with or without hot spices, a bit of an indian flair or more cajun in nature, mexicanish, plainer, etc... with or without various veggies... put it on a plate or in a wrap or in a pita bread... Put some soup stock in for a rich and satisfying soup... Use soup stock as a base for freshly chopped veggies and cilantro and lemon juice with some noodles for a nice "Pho" type dish... Put chicken meat in between slices of bread with some mayo and greens... fried eggs... pan bread in many flavours... scones with fresh cream/whipped cream... green salad with any of the above in there that are desired... potato cream soup... the list goes on and on and on, things are interchangeable for variety, and most everything is pretty easy.

I think my favourite tools are the fry pan, a dutch oven with cover, holey spoon, sharp knife and/or Ulu, the crock pot, the mixer, and a whisk.  Oh, and the thing that opens stuck things.  Jar opener?  I think that's what that is.  And... tupperware-like things to store extra food in.  :)

~w

Usefulness

It never ceases to amaze me how moods can vary so... and they're all internal to oneself much of the time.

Much of the time at work, I feel stupid, useless, and unappreciated when I /do/ feel useful.  Much of the time in general, actually, I feel either that way or like I'm getting old and fat and don't look much forward to getting older and fatter.

Being a morning person, I usually have what my husband calls morning "bursts."  I.e., I awaken between 5:57am and 6:07am, barely remember to stretch my feet, jump out of bed with my mind racing, and wander around the house cleaning or cooking or whatever strikes my fancy.  He eventually gets up by 6:30 or 7 (8 or 9 on weekends) and comes downstairs with a look of death on his face.  "Grunt.  Argh.  Unh.  What the.  Did you have a burst?"  "Yup.  You want some breakfast?"

Then I get to work, all bubbly (still morrrrninnnnnng), and my colleagues look up in dismay.  "It's back."  "Oh God."  "Can you like, just, sit there and not be like that?"

I pull my spirit into my skin as best I can over the next fifteen minutes, about to explode with joy, and emanate sparks of tamped down energy from my chair for about an hour.

10am.  By now I'm somewhat normal... I begin dropping when everyone else's caffeine levels have risen enough to make them approachable.  However, don't give me detail work.  I'm still scatterbrained.

11am.  I am now stupid.  I can still function, but by now I've worn myself out by holding my energy at bay, and it has seeped into the carpet, through the floor, into the earth, and out the other side for some other unfortunate morning person to utilize.  I feel useless.  I feel unliked, like I don't fit in, and like my memory's shot.

2pm.  Now I'm simply exhausted and wondering why I'm in this profession.  What was I thinking?  Oh my God.  I'm going to die.  Where are my headphones?  I find them and turn them up as loud as I dare so I don't lose my focus for the umpteenth time.

3pm.  Holy crap is it 3pm already?  Why am I so tired all the time?  When are these people going to leave so I can be myself again?  Might as well just smack me with a brick.  I don't even know why I'm being paid to sit here being stupid.

4pm.  Most of the time, my colleagues leave about now.  Suddenly the silence turns into music, even if I don't put my headphones back on.  I bid my colleagues adieu as they almost run for the door and grin inside.  Now I tackle the detail/thinking work.  With a vengeance.

5:50pm.  Shit, really?  I was just getting started!!  I pack up and head home by 6:10.

Then I enjoy Carr.  Sometimes my mood by now has shifted into happy again.  Most of the time I enjoy the sound of Carr for a while as I drive, but then my memories surface and I miss my friends.  A lot.  In fact, I think about them often throughout the day sometimes without meaning to.  Usually when I feel put down or stupid, which is often.  Sometimes I still cry, although most of the time I can prevent that and only produce a deep aching inside with a bit of mist that is quickly subdued by revving the engine or something.  I try to think about what I want to do when I get home.  That sometimes helps, but often it doesn't.  I know I will have three hours to have dinner, check email, do whatever chores I need to do that were not done before, take care of critters, and then, most likely, I'll end up wasting time on the computer and making myself feel worse.

Occasionally, I find ways around this stupidity.  For instance, today, I ran across a report at work of closed tickets over the last 24 hours, 7 days, month, year, and all time.  I saw my name and did some comparisons to the people I think of as the workhorses.  I'm actually pretty even with them if you look at numbers.  First I tell myself, well, the numbers are warped because I have tickets I can close quickly.  Then I remember all the hours-long or even days-long tickets that I spend hours or days feeling stupid about only to have some "ah ha" moment where everything gels and the problem is resolved.  In fact, many of my tickets are like that.  It's the nature of what I do.  It involves a lot of problem solving and research and poking.

I got home in much better spirits, also having at least completed something (even if I'm pretty sure it won't turn out well the first round).  Then I saw that Dale was missing.  So was his car.  Okay... So I took care of the cat litter as fast as I could.  He's always doing stuff.  I was painstaking about it.  I even washed the floor beneath and around the pans with my favourite herbal solution.  Then I took the used litter out to the garbage bin.  I set about putting things away, sweeping, caring for critters, doing laundry and other chores.  He gets home and I ask what else he's going to do besides putting in the a/c and mowing the lawn.  "Trash and recycling," he says.  "I'll do those," I tell him.  "That would be nice but... what I really want is food when I'm done.  I'd really rather have that if you don't mind."  "You'll be mowing for an hour.  I'll have plenty of time to do both."

So I did.  By now I'm feeling pretty good, and have stopped feeling useless at least.  Dale comes in, sweaty and grassy, and sniffs the air with excitement.  He looks me straight in the eye and thanks me for everything by asking, "How do I deserve all this?"  I'm surprised.  "How do I deserve all you do?  You mow the lawn!"  Then as I wander into the living room to turn on the TV for the last hour of my day, my nose perks up and I realise that the wonderful scent in the air was my doing.  The smoothness of the floor was me.  The happily fed creatures?  Me again.  I got home, and in two hours, did all that.

I'm not stupid or useless.  I'm human, and I am apparently just as insecure as many people are.  The scary thing is that there are suffering people in the world and I'm still upset about leaving friends behind.  Moron.  ;)

~nv

Poem - Condestruction

CONDESTRUCTION

20140610 - c2013 wlc

Humidity sets in

A waterfall in air

Nebel echoes in my ears

Surrounding me with life

I feel it permeating my body

But my mind remains numb

The trees and pollen try coating the car

I miss them all

I round the curves with practiced boredom

Drawing with humidity

Feet still cold on the vehicle floor

Hands so dry upon the wheel

My heart stops for just a moment

I'm lost in time

A tear inches backward

How fast am I going?

When will I stop?

I think of perfection

Belatedly, I wonder, if this is the end

But practice makes perfect

And it wasn't too fast

I'm just another part

Of the winding old road

And suddenly

I'm waiting on a highway

Stopped dead cold

The winding road ceases to wind

As I sit there growing old

missing.

Sometimes, out of nowhere, I have very vivid images and impressions of people float into my consciousness.  Sometimes it's people who died, or moved, or changed jobs, or that I left behind when I moved or changed jobs.  Or simply people I've lost contact with.

This sometimes makes me smile, or perhaps even makes me glad I no longer AM in touch with them so closely.

Other times, I miss them, and I find myself immersed in the sensation of loss, be it wistful or deep, temporary or permanent.

