On the good side—Jane cleaned up the living room and polished the floor and it is now free of boxes and spacious and pretty again for the first time since construction began LAST September!
I’m organizing things in the basement.
And…the middle ‘healing abutment’ of the 3 posts fell out, so I have to go to the dentist today to get that sorted out…
While we discovered we do not have a 2019 tab for the car tag, and should have had it a month ago—a very kind officer waved at us from an adjacent lane and reminded us of this problem, and that was Friday. Now we have bought it and paid online, but have to slip over to a tag office and get a sticker without getting stopped. At least we shall carry the receipt with us, so that should be no problem.
No improvement in cat wars, but we have a system that worked yesterday: let Shu-Shi out into the garden for their morning sun and let Tanner upstairs to walk about and get petted, then back Cinderella goes to the basement when Shu and Shi come back in for lunch. We figure a little of this may acclimate them to each other indirectly.
Considering that police officers are frequently painted as bad guys in the press these days (‘if it bleeds it leads’), it’s good to be reminded that many of them are good people trying to do what is often an thankless task.
Hooray for finally having a liveable living room! We are coming into the home stretch with remodeling DH’s upstairs office. After weeks of demolition, resurfacing, reflooring and painting over truly appalling walls and color choices, we are in the home stretch. Our electrician, HandyKevin, pulled out all the jerry-rigged wiring and installed proper outlets, lights and ceiling fans. This weekend we put in the baseboards around the newly redone Pergo floor and door frames; next week we will likely put the matching moldings in around the top. One of our friends has declared he wants to build a custom conference table to suit the new office space. The last big task will be removing all the unnecessary gear from Fibber McGee’s storage closet and generally throwing out the oddments we thought we might need but don’t. The redone space is light, airy, and with the new a/c unit, delightfully cool. We hope to be able to rent it out for meeting room space, as inexpensive areas seem to be hard to come by here.
I finally got a bill from the hospital for last June’s surgery (been waiting on it for a couple of months), and they claim it’s the second notice. (Dudes, I didn’t get the first one at all: where did you send it?)
I both commend and envy you your newly sorted/reassembled living room. We hit a roadblock in renovating our bathroom way back at Easter (Hint: don’t use Home Depot’s Behr’s brand latex on relatively fresh, though “cured” plaster: oh, it peels, oh it peels… And then tiny little bits refuse to come off.) and our excellent contractor got distracted by other jobs he had on deck and hasn’t been able to get back to us since we said we would strip and repaint ourselves to save money. Our living room is its standard, messy and mildly chaotic self, but our dining room is storing all the bathroom supplies and more. I yearn for a finished bathroom and a sense of order. Congrats for achieving it in your place… And Chondrite’s sounds excellent too!
The walls in the remodeled place had multiple layers of paint; the latest was a color scheme in black and red (hence ‘appalling’). We peeled off what we could, including scraping and sanding places where the tenants had glued things straight onto the walls leaving blobs of glue, then did a skim coat over what we couldn’t remove with joint compound. On top of all that we used a tinted coat of Zinsser Bullseye 1-2-3, which did a good job of hiding whatever we couldn’t conceal of the other paint job. If you have a ugly paint job to hide, I recommend it.
The house we moved into when I was in high school had interesting paint jobs. The living room and dining room were painted a color called “Granada Gold” (we found the can), apparently trying to match the knotty-pine paneling on the other two walls. The upstairs hall was light aqua, with the doors painted quarterly aqua and the same gold. The mater bedroom was sandalwood pink, with black paint on the closet doors, and red shag carpet (we think the pink was trying to match the vanity Formica).
The hallway and the two rooms with gold walls got repainted as pale a green as my mother could get them to mix, and the master bedroom was painted in sunshine yellow (the windows faced north).
Lowe’s et. al ought to have a section in their paint department called High School, with all the colors angsty teens might wish to paint their rooms. I have no cause to throw stones; in 9th grade my room was bright green with white trim and yellow curtains.
I was all for the sandalwood until it was sandalwood pink, and somehow, for wall paint, that didn’t do it for me. I don’t know why. I’m probably imagining an off-pink that’s more pink than that. But it’s funny that one small change can put someone off. I’m not attributing that to a male bias, quite.
Hah, when I was growing up, my mom went through a (brief) phase in which the master bedroom was a bright Kelly green, which matched a bedspread and sheets with a green bamboo motif, and the existing (heavy) navy (wool?) curtains my mom had sewn when I was younger. Ah, this paint job lasted about a year before being toned down to a pastel yellowish-green, which lasted a few years.
When I was in 5th or 6th grade, my mom had a great idea due to my already strong science fiction bent. (Star Wars et al. had come out in theaters and I was still at the toy-collecting action figure stage.) So the walls of my room became sky blue and the ceiling became a deep blue between royal blue and navy, varied as it went, and somehow or other, the ceiling was dotted and speckled with white stars (dots of paint). This was really, really cool. They put in a light dimmer switch for maximum effect. That lasted nearly until we moved when I was a junior in high school. The very few times I had friends over, they all thought it was cool. Looking back, I think it was extremely cool. I am not sure what techniques were used for the smaller star spray, but I think some sort of flicking the bristles of a brush and/or toothbrush were tried. The larger dots were done individually and at random. Wherever it felt like a dot belonged or wherever it hit, there it was. (I think all three of us helped, but my mom did the finer work on the distant, smaller sprays of stars.) And after consideration of the finished job, we all decided the effect was good but overzealous. The larger stars did the trick. The very tiny sprays, hmm, could have been more effective as less frequent and larger dots, still going for that effect. It was sparing enough that it worked well, but hey, if someone were to do that again, I’d say, experiment some on a large section of plywood or drywall, say pasteboard size, to find what effects work, and then do that. As a kid and even as a teen, I thought this was terrific.
In the house we moved to while the new home was being built, the walls were fine, a neutral off-white to almond color that looked good. But the carpet was 1970’s era shag, rusty colors. It would have been a fine color, but by then, it was old and too much! — Before it was sold, the carpet got replaced by a very nice light brown, slightly grayish but not much, so more toward a reddish or pinkish tone than toward the yellowish tone of a khaki.
