mobile11/04/08 03:38 - 67ºF - ID#46520
first tuesday of november
New usersound: "We Shall Not Be Moved", by Sweet Honey on the Rock.
Someone on my Livejournal friends-of-friends list uploaded that song and "Eyes On The Prize" in honor of today's election, which made me cry.
Keep your eyes on the prize
hold on, hold on
Hold on, hold on
Keep your eyes on the prize
hold on.
("Eyes" is a prettier song but it was 6 mb and I can only upload up to 5 here.)
To put things in perspective, here are the other things that made me cry today. I cry easily, especially today for some reason.
My Wife Made Me Canvass For Obama. A man who voted for G.H.W. Bush twice and G.W.B. once gets dragged out by his wife, and learns something. I've learned that this election is about the heart of America. It's about the young people who are losing hope and the old people who have been forgotten.
When you are standing at your hero's grave,
Or near some homeless village where he died,
Remember, through your heart's rekindling pride,
The German soldiers who were loyal and brave.
Men fought like brutes; and hideous things were done;
And you have nourished hatred, harsh and blind.
But in that Golgotha perhaps you'll find
The mothers of the men who killed your son.
--Siegfried Sassoon
November 1918
Elsheba Khan at the grave of her son, Specialist Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan.
Is he less of a patriot than you, Senator McCain, because he died of his wounds and you did not???? He was twenty fucking years old, and had been waiting since 9/11 to be old enough to join the Army so he could help.
I would have voted for you in 2000, Senator McCain, but you have squandered and squandered and squandered everything I believed in that you stood for since then. You make me sick now, you disingenous and sick, sick old man.
I admit. I was not a huge fan of Obama. I have known about him since '04, have had friends predicting his eventual ascendancy, and I looked into him a bit. I found him smug. I find many of his followers smug and virtually intolerable.
He is literally African-American, and has something that most of the so-called African-Americans in this country don't have: he got to go to Africa and see his father and grandfather's graves. Most black Americans have been here so long, many through decades of slavery, and most black American politicans rose up through the Civil Rights movement of the '60s. Obama didn't live in the US yet when MLK was shot. (My father was in the 1st Armored Division, which suppressed the riots in Chicago after this event. For whatever perspective that gives.)
I do find Obama to be occasionally smug. That crack about Hillary where he implied she was on the rag: I could have strangled him.
But I think it is important not to underestimate this. Most of the presidents we've had have come from a very select group. Most of them have been members of the same small denomination of Christians. I've always been cynical about the idea that "anyone could be President".
So the idea that the biracial son of a teenage mom and an actual from-Africa African, who has eaten government cheese and worn out the soles of his shoes campaigning-- it's compelling. No matter how much of an insider he really is, how much a product of his party's machine, at least he's something different. Even if it's an illusion of difference-- how much does that mean??
The very fact that the final rundown for the Democratic nominee was between a woman-- a woman!! and a biracial man-- no matter how much the fact remains that they were both products of the same machine that has fed us the same homogenized pabulum of priveleged elite politicians-- the very illusion of difference has meant so much, to so many people.
It's not smugness, to most of us.
It means that the thing that makes us different, that makes us not white men, that very thing can no longer, by itself, be viewed as a legitimate obstacle. It should no longer mean that we don't try. It will still mean that we're less likely to succeed. But it should no longer be believed, on its own, that this thing, this difference, is in itself an insurmountable obstacle.
(Should I here admit that, as a Roman Catholic, I'm actually a tiny bit excited about Biden, just from a demographic point of view? He's the first and only since JFK, who basically had to forswear his Catholicism in order to be a serious candidate.)
Aside: I don't find Palin particularly empowering. She is the kind of exemplar that makes you embarrassed to be remotely identifiable with her, the worst sort of hypocrite-- so pregnancies are only a private family matter if it's your daughter, and not if it's me?-- but that's a rant for another time. At least the GOP took Hillary seriously enough to offer us a marionette in her place? I guess?
The President him- or herself does not make or break the nation. We survived Buchanan (at the cost of 600,000 American soldiers
) , we'll probably survive Bush. We'll undoubtedly survive whoever we get this next time.
So, though I don't agree with all his policies, and can't promise I won't gnash my teeth repeatedly over the next four years (knock on wood; I'd rather gnash my teeth at him than at That Other One) I do find him a much-lesser of two evils. He probably won't make it illegal for me to make decisions about my body. He might make it possible for me to actually get timely healthcare in a reasonably affordable fashion. He probably won't make outright outlaws of my gay friends who want to own property and raise children together. (Maybe. He may not help them either, but at least it's unlikely he'll try to fuck things up worse for them.)
And what's more: he doesn't fill my European friends and relatives with creeping crawling horror and revulsion. I lost friends over Bush, even when I cried that I hadn't voted for him: he just disgusted them so much.
Maybe I can go abroad again without pretending to be Canadian.
I know it's vain. But a world that thinks our President is kind of cool is a lot less likely to launch more terrorist attacks against us than a world that thinks our President is a second-generation imperialist pigdog asshole dictator wannabe.
It would just be nice, for a change, to have someone who didn't routinely feast upon his own feet during public discourse. Is that so wrong?
Someone on my Livejournal friends-of-friends list uploaded that song and "Eyes On The Prize" in honor of today's election, which made me cry.
Keep your eyes on the prize
hold on, hold on
Hold on, hold on
Keep your eyes on the prize
hold on.
("Eyes" is a prettier song but it was 6 mb and I can only upload up to 5 here.)
To put things in perspective, here are the other things that made me cry today. I cry easily, especially today for some reason.
- My friend Kat, a reporter in Schenectady, posting an essay about what it's like to vote when you're a journalist. 364 days a year, she says, we are not allowed an opinion, and must put our feelings into a little box and leave it on the shelf, and write objectively with no opinions, about politics, about everything. For one perfect moment, behind that curtain, I get to have a say. I get to have an opinion. And it gets to count.
- This article in the Christian Science Monitor.
My Wife Made Me Canvass For Obama. A man who voted for G.H.W. Bush twice and G.W.B. once gets dragged out by his wife, and learns something. I've learned that this election is about the heart of America. It's about the young people who are losing hope and the old people who have been forgotten.
