Nobody told them they were supposed to be enemies...

Tags: amazing stuff

It's been a challenging day. Started nice -- I slept in, and had a very quiet, pleasant morning. Then we decided that we needed to get trash bags...there is a lot of trash to remove, since I'm clearing out my office, and closets, as my vacation task.

The car had a flat tire.

So all the tedium putting on the temporary tire, and discussion about whether we try to get the tire repaired, or buy a new one, or go ahead and do the thing we were planning to do in a couple months, which is to replace all four tires on the car. We knew that Sears was having a tire sale this weekend, so we decided to drive into town and buy tires. Instead of all the other things we'd planned to do.

Into town we went. Yay, they had tires for a decent price. And it would only take an hour and a half to put them on. And we all of the mall to wander around in while waiting. Only, I hate malls.

But what's that, on the way back to Sears? A Humane Society adoption center? Yeah, you know what's coming....

She's a very lovely, sweet, 8 year old cat. Black. No photos yet because she's currently hiding under the bed. She simply grabbed onto my attention and would not let go. I got her out to make her acquaintance, and even as she was trembling with fear, she nestled into my arms. The more scared she got (by the dogs, by the people), the closer she clung.

I don't know what her name is -- it certainly isn't "Alfie", which was on the tag. She was turned over to the Humane Society over a month ago, taken from a house where a crazy cat lady was keeping 18 cats. She's good with other cats, and so far there have been no fireworks at all. She likes being held, and she's a lap-sitter, which is something I've missed. Our three feral rescues are not lap cats.

I'll have photos at some point, but she's your basic domestic short hair black cat, with golden eyes. Tappan thinks her name might be Olivia, but I'm not sure of that.

I am fascinated by crop circles and frustrated that the media, the politicians, and scientists either ignore or ridicule them.

Like UFOs, science and the government either know absolutely nothing -- criminal incompetence -- or they know exactly what they are and are hiding the truth from us --criminal censorship.

A certain percentage of crop circles are hoaxes; some are man-made without any attempt at hoaxing [art ]; and some of them are made by agencies unknown, certainly not human. Some of the complex circles have appeared in fields within minutes -- for example, a pilot flying over a field saw nothing, flew back a few minutes later and the circle was there. Humans could not have done that in the time frame, at least not without being seen.

Some crop circles show definite changes in the wheat or other crops that can't be attributed to trampling by human feet; sometimes electronic instruments are affected and batteries often die.

It's possible that any particular crop circle could be a hoax. But they aren't all hoaxes and someone or something is trying to communicate with us. Whether it is Gaia, aliens from space, or nonhuman forces that have always been part of Earth, we don't know. What they are trying to communicate, we don't know. It might be a warning that what we are doing to the earth is extremely dangerous, but we don't know.

But we certainly ought to be trying to find out.

I've pushed through to chapter 6. Almost 100 pages in. I've read some of this before, and seen the first hour of the movie, so not in any new territory.

Overall, I find it readable, although not laudable, so far.

I'm not generally one to tell other writers 'show, don't tell' because I do think that some level of 'tell, don't show' is useful. However, the two main complaints that I have so far are SDT complaints.
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My Prayer Today: that I can achieve Satyagraha - to bear what must be borne in order to do what is right. Please, may I have the strength to bear this...

I work pretty damned hard at being strong and smart about all this cancer stuff, but sometimes the horror of it all overtakes me again, flashing by like an S-class Mercedes on the autobahn.

Then all I've got left in my hand is tears.

Oh, well. At least I was in the shower. And it proves I still have a heart.

Tags: cancer, health, personal

This Christmas I gave my niece a netbook^[1] and talked to her about how to care for it and online safety and stuff. What I forgot to mentioned was how to sit while using one. I’d completely forgotten about this post on GottaBeMobile about these 9 bad netbook postures. In fact, I think we were both doing that first one while chilling on the sofa and watching Animaniacs^[2]. I’m a bad example, just like always.

I wish this study came with 9 good postures for using netbooks, as it would be helpful to know.

Notes

1. Just as I did last year. I already told her this one had to last for two years… [↩]
2. did you know that all the episodes are on DVD now? I about died. [↩]

Tags: ergonomics, in general, netbooks

Are the banks open tomorrow? I know FedEx isn't delivering.

This would be the perfect moment for a brilliant and somewhat evil businessman to stage a train renaissance in the US. The somewhat evil comes in because part of the obvious strategy for building support would be to use his influence to make the TSA even more intrusive, ineffectual and annoying.

We're going to try a store run (1 mile each way) this afternoon. Looks like almost all of the city's churches cancelled services today, but by afternoon we might have some melting.

Mailing off a contract.

Finished LOTR last night. Still tired of Sam and Frodo. Angsthobbits bore me.

And so to the next topic: I've finally started reading Twilight. I am going to try to finish it this time. (displacedtexan couldn't.)

Chapter 1:
Um, yeah. Exactly what is so bad about this girl's life?
1) She's got a home, her own room, a doting set of parents.
2) She's healthy, beautiful, has good skin, and is slender--apparently all without working at it.
3) She didn't like her old school, so she has a chance to start fresh at a new one...
4) The kids at school come up and talk to her, invite her to eat lunch with them, and are generally friendly.
5) They neither mock her nor do they ignore her.
6) She got a free truck.
7) She doesn't even have to have a job, apparently.

Why is her life so hard that she feels she has to sit in her truck (who is her only friend) and cry about it?* Is it a case that she doesn't feel accepted? (see # 3)

She makes a point that she doesn't relate to kids her own age. If that's the case, why does she care about these people at all?

::sighs:: I probably don't have the proper brain chemistry to 'get' this book. I can, however, spot sentences that would make the average jane with self-esteem issues think "Oh, I can relate, absolutely! I feel that way all the time!"

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*My husband says here, "You never were a sixteen-year old girl." Me, "Yeah, I was a college sophomore by then." (Sixteen was the year I went from HS senior to college sophomore, and heavens, HS drove me nuts with boredom.)