Forever A Fangirl

All 'Ya Need Is Love...And An Internet Connection

Well, over the weekend it happened again. Two more bloggers "came out," declaring their not-completely-secret love and the male half of the couple flew over a thousand miles to move in with his lady-love. Both of these folks are in my neighbourhood at Vox. They've spent great gobs of time together due to one another's willingness to fly back & forth (and to flexibility in work schedules).

All that know them are very, very happy for them. Sadly, she's experienced a couple of deaths of close friends in a short period of time and many of us felt very badly for her--though thought highly of him when he dropped everything and flew to her side in her time of grief. I hope it works for them. She 's quite beautiful, outspoken, bright, a world traveller, an artist and furniture maker. He's not conventionally handsome, outspoken, bright, very quirky, hugely into music and his little dog, Rudy.

Dirty Sexy Money~ Season 1, Episode 2, "The Lions"

First aired: 10/3/2007  Official Synopsis of  "The Lions":

Nick searches for his father's killer. When the family has a photo shoot Juliet refuses to be there. Patrick has to deal with his father who wants him to run for the senate.

I used our On Demand feature to watch the second episode of ABC's new series Dirty Sexy Money last night.

I rarely watch network teevee but on the strength of my undying love for Peter Krause (pronounced Krow-sah), formerly of the sublime HBO series Six Feet Under, I followed up the first episode.

The premiere show, though I was wowed by Peter's mad acting skillz, left me me with a bit of a "meh" feeling and I was 50-50 on whether I'd give the second show a gander.

I was lap swimming when Episode 2 aired so my choice came down to whether or not I'd pull it up on On Demand.

I'm glad I did as Peter was reliably great and both Donald Sutherland and Jill Clayburgh as the patriarch and matriarch respectively of the "Darling" family, shone.

The rest of the cast is still leaving me meh, especially the much-married daughter in this Dynasty-like family, the twin sister and brother, Billy Baldwin as the eldest son who is having an affair with a tranny hooker and running for Senate, and the actor who plays an utterly unlikeable married priest with an illegitimate son.

Unfortunately, Krause's character's wife is leaving me cold too, with her one-note ever-sunny disposition. Blech. Krause brings plenty of sunniness. He needs a counterpoint in his spouse.

The storylines, as they are cut from the nighttime soap-opera mold, only promise to get more outlandish but if they don't do some character development of the "Darling" family soon they are, despite my happiness at "rendezvousing" with Peter each week, going to lose me as a viewer.

Three stellar actors with campy storylines does not a compelling series make.

Space is big/Santa Claus Parade 1926

Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.
  - Douglas Adams

There's a whiff of the lynch mob or the lemming migration about any overlarge concentration of like-thinking individuals, no matter how virtuous their cause.
  - PJ O'Rourke

Even if they've come to see... The Santa Claus Parade?

(right) Overhead View of Crowd Scene
Eaton's Santa Claus Parade, Toronto, 1926
Black and white print
Reference Code: F 229-308-0-807
Archives of Ontario, I0020435

Avoiding housework

I'm avoiding a shower as well.

Have been in a funk for some time now.  "Hugh" tends to cheers me up.

Here are a few more silly things.                     

                                                                           

"Damn not given." tee-hee.

That's Hot

86° F | 67° F
30° C | 19° C

Eww! Outdoors feels like a sauna right now. This is so typical of this time of year--this odd time that hangs between true summer and real fall. "Pseudo summer" is a holdover from summer proper.

It was balmy last night when we walked the dog--like a lovely summer night--not a whiff of fall other than the very faint smell of small patches of dried leaves fallen to the ground.

But as per normal, one day it's going just turn. We'll have a day in the low 50'sF and though it may creep up to low 60'sF for a few days beyond that, it won't ever go back to  this--the twilight zone of summer-fall. It's a time when one's closet and dresser drawers burst with two seasons worth of clothes and when one must carefully check the household thermometer just outside the sliding glass door before preparing to go off anywhere. It's a time of anticipation of impending change.

