Night Bus: Clever Devices

The bus is dark now, even before 6 p.m. Here's the young driver arranging her beautiful braids before takeoff. The little sign above the window next to her toward the front of the bus says "Clever Devices." Indeed.

This photo was taken with the same french fry I used on Saturday aft in the bar on Clark St. I do have a better camera at home (NOT the really good one I lost last week), but I forgot to get batteries for it for the second day in a row. Anyway....

I love sitting in the dark bus waiting to for the driver to move out. And I love the young drivers, men and women, for their skill and patience and wry humor and gold jewelry and braids and safe driver patches on their sleeves.

My co-worker Peggy used to say that her youngest, Carl, a sweet-tempered Scandinavian 6-year-old, used to mourn because his blond hair was straight as spun flax and he could not wear it in braids with beads and other ornaments like his schoolmates.

Me, too, Carl.

Don't Mess with Minnesota: The Rules

Rules of Minnesota

1. Pull your droopy pants up. You look like an idiot.

2. Let's get this straight; it's called a "gravel road" because it isn't paved. I drive a pickup truck because I want to. No matter how slow you drive, you're going to get dust on your Lexus. Drive it or get out of the way.

3. You say our lakes smell. They smell like money to us. Get over it.

4. So you have a $60,000 car. We're impressed. We have $250,000 combines that are driven only 3 times a year.

5. So every person in every pickup waves; its called being friendly.
Try to understand the concept.

6. If that cell phone rings while a bunch of ducks are coming in; we WILL shoot it out of your hand. You better hope you don't have it up to your ear at the time.

7. Yeah, we eat walleye & northern pike and love it. You really want sushi & caviar? It's available at the corner bait shop.

8. The "Opener" refers to the first day of deer season. It's a Religious holiday held the closest Saturday to the first of November.

9. We open doors for women. That is applied to all women, regardless of age.

10. No, there's no "vegetarian special" on the menu; you can order the Chef's Salad and pick off the pound of ham & turkey.

11. When we fill out a table, there are three main dishes: meats, vegetables, and breads. We use three spices: Onion, Pepper, and Garlic!

12. You bring "coke" into my house, it better be brown, wet, and served over ice. You bring "Mary Jane" into my house, she better be cute, know how to shoot, drive a truck, and have long hair.

13. College and High School Football is as important here as the Lakers and the Knicks, and a hell of a lot more fun to watch.

14. Yeah, we have golf courses. But don't hit the water hazards --it spooks the fish.

15. Colleges? Try St. Olaf, Concordia, or St. John's. They come outta there with an education plus a love for God and country, and they still wave at passing pickups when they come home for the holidays.

16. We have more folks in the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines, than any other state, so "Don't screw with Minnesota." If you do, you will get whipped by the best.

Maybe the men in Minnesota do open the doors for any woman--like, "You go in first, dear, and catch the first blast of warm, moist indoor air...then stand aside while you're cleaning the frost off your glasses so we can get to the bar first." Last time I was there, they sure as heck didn't stand up to give old ladies their seats on the bus.

Who Knew? Good News from Ode Magazine

This month's ODE magazine, the December 2007 issue, has a marvelous little article, "Ms. CEO," in the "To Possibilities" section.

The article is an excerpt is taken from And now for the good news by Susan Ray, Moment Point Press, 2007.

Ms. Ray quotes Margaret Heffernan's book How She Does It: How Women Entrepreneurs Are Changing the Rules of Business Success (Viking, 2007). To wit:

Forty percent of all privately held companies in the US. are owned or headed by women--a total of 10.4 million firms.

Women-led companies are more likely than others to stay in business for five years, while companies owned by women of color are four times as likely.

Women-owned companies are creating jobs twice as fast as other firms and pay in total more salaries than all the Fortune 500 companies combined.

Every day in the U.S., 420 new women-owned businesses are formed.

These numbers "defy logic," says Heffernan. Women "receive only 5 percent of all venture capital. So not only are women doing really well, but their businesses are thriving when the playing field is tilted against them. That makes these numbers all the more incredible."

Many bloggers are posting thankfulness lists this Thanksgiving weekend, but I'm lumping all of my thanks on ODE for its thoughtful, inspiring content and intriguing ads. It give me more hope and courage than any 16 other publications (especially those in the MSM)combined. Thanks to founder, editor, publisher, and handsome fellow Jurriaan Kamp.

Sandwich Day in Chicago

l to r, Medea, Katie, Ian, Penny

My oldest grandson,Ian, and his wife, Medea, along with Medea's friend Katie and mom, Penny, and yrs truly took refuge yesterday afternoon in a bar on Clark street to stay out of the wind. My original (very old, full of charm) hotel left lots to be desired as a place to gather--mainly space. So later, during Thanksgiving dinner at the Chicago Firehouse (used to be an actual firehouse but now a restaurant), Penny got on the phone and found a nice roomy place downtown:



This is the view from my room of the harbor at sunrise with the Adler Planetarium in the distance. you can't see the sun--my pager camera is feeble indeed--but it was quite lovely.

Snoozeville Chronicle, November 17, 2007 - Part 2

The chronicles of the past week can't omit the big DC tax department scandal, in which it is alleged that the supervisor of the property tax rebate program plus several henchpersons and assorted relatives and friends made off with (in the latest guesstimate) more than $31 million in DC funds. It's the biggest crime of its kind in DC history. The funds made their way into the defendants' bank accounts by way of property tax rebates to phony companies (the DC program for rebating property taxes having been personally designed by the supervisor). Less than $10 million has been accounted for. A raid on the accused supervisor's home revealed a treasure trove including a mink coat, designer purses, something like 68 pairs of shoes, a Mercedes in the garage, and fancy sterling and Faberge items that my mother would call "knick knacks"--but that's all small potatoes compared with the total haul. The woman's purchases at the local Saks 5th Avenue were something like $1.4 million on an annual salary of $81,000, but nobody noticed anything odd about that. Not in this town.