In my house, before it was sold and remodeled, the previous owners had had exceedingly dark, nigh unto cavernous paneling for the living and dining rooms, with the walls painted a sort of light pumpkin cream color. Think orange cappuccino. (It actually looked kinda nice if you could ignore the dark paneling.) They had rattan shades. The husband had been big on hunting and fishing. There was uneven Saltillo terra cotta tile. (I never understood why they used wavy tile instead of a smooth, even surface inside.) One of the bedrooms had a pastel lavender / periwinkle color, somewhere between redder and bluer violet with a lot of white. I was surprised that I liked that color, and it stayed.
When the new owners did the renovation, alas, they went with stark monochrome, bright white walls, grey granite countertops, medium to dark grey flooring. (If I’d been buying, I would’ve wanted a warmer color scheme.)
My current apartment? Oh, when it comes time for a new paint job, and if I’m still leasing here, I want something else. The color scheme is too grey, way more ash or bistre grey than taupe. Again, yeah, I’d want something warmer toned. The walls, doors and trim, and flooring are all shapes of this. They recently repainted the exteriors in nice colors, an off-beige or sort of khaki for the walls, off-white for the trim, and a light orange ochre brick (not really terra cotta) for the doors. It looks nice. (Except for the treated wood half-height fence and gate privacy markers for each apartment, in which, a year and a half after going in, these look, hmm, less than great, IMHO.)
Oh, yes, I remember the age of 1970’s harvest gold, rust, and a sort of avocado / olive green, and the turquoise that went with that palette. Not bad, but it became way overdone and en masse. — Very funny, I’m seeing some of those come back in only slightly different forms. I think we may be about to hit another “mod hippie 70’s retro stage, with some 80’s thrown in.
Also, I just went searching for three fonts, to know what they were, due to seeing a 70’s rerun on YouTube. So I just had an overdose of funky, Nouveau, retro 70’s psychedelic fonts. — These were actually a lot of fun to look through. — And found the closest to the one I was trying to identify, is “Roberta” by profonts, a revival of a font popular back then, with a slew of similar fonts. Yes, fans will recognize it from genre book covers and album art. (I was trying to identify the font used in the title of the very brief TV show, Fantastic Journy.) — I also was looking for what was used in a new commercial spot for Season 3 of Stranger things (some tribune variant of Pump or Blippo.) and of course, I knew they’d used Benguiat Bold Condensed and Avant Garde Bold in their titles.) — So I had fun seeing old 70’s and 60’s era Nouveau typefaces from the 20’s and 30’s, and things from around then that showed up in genre stuff. You don’t see those now. They’ve gone to newer or other styles, or sometimes to more generic stuff. — Though I’ve also seen some really awesome type effects and new stuff used for books lately in SF&F.
Today, haven’t got much done, just little stuff and a little housework. Expecting more tomorrow and this evening, though. (Still no calls back.)
We feel your pain. Quel mess!
I very nearly spilled a glass of tea onto my desktop computer just now. Not either cats’ fault, solely mine. Very thankfully it missed all but some sketches / notes, which were ruined. The computer, ext. hard drive, desk lamp, etc., are all fine. Thank goodness! Er, the cats and I are also fine, thanks. 😉
More personal stuff to do tomorrow, then back to font-making and my usual routine. Hoping for good results ahead.
I tried sketching out a “piratical” sort of font, old-fashioned 18th century feel, intended to add roughness as of old Colonial era printing. The sketch went in another direction entirely, and resembles old style types, or something more toward Frederic Goudy and Morris Fuller Benton’s work. Not what I was going for! LOL. So more sketches toward Bodoni, Fournier, and Baskerville will be in order.
I do also want something with an old, warm, comfortable feel, though.
This is why I use a travel mug. I’ve knocked it over more than once, but it’s away from the actual computer (and the UPS), and I have a piece of indoor-outdoor carpet under the desk just because of things like this.
I will only use “tankard style”, wide bottom/narrow top, mugs around the computer. When the one I had for 20 years disappeared when I took it out for a meeting (pro’ly left on top of the car when I left), I searched, and searched. A local greenware ceramics shop had one, I decorated, they fired, but in the end it was a bit too small–I couldn’t get my hand down inside for cleaning. Finally found a potter exhibiting at a local show who was willing to throw a few for me. Each has a slightly different capacity, hard for him to judge at throwing because of kiln shrinkage, one is 20oz! (Just fine for my morning “cuppa”, but it’s not the one I use most, and that one’s not much smaller.) I copied my decoration with its original haiku.
My current preferred computer desk mug is a heavy-bottomed sucker from some Chev dealership or other. The bottom inch is rubber and treaded like a tire. I think it was intended to be very stable on an armchair arm but it certainly doesn’t skid anyplace else either.
Methinks I am going to try a travel mug and a tankard-style mug, ceramic by preference, but I don’t have a meta lanyard either, except one in copper which I declared too decorative to use daily. I don’t generally care for travel mugs (dunno why, they seem fussy to me) but I’ll try one anyway.
Some 10 or so years ago, I was foolish enough to have a glass of iced tea on a small table acting as a makeshift desk for my laptop. My slightly klutzy cat wanted attention (of course) and jumped up there, and, oh, instant flood. Killed the laptop and the hard drive then and there. (Despite letting it dry out for a few days.) Sigh. I had declared a rule, no drinks on the same desk as the computer, it has to be on another table/desk entirely. — But lo, how the mighty have fallen. I let that lapse when I moved in here. (1) I need to put together a prefab desk, so I have an actual desk here, instead of the dresser now acting as makeshift desk. (It’s the wrong height and no leg space.) and (2) Yeah, gotta reinstate the beverage rule.
However, I can get a tankard mug and make pirate-y “Aarr!” noises now and then for the heck of it. (Or not.) I can claim the two cats are the ship’s cats, which might as well be so. There will not likely be a parrot or a monkey. But if a powder monkey or cabin boy were to apply, I don’t know, it might work out. (LOL.)
I don’t know if either of the potters here from the Wavy Navy do mugs. (Do y’all? Would y’all? How much? I know Weeble has an Etsy shop. WOL, are you the other potter here?)
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I’m awaiting a call back from two people. It seems big corporations no longer update their clients or their consultants on existing and prior clients, so I am trying to find whom to deal with now. So what should’ve been done yesterday likely won’t get done until tomorrow. :-/ Oh well, at least it’s not completely urgent.