- This poem by Seigfried Sassoon:
When you are standing at your hero's grave,
Or near some homeless village where he died,
Remember, through your heart's rekindling pride,
The German soldiers who were loyal and brave.
Men fought like brutes; and hideous things were done;
And you have nourished hatred, harsh and blind.
But in that Golgotha perhaps you'll find
The mothers of the men who killed your son.
--Siegfried Sassoon
November 1918
- The sound of the lever-action voting machines, resounding in the elementary school gymnasium with a sudden swooshing clack as a vote was literally cast with a sweeping gesture of the voter's arm, finalizing those little choices each lever signified. It's such a profound noise. I didn't know I cared about it. I didn't know I'd recognize it. But I could hear it from down the hall, and it made me cry a little.
- This photo, referred to by Colin Powell when he criticized McCain's responses to Obama being a Muslim.
Elsheba Khan at the grave of her son, Specialist Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan.
Is he less of a patriot than you, Senator McCain, because he died of his wounds and you did not???? He was twenty fucking years old, and had been waiting since 9/11 to be old enough to join the Army so he could help.
I would have voted for you in 2000, Senator McCain, but you have squandered and squandered and squandered everything I believed in that you stood for since then. You make me sick now, you disingenous and sick, sick old man.
I admit. I was not a huge fan of Obama. I have known about him since '04, have had friends predicting his eventual ascendancy, and I looked into him a bit. I found him smug. I find many of his followers smug and virtually intolerable.
He is literally African-American, and has something that most of the so-called African-Americans in this country don't have: he got to go to Africa and see his father and grandfather's graves. Most black Americans have been here so long, many through decades of slavery, and most black American politicans rose up through the Civil Rights movement of the '60s. Obama didn't live in the US yet when MLK was shot. (My father was in the 1st Armored Division, which suppressed the riots in Chicago after this event. For whatever perspective that gives.)
I do find Obama to be occasionally smug. That crack about Hillary where he implied she was on the rag: I could have strangled him.
But I think it is important not to underestimate this. Most of the presidents we've had have come from a very select group. Most of them have been members of the same small denomination of Christians. I've always been cynical about the idea that "anyone could be President".
So the idea that the biracial son of a teenage mom and an actual from-Africa African, who has eaten government cheese and worn out the soles of his shoes campaigning-- it's compelling. No matter how much of an insider he really is, how much a product of his party's machine, at least he's something different. Even if it's an illusion of difference-- how much does that mean??
The very fact that the final rundown for the Democratic nominee was between a woman-- a woman!! and a biracial man-- no matter how much the fact remains that they were both products of the same machine that has fed us the same homogenized pabulum of priveleged elite politicians-- the very illusion of difference has meant so much, to so many people.
It's not smugness, to most of us.
It means that the thing that makes us different, that makes us not white men, that very thing can no longer, by itself, be viewed as a legitimate obstacle. It should no longer mean that we don't try. It will still mean that we're less likely to succeed. But it should no longer be believed, on its own, that this thing, this difference, is in itself an insurmountable obstacle.
(Should I here admit that, as a Roman Catholic, I'm actually a tiny bit excited about Biden, just from a demographic point of view? He's the first and only since JFK, who basically had to forswear his Catholicism in order to be a serious candidate.)
Aside: I don't find Palin particularly empowering. She is the kind of exemplar that makes you embarrassed to be remotely identifiable with her, the worst sort of hypocrite-- so pregnancies are only a private family matter if it's your daughter, and not if it's me?-- but that's a rant for another time. At least the GOP took Hillary seriously enough to offer us a marionette in her place? I guess?
The President him- or herself does not make or break the nation. We survived Buchanan (at the cost of 600,000 American soldiers
) , we'll probably survive Bush. We'll undoubtedly survive whoever we get this next time. So, though I don't agree with all his policies, and can't promise I won't gnash my teeth repeatedly over the next four years (knock on wood; I'd rather gnash my teeth at him than at That Other One) I do find him a much-lesser of two evils. He probably won't make it illegal for me to make decisions about my body. He might make it possible for me to actually get timely healthcare in a reasonably affordable fashion. He probably won't make outright outlaws of my gay friends who want to own property and raise children together. (Maybe. He may not help them either, but at least it's unlikely he'll try to fuck things up worse for them.)
And what's more: he doesn't fill my European friends and relatives with creeping crawling horror and revulsion. I lost friends over Bush, even when I cried that I hadn't voted for him: he just disgusted them so much.
Maybe I can go abroad again without pretending to be Canadian.
I know it's vain. But a world that thinks our President is kind of cool is a lot less likely to launch more terrorist attacks against us than a world that thinks our President is a second-generation imperialist pigdog asshole dictator wannabe.
It would just be nice, for a change, to have someone who didn't routinely feast upon his own feet during public discourse. Is that so wrong?
Permalink: first_tuesday_of_november.html
Words: 1330
Location: Buffalo, NY
11/03/08 10:25 - 54ºF - ID#46490
NaNoWriMo update 1
Last night I sat down and finally started in on NaNoWriMo. I'm revisiting an old novel, which is contrary to NaNo's rules, but I need a new plot-hole-full hastily-written shitty first draft to add to my considerable portfolio of them approximately like I need a new ventilation hole in my cranium, so I say screw the rules. I'm adhering to the spirit of the law, anyway: I have been writing everything in a document creatively called "new draft", but last night, the first time I had written since November began, I split off and started a new document called, creatively, "NaNo2k8", and am writing everything new in there so I can easily count the words written just in November. I am going to have some trouble at some point when I fold in previously-written stuff, but I'll just have to track that somehow-- probably by putting in a marker in the NaNo2k8 document and leaving out the reused stuff.
I'm doing all I can not to cheat.
And on that note, it is the 3rd and I have written precisely:
274 words.
I'm doing all I can not to cheat.
And on that note, it is the 3rd and I have written precisely:
274 words.
Permalink: NaNoWriMo_update_1.html
Words: 183
Location: Buffalo, NY
11/02/08 10:54 - 43ºF - ID#46483
Dear Red States (fixed formatting)
Dear Red States
I posted about this on LJ but thought that y'all here would enjoy it too.