I am lucky to have known people worth missing.

food

Last weekend, I cooked our extra Thanksgiving turkey from last year.  It came out beautiful.  We had turkey dinner, I reserved the dark portions for later, and then I tossed the carcass into the crock pot after picking it clean of its meat, which we ate for a couple of days before most of the rest ended up being stirfried with spices and rice and then tossed into reheatable portions in the freezer.  The next day, I strained out the crock pot goodness and stuck the gelatinous ooze into the fridge.

Today, I heated up the reserved dark portions of meat - the drumsticks and wings and thighs - and while that was going, cooked up some taters and divvied up the ooze to be frozen for later gravies and soups.  I kept some aside and made gravy for the taters.

Multitasker that I am, I then sat down at the counter with the crock pot and a plate of potatoes with gravy.  I took one drumstick and began to pick the meat off it.  Some went in a bowl for later soup, some went to the cats, and some went into me as I ate the potatoes and gravy.  I discarded the bones and gristle and other such things into the crock pot.  I repeated with each darkmeat piece until it was all gone.

When I was done with my breakfast, I took an aging onion, chopped it up, and then chopped up a carrot and threw in the potato peelings, some spices, a bit of salt... and filled it with water.  The cover went on, I set it to high, and then I set to work on the breadmaker.  I set that to start a few hours later so the bread would be as fresh as I could get it compared to when Dale gets back.  I have no idea when he'll be back, actually, so I guessed.

Hungry from the smells of everything, I just stole some broth and a few pieces of very tender onion from the crock.  The broth is a little weak right now, so I added a bit of soy sauce, srichi, fish sauce, and hoisin.  Then I went outside and snagged some green onions and a bit of cilantro (which I was surprised is popping up on its own... it must have seeded itself last year, yay).

It always amazes me how easy it is to make fresh, wonderfully complex soup out of bones, veggies, and a splash of a few premade sauces.  Quite frankly, the soup is the easy part of the turkey... picking the meat off the bones is the most time-consuming part.  Turkeys have a LOT of freakin' meat on them!!  On the other hand, the meat can be frozen and makes excellent stir-fries when you're finally in the mood for turkey again.  So it saves time later... and it's probably a heck of a lot healthier and/or cheaper than stuff prepared for you.

Anywho, back to it I go.  The bread is rising in the maker and I've got the dishwasher going.  Oh yeah and I have some beans soaking, too.  I was thinking of turkey bean soup with fresh bread tonight.  Dale ran a marathon.  I figure he needs some protein and carbs.  I know /I/ want them.  Sure do burn a lot of calories sitting around on one's butt all day long playing games on the computer and eating homemade soup... har har

~nv

Morning thoughts

First off, I'm not overly fond of "Fu Brick" Hunnan Hei cha.  It's not horrid, but for a puerh, it's very, very light, and takes forever to separate itself from its little brick.  I suppose in some ways this makes it last longer but it needs to steep a LONG time, even after rinsing.

Tea is not what my post is about, though.

Over the past few months, I have felt myself sliding slowly backward somehow, even while still moving forward.  New job seems to be going well, and I've learned a lot of new things, and have much more to learn.  So it seems illogical that this would be the cause of anything.  However, I still miss a lot of people from the old place and I spend a lot more time alone.  So much so that I crave solitude despite missing my friends.  Does that make sense?  Probably not.  I tend to gravitate towards logic in a lot of things and I can't make heads or tails out of this myself.

I have trouble speaking to people.  I've been losing words for the past couple of years and it's probably just the aging process.  It starts happening about now, I reckon, a little bit at a time, until you're a nonsensical idiot drooling in your lap.  It's not just that, though.  I have trouble holding onto my thoughts long enough to form them into words.  It's like having less interaction with people is dumbing me back down to who I was before I was thrown into the mess of people.  I kind of miss my people.  Not just my friends, but the interactions.  Even the meetings, to some extent.  At least when I /did/ have to speak, I could sound intelligible.  Ish.

Listening has gotten better and worse.  Better because I feel less need to contribute, but worse because I have trouble hearing again.  It's a bunch of mumbo jumbo that just tumbles around in my head for a while and I get too tired to process all of it so I miss half of what's said.  The rest is prone to being quickly forgotten.

I'm no longer sharp as a tack.  This bothers me.  A lot.  I've tried to convince myself it's OK, that everyone hits this point.  But it's not OK.  I've stopped feeling like a failure, like I'm imperfect, when it happens.  But I feel frustrated.  I feel slow.  I feel stupid.  I guess stupid, for me, is failure, but still.  The frustration hits me hardest.  I can no longer multitask without a pad of paper in front of me.  I'm constantly reorganizing my notes.  People converse with me about conversations we'd had previously and I've lost all context, even if it's a project I've been working on.  Dale tells me where he's going and two seconds later I figure out where he's going based on other clues, then verify.  He gives me an odd look and I realize he probably just told me exactly what I concluded on my own.  I don't remember any of it.

Yet, I haven't totally lost all of my communication skills.  I haven't forgotten everything.  And some things I'm forgetting feel like they're being replaced by older skills.  Skills I'd forgotten about in the hustle and bustle of having to deal with so many people.  The ability to focus on one thing for long periods is returning.  To block out any and all sound.  I keep wanting to read, to immerse myself in two-dimensional verbiage.  I've been wanting to write more.  (Hi!)

In other news, I've made it 21 days without drinking any mountain dew at all.  Sometime after Monday of this week, it stopped badgering me.  I actually don't really want it now.  If I really think about the taste, sure, I want it, but I don't have a craving for it, a need, or the thought of it every three seconds.  I honestly think it has to be a mental addiction because I never stopped drinking tea, so the addiction is likely not the caffeine.  It likely wasn't the sugar, either, because I began craving potatoes within the first two weeks of giving up the Dew.  I didn't really eat a lot more sugar than usual so I figure the starch replaced the sugar.  So it had to be mental.

At any rate, not going back down that road for a while.  I don't trust myself with Dew.  My mother used to tell me that her smoking habit was not a physical addiction but a mental one.  She LIKES smoking.  I think I sort of understand that now.

Back to the subject at hand, though... Dale and I went to dinner last night and I hashed out a few of my thoughts about my state of mind.  He didn't seem to think it was overly concerning and thought I was still growing just fine.  Oh, I left that out here.  I mentioned that I may have realized that it's not just my mind slowing down, but my growth and passion for growth.  He's like, "You were just learning two languages."  Well, yeah, but that's different.  Somehow.  Um.  Right.  But I am not currently still learning them...

Seriously, though.  The growth thing.  I was unhappy for much of my life and pushed myself until I became happy.  I grew professionally, spiritually, mentally, and as a human being.  FAST.  And then I reached a point where I was content.  Very content.  But being content, in and of itself, is causing me discontent.

I'm unhappy being happy?  Seriously?  Yes, because now I worry it will all go away.  Wow.

That made me feel better.  Now my new goal is to enjoy what I have so long as I have it.

~nv 

Duggars' 19 kids

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/lovejoyfeminism/2012/02/carefully-scripted-lives-my-concerns-about-the-duggars.html

I read through the above article and found many points to be similar to /many/ parents I've known.  The tendency to overpower a kid, make them believe what the parent does, make them act the way a parent does, this is universal and has nothing to do with a large or single-kid family and is regardless of social status and religious or other beliefs.