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Today, once I get the “pound sterling” symbol drawn, I will be ready to take a draft font to the next stage. I think I’ve decided I like the detailing on most letters, though some still need adjusting to fit the style. Once I am done fussing with that, though, I can either begin the boldest weight or else expand the current one to the “Pro” character set, before expanding to the “Pro with Small Caps” set, before we ever get to the Greek and Cyrillic, the final form. I still have to figure out how to do “alternate glyphs.” The documentation and the interface are not good. Even the best how-to from a pro font designer says he did not feel super confident about it. But I’mlearning.
Meanwhile, I need to work on other font drafts too, to get something closer to completion. Man, this is time-consuming and fiddly, even for the most persnickety, fiddly folks. But I am telling myself I’m making progress more, slow as it is. (I have not, so far, found a good way to automate something that I think ought to be somewhat “automatable;” the process of creating the whole raft of accented characters, I which both lowercase, uppercase, and any small caps letters get one or more accent marks applied and everything has to balance up both geometrically and human-visually (a compromise) so that things do not clash, and stay also within the bounds for how fonts are encoded / built. This feels to me like there should be a way to do it, class-based, and I _think_ there may be some scripts to do it, but I (so far) haven’t looked into it enough. It would save hours of hand-work, though, if possible. I think there are scripts for some font-editor programs but not others. :-/
Still, I’m making progress. I am just not yet ready to put my first font-family in for editorial review. Meanwhile, I have several in progress in various stages. — I really want to get something out before the end of this year. This would help me so much. So as I go, over the next month or so, I will be judging which ones are nearest completion and will concentrate on one or two. (Display fonts and fun fonts can be single weights / styles, and I am going to consider those as among first releases. I have a better handle now on production times, but still guessing tooo much.)
The thing is, I’m excited about these. They are not yet “perfect,” in the sense that they are not yet to the point I would consider them (a) ready for editorial review, submission for publication, and (b) they are not yet to the point where I’m totally satisfied that they are to the point where I don’t have the need / urge to go in and tweak and fiddle with them to get them to where I feel they’re just right and I no longer want to adjust things. But this is close for several drafts, so overall, I’m happier about that. Just…dang, I thought I’ve have some things out for sale by now. :-/ And I want to finish some and have them out there for sale and use, so people can enjoy them. (Hah, and I would be bowled over the first time if I ever see something I designed used in a project.)
I fI can get to the point where I have a full font-family out there, and some display fonts, oh, that’ll be fantastic. I sure hope it can be by the end of this year, but so far, this has not happened. I do feel better about my “round robin” approach, but I want to concentrate on one or two font-families soon, and get them submitted. Oh, this takes forever! (LOL, I wanna be done now. Are we there yet? 🙂 )
Alas, my craft of choice anymore is knitting, not pottery throwing or such like.
Maybe something like this would work for you? Nice Price.
https://www.amazon.com/Bubba-Classic-Insulated-Desk-Black/dp/B01DGMBBL0/ref=lp_602608_1_13?s=kitchen&ie=UTF8&qid=1537298288&sr=1-13&th=1
or mebbe this:
https://www.amazon.com/Hotjo-Travel-Mug-oz-Ocean/dp/B00BME1G6A/ref=sr_1_2?s=kitchen&ie=UTF8&qid=1537298579&sr=1-2&keywords=wide+bottom+travel+mugs
SmartCat is one of our potters… with some gorgeous wares!
Thanks, Raesean.
I thought the 38oz. tankard might be a bit much, whatever beverage of choice, haha. But the smaller plastic tankard, I ordered, and we’ll see how it goes.
Weeble’s Etsy shop (WhistlingFishPottery) has very nice artisan ceramics; I’ve ordered from her before. But no mugs or cups or tankards at present. She has a preference for a combination of rough and smooth edges, for a rustic appearance.
Ah, SmartCat, if you have a shop available, please do let me know. (SmartCat, with another username, was active on the Kansas and Teara Firma Farscape fan forums when they were more active, back in the day. We’ve never met in person, but I know she’s great.)
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Never heard today from the phone call, and so I will have to pursue that and another contact tomorrow to get things done. Do hope I can get it done tomorrow, so it’s off my plate.
I finished a draft stage in one font today, and still may have some tweaking to do on the design, but it means I can proceed with that font-family and find, er, well, what else I don’t know that I don’t know yet, hahah, in designing further weights / styles. Also, I can circle round the round robin and do more on another draft font while developing the other. Happy to see I’m making more progress and getting things done a little faster and easier lately. (That draft stage is the first step, 279 characters. The next steps for that face will be the “Pro” 433 and then the “Pro + small caps” at some 800+ glyphs. (Sigh.) That’s before you get to Greek and Cyrillic, but covers the “Pro” European / Latin alphabet. So hey, progress. My current thinking is to keep it as-is, stylistically, and do the other ida that I was considering for it as a different font-family. But this is why it needs time to be sure whether I want to tweak it further. This way or that way or the other way? Heh. Gotta pick a way and stick to it throughout the design, so it harmonizes.
@Ben, I think there may have been a different ‘smartcat’ around as I am not familiar with either of the sites you mention.
I am currently trying to find a clay body that is a good substitute for the one I used for many years and is now discontinued so I am not really making anything for sale at this moment. I am aiming for the Christmas sale I do every year.
You can see some of my work on my blog. I work in majolica which is not to everyone’s taste.
thesmartcat.blogspot.com Click on pictures
I am also on FB as Suzi Caswell because the powers that be won’t let me be smartcat. (Boo! Hiss! Zucker berg)
BTW any potter worth her salt should know the shrink rate of her clay and how to work with it. There are different easy ways to measure.
There’s a balance between size of a mug, amount it holds and how much it weighs. I rarely make mugs over sixteen ounces for that reason.
A smaller mug makes the user get up for refills and thus move around a bit. Many of us spend far too long sitting which leads to physical problems.
Pottery is notorious for causing back aches and worse. I had an early teacher who said the cure was to drink a pot of tea before starting work. Then you will be getting up every twenty minutes to visit the facility and thus moving around a bit. ðŸ¤
Toes crossed that all those dealing with Florence are safe and well.
Edit to add: I’ve done something to my blog so pictures are no longer around. There are some ver on FB.
This is a question I’ve been asking. What do people think of silicon lids for mugs? They are a lot easier than making mug lids but I’ve heard that some don’t like the sensation of silicon against their mouths.
