Tuesday morning I woke up to the first snow, just in time to go to work in it. There was about an inch of snow and everyone drove in a crawl. It was pretty scarey actually. I have to sit in the median to make a left turn into a side street to work and even on a regular day, oncoming traffic tends to veer into the median and want to side-swipe me. I don't know if drivers are still half asleep or if this is some kind of sport, but it is even more terrifying when oncoming traffic cannot see the lanes.
The snow melted by Tuesday afternoon and then we had a heat wave with rain. Last night I left work and there was a long ominous swirl of clouds flying in from the west, wish I could have taken a picture, and I just made it home ahead of the pounding thunder, lightning, and hail. I love the weather here, but I will be in So Cal this week and it is hard for me to comprehend that the low temperature there will be ten degrees warmer than the high temperature here. I'm dreaming about sitting on a sunny patio in a t-shirt.
Mary Jane's farm sent me a coupon for a free issue, how did they know?
The Mayan Calendar countdown started this month, the countdown to December 21, today's long count is 12.19.19.0.4 and we countdown to 13.0.0.0.0. Interesting that 13 is a hugely symbolic number. Here are some of the symbolic meanings of the number 13, from ridingthebeast.com,
- Number that cleans and purifies.
- The number 13 brings the test, the suffering and the death. It symbolizes the death to the matter or to oneself and the birth to the spirit: the passage on a higher level of existence.
- For the superstitious, this number brings the bad luck or the misfortune.
- For the cabalist, the number 13 is the meaning of the Snake, the dragon, Satan and the murderer. But it is also for Christians the representative number of the Virgin Mary, she whose mission is to crush the head of Satan.
- Number in relation with the cross and also to the family, since by reduction we obtain four: 1 + 3 = 4.
- It is the element of too, that which makes pass from a cycle to another with what this change implies of anxieties by the arrival of a new unknown cycle.
- Represents the eternal love illustrated by Jacob and his twelve son, Jesus-Christ and his twelve apostles.
-If we represent 12 under the form of the Zodiac, 13=12+1 is the number of the eternal return. The 13th hour is also the first, just like the 25th or the 37th.
I seem to be feeling a bit aimless. It is time for my 2011 inventory and it seems like after a great deal of activity in 2010, 2011 was about getting and keeping a job. If my journey to Idaho is a spiritual journey, 2011 seemed like a year forcing me to slow down and look at what that means to me.
I love it that I have nice neighbors to house-watch and feed cats. They are bowling tonight down the street for New Years Eve Cosmic bowling, which sounds pretty fun, and even better that they can walk there and back. Boise drivers may have a good reputation, but they were all driving like they were drunk already at one this afternoon.
A better recap of 2011 and a more focused 2012 when I get back.
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Merry Christmas!
This holiday was much harder than last year. I was glad I only worked half a day on Friday. Payroll kept me busy until noon, but otherwise I was having a really hard time and was glad to leave at noon and keep my sadness to myself.
Last night I went to a Christmas service at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist. I am not Catholic and have no desire to be, but I wanted to sit in the middle of the spirit of Christmas. I had to make myself go. I thought going by myself might make me feel worse. They started with "O Come All Ye Faithful" and I started crying. Despite all the ritual that I do not understand and all of the sit, stand, kneel, the spirit really was in that church and I could feel it. The inside is also beautiful, kind of a cathedral art deco.
Here is a link for more photos of St. John's,
http://www.flickr.com/photos/livingstudios/4223163739/lightbox/
My theme for Christmas presents for my family this year was "made in Idaho". I bought Mom this nativity,
The white sheep is attached to Mary and Joseph, but I got a grey one, too, because it matched Joseph's beard. It was difficult to find a nativity, even here in Idaho, but I thought this one was super. That is real sheep wool on the sheep and making the beard, from the artist's neighbors sheep ranch. I met the artist at the Christmas show in Kuna. She sold out of her nativity by the time I met her, but I called her and she came over with a bunch for me to choose from a few weeks later. She is another artist that used to do something else not at all creative and it was fun to meet her. I confess it was difficult not to buy myself a nativity and a few sheep.
This evening I am going to Mary Kay's for dinner and I decided to make something different than the usual apple pie, a cranberry kuchen,
It sure came out pretty, just like the picture, but there is no way for me to taste it and make sure it does not suck before I take it to dinner without ruining the way it looks with a spoonful out of the top.
The recipe calls for fresh orange juice and grated orange rind. Mom sent oranges, and grapefruit and clementines, for Christmas and I was supposed to save an orange for this recipe, but I forgot and did not realize I ate all of the oranges until this morning. I walked over to Jackson's, since I know the grocery stores are reverently closed today, and bought a newspaper and looked for an orange. No oranges at Jackson's. Nothing like a walk on a 20 degree morning to make your skin tingle and the house feel really warm. Rather than hunt all around this morning for an orange, I used orange juice and no rind. I did not know that cranberries pop when you cook them, but they were popping away as I cooked the cranberries in the orange juice and sugar.
My boss lives on a ranch in Parma, which is close to the border with Oregon and last week she was late to work because there were horses on the freeway. I guess the sheriff is not equipped to rope horses, even here in Idaho, but they do carry phone numbers of the local ranchers. My boss's husband gets a call on a regular basis to come help rope loose horses and bring some hay to lure them with while you are at it. These are horses loose off someone's ranch, not often wild ones. I guess being late to work due to horses on the freeway is a reasonable excuse in Idaho.
What is the spirit of Christmas? I know I felt it in that cathedral. It was like feeling full of something good, some good feeling inside that had no real reason. I thought of the people that I miss and wished them the same good feeling. Merry Christmas!
Time for a nap and the Christmas movie marathon.
Last night I went to a Christmas service at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist. I am not Catholic and have no desire to be, but I wanted to sit in the middle of the spirit of Christmas. I had to make myself go. I thought going by myself might make me feel worse. They started with "O Come All Ye Faithful" and I started crying. Despite all the ritual that I do not understand and all of the sit, stand, kneel, the spirit really was in that church and I could feel it. The inside is also beautiful, kind of a cathedral art deco.
