Colossal historical DISGRACE

Dragon Mood? -- despair and disbelief as she witnesses this cataclysmic disgracefulness!

I never would have found this article if it weren't for checking in at Blurbomat, husband and sidekick to dooce. Check it out. Here's an excerpt:

George W. Bush's presidency appears headed for colossal historical disgrace. Barring a cataclysmic event on the order of the terrorist attacks of September 11th, after which the public might rally around the White House once again, there seems to be little the administration can do to avoid being ranked on the lowest tier of U.S. presidents. And that may be the best-case scenario. Many historians are now wondering whether Bush, in fact, will be remembered as the very worst president in all of American history.

From time to time, after hours, I kick back with my colleagues at Princeton to argue idly about which president really was the worst of them all. ... Was the lousiest James Buchanan, who, confronted with Southern secession in 1860, dithered to a degree that, as his most recent biographer has said, probably amounted to disloyalty -- and who handed to his successor, Abraham Lincoln, a nation already torn asunder? Was it Lincoln's successor, Andrew Johnson, who actively sided with former Confederates and undermined Reconstruction? What about the amiably incompetent Warren G. Harding, whose administration was fabulously corrupt? Or, though he has his defenders, Herbert Hoover, who tried some reforms but remained imprisoned in his own outmoded individualist ethic and collapsed under the weight of the stock-market crash of 1929 and the Depression's onset? The younger historians always put in a word for Richard M. Nixon, the only American president forced to resign from office.

Now, though, George W. Bush is in serious contention for the title of worst ever. In early 2004, an informal survey of 415 historians conducted by the nonpartisan History News Network found that eighty-one percent considered the Bush administration a "failure."

And ... I bet they haven't even asked Bill Maher or better yet, Steven Colbert!

First bicycle ride of spring

Dragon Mood? -- a glorious feeling

Last Saturday, I pumped up the air in my bicycle tires and I went for my first ride of this year.

Wheeee-ee-eeeeee!

I LOVE riding my bicycle. I love the feeling of freedom, the wind blowing through my hair, the speed of flying through neighborhood streets after all the winter trudging through snowy streets. What a feeling!

I tied Cisco up so she wouldn't follow me on my maiden trip. Ohh, the whimpers, the cries, as my trusty bicycle and I flew out of the driveway! I felt only a little bit of guilt at leaving her behind. Finally, I returned to our house, untied the poor dog and then we took another turn around the "big" block of the subdivision. Oh, she was happy ... but not as happy as I was on my first bicycle ride of the spring!

Who says a fifty-something with achey joints and south-bound body parts can't feel like an eight year-old again?

Izzo to Kuwait

Dragon Mood? -- love our Coach Izzo!

From the Associated Press:

Michigan State coach Tom Izzo will make a return trip to Kuwait this month.

Izzo is one of several coaches headed back to the region for Operation Hardwood II from May 23-29, Michigan State's athletic department announced Thursday. Others going for a second time are Alabama's Mark Gottfried, South Carolina's Dave Odom, Charlotte's Bobby Lutz, Indiana's Kelvin Sampson and ESPN basketball analyst Jay Bilas.

They will be joined by Texas' Rick Barnes, Army's Jim Crews, Navy's Billy Lange, Kentucky's Tubby Smith, Maryland's Gary Williams and former Air Force coach Reggie Minton.

"Last year's trip to Kuwait was such an unbelievable experience that I'm very excited to have the opportunity to return," Izzo said in a statement.

The Spartans coach has described the first Kuwait trip to visit and coach U.S. troops in a tournament as a "life-changing experience."

Hurray for Coach Izzo!

Scary numbers regarding heart disease

Dragon Mood? -- dragon heart thumping a little faster now!

In an article from WebMD, a study done in Sweden evidently demonstrates that the risk of coronary heart disease passed from mothers is greater than the risk from fathers. Here's an excerpt:

Sons had a 41% greater risk of developing heart disease if their dads had heart disease and a 55% greater risk if their moms did, the study shows. Daughters had a 17% increased risk of developing heart disease if their dads had a history of heart disease and a 43% increased risk if their moms did.

Children with two parents with heart disease had an 82% increased risk of developing it themselves, the study shows. What's more, children whose parents developed heart disease at an early age (before they turned 55) had a 300% greater risk of developing the disease.

For my sister, Ruth, and I, those numbers quantify what we've been hearing from our respective family physicians. Ruth is being treated for hypertension; I'm being treated for high cholesterol and hyperlipidemia, which is too much "fat" in the blood.

Our mother had her first heart attack at the age of 52. (Ruth is 51 while I'm 53.) Mom died at the age of 63 from her second myocardial infarction. Her father, our Grandpa Rebsch, died at the age of 49 also from a heart attack. I never knew him.

Sometimes, in my more despairing moods (call me an Eeyore!), I have the sensation of tiptoeing through an age-related minefield of heart attacks and strokes waiting to go off. It's a scary sensation to say the least!

Thankfully -- this is focusing on the cup as HALF FULL -- Ruth and I are very close and provide lots of moral support and fervent health cheerleading for one another! We speak often of growing old together as sisters, sitting on a porch somewhere, overlooking a lake.

Friday morning update II

Dragon Mood? -- ???

You know, I really hate it when I write gloom-and-doom posts. Disregard that darn post down there.

Life is good! I've got money in the bank to pay my bills, I have a partner who loves me and my painting skills, it's spring for crying out loud and the cup is way past HALF FULL!

Yup, that's my mantra for today: "Life IS good!"

... muttering to herself, "Life IS good, life IS good."

Friday morning update

Dragon Mood? -- tense dragon muscles

Usually Fridays evoke the upcoming weekend and gleeful, happy feelings.

For some reason, today I'm not feeling gleeful, not even happy. I suspect it has something to do with the lack of activity on the job-front. I've been a real slacker this week, concentrating instead on painting the dining room.

Methinks I must quit the painting scene and get back to full-time job hunting. Yup, I think that's what I need to do! That and my XHTML tutorials!

But first .... er, I have to run to Home Depot and buy another quart of Pale Sunshine. I have less than a cup of paint from the original gallon and I can't finish the job with that. ArrrghhhH!

And did I mention that I'm feeling a bit stressed about money? My "flush-ness" with money is eroding as the temporary job fades further and further into the past. I've paid my taxes, just paid two medical bills this morning (each in the $90 range) and have an unemployment check coming in the next couple of days. But I hate to see my checking account doing nothing but going down, down, down. You know, sometimes I think money (or the lack of it) just sucks. I wonder what it was like when people resorted to barter?

Evisceration / Monologue

Dragon Mood? -- wow!

Frederick at Daily Kos has a transcript of Stephen Colbert's brilliant monologue/evisceration at the White House Correspondents Dinner. An excerpt:

Now, I know there are some polls out there saying this man has a 32% approval rating. But guys like us, we don't pay attention to the polls. We know that polls are just a collection of statistics that reflect what people are thinking in "reality." And reality has a well-known liberal bias.

So, Mr. President, please, pay no attention to the people that say the glass is half full. 32% means the glass -- it's important to set up your jokes properly, sir. Sir, pay no attention to the people who say the glass is half empty, because 32% means it's 2/3 empty. There's still some liquid in that glass is my point, but I wouldn't drink it. The last third is usually backwash. . .

. . . So don't pay attention to the approval ratings that say 68% of Americans disapprove of the job this man is doing. I ask you this, does that not also logically mean that 68% approve of the job he's not doing? Think about it. I haven't.

I watched the video in its entirety. So did S. We were both moved by its power and painful "truthiness."

Kudos to Stephen Colbert for his courage to speak the truth.

!TRUMPS!

Dragon Mood? -- this tending-to-be-on-the-couch dragon needs to get out and MOVE!

I get these email newsletters from WebMD. One of their headlines caught my eye:

Exercise Trumps Diet for Weight Loss

Here's the rest of the article:

Active Monkeys Stay Lean, Sedentary Ones Get Fat -- No Matter What They Eat
By Daniel DeNoon
WebMD Medical News Reviewed By Ann Edmundson, MD
on Friday, April 14, 2006

April 14, 2006 -- Active monkeys stay lean, while couch-potato monkeys get fat -- no matter how much they eat.

The findings come from a research team led by Judy Cameron, PhD, senior scientist at Oregon National Primate Research Center and professor of behavioral neuroscience and obstetrics/gynecology at Oregon Health & Science University.

"Far and away the biggest predictor of weight gain was how active the monkeys were -- that overrode how much food they were eating," Cameron tells WebMD.

The study may explain why people who try to lose weight by dieting alone rarely succeed.

"These findings were surprising to us as scientists," Cameron says. "We always assumed food intake was the main control of body weight and that dieting was the best way to control this. From these results, you are forced to think how active you are is more important than how much you eat."

Cameron and colleagues report their findings in the early online edition of the American Journal of Physiology: Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology.

Exercise Trumps Calories

Cameron studied 18 middle-aged, female rhesus monkeys. All of the animals had their ovaries removed to simulate human menopause. Earlier studies show that such monkeys tend to gain weight, as do middle-aged women.

The researchers put the monkeys on a high-fat diet -- that is, the 35%-fat diet of most women in the Western world. They let the animals eat as much or as little as they liked. And they let them exercise in their cages as much or as little as they wanted.

Over a nine-month period, the researchers measured the monkeys' activity level using a measuring device they wore around their necks. They also kept careful track of the animals' weight, food intake, and metabolic rate.

