Dreaming Paris

It’s called Mudflats, written by an Alaskan who is up to date on what’s going on and offers his POV on all of this.

All I have to say is, McCain must not want to win. Can you imagine what could happen if something happened to him and SHE became our president?? Oh, my gosh. It doesn’t bear thinking.

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but I came across a link to this blog called Cake Wrecks . Truly some wrecks there.

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I was cleaning up things in the house when I realized the kittens had been quiet for awhile. I figured that they were asleep, but because my cleaning led to me deciding to move the litterbox, I went to find them so that I could show them where I was moving it to. They were nowhere to be found. I mean nowhere. I realized that I couldn’t remember seeing them since I’d taken the trash out, and I panicked. I raced all over the house looking EVERYWHERE that I could think of that a kitten could hide. I called and called. Usually, when I do that, one or the other one appears. In fact, I’ve never had both of them go missing like that. It’s usually only one of them who finds some new place or other to sleep where no one thinks to look. If one of them is around, it’s a sure thing the other one is, too, somewhere. But neither of them were responding to my calls.

I tried opening and closing the sliding glass doors. When Numa hears that, he comes running, trying to beat us to the close. No Numa. How could they have gotten out? I would have noticed. I was so careful to open and close the front door quickly so they couldn’t follow me out. But obviously they’d done it somehow.

At that point I was crying copiously. This isn’t happening, this isn’t happening. Breathe. Remember how many times your own children got lost and you always found them. (Only my boys, actually. They were good at running off when you weren’t looking. One time, my mom, brother, ex-sister-in-law, her husband, my husband, and I took our kids to the zoo and we lost my sons. None of us knew where they’d run off to, everyone saying, “But I thought they were up ahead with you…I thought they were still behind with you.” Talk about panic. The relief at seeing the two of them over on the next hill, big brother in the lead (9), watching over little brother (6), was so…well…relieving!) So I go out the front door and walk the block, calling the way I always do in the house. No kitties.

I come back in the house and resume crying, then call my husband, still in hysterics. “I’ve lost the kittens. I’ve looked everywhere. I searched the neighborhood. I can’t find them. They’re gone. I don’t how this happened.” “I’m coming home.”

I breathe again. Okay, they’re micro-chipped. Call the company. My husband comes home while I’m doing this. I finish the phone call and run into his arms, crying once again. “I can’t believe this is happening.” He does his own search inside and out. No kitties.

I do up the flyer you see above, but before printing it, I do one last opening of the sliding door and calling their names. I close the door, near tears again, and turn around, just in time to see Numa coming around the corner of the piano. Where one is, the other won’t be far behind. I scooped him up and held him tight, reassured that Maddy had to be around somewhere.

I’d searched under my bed already, but there is so much stuff stored under there. That had to be where he’d come from, though. I peered under, using the bedside lamp to light up the dark. No Maddy. Then Numa popped back under the bed. The only reason he’d do that once he was wide awake would be to chase his sister. So I looked once more, and suddenly, to the right of Numa, I see a paw reach up between some boxes, and then an ear.

I seriously do not want to go through this again. Of all the pets I’ve ever had, I’ve never been this hysterical over them disappearing. I’ve got it bad this time around.

Oh, and the no collar comment on the sign? Well, their collars are still too big, and I was worried that they’d get caught on something and choke to death while we were sleeping or something, so I took them off. See? I’m losing it. But I’m going to a specialty store this time and find collars that will fit. They must have bells. I must be able to hear them when they move.

Remember the water bottle post? It took ONE day. ONE DAY for them to learn what get down means with using the water. I only have to use it occasionally when they decide to be deliberately stubborn, but usually a simple get down will do it. Especially with Maddy. If it doesn’t, all I have to do is pick up the bottle and point it at them and they’re off like a shot. Why have I never used this with any of my other cats before? No more yelling or clapping or getting up to get them down. It’s great!

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So, I got my laptop back from the shop last weekend, but it still wasn’t quite fixed. Before taking it in, I did a complete restore, which didn’t help, and made it act even crazier. Well, it was still acting crazy, meaning something went wrong with the restore. So I had to restore it AGAIN. The thing is, I use honking big programs which take forever to install, and lots of programs of varying size. Lots. So. I’ve lost hours and hours of work time just getting my computer back into shape. And, of course, nothing is ever simple with me and computers. There is always SOMETHING that doesn’t go right. Like my Palm wouldn’t synch. And the backup file of contacts that I exported from my Palm desktop program to synch to my Palm after the restore turned out to be only one contact. $#*$*&*# aaaaarrrrrrrgg ggghhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!  I’d spent over an hour or more combining all of my addresses into one neat file. So tonight, I did it all over again.