Here is a link for more photos of St. John's,
http://www.flickr.com/photos/livingstudios/4223163739/lightbox/
My theme for Christmas presents for my family this year was "made in Idaho". I bought Mom this nativity,
The white sheep is attached to Mary and Joseph, but I got a grey one, too, because it matched Joseph's beard. It was difficult to find a nativity, even here in Idaho, but I thought this one was super. That is real sheep wool on the sheep and making the beard, from the artist's neighbors sheep ranch. I met the artist at the Christmas show in Kuna. She sold out of her nativity by the time I met her, but I called her and she came over with a bunch for me to choose from a few weeks later. She is another artist that used to do something else not at all creative and it was fun to meet her. I confess it was difficult not to buy myself a nativity and a few sheep.
This evening I am going to Mary Kay's for dinner and I decided to make something different than the usual apple pie, a cranberry kuchen,
It sure came out pretty, just like the picture, but there is no way for me to taste it and make sure it does not suck before I take it to dinner without ruining the way it looks with a spoonful out of the top.
The recipe calls for fresh orange juice and grated orange rind. Mom sent oranges, and grapefruit and clementines, for Christmas and I was supposed to save an orange for this recipe, but I forgot and did not realize I ate all of the oranges until this morning. I walked over to Jackson's, since I know the grocery stores are reverently closed today, and bought a newspaper and looked for an orange. No oranges at Jackson's. Nothing like a walk on a 20 degree morning to make your skin tingle and the house feel really warm. Rather than hunt all around this morning for an orange, I used orange juice and no rind. I did not know that cranberries pop when you cook them, but they were popping away as I cooked the cranberries in the orange juice and sugar.
My boss lives on a ranch in Parma, which is close to the border with Oregon and last week she was late to work because there were horses on the freeway. I guess the sheriff is not equipped to rope horses, even here in Idaho, but they do carry phone numbers of the local ranchers. My boss's husband gets a call on a regular basis to come help rope loose horses and bring some hay to lure them with while you are at it. These are horses loose off someone's ranch, not often wild ones. I guess being late to work due to horses on the freeway is a reasonable excuse in Idaho.
What is the spirit of Christmas? I know I felt it in that cathedral. It was like feeling full of something good, some good feeling inside that had no real reason. I thought of the people that I miss and wished them the same good feeling. Merry Christmas!
Time for a nap and the Christmas movie marathon.
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Christmas Morning
At work this morning was like Christmas morning. We had the food spread, like we do every Tuesday and Thursday, and I arrived at work to presents. The spinning top endeared herself by buying me a lint brush and a book. Don't think a lint brush is endearing? It is if you said that you wanted one and couldn't find one, you know those old fashioned kind with the big oval brush part that is usually red and a wood handle? She gave me one just like that, except that it has a brush on both sides! The book is "urban pantry, Tips and Recipes for a Thrifty, Sustainable & Seasonal Kitchen." You can call it sustainable and seasonal, I call it preparedness, but I was surprised at her good choice on something I would like. (It is the same concept as the lint brush, one that really works and lasts forever, or an excuse for one that is really a roll of masking tape on a plastic handle that needs constant replacing?)
The book has recipes that call for quinoa. I've never heard of quinoa (and neither has spell check.) According to the University of Wisconsin Alternative Field Crops Manual,
Quinoa or quinua (Chenopodium quinoa Willd.) is native to the Andes Mountains of Bolivia, Chile, and Peru. This crop (pronounced KEEN-WAH), has been called 41 vegetable caviar" or Inca rice, and has been eaten continuously for 5,000 years by people who live on the mountain plateaus and in the valleys of Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Chile. Quinua means "mother grain" in the Inca language. This crop was a staple food of the Inca people and remains an important food crop for their descendants, the Quechua and Aymara peoples who live in rural regions.
Quinoa is in the same botanical family as sugarbeet, table beet, and spinach, and it is susceptible to many of the same insect and disease problems as these crops. Quinoa is sometimes referred to as a "pseudocereal" because it is a broadleaf non-legume that is grown for grain unlike most cereal grains which are grassy plants. It is similar in this respect to the pseudocereals buckwheat and amaranth.
Quinoa is a highly nutritious food. The nutritional quality of this crop has been compared to that of dried whole milk by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. The protein quality and quantity in quinoa seed is often superior to those of more common cereal grains. Quinoa is higher in lysine than wheat, and the amino acid content of quinoa seed is considered well-balanced for human and animal nutrition, similar to that of casein.
In the recipes, quinoa seems be used like rice.
For the food spread, I brought my poor-man's truffles. I call them poor-man's because they are really easy, except for all that rolling, 36 truffles in a batch, and they do not have that extra coating of chocolate around the outside. They are more like just eating the soft center, rolled in unsweetened cocoa. This time, I tried to roll them in toasted coconut, but it wouldn't stick. I think you need the lighter, thinner chocolate on the outside to achieve truffles rolled in coconut, so I just went with the cocoa. It was a hit anyway.
My boss brought a smoked turkey and someone made monkey bread like my Mom makes, the pull apart kind where you roll the balls in cinnamon and walnuts and then stack them in a Bundt pan and pour melted butter and Karo syrup on them and bake until the bread rises and everything gets all sticky. I have that recipe, where is it? The bread at work tasted almost as good as Mom's.
I brought gifts for my two co-workers yesterday because I was bringing the truffles today and went to work this morning in a pretty low holiday mood. All of the presents and food this morning really helped, especially the thoughtfulness of the spinning top.
The used to be pregnant girl has been wound up herself the last week or two. We have a joke about how she is always wound up on Friday afternoons and last week she revealed she bought an espresso machine. She's been drinking espresso every morning and evening. Oh, I said, that's why you've been like Friday afternoon all week! She has a look that is half sheepish and half scowl and that is the look I got. You can imagine what holiday chocolate on top of all of the espresso is doing.
Regardless of all the presents and treats, the work week is still crawling by, it's only Tuesday.