I use a glass mug that looks rather ordinary except for its size, 20 oz., over half a liter. While it is glass and is not quite unbreakable on a hard surface, it also is “barware” so it’s heavy and sturdy. The low center of gravity, even when empty, makes it slide, not tip. And weighing over 600g, even when filled with 500g of tea, it’s still not going to topple. Plastic is not going to overwhelm the weight of the liquid in the same way. My mug is crystal clear, so I get to watch the milk disperse in my tea like a cloud. It was made by Luminarc and looks like the following, but is half again larger:
https://www.amazon.com/Arc-International-Luminarc-Nordic-13-Ounce/dp/B00EHL2OPC
I heard a Texas poli ranting about California, or maybe just Hollywood, deploring I-forget-what and silicon. Ahem. Silicon is the semiconductor element that makes nearly all modern computing possible and the enrichment of Silicon Valley. (Germanium also works, but I don’t know how much it’s used now.) In any case, he was thinking of the plastic silicone, with the obvious pronunciation difference, -con vs. -cone. Don’t order one when you want the other. 😉
Ah, that was Senator Cruz, babbling about tofu and silicon. His wife is from CA, and a vegetarian, so who knows what she thinks of it. But clearly Cruz has either lost sight of Texas Instruments and all the other electronics companies in Texas, or he dowesn’t know the difference between silicon and silicone. (He also hasn’t met tofu in some of its better forms.)
Heh. Not surprised. Ted Cruz is, ah, not well-informed and lacks a certain polish and finesse. We’ve had to put up with the likes of him and Rick Perry and others for a while now, but it looks like people may have had their fill, and some opposing candidates may get the chance to show if they mean what they say. (I hope so; I plan to vote for, ah, “Non-Trump” candidates.)
Yes: Texas has a _lot_ of computer-industry companies around all our major cities. Texas Instruments, Dell, and the former Compaq are only some of them. But without silicon and the other materials used in modern computing, and ahead in computer and battery technology — Texas would lose a big chunk of our state’s income, economy, jobs, future. (And yes, big difference between silicon the element and silicone, a compound(?) or composite; anyway, a product using silicon.) Silicon is, after all, the same stuff in glass, sand, one element in shells, and obsidian and much else. We’d be bad off without it. Mr. Cruz, ah, could do even a modicum of research, such as, oh, listening to his constituents? Ahem.
Walt, Paul, and others, Not only am I very dependent on computers for work and social life and communications, and for personal projects, but I did have some computer science education and graphic design and web design experience. I am exceedingly grateful to have computers, cell phones, etc. in my life. I’m Texan. I have California cousins and some former friends are out there. Speaking on behalf of other Texans — We’re very sorry Mr. Cruz chooses too often to open his mouth without first putting thought into it. Perhaps he will soon have the opportunity to work elsewhere and keep his air headed comments to himself. Ahem. 😉 But both Texas and California have major footholds in the high tech sector and more in common otherwise than usually meets the eye. Ah, our sympathies. We’re sorry Mr. Cruz chose to inflict his hot air upon the airwaves. Heheh. (Also, I have a strong feeling at least his major opponent and probably others vying for his seat are better informed, both in high tech and socially.)
The above is, admittedly, my opinion, and my opinions are not always (or often?) shared by much of the rest of the planet. I am still learning to live with this. Heheh.
My own favorite is a Marvin the Martian mug, broad at top and bottom, narrower in the middle, and less prone to tip. But definitely a standard ceramic mug, no other tricks.
On travel mugs: I have a stainless-steel tumbler from Starbucks that I love (used to have two identical), one of the older ones with a “waist”, which I find is very comfortable. The mugs I have are also stainless steel, a now-discontinued model from REI that is usable with or without the lid.
Why stainless? I drop things, or I knock them off the worksurface; I used to use plastic mugs, and still have them. (I have a nice hand-thrown ceramic mug that’s larger at the bottom than the top, but I don’t want to drop it.)
and, as a result of my department moving a couple of times when our part of the building was renovated, I have several very-much-not-microwaveable ceramic mugs with metallic glazes: pretty things, left by people who apparently forgot them.
I don’t like travel mugs because my hands are too big to get in them and clean off the last bit of tea stain.
Remember when polycarbonate was pulled from the market because it exuded BPA? I’ve noticed a new clear unbreakable plastic called Copolyester; the usual brand name I’m seeing is Tritan. Amazon and others now sell Tritan mugs and glasses of various types. Amazon has a two-layer insulated mug; not the prettiest, I think, but if you like your coffee hot….
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Silicone is a silicon-oxygen polymer. Run of the mill polymers are hydrocarbons (carbon-hydrogen).
The mugs I have are about 4 inches in diameter, easy for me to clean. I use vinegar – or LimeAway! – to soften up the stains, and a nylon-mesh scrubber after that, and it’s easier to get into the tumbler with that, also (the tumbler is narrower and hard for me to get into). A chlorine-containing powdered cleanser doesn’t hurt, either.
(I’ve also found that water run through a filter is softer than tap water, and the stain is easier to clean.)
I’ve put silicone keyboard skins on my laptops, to protect them from accidental spills. Something like this, but you have to be careful to get one that’s right for your keyboard:
https://www.amazon.com/Silicone-Laptop-Keyboard-Protector-A52N61VG/dp/B00CBTQE12
I’ve got the same for my separate Cherry keyboard, and it’s easier to keep clean as well. I type on the silicone, so this might not work if you’re allergic to that, but it is latex-free (at least the Cherry one is, which I use the most).
One thing to note if your cups are getting stained: swishing some vinegar or lemon juice around in them will help bleach the tea or coffee stains. Or drink some lemonade 😀
A bleach solution works, as does making a damp paste of sodium bicarbonate and rubbing that inside. That’s why I wanted one large enough to get my hand inside.
Funny, have to tell this on myself. — Meanwhile, there’s a bottom-heavy travel mug and a small tankard on order.
I don’t drink coffee nearly as often as tea, and usually it’s iced tea until the weather’s cold enough; although there are exceptions, either way. I don’t care for coffee black; I always put milk or cream in it, and I like flavored coffees.
Today was such an exception. Oh, it still isn’t expected to dip below 70 until maybe-maybe next week late, if then. (Prob’ly, it’ll be October.) But tonight, I wanted coffee. So, no plain ol’ coffee on hand (still no coffee maker, and I just use a kettle to boil water for tea). There will likely be a coffee maker this winter, toward the end of next month.
