Too Many Topics

My apologies to those who come here looking for more stories about Okinawa ("The Rock") that I mentioned at the Okinawa Brats website. Once I thought I had nothing to write about. Now I realize I'm about 50 years behind schedule and losing more time every day.

But it's not like I haven't tried. I'd sure like to have all the money back that I've spent on diaries over the years. Most of the time a few pages got used and then, later, burned. I've come a long way from keeping secrets to publishing blabber for the whole world. As they come to me, I will keep writing stories from my past.

Tonight, after servicing the cats in my care for my neighbor, I sat down to read the paper. First, I wanted to rest. Second, I haven't read a newspaper in ages. Third (but probably First), I wanted to lure Bingo to my lap. And it worked. She passed by a few times but didn't stay. While I was lost in some story, I didn't notice her rubbing on the stereo. Suddenly, I heard the voice of woman singing. Both of us jumped nearly out of our hides. She had somehow turned on the stereo and a CD had started playing. It's not fun getting freaked out in someone else's house.

I've just been reading the results of a search for "alternative plantar fasciitis treatments" online. I found a video fromt he American Academy of Podiatric Sports Medicine that demonstrates how to evaluate a good, supportive athletic shoe. Of course I immediately got my recently-purchased New Balance 474 and put it to the test. Yay! It passed. But I'm sure there are better shoes than the ones I have.

There was an ant invasion in the kitchen this afternoon. I stopped it before it became a full-scale attack on all fronts. But that required me pulling the fridge out from the wall; a very difficult task. When it was delivered, the little black rubber wheels got pushed the wrong way and they ended up in more of a D shape then an O shape, making moving the monstrosity very difficult. But I did it.

The port of invasion was where the water line for the fridge comes out of the wall. I saturated it with "earth friendly" poison and then sealed it up with tape. But I couldn't get the fridge to go back against the wall. The solution was a trip to Bed Bath and Beyond (with 20% off coupon in hand) to buy some E Z Sliders. Quick solution. I got the big variety set to reduce the chances of hurting myself on future missions. Seems like I'm always moving something heavy the hard way.

I also found myself wandering around in Long's Drugs tonight and ended up staring at the vitamin and supplements. Since melatonin was on sale (buy one, get one free) I decided to go for it. I took one about a half hour ago. I'm hoping to stay awake just long enough to finish this and then head for the first of many very restful nights of sleep. I told Brad that I'm going to experiment with it. He'd never heard of it and asked me if it's something "illegal."

I decided to try it first and then talk to the doctor about it. If he blows a gasket, I'll ship it off to someone who can use it. Or not. It depends on how well it works. But I can say that I'm pretty sleepy right now and am really starting to lose focus.

Seems like a good point to quit. Hope I wake up tomorrow!

"Docent of the Summer Quarter"

Yesterday's meeting at the zoo was important. Yes, the one I missed. As the editor of the docent newsletter, The Scoop, I'm also on the Docent Council Executive Board. I don't know why since I don't hold an elected position. It's just a position I inherited with the job.

But I really should have gone to that meeting. It was a big, semi-annual meeting for all docents. Had I gone, I would have been very embarrassed by what happened there but it would have looked a lot better for me had I been there to accept the award I was given.

This evening when we got back home from an abbreviated shopping trip, there was a phone message from someone at the zoo wanting me to call her back. She wanted me to know "what happened at the meeting." Her tone of voice sort of bothered me. It sounded serious.

Even though I'm very appreciative of the recognition, I'm certain they chose the wrong person to name as "Docent of the Summer Quarter." I rarely make it to the zoo any more. I'm a lousy docent. I haven't put in any public contact hours in months. But I do work hard to produce a monthly newsletter. Still, I think they should give awards like that to docents who appear at the zoo once in a while.

As much as I enjoy volunteering at the Oakland Zoo, I've sure had problems since I went through training as a docent including pneumonia (I was in the hospital for 10 days), plantar fasciitis with all the associated leg and back pain and other complications and events that I don't really want to think about right now.

