Not a ceiling hugger, but a light and fan combo that is going into the living room to save us some cooling bills during the summer: this baby has a fan in its heart, but is otherwise compact and quiet until you set the fan on stun.
New ceiling fan…
by CJ | Mar 29, 2018 | Journal | 50 comments
50 Comments
Submit a Comment Cancel reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Aha! A stealth fan of the non-stalker type!
May I ask an OT question? I am a fan of Dorothy Dunnett as well as of present company. I have recently encountered a speculation among the Dunnett readers as to whether Thomas Mondragon might have had some resonance with Francis Crawford of Lymond. The fundamental question though is whether CJC is also a Dunnett reader? Comment
I read Dunnett many years ago and liked Lymond, but there’s no direct resonance. I’m trying to think where the inspiration for Mondragon came from, but I think it was more likely a b&w movie reference or a fondness for Costain and certain historical novels.
Comment Thanks 🙂 And i like the fan too.
I was wondering how the lightbulbs get changed in that fan. From the top?
Happy Easter for those who have Easter holidays.
It’s stylish and doesn’t look like a fan, but where is the light? It doesn’t look like it’s in the center shining down.
A circular fluorescent inside the rim? That would be hard to replace.
What a site – one day Ms. Cherryh is fighting to eat and the next is ceiling fanning. You have to love her.
Jonathan up in New Hampshire
I like the tendril with leaves detail around the shade. Has an Arts & Crafts feel to it, to my mind. But, I wondered where the light was, too. Interesting concept for a ceiling fan. We’re all so used to paddle-like blades spinning, but it is literally a safety-caged table fan mounted within a fixture, hung from the ceiling, aimed down. Since it can be set on stun, I am assuming it has some sort of variability of fan speed (rheostat?).
A very elegant light. It looks like the fan is derived from the big industrial ones we used to have mounted in the tool & die shop; a/c in an open venue that size would have been impossible, but you needed air movement. It’s seems the reverse of the usual light system you see on ceiling fans; rather than the lights below the blades, they appear to be above or outside them.
These days, given the possible impediments to changing bulbs, mightn’t they be 25,000 hour LEDs?
LEDs are supposed to last a long time, but if you read the package carefully, you see that they are good for five to six months continuous use. They also get dimmer with burning time. Maybe, when the tech is more mature, I’ll find them more worth my money.
I agree it seems their longevity may have been over estimated, I’ve had one burn out after about a year in my main living room lamp. Certainly not on all the time. Whether it was the LED that quit, or the electronics, I don’t know.
It’s all in the realm of “planned obsolescence” or sometimes just poor quality. I’ve had three out of five LED lights fail after a short period of usage. Reason: bad assembly. The LED board wasn’t connected properly to the heat sink, and would overheat and burn out. Those were for lighting outside travel areas, operating on a PIR sensor and thus only lit for a couple minutes at a time.
I’ve used a Sylvania LED as a security light for 3 years and 4 months. It’s on a photocell so it probably averages 14 or 16 hours a day, the photocell being a bit over-sensitive. That’s something like 18,000 hours so far, and 12 watts instead of 100. It’s not dimmer that I notice.
Some of the electronics packages are temperature sensitive. Reading the box is a good idea. Not all LEDs are suitable for ceiling mounting; maybe few.
And naturally some companies make poor products, and the lifetime may have a lot of chance in it.
It’s nice to see how much authors value their fans, and how many paths there are to enlightenment…. 😀
My old FryDaddy got tossed in the move. I attempted to fix fried okra (frozen) in a frying pan, without oil. Naturally, the moisture made the breading stick or fall off, and I got a passable mess instead of the desired results. It was tasty enough, just not ideal. So I bit the bullet and ordered a new FryDaddy and a canister for draining off oil. I’m looking forward to its arrival and the occasional treat of fried foods again, without the concern so much when using oil in a skillet or wok.