Some animals ate a lot. Some did not. It didn't make any difference in the monkeys' weight.

Some animals were very active. Some weren't. The difference was remarkable: The most active monkeys were eight times more active than the most sedentary monkeys. It made a huge difference in how much the monkeys weighed.

"We suspected if you ate a lot of food you would be more likely to gain weight. But we did not find that," Cameron says. "Some individual monkeys that ate a large amount did gain a lot of weight, but others who ate a lot gained virtually no weight. Very active monkeys did not gain weight over time. Very sedentary monkeys did gain weight, even if they were not eating a lot of food."

In a new study that hasn't been published, Cameron's team put overweight, inactive monkeys on a strict diet. They didn't lose much weight.

"I don't think most people who try to diet will be surprised," Cameron says. "The body immediately tries to compensate for calories you are not taking in by dropping your metabolic rate and lowering your activity level. There was no way to get around the fact that activity matters a great deal. Altogether, our feeling is that activity is very, very important in controlling body weight."

Can Obese Humans Become Active?

A lot of studies show that obese people aren't as active as lean people are. Cameron's study now suggests that it isn't obesity that turns people into couch potatoes -- it's inactivity that makes people obese.

However, it may not be a simple thing for overweight or obese people to become more active. Cameron says it's possible to predict how active monkeys will be when they're only 1 week old.

"Why are some monkeys more active? You would think it was what situation they were living in," Cameron says. "But we looked at monkeys with acres to run around in and many playmates. You would expect them to be very active. And if you move them indoors with fewer playmates, they should not be as active. But that was not true. A sedentary monkey was just as sedentary, and an active monkey was just as active no matter the setting. And we find this remains true over time."

It remains to be seen whether human couch potatoes can switch to an active lifestyle. But Cameron's work may have put one myth to rest: It's not your metabolism.

People who gain or don't gain weight often point to their inherent metabolic rate as the culprit. For monkeys, at least, this isn't so. Monkeys' metabolic rates didn't vary much. And those with the highest metabolic rate were no more likely to gain or lose weight than those with the lowest metabolic rate.

Spring cleaning

Dragon Mood? -- dusty with blog dust

Well, for all you calypsoDragon13 visitors ... can you tell I've done a bit of spring cleaning?

Yep, I redid my "internal style sheets" -- heh-heh-heh, check out my new lingo! That's from all my study at w3schools. I'm gonna be ambitious and see if I can create a link with a blank target in order to open up an image in a NEW window .....

  Click on the thumbnail and hold onto your seat!

Checking out SketchUp!

Dragon Mood? -- dimensionally excited!

Google News had a little tidbit about Google acquiring a 3D modeling software called SketchUp and -- get this -- offering its beta-version for free.

As a longtime 3D modeler, I snapped it up, er down -- I downloaded it right away from here.

I just installed it and haven't had time to play with it yet. But, I will! Yessiree, Bob or Kip or Sketch.

Happy 28th to my baby, Joshie!

Dragon Mood? -- sweet memories

Yes, my baby turns 28 today. I am now officially OLD.

But, I just wanted to jot down a couple of things as I remember 28 years ago.

First of all, Josh was born on a Thursday just like today. Which brings to mind the old nursery rhyme (which, of course, I googled, found, cut and paste here):

Monday's child is fair of face,
Tuesday's child is full of grace,
Wednesday's child is full of woe,
Thursday's child has far to go.
Friday's child is loving and giving,
Saturday's child works hard for a living,
But the child born on the Sabbath Day,
Is fair and wise and good and gay. 

So, as a Thursday child, Josh has already traversed a lot of distance (in my humble opinion); perhaps he has more life-terrain to cover? Only time will tell.

I called Josh this morning and sang Happy Birthday to him. He told me that Aaron is coming up to Brewery City on Saturday and they're going to hang out. I presume that Caroline is joining them; eh, is this true?

Which brings me to another memory I have of Joshua's toddlerhood. He must have been close to four; Aaron would have been two. Aaron was still learning to talk. When he didn't have his index finger in his mouth. [Such a worried child! It's no wonder he (and I) battle our Eeyore-syndrome(!) We've talked and laughed about our taking turns being the extended-family Eeyore. I digress. Back to the story.]

Anyway, I was remembering how Aaron said "Joshie." It was with a short o-sound, not a long-o (that didn't happen until college when an Idaho gal gave Josh a whole new name). It was all "z's," soft and French-sounding: zshozshie. Make a "Shh" sound and put some "Z" into it, like "Zzh." Now, pronounce the "J" (Josh) and the "sh" (Josh) sounds pretty much the same ... and you've got two-year old Aaron's pronounciation of Joshie. So cute, so sweet, very "two-like." Sweet, sweet memories. Aaron's gonna hate me for this.

And another Joshua birthday memory (this one isn't new to him): I finagled the beginning of my labor for this about-to-be Zshozshie. Yep, I sweet-talked my then-husband into a little early-morning delight (I somehow want to say that it was AFTER eating some breakfast, but who can remember that little detail?). I was on top ... of course. And ... voila, a little percussive-time later (where in heaven's name was Caroline?), I started having regular and rhythmic contractions. All childbirth labor should start so erotically with early-morning sunlight streaming in!

Greg was, I suspect, equally surprised and proud of what he had wrought. It was about 8 in the morning. We called Aunt Ruth to come over and stay with unsuspecting, just-about-to-be-usurped two-year old Caroline.

The rest is history, as the saying goes. Save it for the next birthday, Mary. Tell the story again, Mom.

Happy Birthday, Joshua Elliott. I love you! I'm so proud to have you as my son.

Blogger *sob* REJECTS my post from Writely!

Dragon Mood? -- flustrated

Two different times now, I've tried to blog from Writely.

For some reason, Blogger won't 'accept' the blog posting. It gives me an error message that says:

Sorry! Your blog site returned this error:

Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

Okay, Blogger! What's the deal with this? Huh?

(And now, I'm gonna have to post this *sigh* the old-fashioned way!)

Unstoppable!

Dragon Mood? -- slightly muddled

While I'm looking for a job, reviewing job search agents, recasting my resume for the umpteenth time ... I'm also learning.

Currently, I'm going through the simple, easy-to-understand tutorials at w3schools, teaching myself about HTML and now XHTML (thanks for the boot in the ass, Lina!). I'm learning about anchor tags, href and target attributes; revisited unordered and ordered lists (ah, the ubiquitous <ul>!), designating Cascading Style Sheets for formatting, head tags such as <link> and <meta> ... and now I'm onto XHTML!

Unstoppable, you say? ... bring on the world!

Giving thanks for ...

Dragon Mood? -- clean, glossy dragon scales

... hot showers.

I took a long, hot shower this morning and --*ping*--  I realized how thankful I am for HOT SHOWERS!   I may have been put in mind of this after reading about dooce's and blurbomat's terrors with sewer lines and the (nasty) like.

Here at the pied-a-terre, we have your run-of-the-mill showerhead and actually slightly-below-average water pressure, but the water was just hot enough and it kept coming ... so I was thankful.  Very thankful.

Hot showers, indoor plumbing, whew!   What a blessing!

THANK YOU to plumbers who installed it, sewer lines that work and God in heaven for all these indoor plumbing blessings!

dumpster-diving

S and I took a late-night walk last night -- the night before trash gets picked up in our neighborhood.

Okay, I must confess we didn't ACTUALLY dive into a dumpster. I put that in the title just to GRAB YOUR ATTENTION!

But, as we walked down a quiet, tree-lined residential street, S stops at the curb, picks up a stool and says, "This looks like the one I bought at the antique store!" Sure enough, it's a spittin' image, if not a twin of an antique piano stool with the claw feet clutching glass balls. Perfect condition! No kidding!

She took the dog's leash and I hefted the piano stool back home the three blocks or so. It was a good cardiac workout. My heartrate was definitely elevated by the time we got home.

We immediately took the stool into the garage, flipped on the light and examined our dumpster treasure. Even under closer examination, it looks like it's in perfect shape. No cracks, no breaks, nothing. It had two upholstered pads which we tossed immediately -- we may be dumpster-divers, but we do have our standards!

The stool is so heavy we know that it has some kind of steel shaft for a rotating/elevating mechanism. But that appears to be frozen; we'll have to work on getting it freed up.

Unexpected treasures at midnight! What could be more delightful to a couple of wenchy pirates, huh??

about Mamacita

Dragon Mood? -- nodding her dragonish head

Sometime back, Lina started referring to me as Mamacita. I'm sorry to say, I don't remember when. I truly don't. And then Yosh picked it up, occasionally using the same nickname.

I like it. I think it's cute and affectionate and ... it feels like me.

Now, I find out there's at least one other woman who answers to Mamacita! Her name is Joan Conde and she has a website, Mamacita Online, which I stumbled-and-clicked upon, through paid advertising at dooce. Her tagline is "Get Your Mamacita On!" ... which I must say, I like. I do. I LIKE IT! I especially can appreciate the Hindu goddess image with the eight arms juggling all the numerous things that we uber-Mamacitas do in this world.

Let's hear it for Mamacitas!

Checking in with the Swiss-est

Dragon Mood? -- stargazing

I haven't posted for a while ... nine days! Wow, is time flying or just speeding up -- for me?