I will be getting a certificate, some kind of "gift" and an opportunity to hand-feed the giraffes. The latter is something I did when I was in docent training and it was an amazing experience. I'm totally psyched about doing it again. And I'm hoping they'll let me take Brad along to share the experience.

Below is a photo I didn't ever upload to Flickr. It shows the giraffe keeper, Amy Phelps, at the feeding deck which, as you can see, is at their eye level. It was truly one of the best experiences of my life. I look forward to doing it again.



Other than that, it was a very low-key day. The Amazing Race premiered tonight. I love how people who do crappy things to others on the show always seem to get what they dish out. Tonight the team who stole a cab from another team ended up being the first to be eliminated.

Better than that, though, was the third episode of The Amazing Mrs. Pritchard on PBS. Jane Horrocks (Absolutely Fabulous, Little Voice) is a fantastic actress and the show is great. PBS continues to be the one reason to own a TV.

Oh, by the way, all the Halloween stuff is still at the bottom of the stairs. Looks like I'll be hauling it all up by myself tomorrow.

Surprises

It's 1:21AM, soon to be 1:21AM again since this is the night we turn the clocks back one hour. And I just finished working on a project about which I can say nothing because it's a surprise and the person for whom I'm surprising stops by and reads this. It's making me crazy because I'm terrible at keeping secrets. Growing up I frequently told people what their Christmas presents were before Christmas because I couldn't contain the excitement of giving them something neat.

So this is a good ending to a day that started out badly.

Last night I took a whole Trazadone tablet instead of one half because I really needed some good sleep. With chronic insomnia and being recently diagnosed with sleep apnea, sometimes I need help getting some rest. Even being physically exhausted doesn't guarantee a restful night.

But Trazadone is a harsh drug. It dries out my sinus, gives me a headache and only helps me fall asleep, not stay asleep or sleep peacefully. I try not to take it. And as soon as I swallowed the whole tablet I remembered that it was probably going to make me miserable.

And it did. My alarm went off at 7AM and I turned on my lamp. I was supposed to have gone to a meeting at the zoo but I was really miserable, still tired and my legs and feet were really aching. Bad morning. So I stayed in bed. I didn't even get up to go to Napa with friends.

I made it out of the house by 1PM to run errands. I tried to drop off the rent checks at the agency but they're located inside a building and it was locked. It frustrates me that they don't have an after-hours drop box. What a waste of gas and time to drive clear across town and couldn't even leave the envelope there. So I decided to mail it. But since I rarely buy stamps, I discovered that postage has gone up twice since I last bought any. Fortunately I had some extra 1-cent and 2-cent stamps. It took three stamps to come up with enough postage.

At OSH, I picked up three 40lb bags of wood pellets. I use it for cat litter. It's cheap and natural. One of the bags was for my "job" as a cat-sitter for a neighbor. She's using something similar that costs a lot more. I laughed out loud when I saw her litter box. It's something I saw in a SkyMall catalog on a recent flight that made me laugh out loud. I'll let the photos speak for themselves.

Okay, maybe this isn't too funny. But in the catalog, the "planter" was located next to a sofa in the living room. Now THAT was funny! Honestly. Can you imagine having guests over when suddenly there's a digging sound followed by the pungent odor of cat poop coming out of the corner? I don't know about your cat but when my cat finishes in the box, he must feel light as a feather and full of energy because he runs around like he's on Benny Hill.

Another high point of my day was using a Dyson vacuum cleaner for the first time. I don't know why but I kept thinking about our old Kirby and wondered if they're still around. Now that was a vacuum cleaner! Sure, dust leaked out of the bag. But it sucked up way more than it leaked so it worked out fine. These modern plastic things are all too wimpy.

It took HOURS tonight to pack away the Halloween stuff. And now all five storage containers are waiting for someone else to carry upstairs. I know I'll end up doing it but I just want to see if that particular someone else surprises me and lends a hand. It's sooooo unlikely but every once in a while I like to test him...

Thinking About Starting Again

I've been thinking about getting this thing going again (and hopefully not pissing as many people off) and I've been trying to figure out how to place videos here like a friend does on her blog.

