20 July 2008
Websites with Narrow Focus, X
I've been saving them up for this post.
It's Lovely! I'll Take It!, "a collection of poorly chosen photos from real estate listings. With love." And comments. Don't miss it.
potentially nervous: "The world's going to hell. Here are some bunny photos."
How I Spent My Stimulus. Tell your story.
Kim's Page o' Chopsticks. Chopstick wrappers, actually. (Thanks, Mike.)
06:45 Posted in animals , art and photography , finance and business , food and drink , householding , pop culture , silliness and humour , websites with narrow focus | Permalink | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Email this
14 June 2008
Skunked
Our dog was skunked last night when she went out for her last pee of the night, around 9:15 p.m. She got it in the face and neck. At first she couldn't open her eyes and was foaming from the mouth. Though my spouse saw the varmint trying to escape our fence, he wasn't sure in the dark, seeing it at a distance from the rear with its tail held aloft, whether it was a skunk or a porcupine (it looked large), so we checked the dog's face for quills, and bites or bleeding, while she was still out on the deck. Finding none, and smelling a strong eau-de-Pepe-Le-Pew, we assumed a skunk spray.
We called the emergency vets, who told us to rinse her face over and over with warm water, which we did in the tub upstairs. We didn't really want to bring her in the house but it was dark outside, we don't have a portable tub or wading pool or anything large enough to use as one, and we weren't sure where the perpetrator was. After the warm water rinse -- by now her eyes were open and she'd stopped foaming -- we scrubbed her with a tomato sauce-water mixture. We are apparently quite ill-prepared for this sort of event: no tomato juice, no hydrogen peroxide and about a half-cup of white vinegar to our names.
Fortunately, it was warm and not rainy last night, so we opened most of the windows upstairs and some downstairs, using window and exhaust fans in some, but the house still stinks to high heaven today. Last night, it smelled like a chemical, a burning rubber kind of smell, not really the smell I associate with skunks. Much more concentrated and acrid. The forecast is not looking good for us, with rain and cooler temps expected from tonight through next Friday.
The dog slept in our room last night, on her foam bed covered double with washable material, but even the foam (three layers down) stinks today, so it's time for a new bed for her. The human furniture is of course off-limits to her for a while.
We humans also stink. I went to the Farmer's Market and grocery store today and heard people wondering if there was a skunk around. There was a fluffy black-and-white long-haired chihuahua running around at the Farmer's Market that caused some double-takes. :-)
My car stinks, though I sat in it only for about 8 minutes total. I'm running the 4th load of laundry now (so far, all dog-related) and have two more, at least, to go.
The dog went to the vet's this morning for a booster rabies shot; she was current on her rabies vaccine but they recommend a booster any time a pet has a run-in with a wild animal. She's now getting her second and third baths, with a mixture of white vinegar, baking soda and a little Dawn liquid detergent -- to neutralise the skunk's potent oil. The vet recommended this, or rather instead of vinegar, hydrogen peroxide, but though I bought some hydrogen peroxide earlier today -- along with white vinegar, gloves, sponges, and more baking soda -- we still don't have enough of it to do the trick, and the vinegar seems to be working well. We're keeping it away from her face. (The vinegar is also working well added to the laundry.)
Our dog is a short-haired shedding variety that doesn't get groomed. Her fur can't be shaved without her looking like a Gloucester Old Spots pig and leaving her prone to sunburn and other skin injury. Judging from other spots she's had shaved for medical procedures, the hair may not grow back, either.
The skunks are around, we think, because our neighbours on both sides have grubs, which skunks love. We have a lot of nightcrawlers in our lawn -- not sure whether that's a skunk food source, too. We don't have any garbage outside and thankfully, the skunks don't seem to be nesting under the deck.
Sunday Update: We gave her another bath yesterday using the hydrogen peroxide, baking soda, Dawn recipe linked below. She still stinks. Part of the problem is that most of the spray was on her face -- eyes, nose, mouth -- and that's where we can't wash much using the solution.
(Photo: The dog with a treat resting on her nose. One of her other tricks, besides disturbing skunks.)
Helpful de-skunking websites
What to do when your dog has been skunked (PetPlace.com) - our vet printed this out for us
The best way to deskunk your dog (Brian Retzler)
Solving problems with skunks (The Humane Society)
12:35 Posted in animals , gardening and weather , health and medicine , householding | Permalink | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Email this
31 May 2008
What I'm Reading Online: We All Need -- or Don't Need -- to Improve!
