That's All Folks

No books for sale at Amazon anymore.

They made me take them down for some copyright problem. May get around to fixing 5 manuscripts.

Meanwhile, Smashwords, who always did more for me anyway.

Fine Whine: Cutest Valentine

Fine Whine: Cutest Valentine

Pure Science

My Fitbit and Me

I received a Fitbit for Christmas.  No insult.  I wanted one.  I had a little trouble putting it on, but with the help of three people, I figured it out and now I can do it all by myself.  I had a little trouble understanding how to use it.  Where to look for help is a little confusing, but customer service is really nice.

It kind of bothered me that I could run up and down two flights of stairs all day doing laundry and it would say I took five steps, but I try not to put it in context, and as long as it says I walked more or burned more calories I am fine with that.

I had a little difficulty understanding the sleep program which I was particularly interested in.  This is where info conflicted, but I set it up.  First time it said I slept seven minutes.  Probably not accurate, but whatever. I wore it constantly and thought I was aces.  I even wore it in the shower sometimes.  Only sometimes.  It says it is shower proof, but you are not going to pull the wool over this old girl's eyes.  Usually.

Then one night, I set it for going to bed.  I guess they don't care what you do in there.  The next morning I took it off to get in the shower and forgot to put it back on right away.  When I noticed that, I put it on and went to my computer to see what it said.  It said I slept for 68 hours.

For my age, I think I am doing fairly well with all this technology stuff. 

Thanks For What?

Let’s try third person. Probably inappropriate story, so maybe you don’t want to read it.

The Most Horrible Thanksgiving Ever Which Blighted Many More and Occasionally Echoes

Once a very young and pregnant girl was due December 18. She ordered special toys and a furry white bunting for the baby. But the baby was stillborn on November 18th.

On the way to auntie Edie’s traditional Thanksgiving feast, the young girl with the aching breasts and broken heart spent the ride thinking how she would be expected to not be grim and ruin everyone’s day. She practiced a cheerful countenance. She wore bright clothes.

There was a gruesome accident on the interstate. At least 3 ambulances were having gurneys wheeled into them. Arriving at the destination, cheerful auntie inquired about the niece’s well being. After all, the girl had 6 or 7 days to get over her trauma, which, in those days, no one acknowledged. When the girl mentioned the horrible accident, of course symbolizing her personal loss, she began to weep. Auntie Cheer said one should count one’s blessings and give thanks for them on this wonderful day which was cold, grey and drizzly. A cousin, a Jesuit priest, you know, the guys that ran the Spanish Inquisition and invented waterboarding, said he heard she lost a baby and better luck next time.

When the broken girl returned the expensive fuzzy bunting, the store clerk said, “Didn’t it fit?” The young lady said, “The baby died.” When she left the store, she felt she had been very cruel to the clerk.

This is why Xanax is such a popular drug. It fills the holes in the brain and the heart. No. It puts band-aids on them.


Image Attribution:   -motor-kid.com

Never Let It Go

Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, "It might have been".

More Polyglot Bullshit

This was my response to a Rumpus article I read just about a year ago.  Every other person that commented on the essay, which was about how Asians have their own special kind of racism that nobody else can understand, ranted about their personal experiences with discrimination. You know what? I am having a lot of trouble with my teeth and it really bothers me because I think having unattractive teeth speaks poorly of that person.

 The truth is that everyone one of us thinks we are so fucking special for one reason or another. Examine your conscience. Be the best human you can be. It doesn't matter what people expect of you and it doesn't matter what color your skin is. How could it unless you are on one of those Ethnic bandwagons? Just do your best.

December 17th, 2013 at 4:43 pm
I cannot finish reading this. My forehead is hot and my heart is pounding. Everyone EVERYONE has something to bitch about. This guy whose wife is fooling around on him says she can’t read my fiction and she hates my daughter because she is 5’10″ and hates short people. I am a red head. 2 to 4% of the world population. I will be 70 in the Spring. SEVENTY. This whole ginger thing is maybe 2 to 5 years old. When I was a small child, Ginger (Rogers?) was a cute nickname for a redhead or a person named Virginia. I so desperately wanted it to be my nickname. It wasn’t. “Redhead, redhead, fire in the woodshed.” In my early teens a little song I won’t repeat referring to having menstrual fluid on my head. And I was freckled and skinny. WHY did it NEVER hurt me? I knew I was smarter than my big brother and that was the win for me. No other redheads in the family that I ever saw. Lots of dead ones.

