It's A Whole Other Country

For better, for worse, and maybe just for now, San Antonio, Texas, is my home.

Just got here, and not quite sure about anything much except that it will be memorable and some kind of an adventure that I likely will love a lot. Already getting there.

It’s been emotional to the extreme for me, but things are beginning to settle down some. I’m remembering to say no when I should, mostly. I’ll get better at it. I’ve been so exhausted that I couldn’t get out of my own way. And I’ve been spontaneously crying. But that’s lessening as I become less exhausted. Oh, don’t worry, I admit I do that kind of crying anyhoo. Just not so often and not in such weird places usually! I can be such a baby sometimes. This is the first time I’ve left behind someone with whom I did not want to part, not one bit. And like he’s told me more than once, “You’re such a girl.” Yup.

Immediately, my granddaughters have become accustomed to me being here. Jossie and Aidenne have no problem holding my hand when we are in parking lots, etc. It’s such a treat! They are not surprised to see me at their school any more. Aidenne loves to help; she was great at showing me the way through the best (and bigger, really, than any I’ve seen) grocery store in the world: my one and only favorite of all time, HEB. (Things evolving as they do, the store is an HEB Plus. Like in women’s clothing, I guess. It’s Quite Large.)

I’ve made just one meal so far for my daughter and her family, but it seemed to be a resounding success; I am heartened by my welcome and the ease with which I will become part of their daily lives. My son-in-law, man of few words to most, has been practically verbose in making me feel welcome. I’m a fortunate girl.

Today I found out where the nearest library is and looked it up online, only to be reminded that Texas libraries completely rock: They are open SEVEN days a week, people! I missed that when I was in Florida, had barely even remembered that I once had that luxury at my fingertips. Guess where I’m going first thing tomorrow?

And I took a bath this evening. A real bath. While everyone else was out to supper. It was so luxurious …

Now if I could just find what box I put my sheets in, I know I’d sleep just a little bit better.

Words I Like

Some I’ve Made Up and Actually Remember,
Some I’ve Overheard or Stolen*

Melty: This was used on “Coupling” by that curly-headed cute guy, Jeff, in conjunction with the word Man. You can figure it out. Works in other places, such as when you have tea and cheese together, as my eldest child can attest** (she even uses the word "melty")

Adultable(s, plural): This could be a beverage, an event, a toy for those who know about those toy-enhanced possibilities, or whatever a person needs when they’ve had enough of the under-18s in their lives.

Procrastenabling: When you repeatedly put off reminding your significant other of all the things that were on the "Today" list promised to you several Todays ago, just to see if he spontaneously starts doing them out of nowhere. You know that's not happening.

This belongs here because I say so: The only reason to get a person’s name tattooed on you is if his name is Dan; then when you break up or he dies, you can change it to Damn. (My Rachel's husband, Dan, gets the credit on this one)

Nouner: like a nooner but with definitive sweet nothings whispered by both parties … this was rejected by Words With Friends (WWF) so not sure if it’s a sign ...

Danfuey: This just should be a word. Was rejected by WWF as well. Could be used for the stuff Dan gets up to when his grandchildren are around or when used in verb format when one needs a certain tattoo revised.

Obviate: The very first word any friend of mine found that I couldn’t use properly in a sentence, never mind give a meaning for. He’s the first person ever to do that, and he did it without even trying, before he even knew the significance. He just used it in a sentence. And I had to ask. Yes, I did. But now I know. It's a new favorite word, allowing me to obviate some of the old favorites.

Gloreo: a cookie you sneak into church.

Validating: when you have to be dating to have a sense of yourself. If so, I suggest an adultable.

Fidope: when you think your dog acts stupid. Because dogs don't ever act stupid (you know I am right), so, really, it's you. Think about it. Shall we call you Fi for short?

Pirony: when you name a pie after an event or person in your life. Like in the movie “Waitress.” I'm going to begin practicing pirony. Watch out, neighbors and friends.

*Giving credit where credit is thought to be due
**Related post: http://yourothermom01.blogspot.com/2010/05/white-american-cheese-sliced-thin-but.html

Walk This Way

Today I decided I would look for inspiration in the heart of my little city, downtown by the courthouse, people watching.

Drove myself there a little early—about 8:15 or so—parked right on the street, free parking still the norm here. How sweet is that! I noticed the benches in front of the old courthouse looked recently polished or refurbished or something, definitely inviting, especially in the shade of the giant live oaks out front, and parked myself on one right off. Took some pictures, made notes about some passersby, and was a little disappointed that there wasn’t as much foot traffic as I’d hoped.

You see, right behind the old courthouse is a pretty new, modern-type courthouse that is where most of the action is happening. But there’s no shady spot to sit by its convoluted entrance and even though there were certainly more people to watch there, I knew it just wouldn’t have the right feel, and I stayed where I was.