It's Thursday and I wanted to check my long-term forecast at Astrodienst. These folks, located in Switzerland I believe, are the bomb! Here's what it had to say:

Pluto trine Pluto: Up to you

Beginning of March 2004 until end of September 2006: This is a period of stability, in which very deep and perseverant energies lend themselves to you. Whether you make use of them or not is completely up to you. However, if you do decide to use them, there will be potential for inner growth. From this position you can gain deep insights into the functioning of your psyche which might have shocked you at other times.

You get more interested into the deep questions about change and metamorphosis, death, birth and regeneration. You will decline any explanation that doesn't truly touch the heart of the matter. However, you could show this very attitude also towards less profound issues.

Saturn square Moon: A time of readjustment

Beginning of September 2005 until mid June 2006: This period can be quite a difficult time for your personal and domestic life. On the psychological level you may feel lonely and isolated from others. You may feel depressed and undeserving of love. Sometimes remembered past actions make you feel guilty that you have not lived up to your own expectations.

Externally this influence can create difficulties in personal relationships, especially with women, because your emotional communication seems to be cut off. Your job may make demands that conflict with your domestic responsibilities, so that you are forced to neglect one or the other. Your parents may also be a source of concern at this time.

The conflict at this time is between the structure of your ego, your sense of individuality and uniqueness and your need for connections and roots. Somehow it is difficult to be yourself and do what you must, to maintain your relationships and get much-needed emotional support and reinforcement from your loved ones.

These elements of your life are not truly in conflict, for they are complementary principles that need to be properly balanced with each other. The problem is that one element has got out of control at the expense of the other, so a time of readjustment is at hand. This situation is the underlying cause of the loneliness and depression that often accompany this influence.

You may have to make important changes in your life priorities. You may have to deemphasize your work in favor of your emotional and personal life, or you may have to break off a relationship that has interfered unnecessarily with your work. In either case, you must restore the balance between these two aspects of your life so that your life will run smoothly again.

Jupiter opposition Jupiter: A little care and restraint

Mid December 2005 until end of August 2006: Under this influence you are likely to feel quite good, with enough confidence to handle just about anything. It is a period in your life when you feel optimistic and as though you can do whatever you want. However, you may be somewhat overconfident, so be careful not to take on more than you can handle.

At this point, several time-consuming projects may be coming to a head at once. This could be either quite advantageous or quite difficult, depending upon how well you have estimated your capacities in the past. What is happening now may be more than you can deal with, so you may have to cut back a bit.

This can also be a time of restlessness, for you feel that your everyday world is simply not "big" enough or does not provide enough experience for you. If you feel this way, you need to enlarge your scope of activity somewhat, but again be careful not to overreach.

You may have given others the impression that you are overambitious or that you want too much (in their terms, at least), and they may try to prevent you from getting any further. If this happens, all you can do is confront them directly and try to reassure them that you are not after their position (unless, of course, you are). Because of this possibility, you must be somewhat compromising.

However, none of this is necessary. With a little care and restraint, you can convert this into an excellent time that will produce considerable good, especially in financial matters. This influence can make you either extremely extravagant or extremely successful in such matters, depending upon your natural bent.

Jupiter square Mars: Insight and skill

Mid January 2006 until end of September 2006: This influence gives you a great deal of confidence and makes you feel very self-assertive. Usually this is all right, but some people will express this energy by becoming arrogant and domineering. Also be wary of overconfidence, resulting in attempts to do things that are simply beyond you. In any physical activity you should be very careful not to take foolish risks that could lead to an accident.

Intemperance in almost any activity could completely undo the basically positive nature of this influence. Avoid exaggeration and try to maintain some sense of proportion. If you can do all of this, you will be able to get more work done than usual, and you will do it well. You will be able to accomplish things that you are usually afraid to tackle because you feel inadequate, and you can take the initiative when you would otherwise wait for others to take the lead.

With care and planning and adequate restraint, this influence is a general sign of fortunately timed action that takes advantage of the proper moment and makes the most of it. And this is not luck on your part, but insight and skill. All of this requires preparation, however, because impulsive actions at this time are not likely to be very effective.

It may be particularly important to placate persons in authority over you. If you act precipitately, they may become alarmed and think of you as a threat, whether or not you intend to be. Of course, if you do consciously intend to be a threat, this influence could be a help, assuming again that you have planned carefully. But if you are not conscious of your intentions, you may experience opposition from your superiors without ever quite understanding why.

Jupiter trine Uranus: Split-second action

End of January 2006 until beginning of October 2006: This influence gives you a strong need to express yourself by doing something that is different from your normal routine. You need to experience a new kind of freedom in your life and to discover dimensions of living that you have not known before. This may take the form of a search for inner truth on the metaphysical or philosophical level, or it may take the more external form of a new activity in your life.

You are much more receptive to new ideas during this time, and you should be a bit careful about getting into something solely because it is a novelty. However, for the most part this desire for the new is constructive and will probably be quite good for you. This is an influence that prevents you in a positive way from getting into a rut.

Sometimes this influence can denote a sudden opportunity or a piece of good luck that seems to come completely out of the blue and take you by surprise. Often it is a sudden change or an event that gives you a new chance in some way. It could be a sudden windfall or promotion or even a sudden chance encounter that works out to your benefit. If such an event occurs, take advantage of it. This is one of the few times when you shouldn't stop to ponder carefully before acting. Such a decision often requires split- second action.

This is also one of the few influences that can be very lucky in gambling. But remember that it will have this effect only if you are reasonably fortunate in such matters anyway. If you are usually unlucky at gambling, this influence will probably not affect you positively.

This influence also enables you to grasp new ideas quickly. You can learn subjects faster now than at other times, and you see very quickly the patterns in anything. On occasion this influence can signify a fortunate discovery or invention.

the birthday girl

So, today my first baby is TURNING 30. Actually, in about an hour, she will OFFICIALLY be THIRTY!

Oh, my gosh! How old does that make ME?

Sheesh!!!

The easy answer to that is thirty years older. Thirty years older than the moment, the day, the year that I became a mother! Another reason to say, "Oh, my gosh!" It feels like a lifetime ago, a century ago, even possibly a millenium ago!! (laughing to myself) It feels like a damn, damn long time ago!

Lina is a smart, caring, accomplished lovely young woman. She is a great person. If she weren't my daughter, I would want her as a best friend. She is just that special! I am so, SO, SO PROUD to have her as my daughter as well as feeling oh-so-blessed to have her in my life. What a blessing indeed she is to me!

But indulge me while I continue to focus on me and my perceptions of the passage of time. There's nothing quite like having a child turn thirty to make this parent sit up and take notice. Hey, I really am getting older. It's not just a figment of my imagination. It's not just the media blathering on and on about the graying of the boomers. It really is happening ... and it's really happening to ME!

And ... I do feel older. I feel a little worn down. I don't feel the enthusiasm that I use to feel. I have to work at it a little more. I feel despair more easily. Yeah, sad to say, I do feel some measure of despair at the misguided focus of our world, of our country's leaders, of our culture's emphasis on material things while discounting spiritual and ethical values. Can't people see how superficial, how fleeting, how vain all that is? My life, your life is like a blink, a snap of the fingers, a moment, now here ... and now gone. How important can money and power and the right bunch of clothes be when measured in those nanoseconds of our brief existence here on this earth?

The only thing ... and I mean the only thing that I have found in my fifty-some years of life so far that's worth caring one good goddamn about is people and our connections with them. I really do believe Deepak Chopra (although I don't believe that this was original to him) that our separateness and individuality as people is an illusion. We are truly all connected and one, separated only by the differences of smaller versus bigger distances between atoms and molecules and space. Where I stop and you start is only an illusion with which we indulge ourselves. Really, truly, you and I are connected, separated only by slightly larger spaces between the atoms. Otherwise, we are one and the same.

And, so, my dear sweet little girl, Carolina, who is little still only in my memory and my imagination, I hold you close and carry you close in my heart knowing that we will always be connected, whether it be in the intimate ways that moms and daughters are close or whether it is in that universal connectedness that quantum physics sketches only so sparingly.

Thirty years ago, right now at 10:23 p.m., we were at the hospital, your dad was a champ to have gotten us there in time and you were just about to make your grand appearance to this crazy, wonderful world.

Happy 30th Birthday, Lina!!

I love you!

Mamacita

driving me crazy

Dragon Mood? -- yes, snorting balls of fire crazy!

Do you realize that twice in the past four days I have thought to myself, "I really need to write about this in my blog?" And then I wondered if I would remember and I reassured myself, "Oh yes, you'll be able to remember that!"

Damn, if I can remember what I wanted to remember to write about here!

late Sunday night

Dragon Mood? -- tired, but good tired

S and I worked very hard today; her on the yard, me on the inside of the house.

She cut back a lot of the dead stuff from winter; mums, hydrangeas, sedum, grasses. She also trimmed a mountain of ivy off of the little parking pad and cleaned it in preparation for moving the camper back on the pad. We even talked about maybe going camping this summer.

She also blew all the pine needles, cones, dirt and detritus off the front driveway. Then she did the same thing on the decks in the back. I swear there must have been twenty pounds of pine needles! She brought all our favorite green plastic Adirondack chairs out of their winter hibernation and placed them around the decks. We also talked about her building us a big, heavy wooden picnic table for permanent placement on the smaller, lower deck. Wouldn't that be a great place to gather, drink and play euchre in the summertime?

I moved furniture around in our 'fireplace' room primarily to move the cabinet where the computer, this computer, resides. It is now sitting adjacent to the double patio doors that lead out to the screened-in porch. I'm within reach of the hanging wine bottles, if that tells you anything!