This time of year is an odd time of transition which does not agree with what with the calendar says it should be, the return of the children to school that signaled "end of summer," or the falling leaves from the trees. It marches to it's own drummer and very soon it will march away, not to return again for another year.

Here! Here!?

It seems I'm in rather a mood today so since this is the designated "time to blog"  I may as well let off some steam (wonder if the term "venting" sprang from that; one would think it did).

I'm holding off on skewering "mommy blogs" as I know quite a few mommy bloggers, especially at another site and I'm quite enamoured of mothering itself--just not making every little burp, spew, dirty diaper, and cute face that is the product of your spawn an oft-repeated subject of your blog posts.

What I think I'll pillory instead is general lazy thinking. Of course it occurs outside the blogging world but since a large part of my world is the blogging world I can speak first hand.

Tonight a blogger for whom I have the utmost respect wrote a blog entry on how annoying and disheartening it is to be reading a book only to find typos and grammatical errors in it. She finds that it detracts from her enjoyment of the book and I agree that either sloppy writing, sloppy editing or both should have the fickle finger of fate pointed at them. By the time I'd read her post a number of other bloggers had commented--all in affirmation and truly, how can one argue in favour of bad grammar and typographical errors?

However, the comment just previous to mine started with the following: "Here, here!"

I thought the commenter was taking a stab at humour but he didn't reference that at all in his comment.

He doesn't know the difference between calling his dog and applauding something well-said.

The post was about grammatical errors but to correct him makes me a "grammar Nazi."

I did it anyway, gently and with good humour.  He's still going to hate me. <sigh>

The Flip Side To "Teacher Appreciation"

Coming here was all wrong. Wrong country. Wrong school. Wrong scene when I gazed out my window--cows grazing instead of children playing. Making matters worse my brother was newborn, and the move took place well into my grade one school year.

Dad had accepted a promotion but we had to move from Canada to the States. Looking back, I can't see that he had much choice if he was going to support his family in a middle-class fashion. But we gave up a lot, not the least of which was our entire extended family and all of our friends, a neighbourhood full of families and sidewalks, and people that spoke proper English and had proper manners. It was quite a trade-off and given that the veracity of crystal balls couldn't be relied upon, I suppose that it was on the surface the best choice.

I transfered into Judson School Elementary into a class full of openly hostile children. I found out within the first month the reason why: Miss Libby.

For the most part, I have only faint memories of what was the worst year of my pre-adolescent childhood. I remember the first day of school--in December when Miss Libby insisted that I stand up with her in the front of the class as she explained to them that I was from " Canada."  I could tell from the quizzical looks on the kid's faces that Canada could have been Siberia for all they knew.

That was about the only courtesy I recall in that class. What stands out more was how many days I would either dissolve in tears at my desk or, if I was particularly strong that day I waited until the bus dropped me off and then sobbed on the walk home. All I could think of was how much I missed my Grandma. She was the polar opposite of Miss Libby.

Miss Libby had a "thing" for orderliness and it's seems I couldn't conform to her standards. While the other kids had months  to have "adjusted" to her standards I was expected to adopt them immediately. When I didn't, Miss Libby did not attempt to mask her disgust.

Two instances of how she showed just what she thought of the 6-year old foreigner in her class stand out.

Once, when we were taking turns printing our names on the chalkboard  when  my turn came I did so, only I hadn't quite gotten the hang of  the "N" in CINDY. I made the N in it's mirror image and for some reason I'll not ever understand this infuriated her. She lashed out at me verbally, calling me stupid and sending me into yet another round of tears. Boy, did the kids eat that up.

On the heels of that one day, I think just before Christmas break, she examined my desk and found that the extra papers I'd crammed in there upset her greatly. With a stream of insults spewing from her thin lips and  in front of the entire class who had stopped to take in this spectacle, she ordered me out of my chair and then tipped my desk to it's side, spilling the entire contents on the floor. If a person could die from embarrassment I would have gladly done so. Then she ordered me to get down on the floor and clean it up while they watched. Again, tears spilled from my eyes blurring the sight of the jumbled mess of books, papers, and pencils.

