In Which We Celebrate, For Things Do Get Better

Oh Frabjous Day! Callooh! Callay! Today NEO is basking in the sunshiny Upper Forties and the huge icicles have departed my gutters (or eavestroughs, as some locals here still insist upon calling them). I have seen wee margins of grass here and there as the monoliths of snow pull away from the sidewalks and driveways heated from the sun. And, quite importantly, today I wore only my lined raincoat to the grocery store.

So many lovely, lovely things are making me happy right now, and it seems like So Very Long since something has, so I would like to share.

My Latest Happies

1. My hair
2. Our Canada jaunt
3. The weather
4. President Obama's "Bloody Sunday" speech
5. A license plate I saw

Let me just tell you about those, and then you can chat about your Latest Happies in Comments.

1. My Hair is a constant barometer of my wellbeing. Last year, I decided to join the Pixie Movement (albeit late) and I was alternately pleased and horrified. Very sensibly, my friend Shirley over at gfeeasily said, "I think people are either Long Hair People or Short Hair People and just aren't happy being the other one." Well, my friends, I am a Long Hair Person. Period. My hair is finally grown out to a point where it is manageable and I no longer cry every other day because I Just Don't Know What To Do With It Anymore. The next time I say One Word about getting a haircut, I want every single person in the world to smack me hard. Thank you in advance.

2. Rick and I both knew we needed a change of scenery and that, despite the weather being identical to ours, the wine and comforts of Niagara-on-the-Lake would help us tremendously. So true. We had a lovely time this past weekend and brought home just under four cases, one being a gorgeous buttery Chardonnay. Our innkeepers took us as their guests to a winery party, and we had a very good time with tank tastings and nibblies. We even visited the newest winery, just opened, and because it is such a slow time, got a private tour. While in Canada, we politely asked that they keep their weather to themselves, and they said they would try.

3. What a lift to have temperatures higher than the single digits and teens! We are seeing the forties and maybe even a fifty or two in the next week or so. And sun...its effect on my mood and energy is incalculable. I know from living in NEO my whole life that this is merely a break in the action: our winter is far from over. But if we could get a full thaw and have all the snow gone, that would be terrific. I'm anxious to get back down to the lake and see how things are doing. It cannot be lake season soon enough for me.

4. I was in Canada for President Obama's delivery of his speech at the Edmund Pettus bridge in Selma. When I got home, I had the full text in my inbox, and I read it. I did not get far before my eyes were full of tears. I am always happy when words can move me, and I am always happy when our President makes reference to great writers and great women. I burst into tears especially when he called on the great Walt Whitman, the chronicler of the American Journey, and paraphrased a line that I so often spoke in awe in my own classroom. "I am large, I contain multitudes." Politics aside, it is a beautiful speech. Please click here and read it in full. (Note: Time magazine's transcript is NOT the full transcript, their claim to the contrary.)

5. On our way home yesterday we drove through Cleveland, and I caught a glimpse of a license plate framed by rainbow-coloured peace signs. It read GETZBTR. All I could see of its male driver was a pale hand and sunglasses as we raced past the frozen lake headed into downtown. I hope that the license plate meant GETS BETTER, and that it was part of the campaign IT GETS BETTER, which was started to give hope to LGBT youth. Vanity plates cost extra and have to be renewed every year, so it would be a personal expense if he were spreading that message. I choose to think that he was. Cleveland hosted the Gay Games last year, and they were a rousing success. Ohio is still a DOMA state, and the governor and legislature are republicans. One look at Ohio's district map shows you how horribly gerrymandered it is, but attitudes are changing. The DOMA was voted by the citizenry, true, but so much outside money influenced it that it was criminal. But that license plate...my heart lightened instantly.

What has lightened your heart lately? Tell us and make us all smile.

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I May Be Older Than Dirt, But At Least My Hair Looks Good And My Wine Cellar Is Stocked

Testing, testing...one, two, three.  Is this thing on?  Anyone out there?  Anyone at all?  Hello? If even one of you wanders over and hangs around to read for a moment, pretty soon another one will join you, then a crowd will form, and then--even though I've been lousy about writing--I might get my readers back.