The still-slightly-new china cabinet is now where the Heads Smashed-In Buffalo Jump poster used to be, and Heads Smashed-In is now where the china cabinet was previously. The green wicker armchairs flank the china cabinet. The sofa table is back where it used to be, posing as a foyer table.

Overall, I'm pleased with the furniture arrangement; it feels more functional. More importantly, Madame S is pleased. She likes the arrangement, the 'feel' of it and the lack of claustrophobic-ness.

I gathered old magazines, a whole grocery bag of them, which I will transport to the pied-a-terre, and then to the recycling bin. I found an unused can light used for highlighting plants and artwork, that sort of thing; I'm taking that also to the pied-a-terre to spotlight our new nuclear coral foyer; it thrums with energy! It really is that intense!

I washed rag rugs, four of them, shuffled and re-arranged dried and silk plant arrangements, cleaned out bags and baskets and folders and pots and all other manner of stuff-holding receptacles. I vacuumed the floors, the carpets, mopped the bathroom floor, scrubbed a variety of marks off the walls, hung a few pieces of art and .... I'm still not done. It will have to wait until next weekend! Whew!

But the house feels clean, wonderfully clean and revitalized. It's like everything is sitting up, looking around at its new location and spiffed-up status and saying, "Yeah, this feels good!"

And then thinking about kerfuffle ...

Dragon Mood? -- hummph!

... led me to think about Mr. Snuffleupagus from Sesame Street. I haven't thought about him in years. I wonder how he's doing?

How DID we function before the web and Google? Here's what Wikipedia has to say about Mr. Snuffleupagus: [...and who knew Mr. Snuffleupagus had a first name and it is Aloysius????]

Aloysius Snuffleupagus is one of the Muppet characters on the long-running educational television program for young children, Sesame Street. He resembles a wooly mammoth, without tusks or (visible) ears, and he is a friend of Big Bird. He attends Snufflegarten and has a baby sister named Alice.

For many years, Big Bird was the only character on the show who saw him (he only came along when Big Bird was alone). The other characters teased Big Bird when he said he had seen the Snuffleupagus, because they didn't believe there was such an animal, often despite evidence to the contrary (such as an oversized teddy bear that Snuffy had left behind). This was modeled in part on the imaginary friends some young children have.

Then read about the "Goodbye" episode from 1985.

I'm so glad to know that I'm not the only one who thinks about Mr. Snuffleupagus!

kerfuffle

Dragon Mood? -- too early; sleepy

What, if anything, does it mean when you wake up before 6 a.m. on a Saturday morning, with the word, "kerfuffle" in your mind, wondering if it's real or something you made up?

Turns out it's real. Hear's the definition from Merriam-Webster:

Pronunciation: k&r-'f&-f&l
Function: noun
Etymology: alteration of carfuffle, from Scots car- (probably from Scottish Gaelic cearr wrong, awkward) + fuffle to become disheveled
chiefly British : DISTURBANCE, FUSS

Why are things feeling more and more Seussian in my life? Curious? Odd?

The news, good, bad and downright Seussian

Dragon Mood? -- surprisingly at peace

So.

Today there was good news and bad news.

The bad news first. My temporary assignment ended last week. The "boss" in Denver called me and left me a message, saying 'they' were looking at another possible assignment for me, give 'em a few days, hold onto the laptop. Stop. Today I get an email from Bonnie (here in Motown): let's get together next week, meet for drinks, a decision's been made, bring your laptop, she gets the 'joy, joy' of shipping the laptops back. (big sigh)

Bummer! I guess that means no more temporary assignments.

And the good news?

Well, the good news is that I finally got off my duff this morning, applied for one job, two jobs, three jobs and before I knew it, it was afternoon, and I applied for a fourth job. Sheesh! How time flies when you're applying for jobs!

You wanna know the titles of these jobs? Here they are: CAD designer, CAE Specialist, UG Design Engineer and Architect I. How 'bout that?? I feel like some morphing character out of a Dr. Seuss book. How many hats CAN I wear?

Finally -- some encouraging news!

Dragon Mood? -- relieved to read something encouraging!

I saw this in Google's News:

A bill that would require nearly all Massachusetts residents to have health insurance was overwhelmingly approved by lawmakers in a 155-2 vote. This is despite the fact that employer-based insurance cover in the USA is falling.

Half-a-million Massachusetts residents currently have no health insurance cover at all. This new policy will provide cover for approximately 95% of them.

A business that employs more than ten people will have to pay $295 for every uninsured employee.

Mitt Romney, Governor of Massachusetts, has indicated he will sign the bill. Romney is tipped to stand for President of the USA in 2008.

Low cost, state-subsidized insurance policies (with scaled back benefits) will be offered by insurance companies.

It is estimated that nearly 50 million people in the USA have no health insurance cover at all. As insurance premiums become more expensive, rising in price way over the national inflation rate, the number of uninsured people in the USA is expected to continue to grow.

In Massachusetts, even people at the bottom end of the earnings scale may have no-cost plans. Their premiums would be taken care of by the state. Those who can afford health insurance, but do not have one, will face penalties after July 2007.

http://www.mass.gov

Written by: Christian Nordqvist
Editor: Medical News Today

drinking and flickring

Gateway GoodbyeOriginally uploaded by MontanaRaven.

Ooh, I love this ...

I drank too much red wine one night ... and flickering through the many windows and doors of flickr, I found this one ... and I suddenly felt quite sober and aware and knew I needed to look at this again.

What I HAVEN'T posted about ... YET!

Dragon Mood? -- oops!

.... And I just realized that I haven't posted about my fun, wonderful, crazy weekend with my fun, wonderful, crazy kids ... YET!

I WILL do this!

The odd Saturday afternoon

Dragon Mood? -- where am I???

I probably have so many postings entitled, "Saturday morning" or some derivation of that, it's not even funny. I could have posted this morning; I dillyed and I dallyed until now, and so it's afternoon.

S and I are both feeling rather quiet. Maybe needing to feel quiet. There are potentially big events waiting off in the wings. Most likely, my temporary job is coming to an end this next Friday. While I have been looking at job postings, I really haven't seen anything that I just gotta apply for. I'll be kicking myself for my procrastination once the paychecks stop coming and the bills keep rolling in. Arrgh!

And for S, she's awaiting Black Tuesday, as it's being called by the Detroit media. Supposedly, potentially one in every three employees at the Tech Center could be laid off. That number doesn't jive with the projected 1200 people that will supposedly be pink-slipped, but rationality and logic are poor competitors to fear and anxiety. We've had innumerable conversations about any and all of the many possible permutations to this event, some with a clear head, others swinging our arms wildly as we creep up to the precipice of both of us being unemployed and peer over the edge. Scary, scary things to look at!

And meanwhile, life goes on, laundry needs doing, taxes need filing, errands hovering, the dog begging for walking. It never ends.

As for me, I'm going to post this little post, take a nice, long hot shower, download a couple of digital pix off the camera, perhaps even play in Photoshop a bit. I can postpone the work a little bit longer(!)

Tuesday, Tuesday

It's March 21st .... is today the first day of spring? I gotta go check ... hang on.

Evidently, yesterday ... Monday, March 20th was the FIRST day of spring. Okay, so I hit the SECOND day of spring! Can't hit 'em all, huh?

I'm sitting in the living room of our pied-a-terre, taking a quick break from work. There is a plump brown sparrow who has landed on an old, dried-up grapevine from last year. He/she is looking at the window. Ahh, fly away, little sparrow. Spring has arrived. Find some food, make some babies, make a nest. It is wonderful to hear the sounds of birds again. Truly a rite of spring.

For whatever reason, I'm feeling hopeful today. Thank you, God. Hopefulness is a wonderful thing!

Google acquires Writely!

Dragon Mood? -- dragons acquire glittery things

You know, I honestly don't remember how I learned about Writely. But, as soon as I tried it, I liked it! And now, I learn that they have been bought up by Google. Imagine that!

And .... I had no idea that Writely has a Blogspot blog. Duh! Here's what the folks at Writely have to say:

Here are our "top 10" reasons why being part of Google is fantastic for Writely and the Writely team:

10. Writely is like a caterpillar that we hope to make into a beautiful butterfly at Google!
9. We love Google's philosophy and values -- especially "Focus on the user."
8. We're as passionate as Google is about respecting users' privacy.
7. Many of our users are already Google fans using other Google services.
6. Being at Google will help us do more great things faster.
5. Some people didn't feel comfortable trusting a tiny startup with their documents...and we're no longer a tiny startup.
4. We like lava lamps and they're pretty much standard decor at Google.
3. Three words: Free Googleplex lunches ;)
2. As fun as it's been to launch a popular, global, 24x7 Web service, it'll be nice to take a vacation once in a while!
...and the number one reason???
1. We'll be able to bring Writely to not just thousands but millions of users -- the more, the merrier :-)

So, I want to continue to use Writely. Maybe you'd like to give it a try?

about cubicles, the corporate world and Dilbert

Dragon Mood? -- dragonly aghast-ness

Lina sent this to me. Wow!-- it's about design and design gone wrong and corporate bottomlines and money over people and .... well, just read it:

The Great Escape

Forty million American employees toil in soulless cubicles. How did they get there -- and can business ever break out of the box?
By Julie Schlosser, FORTUNE Magazine


NEW YORK (FORTUNE Magazine) - Robert Oppenheimer agonized over building the A-bomb. Alfred Nobel got queasy about creating dynamite. Robert Propst invented nothing so destructive. Yet before he died in 2000, he lamented his unwitting contribution to what he called "monolithic insanity."