My mother did not have lots of kids but I still raised myself, and her too in many ways, didn't have much of a childhood or teenage years, and in different ways.  While these kids might have their whims literally beaten out of them, mine were put down and called evil and whatever else might make me more like the nut that doesn't fall far from the tree.  I know I'm not alone... lots of kids can recount such things in either direction, my own mother included.  Patterns repeat themselves for a reason.  Even if you're not pushed into it, you still want to be accepted and loved by your parent.  It is of note that not all kids become like their parents.  Some become "black sheep" of the family and are ousted, much to their own joy.  So an upbringing is not going to MAKE you into anything, it'll shape you, but you still end up deciding in the end whether you're going to be a mini-them or a major-them.

Further, we are only recently as a human race (in this country) able to have small families where kids do NOT raise each other.  Farms needed boys and girls to help keep things going.  It wasn't thought of as a horrible thing at the time.  However, now that we have smaller families, the children still mentor each other on playgrounds, in schools, in daycare.  Kids naturally gravitate to their older peers, siblings or not.

They think females need to dress modestly.  We are now putting down this culture of theirs because it's no longer mainstream, but it used to be, and in many places still is.  We are afraid of them spreading their crap through our culture, but it is us who spread our crap through their culture.  Their culture was in this country before ours!!  So who is the real danger?  Why is their way so far-fetched and dangerous?  Why is it more dangerous than ours?  Ours is full of drugs, murder, rape, and sex plastered all over the TV.  Do we seriously fear people acting nicely towards each other?  Letting our teens be teens certainly doesn't seem to be helping, either.  Maybe we're just human?

And yes, kids are naturally curious, but so are dogs and cats and we send dogs, our loving companions, to obedience school because we want them to act a certain way.

The point I'm trying to make is that nothing above is necessarily wrong, it's simply how various people hold their own beliefs, and one particular culture is not any better than another - it's because we were raised differently that we think ours is.  We need to be stroked and be agreed with, it's our human nature.

That being said, of course they wish to isolate their kids.  There aren't as many like them now.

Not that I'm condoning them.  That lifestyle would drive me nuts.  But again, I was raised very differently.

~nv

traffic fun today

In the complicated little jog today I saw dumptruck, me, bicycle on my bumper, big 18 wheeler on his bumper.  Light turned green.  I was glad for hill assist so I didn't bump the bike behind me.  Dumpy and I went, I lost the bike somewheres, and the 18 wheeler took a while to make it up the little hill 'round the bend.  Behind me I see a white truck cross lanes and appear to my left as we rounded the corner.

I thought, "Wow, it's amazing that nothing bad happened with all the danger right there."

Then as the road became simple again, a pickup with a smashed back end cut in front of the dump truck.  He made it.  As I marvelled at how he didn't die, a minivan tried to cut in front of me from a complete stop.  I slammed on my brakes and looked up, prepared for a sudden manoeuvre should the 18 wheeler be hanging out there again, but he had disappeared somehow and the coast was clear.  She looked at me like "WTF", stopped in the middle of the left lane, blocking traffic, and I proceeded.  She came in behind me, I think.

I never did find the 18 wheeler again.  Not sure where he went.  Maybe he and the bicycle eloped.

shower vs tea

This morning I aimed to take the shortest shower possible.  I attempted to do this by putting a fresh, hot cup of tea on the sink.  The faster I showered, the sooner I got my tea.

Irish Breakfast, to be exact.

The problem is that I could smell the tea in the shower.  That made me want to skip the whole performance and just dive into the tea cup.

Then I realized I could also smell the Herbal Essences shampoo/conditioner that I'd bought yesterday.  It was the kind in the familiar yellow and golden bottles... I haven't seen this in a few years.  It was my favourite.  Is my favourite.  I was forced to switch to Aussie something when (I thought) the Herbal Essences was discontinued.  Apparently it is still carried in stores I don't always shop in.

Anywho, the shampoo kept me in the shower long enough to actually wash myself, and the tea pulled me out.

I'd say it was a wash.  ;)

~nv

tea

This morning I'm cooking pan bread and drinking An Ji Bai Cha.  It occurred to me that I drink tea like I eat food.  It must have variety.  I always have my favourites, like Earl Grey or ripe puerh, that sort of thing, but even though I've been in a darker tea mood as of late, this morning I opted for the lighter white-green with its gentle little leaves that open up and look perty in a glass tea pot.  Funny how that works.

Anywho, in other news, I finally caved and bought techietutorials.net.  The .com is still being hoarded by an advertising company of sorts and I still hate godaddy for being assholes about the whole situation two years ago, but bluehost has been very nice to me so far - nice site, great support, easier to navigate, etc.  So, it's all good.  And given the content, the .net makes more sense anyway.  Now people are getting used to the different domain names to an extent so no big deal, especially since there are such things as bookmarks and my websites are more for me than others anyway.

So... big whup.  I'll get over it.  I'm just happy to have my site back.

~w

IT memory

I was just sitting here at work doing some vmware stuff when I had a very sudden flashback to probably about eight years ago.  I was working remotely somewhere (Mom's?  Dale's?  My house?) and jumped through 4 or 5 machines to get to one I needed to work in.  I had some sort of virtual software open and edited or created a server, increased server space, something.  I'm not sure what I was doing.  I only remember thinking how cool it was that a) I could do it remotely and b) I was reconfiguring something virtually.  I am pretty sure this was relatively new to us at the time and that it was big.  But I must have been following a procedure of sorts because I wasn't that high on the food chain at the time.  I was probably a level 2 tech, in fact, nowhere near a sysadmin yet.

There was certainly a feeling of elation and power, though, whatever I was doing.  It is rather scary to think that I had such power in my hands at such an early point in my career, but, thankfully, I never blew up anything that someone else could not readily fix or that couldn't wait for me to fix.  LOL!

Anywho, virtual computing is still freakin' awesome to me.

~w

Pan Bread

My pan bread recipe... give or take a dash.

Pan Bread [sweet version]

1 cup flour

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp yeast

1 tsp cinnamon

dash nutmeg

dash ground clove

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 tsp anise seeds

1/2 to 3/4 cup warm water

Mix dry ingredients, then add water 'til you get a sticky but workable dough.  Add more flour to the bowl as needed until you can work it into a kneadable thingie.  Let it rest on fresh flour and powder the top of the thingie with more flour.  Let it sit there an hour or whatever.  The yeasticles will drink the water like alcohol, and burp and fart inside the sticky glutinous bonds.  This will stretch the bonds, making the thingie rise like a stinkbomb only to us it smells good.  When you're done letting the party happen, heat up a fry pan with some oil (olive oil works fine).  Get it good and hot but don't tell the yeasticles what you're up to.  Then knead the thingie a bit more and flatten it into the bottom of the fry pan.  Don't listen to the screams.  They'll get over it.  Fry about 5-10 minutes somewhere around just short of halfway on the heat, and flip when golden brown on bottom or it starts to burn, whichever you notice first.  Fry another 5-10 minutes, turning down heat a notch so it can cook through a bit more slowly without burning and setting off smoke detectors.

Voila!  Pan bread.  You can adjust the spices to taste or swap them with thyme, rosemary, cajun, chile, etc. depending on what you're in the mood for.  I'm sure it's awesome with powdered sugar and maple syrup on it, but, it's usually gone before such accoutrements escape their hiding places.