Let's start with a brief update to some topics I discussed in earlier posts. Even though I'd like to think that my bitching and inherent intelligence wins out in all cases, the truth is more often that Fate intervenes, and my Tragedies wind up resolved in some way.  If it's not a case of conflict or tragedy, it's merely a follow-up or related story.

Remember my lamentations regarding Fructis Hi Rise Root Lifter?  Well, the fine people over at Garnier can bite me.  First they discontinue my go-to hair gel and replace it with some lousy tree sap derivative, then they get rid of my FHRRL.  As I mentioned previously, rather than be a ranting snotface about it, I merely wandered into My New LuvStore, Sally Beauty Supply, and was recommended this stuff in the picture.  It is wonderful and fantastic and makes me say, "Fructis you, Garnier."  And the price is better, too.





My countertops are in, and if asked to describe them in one word, that word would be WHITE.  SO.  WHITE.  WHITE WHITENESS.  It's a big change from the red, and I have to get used to it.  The veining is a little more noticeable on a large slab, and I keep feeling like I have to wipe the counters until I remember that what I'm seeing is the stone and not marks on the counter.  Now I'm just anxious for the floor to get done so I can have it complete.  We've decided to tile above the backsplash, white with just a few random red and black tiles.

Want to feel your age?  Go to San Francisco.  I just got back from spending a long weekend there with dear friend and reader Mikey, and I was the single most elderly person in the entire city.  Without question.  No matter where we went. I mean it; I was conspicuous in my elderliness.  At 54!  Thankfully, I was able to meet up with Julie for a day and even though she is several (6) important years younger than me, at least I felt not quite so dried out and ready for the grave.  I am old enough to be Mikey's mom, but in San Francisco, they banish everyone who is forty and older.  You have to be a twenty- or thirty-something, tech-savvy, and willing to walk eleventy miles in order to get from your car, which is parked on the side of a neighborhood street, to any event or restaurant or venue you wish to attend.  Parking lots are anathema to San Franciscans.  Ha!  Pretty soon, once a few visit Ohio, they will want our water and our nice, big, adjacent parking lots!

Or maybe not.  This is what was waiting for me outside my airbus window as we circled Cleveland to land.  Oh.  Yay.  More snow.  It snowed like hell overnight, and my little suburb got about another six inches.  There is a foot of snow on the ground at my house.  There is a warming trend right now--we are in the low to mid forties for a few days.  Then, another polar vortex is breaking away and visiting again.  Sigh.  I didn't feel as resentful and angry or frustrated or even sad like I thought I would when I got back home and back to Winter again. From Friday until Tuesday evening, I had worn blazers and a light raincoat, and hadn't even gotten a bit of the typical San Francisco misty weather. I had seen two kinds of palm trees and even some azaleas flowering.  The magnolias and tulip trees were blooming.  And Ohio?  Certainly nothing like any of that.  But in spite of all of that, once at home, I felt rejuvenated and grateful.  I had escaped Winter, if only for a few days.  I was luckier than Rick, and luckier than most.

Wine seemed the best souvenir, so I shipped about a case home while we visited Sonoma.  Especially intriguing was a brut, a sparkly fizzy treat made with the usual chardonnay grapes but also some pinot noir, too.  The pinot didn't add any color at all, but lent the wine a beautiful round, lush character that normal bruts don't have.  California zins can't be beat, either, so several bottles of that got shipped, too.  And the Sonoma winemakers are adding Malbec to their Meritage blend, which makes it robust and bold, giving it an almost amarone richness.  That's on its way, along with a nice grenache for anytime sipping.  Probably something else too, but I can't really remember.  I simply tasted, made notes, then arranged for shipping and moved on.

Finally, Ms. Caroline from over at AsiaVu has invited me to participate in a meme.  Every time I hear the word "meme", I think of this:



Anyway, as so many of you know, I rarely do memes, but when I make the exception, I tweak and customize.  That will be my next offering, and it will be soon.