Propst is the father of the cubicle. More than 30 years after he unleashed it on the world, we are still trying to get out of the box. The cubicle has been called many things in its long and terrible reign. But what it has lacked in beauty and amenity, it has made up for in crabgrass-like persistence.

Reviled by workers, demonized by designers, disowned by its very creator, it still claims the largest share of office furniture sales--$3 billion or so a year--and has outlived every "office of the future" meant to replace it. It is the Fidel Castro of office furniture.

So will the cubicle always be with us? Probably yes, though in recent years individuals and organizations have finally started to chart productive and economical ways to escape its tyranny.

The cubicle was not born evil, or even square. It began, in fact, as a beautiful vision. The year was 1968. Nixon won the presidency. The Beatles released The White Album. And home-furnishings company Herman Miller in Zeeland, Mich., launched the Action Office. It was the brainchild of Bob Propst, a Coloradan who had joined the company as director of research.

After years of prototyping and studying how people work, and vowing to improve on the open-bullpen office that dominated much of the 20th century, Propst designed a system he thought would increase productivity (hence the name Action Office). The young designer, who also worked on projects as varied as heart pumps and tree harvesters, theorized that productivity would rise if people could see more of their work spread out in front of them, not just stacked in an in-box.

The new system included plenty of work surfaces and display shelves; partitions were a part of it, intended to provide privacy and places to pin up works in process (see photo, above left). The Action Office even included varying desk levels to enable employees to work part of the time standing up, thereby encouraging blood flow and staving off exhaustion.

But inventions seldom obey the creator's intent. "The Action Office wasn't conceived to cram a lot of people into little space," says Joe Schwartz, Herman Miller's former marketing chief, who helped launch the system in 1968. "It was driven that way by economics."

Economics was the one thing Propst had failed to take into account. But it was also what triggered the cubicle's runaway success. Around the time the Action Office was born, a growing breed of white-collar workers, whose job titles fell between secretary and boss, was swelling the workforce. Also, real estate prices were rising, as was the cost of reconfiguring office buildings, making the physical office a drag on the corporate budget. Cubicles, or "systems furniture," as they are euphemistically called, offered a cheaper alternative for redoing the floorplan.

Another critical factor in the cubicle's rapid ascent was Uncle Sam. During the 1960s, to stimulate business spending, the Treasury created new rules for depreciating assets. The changes specified clearer ranges for depreciation and established a shorter life for furniture and equipment, vs. longer ranges assigned to buildings or leasehold improvements. (Today companies can depreciate office furniture in seven years, whereas permanent structures--that is, offices with walls--are assigned a 39.5-year rate.)

The upshot: A company could recover its costs quicker if it purchased cubes. When clients told Herman Miller of that unexpected benefit, it became a new selling point for the Action Office. After only two years on the market, sales soared. Competitors took notice.

That's when Propst's original vision began to fade. "They kept shrinking the Action Office until it became a cubicle," says Schwartz, now 80. As Steelcase, Knoll, and Haworth brought their versions to market, they figured out that what businesses wanted wasn't to give employees a holistic experience. The customers wanted a cheap way to pack workers in.

Propst's workstations were designed to be flexible, but in practice they were seldom altered or moved at all. Lined up in identical rows, they became the dystopian world that three academics described as "bright satanic offices" in a 1998 book, Workplaces of the Future.

Designer Douglas Ball, for instance, remembers the first installation of cubicles he created for a Canadian company in 1972. "I thought I'd be excited, but I came out depressed," says Ball, now 70. "It was Dilbertville. I'd failed to visualize what it would look like when there were so many of them."

Having taken over the world, the cubicle defeated several attempts to dethrone it. One of the most ambitious assaults came in 1993, when Jay Chiat, chairman of ad agency Chiat/Day, declared a sort of Bolshevik revolution when he moved his employees into newly renovated space in Venice, Calif. The design "was loungy, like Starbucks," remembers Stevan Alburty, then head of technology. "It was 20 years ahead of its time."

But it had a fatal flaw: No one had a fixed place to work. Employees were expected to park their belongings in lockers and check out laptops every morning as if renting a movie at Blockbuster. It quickly sparked a counter-rebellion--many employees simply stopped coming to the office, preferring to work at home. After the firm was acquired by an advertising conglomerate, employees got workspaces again.

Designers since then have mostly limited themselves to trying to offset the cubicle's most glaring defects. A recent Steelcase offering, the Personal Harbor, can be fitted with its own lighting system, fan, door, and window. Knoll offers the A3 (or anticube), a colony of rounded, podlike structures with translucent mesh coverings for privacy.

Herman Miller, now a $1.5-billion-a-year company, will launch two concepts in June that are the work of designer Ball. He says the new designs are the culmination of more than 30 years of trying to undo his early mistakes. The company won't release many details, but the systems will emphasize color and privacy; Ball says the workstations will be "more capsule-like, or cockpit-like." In all, more than 100 cubicle-variant office systems have come to market over the past three decades.

When openly challenged, the cubicle still gets the last laugh. In California state-employed attorneys obtained relief from the cube through Title 13.3 of their union contract: "The State agrees to make a reasonable effort to provide private enclosed office space to each permanent full-time attorney who has confidentiality needs." Should an attorney be assigned to "other than enclosed private offices," the union must be notified. Rather than violate the rule, says union president Holly Wilkens, the state sticks some young attorneys in airless closets.

Is that really where we're headed? No, says Stewart Brand, co-founder of the Global Business Network, an Emeryville, Calif., consulting firm that helps companies make long-range plans. Back in the '60s, right around the time Propst unveiled the cubicle, Brand created The Whole Earth Catalog, which became the bible of environmentally aware living and arguably had a much more benevolent effect on American culture.

He says that the most productive people he knows have developed ways to work outside offices, not in them. Brand himself worked out of a converted shipping container in Sausalito for seven years and now commutes to a beached fishing boat a few yards from his house. He sees two workspaces rising up to compete with the modern office: homes and what might be called the third space--i.e., Starbucks.

A living example of work in the third space is Diego Guevara, a 23-year-old appraiser for a large mortgage and insurance company. He camped out on a recent winter afternoon in a Manhattan Starbucks; before him on the counter were his ruggedized computer, a calculator, a Wi-Fi card, a yellow pad, and a grande.

As he used a PDA-cellphone to check on a property, Guevara typed details of the morning's appraisals into the laptop, which would sync the records with a database back at the office in West Orange, N.J. He usually goes to the office only when he needs supplies. And the last time he saw his boss? "Before Christmas," said Guevara, adding that his boss mostly works at home.

If working at home is now part of the zeitgeist, one very large employer that seems increasingly tapped in is the U.S. government. Congressman Frank Wolf, a Republican whose Virginia district is home to many federal worker bees, has made telecommuting his pet project. "There is nothing magic in strapping ourselves into a metal box every day only to drive to an office where we sit behind a desk working on a computer," he told a congressional committee.

Wolf sees telecommuting as a way to decrease traffic, reduce air pollution, increase productivity, and frustrate terrorists. In 2004 he launched a campaign to penalize government agencies by docking funds if they fail to support telecommuting. Now the SEC, the State Department, the Department of Justice, and four other big agencies are required to offer every eligible worker the opportunity to telecommute.

A 2005 survey by Milwaukee's Dieringer Research Group reported that 26 million Americans use broadband to do work from home. Sales reps and consultants have always worked remotely; now finance people, lawyers, administrators, researchers, and creative types can too. Just as infotech has enabled companies to offshore white-collar functions, it also untethers Stateside employees from their cubes.

Coming to the office for meetings and in-person collaboration is still important, of course, but as Brand points out, "People are realizing they don't need face-to-face time all the time."

Remember how economics helped turn the cube into a plague? Now giants like Cisco Systems see "workforce mobility" as a way to cut real estate costs. Thanks to heavy use of mobile technology by employees, says real estate VP Mark Golan, "we discovered that Cisco offices and cubicles went vacant 35% of the time."

By switching to what it calls the Connected Workspace--employees set up work areas wherever they are needed in the building--Cisco says it has raised satisfaction while boosting density. Now 140 employees are able to work comfortably where 88 would work in a traditional workspace.

Hewlett-Packard, which has introduced a similar scheme, expects to cut $230 million out of annual occupancy expenses by mid 2007. The new economics of the office won't actually kill the cube. In fact, U.S. sales of office systems rose 11% in 2005. But as the office occupies a smaller part of companies' budgets, cubes will claim a smaller share of employees' lives.

FEEDBACK: jschlosser@fortunemail.com

REPORTER ASSOCIATES Doris Burke and Abrahm Lustgarten contributed to this article.

From the March 20, 2006 issue

Workday Sunday

Dragon Mood? -- frustrated

It's another workday Sunday for me ... yecch! It's the price paid for me to have a short workweek -- I leave Wednesday afternoon to head to the mad city in Wisconsin to madly watch hours and hours of March madness basketball with those kids I'm madly in love with, Lina and Yosh.

It's actually a lovely, lovely day here in Motown. I would love to be sitting out on the front porch, in the sun, enjoying the temperate air, drinking a beer, rather than fifteen feet inside, working, longing, yearning.

Pick a date, any date ...