I finally got my Palm to synch, but forgot that I need to install a program on my computer that makes it synch Microsoft Money to it also. That’s what I use as my checkbook register. I don’t remember where that program is. I know it’s on a backup disk, I just don’t know which one. I’m not that great at organizing my disks other than writing the date of each backup on the CD. I have to go through all the ones I think it might be on to find it. One day, I’m going to do a big reorganization of all of my important files. When I have nothing else to do. Which means probably never.

My husband teases me and says I give out some kind of aura or energy that messes with all the computers I’ve had. Sometimes I think it’s true because he never seems to have the problems that I do, and often, the problems I do have are completely new to him. He’s never seen them happen before. I suppose there’s a silver lining to that. He learns something new in case he ever comes across it again.

But, at last, I’m up and running again. And this time I didn’t put everything on it that I usually do. I decided I’d add things as I actually use them.

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not part of the original mw regulars that I began my blogging experience with. I don’t surf blogs much, actually. About twice a year I’ll get curious and check a few out, and I may find one or two to include in my slowly growing list of blogs to go back to when I have nothing else to do.

I have my blog list separated into groups. At the top are the 3 I read every day. Then comes the group that I might check every day if I have time, but will definitely check 2 or 3 times a week. Then comes the group that I’m interested in, but will only check when it occurs to me to do so. I also have groupings by topic for news, education, science or tech blogs. And so on.

So I’m home sick today. I have some weird ailment that is going around that is flu-like, yet not. It begins with sinus troubles and extreme fatigue, then moves to the throat, then goes away. Then comes back with extreme fatigue and dizziness and some sinus crap again. Apparently quite a few folk around here have come down with it and it lasts a couple of weeks. When I wake up it’s as though I have to claw my way back from sleepland I’m so tired. Anyway, my head’s too foggy to really concentrate on anything important, but I don’t want to sleep, either. And I’m bored. So I get to catch up on some blogs.

There’s this guy, an English teacher who just moved to Japan in January. He always posts things that make fun of himself, but it’s become funnier since he arrived there and began to post about his culture shock. Sometimes I think he tries too hard to be funny and misses the mark, but he’s good enough that I’ve kept up with him. Today’s reading was a mixture of hilarious and “oh, no, poor thing…” that I thought I’d share because he does write well. One would hope an English teacher could do that.

Anyway, this blog is in that “I’m interested, but…” group. Enjoy. Or not.

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Before going further I would like to say that this is not a post on acupuncture. I don’t care about acupuncture. I’m just using the following as an example to rant.

News bulletin on BBC NEWS International version, 8 February 2008:“Acupuncture ‘boosts IVF chances.’ Acupuncture may increase the success rates of fertility treatment, according to a study. “

[...]

First off, how plausible is the claim? The press release states that acupuncture had been used in China fior thousands of years for infertility. Has it? No medical historian writing I have seen made such an interpretation of ancient texts. Maybe I missed something…possible. But acupuncture was not used for specific disorders or purposes, but was used as a sort of panacea to cause balance of either the Yin and Yang or of the relationship of the individual with the 5 elements and the cosmos and the earth. There is nothing specific in claims of acupuncture in traditional Chinese Medicine history. Who gave the news people that misleading lead-in?

[...]

So, does acupuncture increase the success of IVF?

This study, making international news wires, was not another randomized clinical trial (RCT,) but a Systematic Review (SR) of previous trials. We have several layers of potential error to contend with: 1) The quality and accuracy of each RCT, 2) The quality and accuracy of the SR itself, 3) The accuracy of the news release, which emanates from publicity departments of the respective universities, 4) The relevance and selection of the quotations and the data.

From the blog Science-Based Medicine

I am an average human being. I’m intelligent, but not too much so, I have access to huge amounts of information, but not the time (or inclination, let’s be honest, there are just too many other more enjoyable things to do) to consume it. I am in turns idealistic and prone to wondering about the possibilities of things science cannot tell us yet, and realistic and skeptical about anything with the touch of the woo woo about it.