~w

Jewellery

I went to type "jewellery" in my last post and it kept getting highlighted as being incorrect.  I looked it up.  Figures, my version of the spelling, which I have been using since who knows when, is the "British" version.  What is it with me and British spellings??  Why couldn't Webster just have kept his dirty little fingers out of the damned dictionary?!  Then I would not be constantly battling dimwits and spellcheckers!!

"The word jewellery itself is derived from the word jewel, which was anglicized from the Old French "jouel",^[3] and beyond that, to the Latin word "jocale", meaning plaything. In British English, it is spelled jewellery, while the spelling is jewelry in American English.^[1][4]"

I just shut off spellchecker.  I'm tired of that crap.

~w

Stuff

Up until today, I have been aware of four categories of clothing:

1. Work clothes.  The stuff I find comfortable, non-clingy, easy to care for, dark, interchangeable, and work-worthy.  This gets crammed into a large plastic drawer in the bathroom for easy and regular access.  Overflow ends up in a second drawer beneath that one or in the two smaller drawers stashed beneath the hamper and waste basket.

2. Casual/Loungewear.  The stuff I find comfortable, non-clingy, easy to care for, and that I can wear to bed or around the house.  Many items I can also wear outside, just not to work.  This stuff gets crammed into the third, bottom drawer.

3. Fancy wear.  The "fancy" stuff I hold onto for special occasions, such as tea parties, interviews, deaths, weddings, renaissance faires, and the like.  This stuff doesn't necessarily have to be comfortable or easy-care, but I have to at least like it.  This stuff is mostly kept in two boxes at the top of a closet in a spare bedroom.  I also have a collection of scarves kept in my playpen, not far from all the cheap jewellery I never wear.

4. Overflow casual ware.  These are mostly t-shirts that I occasionally remember to rotate into my usual supply so they get used and not neglected.  They are often in a third box at the top of a closet.

Today I became aware of these categories:

5. Old outfits that don't fit but which I remember loving at some point long ago and secretly hope will fit again some day.  (I remember laughing when I heard people saying things like this.  I'm only chuckling now.)

6. Items I love the look of but never wear because they don't fall into the above categories.

7. Items I hang onto because... I have no idea why.

I am grateful I have the problem of having to figure out what I will keep and what I will donate or throw out.  But egads... I never considered myself a clothing-a-holic... when did this explosion occur in that closet?!

~w

POEM: Morning Prayer

Morning Prayer

20140413 - c2014 wlc

To my left is a man

Whose countenance is fair

I hear him there breathing

So I turn to stare

I watch for a while

As morning awakens

Sometimes my heart flutters

As if it were shaken

And I think:

Thank you for being the man of my dreams

And all the times when you understand

Thank you for sharing your passions with me

And for the gentle touch of your hand

Thank you for helping me up when I fall

And for the advice to help guide me through

But most of all, I just want you to know

I'm thankful you're just being you

I flip onto my back

And gaze at the stars

Their lights slowly fading

As the night travels far

I'm human, imperfect

On this road that I plod

Then I turn to my right

And look on the face of God

And I think:

Thank You for the house that's over my head

And for the guy that I love

Thank You for the sunrise each morning

And for the heavens above

Thank You for helping me up when I fall

And giving me Conscience to help Guide me through

But most of all, I just want You to know

I'm thankful You're just being You

I go to turn over

My eyes filled with mist

Feel a hand on each shoulder

Both cheeks gently kissed

I hear two sweet voices

As gentle as dew

And without a sound

They say, "I love you, too."

And I think:

It's morning!!  Dale!!  Look!!  There's DAYLIGHT out there!!  DAY light!!

And my mind starts its racing

And I jump out of bed

And I fly through the house

And the critters are fed

And I have a burst

'Til the chores are all done

Then I sit alone

With tea there in front

I look out the window

And what do I see?

The bursting of colour

The Love before me.

OMG!!

Sometimes I have ok days at work and other days I get to do REALLY AWESOME STUFFS!!  Today so far I've added virtual servers to a virtual virtual environment on its own virtual network so nothing talks to anything outside of the virtual environment bubble.  This is inside our usual virtual environment, which makes it akin to when I used to remote into a machine that remoted into another that then remoted into another so I could remote into anything I needed at work.  Convoluted as all getup but omg it makes life so much easier.

This is for development... and egads, is this cool.  Used to be you had to have the hardware to do this and downtimes and all sorts of crud.  Now you just sit on your butt all day clicking in UI's and saying, "You.  Over there.  You.  Over there.  You do this.  You do that.  Okay, now, I eat lunch while you do that and I watch gleefully and choke on my rice because I'm laughing so hard internally with insane joy.  Now you do that.  I need a Dew.  Whoa, it's all set up.  Can I ping this?  No, good.  This?  Yes, good.  Wow, lookey there... it's all there and it's not hurting anything outside of itself.  Hah!"  I can't even begin to explain this sort of thing to a lay person right now.  My own head is swimming in excitement.

W00T!!  I AM THE GRAND MASTER OF ALL -- oh, hi, Grand Master of Technology... :: sheepish look ::  Yeah, I know, I know.  I know NOTHING...

(but man does this stuff make one feel powerful for a little while.  It's so freakin' cool.)

~w

Computer Manufacturers

And now let me rant for a while about computer manufacturers that don't care to provide the option to order a Windows disc while ordering their computers from them.

Lenovo.  Is.  On.  My.  Shit.  List.

IBM used to have awesome products, and this laptop isn't that bad, actually.  Seems like a laptop.  Looks like one, acts like one, has a battery, it can plug in and charge up, gets online, does things laptops do.  But man, swap the hard drive with a new one and you're installing Ubuntu whether you wanted Windows 8.1 or not.  Maybe MicroSoft is behind this, I don't know, but not providing a means to recovery your os to a new hard drive?  Bad juju.

I would be willing to accept this seemingly new practice if they only made it clear that it's the case while ordering their stuff, but they don't.  You know, like Dell does!  "Include recovery media" options would do the trick nicely.  Then at least you're not blindsided by assumption.  "They didn't ask if I wanted recovery media.  They must include the discs.  Nice!  Glad I chose Lenovo this time!"  "Wait, there's no disc in this box.  Maybe they forgot it.  Oh, what's this?  You have to order it from premium support?  For a fee?  And wait days to get that, too?  WTF?!"

Screw their one-touch recovery crap.  Anybody in their right technical mind knows these days that hard drives fail.  The laptop came with a regular, failable hard drive.  Hello?  You seriously trust this?  One-year warranties don't fix hard drives that fail in two years, or five years.  Why don't they just rent out computers if they don't want us to own them anymore?

:: mumbling incoherently ::

I hate today's tech world.  I really do.  It moves fast but without any real goal other than to simply race.  No consideration for anything other than a buck or to be first at something.  No thought for quality or comprehensiveness.

Anywho, rant over.  Premium Support should be open now, so I've got a call to make.  :: steps off slippery soap box ::

~w

Ubuntu works great on this laptop by the way

Guinea Pigs are Conversion Factories

I have finally reached a conclusion to what guinea pigs are.

They are conversion factories.

This is how it works:

- Put large bowlful of grain and leafy greens into cage to silence the alarm.