I woke from a nap this afternoon to hear my upstairs neighbors apparently moving out. (My sleep schedule’s been all weird this week, with too little sleep.) — So, at some point soon, new neighbors, I guess. There was also mild excitement (again) with some sort of domestic dispute from the guy, much yelling but apparently not directed with physical violence. Sigh. I think it’s the same guy I’d heard a few weeks back. But that has been, very fortunately, the extent of things.
A friend brought over Melatonin tablets after I taked about my weird insomnia and fluctuating lack of a solid sleep cycle. I haven’t yet tried them. But I’ve ordered Calcium and a Centrum men’s Health multivitamin and a Stress B-Complex. I have never really stuck with vitamins, but I think this time, I’m going to try this a while and see if it helps me feel a little better. — I used to take an eye supplement that was something like blueberry and maybe gingko biloba. (Auto-incorrect wanted to turn that into, “blob,” haha.) I’m going to look for that also and order it; wish I’d thought of it before placing my order.
And… I’m 52, and AARP just sent me membership info. Oh, boy! (Actually, I won’t mind this, but it doesn’t look like it’s info for their insurance, which I’d be happy to have, if I can afford the monthly premium.) It helped my grandmother’s health costs some. So…OK, dang it, if I’ve gotta be over the hill, I might as well enjoy some benefits. But somehow, a magazine and a daypack are not quite the benefits I had in mind, LOL. Ah, well.
Looks like we’ll have nice weather for Easter. It’s supposed to be a bit milder for the coming week then previously predicted, but still with a high chance of rain for about a week. Okie-dokie, normal spring weather here.
Sleep is really important. I’ve used melatonin, but I don’t find it has much effect for me.
Light control helps. Curtains closed. Don’t look at bright or blue lights. I use a free PC utility called f.lux to dim and color-warm my monitor at sundown. (It turns off automatically if I go to full screen.) It also nags politely, “X hours until you wake.” I use halogen bulbs on dimmers in my bedroom, so if I just turn them on a little, they’re quite warm. When I use my phone at night, I reverse the screen, an Android feature; a few apps like Maps do this automatically; despite many reports of phones disrupting sleep, I find keeping the screen dark prevents disruption.
Dealing with noise, I use a CD playing a recording of rain. Just rain, no birds chirping or zen music; nothing I can count, like waves or thunder; my most-played CD by far. The phone apps Relaxio and Chroma Doze are good, too, and free. Even when my sleep does get screwed up, I can even sleep through trash/recycling trucks.
I have noise cancelling headphones, but I can’t really sleep in them. They are good for muting annoying noises, but they’re also pricey.
Lights aren’t really a factor, but DH is very noise-sensitive. We used to leave the a/c on all night, because the cats, being crepuscular, start informing us that the hew-mons need to get up and feed them as soon as dawn reaches her rosy fingers into the front room. Loudly. Then I picked up a secondhand white noise generator intended for an infant’s room; it turns out that one of the sound patterns, waves, is very good at masking noisy cats. We can leave the a/c on as needed, but the noise machine works well too.
I have a vinyl record of syntesized oriental-style tubular bells, random pitches, vibrato, sustains, attack/decay. It’s really, really good for meditation because it breaks up one’s chains of thought–one tries to “make something” of it, perceive some rhythm to it, but it’s NOT predictable. But alas, it’s vinyl and the drive belt on my turntable doesn’t work. And now CDs are going the way of vinyl too, they say.
I found it! On YouTube! (Though it has been slowed to half speed, purportedly “to make it last an hour”.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_pUMNGXwPk
Cool. Bottom right, click on the cog (settings), speed 2.
Nice, but I don’t think it would mask garbage trucks and leaf blowers. Also, I’d start counting or trying to predict the gongs; that’s just me.
Here’s what I use:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dYETf1fars
___
Cats are creeps? Tsk, tsk. 😉
Hey, that’s kinda nice… Thanks, man!
@Paul , @Walt : I’m quite surprised: I found both of these on iTunes, which means you can probably find them through Amazon or other online music sources as well.