Here's an attempt to post a little video I made several months ago:

I have so much video that needs to be edited and turned into something watchable that I doubt I'll ever get it done. Whenever I travel, I take a lot of what I call "raw" video thinking that some day I'll chop it up and make something decent out of it. I usually have at least 5 minutes of every 60 where I accidentally leave the camera rolling and end up with a sickening segment of motion sickness inducing garbage.

Anyway..

Today was the first day of a week of cat-sitting for a neighbor I just recently met. She put an ad on our community bulletin board looking for someone to take care of her "girls" while she's away on business. She's a lovely woman and her cats are warming up to me nicely. She thought that I'd never see one of them but it approached me right away when I went over to meet them all. How great is that? I must have inherited a little cat charming magic from Mom. Instead of running under the bed, they came right up to me when I went over to meet them. My neighbor was very impressed!

Here they are:

Gotta get all the Halloween stuff down and put away and the house ready for the next big event on November 10th. Another 35 people or so will be here for our annual wine and cheese party. I'm not a big fan of wine (except that muscat is mui delicioso) but the cheese selection is always totally amazing. I wonder if Patti will bring a can of Easy Cheese again.

Okay, that's enough for now. This is just a test to see if I want to get this started again.

Sadness

It's now November 2, 2007. I was working on getting this thing going again when I noticed a "draft" I created back in August but didn't ever post or finish. I still don't remember creating this post and didn't know what it was so I published it to see what was going on.

This was the day my cat, Pewter, became seriously ill and we took him to the emergency vet in San Leandro. A few days later I had to send him to heaven to wait for me. It was an awful weekend. This reminds me of so much sadness. But since I started to make a post, I decided to finish it and explain what happened.

I miss him so much. I love my surviving kitty, Cootie, but Pewter was really special. He was so sweet. He scratched the crap out of Brad's furniture but that was because he was kinda stupid. But he was beautiful and we both loved him very much.

Life is rough. Sometimes I feel totally ill-equipped to handle all it dishes out.

My Cat's Food May Be Tainted!

This morning I discovered the frightening news that the nationwide pet food recall has been expanded and the dry food I've been giving my cats has been added to the list. What a nightmare!

I'd be frantic right now if I hadn't just taken Pewter to the vet and, only yesterday, gotten a real good report from his blood and urine tests. He has chronic problems but at least there's no sign of anything else. His weight loss is probably due to his fussy G.I. tract.

It's unlikely that I got any of the tainted food. But I don't know. The company has recalled all of it even though the tainted sample was only used on specific production dates. I'll gladly return it and wait to buy more until Pewter's delicate gut is mended.

China seems to be very protective in their response to this problem. From the KTVU.com website story:

A lawmaker said Wednesday the Chinese have refused to grant visas to FDA
inspectors seeking to visit the plants where the ingredients were made. An FDA
spokesman later said the visas were not refused but that the agency had not
received the necessary invitation letter to get visas.

"It troubles me greatly the Chinese are making it more difficult to understand what led to this pet food crisis," Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., told The Associated Press after
meeting with the FDA commissioner, Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach.

What troubles me greatly is the fact that we really don't know what's in our food any more because so much of what we eat is prepared and packaged somewhere other than in our own kitchen. I'm afraid this will become a more common issue in food manufactured for humans in the near future (if it hasn't already.)

DishTV Experience

Neither one of us likes Comcast but if we want even the most basic television reception, it's one of very few choices. In Alameda, at least there's a choice. Here, in San Leandro, there isn't unless you go with a satellite system.

I'd been comparing prices, channels and service for quite a long time when a coupon for DishTV arrived in an envelope of "local business coupons." I made the call. I didn't know I was dealing with some company that wasn't even in California. That's no big deal, I guess, but they charged their own small fee for setting up the service.

In preparation for the installation, I had to get permission from the property manager, complete forms and make sure I understood the home owners' association rules. This place is one of those nit-picky communities where snitches report you for the least little thing.

One of our neighbors found out the hard way about the association when his DishTV was installed. But as an owner, he's in a more secure position to tell them where to go..