Simply stated, I cannot be expected to know everything!!! So is it really too much to ask that those who have taken it upon themselves to report what’s going on in the world be more reliable and careful in what they tell us? I don’t want to hear another health report that makes some claim that cannot hold up against careful scrutiny just because it makes a sensational headline! I’m tired of being lied to and manipulated by people who choose what they think we should know, when they can’t even choose intelligently! They think we want to know about the latest Brittany Spears debacle. PUHLEEZE!!! That should be in the gossip rags, not the nightly news. And I’m sorry, but I don’t believe that sports belongs in the news, either. Make a sports show and let people who are interested in it watch that. It’s not news. It’s entertainment.

Instead, replace those items with some GOOD news, with things that people are doing to make their lives and the lives of those around them better. Balance the awful with the wonderful. But stop putting garbage in our heads! You get to be a certain age and you begin to care about just how much is in there because so much of it begins to leak out, and unfortunately we can’t choose what leaks out. We forget words we need to use in regular conversation but remember what some bimbo we could care less about had for breakfast.

I’m sick of it!

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The only thing I usually check on my blog stats is where people are coming from. I like to look at the world map. But today I decided to see what kind of word searches landed people here. Most of them are doing searches on prom dresses, but especially prom dresses from Paris. Geesh. They’re really getting into this prom thing with a vengeance when they’re searching for gowns from Paris, aren’they?

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Why did I go see this movie? My oldest son was surprised that I wanted to see it. I’m not going to say my reasons are complicated. But they are a bit random. There’s no good reason to want to see a movie that you know is going to be an action-filled shoot ‘em up. S was surprised I’m sure because of my stand in the last few years on war. But why do I like La Femme Nikita? Or the latest 007? Or MI-5? I always watched Mission Impossible when I was a kid, and enjoyed those movies, too. It’s not the supposed good against evil that attracts me, it’s the individuals and the struggles that they face with their personal ethics, how they manage to justify to themselves where the lines are.

In this particular Rambo movie, he is convinced to take a group of peacenik missionary doctors (with one woman among them, of course, who convinced him) to Burma, where they intend to bring aid to the Karen people. When watching movies like this, and thinking about the convictions of one person or another, I am sometimes overcome with a feeling of futility in doing good deeds. Man will ever be good, bad, and a mixture of both. There will always be war as long as people feel they have something to fight over.

I also think about the instincts of men and how they are prone to fighting or proving themselves in physical contests. You cannot deny them their nature. And yet, we have no business killing each other.

I’m the daughter of a military man. I grew up among military men with their peculiar sense of honor and belief in the nobility of being willing to die to protect family and country. I do think it’s noble to give oneself for another, and I cannot think it wrong to defend oneself or one’s loved ones from attack, even if I sense a deeper truth in not allowing oneself to be sucked into that kind of thinking. Turning the other cheek is nobler. Or walking away. But…various scenarios come to mind, and I wonder how many people could manage that kind of nobleness, or whether or not I’m just being a dreamer, wishing for people to be what they can never be.

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or a closet.

We have a moth problem. This happened last summer, right before I redid the kitchen pantry. I had to take everything out, go through all the food, dump lots of stuff that had bugs in them, and place the good stuff in plastic containers. Then my mom and I redid the pantry. You remember those pics, right? Cleaned it, painted it, made the shelves bigger, created the door shelves for the spices and stuff, and lined the shelves. Moth free for…five months.

I don’t know why this is happening. The moths now are a little different than the ones before. And this time, I don’t see little round hard bugs, I see worms. AAAAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHH!!!!

So all of our stuff is out on the dining room table and kitchen counters. I’ve gone through all the spices which seem to be okay, but I threw out some jars of old things. I still have to go through all the boxed foods. But first I have to clean out the pantry. Right now its soaking up bug spray fumes. We sprayed it down real good and closed the door. I’m leaving the cleaning and food sorting for tomorrow. I’m tired.

And then I have to put it all away again.

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To those who read this but don’t follow my blogroll peeps, I think that you’ll find this blog worth reading. I don’t know why I haven’t included it in my blogroll before now. I’ve been reading it since it started. Updated mostly by Sour Grapes and Miz UV, it’s a hilarious look at strange news stories around the world. Check it out.

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