Walt’s track:
* A Day on Cape Cod: Summer Rain. (track and album titles) Atmosphere Collection. (grouping) — (C) 1986 Rykodisc. Released by Rhino Entertainment Company.
It’s pricey at $7.99, but a very long track.
Paul’s track:
* Environments 2. (album title)
* Tintinnabulations (Contemplative Sound). (track title)
* Dawn at New Hope, PA. (track title)
* Released (C) Jan. 1, 1970; (C) 2017 Numero Group.
For two long tracks, they give the price as $9.99.
Note that Tintinnabulations from the album is at normal speed, and the YouTube posting says it was posted at half speed to fill an hour’s time.
Thanks, guys. I like therein atmospherics a lot, and the bells are relaxing, interesting.
The search turned up a series of other record albums for Environments, but I didn’t check those yet. I’d presume they are other atmospheric / New Age instrumental or nature sounds recordings.
Hmm, if you guys still have a vinyl LP record player, you might even find the LP’s on Amazon or Ebay. I personally am fine with digital copies, since I no longer have a phonograph player. (Hah, I used to hav a stereo from the 70’s, my parents’, but it gave up the ghost some years ago. It had an 8-track tape player too. 🙂 ) And the only 8-track cassette I ever had was (ahem) an audio drama summary of Star Wars, released back then. Oh, but I had several audio cassettes, and wore a few out, or had them as casualties of parents’ or friends’ cars in hot weather. Mine, though, were in the 80’s, before I got my first CD player in the late 90’s.
Man, time flies. — A former family friend had twins the year I graduated high school, 1984. The last time I saw them, they were about 10. They were teens the last time I heard from their mom. — I realized the other day, they have now turned 34.They are out there somewhere. Life is so strange.
I’m pleased you both like Summer Rain. It has been loaded in my bedroom boom box, on a high shelf in my closet–you can tell how long by my use of “boom box”. Once in a great while I’ll sub a music CD. The remote is on my bedside table. I find Summer Rain invaluable for going to sleep, or drowning out distractions while reading. I have slept and read under its aegis for decades. Quite the bargain!
I have a couple five-disc CD sets of environmental sounds, and I may have a surf or thunderstorm CD, too. I doubt I paid much more than $10 a set. They’re good for setting a mood, but not as soporific or deadening for me, and I usually want a more definite mood, using music.
I am not a lawyer (IANAL), but my understanding is that CDs give you a lifetime license for the music, which is why recordable audio CDs cost more than data CDs. You can (in theory) move a CD recording to your phone (etc.); it may be difficult as a practical matter, though, due to digital rights management (DRM). With an iTunes or Google Play download, you’re restricted to the license (usually involving your firstborn, pentagrams, ….)
“Dawn at New Hope” is quite nice too, for working.
“Tintinabulation” is strictly for meditation, for catching the “monkey mind” and confuddling it, making it surrender its grasping at time. The only way to appreciate it is “in the moment”. It’s as the old book title advises, “Be Here Now”.
Off-Topic: Food and Cooking.
What is it about us humans and food? We’re intelligent beings, animals with primitive instincts underlying the civilized, moral, and intelligent veneer. So we have both built-in creature needs and urges, and we have more refined desires and preferences. We can vary how we do things for a wide palette of tastes. (And hmm we use “tastes” for food as well as other aesthetics.)
OK, enough highfalutin’ prose. 😀
CJ, I might have another workable suggestion for your current soft foods diet, a modification of something simple.
Tonight, I had leftovers. (My days and nights are turned around so I’m basically in a nocturnal stage now. I suspect nocturnal is my personal default mode, but hey, seeing at night, plus the rest of the world does not work that way, complicates things. Anyway, for almost a week, I’ve been awake at night and asleep somewhat in the day. Even then, I’m not sleeping eight hours or all in one stretch, it’s more like two naps, less than four hours each. But actually, it works out better for me. Still, I’ve got to do some things in the next couple of weeks, and so I’ll break that routine, but I just may try the nocturnal routine a while and see if it sticks better.)