Thanks for hanging around!

image credits:
microphone
roundup
mummy
wine

Plan Your Trip To Guam After Spring, And Please Pack Plenty Of Tylenol (And Maybe A Helmet)

Readers, back in 2008, I made you this vow:  When there is a good animal vs. human story, I am all over it.  Proudly, I have never shrunk from this promise, nor have I ever shirked this responsibility.

Today, it is no different.  I am happy to say that Your Government, beset as it is by Gridlock and General Fussiness, is still able to maintain some sense of Priorities.  I am speaking, of course, of its Program For Dropping Toxic Mice Over Guam.

Hey!  Before you get yourself all in a self-righteous uproar, let me tell you why the Feds are flinging rodents around.  Trust me:  for you, and especially for me, it made a big difference in how I viewed this Enterprise.  It is in order to kill snakes.

See?  How can this not be a good thing?

(Personally, my phobia of snakes is so deep that I cannot even view them on television, in a magazine, or in any photograph.  When I once encountered one on a long-ago camping trip, I screamed, ran away, screamed again, took a breath, then screamed again.  Then I remembered why I had screamed, and screamed once more. I just now got hit with a wave of nausea, simply from recalling it.)

Anyway.

The brown tree snake, which can grow as long as ten feet, arrived in Guam from the South Pacific as stowaways on US military ships after WWII.  It infested the island and decimated local wildlife, especially some avian species.  It now even knocks out electrical power by slithering onto lines; it bites residents, especially sleeping children since it is nocturnal.  Their population is estimated to be approximately two million strong.  And growing.

So the US government, in the forms of the Dept. of Agriculture's Wildlife Services, Dept. of the Interior, and the Dept. of Defense came up with a plan.  They would take advantage of two idiosyncrasies of the brown snake:  one, it didn't mind eating already-dead prey and two, it is defenseless against acetaminophen.  So they loaded up some dead mice with generic Tylenol, grabbed a helicopter, and were ready to go.  But they had to make sure that the Mickey Mice (sorry, but really--no way to resist that!) didn't land on the ground.  They had to stay up in the canopy of the trees so that nothing else would eat them.  What to do, what to do...?

Aha!  Researchers "developed a flotation device with streamers designed to catch in the branches of the forest foliage, where the snakes live and feed."  Wonder what that looked like...


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The Toxic Mouse Drop is set to begin in April or May.  And it isn't just Guam that is hoping for its success.  Three thousand miles away, another island, a more familiar Tourism Mecca is holding its breath.  That would be Hawaii.

 

Because just as the brown snakes found their way to Guam on the hold of a ship and ended up liking it so much they made their home there, these snakes could board a 747 or cargo plane to Hawaii and relocate. 

 







Oh, if only it were that easy, Samuel L.  If only!  Like Guam, Hawaii lacks natural predators of these motherf--, er...brown snakes to keep their numbers restrained.  One spokesperson for Hawaii's wildlife agencies complained that native Hawaiian birds "literally don't know what to do when they see a snake coming."  (They could try my method, outlined above, but I am doubtful it would save their lives.)  She became even more dire, "Once we get snakes here, we're never going to be able to fix the situation." 

So, I love this idea.  I think it's a winner all around.  We knock off some snakes, some mice, and we save some Tourism Havens.  We save some naive Hawaiian birds.  We boost the production of acetaminophen.  We give a few people a great ice breaker at parties:

Her:  So, what do you do?
Him:  I drop dead, Tylenol-filled mice wearing tutus out of a helicopter.
Her: (choking on a vodka tonic) You what?!
Him:  Yeah. It's true.
Her:  But why on earth...?
Him: So that the government wipes out brown snakes.
Her:  Er...which government?
Him:  Ours.  The US government.
Her:  Oh. I see.  (looks wildly around)
Him:  Yeah. We don't want them getting on planes and boats and stuff and going off to Hawaii.
Her:  Are you here with anyone?  Should someone be with you?

