That octopus sure is fond of his/her cozy little coconut shell home.
Got My H1N1 Shot Today
I haven’t developed odd neurological symptoms, started baying at the moon, or had any other side effects. Didn’t even feel it.
Update: I feel that sucker today! No pain going in, but a sore shoulder today.
Flat Tire (Or, in the Vernacular, Tar)
I happily walked to the parking lot after work today, happy because work was over, but a lil’ grumpy about the prospect of buying for 5 great nieces and nephews whom I see once a year and do not have a CLUE about what to get them. My plans were unfortunately changed because my vehicle was setting there with a big ol’ flat tire. DANG!
I looked at the tire. It was really, really flat. I crawled under the vehicle and looked at my spare tire. It had been riding around under there for 18 years (grin), and wasn’t exactly full of air.
I called my husband, who gets off work an hour later than I do, and left a message. Luckily, I had plenty of reading material because I hadn’t taken out the sack of National Geographics and Smithsonian magazines that mom had given me. When he called back, I told him about the flat tire and the sad state of the spare.
“Look, I don’t know about the integrity of the tire. It might have a bigass hole in it or something, and the spare is nearly 20 years old, and I don’t think it’s been aired up in that time. Just drop by the house, fill up an air tank, and we can air it up and go. And get one of the hydraulic jacks because this lil’ fold up jack ain’t all that.”
Pretty simple, hunh? I thought it was pretty simple, anyway. But noooooo.
“What you really need is one o’ them lil’ air compressors you plug into your cigarette lighter. I’m going to stop at NAPA and get you one. The jack is fine, you don’t need a big one.”
“Uh, no, I don’t want to wait an hour for my tire to air up. How ’bout you go by the house, fill up an air tank, and bring it out?”
“No, that would take too long.”
So, a half hour later, he called with an update.
“That dumbass at NAPA is clueless. I’m heading to another NAPA.”
Sigh. It would have been waaaaay cheaper and waaaaaay quicker to just pick up the damn air tank and another jack! Since he was STILL at least 45 minutes away, I assembled my little imitation jack and went to work. I had the vehicle all nicely jacked up; unfortunately, the vehicle rolled while in park when the jack moved. I gave up, went back inside the vehicle, and waited.
When SwampMan finally arrived, I told him we had a lil’ complication.
“I, uh, jacked it up so that we could decide what to do with the tire, but there’s been a lil’ complication.”
“And?”
“The jack is under the tire.”
“How in the HELL did you manage that?”
“It rolled forward and ran over the jack.”
“That is IMPOSSIBLE. You did something wrong.”
So, with SwampMan’s watchful eye on the jack so that I didn’t do more damage than what had already been done, I slowly, slowly backed up an inch at a time while SwampMan extricated everything.
“Okay, where did you have the jack placed?”
“Uh, right there were the jack instructions said to place it!”
“Hunh. Well, that’s the right place.”
He put the jack back into the same location.
“Hey, be careful! I nearly ran over myself with my own vehicle with that jack!
SwampMan gave that smirk that indicated that he knew I’d done something completely moronic so he was going to ignore my advice.
He got about halfway through jacking up the vehicle when it rolled again. Since he hadn’t had it all the way up, he didn’t actually run over the jack but it was close.
“SONOVABITCH! It’s not supposed to do that!”
“Uh, yeah, I know.”
“Piece of shit jack!”
“Uh, yeah, I know!”
SwampMan hadn’t actually done anything useful in the way of bringing supplies except to get a plug in compressor that had to first be charged up in an AC outlet before it would work. No help at all. No air. Flattish spare.
SwampMan started questioning as to why I didn’t carry something as useful as Fix-A-Flat with me. (I actually DID have two old cans that did not work.) Since I usually blow tires while traveling at a high rate of speed, I have never found Fix-A-Flat to be particularly useful, but I said that I’d be glad to use HIS cans of Fix-A-Flat. Oh, wait, he didn’t have any. He bought an air compressor that DID NOT WORK, but no cans of Fix-A-Flat. I would have said more, but I was a 6 and 1/2 hour walk away from home.
So, the bottom of the jack was stabilized on scrap wood from the back of SwampMan’s truck, the 18-year-old very low air tire was placed on the van, and I drove home quite slowly, arriving after dark. SwampMan removed the offending nail from the tire and remounted it while I fed livestock. We had dinner at 9:30.
Tonight was supposed to be candy making night. Maybe this is the Universe’s way of telling me to forget it. Nah, that can’t be it. The Universe likes candy. Maybe the Universe is telling me that I shouldn’t buy any presents. Or maybe the Universe is telling me to buy a newer vehicle whose spare tire has actual air molecules in it.
Just How Batshit Crazy Is Our Government?
Well, check Unqualified Reservations to find out. Excerpt:
In reality, there’s no way a cost like the cost of carbon action can be measured in mere money. Consider one mainstream proposal of today, endorsed by President Obama and many other world leaders: reducing carbon emissions to 80% of 1990 levels, by 2050.
Presumably a proposal like this corresponds to said “trillions of dollars” – a completely empty soundbite, of course, but something an innocent person might read as “a few trillion dollars.” Say, perhaps, “7.5 trillion dollars.” I’m just guessing here, of course.
Knowing as we now do what goes into the sausage, we feel perfectly entitled to sneer at whatever study, process or press-release could possibly have produced whatever ridiculous non-number lies behind the ridiculous non-number “trillions of dollars.” First, this entire information pipeline is clearly sweating it to produce the smallest possible number in the reader’s mind. Second, it implies a capacity for predictive macroeconomic modeling which does not exist. Third, what on earth will a dollar buy you in 2050, anyway?