Miss Libby left an indelible mark on me. I'd bet if one could actually see one's psyche there it would be, angry and red.

I tend to be of a forgiving nature but I'll will never forget nor forgive this creature who was my first grade teacher.

Just a bit of advice on this, National Teacher Appreciation Day. Teachers make a tremendous impact on their students. Please, if you don't like children do not become a teacher. It's as simple as that.

In Honour Of National Teacher's Day...

Who was your best (or worst) elementary school teacher?

It's a tie for best between two elementary school teachers I had in fifth grade at South School in Watertown, Connecticut.

First Miss Ouelette, my English teacher. She was in her late-twenties, petite, had short, crazy-wavy black hair, wore goofy-looking eyeglasses with frames like cat's-eyes, and had a lady mustache.

She was quite ardent about literature and would employ means to encourage similar feelings in her students that her more stalwart peers would not.

Though she was an excellent teacher overall, the instance that stands out most for me is after we'd spent about a week reading Edgar Allen Poe stories and poems. We had our choice of how we wanted to express ourselves about Poe, including using visual arts instead of writing. I choose to draw a portrait of Poe on a large piece of construction paper. I'll never forget how Miss Ouelette praised my work and further, showed it to the class as an example of a job well done. I was totally turned onto Poe anyway but she sealed the deal while making me feel really great, too.

Regretably, I cannot remember the name of my grade five Science teacher but I do remember a point he made that has had a life-long impact.

We were doing a unit on the effects of various toxins on the body and Mr. Science used an in-class example to illustrate a point that he felt very strongly about.

He had shown us colour slides of healthy lungs and those of a (dead) cigarette smoker and they were pretty convincing but Mr. Science took it a step further. My teacher demonstrated how much tar (even 5th graders knew what tar was) goes into one's lungs by lighting up a cigarette, taking a drag off of it, then taking a Kleenex tissue and covering his mouth whilst he exhaled the cigarette smoke.

The tissue had a very distinct gray "O" where he'd exhaled and that moment was it for me. No way was I going to start sucking on death sticks.

Great teaching, Mr. Science! 

QotD: In Season

What fruits and vegetables are in season where you live?  Have you incorporated them into your recipes?

Gourdes, pumpkins, apples, pears...we get a hard winter.

Autum Harvest

I have no recipes though I do like me some warm apple pie ala mode. :)

Is this a question (finally) for the people in the Southern Hemisphere or simply for foodies anywhere?

Regardless, this reminds me of how much we enjoy our annual trek to Goebbert's Pumpkin Farm every October. It's pretty much the same drill each year (except our son keeps getting taller. Now that he's 6' 2" he needs to stop). We peruse the mountains of colourful gourdes and festive corn stalks, buy tickets to the haunted "mansion," which is fun because it's so hokey, then we check out the exotic animals, wander through the corn maze, and  if we time it right, watch the pig races. When we are ready to finish up it's time for fresh warm apple cider and a split apple-with-hot-caramel sauce and nuts or depending on my mood apple fritters or apple pie or apple cake. Yes, it all involves apples and calories. That's why we get  all the walking around done first. ;)

Show us your secret ingredient.

If I told you then it wouldn't be a secret anymore now, would it?

(If you are looking for cooking secrets, I must disclose that I quit cooking--which I never enjoyed--when I went into heart failure 9 years ago. One tries to do only the most important, relevant-to-one's-life things when the timer begins ticking at double time. Fortunately, spouse cooks. Otherwise, salads out of a bag and sandwiches would suit me fine.)

Okay, if you must have something here's a bit from hugh via Seth Godin. .
Make of it what you will.

Does it take 500 words to change things?

Probably not. It probably takes less than a hundred, plus a secret ingredient.

The secret ingredient is your desire to actually do something about it. To take action, to believe that it’s worthwhile, to confront what feels like a risk but really isn’t. The secret ingredient is to ignore excuses, abandon procrastination and stop looking for proof.

So, where’s my manifesto?