Installation day came and went. The guy was great. He was friendly and did an awful lot of work to get that dish attached in the right place so that all the rules were met. When he left he told me that if we weren't satisfied they'd come back and take all the equipment away and there would be any charge. Great! Satisfaction guaranteed.

Very soon afterward I found a problem. My computer is also a TV and DVR (like Tivo) and works just fine with cable. Using XP Media Center, it has its own channel listings and settings. It did not work at all with the dish. I had to point a remote control toward the opposite end of the house to change channels on the bedroom's dual tuner. I put that aside thinking I could eventually figure out a way to make it work.

That night we watched some TV and didn't notice any real problems.

The next night a storm had blown in. It was overcast, raining and windy. And the reception was awful. We spent most of the time looking at a blue screen telling us the signal had been lost.

That was it. I immediately disconnected everything and re-attached the Comcast cable. I hated calling them back but a deal's a deal. We were terribly unsatisfied and with our favorite shows coming up, we didn't want to have to go through a long adjustment period. Sometimes things just need to work when you plug them in, not later.

When I was told they'd take the equipment away, I took that to mean ALL the equipment including the satellite dish on the chimney. It took an incredible amount of complaining and calling to get a supervisor to issue a work order for the installation company to come back and uninstall everything.

When the guy came to remove the dish, he said he was only there to pick up the tuners. I told him that Dish was sending boxes via UPS and I was supposed to return them that way. And he said he knew nothing about removing the dish. But I gave him the tuners. I wanted to be rid of them. But I made him give me a receipt because I anticipated trouble when I didn't send them back in the UPS boxes. (Smart move.) They eventually did call and hassled me about not returning the equipment.

Another angry call. I was getting nowhere. When I was telling my neighbor about it all, I was standing outside with a pretty clear view of our roof. That's when I noticed that the dish was pointing directly into a huge eucalyptus tree. That just made me more upset. (I really don't know what caused the picture to go out so much; wind, rain, clouds, aircraft, trees, incompetence.) I just wanted them to remove that ugly thing off the roof. It isn't our house and I know the HOA doesn't particularly like them. I only wanted the company to follow through on their representative's word.

I think their goal is to stick an dish antenna on every house in America. They just don't want to have to come back and install again when the next occupant wants service. Period.

Time has passed. I've calmed down. We haven't gotten anything from the HOA telling us we've done anything wrong which is a relief.

But DishTV has been calling us and not leaving a message. I tracked the phone number online to find out who it was. (check this site out: http://whocalled.us/) People everywhere are getting solicitation calls from them. So today, knowing what "Unknown Name 866-668-8047" actually is, I answered the call. The rep knew I didn't have service but was soliciting to try again.

I didn't like that she asked for "Mr. or Mrs. Webb" because I think that was terribly presumptious of the company to assume there was a "lady of the house," (which is another term I've heard on soliciation calls,) but she was very polite and so I was very polite. We were sickeningly polite.

And I asked, politely, that they not make any more calls. She said she'd put me on the "do not call" list.

Meanwhile, Comcast continues to grossly overcharge for the most basic service. If we weren't addicted to PBS, news, Discovery, TLC, Animal Planet and Ugly Betty, I'd just give up.

Tilton's Treasure

"UAL CEO Paid $39.7M in 2006"

Good morning fellow former/current United Airlines employees! Have you had your slap in the face yet? If not and you're not feeling like some piece of crap stuck in the tread of someone's boot yet today, take a look at the news about Glenn Tilton's compensation for last year.

Sure, a lot of it is stock and other stuff you can't exactly withdraw from an ATM. But the base salary ($687,083) seems to be sufficient to me. It should be enough for a very comfortable life.

If UA can afford to shower Tilton with an excess of stock option riches, it can afford to pay back the rest of us for what we lost in the ESOP debacle.

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070326/united_executive_compensation.html?.v=1

Somebody Shut Him Up

Would someone please save this country from more needless embarrassment and shut Oklahoma Senator Inhofe the hell up? *big sigh* Once again I feel fortunate to find myself surrounded by people whose ancestors crawled out of the slime a few million years ahead of the others.