So tonight, I had leftovers, this late. And I don’t think I could’ve been happier with the meal if it had been some fine cuisine from a master chef. Hey, I’m no skilled cordon bleu chef, I’m average, maybe not as skilled as I want to be with some things. So OK, here I am.
I loved the leftovers. I had fixed a packet of Knorr(?) Mexican rice and pasta over the weekend. Cheap and simple, maybe too high in sodium or carbs, I don’t know. Easy to fix and tasty and filling. I used olive oil instead of butter or margarine. Nothing extraordinary. I had also fixed hamburger, ground beef, separately. Nothing amazing there either, crumbled it up, added a dash of season salt (Lawry’s or McCormick are the ones I use) and some parsley flakes. (This time, with the lid very watchfully, firmly on, thanks, haha.) I will admit I did not drain off the drippings and fat. So the hamburger meat was separate. I had used up the attempted fried okra and I thought, well, I’ll just combine what’s left of the rice and burger meat, and cook fresh tomorrow, some veggies and fish, probably.
So I combined the Mexican rice and the crumbled hamburger meat, stirred, and microwaved. Nothing at all fancy or all that unusual. Practically right out of the box.
Why was that so deep-down satisfying? I have no idea, but it hit the spot. We humans are so weird about things. Why did that combination of tastes get to me so much? I don’t think it’s any dietary deficiency. I’d fixed those Friday or Saturday, and I’m pretty good about fixing, despite being on my own. (Some days better than others. I can be a lazy git at times too. Or I can go all-out and really fix. Depends on my mood and energy.)
Well, it was very good, whatever the reason.
CJ, if you could blend that or any similar combo you like, it would satisfy you for taste and nutrition. Stirred together, I think it’s not too different than the taste if blended down to a purée. — You could add a veggie or two, whatever suits you that day, or a little sour cream, or spices to taste. It seems like a workable option, and it’s cheap. And heck, while you’re on soft foods, carb load or other things, I wouldn’t stress over. (I’m 52 and staying around 185, and may be able to reduce a little. I need to exercise more. Too much desk sitting. But I’m considerably less heavy than either my mom or dad at this age, and I don’t expect to get any heavier over the years.)
You’d said you felt a real need for protein, less carbs. You do need some carbs for health and fuel for your body’s systems. But yes, more protein. I noticed, some time back, that if I do not get enough protein, meat or dairy or nuts/legumes, etc., that I have symptoms of low blood sugar, or else fatigue and dragging around. (The shaky feeling you described from low blood sugar, I have to watch for, but I rarely get that anymore unless I mess up or skip a meal or enough of the right balance of foods.) In particular, if I don’t get enough red meat or enough fish (tuna or salmon or whitefish, seafood, whatever) I notice a difference in how I feel, emotional balance, mental acuity, general blah feeling, draggy, and son on. — Our ape ancestors learned to value meat/protein for their big brains and active living habits, besides the benefits of veggies and fruits and grains. So we need protein, even if we make a conscious choice to be vegetarian. (I am fine being omnivorous. I can be find with friends who have moral or other objections to eating meat.)
So — Hey, I liked my meal, and I have enough for a meal tomorrow, and I’ll fix some fish and veggies to round things out.
If the suggestion for a recipe seems workable for you, great, I hope it helps.
Hmm, maybe a little bell pepper with it too? Something mild and hearty. Unless you want it spicy, and then, go for it.
I’ve found that a good magnesium supplement helps a lot with sleep. Taken about half an hour before bedtime.
I’ve also found that I’m more prone, as I age, to muscle cramps, especially the kind that wake you in the middle of the night. Both potassium and magnesium supplements will knock out cramping within a few minutes, that and a big glass of water.
Seconding the potassium – I tend to be low in it (even according to blood tests). Bananas are good for it, as are baked potatoes (and french fries) and orange juice.
(Unfortunately, most food that’s high in potassium is also high carb – except broccoli – so is limited if not off my diet.)
Over-the-counter potassium supplements are usually less than 100mg, but many foods have much higher levels of potassium.