1. The greatest innovations appear to come from those that are self-reliant. Individuals who go right to the edge and do something worth talking about. Not solo, of course, but as instigators of a team. In two words: don’t settle.

2. The greatest marketers do two things: they treat customers with respect and they measure.

3. The greatest salespeople understand that people resist change and that ‘no’ is the single easiest way to do that.

4. The greatest bloggers blog for their readers, not for themselves.

5. There really isn’t much a of ‘short run’. It quickly becomes yesterday. The long run, on the other hand, sticks around for quite a while.

6. The internet doesn’t forget. And sooner or later, the internet finds out.

7. Everyone is a marketer, even people and organizations that don’t market. They’re just marketers who are doing it poorly.

8. Amazing organizations and people receive rewards that more than make up for the effort required to be that good.

9. There is no number 9.

10. Mass taste is rarely good taste.

So, decide. Decide before the end of the day. If you reject the aphorisms above, replace them with your own. But don’t settle. That’s unforgivable.

Read Mandarin - Learn to Read Chinese

http://readmandarin.com/index.htm

Welcome to readmandarin.com!The goal of this website is to help you to learn to read simplified Mandarin Chinese as quickly as possible. The site is completely free to use. Your browser will need to be able to display Chinese characters. You're all set if you can see the following characters: 中国.Our method is to teach you the most common Chinese characters first (according to our research), and to then have the system focus on the characters that you are having trouble remembering.That way you don't have to waste time learning characters you already know, or ones that are used very rarely.Enjoy!

Suggested by Chaz.

I shan't reveal how long I was entranced by the Learn Mandarin site before I could tear myself away but I will say that three years of  high school Spanish and a lifetime of English and a smattering of French does not help!

Also, thinking that the stick-figure characters look much like what they mean?

Not so good either.

That said, I think it is the best site I've seen this year.

I am totally doing this.

I'm glad it will be oh, forever before I know enough to learn pronunciation.

QotD: Fresh vs. Classic

Springsteen's releasing a new studio album this week and Dylan's releasing a greatest hits compilation.  Which do you prefer from a legend: new material or time-honored classics?

Magic

Bruce Springsteen

It depends on the artist and how many "best of" collections are already out there. Dylan for example, with a career that has spanned 40 years has a lot of "greatest hits" or "best of's," some I believe were released without his creative input--just for quick and easy bucks for whatever record company he was beholden to at the time.

Springsteen, with about 30 years of recording under his belt has a lot of material too, and has at least once early in his career, lost creative control of a one of his records being marketed. I absolutely, unequivocally would not buy a recording which wasn't sanctioned by the artist.

In general though, I'd prefer to hear what the artist is doing currently. I already own the material released from artists I follow. Unless the "best of" release is substantially different, e.g. the quality of the disc itself is better or the engineers have done some nice cleaning up of the original, I don't really see the need to repeatedly release greatest hits packages. In sum, I'd prefer a new studio album from artists who IMO still have something to say that is worth listening to.

Dylan

Bob Dylan

Life and Love Online

I've mentioned that I keep a blog at Vox which is another successful effort from Six Apart-- the folks who bring you this blogging system.

It's astonishingly easy to "meet" new people there due to several things at play--but it all comes down to connecting people through common interests. These interests can be of any type--anything goes--and once you list an interest and chose to make it public--and you have not only the option of  public but neighbourhood, friends, friends and family, family and private. That's a lot of options but it's quite easy to manage. You don't even have to list your interests at Vox--you can opt to join one of hundreds of groups--there are public groups, by invitation public, and private groups as well. It's really all about establishing where your comfort zone is and then regulating it as you please. I especially like the feature where one has a post filter which prevents your post from being searched by Google-type spiders so it won't turn up in a stranger's online search.

Anyway, I came not just to praise Vox but to make note of the number of couples that have met via the Internet including through Vox, and have established successful relationships.

Just a few years ago I'd hear cautionary tales of the "scary people" you'd meet on the 'Net. Being already married I wasn't interested on a personal level, but I assumed the warnings were true.