Someone sent my sister this forward and she read it to me today, and I just about pissed myself laughing.
""""""""""""""""""""""
Dear Red States:
If you manage to steal this election too we've decided we're leaving. We intend to form our own country, and we're taking the other Blue States with us. In case you aren't aware, that includes California, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and all the Northeast. We believe this split will be beneficial to the nation, and especially to the people of the new country of New California.
To sum up briefly: You get Texas, Oklahoma and all the slave states. We get stem cell research and the best beaches.
We get the Statue of Liberty. You get Dollywood.
We get Intel and Microsoft. You get WorldCom.
We get Harvard. You get Ole' Miss.
We get 85% of America's venture capital and entrepreneurs. You
get Alabama.
We get two-thirds of the tax revenue, you get to make the red
states pay their fair share.
Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22% lower than the Christian Coalition's, we get a bunch of happy families.
You get a bunch of single moms.
Please be aware that Nuevo California will be pro-choice and anti-war, and we're going to want all our citizens back from Iraq at once. If you need people to fight, ask your evangelicals. They have kids they're apparently willing to send to their deaths for no purpose, and they don't care if you won't show pictures of their children's caskets coming home. We do wish you success in Iraq , and hope that the WMDs turn up, but we're not willing to spend our resources in Bush's Quagmire.
With the Blue States in hand, we will have firm control of 80% of the country's fresh water, more than 90% of the pineapple and lettuce, 92% of the nation's fresh fruit, 95% of America's quality wines, 90% of all cheese, 90% of the high tech industry, 95% of the corn and soybeans (thanks Iowa!), most of the U.S. low-sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools plus Stanford, Cal Tech and MIT.
With the Red States, on the other hand, you will have to cope with 88% of all obese Americans (and their projected health care costs), 92% of all U.S. mosquitoes, nearly 100% of the tornadoes, 90% of the hurricanes, 99% of all Southern Baptists, virtually 100% of all televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Jones University, Clemson and the University of Georgia.
We get Hollywood and Yosemite, thank you.
Additionally, 38% of those in the Red states believe Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale, 62% believe life is sacred unless we're discussing the war, the death penalty or gun laws, 44% say that evolution is only a theory, 53% that Saddam was involved in 9/11 and 61% of you crazy bastards believe you are people with higher morals then we lefties.
Finally, we're taking the good pot, too. You can have that dirt weed they grow in Mexico.
Peace out,
--Blue States
""""""""""""""
It's complete fantasy, sadly. Not the statistics-- those are, as far as I can tell, perfectly accurate. But the idea that you can actually split red states and blue states apart along neat and tidy state lines.
Palin bought into this complete fabrication when she made the asinine blunder of referring to certain states as more American than others. Bitch, please. Not only does my state have 171 years of seniority over yours as a part of this Union of states, but for your information as recently as the 2006 Senate races no less than three of the counties went completely red. Yes. New York.
Lookie.
This is the 2006 version of that famous Purple America map: pure red is 100% Republican, pure blue is 100% Democrat, and in between it is proportionally hued in more or less-blue or red shades of purple according to the percentage of Democrat or Republican vote results.
There are no 100% red states. Nor are there 100% blue states. Some of them are pretty deep-hued one way or the other, but none are completely monolithically pure.
The idea that there is a "great silent majority" is complete horse shit.
As is the idea, sadly, that we could have another mass secession. We can't do any more than joke about it. And if you're that enamored of the idea... maybe you should be voting libertarian. Not that you want to hear it from me, but really. State's rights, baby!!
(Incidentally, that's actually what the Civil War was ostensibly about.)
I posted about this on LJ but thought that y'all here would enjoy it too.
Someone sent my sister this forward and she read it to me today, and I just about pissed myself laughing.
""""""""""""""""""""""
Dear Red States:
If you manage to steal this election too we've decided we're leaving. We intend to form our own country, and we're taking the other Blue States with us. In case you aren't aware, that includes California, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and all the Northeast. We believe this split will be beneficial to the nation, and especially to the people of the new country of New California.
To sum up briefly: You get Texas, Oklahoma and all the slave states. We get stem cell research and the best beaches.
We get the Statue of Liberty. You get Dollywood.
We get Intel and Microsoft. You get WorldCom.
We get Harvard. You get Ole' Miss.
We get 85% of America's venture capital and entrepreneurs. You
get Alabama.
We get two-thirds of the tax revenue, you get to make the red
states pay their fair share.
Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22% lower than the Christian Coalition's, we get a bunch of happy families.
You get a bunch of single moms.
Please be aware that Nuevo California will be pro-choice and anti-war, and we're going to want all our citizens back from Iraq at once. If you need people to fight, ask your evangelicals. They have kids they're apparently willing to send to their deaths for no purpose, and they don't care if you won't show pictures of their children's caskets coming home. We do wish you success in Iraq , and hope that the WMDs turn up, but we're not willing to spend our resources in Bush's Quagmire.
With the Blue States in hand, we will have firm control of 80% of the country's fresh water, more than 90% of the pineapple and lettuce, 92% of the nation's fresh fruit, 95% of America's quality wines, 90% of all cheese, 90% of the high tech industry, 95% of the corn and soybeans (thanks Iowa!), most of the U.S. low-sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools plus Stanford, Cal Tech and MIT.
With the Red States, on the other hand, you will have to cope with 88% of all obese Americans (and their projected health care costs), 92% of all U.S. mosquitoes, nearly 100% of the tornadoes, 90% of the hurricanes, 99% of all Southern Baptists, virtually 100% of all televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Jones University, Clemson and the University of Georgia.
We get Hollywood and Yosemite, thank you.
Additionally, 38% of those in the Red states believe Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale, 62% believe life is sacred unless we're discussing the war, the death penalty or gun laws, 44% say that evolution is only a theory, 53% that Saddam was involved in 9/11 and 61% of you crazy bastards believe you are people with higher morals then we lefties.
Finally, we're taking the good pot, too. You can have that dirt weed they grow in Mexico.