Dragon Mood? -- humming to myself; and who the heck is Joni James???

Here's a cool and fun website someone brought to my attention (ahem, Mr. Sushi!).

https://home.comcast.net/~josh.hosler/NumberOneInHistory/SelectMonth.htm


Check it out. I promise you, you'll have a little bit of fun with it.

Another Saturday morning

Dragon Mood? -- in a sunny mood

This week has been a busy one ... and an unnecessarily stressful one.

I wrote on Monday about being in a funk. From that low state of mind, I managed to make some errors at my stay-at-home job that shadowed me and perpetuated my stressful state for another three or four days. ArrrghHH!

So ... that is behind me ... it's the weekend ... and a SUNNY one at that! I heard from my good friend, Trice, yesterday about putting another iron in the possible employment fire ... in Martha's words, "that is a good thing." I hope to send out a couple more resumes this weekend. That would be even more of a good thing! It's sunny today! I got some extremely positive feedback from my project lead on the error-free work that I did this past week -- another positive thing that I need to hold onto and remind myself of when I have these dark "moments of the soul." Did I mention that the sun is shining today! Love it! Matt and Sarah are coming over this evening for a belated celebration of S's birthday. That will be fun. We may even get to play some fast-and-furious rounds of euchre. The Spartoonis are about to play the Fighting Illini in less than a half an hour. I'm hopeful they can finish out their regular season play with another win! AND ... guess what? The sun is shining BRIGHTLY today!

All together ... A VERY GOOD DAY!!

Oops --- a missed anniversary

Dragon Mood? -- forgetful

My last posting, I was so busy being in a funk, that I forgot to recognize calypsoDragon13's SECOND ANNIVERSARY! Yup, two years ago, on February 27th, I started this blog.

I'm still enjoying this blog ... very much!

There's funk and then there's FUNK

Dragon Mood? -- nervous ... and this Dragon doesn't do well feeling nervous!

Over the past several postings, I used the adjective "funky" numerous times to describe an environment I thought was fun and quaint/retro/dated and really quite charming.

Well ... there's funky and then there's FUNK ... as in, how I'm feeling this morning.

While I should be working, I feel the need to jump "over" to this little computer and take a few minutes to write about my feelings. I'm feeling anxious about getting a job and the long-term prospects.

I made the mistake (thinking I was being proactive) of logging onto monster.com and perusing the current listings. Pretty slim pickin's, if you know what I mean. Arrgh! Scary.

S and I had a pretty frank, straight-talking conversation (as straight as two lesbians can have, ha-ha) about our near-term prospects. S is anticipating (as only a far-sighted Aquarian can) that she will be asked (or mandated) to take a paycut in the very near future -- like the end of April and in the neighborhood of a 5 to 6% cut. If that happens (and I still don't have a secure job), we will definitely have to take some actions. Like selling a house. Yeah ... scary stuff.

At the same time, to her credit, S is encouraging me to get a job that I like, not just a get-by job. Which, given that my work for the last 16 years(!) has been to "get by" is a tremendously appealing prospect. And, need I mention, frightening at the same time?

Oh, I was feeling so calm and at peace yesterday. How could that have evaporated so quickly in so brief a time? ArrghhH!

A lovely quiet Sunday

Dragon Mood? -- relaxed and pensive

S and I are winding down on a lovely quiet Sunday. No trees falling, no working on Sunday, no snowstorm, no locusts and plagues. Just a quiet Sunday. Lovely.

We watched, rather I watched the Spartans lose another game. S couldn't bear to watch. I don't know exactly what's going on with the men's team, but they seem to have lost their heart, their fire for the game and for the win. Especially Paul Davis. He had several lightning passes come his way, through his hands and continue on, out of bounds. What's with that? He did end up fouling out with 3:30 to go in the second half. This is his last season as a Spartan. What's going on with him?

After the game, S and I mosied over to J & J's for a quick introduction to their newly-rescued Spanish water dog, named Allie or (C)allie, depending on if it's Joanne who's naming her. Joanne is in a permanent love affair with any and all things remotely related to California, hence the name, Callie.

Allie/Callie is a sweet, mellow four-year old Spanish water dog with a beautiful hypoallergenic, apricot & white coat. I sat on the floor to get acquainted with her. After a couple of minutes, she came over and literally flopped in my lap. "Hello, are you my mom?" What a sweetie-pie! While Jeanne and Joanne brought her back to Michigan, possibly for Jeanne's sister, Mary, methinks Allie/Callie is going nowhere but has captured both of their hearts (mine too!).

Meanwhile, our dog, lovely snarly yellow-dog Cisco was waiting patiently in the back of my hatchback. Little did she know that we had been unloyally fraternizing with a dog she would happily have eaten for a Sunday happy hour appetizer(!)

When we got home, I put on David and Steven Gordon's Drum Medicine CD, snuggled up on the couch and promptly fell asleep. Have I said anything recently about how much I love afternoon naps??? I DO! I love them.

Upon slo-o-owly waking up, I got up, warmed a cup of coffee au lait, took a hot, hot, long hot shower, washed my hair, shaved my legs and enjoyed the heat on some pesky tense back muscles. It felt wonderful.

S and I remade our bed with freshly laundered sheets (compliments of moi) and now I'm sitting here, at the computer, posting my life to the internet and for millions to see.

Oh yes ... and I'm drinking some, what I would call, Kool-aid wine, brought over by an elderly neighbor some months back. It's Blackberry Merlot (pronounced mer-LOT) like all good Warda Texans do.

Cheers!

Our funky Florida hideaway

Dragon Mood? -- let's see; we'll put yellow in the main area; shall we hang some beaded macrame curtains in the loggia???

We stayed in unit #10. It used to be a beach motel. Now it's a co-op of owner-occupied and rental condos. It's totally 1950's, funky and completely charming. I loved it from the moment I stepped in.



But, being a rental, it was a mite too bland for my dragonish tastes. So, Wednesday I went to the local dollar store, bought bright yellow crepe paper, a paper pinata that said "Happy Birthday!" and went to town decorating.



Did I mention the open-air inner atrium? Did I mention that it's two stories high? I love the columns that surround the atrium, their clean lines, their "orderliness" and predictability. If I could design a space for myself, it would have the feel of our funky Florida hideaway.



It was perfect for my tastes. I loved it!

So many posts, so little time

Dragon Mood? -- excited and romantic?

Where to start, where to start??

Let's start at 35,000 feet. That was our cruising altitude, wending our way to Florida -- at night. It was Valentine's Day night and I had the window seat on the left (and east) side of the plane. We had left the twinkling megalopolis that is Chicago behind with another one quickly approaching (Indianapolis). I looked to the east and saw this golden elliptical bulb low in the sky -- what is that? It's the moon. The moon rising, actually. S and I were exclaiming over it when the pilot announced the dramatic moon sighting over the PA. There were sharp "Ohs!" and exclamations all around us.

Now ... to that elliptical shape. S and I had quite the logical-cum-scientific conversation about it. I was discombobulated over its elliptical shape. S announced fairly quickly on that it was due to distortion from the Earth's atmosphere. I wondered, could it be our angle of view? Now, think about holding a ball in your outstretched hand; is there any way that you can twist your hand or your arm that will make that sphere *look* like an ellipse. Is there? No ... no, of course not. So, I answered my own question that it certainly couldn't be our angle of view.

So, back to S's hypothesis about the atmosphere. I questioned her about it. She said that due to our position in the plane and the moon rising up over the Earth's horizon, we were actually viewing the moon through the atmosphere and the atmosphere was distorting its spherical shape to look elliptical. Something like that, anyway. Sure enough, as we flew further south, the moon rose higher in the sky relative to our vantage point; the higher it rose, the more spherical it became. Brighter, less golden, too.

But don't let my pseudo-scientific ramblings distort the fact that it was a stunning sight, wondrous in its beauty and most personally, an especially romantic accompaniment to our Valentine's night flight to tropical Florida.

... to my hundreds of readers ...

... I want to wish you a very Happy Valentine's Day.

My Valentine and I are getting ready to jump on a plane and leave for Florida ... imminently! I am EXCITED!

What a treat for an unemployed, fifty-something person who, to mention it, has been under a bit of stress!

I think S and I are going to enjoy lazy days of sunning, reading, lazing around, drinking, sunning, wiggling our toes in the sand, drinking, walking on the beach, lazing around, drinking, well ... you get the picture, yes?

So ... Happy Valentine's Day everybody ... I'll remember you on the beach! Margaritas, everybody!

Workin' with smooth jazz in the background ...

It's Sunday, a sunny but cold February afternoon. I'm at the pied-a-terre, working today, trying to get some work done before I leave for our week in Florida.

I'm struggling to stay focused ... (can you tell?).

One of the side benefits of this working-at-home thing is listening to streaming audio from Yahoo's LaunchCast radio. What a treat, especially for someone who likes lots of music and also dislikes lots of music. LaunchCast gives you the ability to select a station with a specific type of music --OR-- create your own radio station, rating the songs you like highly and dissing the songs you don't. I'm getting to hear lots of music that I otherwise wouldn't hear. And I'm finding that I do enjoying listening to smooth jazz when I'm working. It's "easy on the ears." My biggest apologies to my son, Yosh ... who, as far as I can tell ... CAN'T STAND smooth jazz. I think all it conjures for him is Kenny G and his wailing sax.

But I like this. I plan on rating more smooth jazz with two, three, maybe even four stars! Sorry, Yosh!