>> at Zen Habits, 12 Practical Steps for Learning to Go With the Flow. A simple list. I like the quotes, especially this one: 'Flow with whatever is happening and let your mind be free. Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing. This is the ultimate.' - Chuang Tzu. I wonder whether the idea of accepting whatever I'm doing is consistent with Christianity, with prayers of confession, etc.
>> from Life 2.0, Follow Your Bliss. The central idea, similar to the quote above, is 'no need for self improvement.'
"The central premise behind all the self improvement stuff (although often unseen as it can be oh so subtle) is that there is something wrong with us, something flawed that needs to be improved, something we need to do in order to be happy, healthy, successful and fulfilled. It is this unexamined assumption, that we can be improved and therefore must be less than perfect, that keeps us in chains ... that reinforces this illusion of brokenness, powerlessness and being a victim-of-circumstances-beyond-our-control, which we see reflected back to us in the world we perceive around us."
Instead, this weblog counsels "an alternative to self-improvement, a spiritual path or another kind of seeking.... Vow to do what makes you happy right now and see where that takes you." Ah, but "anything we think we want, we have been conditioned to want," so it's not as easy as it might seem to do what makes us happy.
What I can't help thinking is that this plan to "be happy" is self-improvement by another name, with its implication that we're not happy enough already, and that we need to do something about this lack.
>> "Jesus Made Me Puke" by Matt Tabbi in Rolling Stone, about a 3-day "Encounter Weekend" retreat with John Hagee's Cornerstone Church:
"The program revolved around a theory that [pastor Philip] Fortenberry quickly introduced us to called 'the wound.' The wound theory was a piece of schlock biblical Freudianism in which everyone had one traumatic event from their childhood that had left a wound. The wound necessarily had been inflicted by another person, and bitterness toward that person had corrupted our spirits and alienated us from God. Here at the retreat we would identify this wound and learn to confront and forgive our transgressors, a process that would leave us cleansed of bitterness and hatred and free to receive the full benefits of Christ.
"In the context of the wound theory, Fortenberry's tale suddenly made more sense. Being taken on that eighteen-hole golf trip with the barmaid, and watching his family ditched by Dad, had been his wound. It was a wound, Fortenberry explained, because his father's abandonment had crushed his 'normal.'
"'And I was wounded,' he whispered dramatically. 'My dad had ruined my normal!'
"The crowd murmured affirmatively, apparently knowing what it was to have a crushed normal."
>> at Marginal Revolution, How To Choose An Apartment. How much does the actual living space matter, and how much does the location matter? Do we under- or over-invest in one or the other? Interesting anaylsis via comments. I now live in a house I don't really like, in a location I love. Before this, I lived in a house (including extensive grounds) that I loved in a location I didn't like. I still don't know which is better.
>> provacateur PJ O'Rourke's "Fairness, Idealism and Other Atrocities," commencement advice. His advice: make money, don't be an idealist (they're bullies), get politically uninvolved (politics is anathema to truth), forget about fairness, be a religious extremist (that is, realise that "using politics to create fairness is a sin").
About fairness:
"Well, I am here to advocate for unfairness. I've got a 10-year-old at home. She's always saying, 'That's not fair.' When she says this, I say, 'Honey, you're cute. That's not fair. Your family is pretty well off. That's not fair. You were born in America. That's not fair. Darling, you had better pray to God that things don't start getting fair for you.'"
>> 25 Things All Women Should Learn to Do Already by the women at Jezebel. Ranges from manual and practical skills like rapid vegetable chopping, masturbation, financial investing, and assembling furniture, to the more abstract realm of truth-telling, and social skills like withholding information, getting angry without being passive-aggressive, and not taking things personally. And of course, there are comments.
>> "Total Recall … Or At Least the Gist" at Miller-McCune, on the differences between gist and verbatim memory. What interests me here is the hypothesis called 'fuzzy trace theory,' which "explains how we can 'remember' things that never really happened:"
"When an event occurs, verbatim memory records an accurate representation. But even as it is doing so, gist memory begins processing the information and determining how it fits into our existing storehouse of knowledge. Verbatim memories generally die away within a day or two, leaving only the gist memory, which records the event as we interpreted it. Under certain circumstances, this can produce a phenomenon Reyna and her colleagues refer to as 'phantom recollection.' She calls this 'a powerful form of false alarm' in which gist memory -- designed to look for patterns and fill in perceived gaps -- creates a vivid but illusory image in our mind." ...
"Gist memory allows us to make snap decisions. But life does not always follow familiar patterns, and harm can result when we discard evidence that doesn't fit our assumptions."