Peace out,
--Blue States
""""""""""""""
It's complete fantasy, sadly. Not the statistics-- those are, as far as I can tell, perfectly accurate. But the idea that you can actually split red states and blue states apart along neat and tidy state lines.
Palin bought into this complete fabrication when she made the asinine blunder of referring to certain states as more American than others. Bitch, please. Not only does my state have 171 years of seniority over yours as a part of this Union of states, but for your information as recently as the 2006 Senate races no less than three of the counties went completely red. Yes. New York.
Lookie.
This is the 2006 version of that famous Purple America map: pure red is 100% Republican, pure blue is 100% Democrat, and in between it is proportionally hued in more or less-blue or red shades of purple according to the percentage of Democrat or Republican vote results.
There are no 100% red states. Nor are there 100% blue states. Some of them are pretty deep-hued one way or the other, but none are completely monolithically pure.
The idea that there is a "great silent majority" is complete horse shit.
As is the idea, sadly, that we could have another mass secession. We can't do any more than joke about it. And if you're that enamored of the idea... maybe you should be voting libertarian. Not that you want to hear it from me, but really. State's rights, baby!!
(Incidentally, that's actually what the Civil War was ostensibly about.)
Permalink: Dear_Red_States_fixed_formatting_.html
Words: 760
Location: Buffalo, NY
10/31/08 09:17 - 46ºF - ID#46440
party tonight!
I am so excited to party tonight! So excited! Yay!
I have to finish my costume. I have to make (e:zobar)'s costume, because he was going to do it today but got called in to a bunch of meetings. I have to do a lot of laundry and pull down the storm windows. I was going to re-caulk windows too but I don't think I'll have time. It's supposed to be back up in the 60s next week-- Tues and Wed-- so I'll postpone most of my winterization and gardening stuff until then, I guess.
But costume! Costume costume. Eek! Still so much to do.
I'm really excited about it all. Did I mention.
I have to finish my costume. I have to make (e:zobar)'s costume, because he was going to do it today but got called in to a bunch of meetings. I have to do a lot of laundry and pull down the storm windows. I was going to re-caulk windows too but I don't think I'll have time. It's supposed to be back up in the 60s next week-- Tues and Wed-- so I'll postpone most of my winterization and gardening stuff until then, I guess.
But costume! Costume costume. Eek! Still so much to do.
I'm really excited about it all. Did I mention.
Permalink: party_tonight_.html
Words: 115
Location: Buffalo, NY
10/29/08 11:06 - 36ºF - ID#46416
winterizing
Is it actually snowing? I'm seeing little snowflakes here, but they went away. Funny, I learn about the weather after the fact from this website.
I was going to blog about the country-fried steak, but I'd have to find the cable for my camera, and I just can't face it right now. I'll blog about it when I get the pictures off and I'll be all like "Oh wow I forgot about that yeah that was awesome!"
I like to leave myself little surprises, y'see.
But. Today's blog: Winterization. What do y'all do to winterize your house?
So far, I have done nothing except close the windows. (Yes, it was not until today that I realized that the double-hung window in the guest bedroom had slipped about a quarter inch down when someone had closed the lower half of the sash, so cold air was pouring in. Am I a genius? Perhaps, but consider (e:Zobar), who sits at the desk up against this window almost every day, and seems not to have noticed the wind, er, draft, though he did complain that it was cold in that room.)
But. It is supposed to be warm on Friday, so I will seize the opportunity to embark upon several projects. A partial to-do list (not all on Friday!)
1) Close the storm windows. If any are damaged, either repair them, or do the ghetto thing and stick them down with weatherseal plastic tape.
2) Remove the screens from the doors, and replace them with the Plexiglass storm door panels.
3) Wash the windows and re-caulk the edges with silicone. Z did the living room and bedroom when we repainted them.
4) Put plastic sheeting over the windows. The large one in the dinette leaks air badly, and the north window in our bedroom is a close second. I will probably also do the one in the kitchen, which is damaged. If there's plastic left, I'll do the one in Fi's bedroom. I am debating doing the picture window in the living room-- it's just so huge, and the plastic is just so expensive. Oh yeah, I am going to have to beg the loan of a hair dryer from somewhere-- maybe Fi has one, since she's coming to visit. Speaking of which, brb-- I'm going to email her and ask. (No, i don't own a hair dryer.)
Yes, I just emailed her, for real. Multitasking!
5) Put up insulated curtains. This is ambitious. I haven't finished making them. But I am a much better seamstress than I was when I started, so I have faith that I can actually finish them. Insulated curtains are easy to make, though not inexpensive-- curtains aren't cheap unless you really luck out on material. I did OK-- picked out about $500 worth of fabric at FWS only to discover that everything was 50% off in the decorator area that day only. Awesome!!!
6) Make draft stoppers. I'm looking for a good pattern for these, but I've noticed how much cold air comes under the doors-- the door from the sunporch, the front door, and the door leading to the uninsulated attic in particular. I will look into weatherstripping for the outdoor-facing doors, but for the lower-traffic, indoor ones, I'm going to stuff wadded-up old clothing into tubes made of curtain remnants, and wedge them firmly against the cracks at the bottoms of these doors. For the attic door, I may even make an insulated curtain to cover it.
7) I'm seriously considering making insulated tapestries to hang on my walls, since I have no insulation in my plaster walls in this old house. What do y'all think-- funky, or creepy? It's just a thought for now. I've really wanted to do up (and this is Z's idea, lest he get snarky for plagiarism) Where the Wild Things Are in the style of the Bayeux Tapestry. Would that be hot or what? I'll get my needles.
Bonus*) This isn't even winter-necessary, in my house, but put insulation on your hot water pipes. If your basement isn't heated, put insulation on both hot and cold, but if it is-- pipe insulation will keep your hot water from cooling off in the pipes, so you don't have to wait so long for hot water to come out when you turn on the hot tap. It also is supposed to be beneficial to put insulation over your hot water tank, but mine is not warm to the touch, so perhaps it's already insulated and I just can't tell. I'll look into it. Anything to save a bit on the gas bill, which is likely to be crippling in this uninsulated little shoebox of a house.