We recently saw An Inconvenient Truth for the first time. I was prepared to be absolutely floored. But it didn't happen. Why? Because it isn't news if you've been paying attention. And I've been paying attention to scientific information about everything from evaporating lakes to studies on polar ice for a long time and it all makes sense.

Since in today's world it takes a celebrity to get the public to listen to just about anything, I'm very pleased that private citizen Al Gore has been so effective in spreading the word.

I watched one of Inhofe's presentations online and I can say that he is one of the rudest and most ignorant elected representatives this country has. Is that the best that Oklahoma can do? Nobody seems to argue now that the cause of the dust bowl disaster of the 1930's was "inappropriate farming methods." Get it? *another sigh* I'm sure there are people who will argue that fact too.

My frustration with the term "global warming" is that it's become something people must choose to believe in or not. Forget about that term for a minute and tell me if it makes sense to stop polluting our atmosphere. Does it make sense to do everything we can to preserve and protect our planet? Hey, how does a LOWER ENERGY BILL sound?

It was such a pleasure watching Al Gore on TV tonight speaking to the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. Ah, the sound of an intelligent man speaking. That's something we've been missing enough of for what seems like a decade. What a contrast with that mottle-faced, sassy, self-righteous and misinformed Imhofe.

Two Shakes

I don't like portable carnivals. But even if someone could convince me that those traveling spin and puke rides were safe I still wouldn't go because I don't like being hollered at either.

On the other hand, it would be a fun place to take photos especially if something went wrong. Ew.

The earthquake that hit at 8:40PM last night was the second in only a week or so and I felt both of them.

Until last week I'd wondered what it was like to be in the car during an earthquake. But while stopped, waiting for a light with absolutely no traffic moving, my car did a bump and shimmy that seemed impossible even if a big truck had been passing. I found out 10 minutes later that an earthquake had hit and BART trains stopped for a diagnostic.

Last night I had the above photo displayed in my photo editor when things started jumping around. Each one feels unique in how it bumps, jumps, shakes, rocks, twists and in how it's transmittted. Waves can preceed shaking. Waving and shaking can preceed peeing your pants.

I'm dry!

The Odd Couple Coincidences

Tonight we had the pleasure of joining our friends Robin and Lynette to see "The Odd Couple" at the Douglas Morrison Theatre in Hayward. I'd never even heard of the place before just happening to walk past it a few weeks ago when I met up with the "new" Paula for a visit to the Japanese gardens next door.

At that time I remember thinking back to my experiences in community theater many years ago. Those were such fun times. One fond memory I have was when I played a sibling of Jesus in a play about the family of Jesus. We were all in period costumes and performed "in-the-round" in a very intimate setting where the audience was so close you could hear their hair growing.

Someone left a fig on a bench by mistake and I unknowingly sat on it. I sensed something was there but had no idea what was wrong until I was off stage. All I suspected was some kind of costume malfunction. But when I saw it, it was unrecognizable and I was horrified. It looked like poop but didn't stink. Someone had to tell me it was a fig. "It's a what?" (Until then I'd only heard of Fig Newtons and thought Fig was Newton's first name. ) I'd just been on stage for 10 minutes walking around with a big ol' fig stuck in the butt crack area of my costume one night. Great. The brother of Jesus poops his toga.

The reason we went to see "The Odd Couple" tonight was one of our friends, Emilie Frybarger, was playing the part of Gwendolyn Pigeon. I knew she was an eighth grade teacher but had no idea she was an actress. But I should have. She has a marvelous personality and impeccable comic timing.

She and Kelly Ball, playing Gwendolyn's sister Cecily Pigeon, were what gave this play its life force. Their performances were simply outstanding, outshining even the lead players. I could go on and on. And what a relief it was that the play (and Emilie's performance) was really good! When I found out that we were going to see the play and she was in it I was hesitant. I didn't want it to suck and then have to face her and have to come up with something polite to say. That's really hard for me to do. Much to my relief, it was a pleasure to watch.

And yes, twenty bucks is a lot to pay for a ticket to see community theater, especially for me. But tonight it felt like a good investment.