After sixteen consecutive days of rain, we have had approximately eleventy thousand days of temperatures of ninety and above with tropical humidity. I find myself dopey and numbed by Air Conditioned Cabin Fever. When I venture out, it feels like I am trudging through a bowl of soup. It's abusive.
Very few things make sense, and those things that do are: trekking across to the neighboring town to go stand in my sister Susan's swimming pool; going barefoot; taking care of my herb garden; watering; and overfilling the fishpond so that Frigidaire-Ziploc and Tina don't cook.
Nothing of value is rattling around in my head, but a few clutterbits are clogging things up, so I'll dump them out and see if you want to pick at them.
1. Accidental Art: Rick is Old-Skool about his cellphone, and he wears it clipped to his belt. Sometimes, it rotates and, when he bends or reaches and, er...laps over a bit, he somehow manages to inadvertently take a picture. This happened a lot more with his old phone, and he once took an entire movie while he played golf, including the part where he stopped suddenly and said, "Wait! Do you hear something? Like something is running, sort of?" Here is Rick's latest impromptu photo:
I believe this was snapped as he got out of the Prius at the Angola exit/rest stop on I-90 on our way to Canada. It was our only stop, and I see a Red Roof Inn sign up there in the background. This never happens to me. I keep my phone in my little red Italian purse. I told Rick he should start a tumblr.blog of these pictures. Sadly, there are a lot.
2. Tweets For Salvation: I have been torturing my Catholic sister about this already. Pope Francis is offering a reduced time in Purgatory for any Catholic who follows him on Twitter. Holy crap--literally. What a racket. What's become of the Catholic Church that I left years ago? First the Mass stopped being in Latin, then they allowed a bunch of folk guitar music, then everyone had to shake hands in the middle of things, now this! It's not that easy, however; "to obtain indulgences over the internet or otherwise, believers would first have to confess their sins, offer prayers and attend Mass." But...isn't that what practicing Catholics do anyway? Further clarification is offered by Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli, head of the pontifical council for social communication. “You can't obtain indulgences like getting a coffee from a vending machine,” he told an Italian newspaper. (But pretty much like that.)
3. No Frills: Quite some time ago, Rick and I got rid of cable TV. We had Time Warner, and it was awful. I mean, Awfully Awful and in every single way you could enumerate. Here's the verdict: We do not miss anything but CNN and MSNBC. We went to an HD antenna (this one), and really, we have never looked back. Each day, I look in my sacred Plain Dealer to see what is on cable, and I have yet to sigh, "Ohhh, if we only had cable!" We have use of Jared's Netflix, and we are reveling in "The West Wing." So good! So smart! And, sadly, still so current.
There. Empty again. And outside, ninety again. Humid again. Horrid again. I'm off to the grocery store for a few key foodstuffs (shrimp, flatbread, pasta, steaks--all sale items!), then it's pool time again! Now that I think about it, not too terrible after all.
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Oh man me too me too! I gave up diet soda this week, which meant caffeine too (I don't like coffee & didn't feel like messing with tea), and that combined with the heat turned me into a limp noodle, inside & out. Ugh.
ReplyDeleteYour last comment made me think of this quote that I had just read on another blog: "Ah, summer; what power you have to make us suffer and like it." Satirist and author Russell Baker.
What do you use for internet? We got the cable bundle so at least for now I'm not sure it would be cheaper to dump cable (and our land line).
It's hot & humid here now too. We had about a million days of rain followed by 5 days of normal sunshine-- and now it's like southern FL in August outside. Not happy about that.
ReplyDeleteI read about following the Pope to obtain salvation, but being a Presby I suspect that the offer doesn't work for me. Pity that, it would be so simple.
Ally--I think over half the country is sharing the joy of this weather. Doesn't make it any easier to bear. RE: The Pope's deal--I don't have a Twitter account, so I can't take advantage, either, aside from being a Recovering Catholic. Guess we'll just have to do it The Old Fashioned Way--earn it!
ReplyDeleteBug--We still have TWC for internet, but that's been fine. Dumping cable TV knocked our bill about in half. We ditched our landline ages and ages ago.
I had to give up coffee one summer due to some tummy probs. Holy crap, it was tough. It took over a week to lose the drudgy, draggy feeling. Good luck, but I know you can do it. Make a big pitcher of iced tea, which is so easy, and make the switch to that. No fizz, but there are lots of nice Celestial Seasonings flavours that are fun to try and blend!
I've really enjoyed seeing your flower photos, btw. So gorgeous!
Happy to oblige :)
ReplyDeleteI've got a double whammy going on - I also have been trying to not eat "sweets" either (although I went off the wagon & down the hill on that this weekend). So no sugar & no caffeine - ugh. SO sluggish! If I don't perk up soon I'll incorporate tea into my regimen.
How timely...we are on the verge of giving up cable TV, and all we really need to do to prepare is buy an antennae. Thanks for telling us which one to get!
ReplyDeleteWe're deep into reruns right now...enjoying Mad Men, West Wing, and Game of Thrones. Love it all.
Regarding the pope and tweets for salvation, I have to say, it's things like that that make me glad I'm an atheist. Generally I like the message he's been putting out there, but this is just silly.
We gave up the land line ages ago as well. Why pay for a phone you never use? My daughter and I both have iPhones, THE END.
ReplyDeleteWe have TWC for internet and it works just fine. I won't have it for TV as it is absolute crap in what channels you get. Since we don't do movies and I'm not interested in Netflix, we have a full Directv subscription--it's the only way to go, especially with all the On Demand content available at no extra cost. It works out to about $4 a day. I can live with that.