One thing I discovered is a trend in men’s fashion. Looks to me like the new color in casual shirts is a sort of pumpkin-melon, deep shade of it. Saw three separate guys in the short time I was there wearing that, with either jeans or shorts. So, learned something! Although I actually suspect it might be last year’s color …

After I’d written a couple of my morning pages (method I’m using to help unleash my creativity), I headed over to the Rising Sun Café, a cool place with a trendy menu for breakfast and lunch, including different coffees and teas and other beverages. One of the house specials is Miss Lisa’s Banana Bread Loaf—love, love, love it. Purchased me one, along with a grande mocha, which turned out to be a little too sweet, since I’ve kicked sugar out of my beverage list. I took my food out to one of the two umbrella-ed tables outside and took out my camera again, and found my “aha!” moment, realizing I’d found my rant topic.


This gentleman, dressed for a workday, came out of a door and wanted to cross the street toward the courthouse. There was no traffic coming—in any direction—but the guy walked to the corner, pressed the walk button and waited for a signal. I couldn’t believe it! What the …? Does he not know how to cross a street? He stood there for about a minute—that’s a long time when there’s no traffic coming. What is up with that?

These streets are not big; and you can see a ways in any direction. I had crossed the same streets in three separate places today, using the crosswalk only once, when it was the most convenient place for me to cross.

It’s another example—albeit small, but insidious, you must admit--of people buying into the government telling them they can’t do something without its assistance. Jaywalking laws are ridiculous. I need nobody to tell me when it is safe to cross—I assume most young people and adults don’t--and I sure as hell won’t be walking all the way to the corner to cross when a light tells me it’s OK and then backtrack to get where I want to go. That’s just messed up! When I walk, I need a destination and I’m going to go the shortest distance to get there. That’s how I drive, too: I like taking road trips and finding my way to new places, but I like knowing where I’m headed. I can stop and smell the flowers along the way, as long as they are interesting, but let’s get there in the most direct manner! Give me the highway and cruise control practically every time.

And once I get there, I’m crossing the streets wherever I please when I’ve decided it’s safe to do so. Wouldn’t you?

Below are some views of our historic downtown. My favorite local radio station, the one I used to record the Monday news for, is right here as well. I was awful at it at the time but I had the most fun doing it and wish I could do it some more.










Oh, and check out this elephant picture. I’d like to know the story behind that!

Not For Nothin' ...

I saw a Jaguar the other day and was surprised because it looked like a Chevy. I thought it was a Chevy that somebody had put a Jag identifier [yeah, I can't think of the word I really want to use here; feel free to apprise me of it below] on, so I looked it up online. Below is a picture of the model car I saw: 2010 Jaguar XF (used for $41,998) and also a new 2011 Chevy Malibu $17,498. New jag sedans start at $75,000, by the way.

I'm pretty sure the Jag has many more features than the Chevy and is more luxurious inside, etc.; it’s likely very well built, and I'm pretty sure it might give you one hell of a ride, but I think it shouldn’t look so much like a Chevy. It’s not that Chevy is making their car look like a Jag. It’s that Jag went seriously wrong somewhere.

The Jag
















The Chevy

I Wanna Hold Your Hand

Science is amazing; people who work in a science field can be amazing, as well.

“The nano-copper wires in your computer can’t process data as fast as light particles can. That’s the problem researchers have been trying to crack for some time.” These folks are going to integrate lasers with computers, meaning everything will be faster. Movie lovers will like knowing that a movie can be transmitted in a second. And they are doing it by using silicon.
http://www.smartplanet.com/technology/blog/science-scope/nanolasers-grown-on-silicon-future-computers-and-sensors/6683/

I do not, and likely will not, ever understand this particular type of technology, but I think silicon is amazing. Here it’s an integral part of our electronics infrastructure—you gotta appreciate that—then there are those who appreciate what it does as breast implants. I like it in some of my cookware—plan to try more of that cookware in future. This synthetic compound is used as lubricants, sealants, and insulation, just to name a few.

But I have recently come to appreciate a small silicon pad that my physical therapist has had me wear on my palm, covering my Dupuytren’s contracture. It has done more, in just a couple of weeks, in easing and softening the scar tissue/fiber that is growing rampant in my hand than months of other treatments that do help but take ... well, months and more. PT Man tells me it is preventing the scar tissue from forming.






This is medical grade silicon in sheets. It looks like a piece of moleskin. You cut a piece the size that you need (mine is about 1x2 inches) and place the sticky side down on your palm, covering the area affected by Dupuytren’s. I’m supposed to keep it on basically 24 hours a day, except in shower or when hand washing. It’s also cleanable by swishing in warm, soapy water for a few seconds. Easily. It’s not sticky when wet, but the sticky side is back almost immediately when drying. It's cool.