At my ten year reunion from high school I received the ultimate left-handed compliment. “I wish I knew you were going to turn out like this.”

Why can’t you just be you? Why do you have to take on a burden of a “yellow” race? I have never seen a yellow person or a red person or a black person. At a family gathering, introducing the very suntanned son of my Irish nephew and his Italian wife, I said, “He’s one of those little brown people.” He was. Just like your face IS flat. I married a Spaniard. My brother teased him about living in a cave with a goat and a wine bota, but got all freaked when I said his wife was the first Italian we let into the family.

Calm the fuck down. I’m trying to.

Depending on the Random

There is gonna be a huge problem.  Of course Armageddon or the Apocalypse may prevent this problem from occurring, and that is only working through the first letter of the catastrophe alphabet.

The problem may not be totally catastrophic, like a Zombie virus showing up, but I am thinking it will at least be on the level of plane loads of people dropping to their death from the sky and no one asking why or even seeming to care.  If this year is any example, planes full of people falling to their death is going to be an everyday part of our lives soon.  Well, you just have to accept it.  As Millay said, "You can get used to anything."  Bet your sox on that one.

Actually the huge problem I foresee may be a part of the reason planes fall out of the sky into physical, emotional, or intellectual black holes. 

I was in a huge department store last night with my grand daughter.  I saw a display of furnace filters and thought, "Louie never changes those suckers."  so I took my Samsung Galaxy 5 life line tool from my pocket and attempted to reach him so I could ask what size furnace filter I should purchase. The phone said I couldn't call because there was neither 4G nor WiFi available.  This in itself is incomprehensible in a store that surely has WiFi as part of its operational strategy.  For God's sake, Burger King has free unlocked WiFi. 

My grand daughter was standing right next to me.  She took out her Samsung Galaxy 5 phone that is a part of the same family service plan, T-mobile I don't mind saying, and called to ask about the filters. (An exercise in futility for other reasons.)  The call didn't go right through, not because of a lack of WiFi or 4G, but because Grandpa had left his Samsung Galaxy Note whatever at the office.  So she called our house phone, or hard-line phone, if you will.  He answered.

There is no explanation for why this occurred.  Identical instruments, identical service plans, identical locations, etc.  

Do you know what Quora is?  It is a question and answer forum that strives to be more sophisticated than Yahoo answers.  They don't let you get away with much bull shit before they call you on it.  I asked a question about why, at home, my wifi is unavailable because my internet connection is too slow.  Well, part of the problem is uverse's system  is designed for fiber optic cable and there is no fiber optic cable "out here".  And part of the reason is the Wi in wifi doesn't mean it is wireless.  It needs wires. There was more tech info in the answer a kind and knowledgeable person gave me which I promised to try and digest later, but I ended by saying that picking  and sorting all these millions of signals out of the air and delivering them to the right person is almost the same as magic.

Now they have wifi on airplanes.  No, there is not a tower on the top of the plane.  It is done with radio.  Why can't mine be radio?  And considering the utter randomness of the system's operational ability as witnessed in my department store call, how can you expect all these planes flying around throwing out signals to traffic control towers and to mumsy asking her to turn on the oven because you will be home in thirty minutes? Sooner or later the plane will land in mumsy's kitchen.

And I know nothing of bank operations, but what my husband had to go through to deposit a $72 check from our mortgage holder was worth way more than $72 in man hours.  This is that new "take a picture of the check and it will be in your account" strategy.

We are totally depending on technology that is quite probably purely hypothetical.  Would they tell you that if it was so?  Go to the t-mobile kiosk at one end of the mall and you will get completely different info than you got from the t-mobile kiosk at the other end of the mall.  I just pretend it is magic.  I am not going to be around to clean up this mess.

Image attribution:  www.callcenterhelper.com      (Irony)

Once Upon A Time. . .

Once upon a time, people got frightened. They began to believe they had control of Nature, and the stars, and solar wind, and each other. And as this belief became stronger, the people of the world decided to accept the Polar Bear as the totem representing this fearsome power that they perhaps were wielding wrongly. Pictures of Polar Bears bleeding and drowning and dropping from the skies were sent all over their world and it became the rule that no Polar Bear would ever be allowed to die or be harmed in anyway, ever again. And the people of the world took comfort from this, feeling less guilt for perhaps  improperly wielding their imaginary powers. And so it came to pass that Ace Hardware had a special sale on Polar Bear shovels so the people of the world could get out of their houses.