I wish I could afford solar panels. My parents installed solar panels in 1980. They used them to heat our water and to give a little bit of forced-air heating to a few of the rooms of the house. They also put in a huge sliding glass door that faces directly south, and every sunny day, it raises the temperature in the living room by 5-10 degrees. They heat the house partly with oil, and partly with wood they harvest themselves from their 50-acre property. The furnace is dual-fuel, alternating between oil and wood; there is also a woodstove. They don't have a gas line, because they're too far out. They have propane in big tanks to power the stove and the dryer. They rarely use the clothes dryer, but hang clothing out whenever the temperature is above freezing.
And they've always lived like this, since before I was born.
I don't think of living like that as a sacrifice, I think of it as normal. When (e:zobar) makes fun of my Amish ways, he's just being a dick. We're not Amish. We were just both poor and educated.
Anyway. We'll see how well I winterize. What do y'all do? Have I missed anything? It's comforting, to line your nest and prepare.
I was going to blog about the country-fried steak, but I'd have to find the cable for my camera, and I just can't face it right now. I'll blog about it when I get the pictures off and I'll be all like "Oh wow I forgot about that yeah that was awesome!"
I like to leave myself little surprises, y'see.
But. Today's blog: Winterization. What do y'all do to winterize your house?
So far, I have done nothing except close the windows. (Yes, it was not until today that I realized that the double-hung window in the guest bedroom had slipped about a quarter inch down when someone had closed the lower half of the sash, so cold air was pouring in. Am I a genius? Perhaps, but consider (e:Zobar), who sits at the desk up against this window almost every day, and seems not to have noticed the wind, er, draft, though he did complain that it was cold in that room.)
But. It is supposed to be warm on Friday, so I will seize the opportunity to embark upon several projects. A partial to-do list (not all on Friday!)
1) Close the storm windows. If any are damaged, either repair them, or do the ghetto thing and stick them down with weatherseal plastic tape.
2) Remove the screens from the doors, and replace them with the Plexiglass storm door panels.
3) Wash the windows and re-caulk the edges with silicone. Z did the living room and bedroom when we repainted them.
4) Put plastic sheeting over the windows. The large one in the dinette leaks air badly, and the north window in our bedroom is a close second. I will probably also do the one in the kitchen, which is damaged. If there's plastic left, I'll do the one in Fi's bedroom. I am debating doing the picture window in the living room-- it's just so huge, and the plastic is just so expensive. Oh yeah, I am going to have to beg the loan of a hair dryer from somewhere-- maybe Fi has one, since she's coming to visit. Speaking of which, brb-- I'm going to email her and ask. (No, i don't own a hair dryer.)
Yes, I just emailed her, for real. Multitasking!
5) Put up insulated curtains. This is ambitious. I haven't finished making them. But I am a much better seamstress than I was when I started, so I have faith that I can actually finish them. Insulated curtains are easy to make, though not inexpensive-- curtains aren't cheap unless you really luck out on material. I did OK-- picked out about $500 worth of fabric at FWS only to discover that everything was 50% off in the decorator area that day only. Awesome!!!
6) Make draft stoppers. I'm looking for a good pattern for these, but I've noticed how much cold air comes under the doors-- the door from the sunporch, the front door, and the door leading to the uninsulated attic in particular. I will look into weatherstripping for the outdoor-facing doors, but for the lower-traffic, indoor ones, I'm going to stuff wadded-up old clothing into tubes made of curtain remnants, and wedge them firmly against the cracks at the bottoms of these doors. For the attic door, I may even make an insulated curtain to cover it.
7) I'm seriously considering making insulated tapestries to hang on my walls, since I have no insulation in my plaster walls in this old house. What do y'all think-- funky, or creepy? It's just a thought for now. I've really wanted to do up (and this is Z's idea, lest he get snarky for plagiarism) Where the Wild Things Are in the style of the Bayeux Tapestry. Would that be hot or what? I'll get my needles.
Bonus*) This isn't even winter-necessary, in my house, but put insulation on your hot water pipes. If your basement isn't heated, put insulation on both hot and cold, but if it is-- pipe insulation will keep your hot water from cooling off in the pipes, so you don't have to wait so long for hot water to come out when you turn on the hot tap. It also is supposed to be beneficial to put insulation over your hot water tank, but mine is not warm to the touch, so perhaps it's already insulated and I just can't tell. I'll look into it. Anything to save a bit on the gas bill, which is likely to be crippling in this uninsulated little shoebox of a house.
I wish I could afford solar panels. My parents installed solar panels in 1980. They used them to heat our water and to give a little bit of forced-air heating to a few of the rooms of the house. They also put in a huge sliding glass door that faces directly south, and every sunny day, it raises the temperature in the living room by 5-10 degrees. They heat the house partly with oil, and partly with wood they harvest themselves from their 50-acre property. The furnace is dual-fuel, alternating between oil and wood; there is also a woodstove. They don't have a gas line, because they're too far out. They have propane in big tanks to power the stove and the dryer. They rarely use the clothes dryer, but hang clothing out whenever the temperature is above freezing.
And they've always lived like this, since before I was born.
I don't think of living like that as a sacrifice, I think of it as normal. When (e:zobar) makes fun of my Amish ways, he's just being a dick. We're not Amish. We were just both poor and educated.
Anyway. We'll see how well I winterize. What do y'all do? Have I missed anything? It's comforting, to line your nest and prepare.
Permalink: winterizing.html
Words: 989
Location: Buffalo, NY
10/29/08 12:16 - 38ºF - ID#46402
more special
So I got home from practice and was really stinky. Stinky stinky gross. And a bit sore-- I'm breaking in new skates and they gave me some blisters on my instep. And we did a lot of hitting so I have a lot of sore places that will probably not come up in bruises because my skin doesn't bruise easily so I always look like a slacker compared to my teammates. (I did have one really satisfying moment where I planted my shoulder in a girl a hundred pounds lighter than me, then threw her with my hip. But I digress.)
Anyway. I got home all stinky, and took a shower. And I got out of the shower, and sat in bed for a while, decompressing. I had a Reese's peanut butter cup when I got home, and a big thing of water, but I was still unsatisified.
