Somehow Tuesday turned into Thursday without ever stopping over to visit Wednesday...

Damn

Life roars on

Against my better judgement (for what it's worth) my husband has decided that NOW is a good year to start burning oil.  Radiators. Forced hot water.  I would have opted for less radiators, partly because we have the wood stoves, and partly because all my windows have Things In Front of Them. 
You can't have it both ways.

I've been hacking away at the piano remains, and am trying to get him to part with a television we acquired from his mother 12 years ago and have yet to figure out how to use the remote.  He had it on once. It's one of those monstrosities that take two people to lift, and is totally hand-hold free.  Under it is a solid walnut drop leaf table that I have never liked, a

Rambling

part of the process in rearranging too much furniture in a house with corners and windows is trying to make what fits THERE to go into a space over HERE.  And of course the bookcase I dragged down from the back hall doesn't fit so it will go someplace other.  It reminds me of one of those slider puzzles we used to do,  with one blank square and 11 others  that you had to rearrange to make a face, or a pattern, or a sequence of numbers.

this also involves taking up the last of what used to be called 'oilcloth' but is just terribly old (and oh my yes slippery when wet) linoleum, in front of what used to be the kitchen sink.  Under that is a strip of tarpaper and under THAT is a terribly ancient bit of Sunday Boston Globe...

1924. Sunday edition.  One of my favorite parts is the 'advice to wives' about how to keep your man happy.


which I seem to have misplaced. Possibly in a fit of annoyance.

The cartoons in Sunday papers that old are fascinating, and they do cover an entire large newspaper page, one to a side.  Even when I was a kid there was an entire section of Funnies, no ads, just comic strips from Dick Tracy and Prince Valiant (which I never quite understood), and Maggie and Jiggs which were too adult for me, all those posh faces and language.  But there was Gordo, and Little Lulu.  A lot of them were really riffs on vaudeville, like the Katzenjammer kids, one cut above pig bladders and pies in the face, but not by much. 

Dagwood.  Mutt and Jeff.  Dondi, which didn't last long, it got old really fast.  Fritzi Ritz, Sluggo, Nancy.  Terry and the Pirates. 

And in thinking of those old comic pages,  and the Golden Books and all that paraphenalia from a childhood (puzzles, paper dolls, games, cards) I think I miss those more than the people.  I was an only child, and my world was extremely limited for various reasons. So what I remember with a certain nostalgia are the things that I could own, in some way.  Im amazed I never had an imaginary friend.  Probably mother wouldn't have allowed it. Strangers, you know.

damnnnn

Patience, I may have to start a new blog.
I can read, but I cannot answer.
oh that is frustrating...

Am I back?

Just spent the last three hours arguing with my new MalwareBytes program, trying to make it uninstall--it was like trying to unhook an angry cat from the outside of a screen window...Still not sure if it's completely gone. 
It's a dandy program, but it does own you, and when I suggested to it, that I wanted the Icon Removed from the systray it said, No.

When I finally got rid of it, it took out my google account too.  It's like what happens when your sister and her husband come for a few days, you leave them to go shopping, and when you come back they have rearranged all your furniture and tossed out your new carpet.  Sigh.

Malwarebytes does a remarkable job of patrolling the computer, but it just won't let go.  Ev-er. 

This is silly and scary at the same time

It's been nearly 25 years since my last cigarette, and today, while waiting for a Computer Event to happen,  I suddenly had the most God-Awful wave...probably one puff would kill me at this point, but if there had been one in the house I'd have smoked it.

Happened last week, too.  They say that quitting cigarettes is harder than quitting Heroin, and staying off them, too.  It's still acceptible, socially and not illegal, yet, which makes it harder to stay away from them.  And when we quit a pack of cigarettes was about 2 bucks. Now it's at least 7$.  yikes.

Politics as a spectator sport

When I was a kid I had a game played on green baize cloth, a horseracing game; you rolled the dice and advanced your horse or horses around the track, according to whatever showed on the dice.  Not un like what we're seeing now.

As of this moment there are now 22 democratic candidates in the presidential race.  I love it.  Granted the phones will be vibrating off the tables, but it's going to be fun seeing who's left standing.

no, no, I''ll be fine...really... T13

1. pins and needles

2. goosebumps

3. chills and fever

4.  oy, my head

5.  it's just a scratch

6.  I've felt better

7.  under the weather

8.  I have WHAT???

9.  at least I'm not contagious

10.  my mother used to get this every winter

11.  my skin hurts

12.  i can't stop sneezing

13.  you really should see a doctor about that

for more uplifting 13s go here:

Annoying the Annoying

oh it's gonna be a LONG summer...we are now getting our political survey imps, calling every night at supper time. 

I keep thinking, what's the surest way to slow these fellas down? 

Don't hang up the phone. Keep the line open, just put it down and walk away.  It's their dime, not yours, and for every minute you keep that line open, you have spared yet another person from being annoyed. 

We don't get that many landline calls these days; so far this week we've had three Political Surveys, and two  Peter Sellers people wanting me to buy someding to mak my compuder run bedder.    On balance, I'd say we're not missing much.