Oh, yeah.  Love it.

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Forgive Us, Al Gore, For The Dept. Hath Sinned

 

Part of Thanksgiving this year meant having a long weekend with Jared, my eldest.  He works at a job which gave him Thanksgiving and Friday off, plus the regular weekend.  Except for a night over at younger brother Sam's, Jay gave The Old Folks a thrill and hung out with us.  That's not to say that a few of Our Old Annoyances didn't pop up here and there.

 

Scene opens interior of small hallway with adjoining bathroom, master bedroom, dining rooms visible.  Doorway to upstairs suite visible, right.  Jared appears from dining room, wanders casually into bathroom and turns on shower.  Nance, in bedroom, is getting dressed.

 

Nance:  Jared!  You realize that we're leaving in less than fifteen minutes!

Jared:  (leans out into hallway)  Mom.  (insultingly calmly)  It takes me two minutes to shower.  It takes me less than two minutes to get dressed.  Seriously, calm down.

Nance:  (irritated)  Jay, you've had all morning to get in that shower.  For heaven's sake--

Jared:  (wanders back into kitchen via dining room)  Hey, Mom?  (something inaudible and unintelligible; after a moment or two, slowly wanders back in)  Never mind.  Got it.

Nance:  (styling hair now; grabs can of hairspray; applies in short, angry bursts)  Holy crap.  Hey, Jared?  Al Gore called.  He wondered why the shower has been running all this time and you're still not in it.

Jared:  Tell him 'Same reason you're using aerosol hairspray.' (walks into bathroom and gets into shower)

 

End Scene

 

picture found here

I Am Not An Animal! (And Judging By Their Press, I Am Damn Glad!)

From time to time, as many Alert Dept. Readers know, I like to keep you all abreast of Important Doings in the Animal World. (I also like to give my Shift Key a workout and employ Pretentious Eccentric Capitalization, but I digress.) Well, that time has come again, and with vigor. Two of my favourite animals are in the news, and circumstances being what they are--dire--I must bring these bulletins to you.
ITEM--In a shameless display of bullying, China, who holds almost 800 billion dollars of the United States' debt, has decided to flex a little of its leverage muscle and ask for its pandas back. Especially upsetting to patriotic panda lovers is the imminent return of Tai Shan, the cub resident at D.C.'s National Zoo in our nation's capital. Tai Shan, who was born at the zoo in 2005, will be shipped to China early next year, despite the fact that he is American born--a naturalized citizen of these United States! Plus, let's keep in mind that we're giving the Chinese not the old, hand-me-down pandas that they originally gave us! No. They are getting a brand, spanking new panda. How is this fair? I am also assuming that Tai Shan does not speak Chinese. He has been around American keepers his whole life, and I am also assuming that his parents, who have been in this country now for nine years, have entirely assimilated and are pretty much Americans, too. He is ill-equipped, at the tender age of four, to go off to what will be a foreign country and live among strangers. I am worried about his wellbeing and his happiness. You should be, too, if you are serious about pandas.
ITEM--More bad press about cows, and this time, it is all conjecture and forensic revisionist literary history bullshit. Thank goodness again for my Google News Alert feature, or I would never have been aware of this travesty. This inflammatory headline, of course, drew my ire right away, and I knew right then that I had to take the bull by the horns: WAS JANE AUSTEN KILLED BY COWS? "Of course not!" I shouted at my computer screen. Jane Austen is one of the most beloved of all Victorian novelists, and certainly in the sacred pantheon of woman writers. The last thing cows need is her death on their heads. They've already been saddled with global warming, and now this? The headline leads the casual news skimmer to assume that she was perhaps trampled or gored by rampaging bovines. One has to get past an entire lead paragraph and well into the second to finally read the far more tame and tepid crux of the theory: "Austen may have succumbed to tuberculosis contracted from cows." Oh, is that all? A glass of milk? Yawn. Listen, people, in this day and age we can die from eating spinach. Or drinking water. Lay off the cows, already. But, really, they still have it better than the camels. Read on.
ITEM--Listen, I am not a big fan of camels. I rode one once, and it was okay, but by and large, they don't do a thing for me. Still, no animal deserves this. Okay, maybe snakes. Or the dogs in my neighborhood who never shut the hell up. Or maybe certain republican radio show hosts. But not these poor camels. True, no one wants to be invaded by 6000 rampaging anything looking for a drink--that's for sure--but to round them up by helicopter and then pick them off and allow them to rot (read: die in agony if not killed, only wounded) sounds just terrible. First of all, these camels didn't ask to come to Australia; they were brought to the continent. Is it their fault that the experiment didn't go as planned? Why didn't the conservationists and wildlife experts there control the population before the feral herd topped a million? Why hasn't Camel Control been a priority? Besides, look at the photo of that camel opening a door by using the knob! That camel did that without being trained! Don't tell me that some of those camels don't have a future in the Entertainment Business! Why can't Australians look into Camel Exporting? I feel like there are any number of solutions that just haven't been explored here, the least of which might be: Camel: The Other White Meat.