- Wait a half hour for bowl of goods to be converted.

- Observe the mounds of poo and soaked papers in cage, sprinkled liberally with shed hair.

And yes, there is an alarm.  It seems to be there to let you know when there's nothing to convert.  I wish they had made the alarm quieter than a smoke alarm, but, at least I never forget to feed the conversion factory more stuff to convert.  Given I don't use the resulting product for anything, though, I'm really not sure why I got this thing.

I'm trying to figure out what these factories are actually for, though.  Perhaps I should put my guinea pig out on a field full of noxious weeds.  He would simply work his way through them, converting into usable farmland, right?  Is that what he's here for?  I seriously don't know what else to do with this thing.  He doesn't really seem to care about me as a fellow creature, he just wants to convert stuff.  Paper?  Manure.  Water?  Manure.  Greens?  Manure.  Grains?  Manure.  Air?  Manure.  Attention?  Manure.  I swear he puts out more than he puts in - and he puts in a lot.  I can't eat that much salad in a half-hour, let alone with a big handful of grain mixed in.  I'm certainly not eating a half a carrot with it, either, in the time allotted.  And somehow, the alarm still has energy to go off.  It's wicked sensitive, too.  It goes off if our fridge door opens.  It goes off when a neighbour's fridge door opens.  I suspect that it goes off when any fridge in the entire town opens.  There HAS to be an off button for that pesky alarm, or a time setting, or something.  He'd eat the entire back yard of its grass, shrubs, and trees if he had his way, in one or two days.  It would be a big pile of guinea pig manure, squishy, wet, and smelling suspiciously of farmland that is soon to be farmland.  Until he finds it again, that is, and re-converts it back to piles of gp manure.

I am certain that he converts sunlight and air into the mounds of hair-sprinkled poo, as well.  He's like the animal version of an air plant.  Mist him a few times a day and he'll live forever.

Gah!  At least he's a shiny little conversion factory.  How he keeps himself so well-maintained is beyond me.  I think he must only poo and pee when he thinks I'm about to look in there.  I mean, I just changed his papers and washed out his cage and within a half-hour of feeding him, MANURE EVERYWHERE.  Are guinea pigs nomadic or something?  They must be.  It doesn't matter how large the cage is.  He.  Will.  Fill.  It.  Every inch.  Even his food dish.  He doesn't get a food dish anymore, just a clean paper.  It'll be soiled in seconds.  Literally, seconds.  He must have manure to sit on or he's not happy.

GAH!!  I say, GAH!!!

Spring is here (sort of)

Spring is my favourite season.  It's beautiful, and as a fellow blogger mentioned recently, it's a nice allegory to God's Promise working in our lives despite all outward appearances at times.  But despite my growing dislike of the Winter cold, I think Winter is beautiful in a different way.  The sun hitting golden stalks of yesteryear, against the blinding white moguls in the fields, with a backdrop of browns and grays littering otherwise white mountains - this is also beauty to me.  Even seeing the litterlike brown chunks of previously turned, plowed, and harvested fields of manured farmland, dotting the snow like moonrocks, is a really neat sight that is lost once the green of Spring emerges and the white fades into the trickling streams of nourishment.

Indeed, Spring is a wonderful allegory of God's Promise, but all seasons are showcases of His work in our lives.  Of course, it's easier to appreciate when you're peering out from the elemental protection of a home or car!

Winnimere Cheese

I am blessed to know a great number of awesome people.  One such person, whom I feel particularly close to, loves to find and try new things and then share them.  She has often gone out of her way to find strange or unique things and share them with Dale and I.

Her latest find was something called Winnimere cheese.  She really hyped this one up... it is hard to find, a wee bit expensive, was eaten at the White House, and has won awards.  It is modeled after a similar cheese in Switzerland:  It is a soft, two month aged cheese from Ayshire cows.  This is wrapped in some moldable part of the spruce tree, imbuing the creamy round with a fresh spruce scent as it ages.  These are all traits common to the Forsterkase.  However, it is then doused with a particular beer to set it apart from its Swiss cousin.  Sounded intriguing, although I did worry about the spruce part... I've had spruce gum.  Not my favourite thing.  But, I couldn't wait to try it anyway.  Surely it must be awesome if it has won awards, right?

Please keep in mind that anything I say about my experience with this cheese is said as lovingly as possible.  The first whiff almost knocked me over backwards.  But, I was warned it was pretty pungent, so I didn't let that phase me.  I tentatively took a few more whiffs and, beginning to feel weary, finally just dove in for fear I'd lose my nerve.  It was surprisingly good... cold, creamy, silky.  I ate several more bites and began to feel all tingly.  Then I paused to talk to Dale about it and the scent rose up into my sinuses.  For a moment I saw stars and the room began to dance sideways.  I quickly ate more and the pleasant creaminess returned.  I began to feel nauseous.  I had to stop.  The cream was rapidly replaced by its... aroma.  I did not get smoke, meat, mustard or fruit, but rather, a dizzying bouquet of toe jam wrapped in the delicate balm of a spruce forest and doused with the fragrant perfume of death.  Somehow I never rooted out the scent of the beer, which I'm sure was lovely.  I suspect the LSD-like effects were preventing me from focusing my senses on that aspect.

I set the spreader down and took a few steps backwards as I regained my balance.  Dale, seemingly unaffected, shrugged and said it was OK but that he preferred pepperjack.  He wrapped the parcel back up and we agreed to share it with others to see if it might be appreciated more by someone else.

We took it to a friend's house for him to try.  He began unrolling the bag and seemed to think there was no cheese he didn't like.  Then he kindly asked us if we were sure it belonged in his basement as he quickly rolled the top of the bag back up in an attempt to seal in the refreshing flavours.  He was very nice about reminding us to take it with us when we left.  We have such honest, helpful friends.

I really love the texture of the cheese, it's very cool and creamy and would be an awesome dip if my sense of smell was nonexistent.  Until the next time I get all stuffed up and can't even smell cold germs, however, I think I'll stick with Brie.  Sorry, Winnimere, but... you're just not the cheese for me!

~w

Word Macro

Useful for creating paper-sized tags for shelves, etc.

Name:  PaperTags

What it does:

- Asks how many you need

- Sets up page for landscape orientation

- Centers horizontally and vertically

- Begins sequence...

- Makes fontsize 200

- Places A followed by the sequence number on the page

- Changes fontsize to 1

- Places a return

- Creates a page break

- Repeats from the fontsize part until done with sequence

Sub PaperTags()

'

' PaperTags Macro

'

'

Dim strCount As String

Dim lngCount As Long

Dim lngCycle As Long

strCount = InputBox("How many times to repeat?")

lngCount = strCount

Selection.ParagraphFormat.Alignment = wdAlignParagraphCenter

    With ActiveDocument.PageSetup

        .VerticalAlignment = wdAlignVerticalCenter

    End With

    If Selection.PageSetup.Orientation = wdOrientPortrait Then

        Selection.PageSetup.Orientation = wdOrientLandscape

    Else

        Selection.PageSetup.Orientation = wdOrientPortrait

    End If

For lngCycle = 1 To lngCount

    Selection.Font.Size = 200

    Selection.TypeText Text:="A" & lngCycle

    Selection.Font.Size = 1

    Selection.TypeParagraph

    Selection.InsertBreak Type:=wdPageBreak

Next lngCycle

End Sub

Titanic vs beads

It just occurred to me that a good analogy for multi-layered security can be had by observing the history of the Titanic.