This condition I have in my palm can be quite fierce and quick. I had a three-week holiday over Christmas, before I knew of the silicon pad. Being unable to take my hand waxer along, I basically kept the hand moisturized and warm, but didn’t do anything else to it. That was a mistake; by the time I returned home, the knot and cord reformed, that quickly. My miracle guy, PT Man (he was brilliant with my frozen shoulder in a way my former PT people could not be) knew I needed to make up the lost ground quickly, and surprised me once again with this tiny silicone patch that works without causing agonizing pain.


Before


After


I don’t know how or why this innocuous-looking pad works. I just know that it does. Kind of like the way I know that radio works, and anything else electronic. I don’t really understand it, but understanding is not always necessary.


This is why I love science and science people: Look at what we can do with silicon!

11:11:11—Hi, Dad!

I think about my dad a lot. He died at the too-young age of 55. I was 27 and I look at my daughters now, 34 and 28, and wish that I was at least half as wise when I was their ages so I could have talked so much more with my dad.

My dad was an interesting guy and he was interested in a lot of things. I am interested in many of those same things only I didn’t realize it in time. I regret that I didn’t talk to him about them. I was too wrapped up in my own life, married with children, too separate from my parents.

He would clear off the coffee table and put a pencil in the middle and stare at it for the longest time, trying to move it with his mind. I think about that and realize that we share the same curiosity for things like the power of our minds, physics—string theory, parallel or alternate universes, the great unknown.

I have a book, written by a friend/coworker of his, called “The Power of the Subconscious Mind.” I met this man when I was 12 and he signed the book for me. My dad really hoped it would spark something in me, I think. Back then I was unsparkable. But I kept that book and thought about that meeting every time I looked at it. Have picked it up several times and read some of it, and expect to try again. I normally don’t read self-help books, especially all the way through, and this has been no exception, but I keep it.

The older I get, the more I think about the small things I remember about my dad, and see that I missed so much of what made him into the kind person he was. And kind he was. He was always ready to give someone a helping hand. He had many talents but kindness coated them all.

And little kids loved “Uncle Lee.” He would teach them to play cards, all kinds of games and tricks, and could relate instructions in a way that kids could understand. He made them laugh; they liked his attention.

My dad was a tinkerer and a fixer. He fixed small appliances, going “down cellar” where he had a workshop. People brought him toasters that stopped working and he would fix them, and not charge them for it. He would laugh, saying that most of those toasters just needed a good cleaning.

He also built electronics, such as his prized reel-to-reel tape recorder. He bought kits from Heathkit (see http://www.heathkit-museum.com/hvmhifi.shtml for their electronics museum). He was good at that stuff and I think he might have been happier working in that field. Not that he was unhappy. I think my dad was pretty content with his life, working in the city, coming home for supper every night, puttering around the house and yard on the weekends. He liked being home, oiling the things that squeaked, taking care of his tools, repairing what he could.

My dad also liked dressing well for work; one of my jobs was polishing his shoes every Sunday night—he had two pair—and he wore suits to work, carrying his jacket carefully so as not to wrinkle it. In winter he would carry a car coat. He’d rarely actually wear it but he carried it with him just in case of emergency.

Although my dad was a homebody, he was always welcome at any party or gathering. He always had a smile and joke and liked people to be at ease. One of his favorite jokes was an insurance joke (he was in the business), a bumper sticker that read: Have You Hugged Your Actuary Today? Cracked him up!

He was an anglophile and while I knew we liked the same things, same kind of comedy—Laugh-In (it had a lot of British humor in it and we loved Judy Carne’s accent) and The Two Ronnies—I was older before I put a name to it. I was always fascinated with England and the rest of the U.K. and Ireland but just recently realized I got it from him. I should have known because we would watch Laugh-In or The Two Ronnies together, laughing so hard, we couldn’t speak although we tried to. He also loved Benny Hill and a good, raunchy joke!

Things that annoyed me about him when I was a teen are the things I remember with such fondness now. There were three or four songs off the Top 40 pop charts that my dad really enjoyed. He recorded “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown” on his beloved reel-to-reel and thought it hilarious to blast it at 6 a.m. on a Sunday morning so his kids wouldn’t get to sleep in.

Another way he’d occasionally wake me up was he’d tiptoe upstairs to my door, turn the knob quietly with one hand, then he’d pound the door open with his other. I’d lurch up in bed, royally pissed off, but I couldn’t say a word, just glare while he laughed and told me it was time to get up. If I let loose my anger, then I was in for it. If only my eyes were lasers … now this is a favorite story of my growing up.