What I had was the International Coffee Suisse Mocha (or other flavor) in what used to be tins, now plastic that doesn’t seal well. Harrumph. — It had been in the pantry a while, and so when I opened the box again, oh, aha! Hmm, it’s all clumped together from the humidity, hahaha. But not, luckily, hard as a rock. Hmm. (Gee, I have no crackers on hand either, just some Ritz crackers, no saltines, in order to, say, put a cracker in to draw out moisture.)
LOL, so my water was boiled and in the coffee mug, and…I broke off a chunk of mix that appeared to be the right size (some three teaspoons or one tablespoon or so) of powder. Plunked this into the mug as if it were a giant sugar cube and stirred vigorously a minute. It is cooling enough for me to see if I put in too much or not enough. Very amused at myself over this and shaking my head a little.
There’s enough powder in that box for one or two more cups, and then I’ll open another. (They were sold in bulk, about 6 in a pack. Those are still sealed.)
I also determined that tomorrow morning, I’ll get out another mug from where I’d boxed them up, pending further cleanup. (Sigh.) I may get out a third mug, as I’m tired of the delay. Those will go back into boxes when cleanup etc. occurs. (Grr.)
Verdict: Yeah, I should’ve put in a bit larger chunk. That’s kinda weak coffee. It will do, though. I may have another cup before I try to sleep tonight.
Ah, and lest anyone worry: My circumstances are not dire on basics like groceries, it’s just that currently, actually _getting_ groceries and supplies to my door is somewhat of a game of chance, in which they may make it to my door or the apt. mgmt. ofc. across the street, or be “undeliverable” in more rare cases when the delivery guy feels stymied by the weird access gate or finding an apt. number, which are strange on their sequence. (I don’t know why either. Surprised me when I tried to deliver an item that had been left at my door by mistake.) — I have found that Amazon Pantry deliveries _usually_, but not always, do arrive at my door as requested and on time, but have twice been left at the office. And so far, Kroger delivery has worked much better than I would’ve thought, for which, oh, I am thankful. (Getting a ride there and back is no longer as reliable these days, either from friends or the local cab companies. Yellow Cab may go out of business here, because their business practices towards both drivers and customers are geared to make money, not get cabs to people needing rides, or at a rate that the cabbies can live on. And Uber is, well, odd about things here, so far. I have decided there is a bubble of space-time distortion around my apartment complex, most especially at the access gates and their keypads, which randomizes and jumbles attempts at access by all but the most adept, cunning, or tenacious of entrants. Heh. That, and I never, ever get a call on my phone asking for entry, despite that the apartment complex’s high-tech system is supposed to do this each time. Despite attempts to rectify this. Or the fact that one keypad has never been fixed since before I moved in. That’s between the apartments and the keypad company, and nothing to do with me. So…heh.)
There will be a call to friends tomorrow, to ask them to please pick up a package left at the office. Er, hey, it’s a Stranger Things t-shirt and possibly a food item, and only Amazon’s mysterious ideas on whether items from one order are sent in one box or many, or envelopes or baggies…yeah, it’s a game of chance, I tell ya. It is, however woefully lacking in Dabo girls or boys, or any strips of gold-pressed platinum, or coin of the realm such as doubloons or pieces of eight (same thing), or shillings or other such loot. I am sure it would be a much more entertaining (and profitable) game if they’d do that. At least the Dabo boys and girls would be, ah, diverting on the scene. LOL. Hmm, notably, this game does not also offer grog or mead or other such, nor hors d’Å“uvres nor other tasty fare. I feel quite sure if they did this, the game might be more enjoyable for all participants. (My college age self would have been scandalized. Good; he needed to unbend.)
@BCS, with no cracker to put in your next opened coffee package, you can also use uncooked rice.
Keep the rice together in a twist of fine cloth, handkerchief or herb sachet.
With loose rice among the coffee you’d need to pour the coffee out through a cup-sized sieve (like you can use for pouring boiled milk through, so the skin doesn’t get in your drink), if that isn’t too fine and lets through the ground coffee.
A handkerchief might do it. This reminds me to _get_ cheesecloth / muslin or herb sachets for the holiday cooking season. I’m envisioning the rice might end up sort of coffee-flavor infused, which wouldn’t make any difference in such a small amount, nor would it be objectionable. Crackers will be on the grocery list.
Gaah. I am seriously thinking of asking friends to take future deliveries for me, at least for anything larger. An Amazon Pantry delivery was not delivered yesterday, and a previous delivery of Dr. Pepper never made it to my door. The Amazon Pantry delivery was not crucial, except that I’ll run out of Cokes / other sodas this coming week if it isn’t delivered. It’ll be next week before I order groceries again. Not enough items needed yet to merit it. So two carriers, one the US Post Office couldn’t be bothered either to leave it at my door or at the mgmt. ofc. Sigh. At most, we had a light shower yesterday. The latch to the half-height privacy gate for my apt. space was fixed, so…aarrgh. That space-time continuum pocket / little black cloud is hovering over my apartment or the complex. Dang it.
Therefore, I’m thinking of asking friends if they would accept such deliveries and bring them over, so as to avoid this. Very aggravating to pay for something, wait for it, and then never get it. Euf. They claim a note is left; none has been.
—–
I’m going to do a little today, then go on strike / holiday for the rest of the day and read and watch videos. (I have been behind still on my reading.)
Last night, via YouTube, because I couldn’t find it anywhere else, I watched an old transfer copy of the pilot episode of “Fantastic Journey.” This was a one-season, 10 episode science fiction TV show (that really should’ve had a better name) from 1977. There was a rare VHS set of it, but no DVD’s have ever been made, or other releases, so some people evidently did transfers from VHS to computer video files, and posted on YouTube. The show’s premise was that a group of boaters get caught in a storm / anomaly in the Bermuda Triangle and are marooned on a mysterious big island filled with fractured time zones, such that the travelers pass through an invisible barrier into each new zone, each episode. Ah, the 70’s. The time storm was, of course, an eerie ghostly green light effect. The production values were typical of 70’s scifi TV, but it was a big deal at the time. Possibly the two best-known stars were Roddy McDowall, who joined a couple of episodes in, and Ike Eisenmann, who’d been in Disney’s “Witch Mountain” two movies and was barely into his teens then. (I would’ve been 10 or 11 at the time, and I was thrilled he was in it, haha.) There’s a future guy with a tuning fork gadget to act as the all-purpose sonic screwdriver / phaser / etc. analogue; the future guy (Varian) has some level of telepathy, as does a woman from a futuristic city who joined them, along with her telepathically-linked mutant cat. Did I mention it was the 70’s? Heheh. I’m not poking too much fun. I was a kid and I loved the show and was very disappointed that it didn’t make a full season, and I’ve looked for it periodically ever since. — So, er, I’ve bookmarked and downloaded the files to watch, since it’s unlikely we’ll ever get the show on Blu-Ray or streaming services. — And the title is always confused with the Fantastic Voyage 60’s movie, but it was the Fantastic Journey.