They note that this 'misremembering' is a very common, ordinary occurence.
>> "The Candidate, the Preacher and the Unconscious Mind" by Shankar Vedantam in the WaPo. Central idea: We are biased against people who are in proximity to people we are already biased against. Second idea: We believe that people "from other ethnic, cultural and political groups are quite similar to one another, whereas they know that people from [our] own groups are quite varied."
The study he cites is fascinating:
Volunteers in a research experiment see an applicant sitting in a waiting room next to an overweight person, while others see the applicant sitting next to someone of average weight. ... "A variety of experiments have shown that overweight people suffer from discrimination; what [researcher Michelle] Hebl wanted to find out was whether strangers in the vicinity of overweight people would share in such approbation.
"Remarkably, Hebl found that volunteers rated job applicants more negatively when they had been seen seated next to an overweight person than when they were seen seated next to an average weight person. The volunteers had no idea that they were showing not only a prejudice against fat people but also a bias against people who were merely in proximity to overweight people."The experiment tells us something about the Obama-Wright controversy. The presidential candidate may have made it clear that the minister does not speak for him, but every time Wright's words are replayed on talk radio and cable TV, they automatically retrieve mental associations in many voters' minds with Obama. Hebl similarly found her volunteers unconsciously made associations even after being explicitly told there was no connection between the job applicants in the waiting room."
Similarly, "men and women seen in the company of beautiful partners are perceived as being more attractive than when they are seen in plainer company." But -- "there is some evidence our minds are especially attuned to negative associations."
>> "The Gospel of Consumption And the better future we left behind" by Jeffrey Kaplan in Orion. The article, with a focused accounting of Kellogg company work-hour policy over the years, is primarily a vision of Americans working and spending less while living comfortably.
"Machines can save labor, but only if they go idle when we possess enough of what they can produce. In other words, the machinery offers us an opportunity to work less, an opportunity that as a society we have chosen not to take. Instead, we have allowed the owners of those machines to define their purpose: not reduction of labor, but 'higher productivity' -- and with it the imperative to consume virtually everything that the machinery can possibly produce. ...
"By 1991 the amount of goods and services produced for each hour of labor was double what it had been in 1948. By 2006 that figure had risen another 30 percent. In other words, if as a society we made a collective decision to get by on the amount we produ€ced and consumed seventeen years ago, we could cut back from the standard forty-hour week to 5.3 hours per day -- or 2.7 hours if we were willing to return to the 1948 level.
"But we cannot do it as individuals." The marketplace doesn't offer "a choice to work less and consume less. The reason is simple: that choice is at odds with the foundations of the marketplace itself -- at least as it is currently constructed. The men and women who masterminded the creation of the consumerist society understood that theirs was a political undertaking, and it will take a powerful political movement to change course today."
In a sort of rebuttal to PJ O'Rourke's suggestion (above) that democracy might mean having our clothing choices, e.g., determined by the majority (of shoppers, i.e., teen girls), Kaplan notes that Edward Bernays, "one of the founders of the field of public relations and a principal architect of the American Way," decreed that "the choices available in the polling booth are akin to those at the department store; both should consist of a limited set of offerings that are carefully determined by what Bernays called an 'invisible government' of public-relations experts and advertisers working on behalf of business leaders. Bernays claimed that in a 'democratic society' we are and should be 'governed, our minds ... molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of.'"
>> "Engines of Emotional Pollution" (continues here) by Steven Stosny, Ph.D., in Psychology Today, posits four mechanisms that "govern most human interactions:" contagion, attunement, negative bias, and reactivity.
Contagion for Stosny is "what makes you feel what the rest of the group feels."
Attunement is a type of contagion, or a response to it; it's when we match "the intensity and tone of [our] emotions with those of someone else." It's honouring the boundaries of social convention. Interestingly, "[a]lthough our unconscious sensitivity to others is almost always active when we're not alone, it is not always accurate, i.e., we sometimes misconstrue what other people are feeling. However, we are far more accurate in sensing what others feel than in knowing what they think. This disproportionate accuracy between sensing another's feelings and judging their thinking leads to most of our misunderstandings of one another." We're pretty accurate in knowing another person's feelings but in trying to account for what's behind them, we make wrong assumptions.
Negative bias is related to attunement: Our 'negative' emotions influence us more than our positive ones, and we 'tune in' to negative emotions more than we do to positive ones: "So if you come home from work in a fairly good mood and find that your spouse is brooding or upset, attunement will bring him or her up a little and you down a lot. To keep from being 'brought down' by the other's negative mood, many couples attempt to dull their sensitivity to the other's emotional world."