The book has recipes that call for quinoa. I've never heard of quinoa (and neither has spell check.) According to the University of Wisconsin Alternative Field Crops Manual,
Quinoa or quinua (Chenopodium quinoa Willd.) is native to the Andes Mountains of Bolivia, Chile, and Peru. This crop (pronounced KEEN-WAH), has been called 41 vegetable caviar" or Inca rice, and has been eaten continuously for 5,000 years by people who live on the mountain plateaus and in the valleys of Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Chile. Quinua means "mother grain" in the Inca language. This crop was a staple food of the Inca people and remains an important food crop for their descendants, the Quechua and Aymara peoples who live in rural regions.
Quinoa is in the same botanical family as sugarbeet, table beet, and spinach, and it is susceptible to many of the same insect and disease problems as these crops. Quinoa is sometimes referred to as a "pseudocereal" because it is a broadleaf non-legume that is grown for grain unlike most cereal grains which are grassy plants. It is similar in this respect to the pseudocereals buckwheat and amaranth.
Quinoa is a highly nutritious food. The nutritional quality of this crop has been compared to that of dried whole milk by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. The protein quality and quantity in quinoa seed is often superior to those of more common cereal grains. Quinoa is higher in lysine than wheat, and the amino acid content of quinoa seed is considered well-balanced for human and animal nutrition, similar to that of casein.
In the recipes, quinoa seems be used like rice.
For the food spread, I brought my poor-man's truffles. I call them poor-man's because they are really easy, except for all that rolling, 36 truffles in a batch, and they do not have that extra coating of chocolate around the outside. They are more like just eating the soft center, rolled in unsweetened cocoa. This time, I tried to roll them in toasted coconut, but it wouldn't stick. I think you need the lighter, thinner chocolate on the outside to achieve truffles rolled in coconut, so I just went with the cocoa. It was a hit anyway.
My boss brought a smoked turkey and someone made monkey bread like my Mom makes, the pull apart kind where you roll the balls in cinnamon and walnuts and then stack them in a Bundt pan and pour melted butter and Karo syrup on them and bake until the bread rises and everything gets all sticky. I have that recipe, where is it? The bread at work tasted almost as good as Mom's.
I brought gifts for my two co-workers yesterday because I was bringing the truffles today and went to work this morning in a pretty low holiday mood. All of the presents and food this morning really helped, especially the thoughtfulness of the spinning top.
The used to be pregnant girl has been wound up herself the last week or two. We have a joke about how she is always wound up on Friday afternoons and last week she revealed she bought an espresso machine. She's been drinking espresso every morning and evening. Oh, I said, that's why you've been like Friday afternoon all week! She has a look that is half sheepish and half scowl and that is the look I got. You can imagine what holiday chocolate on top of all of the espresso is doing.
Regardless of all the presents and treats, the work week is still crawling by, it's only Tuesday.
Friday, December 16, 2011
Idaho is Tough on your Hands
Idaho is tough on your hands. Temperatures were mostly in the 20's for a week and it was dry, dry, dry. Winter clothes, like the wool and the cashmere, require hand washing, or dry cleaning that I can't afford, so last weekend I caught up on all the hand washing. There were sweaters hanging all over the house and after washing a few my hands were red and cracked. A few paper cuts and an accidental stabbing with the mat knife and my poor hands were a wreck.
A woman at work told me stories of cars in minus 20 degree weather. This was somewhere in Nevada, her Honda's tires froze to the driveway and the car would not move and the T-Bird just plain froze to itself and the doors would not open. Then they bought a full size four wheel drive truck and left the window cracked open. That worked.
Another woman at work has a '74 Duster. It's a muscle car in the original rusty red with white racing stripes down the sides. My brother inherited my grandmother's Duster in 1981. It had to have been at least a few years old and not only was it a grandma car, it was rusting out on the underside from driving in the snow in Indiana. It is amazing to me how this car went from a muscle car to a grandma car in just a few years. My brother hated that car and still holds it against me like I got something better, but I paid for half of my '76 Mustang II, that's another car that completely deteriorated during the 70's, from classic to junk.
My second attempt at a Christmas tree in Idaho is not much better than last year's. I had trouble keeping the blue spruce in it's pot alive during September and October, then it perked up for November when it got cold, now I have it decorated on my front porch, but the dirt in the pot is frozen so it is hard to water and some of the branches are curling. I figured I could not bring it inside, it is too dry, so I just put lights on it and a few unbreakable not-worth-stealing ornaments. It might make it to Christmas, but then I don't know what I am going to do with it. It was still cheaper than buying a living tree, the small Charlie Brown trees at Fred Meyer were $20, as much as I paid for the spruce. I never put up the Christmas lights, I missed Thanksgiving weekend when it was warm enough, but since then it has been too darn cold.
My pants came from LL Bean. Imagine trying on pants that have been sitting in a plastic bag on your 20 degree porch all day. Brrrr. The lined running pants were frosty to put on, but they warmed right up when I got them on. They were too long and had a rubber band around the inside hem, which must be to keep them from ridding up while you are running in the cold, but I wasn't going to have that problem, since they were three inches too long already. Three extra inches and rubber was going to be too much to bunch around my ankles. Too bad, they were really warm.
I can shave in the shower, but I tried standing naked in the bathroom with hair removal cream in the cold waiting the required 5 minutes. That was a cold, long five minutes. I think farm girls are excused from hair removal for winter.
The cats continue to be confused by the weather. Last year it was white out, it looked wrong and they would not go out. Now it looks alright, but they go out and come right back inside. An hour later they think maybe something is different, hey the sun is out and it is green, and try again. I moved the table back under the front window to deflect the heat from the floor vent underneath into the room. This makes that table pretty warm and I usually catch Spit sitting there looking for her boyfriend, Pierre. That is when Cruiser is not using it to stare down Pierre, who now when he shows up is terrorizing Cruiser from the front window.