So this weekend and into the week, I’ll have about 10 episodes, about 45 min. each to watch.
(Ah, also, Ike Eisenmann had a very brief appearance in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, as the young cadet Peter Preston, who is killed in action.)
I’m not sure how much the other show stars had in the genre or other work. After watching the pilot, I can say it’s still a fun, nostalgic watch, and don’t mind the slightly cheesy / campy 70’s vibe. — If Netflix wanted to do a reboot, it might work.
Heh; of course, there’s more to the delivery thing. The office is across the street, so there are (sort of) two apartment complexes. USPS mail either gets to the P.O. box on my side, if it fits (tiny) or to my door, or is supposed to be left at the office for pickup, or gets a slip to pickup at the post office if it needs to be signed for. All this assumes the postal worker will knock, wait, and interact with the resident. This often doesn’t happen. The postal worker’s busy and has to deliver a lot of mail. Usually, it’s during the day, but rarely, it can be after 5pm. The USPS (of course) has access, as they’re charged with delivering mail, legally, by the government, which people forget. Ah, but once in a while, something is delayed, or, like in at least one of these cases, a “something” happens.
Then there are courier delivery services, all the usual companies. One is good about it, the others, not so much, but this can vary too. They deliver to your door or to the office. Or they decide they can’t access (or can’t be bothered) and either it’s routed for another attempt, or more rarely, “undeliverable” and sent back, either for another round, or permanently. And if you’re home and don’t hear a knock, or they don’t knock, yeah. (My hearing is good, but not flawless. A light knock or if I’m listening to music or in the shower / bathroom, and I might not hear it. But mostly, I think they just don’t knock.
There are two nearby access gates, one for vehicles into the parking lot, the other for people by a sidewalk and another parking area. The keypad by the sidewalk may still be broken (the faceplate, but apparently, the keypad works usually.) Last time I looked, it was still broken; has been since before I moved in a year and a half ago, and of course, that’s between the complex and the company that provides the keypads and security. Yeah. Great.
Oh, the access code to the one gate does work and we’ve tested that. (It changed once, had to get the new one.) Any calls depend on two or three things: (1) The office hours: is there anyone there to answer? (2) If so, do they answer or does it just go to voicemail, their answering machine? Hahah, given how it is when I’ve called the office, I can guess which is more common. (3) The fancy high-tech system is supposed to have my phone number and call me anytime anyone wants to enter and see me, for security and nice and high-tech, all done by computer, and did I mention how high-tech and secure that is? Haha, but that only happens if the call is ever sent through to me. And like most people, I get a certain amount phone spam/scam calls, so if I don’t know a number, it goes to voicemail on my phone. But I have never once gotten a call from anyone who called in from the gate and therefore used the system. I wanted to double-check this, so had those friends call while I was there with them. Nope, nothin’. So I reconfirmed the office had the correct phone number there as well as for my direct contact on the lease, etc., personal calls. It was re-entered and correct. And still nothing. So…the fancy, high-tech, and industry-standard system has a weakness: Somehow or other, the system is missing a connection (pointer) somewhere along the way, was never setup right, or something else in error, and so…yeah. Computer technology is wonderful when it works, and an absolute doorstop brick or mere aetherial chimaera when it does not. :-/
So, yup, ongoing problem. I think what’s happened is that someone’s nose is out of joint over perceived problems, and so they’re not bothering to do deliveries consistently. I usually get my mail and deliveries, but do not often enough that it bugs me. It may be particular people for each carrier, and of course, they all deploy people at random. (Note to auto-incorrect: “deploy” is a perfectly acceptable and properly spelled English word. It kept trying to change it to “reply.” Sigh.)
One additional thing: The lease states that if a package is delivered to the office and not picked up in a month, it is sent back after one attempt to contact the resident. This is reasonable for any normal person. Guess what happens when your friends say they will come over, pick these up, and get them to you? They get busy and “forget,” there can be multiple calls with reassurances to the office (by me and maybe by them) and…yeah. I was very put out with them when, recently, stuff stayed at the office, piled up, and yeah, got sent back. And if I call a friend once, twice, three times, call each week, and they say they’ll do it, I do kinda expect they will. Er, hey, I don’t really want to be carrying a large package or more across a highway in full daylight, let alone with traffic or in the evening before the office closes, or in bad weather. I need my eyesight and mobility for actual movement, if I cross the street. (It’s iffy enough if you’re unladen and fully sighted.) — I do understand my friends work and have families. But they are fully sighted and have cars. And yes, this is a common theme for anyone who is not “fully-abled.” (Oh, there will be a new politically correct buzzword next week. I don’t know whether I am disabled, handicapped, or “differently-abled,” or low-vision or legally blind or partially blind or vision-impaired. (Hahah, I am all of those, and it varies, and yes, someone will come up with some new term soon, I’m sure. At this point, I just laugh about that. In any case, it’s difficult for most people to understand exactly what that is. “So…you wear glasses? But you’re not blind, you can see, right?” Those are the first standard questions. And I used to have enough vision that I “presented” well, so you might not know right away, seeing me function.