While there is no single point of failure in that event, there is something that could have helped improve the odds of more people surviving (aside from not getting on the ship in the first place):  More lifeboats.  When the Titanic was built, regulations stated that if you built watertight compartments into your ship to help hold it afloat in a disaster, you didn't have to have as many lifeboats.  I.e., you didn't have to have enough lifeboats for every passenger on board because the ship wouldn't sink in the first place.  I'm not sure why you had to bother with lifeboats at all in that case, but that's another story.

Anywho, the Titanic did not have the proper multi-layered security in order to protect the lives of its passengers because the designer of the day put all eggs into one basket, so to speak, and cut the corner on the lifeboats as he was allowed to do without acting upon the thought of "Okay, it might be unsinkable.  But what if something we haven't seen before happens, and we turn out to be wrong?"

The regulations were changed shortly after the tragedy to state that in addition to watertight compartments to help hold the ship afloat, all ships were required to have enough lifeboats on board to hold all passengers.

I remember as a kid making jewelry out of seed beads.  Even as a child I recall understanding the risks I took when I cut corners or didn't bother to think things through.  One item in particular was a necklace I'd made on the bead loom.  I knew that if one thread let go, the whole thing would dump tiny little beads everywhere.  So I built the basic necklace and then went back through my work with a second thread.  As I was doing so, it occurred to me that I had coated the weft with wax, but had not double-stranded it.  I knew that if one thread in the weft let go, the necklace would not come totally apart but it would be irreparable.  At that point, though, I could not see how to add a second thread to each existing one in the weft.  The weave was too tight by then to weave a second weft through tiny little threads between beads.  I had essentially overlooked the basic structure of the whole thing.  I noted this with grim reality and continued with the sense of "whups" in the back of my mind.

The one major flaw I did make (knowingly) was that I took the ends of the weft and threaded additional beads onto them to make a chain of sorts before attaching each end to its connector.  I wore this necklace carefully for years, knowing one day something was going to break, and over ten years later, it finally did.  I never lost a single bead, but it is indeed irreparable.

Partial caution may help, but it won't solve everything that gets thrown at you.  Still, it was nice not having to clean up beads.  I was lucky the breach happened in the reinforced section and not near the connectors.

~nv

Computers: Windows XP End Of Life: Will it stop working?!

I was asked:  Is it true that Windows XP is going to stop working come April/End of life/etc?  Will my computer stop working?  Should I upgrade to the latest Windows?

My short answer:  No.

My long answer:  No, but you'll have a great security risk if your computer is connected to the internet or another network.

It's not going to simply die on you.  It'll still work.  Microsoft is going to stop releasing updates for it.  The best analogy I can come up with off the top of my head is this.  You move into a new house in 2001.  It has five locks on the door and all the windows are barred.  The fire escape is three stories up and only comes down if you try to walk down.  So, it's pretty darned near impossible to break into the house.

Every time a thief finds a way to break one of your locks, your locksmith calls you up and says, "Hi.  You're not going to be able to use your doors for a while.  I'm going to change the locks so thieves can't get in as easily."  You then wait for him to complete his work, and finally, you can either leave or come back inside.  Your house is safe again, provided you keep letting him do this.

This goes on for thirteen years.  Suddenly, your locksmith says, "I am no longer going to work on those locks anymore.  You'll have to upgrade your doors to these heavy-duty steel ones with ten new locks, or I'm not going to work for you anymore."  You ignore him and you can still get in and out of your house and use the doors and the locks.  However, you stop getting phone calls.  You're very lucky, nobody breaks in for several years, despite the bars on the windows rusting out, the fire escape hanging, and the locks having been figured out by every thief on the block.  All you know is that you haven't had to wait to leave or get back in in quite a while.  This is great!!  And you didn't have to buy a new door or go through the hassle or anything!  But, one day, someone breaks into all your locks and steals everything in your house.

At that point you take a long, hard look at the decision to not upgrade and go, "Was it worth it?"

Maybe not such a great analogy, but that's what Windows Security is like.  You can still use the products, but they become less and less safe when you're online.

~nv

Mothers and Daughters

http://www.pressherald.com/opinion/The_humble_Farmer__It_s_nice_to_love_your_future_wife__but_critical_to_like_her_mother_.html?pagenum=1

The article talks about how a guy should see if he likes the mother before he decides to marry a girl, because she's gonna be just like her mother.

This might have some truth to it, but for selfish reasons, I hope it's not a defacto, standard rule that applies consistently.  Mothers certainly pass many traits onto their daughters (I've heard 'the nut doesn't fall far from the tree' more times than I can count), but not an entire personality.  As such it would stand to reason that a future husband should be careful to look for similarities of unwanted traits to see if those in particular have been passed down, and likewise, see if desirable traits were passed down.  Watching my mother make impossibly unrealistic, snide demands of others, I hope, did /not/ pass down - likely because it was the one trait I personally fought for years and liked the least about her.  Sometimes the hatred of one trait will cause the kid to rebel against it and be totally different.  However, my cruel, dry, demented, occasionally unsympathetic sense of humour is mostly hers.  The intelligence was passed down.  Rebelling against authority is hers, totally get that from her, though I can hide it if totally necessary (if I get paid for it).  The spelling nazi was passed down and amplified into a self-righteous bitch that I've since toned down some and try to use as a strength instead of a pompous ass attitude.  The internal judgement of others may come out at times, but mostly it remains internal and I try to squash it with positive comments about people, something very hard for her to do.  On the other hand, I have some traits that she does not.  She could never train me to act normally - I was either dense or overly dramatic, both of which she tried her damnedest to override.  So, I might be like her in many ways, but liking me and liking her would depend on which attributes you're comparing.  The one that would likely be a dealbreaker would be the fierce independence, which I learned to tone down (much like "Muriel" and her politely worded commands).  Over the years I actively try to engage social norms somewhat and my mother would completely reject them.  See the impossibly realistic demands comment.  Related.  I've learned that I'm not perfect, either, and the only person one can change is oneself.  I know that a child needs to learn for themselves, and I figure adults should have the same privilege.  So I keep my need to do things my way to myself most of the time.  My way isn't the only way, and even if I do have an experience that might help, it would never help someone else learn if I simply took over.  I want others to learn for themselves so they can be independent, too, because I like my independence and don't wish helplessness on anybody.  My mom wanted people to fend for themselves so they'd leave her the hell alone.  The nut doesn't fall far from the tree, indeed.  I tell my cat he needs to smack the shit out his little brother.  I can't feed him every two seconds, it's just not happening.  Go feed yourself.  lol.

Of course, if the mother in law is likely to be in a couple's lives at some point, it might be prudent to look at the mother in law a bit more closely and imagine living with her.  This topic has arisen a few times, but thankfully, I'm smart enough to know that it's a very unwise thing and I should listen to the sense of foreboding when I see the hairs on Dale's neck stand on end.  He would never openly dislike anyone I'm so close to, and limits his dislike of others in general anyway.  But, whether he /likes/ my mother or not doesn't matter to me.  I know his opinion on the subject of her living with us, and that's the important part.  It's not rocket science that she would be /very/ disruptive to our happy, quiet, peaceful lives.  I have that opinion, too.  My hairs also stand on end at the thought.  I love my mother.  I don't /have/ to hate her, too.  I have choices, now.  Dale and I have choices.