Since Thanksgiving, everyone has been driving like idiots. What is it about the holidays and driving? It is bad everywhere, like some kind of universal truth. First you have the ones that must not drive at all during the entire year, but get out to do some Christmas shopping, now we have all those angry drivers in a hurry. I drove to Fed-Ex near the mall after work and followed this guy in a truck almost the whole way. Twice while we were waiting for a light to change, he opened his door to spit on the road. What is it that compels a man to need to spit right now, can't wait? I have not seen that in a long time. I left work early the day before to go to the post office and missed an accident right outside my work. It was a girl on a cell phone, pulled out making a left turn and an oncoming van just missed her, but the car that the girl on a cell phone could not see, because her view was blocked by the van, did.
Maybe it was that bright full moon, or maybe holiday tension, or maybe holidays with no snow, but everyone at work was in a crabby mood this week. The office Christmas lunch was Tuesday and I did not go. I don't really like those things when they are outside of the office. I heard the mood was bad, but the food was really good. They brought some food back in Styrofoam containers, but when I went to check them out, someone was sampling a bit from each container, they were different foods, with their fingers. Standing in the way, just a bit from each one. I wasn't hungry anyway.
The used to be pregnant girl at work gave me one of her extra converter boxes and last night I bought an HD antenna. I now have local TV in high definition and I am thrilled that it is free! I looked at HD TVs while I was at Best Buy and I'm thinking no one needs a big screen anymore, the picture is so clear. A guy at work was watching a movie on his phone and I asked him how he could even see anything on such a small screen and he showed me the picture. It was pretty amazing how much I could see in a 2 inch by 3 inch screen. I am now dreaming about a new 32 inch HD TV, not so much because of the picture, but because of the size. My TV today seems like more and more of a monstrosity taking up half of the room. Sometimes that TV feels like a giant symbol of excess from the days when I used to have money.
Yesterday I drove home from work and it was a toasty 39 degrees. Believe me, 39 feels warm after a week in the 20s. Now we are looking at a week with highs in the low 40s, but still no snow in sight.
A woman at work told me stories of cars in minus 20 degree weather. This was somewhere in Nevada, her Honda's tires froze to the driveway and the car would not move and the T-Bird just plain froze to itself and the doors would not open. Then they bought a full size four wheel drive truck and left the window cracked open. That worked.
Another woman at work has a '74 Duster. It's a muscle car in the original rusty red with white racing stripes down the sides. My brother inherited my grandmother's Duster in 1981. It had to have been at least a few years old and not only was it a grandma car, it was rusting out on the underside from driving in the snow in Indiana. It is amazing to me how this car went from a muscle car to a grandma car in just a few years. My brother hated that car and still holds it against me like I got something better, but I paid for half of my '76 Mustang II, that's another car that completely deteriorated during the 70's, from classic to junk.
My second attempt at a Christmas tree in Idaho is not much better than last year's. I had trouble keeping the blue spruce in it's pot alive during September and October, then it perked up for November when it got cold, now I have it decorated on my front porch, but the dirt in the pot is frozen so it is hard to water and some of the branches are curling. I figured I could not bring it inside, it is too dry, so I just put lights on it and a few unbreakable not-worth-stealing ornaments. It might make it to Christmas, but then I don't know what I am going to do with it. It was still cheaper than buying a living tree, the small Charlie Brown trees at Fred Meyer were $20, as much as I paid for the spruce. I never put up the Christmas lights, I missed Thanksgiving weekend when it was warm enough, but since then it has been too darn cold.
My pants came from LL Bean. Imagine trying on pants that have been sitting in a plastic bag on your 20 degree porch all day. Brrrr. The lined running pants were frosty to put on, but they warmed right up when I got them on. They were too long and had a rubber band around the inside hem, which must be to keep them from ridding up while you are running in the cold, but I wasn't going to have that problem, since they were three inches too long already. Three extra inches and rubber was going to be too much to bunch around my ankles. Too bad, they were really warm.
I can shave in the shower, but I tried standing naked in the bathroom with hair removal cream in the cold waiting the required 5 minutes. That was a cold, long five minutes. I think farm girls are excused from hair removal for winter.
The cats continue to be confused by the weather. Last year it was white out, it looked wrong and they would not go out. Now it looks alright, but they go out and come right back inside. An hour later they think maybe something is different, hey the sun is out and it is green, and try again. I moved the table back under the front window to deflect the heat from the floor vent underneath into the room. This makes that table pretty warm and I usually catch Spit sitting there looking for her boyfriend, Pierre. That is when Cruiser is not using it to stare down Pierre, who now when he shows up is terrorizing Cruiser from the front window.
Since Thanksgiving, everyone has been driving like idiots. What is it about the holidays and driving? It is bad everywhere, like some kind of universal truth. First you have the ones that must not drive at all during the entire year, but get out to do some Christmas shopping, now we have all those angry drivers in a hurry. I drove to Fed-Ex near the mall after work and followed this guy in a truck almost the whole way. Twice while we were waiting for a light to change, he opened his door to spit on the road. What is it that compels a man to need to spit right now, can't wait? I have not seen that in a long time. I left work early the day before to go to the post office and missed an accident right outside my work. It was a girl on a cell phone, pulled out making a left turn and an oncoming van just missed her, but the car that the girl on a cell phone could not see, because her view was blocked by the van, did.
Maybe it was that bright full moon, or maybe holiday tension, or maybe holidays with no snow, but everyone at work was in a crabby mood this week. The office Christmas lunch was Tuesday and I did not go. I don't really like those things when they are outside of the office. I heard the mood was bad, but the food was really good. They brought some food back in Styrofoam containers, but when I went to check them out, someone was sampling a bit from each container, they were different foods, with their fingers. Standing in the way, just a bit from each one. I wasn't hungry anyway.
The used to be pregnant girl at work gave me one of her extra converter boxes and last night I bought an HD antenna. I now have local TV in high definition and I am thrilled that it is free! I looked at HD TVs while I was at Best Buy and I'm thinking no one needs a big screen anymore, the picture is so clear. A guy at work was watching a movie on his phone and I asked him how he could even see anything on such a small screen and he showed me the picture. It was pretty amazing how much I could see in a 2 inch by 3 inch screen. I am now dreaming about a new 32 inch HD TV, not so much because of the picture, but because of the size. My TV today seems like more and more of a monstrosity taking up half of the room. Sometimes that TV feels like a giant symbol of excess from the days when I used to have money.