His other favorite songs included “Mrs. Robinson”—I have theories about why he liked it—and “American Pie.” He loved that song because it rhymed and he knew all the words after the first time he heard it, so he said. Whenever I hear those songs on the radio, it’s like my dad is saying, “Hi, Daughter.”

Speaking of rhymes, I get my fondness for ditties from my dad. He would write little rhyming poems every now and then; I’m not quite sure of the extent of them. But I have just one of the ones he wrote me still. I treasure it as it’s in his handwriting, too. I had it laminated a long time ago as the paper was decaying.

My dad was a woodworker as well. He taught himself to build things, from stuff he built when he was a young boy to the year everybody got round pedestal end tables for Christmas. “Down cellar” was his ’60s version of today’s man cave. And he was very proud when he added a lathe to his workshop. He built the table it was attached to out of 2x6s or 2x4s (I bet my brothers know what it was built from.)

There’s also a story I was told and have repeated that he built a digital watch, or clock, when he was very young, years before any of that stuff showed up in stores. I don’t know who told it to me and I even imagined that he was sad or wry that he didn’t have the help or resources to patent this or any of his other ideas. I think that because I have had a couple of great ideas in the past, never believed in them enough to do anything with them, only to see one come to pass years later. I also like to think my dad thought similarly to me, that if he had one great idea, he could have another.

My dad at one point bought or built a digital clock that showed hours:mins:seconds and it would tickle him to death if he could see it when it turned to 11:11:11. Every now and then, he would tune The Grundig radio in the office (my brother’s old room) to Greenwich, England, and turn the volume up really high so he could hear the ticking or gonging (funny I can't remember which, although I think there was also a voice) from anywhere in the house. He would make sure all the clocks were set as precisely as possible. He was so tickled by that. I loved that about him.

But my favorite story about my dad happened on what I believe might have been his very last birthday. It was a beautiful summer day. At one point, I’m sure he was on his lounge chair in the driveway, his iced tea and an ashtray next to him, watching the grass grow. My dad liked to read, detective novels—go figure—and when he needed another to read, he’d go to this newspaper/magazine/bookstore place at the TriTown Mall the next town over (it was open on Sunday mornings when nothing else was, which he liked).

So he decides to take off for the place, only this time he decides to take the highway instead of the back roads. He’s tooling along when a car pulls up alongside him and stays steady. He looks over to see who’s there, and lo and behold, a young woman leans out and pulls up her shirt and flashes him.

As I write this, I realize now that it was amazing my dad didn’t get into a wreck. He was so excited and just couldn’t believe it was anything short of a setup by his friends, as if they knew he’d be on that road at that moment. He told that story over and over for weeks, months. His all-time favorite story, by far. I loved that about him, too.

You’re Giving Me A Wah-Wah

Why do watering bans make little sense?

We have a watering ban in our county. I’d be willing to bet if you have a watering ban, it makes at least little to no sense.

Ours is such that between the hours 6 p.m. and 8 a.m. we are allowed to water on our day. If our house number ends in 0 or 1, we get to water on Mondays, 2-3 waters on Tuesdays and so on.

Nobody gets to water on the weekends. How does that make sense?

The timing of the ban, 6 p.m. to 8 a.m., is supposed to eliminate water evaporating from the sun in the heat of the day. In Florida, it may be a good idea from May until September, but I submit that October through April, people need to be able to water during daylight.

Specifically for those who have jobs and those who don’t.

If there truly is a water shortage, then why aren’t they choosing a number of gallons per person or per household and turning our water off when we’ve reached our monthly limit? That’s what I would expect if I were worried about a water shortage.

But I believe there isn’t, as referenced by a recent SmartPlanet interview with Susan Leal, former general manager of San Fran’s Public Utilities Commission, where she coauthored a book with Harvard professor Peter Rogers. Leal said at both the beginning and the end of the article, “There has been the same amount of water on the Earth since the beginning of time.” She said it twice, ostensibly to make her point that there is an increasing amount of people on Earth so there are more of us to use up this resource.

I say she involuntarily made my point: that the amount of water hasn’t been impacted by people; that it, in fact, evaporates and forms clouds and precipitates, replenishing itself.

I say:

… rainy areas becoming drier and drier areas becoming wetter is nature keeping things in balance, not human-inspired global warming.

… today’s recycling is not the end all and be all of saving the planet.

… going green and slapping on bumper stickers, or buying carbon credits, is not doing what you think it’s doing. It might not be making you a saver of the planet or even of your own life.

… things need to be investigated further; reading something in print or online does not make it real: You need to find reliable sources, ones that share your opinions and ones that challenge your opinions.

Further reading:
http://www.smartplanet.com/business/blog/smart-takes/why-were-running-out-of-water/11164/