I think you're all up to speed now with our friends in the Animal Kingdom. Remember, they share our planet. When it's all over, who do you think will come back first? Better be nice!

When Right Is Wrong And Simple Gets Complicated

(This was mentioned in an email by my buddy Shirley as a possible topic to explore here at the Dept., and when it came up in the comments section on my other blog, I thought it deserved discussion.)

Have you ever noticed how damned hard it is to do the right thing anymore? We were told to start drinking more water, so we all ditched soda and began buying bottled water. Now we're being carped at about how gullible we are for spending money on water, of all things, and worse, for overloading the landfills with more needless plastic containers. Then, we find out that--horrors to end all horrors--the reusable bottles we opted for to save the environment are made out of Bisphenol A and phthalates, which are detrimental to our health and may linger in our bodies far longer than first thought. Holy crap. What the hell are we supposed to do? I guess just dehydrate or get hammered on wine, which, depending upon the studies, may or may not be good for us.

We're all trying so hard not to add to the general clutter of our planet and our lives. The mantra for the last ten years seems to be Simplify, Simplify. I like the concept. I really do. I used to get two newspapers a day. I subscribed to four magazines: Vanity Fair, Newsweek, Entertainment Weekly, Bon Appetit. Then I realized something: when each one came, I sat down immediately and read it, cover to cover. Then it sat on the coffee table where it used to get knocked off by someone (Jared or Sam) propping his feet up or a rambunctious cat event, or used as a coaster. I had to keep moving it to dust or look for something. Eventually, I'd recycle it, then wait for the new one. And I hated Magazine Gleaning--you know, the time you take to first rip out all the stupid subscription cards, overpowering perfume samples, and freefalling ad cards that inhibit your reading enjoyment. Finally, I stopped renewing, and I don't miss any of them. I read lots of interesting stuff online. Where there are no annoying cards, no smelly perfumes, and I feel like I'm being environmentally-conscious as well.

But...yikes. Have you seen this? I feel really guilty! So many magazines are folding. So many people out of work! Crap.

Now, the newspaper thing is a little different. I am down to one newspaper a day for an entirely different reason. I stopped our local paper because I just could not tolerate A) the poor level of writing; B) the obvious bias against our high school; C) the delivery person's stubborn refusal to stop tracking through our landscaping. Okay. But my wonderful remaining newspaper, the Cleveland Plain Dealer is having its problems as well. Layoffs! Job cuts! The publisher that owns it and other newspapers sees a grim future. People are getting their news online, no doubt about it. And...that is keeping lots of paper out of the waste stream. And the demand for recyclable material in this economy is down anyway. See what I mean? I'm being green and environmentally responsible! Yet I might be hurting the U.S. economy as well!

I think this is, perhaps, an example of a Catch-22.

So, my question is: Am I part of the solution or part of the problem?