Yesterday I drove home from work and it was a toasty 39 degrees. Believe me, 39 feels warm after a week in the 20s. Now we are looking at a week with highs in the low 40s, but still no snow in sight.
Sunday, December 11, 2011
It's Cold!
One thing I thought I could count on is that the weather in Boise always changes. Last weekend I checked the weather and it was predicted to be the same all week, lows around 20 degrees, highs in the 30's, and sunny. That is exactly what it has been, the same cold every day. Monday morning the frost was so thick on the grass that everyone's lawn was white. I don't remember it being this cold last year, but then I did not have to go out before 8 am. By Monday night I was already tired of being cold and ordered myself some LL Bean lined leggings for running in the cold weather. One commenter said they ran outside when it was 28 degrees and they were still warm. I thought those were the pants for me.
Today I treated myself to a carwash, the kind where someone else does it. I usually wash my own car, but I don't know how you do that when it is 30 degrees. The car wash is more expensive here in Boise, probably for the same reason dry cleaning is more expensive, more expensive labor. Almost everyone in the car wash was white, and they did not do as good of a job for $30 as they do in So Cal for $15. I don't care that much about my car being clean, but it did need a wax for winter.
At work every Tuesday and Thursday in December, people bring food, and last Thursday a few of my co-workers got together and made the office breakfast. Eggs, bacon, sausage, hash browns, and biscuits and gravy. I don't understand biscuits and gravy. They barbequed the bacon and sausage outside on the patio, but I could smell it cooking from my office. The bacon was some of the best I've ever had. To deal with cold weather, you have to eat meat, I crave it here sometimes. Idaho is not a good place to be a vegetarian.
I installed Centurylink internet and phone without a hitch and turned in the Cable One modem and cancelled my service last Thursday. I still had TV on Thursday night, but when I got home on Friday my cable TV was off. I did have one day last week where if someone called me they got a message about my mail box not being set up. The phone service I got came with a voice mail box, which it took me a day to have turned off. I like my answering machine, I like to see that blinking light. Not very modern of me.
Yesterday morning I braved the cold and went out trying to finish my Christmas shopping. I drove past D&B Supply, which someone recommended for jeans, and ended up buying another pair of 501s. I guess their quality control is so bad that you now have to try on a bunch to find the pair that fits and isn't sewn wrong, sizes mean nothing anymore. I could have also bought some cowboy boots, some feed, and a bucket with a built-in warmer, but I didn't. I also found the local market with the raw milk in those glass jars with a deposit and fresh cider. I just bought some cider, but it was nice to know where to get the milk. Then I went to Meridian Meats looking for Elk jerky, but they only had beef. Meridian Meats are local meat packers with their plant right down the street and are only open on Saturdays around the holidays, I bet if you bought their beef you would not be able to eat it from Albertson's anymore.
Yesterday afternoon my friend had a Make Your Own Ornament Christmas tea party. She researched home-made ornaments, printed the instructions, and bought all the materials. It was fun, but seemed like a lot of work for the hostess. I saw someone that I only see at Margo's parties, that was the one who suggested Margo do the Artist's Way. She lives in Sweet, Idaho, which is about an hour away. Margo made her a needlepoint that says Sweet, Home, Sweet. I don't know how you can feel bad living in a town called Sweet, but then I don't know how you can feel bad living in Star, Idaho, or Bliss, Idaho. Lots of happy town names in Idaho, maybe you need it to deal with the cold.
On the topic of preparedness, my friend reminded me of all the uses for vinegar and bleach. I added ammonia, and between those three things, you can clean just about anything, except clothes. This makes me now wonder at the cleaning isle, now filled with products to clean a multitude of specific things. I decided to look for 101 uses for vinegar, bleach, and ammonia, and found some things I did not know.
Vinegar is useful for removing hard water and for cleaning glass, but you can also,
Wash fresh vegetables with a mix of 1 tablespoon white distilled vinegar in 1 1/2 quarts of water.
Kill weeds and grass growing in unwanted places by pouring full-strength white distilled vinegar on them. Especially crevices and cracks of walkways.
Stop ants from congregating and eliminate anthills by pouring in white distilled vinegar.
Kill slugs by spraying them with a mixture of 1 part water and 1 part white distilled vinegar.
Catch moths by using a mixture of 2 parts white distilled vinegar and 1 part molasses. Place the mixture in tin can and hang in a tree.
Keep rabbits from eating your plants. Put cotton balls soaked in white distilled vinegar in small containers with holes near the plants.
My daughter and I used to kill snails by sprinkling salt on them, they turned into foam, I think that seems more fun than vinegar.
Increase the acidity of soil by adding white distilled vinegar to your watering can. Give acid-loving plants like azaleas, rhododendrons, hydrangeas and gardenias a little help.
Preserve cut flowers and liven droopy ones by adding 2 tablespoons white distilled vinegar and 1 teaspoon sugar to a quart of water in a vase.
(From http://solinspirations.com/vinegar.html)
Ammonia can stop mildew just as well as bleach without causing discoloration, and it can also repel moths, keep garbage cans odor-free, and eliminate paint odors. Ammonia is also a great oven cleaner. Simply place a bowl full of ammonia inside your oven overnight and then wipe it clean without effort the next day. Oven racks and pots and pans can be cleaned with ammonia to help them recover their silvery spark, although you may need to rewash kitchen utensils a few items after that just to make sure there are no traces of ammonia left. Ammonia can also be used in the garden to help alkaline flowers such as lilacs grow stronger and faster. By mixing ammonia with water, you have one of most powerful plant foods available for plants that prefer alkaline environments.