Reactivity: is "learned resistance to the unconscious pull of contagion and attunement." It can be obvious -- 'I'm not putting up with your attitude!' or passive, ignoring another's bad mood.
From a Girardian perspective, I found this paragraph, which speaks of interdividualism (as opposed to individualism) without naming it, enlightening:
"The aspect of reactivity that makes it difficult to see, let alone change, is its illusion of free will and ego independence, even 'authenticity.' You think that you are acting of your own volition and in your best interest, when you are merely reacting to someone else. We've all uttered (or at least thought) the most ironic of all statements, 'You're not going to bring me down!' As long as you're in this reactive mode, you are down -- reacting to negativity with negativity."
12:05 Posted in books and reading , community , consumption , finance and business , girardian anthropology , householding , neuroscience, psychology, the mind , other people said it , politics, government and law , pop culture , silliness and humour , theology, spirituality, philosophy | Permalink | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Email this
28 May 2008
Brand Timeline Portrait (R)
Following Jane's lead, I'm blogging the (visible) brands I use today:
7:15-7:45 a.m.
Getting up, getting ready ... Zadro is the Shower Bug I listen to in the shower.
I'll note only this first use of Quilted Northern ...
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
7:45 a.m.
Getting dressed ... socks and necklace don't seem to have a brand on them ...
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
8:00 a.m. - 9:45 a.m.
What's happening in the virtual world?
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
8:15 a.m.
Dog feeding and cooking rice for future dog meals ...
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
8:45 a.m.
Feeding me, vitamins (some are not branded), cleaning up ...
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
9:45 a.m.
Going out -- need jacket, gum, shoes, and a treat for the dog ...
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
11:00 a.m.
Returning-home treat for the dog ...
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
11:00 - 11:52 a.m.
Now what's happening in the virtual world?
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
11:52 a.m.
Going out again for a walk ...
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
12:05 p.m.
Got a phone call while walking ...
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
1:00 - 1:30 p.m.
Home and reconnecting ...
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
1:27 p.m.
Water plus tonic water ... Lunch was leftovers in a non-brand plastic container, so no brands to record. Then in the garden.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
1:50 - 2:00 p.m.
Playing with the dog ...
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
2 - 2:30 p.m.
Working out ... weights don't seem to be branded ...
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
2:52 p.m.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
3:00 - 3:40 p.m.
Watched taped "Workout" and blogged, read online, etc. ...
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
4:50 p.m.
Did dishes. Oh joy. (Swept earlier, but no brand names on broom or dustpan.)
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
5:15-5:30 p.m.
Made cornbread to accompany leftovers for dinner. Most cornbread ingredients not name-brand.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
5:35-6:10 p.m.
Reading the paper online and doing email as cornbread cooks and before heating up leftovers ....
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
5:42 p.m.
Dog eats again.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
6:15-6:55 p.m.
Dinner (leftovers, cornbread, and half of Christmas beer) and TV. Dog goes out.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
7:00 - 9:30 p.m.
Reading. Drinking tea. One phone call.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
9:55 p.m.
Dog to bed.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
10:00 p.m.
Evening ablutions.
22:00 Posted in consumption , finance and business , food and drink , householding , lists , pop culture | Permalink | Comments (1) | Trackbacks (0) | Email this
06 May 2008
What I Did and Didn't Do - Preamble
Yesterday, I thought I did nothing. Nothing worth the while, nothing to reflect on, nothing 'good.' I probed that, feeling that I had done something, and something worthwhile, even if it was nothing that fit the cultural and partially internalised rubric of worthiness, and came up with this list of what I chose to do (and what I chose not to do):
I slept late because I was tired from dreaming.
I listened to some of Morning Edition on NPR.
I made the bed.
I watered house plants and hanging plants.
I clicked on the Animal Rescue site and all the other rescue sites.
I read and responded to email, including listservs. I read my feeds via Bloglines several times during the day.
I entered the HGTV "Green Home" sweepstakes, as I do every day (until this Friday).
I did two loads of 'dog' laundry (her blankets, bedding, etc.) and a load of dishes.
I reconciled the checkbook with the bank account online.
I made a batch of brown rice for the dog.
I moved money from a sweep account at an online brokerage into a mutual fund there.
I did minor research of a house for sale in town (pure curiosity).