I mentioned this to (e:zobar), who said, "I had a sandwich, a little while ago. There's enough left for half of another sandwich. Roast beef and some cheese."
"Oo!" I said. "That sounds really... no, I don't need it." I still sometimes fall into these I-don't-deserve-food things. Not seriously enough to get eating-disordered, but enough that I still get confused and can't tell if I'm actually hungry or just want to be "rewarded"-- which is fucked-up, if you consider it. It's like saying, "I'm going to breathe extra today, because I deserve it!" That doesn't help; you don't need to breathe extra. So you don't need to eat extra. It's dumb. But it's even more stupid, and dangerous, and ridiculous, to breathe less, to deny yourself air that your body needs to oxygenate your tissues, because you've arbitrarily decided you don't "deserve" it. How stupid is that? It's completely stupid.
Food's pretty much the same way, only we're more aware of the pleasure of ingesting tasty food than we are of breathing clean air. And "tasty" is not always as simply good as "clean" is. (Though when you think of chemical "air fresheners" that simply mask possibly-toxic scents with actually-toxic ones, perhaps the comparison is easier.)
Anyway.
I pondered the sandwich for a moment, trying to decide whether I was really hungry or just wanted a "treat", and then said, "Could you make it for me?"
"You know how to make a damn sandwich," Z said.
"But you make them better than me, and it would be more special if you made it." It's true-- he really does. He just takes more care over sandwiches. When I was a kid I hated sandwiches because they were always cheap pepperoni or peanut butter and jelly, and my Mom almost always bought weird bread, and I just always preferred other foods. But (e:zobar) does things like... spreads the mayo, then grinds a little black pepper on it... sometimes shakes a little oregano on the cheese... aligns the meat just so, so it's even all the way around... folds the cheese neatly...
It's just way more special when he makes them.
Also, I've done all the cooking and fed him twice, sometimes three times, a day for the last month or so, while he's been busy and I haven't been so much. I haven't minded, though I've let the dishes pile up a bit. (Whoops.) (I do mind doing all the grocery shopping, a bit. I asked him what kind of olives he likes and he gave me a half-hour treatise on their relative merits. I know I'll just blank out next time I'm at the shop, and just dump some of each in there like I always do. Oh well.)
So I had this perfect sandwich in my mind, made by this perfect sandwich master. Really. Seriously. He makes a good sandwich.
But he wouldn't make it for me, and wouldn't acknowledge that it is more special to have food prepared for you by someone special than to just make it your damn self.
But am I crazy? Am I just being the typical controlling-whiny-bitch female here, to think that it would have been way more special that way?
I made myself the sandwich because I decided that I don't care about my fat ass or my new stretchmarks, and I hadn't had much protein today (actually, I was vegetarian all day up to that point! Well, meat's expensive, lately, so we don't eat as much as we used to), so I was going to have the damn sandwich. Also there wasn't enough to have for lunch tomorrow or anything like that. (I don't know what I'll make. I was going to finish up the leftover curry but Z said he didn't want it a third day in a row, so I'll have to think of something else. Boo, I don't want to go shopping.)
And I ate it. And it was okay. And I did feel better once I ate it, and hadn't realized I didn't feel great, so obviously my body did want it after all.
But it would've been way more special if he'd made it. I swear I'm not being crazy.
Am I being crazy? Is food more special when someone else makes it?
Anyway. I got home all stinky, and took a shower. And I got out of the shower, and sat in bed for a while, decompressing. I had a Reese's peanut butter cup when I got home, and a big thing of water, but I was still unsatisified.
I mentioned this to (e:zobar), who said, "I had a sandwich, a little while ago. There's enough left for half of another sandwich. Roast beef and some cheese."
"Oo!" I said. "That sounds really... no, I don't need it." I still sometimes fall into these I-don't-deserve-food things. Not seriously enough to get eating-disordered, but enough that I still get confused and can't tell if I'm actually hungry or just want to be "rewarded"-- which is fucked-up, if you consider it. It's like saying, "I'm going to breathe extra today, because I deserve it!" That doesn't help; you don't need to breathe extra. So you don't need to eat extra. It's dumb. But it's even more stupid, and dangerous, and ridiculous, to breathe less, to deny yourself air that your body needs to oxygenate your tissues, because you've arbitrarily decided you don't "deserve" it. How stupid is that? It's completely stupid.
Food's pretty much the same way, only we're more aware of the pleasure of ingesting tasty food than we are of breathing clean air. And "tasty" is not always as simply good as "clean" is. (Though when you think of chemical "air fresheners" that simply mask possibly-toxic scents with actually-toxic ones, perhaps the comparison is easier.)
Anyway.
I pondered the sandwich for a moment, trying to decide whether I was really hungry or just wanted a "treat", and then said, "Could you make it for me?"
"You know how to make a damn sandwich," Z said.
"But you make them better than me, and it would be more special if you made it." It's true-- he really does. He just takes more care over sandwiches. When I was a kid I hated sandwiches because they were always cheap pepperoni or peanut butter and jelly, and my Mom almost always bought weird bread, and I just always preferred other foods. But (e:zobar) does things like... spreads the mayo, then grinds a little black pepper on it... sometimes shakes a little oregano on the cheese... aligns the meat just so, so it's even all the way around... folds the cheese neatly...
It's just way more special when he makes them.
Also, I've done all the cooking and fed him twice, sometimes three times, a day for the last month or so, while he's been busy and I haven't been so much. I haven't minded, though I've let the dishes pile up a bit. (Whoops.) (I do mind doing all the grocery shopping, a bit. I asked him what kind of olives he likes and he gave me a half-hour treatise on their relative merits. I know I'll just blank out next time I'm at the shop, and just dump some of each in there like I always do. Oh well.)
So I had this perfect sandwich in my mind, made by this perfect sandwich master. Really. Seriously. He makes a good sandwich.
But he wouldn't make it for me, and wouldn't acknowledge that it is more special to have food prepared for you by someone special than to just make it your damn self.
But am I crazy? Am I just being the typical controlling-whiny-bitch female here, to think that it would have been way more special that way?