I love this

Mood

THE "WHY"

(Inspired by someone's blog I cannot quote cuz he was all up in copyright.

GMOs and Me, not you.

Jimmy Kimmel did a bit at a farmer's market asking people if they tried to avoid products that were, or contained GMOs. All said yes they would avoid them, but only one person knew what it stood for.

You know the difference between a roma tomato and a beefsteak tomato? Genetic modification. Educate yourself.

 You know the difference between Cro-Magnan man and me? Uh huh. Genetic modification.




Image Attribution:  www.motherearthnews.com

BE YOURSELF

Youth/Contrast

Pogo Sticks and RFI Chips

Any of you that still think Obama is doing a great job untangling other people's errors, please stop reading now.  You won't believe me or finish the article anyway.

Here is the thing.  Even if you were one of the very first to use Sebelius's horrible website, or even if you are a person that feels kind of anarchist about government aid of any kind.  There is SO much you do not know --- so much that will be revealed only through time and experience.

First there was that thing about giving up the right to keep your medical records private.  That was a law that made it necessary for us to sign that HIPAA  or HIPPA paper at the doctor's office.  We were supposedly guaranteed privacy.  But there is a clause in the ACA that says if you sign up you give up the right to privacy.  They had a hearing about it and nothing was admitted and nothing was changed and I am an amateur politician so you have to research elsewhere.  But it is true.  No spoofing.

Then there is the stuff you find out about no matter what kind of coverage you have.  I have a relative who is a medical professional working for a large health care corporation, so this person probably has decent health coverage.  An accident.  A pogo stick.  A broken wrist.  All healed.  All supposedly paid for and insurance info accepted.  Weeks later news comes that the claim cannot be settled until further documentation from Blue Cross Blue Shield's subrogation department.  Where did it happen? Why? Who else was involved.  Was it on private property?  Do you have other insurance?  (This question was always the part of every form.) The person is afraid to answer the many questions, these and others, for fear she will have to testify when Blue Cross sues the pogo stick manufacturer or the property owner from whom she rents. Or me, the person that purchased the pogo stick.  Or Toys R Us where the pogo stick was purchased.  You get my drift.  They will drag it out until what ever monies are involved are meaningless.

Then, at my regular checkup my doctor tells me she now has to ask me a series of questions, which were kind of uncomfortable.  You have to pause before you answer so the Paddy Wagon doesn't show up at the door.  She HAS to ask these.   If she doesn't, insurance claims and coverage will probably fly out the window.  This is all law now.

Now.  First of all.  How much money and how many people are needed to process, research, and follow up on all this information?  You wonder why it cost so much to go in an emergency room?  More and more people are going to want to work illegally with no SSN identification, so they can walk in an emergency room and claim indigence. Many, if not most, emergency rooms have little signs on the registration desk saying whether or not they HAVE to take you. To many, this becomes more and more attractive.  Especially if you go into a faith based facility.  But, of course, unless you walked across our Southern border, the more people that try to fly under the radar, the stricter the policing will become.

I have written before that you need to indoctrinate your kids and grandkids to make sure they never let anyone put an RFI chip under their skin.  Well, that won't do any good.  Betcha.  If you don't have the RFI chip you will be refused care.  I think the choices will be automatons or total anarchy.

This is the legacy my generation leaves you and for that I apologize.


Image Attribution:   https://www.istockphoto.com

Even The Bros Know

I cannot make this any clearer. I am so tired of this back and forth, 'the cop knew', 'the cop didn't know'.  This article contains a phone conversation complete with English translation, about who climbed in the squad on top of whom, about who turned and ran back after the cop after being told to stop, etc.

 Judge for yourself, but if you cannot come to the conclusion that Michael Brown was an aggressor and not even close to being an innocent victim, then something is wrong with your rationality.  I am SOOO tired of white people having to defend their perfectly rational and correct actions because of some crowd mentality hooliganism by a bunch of nitwits that have huge chips on their shoulders.

I have to keep dragging out the story of the Irish families having to flee St. Mel's parish, about being a member of a minority population, (me, 3 - 4%), about quit your whining and bitching and be the best you that you can be so you can be proud of your own fucking self and you can quit needing a bunch of ignorant misfits to validate your existence. Get with the program.