Now ... back to work!

Fleeting Saturday morning

Dragon Mood? -- feeling good

Since my job lay-off, I have had intermittent bouts of insomnia. I think it goes with the territory. Last night was another one. I went to bed around 11:30 or midnight; by 4:30, I was awake. I laid in bed until 5:30, gave up on falling asleep again and got up. I made myself some hot tea, played the piano in the early morning darkness (something which I love) and simply 'existed' in the moment. I didn't think about tomorrow or yesterday or money. No mean feat when you're out of a job.

Around 7, I got online and began doing my taxes with Turbo Tax Online. This is probably the fourth, fifth, maybe even sixth year (?) I've used their software. I have no complaints with it, and it's certainly cheaper and easier than seeing a person to do my taxes. I really like the fact that it "remembers" data from the previous year and references it as I work my way through the process. For some reason, the software "remembering" is oddly comforting.

After a couple of hours (and a couple of wrong paths -- duh!) I've completed an initial pass through the software. I forgot one document at the pied-a-terre that I really need -- so I'll complete my taxes two weeks from now, after we get back from Florida.

Which brings me to the enjoyable part of this post; we leave for St. Pete's Beach on Valentine's Day and we'll be there for a whole, lovely, entire WEEK! That's something we have talked about for a number of years, but never made the commitment before to really do it. This year, thanks to Joann's great internet condo-rental sleuthing, we can afford to stay for seven days and seven nights. I say "afford" with tongue in cheek. As I'm unemployed, we can't really afford to do anything like this, but, what the hell, we're doing it!

An additional incentive for taking the week-in-Florida plunge is that S turns 50 this week, an event any 49-year-old-plus woman will agree deserves lots of hooplah. Jeanne and Joanne will be joining us for four of our seven days there. We plan to go out on S's birthday for a big grouper dinner and many drinks! I think it will be great!

Today, now that I've leaped over the taxes hurdle, only two things remain to do: watch the Michigan State vs. Minnesota basketball game (men's) at 2:30 p.m. and ... pack my suitcase. I've already pulled it out and piled a bunch of brightly colored, short-sleeved tops in there. Now I need to get serious and really figure out what I'm taking and not taking.

Oh, I can imagine the sun's warmth and the ocean breezes already! Mmmm!

Year of the Dog -- Happy New Year!

I opened Google this morning and found that it's the Chinese New Year. Wow! Year of the Dog!

Happy New Year (again), everybody!

January Saturday morning

Dragon Mood? -- dragons love glittery things!

Crazy weather in the past 24 hours. We had low 40-degree weather yesterday, then rain last night which turned to ice rain and then turned to snow. This morning all the tree limbs are covered with a thin topping of snow. Now the sun is out, the temperature is rising and I'm seeing little glittering diamonds on all the pine boughs dripping their crystals everywhere. Michigan weather is without a doubt the craziest you'll find!

I have good news as of Thursday afternoon. I HAVE A JOB(!), a temporary job that is, for the next eleven weeks, working from home, actually from the pied-a-terre, on a laptop, doing development work for a company located out in Colorado. I have a former boss to thank for this job. He wrote a letter recommending me along with four of my former co-workers for this temporary, pilot program. So, as of Monday, I will once again be working with Bonnie, Carolyn, Dennis and Rod. The Colorado company will be using us as 'guinea pigs' of a sort, measuring our performance and delivery for future projects like this.

So ... Sunday night I will accompany S to the pied-a-terre. Monday morning we have a teleconference scheduled. Also, as of Monday, S and I will now have a real land-line phone at the pied-a-terre(!). My laptop should be arriving Monday or Tuesday, via FedEx. (Oh, I feel so 21st-century, you know?) A phone modem, compliments of SBC, should also be arriving via UPS. That will entail some putting-it-all-together which I'm a bit nervous about, but let's be hopeful, shall we? Our new DSL line should be installed by Thursday.

There are still lots of variables and unknowns, many of which I probably haven't even thought of yet. But, as earlier, I'm trying to relax and trust this process, this process which I have no control over, but of which God certainly does. And I trust God on this process. It's all gonna work out okay, one way or another.

And, did I mention, that there is a possibility, not a guarantee, but a possibility that this could morph into a permanent position? How cool would that be, huh?

quotes to live by ...

I found these quotes in a temp file I created over a year ago. I'll think I'll post them now ...

"Faith involves patience. Accept that you may have to wait for results--and when they come, they may not be what you hoped or prayed for.

Faith is nothing but a living, wide-awake consciousness of God within." -- Gandhi


"Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it."
-- William Arthur Ward

Long term influences

Dragon Mood? -- taking it all in

I love Astrodienst. And I particularly enjoy visiting their website on Thursdays, when they kindly open their longer-term forecasts to even non-paying subscribers like myself.

What with this job layoff and all, I thought I'd check some of those planetary influences going on right now. Here are several:

Half-hearted efforts
Valid during many months: This is not a good time to strike out to further your own self-interest in life. Your energy level is low, and you are subject to fits of discouragement and malaise. Whatever you do along these lines ­ working to get ahead in your job, beginning a new enterprise or embarking on a program of vigorous mental or physical activity ­ this influence will make it difficult for you to succeed. It is not that you are unlucky exactly but that you don't have enough push to follow through. Under this influence your efforts are likely to be half-hearted. Even if you want to do something, you may just feel too tired.

Another side of this influence is that you may get involved in an activity or project that is dishonest, misrepresented or simply subversive, although not necessarily politically. You may not be aware that it is dishonest, but if you are and choose to be involved anyway, you are running an enormous risk. Avoid any scheme that you know to be dishonest, because during this time you simply cannot count on it coming out favorably for you.

This is not a good time to advance yourself, but try not to get discouraged, for that will not help you. Instead, cut your losses and disengage yourself if possible from any activity that could create difficulties. Get into a position where you can afford to be unconcerned about results. Detaching yourself from your own energies is the best way to deal with this influence. Act because you enjoy the action, not because you are trying to win. If you can take this course of detached consciousness, you may learn something about how your life works; in fact, you may learn that your own efforts have fouled you up. In your eagerness to succeed, you may have aroused opposition that was not expressed openly, but waited subversively in the wings to trip you up.

Transit selected for today (by user):
Neptune Conjunction MarsNeptuneConjunctionMars
activity period from middle of February 2005 until middle of December 2006.

And here's one more:

Solid and real
Valid during many months: At this time in your life you will be able to get along with very little if necessary, and you will be able to keep plugging away at tasks with tremendous discipline. As a result this is a good time for getting your life ready for hard times, even if this is not an especially difficult period.

However, even if this is a difficult time, you can be sure that this influence will help you make it through. It gives you tremendous tenacity and toughness and the ability to apply constant pressure on a situation until it gradually changes. Patience is the watchword of this influence ­ not that you need patience, but that you have it.

Whatever your objectives, you will keep working at them until you achieve them. In a slow but powerful way, this influence helps you realize your goals, and because you work so slowly, the results you obtain are very lasting indeed.

You will also probably discover that you are changing during this period, not drastically and suddenly, but slowly and at a very profound level of your being. And these changes will make your life more solid and dependable. In general your life is moving from the less solid and abstract to the more solid and real.

You may work alone for the most part now. You will probably prefer it that way, at least until you have come somewhere near achieving your goals. This is a very good time for researching alone, especially when painstaking work is required. Your ability to discipline yourself is extremely high.

Transit selected for today (by user):
Pluto Sextile SaturnPlutoSextileSaturn
activity period from beginning of February 2005 until beginning of December 2006.

Solar celebrations of a b-ball-ian persuasion

Dragon Mood? -- quiet, for a change

The sun is actually shining here in gray-wool-sky land, otherwise known as mid-Michigan. I suspect it's the sun's way of celebrating the Spartan men's basketball team defeating the Hoosiers last night, quite handily I might add. Thank goodness they finally got one in the 'Win' column.

It's Thursday and it's rather quiet here this morning. I have a few calls I should make. I should also spend some more time brushing up on my AutoCAD skills. Ahhh, this job-hunting stuff could be a full-time occupation ... but the pay is lousy! Ha-ha, hee-hee, ho-ho.

Job-hunting feels kind of like fishing ... at least fishing as I understand it. You rig your line, you're actually pretty busy getting the line just right, the hook baited or selecting the right lure, you toss your line in .... and then you wait. And wait. And wait. In this instance, I have about six lines in the water (and probably should throw a few more in TODAY) and I'm waiting. And waiting. (Heavy sigh)

Okay (sitting up erect, shoulders back, toss the head). Be in the moment, Mary. Breathe deeply. Live each moment to its fullest. Be grateful. Be thankful. Do the things you need to do.

Back to the work of finding a job.

second day

Dragon Mood? -- grateful

It's going on midnight, the second day of my unemployment. Tomorrow I call the MESC (or whatever it's called now) to file for unemployment.

S called me after lunch. We shared news about our respective mornings. I told her how thankful I am that she is a hopeful person, an empathetic person, a person I feel comfortable telling how I feel. I can think of people who are negative, who find and focus on the underbelly of a situation and then talk loudly and incessantly about it. Thank God, S is not like that. I told her how I think we make a good team. We lift one another up. Our whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

I am very grateful for her in my life, especially now.