So, let's just say that I'm just glad my mother didn't dissuade Dale from putting on his special glasses for me.

Something I was very thankful for last night was the fact that I played music at a decent level (for me) last night, jumped all over the house in excited dance, played along on the piano, played the wipers, belted a few singalongs horribly, and then tired myself out... without any complaints whatsoever.  I normally don't do this because I worry it'll bother Dale, but it was all I could do to remain seated.  I hadn't been sitting down very long when he calls into the room.  "What happened to the music?" he asked, coming over the stairs.  "I got tired, and figured I'd bugged you long enough," I replied, knowing as soon as I said it that I was correctly anticipating his next semblance of thought.  He cocked his head in some quizzical expression and said, "I heard some really cool stuff over here.  Wipers, piano, lots of dancing...?"  I mentally noted he left out the singing, which reinforced for me that it's the one thing my mother was always right about - I don't sing very well - note /well/.  I know not everyone has the ear she does.  But I've improved.  And he didn't ask me /not/ to do that.  She would have been all over me the moment a wobbly note had come out of my airway.  "You sound like a dying cow," I could hear her saying.  "You're tone-deaf.  Just stop doing that, you'll never hit the right notes and you're hurting my ears."  She also used to tell me not to try playing keyboard or to use headphones.  Last night I hit a creative streak and I was picking out songs by ear as they played for the first time in ages.  Byte me, Mom.  Of course, without her remarks, I may never have been so insistent on trying.  Mom couldn't be right, she just couldn't be.  I have to have SOME of the family ability.  I will do what she can do.  I will!  And she will some day tell me I've done good!!  (And she eventually did, whether it was intentional or not.  It's funny to be seldom complimented outright, yet know your mother's so proud of you.  But I now understand why that is and have stopped hating her for the catch-22's.  Knowing sometimes has to suffice, and why should it matter, anyway?  She was raised to be broken, too.)

I got up (a bit reluctantly, I /was/ tired) and began playing more music.  Around 11pm (Yeah!  Music kept me up late!) a techno song came on.  It was unfamiliar to me, and had very little in the way of notes to it... it was mostly just rhythm.  My fingers were already on the piano because I'd just been picking out notes to the previous song.  (Yes!!  I can finally do that, too, Mum!!)  Next thing I knew, my muse had taken over and I was adapting the very first piece I'd written.  I have no idea what I used to call the piece, but it's short, repetitious, and very catchy.  I remember when I played it just before my music class.  The teacher came in with a student while I was playing it.  I immediately stopped and went back to my seat, embarrassed.  No one had said anything to me, but my mother's parental tapes were telling me those people were being polite.  However, by the end of the class I overheard the teacher and a few students humming my piece.  Well, it's simple, and adapts easily to various rhythms, and last night was no exception.  But, what I didn't expect, was that my fingers became so bored with it that they began to crawl over the keys in time to the music and create new structures for it, new notes, maybe a bridge of something, who knows.  They kept a similar pattern but elaborated freely.  I simply watched, a dumbstruck bystander, as my creative side decided music would be its outlet.  I can only figure that all the years of off and on practice, experiences, and training I've had are stored in my brain somewheres, and every now and then my inhibitions are released and I forget I can't play.  Then, my brain applies its experiences and simply /does/ stuff so long as I don't try to interfere.

I know it wasn't an awesome thing I did.  I heard more than a few bad notes when the techno song added its meager number of notes to its ongoing rhythm.  I also know I missed a few beats and had no idea where I should go next... but for someone whom my mother said was totally tone deaf and should never try to play music again, I think I'm well beyond what the average, skimpily-trained person can do.  I'm not a prodigy by any means - if I were, I could sing, dammit and my very quiet 1.4 octave range - but years of struggling had to have done /something/ in the brain of a person who should have inherited the musical side the permeates both sides of my family.  There's gotta be /something/ in there.  But whatever is there is often beaten down by fear of being overheard and told to shut up.

Dale's ears aren't that sensitive.  He has enough innate, untrained musical sense to appreciate when I do something well, but not enough of an ear to be in total agony when I don't.  We complement each other.  And I've learned this over time, and am far less afraid to experiment around him than I ever would have been with anyone else.

So, again, let's just say that I'm glad this daughter's mother didn't dissuade Dale from putting on his special glasses for me.  Without him, I would have still grown more as a person, but with him, I have a wonderful mirror to watch my progress in and tweak things as needed.  In so many ways, musical or no.

~nv

PMS

Okay, so here's my take on PMS.

I've heard that PMS is no excuse for being mean to people.  I feel this is true until you make a serious attempt to be alone to work through the raging series of unnatural, demonic, unrealistic, crazy, illogical feelings.  Once you've made that attempt, it cannot be your fault if someone continues to be anywhere near you by choice.

That's my rule.  I'm blessed with a husband who totally gets it and as soon as I realize my emotions are not my own, and tell him I'm a ticking time bomb and it's not him, he is quite supportive and will leave me be.

The second thing I've found is that a shower and a brisk walk in the pouring rain does, indeed, do the body and mind wonders.  I was so ready to scream for no real reason that I realized I was experiencing the "flight or fight" response.  Adrenaline.  I know that adrenaline is good for one thing:  Self-defense.  I also know that if it is not utilized, it turns inward.  Stress is not good for one's body.  Internalized anger, rage, that whole feeling that causes the adrenaline when you feel threatened somehow - which is usually what anger is - will cause depression and physical maladies.  That, I know, turns into a downward spiral.  Fast.

So I ditched lunch, took a hot shower, dressed in layers, and went for a walk.  I had an idea... I'm not as physically fit as I once was, so I didn't expect I'd be running a marathon.  A mile round-trip should do it physically.  Mentally, though, I might need more because none of my music devices were charged.  So I came up with a game.  Think of something POSITIVE in my life, and then say it out loud followed by, "Dammit."

I walked out the door and found a sidewalk.  It was pouring outside.  I love rain, so this was good.  I stashed my glasses in my inside coat pocket and removed my hat so the rain could seep into my skull.  "I love Dale.  DAMMIT!" I said, out loud for full effect.  It sounded ridiculous.  I passed by the house that caught on fire a week ago.  "Our house hasn't caught on fire.  DAMMIT!"  That sounded pretty ridiculous, too.  I felt my emotions shift from anger to a combination of amusement for the stupidity of my emotions and empathy for the family whose house had caught fire.  It's hard to be angry at the world for nothing when you're walking past a house that had required a few towns' worth of fire departments to save.  Kind of puts things into perspective.  A little.  But PMS emotions are illogical.  I knew it would take even more than that.  I sprinted up the hill.  Who says you cannot run from yourself?