A glass of milk has about 350mg, a banana 400mg, a baked potato 900mg. Most fresh food has plenty of potassium, so with a reasonable diet a potassium supplement shouldn’t be necessary. But various medications affect potassium levels too.
Some food tend to block or drain potassium, lie tea. And cheese.
Thanks for the suggestions, folks. The vitamins arrived today, so maybe a few days will see an improvement. I may add Potassium and Magnesium if I do OK with what I got. (I doubt I’ll notice much immediate change, and since these are pretty ordinary vitamin supplements I got, I don’t expect a problem, just (hopefully) an uptick in how I feel.)
Heavy thunderstorms woke me up last night, and one hit fuzzed out the apartment’s power for a few seconds. Another domestic argument today from what I think is an ex-couple. So it’s been a day dragging along.
I finished watching Stranger Things season 2. Wow! And wow! — And it looks like there is a wait until this fall or sometime in 2019 until season 3 airs. Looks like it started filming last month, if I’m getting the reports right from searching. Man, long waits…. Looking forward to it very much. I was really impressed with both seasons.
Y’ gotta check this out!
https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/niac/2018_Phase_I_Phase_II/Marsbee_Swarm_of_Flapping_Wing_Flyers_for_Enhanced_Mars_Exploration
So the latest John Carter of Mars movie wasn’t too far off with the ornithopter like flying machines!
I don’t know if you have a pulsing xenia in your fish tank, but if so, beware!
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/man-warns-pet-owners-after-fish-tank-releases-second-deadliest-poison-hospitalizes-10/ar-AAvwv3t?li=BBnbfcL&ocid=mailsignout
Since you shop at Costco, try this specific product, or maybe its vanilla equivalent. It may be at your store, or you can get it shipped from Costco.com. This has 30g of protein per container; other Costco products have much less; Costco’s Kirkland brand has only 9g.
https://www.costco.com/Premier-Protein-Hormone-Free-Shakes-11-fl.-oz.%2c-18-pack.product.100308724.html
This is to report that as of April 7th the actual real Teasel shuffled off this mortal coil. (Age 5 yrs, 4 mos which is a pretty respectable age for a domestic hedgehog) I don’t know how she felt about the situation, but I couldn’t stand to watch her drag around as the arthritis in her spine progressed. In her honor I will continue to use her gravatar. There will at some point be another hedgehog, but not for awhile. Her ladyship will be a tough act to follow. At the moment, I mourn.
I am sorry for your pain and loss.
Sorry to hear about Teasel. How did you get her for a pet?
I love having a hedgehog passing through the garden, but had never heard of anyone keeping one as a domestic pet. Doesn’t she need a fairly large territory?
The local hedgehog rescue (where my neighbor’s son volunteers) is always looking for people with safe enclosed gardens as retirement homes for (elderly) handicapped hedgehogs, and I’ve let myself be put on that list; so I’m quite interested in what caring for one would entail.
The ones kept as pets are a different species than the ones found in European gardens. Also known as “African pygmy” hedgehogs they are a hybrid of 2 species originally from Africa. They are smaller than the Mrs. Tiggywinkle sort, about a double handful of trouble and attitude. Like many dry-climate animals their urine is concentrated so they are less smelly than an equal sized critter from wetter climes (think hamster as opposed to fancy mouse) They aren’t cuddly and they are naturally crepuscular so don’t make good pets for kids, but they are quite entertaining company for nocturnal adults. My first hedgehog was an SPCA rescue (long story), my second I got from a kid on Kigiji, and Teasel I picked out from a litter at a breeder.
I am a bit of a hedgehog bore so won’t get going here (much) They do need more space than most people provide, and if not space than supervised exercise. They have tremendous variety of personalities. The joke among hedgehog nuts is “any question about hedgehogs can be answered ‘It depends’ and ‘some do’
If anybody is seriously thinking of getting a hedgie as a housemate, do your research. Also remember they are illegal in several states. (Arizona and Alaska come to mind.)