(From http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-some-household-uses-of-ammonia.htm)
Baking soda is also a good thing to have around, you can clean with it and bake with it. No one uses Cream of Tartar anymore, it is on the spice isle, but did you know you can make mayonnaise with oil and Cream of Tartar? Cream of Tartar is also the difference between baking soda and baking powder. Add Cream of Tartar to baking soda and you have baking powder.
One modern invention that is just plain better than it's predecessors is laundry detergent. Even when you try to use those more environmentally friendly kind, they just don't get your clothes clean. When I was at my Dad's, he asked me how often he should bleach his whites. I said maybe once a year and he was really surprised. That's because he was using Seventh Generation laundry detergent, a few washings with that and all of your whites are grey.
Sorry, no TV since last Friday and I am already getting nutty. I suppose there is such a thing as too much quiet. Together with the cold weather it is amazingly quiet here. The full moon is super bright and even though I close up the house at night, I left my bedroom blinds open the last few nights so the bright moonlight could shine through. That also means the sky is clear, no snow on it's way.
Today I treated myself to a carwash, the kind where someone else does it. I usually wash my own car, but I don't know how you do that when it is 30 degrees. The car wash is more expensive here in Boise, probably for the same reason dry cleaning is more expensive, more expensive labor. Almost everyone in the car wash was white, and they did not do as good of a job for $30 as they do in So Cal for $15. I don't care that much about my car being clean, but it did need a wax for winter.
At work every Tuesday and Thursday in December, people bring food, and last Thursday a few of my co-workers got together and made the office breakfast. Eggs, bacon, sausage, hash browns, and biscuits and gravy. I don't understand biscuits and gravy. They barbequed the bacon and sausage outside on the patio, but I could smell it cooking from my office. The bacon was some of the best I've ever had. To deal with cold weather, you have to eat meat, I crave it here sometimes. Idaho is not a good place to be a vegetarian.
I installed Centurylink internet and phone without a hitch and turned in the Cable One modem and cancelled my service last Thursday. I still had TV on Thursday night, but when I got home on Friday my cable TV was off. I did have one day last week where if someone called me they got a message about my mail box not being set up. The phone service I got came with a voice mail box, which it took me a day to have turned off. I like my answering machine, I like to see that blinking light. Not very modern of me.
Yesterday morning I braved the cold and went out trying to finish my Christmas shopping. I drove past D&B Supply, which someone recommended for jeans, and ended up buying another pair of 501s. I guess their quality control is so bad that you now have to try on a bunch to find the pair that fits and isn't sewn wrong, sizes mean nothing anymore. I could have also bought some cowboy boots, some feed, and a bucket with a built-in warmer, but I didn't. I also found the local market with the raw milk in those glass jars with a deposit and fresh cider. I just bought some cider, but it was nice to know where to get the milk. Then I went to Meridian Meats looking for Elk jerky, but they only had beef. Meridian Meats are local meat packers with their plant right down the street and are only open on Saturdays around the holidays, I bet if you bought their beef you would not be able to eat it from Albertson's anymore.
Yesterday afternoon my friend had a Make Your Own Ornament Christmas tea party. She researched home-made ornaments, printed the instructions, and bought all the materials. It was fun, but seemed like a lot of work for the hostess. I saw someone that I only see at Margo's parties, that was the one who suggested Margo do the Artist's Way. She lives in Sweet, Idaho, which is about an hour away. Margo made her a needlepoint that says Sweet, Home, Sweet. I don't know how you can feel bad living in a town called Sweet, but then I don't know how you can feel bad living in Star, Idaho, or Bliss, Idaho. Lots of happy town names in Idaho, maybe you need it to deal with the cold.
On the topic of preparedness, my friend reminded me of all the uses for vinegar and bleach. I added ammonia, and between those three things, you can clean just about anything, except clothes. This makes me now wonder at the cleaning isle, now filled with products to clean a multitude of specific things. I decided to look for 101 uses for vinegar, bleach, and ammonia, and found some things I did not know.
Vinegar is useful for removing hard water and for cleaning glass, but you can also,
Wash fresh vegetables with a mix of 1 tablespoon white distilled vinegar in 1 1/2 quarts of water.
Kill weeds and grass growing in unwanted places by pouring full-strength white distilled vinegar on them. Especially crevices and cracks of walkways.
Stop ants from congregating and eliminate anthills by pouring in white distilled vinegar.
Kill slugs by spraying them with a mixture of 1 part water and 1 part white distilled vinegar.
Catch moths by using a mixture of 2 parts white distilled vinegar and 1 part molasses. Place the mixture in tin can and hang in a tree.
Keep rabbits from eating your plants. Put cotton balls soaked in white distilled vinegar in small containers with holes near the plants.
My daughter and I used to kill snails by sprinkling salt on them, they turned into foam, I think that seems more fun than vinegar.
Increase the acidity of soil by adding white distilled vinegar to your watering can. Give acid-loving plants like azaleas, rhododendrons, hydrangeas and gardenias a little help.
Preserve cut flowers and liven droopy ones by adding 2 tablespoons white distilled vinegar and 1 teaspoon sugar to a quart of water in a vase.
(From http://solinspirations.com/vinegar.html)
Ammonia can stop mildew just as well as bleach without causing discoloration, and it can also repel moths, keep garbage cans odor-free, and eliminate paint odors. Ammonia is also a great oven cleaner. Simply place a bowl full of ammonia inside your oven overnight and then wipe it clean without effort the next day. Oven racks and pots and pans can be cleaned with ammonia to help them recover their silvery spark, although you may need to rewash kitchen utensils a few items after that just to make sure there are no traces of ammonia left. Ammonia can also be used in the garden to help alkaline flowers such as lilacs grow stronger and faster. By mixing ammonia with water, you have one of most powerful plant foods available for plants that prefer alkaline environments.
(From http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-some-household-uses-of-ammonia.htm)
Baking soda is also a good thing to have around, you can clean with it and bake with it. No one uses Cream of Tartar anymore, it is on the spice isle, but did you know you can make mayonnaise with oil and Cream of Tartar? Cream of Tartar is also the difference between baking soda and baking powder. Add Cream of Tartar to baking soda and you have baking powder.