In reality, to consider an action of this impact through the lens of antiseptic monetary exponents, churned out by some irreproducible spreadsheet, is to avoid considering it at all. Since the planned carbon action is a significant event on a significant historical scale, it must be considered as history. It must be analyzed with the tools of the narrative historian.
Now, I have an easy way to picture 2050: my daughter, Sibyl, will be 42 in 2050. As a student of history, I also have an easy way to picture an 80% reduction in fossil-fuel use: Germany and Japan in, say, 1944. The little Nips, for instance, had a very active alternative-energy program. I believe turpentine from pine trees was a key component. The primary sources display little fondness for this weird fuel.
An 80% energy cutoff goes beyond any mere economic calculation. It is a punitive measure of military proportions – to which one might subject a defeated enemy nation – for the purpose of collective penal subjugation.
H/T Fresh Bilge, an excellent blog that I recommend highly.
Cultural Background?
Daughter was asked to provide, for the Christmas party at the grandson’s kindergarten, food appropriate to her “cultural background”.
WTF? So, she called me to ask me what food would be appropriate to our cultural background. Raccoon, squirrel, or other critters? Latkes? Yellow jacket* soup? Haggis? Gator or deer taken without the purchase of a hunting license which would piss off the state but would be culturally correct? Leg of ram? There are a lot of choices available to Jewish German French Indian English Scottish rednecks Southern Americans.
We finally decided that her culture was take out, and she’ll pick up something chickeny from Chic-Fil-A.
Update: SwampMan says that HIS cultural background would recommend 20 Krystals which are a lot cheaper.
* Who was the first person that saw yellow jackets flying around stinging people and said to herself “I bet them sumbitches are tasty!” If I ever have the opportunity to use a time machine to go back and research history, I wouldn’t waste it on some asshole like Julius Caesar. I’d want to watch that intrepid woman make her culinary discovery and then convince other tribe members to eat it.
Vitamin C for Bladder Infections
I had had some lower back pain Friday and just a vague feeling of unwellness. Saturday morning, I awoke with a raging bladder infection. My urine was red. I was not a happy camper. SwampMan asked me if I wanted to go to his shop so I could help him cut out parts for Christmas presents for a divorced teacher’s young children; I declined so I could go to an emergency clinic that was open on the weekend. Unfortunately, when I checked my bank balance, it was $1.32*. Yikes. Not enough to cover the co-pay! SwampMan, with the checkbook with “our” money (actually his money) was off working, I was at home with “my” money in my bank account (my two weeks’ salary is usually completely spent within 4 days of pay day, but I had hope that there would be something there.
I had read that massive doses of vitamin C could help with a bladder infection, as could cranberry juice and blueberries. Hmmmm. I had a couple big bottles of chewable vitamin C in 500 mg tablets. I HATE chewable vitamin C. I manned up, however, and chomped my way through 10 thick, nasty tablets. Urrrgh. Then I waited in trepidation for renewed bladder spasms, bloody urine, and pain. It did not come. I was able to get out, to go to the library to return some books, and to stop and commiserate with the neighbors about the economy.
I took additional vitamin C before retiring last night, even though I no longer had sufficient incentive to chew through 10 tablets–I think I got 4 down–I wasn’t in significant pain this morning. I chomped 3 or 4 tablets this morning and then gave up, got out my bigass marble rolling pin, and crushed the rest of the vitamin C tablets and dumped it my (decaffeinated) tea.
Unfortunately, that nasty artificial citrus taste is about the same as the nasty stuff for the bowel prep that I stirred into my tea to make it more palatable. Eeesh. I gotta buy some unflavored powdered vitamin C to keep on hand as soon as I get paid again.
My point, and I do have one, is that if you get a bladder infection on the weekend or, for whatever reason, do not have the funds necessary for a trip to a physician, try the vitamin C and cranberry juice. Blueberries are supposed to be good for bladder infections, too, so bake a blueberry pie purely for medicinal purposes. Eat it all most of it yourself. Your bladder will thank you, and so will your protective fat layer.
*Yes, I know that “hope” is not a valid financial strategy. Unfortunately, I *thought* I had about a $50 cushion because with such a small salary, I keep a running tally in my head. Apparently my head forgot a grocery store run.
How Religion Should Be
My own personal version of Christianity is a joyous religion.
Sweet Spot?
I was watching a jeans manufacturer on Fox Business Channel talking about the “sweet spot” for pricing her product, which was pricing between $150 and $180 for a pair of jeans.
Blink.
Say again?
I wear jeans to dig in the dirt in, to play with the dog in, to get slobbered on by small children, and to clean house in (okay, I’m just kidding about that last part on account of my house hasn’t been cleaned in far too long, jeans clad, sky clad, or pajama clad). But still. Do you want to paint your bathroom in jeans that you paid $150 or more for? Oh, HELL, no. Not me.
I don’t give a damn about what the hell Hollyweird celebrities wear their jeans for; I expect MINE to work. And I’d like to be able to bend over in them without plumber cracking everybody in the vicinity.
Christmas Songs!
I haven’t posted any Christmas songs yet, probably because I’m all depressed. I just checked my checking account prior to heading out to the weekend emergency clinic, the feed store, and the grocery store, and I have $1.32 in my account. Guess I won’t be going anywhere after all!