As I sprinted, I realized that my foot wasn't bothering me.  At all.  Not even a twinge.  The PF I'd had for years was finally not bothering me anymore, to the point that I'd taken it for granted.  Yet I still wasn't out there walking and dancing.  "My foot doesn't hurt.  DAMMIT!" I said, chuckling.  "Dale's an awesome person.  DAMMIT!!"  I felt myself smiling, I couldn't help it.  "I have a good job.  DAMMIT!!" I began to get shortwinded and remembered how I'd walk to school - over a mile each way - daily for four years.  I wondered if it was more or less stressful to be forced to get that kind of exercise or to be comfortable in a car hurtling along between 25mph and 60mph for an hour each day.  My almost two miles used to take me 20 minutes.  Now I clench my neck muscles for an hour and try not to die.  Which do I think I'd rather do, I wondered, bemused.  I probably prefer driving.  Walking is tiring, I thought, as I ran out of breath and felt a stitch trying to form in my gut.  "I have an awesome life... dahmit," I huffed and puffed, and began laughing and wheezing despite myself.  Then I remember Dale's concerned face, the sadness, when I bitchily explained to him that I was bitchy and it's not his fault and I wanted to scream for no reason other than because I wanted to scream.  When I told him I was going for a walk, he said, "Take all the time you need.  Food will be waiting for you when you get back."  I wanted to rip his head off like a praying mantis.  It was illogical.  I stepped outside instead and muttered some sort of "Thank you" because it was appropriate.  I felt like an idiot for a moment.  Then I got weepy.  "If there were more people like Dale in the world," I said to myself, "The world would be a much better place.  There would be no wars.  Everyone would be kind to each other, helpful, selfless, courteous, sweet, and thoughtful."  I took a tissue out of my pocket.  I had a tissue because I knew from experience that this would happen at some point and I didn't want to have a snotty nose out there in the rain while I was trying to walk and sprint myself along.  I'd snatched a few on my way out the door.

I felt a lot better and I hadn't even gotten to the pond yet.  It felt good to be alone even while I was surrounded by families, all going about their own business.  I got to the pond and stooped down, watching the rain hit the ice on the pond.  I watched the fog hug it and the water dance on it.  I held my hand out and collected several drops of rain water.  I licked them off my hand.  I realized I was pretty thirsty and contemplated drinking off the top of the pond.  I decided that would be dangerous; runoff probably collected there, oils from cars, salt, etc.  I collected some more rain in my hand and licked that off, too.  Then I sprinted away.  The road became icy, so I turned back.  I sniffed the air and felt myself wiggling my nostrils.  I wondered if I could smell better this way, and realized I believed I could.  I pictured my previous pets doing this - hamsters, rats, mice, rabbits - and thought that perhaps I was a rat in a past life.  I had stopped at the pond once more and collected more rain.  It was nice to be alone with my thoughts, listening to the rain tap out its comforting messages like morse code on the surface of the icy pond.  What were the fish doing in there?  Does cold temperature affect the milfoil in the pond?  What's thriving in there?  What's dying?  All these questions, these curiosities, the endless wonder like a child's.  I'll never grow up no matter how many hormones rage through me and cause such nonsense, I decided.  I am curious by nature.  I need space.  I /like/ to contemplate, wonder, think, and listen to silence.  Within silence is just the opposite - there are so many sensations that are missed by being into so many of life's adventures!!  Yes, I thought, I have nothing at all to be upset about, and everything to be happy about.  I was tired, and wet, nauseous, hungry, and thirsty.  Then I saw it.  Something whitish in a dark spot on the pond.  I peered closer at it and realized it was a heart-shaped hole in the ice.  The white spot in the center was a swirl of froth.  It was acting as a drain!  My brain tried to make some feeble connection to the heart sucking in the runoff but it failed miserably.  I stared at it for a while in silence, even my brain being quiet.  I had one moment where I wished Dale were there to see it with me, and short of that, a camera would have been nice so I could share it later.  But it was mesmerizing, so I simply watched.  My legs began tingling.  I'd stooped too long.

I stood up and for a moment the pond's heart got dark and I felt a fresh wave of nausea.  My head suddenly hurt.  I had stood up too fast, I realized, even as I wondered if I would pass out.  But the feeling cleared.  I saw little sparkles and cautiously moved away from the slippery grass and back up to the road, a bit farther from the pond's waters.  Just in case.  By then I felt normal again so I bid the pond farewell and sprinted up the steep hill past Wendy's house.  "Hi Wendy," I muttered, greeting her assumed presence inside that house.  I didn't expect a response and didn't get any.  If I had, I'd probably have jumped out of my skin!

My winter coat was soaking wet.  My inner flannel shirt was fluttering heavily beneath the hem of the coat and dripping onto my thighs.  My lightweight shirt was soaked all down the front and my hat - which I'd donned at some point - was dripping onto my knees with every step.  I was amazed my feet were not that wet in my mesh shoes.  I stepped in a puddle.  "Surprised I got this far," I corrected myself, laughing to myself.  "Oh my God, I feel pretty good," I said, spotting what looked like a nerf ball in the ditch.  I couldn't tell what it really was because my glasses were in my pocket.  It was bright orange and looked like a large orange spiked on a branch.  Whatever.  I kept moving, now jogging down the other side of the hill through the flowing water.  "This really is good for a person to do when they feel so angry and out of sorts," I told myself, remembering all the messageboards I'd read years ago.  I felt like posting that myself.  "Hey everybody!!  They're right!!  If you've got a bad case of PMS, go for a walk!!  It's awesome!!"  I grimaced as I realized my third rule for PMS.

Third rule:  Don't ever expect a suggestion to be appreciated or followed, even if advice is sought.  There is NO LOGIC to PMS.  Whatsoever.  The worst thing anyone can do - aside from tell you you've got PMS - is make suggestions when the person before you is irrational.  I remembered this because once I was desperate for relief and went on the boards seeking advice.  "Get some exercise.  Go for a walk," I read.  "Fuck off," I'd thought angrily.  Yes, you read that right.  I went looking for advice and got angry that I found it.  Why?  Because there IS NO LOGIC to PMS.  My advice on the messageboards, then, would be:  "I find taking a walk and playing the "positive dammit" game helps me.  But if you're suffering from PMS, we can all go to hell, so go figure it out your fucking self.  What are you still reading this for?  Just so you can argue with me?  Of course you are!  Because PMS is fucking irrational!!"

I had stepped in a few more puddles by this time because I was preoccupied with my thoughts and the scents in the air than I was with watching for puddles.  "Oh, that's wet," I thought, as I saw my feet plunge through a slightly deeper stream of runoff.  It felt good.  I was three houses away from home when I finally heard my feet.  "Let us out," they begged.  "Are you crazy?  You don't want out.  It's 50 degrees out, wet, and the road is certainly cold!"  "Let us out!" they insisted.  Fine, I thought, knowing it was a mistake.  How willing was I to put my wet feet back into my shoes?  I didn't want to find out.  I went dancing quickly down the road, shoes in hand, feeling the cold, wet pavement greet my eager feet.  "It's SUMMERTIME!!" they shouted.  I laughed at them, knowing all this rain would probably freeze into glare overnight.  "You're a couple of loonies," I thought, but I felt this wave of joy spread over me, this resignation, an acceptance, and the knowing gratitude that soon, I'll be splattering up onto the porch and into the house, dripping wet, out of breath, and... happy.

My feet were almost numb by the time I splashed onto the grass.  Pain seared through them, a warning against frostbite.  The grass felt good and foreign.  Some of it was slick with ice.  I was surprised I could still feel anything, especially since I just found out I may have a very minor case of Raynaud's.  I splattered up onto the porch, my body coursing hot blood into my organs from the pain.

It was awesome.

~w