bookmark_borderDoes It Hurt, Vick?

I hate Micheal Vick. I hate who he is and I hate the NFL for letting him back in. I hate the money he is paid. I felt satisfaction at knowing he was hurt during last week’s game as well as yesterday’s. And I hate that feeling. Hatred is not a good thing, it does nothing to further along neither myself nor my species.

But I still feel it.

I turned to Lorna yesterday (we didn’t see the game, just a report of it) and said “Ya know, he ought to be put down if he can’t play, right?”

No one can be involved in dog fighting business for SIX YEARS and be “cured” like he claims to be. How many dogs did he brutally put down (either with his own hands or, at the least, knew about and condoned) for not being able to fight? How many dogs were wounded? How many unagented, unpaid dogs suffered through the fights only to die through yet more suffering? The humans didn’t just inject them, they beat them, tortured them to death.

And yet, the survivors of that racket live on. I believe only four of those dogs had to be humanely euthanized. The others live on either in real forever homes or at that dog sanctuary.

Which species came out ahead of this? Did we, the humans? I don’t think so. Just thinking of him makes me mad. Just thinking of the alleged Humane Society of U.S. and their support of him makes me madder. The NFL for desiring money over conscious. No, it is the dogs that came out ahead. They survived something most of us could not. They came out of it still loving life and, yes, even humans. Would I be able to do that? No, I would not. My reaction toward Vick even after all this time shows the truth.

So, Vick, next time you limp to the sidelines, I hope you think of those dogs you killed. I hope you see the irony of this and I hope you wince. I hope, really hope, that you feel that first inkling of true shame for what you did.

bookmark_borderOn the Fringe

Not that long ago, but before the ADA was thought of, womyn’s groups, festivals, gatherings, whatever were all inclusive almost to a fault. No perfumes, no chemicals; interpreters for the deaf, readers for the blind, wheelchair accessible everything; people of all skin colors, hair colors, and belief sets were welcome. No one was left out. Well, except for perfume wearing racist anti-cripple people.

Now, long after the ADA is law, accessibility and inclusivity is gone. Gay bars? In basements or up stairs. Lesbian dances? In a really cool place up stairs. Womyn monthly dinners? Up stairs. Anyone interesting in moving the venue or making the place accessible? Nope. “Gee, you’re right. Someone ought to get right on that.”

So, again, Lorna and I won’t be going to the Women’s Dance this month. Nor will we go to the Lesbian/Gay Prom. Or the monthly dinner. The LGBT community has a growing case of NIMBY syndrome. (not in my back yard)

bookmark_borderAll a-Twitter

I admit to being stoopid on a few things. Dark matter, particle physics, and quarks. They make my head hurt.

Another thing I am behind on is Twitter. Mainly because I don’t care. Facebook is bad enough. But Twitter? I’m not really sure what it is and how it works.

Regardless on my thoughts on it, Twitter is roaring along just fine. Or so I’m told. As a matter of fact, Regal Crest just got a Twitter account (RegalCrest). I like that my publisher is up-to-date even if I am, in terms of “social networking”, still in the dark ages.

bookmark_borderThe Steps To Nowhere

Okay, well, they go to the attic but for such grand steps, they really go nowhere.

Step through the front doorway (watch out for the dogs who hopefully are snarling and trying to eat you for daring to come into the house) and immediately in front of you is a staircase (and snarling dogs). If all the crap was gone from them (flat, unused surfaces are fair game), you’d see dark, probably handmade, wooden steps. Up they go into a recessed rectangular hole in the ceiling. At the top is…well, it’s a door but it looks like part of the wall. It doesn’t have a real handle, just a bit of something to grab and pull on. After you pull the door toward you (and go down to steps so you have room), you see the inside of the door is covered with pink fluffy insulation. Why? I dunno. It was that way when we bought the place umpteen years ago. Two more steps up and, if it is summer, you are now in the Attic Furnace. Enjoy! If it is winter, you are now in the Attic Freezer. Enjoy! And watch your head. Low ceiling.

But back to the steps. Now you have to climb down. Shut the door behind you. I’d hate for you to go back up there to find the cat. Shut the door hard then come on down. Kinda steep, ain’t they? Enjoy your trip to Nowhere? By now the dogs have probably forgot you were here and now remember. Try to not bleed on the floor. It’s a bitch to get blood out of that old, splintery pine.

Seriously, the steps are a waste of space other than they are a bookshelf. And dog supply storage. And shoe storage. We want to remove them and add several more feet to the living room. Except for one thing: under the steps is our only closet. We store our coats there. And two dog crates, some boxes of books, a tent, and, I hope, a roof antenna for 2 meters (ham radio speak for 144.0-148.0 MHz). From in there, you can see the blade marks from where they cut the wood. The steps also cover one of those WTFs we have with this old house. It is covering what looks to be where they cut the wall to make a door into the bedroom. No clue why since the existing door is original (it has the big threshold) and they’d have had to remove the steps to cut it but why? Then why put the steps back? If it were just to access the storage under the steps, why cut a full door size hole? The cuts are on the bedroom side of the wall, too. We scratch our heads a lot over that one.

Back to the attic. I think someone is living up there. We often come home and smell the attic like someone had the door open. And we smell odd things like food we haven’t cooked and several times we smell cigarette smoke. The other night, it was pot. Yes, the Attic Entity likes to kick back and smoke some of that wacky weed.