Tweets for salvation? Seriously? What an absolute crock. People will believe anything.
Laff--Isn't it silly that Cable is still forcing customers to pay for channels they don't want/watch, rather than allowing them to choose which channels they want from a menu, then pay accordingly? What year IS this?
ReplyDeleteJ@jj--Rick and I did a lot of research and really didn't want to stick a dish on our house or pay money for any more "services" when I never have the television on at all during the day. The TV is off until 5 or 6 when he gets home and we watch the news or he gets his yuks watching Dr. Phil. We took a good, hard look at exactly what we watched on cable vs. network, and we found that, aside from CNN or MSNBC, we mainly watched network or nothing. So we cut the cable and got that antenna. Once we found the optimal place to put it, we have been happy. It just takes a little patience to find a good place to pull in all the available stations in your area. But there is a lot of help and info online.
We also got a Roku, which is great for streaming Netflix and some other options. Again, lots of info and help online for that,too.
Summer is usually hot here in an "of human bondage" kind of way. So color us surprised when we had nearly a full week of rain. Torrential as well as gentle showers lasting almost all day. IN JULY!!! Aaannnd then we were back to the hellish heat. Here's what's awesome about cable: Breaking Bad. The Killing. The Newsroom. Girls. Turner Movie Classics!!! If you can get all of that on NetFlix...well....let me know.
ReplyDeleteRainbow--Some of those are on Premium Cable, like HBO, which we never subscribed to anyway. But I'm here to tell you that their earlier seasons are probably available on Netflix. And any movie shown on TMC is likely available on Netflix or one of my Roku stations. Or someplace on the Interwebs, and a simple HDMI cable makes it viewable on TV. FREE.
ReplyDeleteI know TX has heat and humidity like crazy, but that is way down south and expected. Look way up here where I live! Why am I getting TX weather in NEO? So irksome. Our heatwave finally broke this morning, and it is currently 66 degrees at 9:37 AM with a nice breeze but cloudy. The amount of joy I felt in the simple acts of turning off the AC and opening windows was absurd.
Rainbow Motel asks about Breaking Bad, which is on AMC. Ted loves that show as well, and of course there's Mad Men. I THINK, though am not positive, that those are available on Hulu Plus. So that's a subscription that you'd have to pay for. So we're looking at $8 a month for Netflix, and $8 a month for Hulu. There's talk of HBO Go going ala carte, in which case you could get it on your Roku or XBox or whatever, without cable. She may want to wait for that to happen before cutting the cord, if she feels strongly about her HBO shows.
ReplyDeleteACCIDENTAL ART: LOL. Mr. O. and I just gave ourselves a 10th Anniversary present of a Kindle Fire HD 8.9 (love it!!), and I find myself checking the photo cloud app to delete stuff that automatically filters through from my iPhone: feet under the coffee table, etc.
ReplyDeleteTWEETS FOR SALVATION: I was gob-smacked when I saw that, too. Conjures up visions of long queues at the Pearly Gates while the faithful wait to have their Twitter feed checked. If The Church wants to get more 21C followers, they need to start with some basics: sanction The Pill, Allow Priests To Marry... just to name a few. But we've had this discussion before. We, the Recovering Catholics, lol.
NO FRILLS: Hate cable with a passion. We had to get it several years ago when a huge tree in front of our apartment balcony was blocking our view of the southern sky and we couldn't put up the dish. Terrible definition compared to satellite, and absolute crooks for what they charge. Right now we have U-VERSE for TV and Internet. No land line, either. Total waste of money. Not prepared to give up the U-VERSE for Netflix, etc., because I still want certain international Spanish channels (not the horrid Univisión Made In USA channel). I just love watching the news from outside the U.S.; totally different perspective. Anyway, I had a conversation with the U-VERSE people the other day when I called up about something and told them to Keep Calm and Stay Current: instead of robbing people blind to pay for 3-4 different packages in order to get their favorite channels, offer flat rate deals: X dollars per month for X number of channels, and the customer just goes online and picks exactly which ones they want from their entire TV base. With future editing privileges. Seriously, I told them they were losing customers left and right; even old farts can work out how to hook up a laptop to the TV and watch Netflix and Hulu. (And if they can't, their kids can!)
THE WEATHER: I hate not being able to walk more than 50 paces without needing to dive into some place that's air-conditioned. I also hate having to carry around my "air-conditioning sweater" so I don't freeze to death in a restaurant or movie theatre. O.K., it may be 100+ degrees outside, but do we really need the AC set to 55 degrees? —Signed, Blue Lips and Numb Fingers.
Ortizzle--Sigh. I have an AC Sweater also. It's a must for the grocery store and all restaurants. Add doctor offices, too, where I spend an inordinate amount of time now, thanks to St. Patsy's litany of medical necessaries. Even my white wines don't like it that cold.
ReplyDeleteI feel so left out these days by not having a tablet device of some kind, but honestly, I can't see a need for one. I have a laptop. I like the portability, but anything I would want to do would require a nice keyboard. I also don't want to pay another fee for tethering it to my phone plan. And, sadly, these days I am so ADD and unmotivated to read a book that I don't even have a "real" book that I'm reading, let alone a virtual one. It has been a very, very strange summer.
The KF does have a keyboard on screen for when you need to type (for me, that's mostly into the address bar of the browser.) One reason I caved on this was precisely because we don't pay one cent for internet service to this device: it's for home use only, and it connects to our wireless internet that we already pay for. I'm with you on not adding yet another expense to the list of devices...
ReplyDelete