O noes! I am very sorry to hear about that, and hope in time you can fill the Teasel-shaped hole. We could use a hedgie around here; all the rain we have had lately has produced a bumper crop of huge slugs and snails. Sadly, hedgehogs are forbidden in HI, as are many other ‘exotic’ pets, and I have my doubts about how one would get along with the Three Stooges.
I’m sorry to hear of the loss of your hedgehog, Teasel. There’s a hole in your personal universe right now — it sounds like a one left by a very large, hedgehog personality.
@Teasel We’re so sorry to hear of your loss. We hope the hole in your life can be filled in due time with another critter who needs you as much as you need it.
More than halfway to Real Food Day! You must be planning it by now?
Aw, teasel, I’m sorry for our loss. I have not much idea of what real hedgehogs are like. My experience is only from video coverage. My impression is that they are somewhat quiet homebodies, in the way that Tolkien described hobbits as liking a good home, food, garden, and peace.
It was several months between my previous cats and my current two 9one at the time, the second was added later.) I didn’t adopt a new cat right away, because my previous little guy was very special, and I needed extra time to get over his loss. — But when I did get a new cat, I was happy to find he is also very special. (Goober, aka, Most Non-Assertive Cat in the Universe.)
So perhaps when you are ready, a new hedgehog or other special pet will fill that empty space in ways you didn’t expect.
Hmm, having a rescue network set up to give elderly / handicapped hedgehogs a good garden hot sounds like a fine thing. I never would’ve thought that would be a frequent need. just goes to show ou learn something new here every day.
Wild (young) hedgehogs can get in trouble with traffic quite easily, as their instinct is to curl up instead of running away. Even if hit a glancing blow at 18 mph (the usual limit in residential areas), they can be badly hurt. Then people call the animal ambulance (it’s free, run by volunteers) or they can take the poor animal to a vet and shelter themselves. You’re not supposed to keep these wild animals as house pets.
As hedgehogs need different care than cats and dogs, they’re usually taken to the specialised hedgehog center.
If after care and rehabilitation they can’t be returned to the wild, they need to be rehomed in a congenial garden where they can trundle about looking for snails (my 5×10 m. garden is very good at growing slugs and snails), but where they can be safe from traffic and dogs and cats (my cat doesn’t hunt anything larger than a small butterfly); and get extra food, without having to walk 3 miles each night to find it.
The hedgehog shelter gives instructions on how to build them a good shelter, and how to feed them and everything, and come and inspect the premises before you can get to rehome a hedgehog, so Teasel, there’s no need to worry: I’ll know a lot more about taking care of one before it arrives.
The local animal care here in the northern half of our province (US county size area?) is split into several specialised shelters; that I know of, there are several for cats and dogs, one for hedgehogs, one for rabbits, guineapigs and rodents, two for birds (one of which specialises in (coastal) waterfowl), one for seals and such on the nearest island; one retirement farm for elderly horses and ponies, and one recovery animal park/zoo for tigers and lions and other large cats rescued from poor circuses and zoos (combined with a poultry museum, of all things).
It’s always good to know who to call and where to take an injured or abandoned animal you find by the roadside, or if a bird flies into your window and gets hurt, or anything like that.
I’m coming to realise more and more that these sorts of density of options, that I’ve always taken for granted as part of a civilised society, are not an automatic and integral part of living in a rich “first world” kind of country. Instead, I’m starting to see that population density in an area plays a very large part in making such a multitude of options possible, in almost all aspects of society.
You need a large enough population base within commuting distance, with enough income to spend on supporting whatever non basic necessity thing you’re discussing at the moment, whether that is animal shelters or theaters, classical music companies or opera singers, a diversity of alternative (semi-)medical options or therapists, schools or unusual career opportunities.
Succesfully edited to remove 3 typos.