I took photos in the garden and watched the robins build their nest. I looked for the snake but didn't find it. I put the photos online at my Flickr account.
I weeded the yard/garden.
I stroked the neighbour's cat in my garden, while I was digging dirt, and I kept my dog, who was sunning herself on the deck, from attacking the cat. (It was rather dramatic and required strategy.)I planted lettuce and arugula in containers on the deck.
I tracked down and printed a cookie recipe (but didn't make it).I imitated the seagulls' cries.
I wrote two blog entries for my 'work' blog.
I didn't do any editing of my 'work' website, other than the blog.
I didn't write an author's profile though I have the notes for it. I didn't edit another author's profile, though she sent me edits.
I swept the kitchen and hallway.
I listened to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright taking questions at the National Press Club on NPR (missed the first part).
I blogged here.
I spent 10 minutes trying to figure out what to wear for a walk outside.
I took a walk downtown and did a few errands. I bought a heavy item and carried it home because I knew my spouse would appreciate it. (compassion, or earning merit?)
I bought a small gift for a friend.
I rehearsed fantasy (un)conversations in my head.
I took a half-hour online Harris survey that involved determining our net worth (omitting real estate) and exactly what percentages of it are in what kinds of investments.
I did my daily half-hour weights and stretching workout.I watched bits of "Red Green," sports talk shows, "What Not To Wear," "House Hunters," and "It's Me or the Dog," amounting to about an hour of TV. I taped "House MD" to watch later.
I didn't watch any Kentucky Derby coverage because it made me sad and angry. I signed a letter online via PETA concerning horse-racing (I amended the letter a bit).
I re-heated Chinese leftovers for dinner. (Happy Cinco de Mayo! ;-))
I talked with a few friends via email and one briefly on the phone. Except for my spouse and dog, I didn't have a face-to-face interaction with anyone I know.
I wrote a grocery list and a short list of things to do this week.
I read and finished a crime novel.
I wrapped another gift for another friend and got it ready to mail.
I didn't read anything scholarly.
I didn't do a crossword puzzle.
I didn't drive or ride anywhere.
I didn't make any money.
I didn't volunteer anywhere.
I prayed and meditated but rarely as discrete actions.
11:45 Posted in householding , lists | Permalink | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Email this
05 April 2008
Money Woes - Profiles of Real People
This series at CNN Money, which presents more than 50 brief, first-person profiles of individuals and families struggling financially with job loss, downsizing, reduced home values, student loans, gas and food prices, etc., is enlightening and disheartening at the same time. I empathised with the stories of many folks; this one really speaks to me.
16:35 Posted in finance and business , householding , simple living | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
11 February 2008
O Christmas Tree
We undecorated and took down the Christmas tree yesterday.
It's always a sad chore, made sadder this year by all the new growth the tree has been sending out, so that even as some branches were losing copious quantities of needles, others were vibrantly demonstrating the tree's potential for new life. It was if the tree didn't realise it had been severed from the ground, or as if it had recovered from being ungrounded and was now settling in to life in its new location and new role in our living room, lapping up a gallon of water every day, busily producing.
It was hard to let it go, even though from its new location in the backyard, it may yet take on another role -- as shelter for birds and small animals.
In memory of our resilient tree:
11:50 Posted in earthcare and environment , holidays and seasons , householding | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
20 November 2007
Extremely Focused Websites (in a continuing series)
( via WaiterRant )
11:42 Posted in consumption , householding , websites with narrow focus | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
22 October 2007
RIP Peg Bracken, 25 Feb. 1918 - 20 Oct. 2007
"Whaaa!" I cried out when I saw the news that Peg Bracken has died. My current housekeeping practices, and outlook on life in general, are a natural outgrowth of reading and internalizing her The I Hate to Cook Book (1960; like her others, illustrated by Hilary Knight of Eloise fame), The I Hate to Housekeep Book (1962), and The Appendix to the I Hate to Cook Book (1966) as an impressionable twelve-year-old. (I also imbibed her travel book, But I Wouldn't Have Missed It for the World!: The Pleasures and Perils of an Unseasoned Traveler, 1973.)
Her influence on me was only compounded by living in the shadow of my mother's parallel adherence to Bracken's cooking practices, and, to a lesser extent, her cleaning mores -- not to mention my mother's equally acerbic and irreverant wit.
This excerpt from the I Hate to Cook Book, a recipe for Skid Road Stroganoff, conjures my mother to perfection:
"Add the flour, salt, paprika and mushrooms, stir, and let it cook five minutes while you light a cigarette and stare sullenly at the sink."