I made myself the sandwich because I decided that I don't care about my fat ass or my new stretchmarks, and I hadn't had much protein today (actually, I was vegetarian all day up to that point! Well, meat's expensive, lately, so we don't eat as much as we used to), so I was going to have the damn sandwich. Also there wasn't enough to have for lunch tomorrow or anything like that. (I don't know what I'll make. I was going to finish up the leftover curry but Z said he didn't want it a third day in a row, so I'll have to think of something else. Boo, I don't want to go shopping.)
And I ate it. And it was okay. And I did feel better once I ate it, and hadn't realized I didn't feel great, so obviously my body did want it after all.
But it would've been way more special if he'd made it. I swear I'm not being crazy.
Am I being crazy? Is food more special when someone else makes it?
Permalink: more_special.html
Words: 867
Location: Buffalo, NY
10/28/08 06:03 - 40ºF - ID#46392
temperature
How did I never notice that above every blog entry, the temperature it was when it was posted is listed?
I am (e:retarded).
Or should that be (e:tarded)?
I am (e:retarded).
Or should that be (e:tarded)?
Permalink: temperature.html
Words: 30
Location: Buffalo, NY
10/28/08 02:22 - 38ºF - ID#46386
cauliflower curry
I forgot, I was going to blog this last night. i didn't get a photo, though.
The link to the original recipe is here:
This is a great recipe to make when you're in the doldrums of a lingering autumn cold. Fresh veggies have vitamins, right? And the spice kicks you in the nose and breaks up some of the congestion. Even if you're not sick, this is wonderful comfort food.
Put on a pot of rice to cook. For extra nutrition points, use brown rice, or as we do, half-and-half brown and white. (Start the brown rice according to directions. Cook half the cooking time specified. Add white rice, and some extra water. Bring back up to boil and cook according to directions. Voila!)
Then, here are her directions:
Microwave a whole head of cauliflower, leaves and core discarded, in two cups of water for 5 minutes or until tender. Meanwhile, warm a large pan, preferably one with a cover, and add the following ingredients:
3 tbsps vegetable oil
4 minced cloves of garlic
1 tsp grated fresh ginger, or 1/2 tsp powdered ginger
2 tbsps curry powder
1 tbsp turmeric
2 tsps whole coriander seeds
1 tsp mustard seeds
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp paprika
1 bay leaf
1 medium onion, minced
1 hot pepper, minced (optional)
Sweat until the onions are soft and translucent. Add the cauliflower, including the water it was cooked in, and:
2 cups chopped tomato (fresh or canned according to season)
Stir well, coating the cauliflower with the other ingredients. It will break up into smaller florets as it cooks. Reduce to a steady simmer and let it cook, covered, for 15 minutes.
(I would put that in the quote tag but it makes it huge, so that's not easy to read.)
About 4-5 minutes before the end, she recommends mashing a tablespoon of butter with a tablespoon of flour, and mixing that paste into the sauce of the cooking veggies.
Last night I did one better, and in a separate pan, I combined a tablespoon of butter, a tablespoon of flour, and about half a cup of heavy cream. (I have too much heavy cream in the house. don't ask why. Regular milk would have worked fine.) I then added several cups of the sauce to this mix, just to see if it would curdle. It didn't, so I brought it up to nearly a boil to thicken it a little, then dumped it into the cauliflower mixture.
Since I'd added a hot pepper, it was spicy-- I grew the peppers myself and they turned out to be Peppers Of Fiery Doom, for some reason, this year. I never know, when I grow hot peppers, how they'll turn out. So the cream sweetened it and cooled it down a little.
Serve the cauliflower stuff atop the rice, and it's a wonderful hot vegetarian (vegan, if you don't do the butter-cream thing), very filling, very warming dinner. (e:zobar) loves it, and so do I. I have leftovers! Mmmm.
It's kind of bright green from the turmeric. Mmmm. It stained two of my fingernails when I fished out a piece of cauliflower to taste-test.
It's even kind of good if you eat it cold. What? No, I'm not at all cheating on dinner by eating it cold straight out of the fridge.
Mmmmm.
The link to the original recipe is here:
This is a great recipe to make when you're in the doldrums of a lingering autumn cold. Fresh veggies have vitamins, right? And the spice kicks you in the nose and breaks up some of the congestion. Even if you're not sick, this is wonderful comfort food.
Put on a pot of rice to cook. For extra nutrition points, use brown rice, or as we do, half-and-half brown and white. (Start the brown rice according to directions. Cook half the cooking time specified. Add white rice, and some extra water. Bring back up to boil and cook according to directions. Voila!)
Then, here are her directions:
Microwave a whole head of cauliflower, leaves and core discarded, in two cups of water for 5 minutes or until tender. Meanwhile, warm a large pan, preferably one with a cover, and add the following ingredients:
3 tbsps vegetable oil
4 minced cloves of garlic
1 tsp grated fresh ginger, or 1/2 tsp powdered ginger
2 tbsps curry powder
1 tbsp turmeric
2 tsps whole coriander seeds
1 tsp mustard seeds
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp paprika
1 bay leaf
1 medium onion, minced
1 hot pepper, minced (optional)
Sweat until the onions are soft and translucent. Add the cauliflower, including the water it was cooked in, and:
2 cups chopped tomato (fresh or canned according to season)
Stir well, coating the cauliflower with the other ingredients. It will break up into smaller florets as it cooks. Reduce to a steady simmer and let it cook, covered, for 15 minutes.
(I would put that in the quote tag but it makes it huge, so that's not easy to read.)
About 4-5 minutes before the end, she recommends mashing a tablespoon of butter with a tablespoon of flour, and mixing that paste into the sauce of the cooking veggies.
Last night I did one better, and in a separate pan, I combined a tablespoon of butter, a tablespoon of flour, and about half a cup of heavy cream. (I have too much heavy cream in the house. don't ask why. Regular milk would have worked fine.) I then added several cups of the sauce to this mix, just to see if it would curdle. It didn't, so I brought it up to nearly a boil to thicken it a little, then dumped it into the cauliflower mixture.
Since I'd added a hot pepper, it was spicy-- I grew the peppers myself and they turned out to be Peppers Of Fiery Doom, for some reason, this year. I never know, when I grow hot peppers, how they'll turn out. So the cream sweetened it and cooled it down a little.