After reading this, you probably think I smoke it, too.

bookmark_borderThe End of an Era

There are some things in life you can count on. From people to events to sayings. You know, like “when donkeys fly!” means it’ll never happen. But then someone goes and develops a hybrid between a donkey and a condor and there goes old reliable.

Here at my house, whenever we lose something, we say “It’s somewhere safe with the radio.” This is because years ago, I think in ’04, I had a handheld ham radio (Icom T2H). I used it in the truck and brought it back into the house to reprogram. That’s the last I saw of it. I knew I had put it somewhere safe (as in out of dog reach) but that’s it.

Well, if you haven’t figured it out, we found the radio today.

Yesterday we had an adventure. We went to Ikea. On a Saturday. On a holiday weekend. It was…crowded. That’s the politest I can come up with. We went because Friday was payday for both of us and we desperately needed a new pad. Way back in ’91, we bought a bed from Ikea (getting it into the elevator and up to the top floor of the apartment building is another story of its own. we still laugh. and wince.). We lovelovelove this bed. The Swedish style of bed is to have a frame, a platform, a base mattress, and a pad on top that. Some beds now don’t have the base mattress but I’m not that young to find it interesting. The base is original and in decent shape, although today we noticed it was losing some seams. The pad is also original although Lorna says we took it back at one point due to somethinganother but even if we did, it would only have been a year difference. So you can imagine it has lost a lot of its fluff. And its glamor has long since disappeared. We washed it once. Spread it out between several saw horses, soaked it with a hose, sprayed it with a furniture cleaner, then rinsed the crap out of it. It took several days to dry.

But I digress.

We went to Ikea to get another pad. We looked online and found they had muchly improved on the concept. Memory foam! While we were there, we got new pillows and new body pillows. If you have ever gotten anything from Ikea, you know they like to shrink anything into as small a unit as possible. So a desk will come in 52 boxes. Seriously. Our mattress is rolled and tightly placed inside a tough plastic bag. We do not look forward to popping the seal. We got home very late and decided to deal with it today.

We are in the process of taking everything off, tightening all the allen bolts (there’s a ton of ’em), and cleaning the bed. Okay, Lorna’s in there doing the cleaning part while I “rest up”.

I digressed again.

Under the bed was this rolling plastic box Lorna uses for storage. Inside is a stack of newspapers we are collecting for the kids. Day they were born, big events, etc. I vacuumed off the top of the box (how the hell does does get there?!?) and, for giggles, opened it. Inside, just laying there, was the radio. Lorna has no clue how it got there. So she says. I’ve never seen the box other than the day we got it. Inside is the newspapers on one end and the radio, a small paper Ace Hardware bag, and some scraps of paper.

So now we wonder, as we marvel at the places and amounts of dust and dog hair that can accumulate under beds, where then are all the other things we have lost that were supposedly with the radio?

bookmark_borderOn Dryers and Cords

Go figure. The first post I have in forever and it’s a rant. Typical.

We got a new washer/dryer just under 2 yrs ago. We got the extended warranty through Lowe’s. When we got it, the cashier happily told us we did not need to keep the receipt for the warranty as Lowe’s keeps it on file under our phone number. “Yay!” I thought, one less thing to keep track of. But I filed it anyway ’cause, you know, stuff happens.

Just under a year, stuff happened. The washer door wouldn’t close. Since it was not a year, we had to go through Samsung which was fine. I pulled out the file with the receipts and stuff to have on hand for all the model and serial number conversations I had over the phone. The washer was fixed and all was well.

Two weeks ago or so, the dryer stopped heating. We checked the vent, the hose, and Ryan (the nephew) even got down on the floor and looked up the exit hole on the dryer itself. Clear. The dryer spins, runs, all the stuff it is supposed to except heat. Lorna tried calling Lowe’s customer service but for some reason she got nowhere. She hates that kind of stuff anyway so I said I would do it. I finally go around to it and this is when the fun started.

We need that receipt after all. We have practically turned this house upside down and I can’t find the file. I know it is the entire folder missing because I can’t even find the manuals. And I always keep the manuals (although they are getting really useless). Problem is, we moved stuff from the living room into the Rose Room/office. Stuff got put here and there as we figure out where stuff is going. You know, stuff. Stacks of stuff. Stuff in bins, stuff in boxes, stuff in piles.

I told the nice guy (he really was nice) what we were told and how we thought the system worked. He said no, that we need that receipt no matter what. That even if we had called in and registered the extended warranty (which we didn’t know we needed to do), I would still need the receipt. He put a search request in for the time frame we think we bought it and if they find the electronic copy, they send it to me via email.

Meanwhile, no dryer. I decided we’ll just call some local appliance place. Lorna had to take Ryan back, Jo was not well, I had to stay home, and life went on. I just today got around to remembering the dryer was dead. Looked it up online for possible causes (how many others have this happen after just 2 yrs?) and I have been kicking myself ever since.

In college I had a job working for a video arcade company. One of my jobs when we did the rounds was to check the non-working machines. Check cord to see if it is plugged in. If so, then unplug the machine, wait a minute or so, then plug it back in. 90% of the time that “fixed” them.

The first thing to do with an electronic-controlled appliance? Unplug it, wait a minute, and plug back it. It resets the electronics.

Now, we’ve had a lot of power blips lately. Anywhere from less than a minute to over an hour. But it is the actual unplugging that works. And it did. Dryer now heats.

I am kicking myself like mad. I SHOULD have thought of that! It is always the first thing I do when anything is broken! But I was thinking mechanical (heating element) vs electronic.