One modern invention that is just plain better than it's predecessors is laundry detergent. Even when you try to use those more environmentally friendly kind, they just don't get your clothes clean. When I was at my Dad's, he asked me how often he should bleach his whites. I said maybe once a year and he was really surprised. That's because he was using Seventh Generation laundry detergent, a few washings with that and all of your whites are grey.
Sorry, no TV since last Friday and I am already getting nutty. I suppose there is such a thing as too much quiet. Together with the cold weather it is amazingly quiet here. The full moon is super bright and even though I close up the house at night, I left my bedroom blinds open the last few nights so the bright moonlight could shine through. That also means the sky is clear, no snow on it's way.
Sunday, December 4, 2011
On Capitalism and Cable One Sucks
Last Sunday I went to Macy's to return some 501 jeans. I'm not sure if the jeans I bought were defective or if they are just making them weird now, but they were not the 501s I remember. I don't know what happened to jeans. I got frustrated with jeans 10 years ago and bought some Lucky Brand jeans, which I thought were outrageously priced at the time, now they are not made well either and they are still outrageously priced.
Anyway, I thought it was safe to go to the mall by the Sunday after Thanksgiving and I was almost the only one on the road at quarter to 10 in the morning and I was the first person in Macy's. Do you know Macy's does not keep dimes? The obviously extra help cashier that waited on me told someone that she opened the register, but there were no dimes and the manager type said they do not keep dimes. Both the cashier and I were baffled. What's wrong with dimes?
After Macy's I went to PetCo and bought a new cat scratcher. I bought one more than a month ago that was on sale, but it was so light that Spit kept pulling it over on herself, so I returned it. I saw another heavier one on sale, so I went back and bought it. Spit is really destroying the stairs and a scratcher became a necessary item. If I had known how hard it would be to find another one, I would have moved the last one I had in So Cal. It took Spit a few days to get over the trauma from the last scratcher that kept falling over on her and start using the new one, but she knows what to use now and is leaving the stairs alone. The scratcher has a round house part in the middle with an opening to climb in and Spit already likes to get inside with her little head poking out, which is pretty cute.
My year is up with Cable One and they jacked up the price of my cable, internet, and phone by $50. I called once and apparently got the owner of Cable One, since she had no supervisor, and I called the local office and was put on hold and no one ever came back, so I am on to internet and phone with Centurylink. I don't know what moron decided that luring people with a cheap price and then jacking it up after a year or two so that they will leave was a way to stay in business.
Since I was about to give up TV, I stayed up and watched the last two episodes of The Walking Dead last Sunday night. The Walking Dead includes some really bad acting and dialog, but I am hooked, and last week they introduced a great moral dilemma and the finale was awesome. If I ever teach an ethics class, I would use the conflict they brought up last week, are there exceptions to, thou shalt not kill? If someone you loved died and came back as a zombie, would you kill them? Would the more moral thing be to kill them, or are they still a human being and it is not up to you to take a life? I won't ruin it for you, but this was the second season and I think it is a super series.
Now that Thanksgiving is over, I am on to my usual hard time with Christmas. I don't have any trouble with Thanksgiving as long as I get to make my apple pie, but Christmas is different and I cannot exactly describe why. This will be Christmas number eight without my daughter, not even a card or a phone call, and it does not get easier. Every Christmas I do not expect to see or hear from her, but at the end of the day every Christmas day there is a moment when I realize that she did not call. I suppose Christmas now makes me think about unanswered prayers.
The defective jeans, unusable cat scratchers, misinformed Occupiers, and mace carrying shoppers made me think about Capitalism lately.
Capitalism is the free exchange of goods and services based on the value to the buyer and the seller. This is not complicated, but hasn't been taught in school since 1980, so most people under 50 confuse Capitalism with greed, materialism, conspicuous consumption, and even cronyism. The latest term, crony capitalism, makes no sense at all. If there is cronyism, there is no free exchange, and therefor, no capitalism. People said the election of Obama was the end of capitalism, but the truth is that capitalism has been dying since the 1930s, with a few death blows from JFK and Johnson. In the US, we have back end communism, where rather than take over business, government allows business to operate and takes as many pieces of it along the way as it can via regulation and taxes.
Levis does what they can to lower their costs so they can sell a pair of jeans and still make a profit and now they make a product that has no value to the buyer. Cable One has not figured out that their product did not go up in value after a year. If the US had capitalism, Solindra would never have existed and all of the incandescent light bulb and furniture manufacturing companies that government regulation drove out of business would still be employing people.
When I was a kid, there was lay away for Christmas. You would use that because what you wanted might be sold out before Christmas and you paid to have the store set it aside for you. Today using lay away would be crazy because the price is probably going to go down between when you lay it away and when you pay it off. Now people kill each other over an after Thanksgiving deal. What happened to the value, the value of the product? Is the reporting a high amount of sales on that day more significant, more valuable, than the product? What is the psychology behind a woman who brings mace to a sale where she may buy something that valuable to her as if it represents her self-esteem? Regardless, the after Thanksgiving sale starting at midnight Thanksgiving night and the mace-carrier are not capitalism, they are result of a complete absence of spirituality, or any sense of purpose or meaning. I have a hard time resisting over-shopping at Christmastime, but that is about trying to avoid feelings and attach my self-esteem to things like a new sweater.
The Occupiers are half paid protesters by Communist groups and other unsavory characters, paid to wail whenever the camera is rolling, the rest are unemployed people with nothing else to do that were educated after 1980. Not one of them appears capable of explaining why they are there or what they are protesting. If they are recent college graduates that cannot get a job, they have a right to be pissed off, but Wall Street did not create their problem and none of them seem to be able to comprehend that concept. Government, by trying to make an education available to everyone, lowered the value of an education, and government offered higher and higher loans so that the buyer would not consider the real value of the education. I bet not one of those Occupiers can define capitalism.
On a scarier note, China is now developing vaccines for the mass market and African children are being immunized at gunpoint. Now you have to check if your shot was made in China, and if someone wants to give me a shot made in China, they will have to shoot me first.