Connections

I was just over in another venue, reading into past postings,  revisiting older topics, much like revisiting an old neighborhood--and I ran across the posts of an old friend who has long since died--  and suddenly realized how much I missed his voice in my life.  Not, don't misunderstand, in a romantic sense, but just because we connected, the way you sometimes do, in here. 

And for just a moment, there  he was.  I  think all of us have lost 'net friends' and the longer we stay here the more there are that die, move on, or just stop communicating.  You always wonder what happened.  Like someone who says, "I'll try to keep in touch with you, talk to you later, after we get back..." and they never do.

Sometimes they inhabit little spaces in your heart, in your head, and no matter how long it's been, you remember.

Feral Cat video (served with tissues)

I dont usually post YouTube stuff,  but this one does me in every time, it's just charming. 

The season of the Rabbit T13

1. Bugs Bunny

2. Br'er Rabbit (from Joel Chandler Harris's "Song of the South")

3. The White Rabbit (Alice in Wonderland) or, alternatively:  Gracie Slick White Rabbit

4. Watership Down (which was rabbits, all the way)

5. Bunny Hop

6. Roger Rabbit

7. Bunny Rabbit (Captain Kangaroo)

8. Easter Bunny

9. White Rabbit (which you are supposed to say on the first day of each month)

10. The Tortoise and the Hare

11.  Thumper (from "Bambi")

12.  Peter Rabbit

13.  The March Hare

http://newthursday13.blogspot.com/

HarleyMan

Bald and skinny, 80 years old,  there was an energy about him men half his age often lacked; he was trying to get from this place to that, and I was trying to get the store clerk to give him clearer directions, and between us we managed to draw three different maps which the old man cheerfully tucked under his arm.

"I'm gonna get on my Harley and RIDE, baby"-- we both smiled.

He looked at me and winked, "--wanna come? we could have fun, your old man wouldn't know the difference," and he laughed when I said, "maybe next year; you're too young for me".

He winked again, clapped his hand on my shoulder,
and strode out of the store; the clerk said, "never turn your back on that one," and I nodded.

In the parking lot I saw him on his Harley, blue and yellow helmet gleaming, as he waved, waved, and laughed, firmly traveling in the wrong direction.

I smiled all the way home:  sometimes, I thought,  the way you ought to go isnt the way you need to go after all; I think he knew that.

The winter (and spring and possibly summer) of our discontent

Been cleaning up--and out--the cellar, prior to installing a (gasp) oil burner.  I'm not entirely keen on the idea of oil, but reality, which often leaves tooth marks, says, well, you ain't gettin' any younger, and after last winter, well...

I did the math on it, and we burned about 14 cords of wood.  It was a long winter, and an evenly cold one:  no Indian Summer around Thanksgiving, no January thaw two months later, unless you consider two days of 20 degrees as a "thaw".   Even now, in the first week of May,  we are still having two stoves going and below freezing temps at night.  Even last year we had low fires well into June,  to get the house up to temperature in the mornings. 

We aren't doing away with the wood, or the stoves.  I see  radiators as an adjunct to the wood, not 'instead of"'.  But the cellar needed to be reclaimed, since it has become the storage room for anything we hadn't the heart or energy to put elsewhere.  Too good to throw out (roof shingles, lumber, paint) but not good enough to want to use.  Yet.  The roof shingles were left over from the roof we put on 40 years ago, and rather than take them to the dump   landfill we left them on a pallet at the end of the driveway.  Ten minutes later they were gone. 😆

(We are both low-level hoarders (meaning if we can foresee a 'maybe' future for something, we keep it) and recyclers, so much of what we keep is salvage that eventually finds a home with someone else or can be recycled.   i.e., by the end of the summer I usually have a ridiculous amount of cardboard, paper, and scrap wood carefully tucked away.  That, in addition to the cardboard generated all winter by cartons, cereal boxes and six pack containers, usually doesn't last much beyond January. All those fire starters, you know. )

It's a dampish cellar with a dirt floor, so cardboard and metal don't last long without turning into worthless bits, and after deciding which bits can be disposed of and which should be used elsewhere, we are now able to walk across much of it without impaling  ourselves. 

My biggest gripe is going to be rearranging the furniture to not block the radiators. These are the old fashioned (serious) cast iron radiators, rather than baseboard.  I grew up with radiators,  and they can be amazingly handy for drying mittens, raising bread dough, or  even, golly, heating a room.   And I must admit, it would be nice in mid-January to wake at 2 AM and hear the furnace click on, and know I don't have to get up, after all.

It's also a bit annoying, frankly, because after finally replacing the  dining room ceiling and new east wall, I spent the entire winter and summer moving large furniture from this room to that room, trying to create a balance.  And it looks like we get to do it again this year, too. Oh, GOOD.

Anagrams T13

caper pacer crape carpe

cater crate trace caret react

scrape capers  pacers

treads  daters  stared

seat sate teas east eats

rates aster tears stare tares

races acres scare cares

priest stripe tripes esprit ripest

miters timers remits mister merits

tinsel inlets enlist silent

Elvis lives viles Levis

tares stare tears rates aster

trainers  terrains retrains strainer restrain


T13