Serve the cauliflower stuff atop the rice, and it's a wonderful hot vegetarian (vegan, if you don't do the butter-cream thing), very filling, very warming dinner. (e:zobar) loves it, and so do I. I have leftovers! Mmmm.
It's kind of bright green from the turmeric. Mmmm. It stained two of my fingernails when I fished out a piece of cauliflower to taste-test.
It's even kind of good if you eat it cold. What? No, I'm not at all cheating on dinner by eating it cold straight out of the fridge.
Mmmmm.
Permalink: cauliflower_curry.html
Words: 550
Location: Buffalo, NY
10/26/08 12:31 - 53ºF - ID#46344
cat photos
OK, I figured I should follow that up with some photos of said cats. So I can have an illustration. Since I seem to have managed to get the Upload button to work.
Remi, Fi's cat. Fi will be here Thursday, incidentally, with plenty of time to get her costume ready for the (e:strip) party and her Buffalo debut. Whee!
Remi really likes to fondle my boobs. Fi blames the victim and says I'm leading her on. Whatever.
This photo may not work but I'm trying it anyway. (It uploaded, but the code didn't appear in the box, so I kind of hacked it. We'll see.) It's both cats, side by side, eating dinner, so you can see their relative sizes.
Nope, didn't work. Oh well.
Chita and I are watching Remi with great suspicion.
Remi, Fi's cat. Fi will be here Thursday, incidentally, with plenty of time to get her costume ready for the (e:strip) party and her Buffalo debut. Whee!
Remi really likes to fondle my boobs. Fi blames the victim and says I'm leading her on. Whatever.
Missing Image ;(
This photo may not work but I'm trying it anyway. (It uploaded, but the code didn't appear in the box, so I kind of hacked it. We'll see.) It's both cats, side by side, eating dinner, so you can see their relative sizes.
Nope, didn't work. Oh well.
Chita and I are watching Remi with great suspicion.
Permalink: cat_photos.html
Words: 144
Location: Buffalo, NY
10/26/08 12:05 - 53ºF - ID#46341
Cat Religion
This is my second re-post, which has been revised and updated for the (E:strip) market.
Cat Religion
Watching Chita today I have become convinced that I understand the religion of cats.
They worship the god of Sleep, and are his truest servants.
She sat on Z's flat belly (he sits slouched, his "lap" starting as a perfectly flat surface just below his ribs, over his pelvis, and down a very long way to his knees. There is a great deal of territory there for a cat to lounge upon) and washed herself, then moved from his belly to the couch beside him. She finished her bath, then settled down to nap.
This was not just any catnap. This was a nap of epic proportions. This was a creature thoroughly, blissfully dedicated to sleep, the way the dervishes abandon themselves to God in their dances, the way a choir's mingled voices swell toward heaven: that was the way Chita slept, with devout abandon.
I believe her nightly tantrums, Remi's morning rampages, the yowling and chasing and invasion of our bedroom, loud destruction of furniture and banging of food bowls: these are the sacrifices they make to placate their God. Interrupting the sleep of others is their sacred duty. It makes us prize sleep the higher, and increases the glory of their deity.
And then, their sleep is the devotion they perform. Toes curling, whiskers twitching, head flattened upside-down against the cushion, belly exposed, tail wrapped around: it is all a slow-motion, sometimes-purring, beautiful offering to the God of Sleep.
Chita is a champion sleeper. While Remi simply curls up, nose to tail, Chita alternately sprawls and curls. She stretches frequently, toes curling. She prefers, when curled, to use her back feet as a chin pillow. And her long tail, much longer and more mobile than Remi's, is often awake long after she is, twitching in obscure little rhythms as she talks in her sleep. (Cats, for the non-cat-owners among you, speak with their tails, most eloquently.)
Chita is like a priestess in the cult of sleep. Yesterday, she made her devotions for about six straight hours, from before lunch straight through dinnertime. She is truly touched with a special gift.
If only I could get some damn sleep in this house. But no.
Cat Religion
Watching Chita today I have become convinced that I understand the religion of cats.
They worship the god of Sleep, and are his truest servants.
She sat on Z's flat belly (he sits slouched, his "lap" starting as a perfectly flat surface just below his ribs, over his pelvis, and down a very long way to his knees. There is a great deal of territory there for a cat to lounge upon) and washed herself, then moved from his belly to the couch beside him. She finished her bath, then settled down to nap.
This was not just any catnap. This was a nap of epic proportions. This was a creature thoroughly, blissfully dedicated to sleep, the way the dervishes abandon themselves to God in their dances, the way a choir's mingled voices swell toward heaven: that was the way Chita slept, with devout abandon.
I believe her nightly tantrums, Remi's morning rampages, the yowling and chasing and invasion of our bedroom, loud destruction of furniture and banging of food bowls: these are the sacrifices they make to placate their God. Interrupting the sleep of others is their sacred duty. It makes us prize sleep the higher, and increases the glory of their deity.
And then, their sleep is the devotion they perform. Toes curling, whiskers twitching, head flattened upside-down against the cushion, belly exposed, tail wrapped around: it is all a slow-motion, sometimes-purring, beautiful offering to the God of Sleep.
Chita is a champion sleeper. While Remi simply curls up, nose to tail, Chita alternately sprawls and curls. She stretches frequently, toes curling. She prefers, when curled, to use her back feet as a chin pillow. And her long tail, much longer and more mobile than Remi's, is often awake long after she is, twitching in obscure little rhythms as she talks in her sleep. (Cats, for the non-cat-owners among you, speak with their tails, most eloquently.)
Chita is like a priestess in the cult of sleep. Yesterday, she made her devotions for about six straight hours, from before lunch straight through dinnertime. She is truly touched with a special gift.
If only I could get some damn sleep in this house. But no.
Permalink: Cat_Religion.html
Words: 383
Location: Buffalo, NY
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So I know about the politics of the military thing. Those little things can get you and I can't think of an example right now. But I do routinely run outside when I hear a helicopter, and try to identify it, so I can call my dad and tell him. (He doesn't need to look; he knows how they sound, even though his hearing was damaged permanently in Vietnam.)