On a brighter note, I now have only one metal filling left and a short haircut for winter. Short hair cut for winter? Isn't that backwards? Too much hair gets messed up in the hat and in the way of the scarf and the coat hood. My replacing metal fillings cannot be considered a free exchange, since there is insurance in the middle, but the dental coverage does increase the value of my job to me. My haircut is a free exchange, though, I probably pay higher than average for Boise, but that is because a good haircut has a higher value to me, and it is also cheaper than I was paying in So Cal.
It is awfully cold here, but still no snow.
Anyway, I thought it was safe to go to the mall by the Sunday after Thanksgiving and I was almost the only one on the road at quarter to 10 in the morning and I was the first person in Macy's. Do you know Macy's does not keep dimes? The obviously extra help cashier that waited on me told someone that she opened the register, but there were no dimes and the manager type said they do not keep dimes. Both the cashier and I were baffled. What's wrong with dimes?
After Macy's I went to PetCo and bought a new cat scratcher. I bought one more than a month ago that was on sale, but it was so light that Spit kept pulling it over on herself, so I returned it. I saw another heavier one on sale, so I went back and bought it. Spit is really destroying the stairs and a scratcher became a necessary item. If I had known how hard it would be to find another one, I would have moved the last one I had in So Cal. It took Spit a few days to get over the trauma from the last scratcher that kept falling over on her and start using the new one, but she knows what to use now and is leaving the stairs alone. The scratcher has a round house part in the middle with an opening to climb in and Spit already likes to get inside with her little head poking out, which is pretty cute.
My year is up with Cable One and they jacked up the price of my cable, internet, and phone by $50. I called once and apparently got the owner of Cable One, since she had no supervisor, and I called the local office and was put on hold and no one ever came back, so I am on to internet and phone with Centurylink. I don't know what moron decided that luring people with a cheap price and then jacking it up after a year or two so that they will leave was a way to stay in business.
Since I was about to give up TV, I stayed up and watched the last two episodes of The Walking Dead last Sunday night. The Walking Dead includes some really bad acting and dialog, but I am hooked, and last week they introduced a great moral dilemma and the finale was awesome. If I ever teach an ethics class, I would use the conflict they brought up last week, are there exceptions to, thou shalt not kill? If someone you loved died and came back as a zombie, would you kill them? Would the more moral thing be to kill them, or are they still a human being and it is not up to you to take a life? I won't ruin it for you, but this was the second season and I think it is a super series.
Now that Thanksgiving is over, I am on to my usual hard time with Christmas. I don't have any trouble with Thanksgiving as long as I get to make my apple pie, but Christmas is different and I cannot exactly describe why. This will be Christmas number eight without my daughter, not even a card or a phone call, and it does not get easier. Every Christmas I do not expect to see or hear from her, but at the end of the day every Christmas day there is a moment when I realize that she did not call. I suppose Christmas now makes me think about unanswered prayers.
The defective jeans, unusable cat scratchers, misinformed Occupiers, and mace carrying shoppers made me think about Capitalism lately.
Capitalism is the free exchange of goods and services based on the value to the buyer and the seller. This is not complicated, but hasn't been taught in school since 1980, so most people under 50 confuse Capitalism with greed, materialism, conspicuous consumption, and even cronyism. The latest term, crony capitalism, makes no sense at all. If there is cronyism, there is no free exchange, and therefor, no capitalism. People said the election of Obama was the end of capitalism, but the truth is that capitalism has been dying since the 1930s, with a few death blows from JFK and Johnson. In the US, we have back end communism, where rather than take over business, government allows business to operate and takes as many pieces of it along the way as it can via regulation and taxes.
Levis does what they can to lower their costs so they can sell a pair of jeans and still make a profit and now they make a product that has no value to the buyer. Cable One has not figured out that their product did not go up in value after a year. If the US had capitalism, Solindra would never have existed and all of the incandescent light bulb and furniture manufacturing companies that government regulation drove out of business would still be employing people.
When I was a kid, there was lay away for Christmas. You would use that because what you wanted might be sold out before Christmas and you paid to have the store set it aside for you. Today using lay away would be crazy because the price is probably going to go down between when you lay it away and when you pay it off. Now people kill each other over an after Thanksgiving deal. What happened to the value, the value of the product? Is the reporting a high amount of sales on that day more significant, more valuable, than the product? What is the psychology behind a woman who brings mace to a sale where she may buy something that valuable to her as if it represents her self-esteem? Regardless, the after Thanksgiving sale starting at midnight Thanksgiving night and the mace-carrier are not capitalism, they are result of a complete absence of spirituality, or any sense of purpose or meaning. I have a hard time resisting over-shopping at Christmastime, but that is about trying to avoid feelings and attach my self-esteem to things like a new sweater.
The Occupiers are half paid protesters by Communist groups and other unsavory characters, paid to wail whenever the camera is rolling, the rest are unemployed people with nothing else to do that were educated after 1980. Not one of them appears capable of explaining why they are there or what they are protesting. If they are recent college graduates that cannot get a job, they have a right to be pissed off, but Wall Street did not create their problem and none of them seem to be able to comprehend that concept. Government, by trying to make an education available to everyone, lowered the value of an education, and government offered higher and higher loans so that the buyer would not consider the real value of the education. I bet not one of those Occupiers can define capitalism.
On a scarier note, China is now developing vaccines for the mass market and African children are being immunized at gunpoint. Now you have to check if your shot was made in China, and if someone wants to give me a shot made in China, they will have to shoot me first.
On a brighter note, I now have only one metal filling left and a short haircut for winter. Short hair cut for winter? Isn't that backwards? Too much hair gets messed up in the hat and in the way of the scarf and the coat hood. My replacing metal fillings cannot be considered a free exchange, since there is insurance in the middle, but the dental coverage does increase the value of my job to me. My haircut is a free exchange, though, I probably pay higher than average for Boise, but that is because a good haircut has a higher value to me, and it is also cheaper than I was paying in So Cal.
It is awfully cold here, but still no snow.
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