Heheheh, specialized hedgehog centers. — There probably are such places here, and I just don’t know about them. — There _are_ parks and wildlife refuges set up on the national and state levels, and local area refuges that are more often a private shelter or a veterinary or zoo specialty, I think. Veterinarians in private or group practices tend to be either small-animal (pets and others) or large-animal practices (livestock, other large animals) but that varies. For example, my former vet mostly treated dogs, cats, and other small mammals kept as pets, but sometimes had other animals like birds or reptiles, and these are common. (I think he also had ferrets in from someone; I would’ve liked to have seen them. A friend in college had had ferrets.)
But yes, also here, there’s a need for (and places and doctors for) coastal or other area mammals, waterfowl, etc. — I don’t know how things are set up here. Either you’re more aware, or else the Netherlands do a much better job than the US does at this. (I keep getting the impression that Dutch people have different/better priorities on several aspects of quality of living and natural / environmental cooperation than we do in the USA.)
There are also marine biology places, such as at Galveston’s Texas A&M University’s research center for oceanography, marine biology, sea cadets, and so forth. (I sort of presume U. Texas and Rice U. may have extensions there, but I don’t know.)
I am not so sure that making things like human and other animal health care, quality of living, or other issues, are even a factor related to population density, other than that this means there are more people educated or concerned about providing services in a given area, and who cooperate to get things done. — For example, here in the US, our national and state and local governments each compete and cooperate to a degree on who controls what and how they operate in unison. This can be good for local citizens, or it can mean that things that could be handled better are allowed to fall through the cracks due to time spent arguing instead of working together. (OTOH, if a centralized program has flaws, cracks, then it also can have things not done system-wide.)
And I’d say that despite many US citizens wanting things done differently, they also do not want to pay for it, and their tax money gets spent on other priorities, because government has become its own monstrosus, rather than necessarily serving the people. (Sorry, IMHO more so of late.) Our way does work, and there are times it works really well, but our way also has many weaknesses that need to be fixed and our priorities have to change (among other things that need to change).
Provinces — are usually equivalent to a US state or an Australian territory/state or French départment, but with a smaller land area for a country, they can also be more equivalent to a county (and in the old English system, they used the title Earl instead of Count, but I don’t recall (oddly) if there is an equivalent for a female Earl (Earl-ess doesn’t sound like a word to me.) and all I can think of is Countess, uno Contessa.) Hmm, and then shires were local districts, essentially, if I understand it right, ruled by a Sheriff. (In the US, we have county sheriffs and county judges, at least in Texas, with city/town mayors, councils, or other local govt. bodies. US states essentially mirror the federal model in miniature. In Texas’ case, it’s a holdover from back when Texas had been briefly an independent republic before joining the Union, so we have a few differences, much like some of the original colonies kept differences, but that’s part of US govt., each state has some differences in how they do things, and yet we don’t think of ourselves as a band of separate states in a confederation. We think of ourselves as a single nation, and the states tend to be as much an imaginary boundary as is a county line or city limits.)
Alas, a hedgehog would not be happy in my apartment. A ferret might or might not. A hedge hock would’ve been fairly happy in my front or back yards at my old house, and certainly at my parents’ old house or far more so in the home where I grew up, which had undeveloped land around it, including fields and woods. Hedgehogs, I don’t think are native, but they’d naturalize, albeit with some tiffs and rows with the local raccoons and opossums, haha.
(Also, I’m doing well to have two cats in my apartment, and still trying to keep ahead of the litterbox. I could conceivably have three cats, but that would be my limit, as three pushes it IMHO for the amount of TLC a pet needs from me and for health, physical and mental/emotional.)
But hey, friends having hedgehogs, ferrets, whatever other critters (fishes, birds, turtles, etc.) — The more the merrier. The more humankind encroaches upon natural habitats, the more we need to be a shelter or an ark, and the more parks, gardens, and wildlife refuges are needed.
I think I’d like the Netherlands a great deal. I think I’d also love it in Australia or New Zealand, and possibly in the UK and France. The Japanese way of doing things both puzzles and fascinates me, so different and yet so similar; just another way of being human. (Probably, I’d find a way to fit in in many places if I had to, but there are places that sound best to me.)
Man, my thoughts are wandering all over the place tonight!