Well it turns out that yes, just as in off-line life there are scary people on the Internet. There are also incredible people as well ordinary people. In other words there are all kinds of people. In a completely unique way, Vox has allowed me to meet people from all walks of life, from all kinds of backgrounds, of both sexes as well as gender preferences, and from all over the world.

And that pretty much leads me to the comment I wanted to now make.

Two women in my "neighbourhood"--they are in the "friends" category actually, after a number of months of long-distance romance finally met up and spent a week together. Their friends were following their romance so we were collectively waiting to exhale to hear how things went. Well, they are back online and they are happier than ever. And it really doesn't matter what gender they are--they are two people in love and it's really, really nice to share if only in a small way, in their happiness.

They are by no means unique, either. The use of the Internet has been common for so long now that people have met online, conducted their romance online/on the phone, met , hit it off face-to-face and then stayed together and are raising families.

It is for those that are less Internet invested or can't /won't consider alternate ways of perceiving the world, an unusual, perhaps even unsettling situation. But you'd best get use to it.  Internet romance--like offline romance--is here to stay. It unfolds in much the same way with all kinds of beginnings and sometimes, endings. To my friends that I spoke of above and my other online friends who must travel long distances to be with their loved ones--I wish you the very best and many years of happiness to come.

A little butterfly in Panama...

"The whole questioning about Chinese goods began in Panama with our deaths. A little butterfly in Panama beat her wings and created a storm in China." By DR. JORGE MOTTA, of Panama City, referring to 138 Panamanians killed last year by cough syrup containing a poison made in China.

With a new revelation almost every day about unsafe products from China it's sort of difficult to avoid discussing the situation.

I'm not much on conspiracy theories but I have to wonder if the United States isn't "helping along" the  ever-snowballing-into-an-avalanche of  bad news for the Chinese. As we've moved into the 21st Century we've been reading about China's desire to leave behind it's second-world status using cheap, heavily polluting coal mines to power this drive even whilst making their citizens sick with breathing  and eye problems and worse probably, in the not-far-off future. And there seemed that there was nothing we could do to stop or even slow down this behemoth poised to take our place as world leader sometime this century.

Now it all seems to be falling like a gigantic house of cards.

Badly behaved in the exurbs

Stuck  in traffic in Exurbia. Bored.

This is how I scare other drivers. (I'm parked. In traffic. They are still scared. lol)

Rush hour in Algonquin. Thank the powers I only do this once every 5 weeks!

                                                       

Time moves slowly in the exurb of Algonquin. They erected this clock so one can watch the minutes ticking by ever. so. slowly. whilst sitting in bumper to bumper traffic.

Neat! We are I am moving again!

Proof.

Is this how a woman who is facing down her 48th birthday behaves?

What fictional creature do you wish were real?

The Ent

Ents are a fictional race from J.R.R. Tolkein's fantasy world of Middle-earth.

Ents were envisioned as Shepherds of the Trees, to protect the forests from Orcs, Dwarves, and other dangers. Although the Ents were sentient beings at the time of their awakening, they did not know how to speak until the Elves taught them...

Ents are treelike creatures, having become somewhat like the trees that they shepherd. They vary in traits, in everything from height (standing about fifteen feet high) to their size, colouring, and the number of fingers and toes. They have mortal weaknesses  and can be injured or killed by fire as well as entities larger than them that can crush them. An individual Ent more or less resembles the specific species of tree that he typically guards.

I think it would be great if Ents were real as I believe they would indeed be Shepherds of the Trees and instead of protecting the forests from Orcs, the Ents could protect forests from humans.

I :Heart: TypePad!

Wow! I just got home from my every-5-week trek up to Cary to get beautified (cut and colour) and then back down to these parts to get my (nasal spray) fix from my allergist. All went well but the good stuff happened when I opened my mailbox and found  da-da-da-- my free TypePad T-shirt for being a featured blog at the end of this month!

And in case I didn't know it my new t-shirt has a very tasteful  little blurb on it telling me that TypePad :hearts: me!

That's so awesome! I :heart: TypePad, too!