You might think Bracken's books are much like Erma Bombeck's, but believe me, they're not.
Brackenisms
Serve veggies to guests with coarse-ground pepper, "because a lot of people feel that anything peppered should look as though it had been fished out of a gravel pit."
"You watch your friends redoing their kitchens and hoarding their pennies for glamorous cooking equipment and new cookbooks called Eggplant Comes to the Party or Let's Waltz Into the Kitchen, and presently you begin to feel un-American."
She recommends freezing maraschino cherries in ice cubes for lemonade at a children's party, noting that "If there are some left over, they're good in Old Fashioneds, too."
Bracken Resources
Bracken’s banter is still cooking, in the Portland (OR) Tribune, 13 May 2003
Guilty Pleasure #1: Peg Bracken at Horrifying Foodstuffs, 27 July 2005
On Peg Bracken at Apartment Therapy, 4 June 2005
Recipe for Overnight Macaroons
remembering The I Hate to Cook Book, John Kessler in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, 27 Sept. 2007, with recipe for Peg Bracken's Pots de Chocolate
remembering The I Hate To Cook Book at Slashfood, 31 Jan. 2006
remembering The I Hate to Cook Book at Errant Dreams Reviews, 6 Sept. 2006
remembering American cooking in the 1960s, in "Modernism, Sur La Table" by Sandy McLendon at JetSet
Bonus Feature
Peg's Recipe for Aggression Cookies, from The I Hate To Cook Almanack
Aggression Cookies
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup butter
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon soda
2 cups oatmeal
Mix like pie crust until soft...Beat it...hit it... pound it... pinch it...squish and squash it. Don't quit until
you've worked all those nasty aggressive feelings out of your system.
Now flatten one-inch balls of dough on ungreased cookie sheets. Use the bottom of a glass dipped in
sugar to flatten. Bake at 350 for about ten minutes.
13:10 Posted in books and reading , food and drink , householding , pop culture , silliness and humour , other people said it | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
20 June 2007
Money Wise
Looking for money advice? Here, from zen habits, are 70+ tips for getting out of debt, many of which -- track and examine expenses, find your purpose, change how you think about money, live on 40% of what you earn, make a budget, cook at home, consider alternatives (#48), read Dave Ramsay and/or Your Money or Your Life -- apply even if you have no debt but simply want to save more, free up money for something particular, waste less money, or align your income and spending with your values, or all of the above. (Photo: Bikes in Charleston, SC.)
20:46 Posted in consumption , finance and business , householding , lists | Permalink | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Email this
15 June 2007
Copycat
I am such a copycat. But, like the famous Scott Adams of Dilbert fame, I am surprisingly often asked what I do all day, since I don't have a job or kids. As Scott said, every day is different. Fridays and Mondays are pretty similar, usually, unless I am travelling. Tues, Wed., and Thurs. I'm out and about more. Weekends could be anything. This is one day:
5:30 Awaken when spouse gets out of bed. Lay in bed thinking and going over dreams. Had a faintly disturbing one about being a murderer and hoping no one would find out, but people were suspicious and I was having to lie smoothly. When I wake up I wonder if I have murdered someone in my past and forgot about it. It seems like something I would do, not so much the murder but then forgetting about it. Not sure if I am really awake while musing on this or if it is another dream. Remember things I need to remind spouse about (not murder-related). Get up and go find and tell him. Get back in bed. Lie awake and listen to BBC News and worry about Hamas taking over Gaza. Fall asleep. Dream.
6:30 Wake up when spouse is getting ready to leave. Have short discussion with him about plans for later today. Consider getting out of bed. Check to see if arms feel any better; right one still hurting, can't tell about left one. Birds are insanely loud and chirpy outside. Fall asleep.
8:30 Wake up again. Write down notes on scrap pulled from last night's crossword puzzle paper about things I need to do today. Get up. Do usual morning stuff. Toss out an old naproxen from my pocket and put in a new Excedrin for mid-cycle pain. Take down mildewed shower curtain and add it to wine-stained white tablecloth in a bleach wash. Strip bed off sheets and line them up for next wash, then whites, then darks. Very busy laundry day, mainly so I don't forget and accidentally wash darks or anything I care about too soon after using bleach in the machine, so am washing a small load of whites and the sheets as a buffer. Arms hurt doing bed-stripping, but I think the left one hurts less than it has.