We are supposed to be a civilized Nation,  a democratic Republic about to be over run and terrorized by godless savages that will cut your stupid fucking head from your stupid fucking shoulders in a trice, for no reason at all. So, man the fuck up and be an American, not an ethnic or minority this or that.

What the fuck is wrong with you people?\


http://www.westernjournalism.com/breaking-michael-brown-shown-flashing-appears-bloods-gang-signs/


Photo Attribution:  AP wire photo

UNEMPLOYMENT

My spouse is retired.  He receives several pensions.  His health is no longer A+.  He "works" as a recruiter for a Fortune 500 company that deals in financial products. He is productive and useful but can come and go as he wishes.  He enjoys it.  He likes to talk.  He likes to feel persuasive.  He likes to "shoot the shit".  He likes to tell stories --- most specifically, sea stories.  This job is ideal for him.

They receive resumes primarily from Career Builder which is a service of Chicago Tribune newspaper.  He will take 50 resumes at a time and call the applicant.  Of fifty, 48 will go to voice mail.  That is how vested in the job search the applicants are.  After he receives voice mail twice for a single person, he will usually text message them.  About sixty per cent of the text messages get answered.  This is an interesting illustration of the way computers have changed our lives, but that is just an aside.  Out of one hundred percent of the people he has contact with, thirty percent will say, "I am not interested in that kind of work." Or, "I can't see myself doing that kind of work." This reeks to me of a sense of entitlement.  He has encountered this reply so frequently that he has a rote rejoinder available which often opens up a discourse.  He asks how that compares with what they are now doing which is usually nothing. 

Of the small amount of positive feedback he gets, which would mean people want to come in for a "training" session telling them about the company, its resources and opportunities, (It is not Amway.) the figures once again fragment.  Maybe fifty or sixty percent of those people will agree to come into the office.  About sixty per cent of the people that actually are given an appointment to learn more, which is really all that is on the table at this point, will not show up.  Of the people that show up, about eighty per cent of those enter the employ of this company.  This is actually six to ten people a week.  After that, it is out of my husband's ken, and other variables come into play which may be worth analyzing, but not by this company as they do just fine with these odds. 

When people talk about how hard it is to get a job, no one mentions how selective certain people are, how entitled other people feel, and how lazy some of the job seekers are.  My grand daughter, who, to be polite, can best be described as a flibberty jibbet, was recently "handed" a full time job with a major US corporation that has plans to expand to Europe and offers a wonderful benefit package. She doesn't like the 45 minute drive to work. But she might stay there.  Her Blue Cross ID and her dental insurance card came in the mail today. 

"You can't please 'em all." (Joni Mitchell) 

The last two full time jobs I had, someone knocked on my front door and said, "So and so needs a such and such.  Want it?"  One was short-lived.   One lasted six years and was 'plum". The full time job before that, I walked into a light manufacturing plant in my neighborhood and said, "Are you hiring?"  That job lasted six years and was an incredible amount of fun.  They also paid my college tuition, but I had to turn down their other benefits as my husband had them.

Reality check time. 

Photo Attribution:  ohsoyoureawhat.com

Lemmings

Just had an interesting discussion with Lou, in itself headline worthy. Re: politics. How can supposedly bright people still support, or ever have supported Obama? Of course we know about the "He gimme money" crowd but here we speak of friends, relatives, people of authority and repute. I contend they MUST know he is a doofus and there must be another ego related reason they still "believe". What do you think?

Life?

For the second time in less than one year, one of my husband's siblings, this time his youngest sister, has been found dead, alone, in their residence.

My husband is, well, part of a family that I don't understand.  They are so pompous, so self-righteous.  I have filed for divorce three times.  I have not followed through out of fear and inertia.  I often say I made a choice and I have to live with it.  I do not want to be a savior for anyone except maybe myself, but I know if my husband had not married me, he would not own the amazing roof over our head and he would likely be found or already have been found alone.  So alone.

He had a bout of heart failure recently that changed him.  His brain was starved for oxygen for an unknown length of time while hospitalized for another condition and mistreated.  Now he seeks my company more often.  He shows more respect for my words and thoughts. He at first would not acknowledge the loss.  But the other day he called a lawyer friend.  I asked what brought him to that point and he said, "They fucked me up."  They did.  I knew it some months ago.  It was sad to hear him say it, and it is very sad to realize that my company is more bearable to him because of it.