Note: I’m supposed to go this coming week for another round with The System at getting every point in the system to recognize that yes, I’m still legally blind, always have been, and therefore, am eligible (and need) assistance, because dang, this is expensive. (I still need a consultation to determine if I am a candidate for cataract surgery, which will fix the current problem, and might restore my sight to my former level of legal blindness. It will not cure that; nothing currently known to medicine will. Yet. It might still happen in my lifetime, but the eyes are part of the nervous system, and therefore a very tricky problem in biology or mechanically / computer-assisted. So, well, I’ll be happy if I can get assistance and actually get this done. They won’t touch that appointment without insurance and payment by insurance, for fear of malpractice suits. Uh, thanks. I just want the cataracts fixed, if at all possible. — If not, I expect to learn Braille and how to use a guide dog, and switch to writing and music for a livelihood. (Oh, and the federal govt. want me to be totally unable to work and to have an exceedingly impossibly tiny income, before giving most assistance, and want medical proof and a waiting period for the massive backlog, before I’ll get approved. But as I understand it, that’s all bull, and I’m actually eligible because it is, in fact, easily medically provable by any eye doctor who examines me. (They can even see the early childhood laser surgeries inside the retinas.)
The office people know me. They could get a maintenance guy to walk things over, or by car. But they are not a delivery service. So the problem remains ongoing and frustrating.
YOu’d really think it would not be such an issue. The half-height privacy area allows some slight shelter for packages or guests, from rain or immediate visibility by other residents, or people who might have sticky fingers and rather loose definitions of personal property and what belongs to whom. Heh. — Only once do I think anyone here may have made off with a package, and only twice so far have I gotten mail or packages for someone else at the complex, mis-delivered. (I still periodically get mail for non-existent or prior residents or those who are unclear on apartment numbers. The one package for someone else had no apartment number and no contact number (phone). Hey, you live in an apartment complex, you have an apartment number, there are hundreds of apartments in this complex alone. So, haha, I see the problem.
LOL — And I can laugh about it, it’s ridiculous, but it’s also danged aggravating if it’s something I’m depending upon arriving, rather than, oh, I want that. (I have told myself again to drastically reduce that I-want-that-shiny impulse. I used to not be like that. I can’t be anymore.)
And…still working towards independent income. Still slow, still making progress, still unsure.
Later this coming week, I should know a little more about how far along and how fast I may get through that portion of the process, and whether I will need to have an attorney speed it up.
Be it noted: The federal and stat4e governments talk a good game from one side of their mouths and do their bureaucratic red-tape restrictions dead-level best not to help, with the other side of their mouths. There are people at both levels who genuinely want to help people, and there are also those who are burnt out or care not one single bit if you exist or get help. I say this as someone who has seen both, enough times by now as an adult to know it’s endemic. And no amount of intelligence or being a nice person on your part will change that, because the helpful people there are outnumbered by the system itself. (I didn’t used to be radical in any way. I’ve gotten to be more liberal and radicalized (and misanthropic) these days.) The Fed wants me not to be able to work at all in order to get help. The state govt. has a thing now where, oh, everybody who possibly can should be out working for the good of the state and personal empowerment and such. (There’s more than one reason it’s called a “red state,” I guess.) Pardon my negative opinion there. The two levels of government have mutually exclusionary aims, obviously. — What real people who need the help really need is help, not rhetoric and posing, and not all the red tape. I loathed the last go-round and expect to have another full day of nonsense to little effect this coming week. Sigh. But eventually, I’ll get approved and get help. Preferably before I go fully blind through my own shortcomings or the system’s flaws. (I wasn’t too happy to realize the eye doctors really won’t put things through without insurance and the federal and state approval. I was desperate enough to try for out-of-pocket payment for that consultation. It won’t happen until the system and insurance like me.) Grr.
So…ongoing much-ado-about-nothing. I should know more, later in the next week. I know by now not to expect immediate gratification and blessings from the powers that be. Nothing will happen immediately. If I get the cataract surgery on the bad eye, as a test before doing the less-bad master eye, before the end of the year, I will be surprised. But if and when it happens, I will be greatly relieved. I still hope maybe I can get back to my previous level of vision. Hey, that was not good, but I was used to. it, and it was good enough that I could function way better than this. I didn’t notice it so much because it had been that way all my life. I still do notice it when I can’t do something that others could do, or that I could do if I could see just a little bit better. (One or two home repair things, for example, at the old house, where I had to call someone for some little task that a normally-sighted person, or me with any better sight, could do themselves. I couldn’t see it to do it, right there in reach, easy, but not doable. Frustrated me greatly. And cost extra to have a service call for it.) This is the kind of stuff, the “poor tax” or “handicapped tax” (or “elder tax” or “kid tax”) that happens, that people don’t think about or take into account in political discussions, that people deal with every day. Because I can’t see like the average person, I can’t drive, and certain things, I need help to do, while others, I can do fine by myself, thanks. But it means that there are frequent and annoying and expensive extra costs, and time wasted, when the average (normal) person could do it right away. I cannot ever just jump in my car or hop on a bike and go. Some everyday stuff, if it comes up, I need someone else to come and help with. This is why there are package deliveries and either grocery runs or deliveries. This is why getting a cab or a friend to drive me are. issues, and I have to think ahead and schedule and often things go awry. (There is always a delay waiting on that ride to and from and for the return trip. Always.) (The one truly reliable cabbie I had was too smart to be in the business, and when the local cab company’s business policies got so bad that he couldn’t support himself for rent and groceries, he was smart enough to quit and move elsewhere. He was great. Miss him. But I’m also glad for him. He remarried and has a nice home and family now.
Phooey. Stuff to do tomorrow to prep, and then I can get back to ordinary daily stuff. Think I know where I put everything, but I may have to search. It will happen, though.
Dang it, it’s a rarity if I ever writer anything short and concise. It has been known to happen, however much it would astonish everyone, me included. Heheh.
And… I would love to know how I could manage to pick a good roommate, or more, find a partner. I’ve gotten to where I feel the latter is very unlikely to ever happen, and honestly, he’d have to be truly special to put up with me at present. I feel gun-shy. A roommate would be a good idea. But I haven’t lived with anyone besides family since my college dorm life, and oh, was that a mixed bag! (I was an uptight mess then too. My high school self was much better. I miss that self; I want him back.) In some ways, I’ve mellowed a lot. In others, oh, I think I’m a mess. And I think I’m still gun-shy because my last “roommate” was my grandmother, and on the other hand, well, I’m sort of worried that I’ve been alone so long, I don’t want to become attached (or attracted to) a roommate who doesn’t feel the same. That would not work. But I worry that I could be prone to that, or if not romantic attraction, then overly dependent on a friend / roommate, when that is not right for me or for someone else. Not fair to them. So…meh…I am not to that point yet. Maybe things can work out so that will all melt away before I get to where there might be anyone as a roommate. Or any romantic relationship with anyone. And dang, being alone is not cool.