9:15 Feed dog, go out with dog to check on garden, give dog vitamins and treats, fresh water. Take my own vitamins, eat 1/2 cup cottage cheese, drink OJ. Eat three chocolate mints. Kill some little ants on counter (second day of mini-infestation). Unload dishwasher. Re-load dishwasher with items in the sink. Put recycling in recycling bin. Turn on computer and check mail. Reading mail evokes a variety of emotional response. Feelings run gamut of despair, sadness and resentment about what I perceive as alienation, exclusion, diminishment to happiness and warm fuzzies about what I perceive as inclusion, connection, loving-kindness, being seen as special.
9:30 Respond to email. Water some plants in garden. Check groundhog damage. Breathe in tropical yet fresh-feeling air. 63F degrees outside, a big improvement on 48F degrees at 6:30 a.m. Switch out laundry -- bleach wash out, whites in. Check hours of a local eating establishment online and leave voicemail for friend to re-arrange meeting time next week.
10:00 Start reading RSS feeds via Bloglines and catching up on news and opinion. Eat a banana, because Scott mentioned that he did and that reminded me that a banana would taste mighty good right about now. Mmmm. Write a few checks (botanical gardens membership, foster children's home/farm donation) and get them in the mail slot. Read some Onion stories, send one about Cracker Barrel to my sister and another on charismatic megafauna to a friend.
10:15 Start doing this. Screen door is open, dog is lying on the deck, and songbirds are just chirping their hearts out.
10:30 Whites to dryer, sheets and washcloths to washer. Only one more load to go. Dog in, lapping water. She feels warm. Mmmm, soft warm dog. Looking for little list of to-do notes I wrote while in bed. Can't find it. Dog out. Suddenly remember fragment of NPR story from this morning about ... spam and Hawaii? (Yes.)
11:00 Dog in. Recall Buddhist teachings from last night's meditation and gathering to watch the first part of a Pema Chödrön video on the paramitas, which are like tools for the journey: the journey towards being comfortable with groundlessness, insecurity, and not-knowing; the journey toward courageous loving-kindness in all relationships. The paramitas are 1. generosity (giving of one's ground, giving as a way to let go of what we cling to), 2. discipline (making decisions based not on trying to escape what's hard but on facing, being with, going towards it), 3. patience (abiding with edgy energy, with our own restlessness in a sticky or unclear situation), 4. joyous exertion (connecting with the moment, with what is alive), 5. meditation (training to be here, now, with focus and gentleness), and 6. prajna (wisdom, insight, curiosity, an open mind). We will hear more about each in the coming five weeks. Dog out.
11:15 Lots of emails to reply to today. Not getting very far on Bloglines yet. Still haven't found scrap of paper with notes about what to do today. Making plans via email for dates in July. Dog in. Dog out. Thinking about making tea. Remembering Ruth Graham. Remembering a loggerhead turtle, found dead on Jekyll Island. Sometimes we are on Jekyll at this time of the year because it's egg-laying season -- I would have hated to have stumbled across her. (Would I practice the paramitas?) Dog in.
11:45 Birds have abruptly stopped chirping. Has world ended, or is a sunny 67F too warm for birds to chirp? Dog out. Make tea (Chinese Restaurant). Call sick friend, who doesn't sound any better than she did when I saw her on Tuesday but she says she feels better. Another friend is taking her to the dr. today for another test. Hunt again for scrap of paper, which seems to have vanished in the ether, but have mostly remembered what was on it. Take laptop out on deck to write a letter to a friend. Hurray!: Find scrap of paper when I move laptop.
12:15 Eating leftover dal makhani and rice. And drinking tea. Sitting in sun, listening to pond waterfall and lone bird. And someone a street or two away running a loud machine. Move more laundry from machine to machine and basket to machine. Tablecloth stain did disappear!
12:45 Type letter to friend, about travel, resentment, apologetics, money and spirit. Burning hot out here on deck; change clothes, get diet ginger ale (for throat and heat). (Smart) dog is lying in shade.
1:15 Print letter and attachments, address it, put stamps on it. Spouse calls to discuss evening plans; nothing decided except what we're not doing (wine tasting). Eat four pieces of pineapple. Enjoy ginger ale, something we rarely have around but I got it yesterday because my throat is sore. Put last load of laundry in dryer, fold and put away other clothes, make bed with clean sheets. Back to checking Bloglines and email that's piling up.