Spare words of lovelorn cowboys

Dragon Mood? -- remembering how sad it felt

Another post about Brokeback Mountain. Here's an excerpt of dialogue between Ennis and Jack, after twenty years of brief interludes:

Ennis Del Mar: I'm gonna tell you this one time, Jack fuckin' Twist, an' I ain't foolin'. What I don't know - all them things I don't know - could get you killed if I come to know them. I ain't jokin'.

Jack Twist: Yeah well try this one, and I'll say it just once!

Ennis Del Mar: Go ahead!

Jack Twist: Tell you what, we coulda had a good life together, fuckin' real good life! Had us a place of our own. But you didn't want it, Ennis! So what we got now is Brokeback Mountain! Everything's built on that, that's all we got boy, fuckin' all. So I hope you know that if you don't never know the rest! You count the damn few times we have been together in nearly twenty years and you measure the short fucking leash you keep me on, and then you ask me about Mexico and tell me you'll kill me for needing somethin' I don't hardly never get. You have no idea how bad it gets! I'm not you... I can't make it on a coupla high-altitude fucks once or twice a year! You are too much for me Ennis, son of a whoreson bitch... I wish I knew how to quit you.

Ennis Del Mar: Well why don't you? Why don't you just let me be, huh? Because of you, Jack, that I'm like this. I'm nothing... and nowhere.

not a typical Sunday morning

Dragon Mood? -- anxious, ambivalent

Usually, I enjoy posting on calypsoDragon13 on weekend mornings. I woke up feeling like I wanted to write, but now ........ I also feel like I need to do something to find myself a job!

These are the moments, the times when I must trust, trust, TRUST that things are going to be okay, that God guides me in all that I do. I am not alone. God is very much present. I need to trust that.

(deep breath) Whew!

Have I talked about the weather recently?? (laughing) Well, here in Michigan the weather can change literally in moments. Or not! Our friend, Kevin, told me yesterday that Friday was the first day of sun here in 21 days! Yes, 21 days! It has been incredibly gray and gloomy, like someone threw a gray wool blanket over the entire region. (Even Lina and Yosh commented on the lack of sun while they were here visiting.)

So Friday, my last day on the job, I left work around 11:30, had lunch with Trice at the nearby Tim Horton's, swung by the pied-a-terre, picked up the dog and headed home to the pine trees. It was sunny! It was so sunny, I needed my cool Italian aviator sunglasses. Wonderful to finally see the sun!

And then guess what? Yesterday, Saturday, the gloom and grayness had returned. Along with with an ice rain/snow mixture that left all the side roads a treachery waiting to happen.

Jeanne and Joanne called at mid-day and invited us to join them and Kevin at the local theater to see a matinee showing of Brokeback Mountain. Go see it; it is wonderful and heartbreaking all at the same time. The cinematography is gorgeous as one might expect. Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger do fantastic jobs as the two protagonists of the movie. I especially enjoyed watching Jake Gyllenhaal. What a beautiful man! It's a love story in every sense of the word, lovely and tragic at the same time. Jeanne commented how much like a Greek tragedy it seemed.

After the movie, we headed over to Max & Erma's for a light dinner and then hit the Schuler's bookstore for a little book-browsing and a cup of coffee. We sat around a table and talked about our ever-so-slowly evolving plans for the future and retirement. By 9 o'clock, everyone took turns yawning. We all laughed at our aging selves.

As soon as we got home (safely), S helped me put my new YakTrax cleats on my boots and I safely and comfortably took the dog for a long walk around the neighborhood. I didn't slip once. I strongly recommend them for folks who are winter runners and/or winter dogwalkers. They DO the job!

as the dust clears ....

Dragon Mood? -- still sorting it all out

A life event happened to me this week. I was laid off from my job at one of the domestic auto companies, after sixteen years of contract design work.

When I got the call from my contract house rep, I was simply stunned. As I told him, after working for so many years under the Damoclean sword of layoff, I had ceased to worry about it. Now that the sword had actually fallen, severing me from steady work, I was and still am stunned.

When I went to work the next morning, I found out how truly not alone I was. Eighty-six people, counting me, were laid off in our department, virtually dismantling it. The people who remain can anticipate either being shuffled to another department or being laid off themselves. I feel for them. Overall, the company laid off over 550 people ... yesterday ... with supposedly more to come.

I'm trying to focus on the good things that go with this. I am finally free of a company that has never felt quite right to me. They pay you well enough that it's tough to leave; it's commonly known around the company as the "golden handcuffs."

I'm finally free to look at working for a company that I like and to do work that is more resonant with my interests. I still need to make money, but S is encouraging me not to make that my number #1 focus. I'm going to try to do that, at least for a little while.

Early January thaw

Dragon Mood? -- like the fire of a dragon's breath

See the original here.

wandering out of the post-holiday blur

Dragon Mood? -- dragonly dizzy

Wandering out of the post-holiday blur, I find myself at work today with 70 emails in my work inbox (mostly spam) and 130 emails in my gmail inbox (mostly for stuff I don't need or services I don't require).

It has been over two weeks since I last posted and I am truly stunned at the speed with which those two weeks flew by. I was literally in a Christmas whirlwind! Wow!

The short version of my answer in response to your polite question, "How was your holiday?" is that it was GREAT! I thoroughly enjoyed spending time with S and my wonderful kids, Lina and Yosh. We socialized almost every day with friends and family, took some side trips, drank lots of good wine, cooked together and had loads and loads of fun! I am overwhelmed and still exhausted from it all. It truly is a blur. I need time to take it all in, remember all the myriad details of conversations and interactions and activities, and then I need more time to digest it all.
But it was a great two weeks. Exhausting and great!

Lay ee odl lay ee odl lay hee hoo

Dragon Mood? -- trying to yodel and not spit fireballs at the same time

Well, it's official -- S and I have entered "old folks-hood." Instead of going out and Christmas shopping last night, we opted to stay in and excitedly discovered that "The Sound of Music" was airing on a local channel. Oh boy, oh boy, we're gonna watch The Sound of Music!

We have a joke in our family about the puppeteers in The Sound of Music being Wendish, a wonderfully playful falsehood imagined by Yosh and perpetuated by the rest of us, me in particular. I LOVE the idea of Wendish puppeteers, especially in The Sound of Music.

S and I sat in our little TV room, singing, smiling and bouncing along to the delightful, joie-de-vivre song, "The Lonely Goatherd." I woke up this morning with the yodeling still reverberating in my head. I googled it and found many sites with the lyrics. I reprint them here for your and my amusement.

Come on, come on, I bet you can't read it without singing along:

The Lonely Goatherd

Maria:
High on a hill was a lonely goatherd
Lay ee odl lay ee odl lay hee hoo
Loud was the voice of the lonely goatherd
Lay ee odl lay ee odl-oo

Folks in a town that was quite remote heard
Lay ee odl lay ee odl lay hee hoo
Lusty and clear from the goatherd's throat heard
Lay ee odl lay ee odl-oo

the Children:
O ho lay dee odl lee o, o ho lay dee odl ay
O ho lay dee odl lee o, lay dee odl lee o lay

Maria:
A prince on the bridge of a castle moat heard
Lay ee odl lay ee odl lay hee hoo
Kurt:
Men on a road with a load to tote heard
Lay ee odl lay ee odl-oo

the Children:
Men in the midst of a table d'hote heard
Lay ee odl lay ee odl lay hee hoo
Maria:
Men drinking beer with the foam afloat heard
Lay ee odl lay ee odl-oo

One little girl in a pale pink coat heard
Lay ee odl lay ee odl lay hee hoo
Brigitta:
She yodeled back to the lonely goatherd
Lay ee odl lay ee odl-oo

Maria:
Soon her Mama with a gleaming gloat heard
Lay ee odl lay ee odl lay hee hoo
What a duet for a girl and goatherd
Maria and the Children:
Lay ee odl lay ee odl-oo

Maria and the Children:
Ummm (ummm) . . .
Odl lay ee (odl lay ee)
Odl lay hee hee (odl lay hee hee)
Odl lay ee . . .
. . . yodeling . . .

Child:
One little girl in a pale pink coat heard
Maria:
Lay ee odl lay ee odl lay hoo hoo
Child:
She yodeled back to the lonely goatherd
Maria:
Lay ee odl lay ee odl-oo

Maria:
Soon her Mama with a gleaming gloat heard
Lay ee odl lay ee odl lay hmm hmm
What a duet for a girl and goatherd
Lay ee odl lay ee odl-oo

Maria and the Children:
Happy are they lay dee olay dee lee o . . .
. . . yodeling . . .
Soon the duet will become a trio
Maria:
Lay ee odl lay ee odl-oo

Maria and the Children:
Odl lay ee, old lay ee
Odl lay hee hee, odl lay ee
Odl lay odl lay, odl lay odl lee, odl lay odl lee
Odl lay odl lay odl lay

the Children:
HOO!

I think, in the spirit of aspiring to be an eccentric, I may just take up yodeling as an elder pastime. Whaddaya think???

Odl lay ee, old lay ee
Odl lay hee hee, odl lay ee

Which reindeer are YOU??

Dragon Mood? -- dragons EAT reindeer as hors d'oeuvres!

Being silly on my last day of work --for the year-- I took THE test ..........

Which of Santa's Reindeer Are You?

You Are Blitzen

Always in good spirits, you're the reindeer who loves to party down with Santa. Why You're Naughty: You're always blitzed on Christmas Eve, while flying! Why You're Nice: You mix up a mean eggnog martini.

Which of Santa's Reindeer Are You?