The cats continue to be cats, haha. They are untroubled by any such things. Lucky little so-and-so’s. 🙂 –Ah,and if I d get to a point where a guide dog is in the offing, boy are the cats going to have to adjust. (I am guessing they would not be happy, but would adjust because they would have to.) I grew up with a sweet old mama dog, who was my mom’s dog. But haven’t had a dog since. Most animals like me. To the point of sleeping on my coat when visiting others. Haha. So that’s fine. My two cats are sassy enough, they’d manage. (The non-assertive cat might actually get a buddy that way. he and the assertive cat mostly get along, enough to tag-team me, or to hang out together if I catch them off guard, haha. So not too worried there.
Welcome to my life. — And yeah, I’m a loner and a curmudgeon lately and a mess, I guess, but I wish I didn’t live alone and do wish there was someone special in my life. All this nonsense (and I am not perfect so some of it is self-made or contributed to by my own baloney) all this nonsense would be much better, or easier to handle, and some would not be there, if my personal, social situation were better, if I weren’t alone.
Well, working on it. Or I think I am. Sometimes reality shows me otherwise.
I hope everyone’s having.a good weekend. Mine is going OK so far. Gotta look for stuff tomorrow, and then back to life as usual.
Expecting Monday to have to find out about the package that wasn’t delivered. But these days, mail arrives on Sundays too. (Cat, don’t step on the gods-be keyboard, please.)
Comment@BSC, the raw rice would work very well. And my mother taught me another trick — dry macaroni, an elbow macaroni or a shell or whatever you have. It looks odd floating around in, say, the salt shaker, but it does work.
I’m not sure if the fault is with the keypads malfunctioning or delivery people being too lazy to buzz for entry — aren’t they supposed to be able to drop off deliveries somewhere safe in your complex, maybe the office? Perhaps ask one of your friends to verify that the keypad entry system is working, next time they stop by. We have an ongoing feud with USPS not bringing our mail until after the library closes, which is a problem when we are expecting deliveries or paychecks. We eventually get our mail, but often as not, it’s at least a day late.
I had forgotten about Fantastic Journey until you mentioned it. IMHO, an underrated, albeit cheesy, series. The 70s and 80s produced a lot of cheesy but fun TV for a walk down memory lane.
Have you heard about the experiment of exposing octopi/octopuses to MDMA/Ecstacy? (They don’t have brains anything like ours.) Remember when Pyanfar was given that kif, that almost starved until Hilfy gave it some hani blood from medical stores? Or how about when Chur was hooked up to that mahen portable medical unit.
One might wonder if and how two different life forms that evolved in two different star systems would have similar enough biology that such things would work.
I’ve often argued that Chemistry dictates that advanced life MUST evolve on similar water/oxygen/carbon based worlds. (It’s the Knnn that I have trouble accepting.) These octopus experiments show biological convergence again. Everything imaginable is NOT possible, but some unobservable things imaginable must be so.
I figure that if it is at all chemically possible somewhere it will try to exist, so to speak; success is another matter. As I also believe that at the upper end of evolution similar environments will tend toward similar forms. EG, the little raptors were headed toward a larger brain and likely more cooperative behavior before the Big One hit, and if they evolved toward flight, it would tend to be a biological dead end because of the sacrifice of manipulative ability, while those that didn’t would evolve toward mechanics and tech, and utimately toward flight by artificial means. The more varied you can make yourself, the more options.
The point is “chemically possible”. It’s all about outer shell valence electrons. The nuclei are a minor factor; whether or not they’re radioactive, and the effect of their atomic number on their electronegativity.
It all comes down to the Laws of Physics, and we know from astronomical observations those are the same everywhere we can see in the Universe. Even the primordial Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation is what the known LoP predict.
It’s also the fundamental difference between Science Fiction and Fantasy. In SciFi you must be consistent with all the LoP, but in Fantasy you can do whatever you want.
Hah, giving that poor, unsuspecting octopus psychotropic drugs. — How could you tell? What’s it/he/se going to do, squirm _more_? 😀 I’m hearing strains of “An Octopus’ Garden” now. And did no one consider the eerie and disturbing possibility that this might summon some Lovecraftian elder race demigod-beastie? 😀 I feel sure Will, Eleven, and Mike, Dustin, Lucas, and the gang would have some advice for them! 😀 Hahaha. Can’t take you kids anywhere these days without you doing some ill-advised science fair experiment and fracturing the space-time continuum, and the next thing you know, there’s dinosaurs in the gymnasium and mutant soldiers in the study hall…. (Yes, I mis seeing My Science Project.)
Kidding aside, despite major differences between octopi and vertebrates, there are similarities too. At least in 1980’s college freshman biology, we got that current thinking at the time was that vertebrates arose from basically an inside-out weird mutant version of an ancestral form related to the mollusca and cephalopoda and the squids and octopi. So that there should be a few things kinda-sorta in common between all those branches of Earth lifeforms. We just took very separate roads.
Very likely, the octopus’ experience of being psychedelically, ah, “mood-altered,” is quite different in some very octopus way that we might not have. Or maybe not so different, just with extra legs and colors and bubbly thoughts? Who knows? (The octopus, of course.) — The thing is, we’re still not too sure exactly how intelligent they are.
Ehh, the possibilities for alien life are so varied that I think we’re likely to see life very similar to ours, and other life that is alien in ways we’ve never thought of, and then still other life that is some other weird and wonderful form. Does it all have to obey the laws of physics and chemistry? Yes. But still, the shapes it might take, the psychologies, the biological and chemical structure? Within known science, there is much variability possible, and there is still much we do not understand and do not know. So…until we do find life on other worlds (planets, moons) we don’t know beyond Earth-based life.
I just think we are likely to be in for a shock to everything we think we know about lifeforms and possible living environments. — Would we (or other life) even recognize the other as alive or as intellign=ent? I would think sorbet maybe some are so radically different that we and they would have trouble recognizing the other species is intelligent. — And yet yes, they still have to fit within biology, physics, and chemeistry; with, perhaps, several revisions to what we think we know.
If Europa or Io or others, orMars, have any kind of life currently or in fossils, then that tells us life is more common than we thought. The possibilities are fascinating, whatever the truth out there happens to be.