1:30 Read that Scott Adams takes Longevinex, a wine extract that will apparently make him "nearly immortal if it works." Hmmm. OK, read a little online about it, realise that I drink enough red wine that I don't need another pill. Whew. Remind self to pick up interlibrary loan books at library today: Healing from the heart: A leading heart surgeon explores the power of complementary medicine by Mehmet Oz; and The ascent to truth by Thomas Merton. Want to recommend another book I recently ILL'd: Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo Van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance by Ian Buruma; this Salon review is almost as long as the book.
1:45 Listen to police sirens; dog growls, runs for deck stairs. Ponder this: "Just to engage in some arguments is to lose them; defending God, for instance" (from this). Sun is behind large maple tree. Finish checking Bloglines and email. Ready to walk to library. Take weekly vitamin D megadose with fragment of swiss cheese. Dog in.
3:00 Dog out. Home from 2-mile walk, library, posting letter, and other errands (dog, in absentia, chose small gift for Father's Day). Lots of happy moments: so many people home mid-day, playing ball with their kids, gardening, mowing lawn, working on house, laying in hammock (really!), walking, greeting neighbours, etc.; fabulous ongoing flower show with most lilacs done but most rhododendrons, iris, lilies, and daisies in bloom everywhere (except my house, in an Arctic pocket); not mauled by the sometimes growling, lunging, big, menacing dogs in the green house whose only barrier between them and passerby is a dubiously effective electric fence; the shining sun, the fresh air, abatement of my cold, time to do errands by walking.
3:15 Work out. Biceps, upper back, gluteals, outer thighs, abs, dancing, stretching. Very meditative. As usual, my readying the space for exercising is like a Pavlovian trigger for the dog to run and get her ball. As usual, I don't play (especially with pain in both arms). Today, she seems to sulk, which is unusual.
4:00 Sit on deck with dog. Walk through garden with camera, check on things. Notice that the lupine is still afflicted by scale, which I sprayed for on Tuesday. Spray again (with Safer insecticidal soap). Notice that ants under the spruce have totally pulled apart and removed the ant traps I put out a couple of weeks ago. Their tribe still seems vibrantly alive in spite of the traps and the ant-killer powder that's covering their area. (Bad Buddhist!) Take some photos (not of scale or ants). The yellow and purple iris that was in big manly bud yesterday is in full bloom today. See?
And the palmate leaves of one of my favourite foliage plants, the Rodgersia, are larger than I've ever seen them in my garden.
4:45 Think about dinner. Think about feeding dog. Sun has about another half-hour on back deck before it disappears behind trees. Think about sitting on deck with gin and tonic with lime. Respond to email instead.
5:30 Walk dog with spouse at leisurely pace (her only pace). Put away rest of laundry. Feed dog. Check Bloglines for afternoon additions.
6:15 Find 45-min. wait at restaurant of choice. Go to bookstore to use 40%-off coupons for dvds and cds.
7:00 Eat at restaurant of choice. Split bottle of wine that friends have recommended (Torrontes from Argentina) I don't love it -- too chardonnay-tasting somehow, too astringent, medicine-y. Better with food than alone, though. We drink half the bottle, bring the other half home. Best part of meal is fresh salads, garlic knots, and limoncello on the rocks for after-dinner drink. Mmmm. Listen to folks at nearby table talk about politics, from Hubert Humphrey to Arizona state politics to the Clintons (insert stupid joke) to Scooter Libby to 'favourite conservative Republican running for President.' ("Mitt Romney looks presidential.") See woman from last night's Buddhist group at restaurant.
9:00 Home to dog, go outside with dog, give treats and pats to dog. Reply to more email. Remember that I forgot to mention here that I was almost killed (or maybe maimed) in a "Six Feet Under" kind of way last Saturday, when I walked right behind a car that was pulling out of a parking space without looking. The car kept coming and I put my hand out to stop it. This method of stopping a moving car would likely not have proven effective but spouse was there, too, and driver or passenger saw or heard him, and I was spared. I hardly noticed. Reminded me of 6FU's season 5, episode 2, "Dancing For Me" obituary, though no one would have asked, "How do you run over yourself?" Thinking off and on today about Alan Johnston, worried about him, realise there are plenty of others suffering whose names I don't know. His name has been in my thoughts lately. (Maybe reason to hope?)
9:15 Realise we are out of diet ginger ale; congestion and throat feel worse; have to feel the need to drive to grocery store to get another bottle. Grrr.
9:45 Back from grocery store. Read article about children losing the right to roam. Sad. I roamed as many miles as I wanted in the 1906s/1970s suburbs, from age 5 onward, via legs or bike (and later city bus), alone or with others, on streets and in woods. End of blogging day. Sleep well.
11:35 Posted in