As a resident of this area for more than 10 years, I can't say I'm surprised. Not to point any fingers or anything, but dealing with the people in the DC government, including and especially the property tax department, hasn't always been an edifying experience. Back in the day, if you had to call someone with a question about your property tax, you'd get a loooooong voice mail reply asking you to call back and leave your name, number, and a brief description of your problem. Then the spiel would end with an unctious "Have a blessed day!"

I always felt that if they really wanted to us to have a blessed day, they would have answered the phones.

Anyway, that was how it was until Anthony Williams became mayor. Under Mayor Williams, the DC government employees began to answer their phones in person. Progress!!

Mayor Williams is gone, however, and his successor, Adrian Fenty, has to tame the wild beast of local government.

Maybe Mayor Fenty can get them to keep on answering the phones and stop stealing us blind!!

Slow and steady wins the race here in DC.

Snoozeville Chronicle, November 17, 2007

The sun's going down earlier and earlier....here's the peaceful view from the bridge in late afternoon.

Snoozeville's most colorful local newspaper, the Georgetowner, has a great editorial in this issue (Nov. 15- Nov. 27): "Good God, Mr. President!" Not everybody in this neck of the woods is enamored of "43." Editor Gary Tischler really puts it to the current resident of the W.H.

Tischler is a true patriot and an enterprising journalist. Do you think the WashPost is ever gonna publish news like which popular bottled water is really filtered tap water? He names names!

Newsweek, the WashPost's weekly "news" magazine, has hired none other than Turdblossom himself to write a column. A Huffington Post item puts this forth as the "balance" needed for their other new hire, Markos Moulitsas, creator of Daily Kos.

Last but not least, on Friday afternoon, Chronicle's favorite university threw a good old fashioned party with beer, wine, and snacks to celebrate the news that the Mid States Association had removed it from academic suspension. I waited unsuccessfully to thank the president for bringing not only respectability but also alcohol back to the campus. Imagine! Administrators, faculty, and staff, who not so long ago were avoiding each other, all talking and eating and laughing together. Been a long time since we had any fun over there.

NoWanWriMo

OK, OK...you can't win 'em all.

I give up.

The novel I started for this year's National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is dead in the water. Maybe I should have stuck with a mystery, like last year, when I won. (To the uninitiated, all you have to do to win NaNoWriMo is write a 50,000 word novel between November 1 and 11:59 pm November 30 and have the word count verified on the NaNoWriMo website.)

Ain't gonna happen this year, barring one of those miracles where you get taken over by a mysterious writing spirit that dictates the book to you while you sleep. All you need to do is get up and write it down the next morning. (Muse, baby...we're 42,000 words behind, and it's 11/16!!)

Anyway, next year, I'll try to remember what I learned last year and this about writing a 50,000 word novel in a short time:

1) Have a lot of characters. Even if you write just a little bit about each one, it adds up.

2) Include at least one nun and one priest. Nuns live in convents and priests live in rectories. (BTW, isn't there something a bit off about calling a priest house a rectory or a priest a rector? Isn't that kind of what the former altar boys have been complaining about? That reminds me....At the bus stop the other night, I saw the guy with the Priests are Pedofiles, Thank You, Vatican signs. I tried to catch up with him, but he moves too fast. I wanted to tell him "The Pope is coming, watch your back!") Anyway, with collective living arrangements, the possibility for lots of characters is pretty much endless.

3) Writing a mystery gives you the option of killing off characters you a) don't like or b) like. Either way, you have a lot of 'splainin to do....more words!!

4) When you need a boost in your word count, go into the file and change all the contractions to two words.

5) Similarly, give each character two names. Jim becomes Jim Bob, etc.

6) No fair watching Project Runway till you're finished with your 50,000 words!! The reruns will be available for the next two or three years, so keep that TV OFF. What ever happened to Kara Saun, by the way? How is it possible that Heidi Klum keeps looking better and better every year, despite the three kids? And where oh where do they get those frumpy Big Women Behind the Scenes in Fashion?

6a) On the other hand, it's neat when they take the contestants to Nina Garcia's office. Going to your character's office is a great ploy...more words. You think I'm kidding? How often have we been to Kinsey Milhone's office? How else do you think Grafton has written almost a whole alphabet's worth of books?

7) Send your characters shopping...with long lists of things to buy.

8) Never, ever read any part of your novel to anyone before you've done all 50,000 words. Reactions to an unfinished novel are just as fatal as reactions to a bee sting or a drug overdose.

No comment....

MY LIVING WILL

Last night, my friend and I were sitting in the living room and I said to her,

"I never want to live in a vegetative state, dependent on some machine and fluids from a bottle. If that ever happens, just pull the plug."

She got up, unplugged the computer, and threw out my wine.

She's such a bitch.....

Thanx and a tip of the sunbonnet to--who else??--M'reen....

Snoozeville Chronicle, November 10, 2007

John and Izzy (added 11/15)...note the greyer patch where the hair is missing on the left side (her right side) of her muzzle...that's where the rat bit her.

It's quiet today in Snoozeville, but....

Izzy got into a fight with a rat down on 26th Street. Dear old Izzy is pretty lassaize-faire about most things, and most days she's perfectly happy to sit in the front yard and watch the world go by. Rats, however, need to be taken care of, and she did her best. The rat, unfortunately, was big and strong, and it bit off a chunk of Izzy's muzzle. Susan downstairs, who is taking care of her while John is in NYC for the day, took her to the vet for some antibiotic ointment. She has to keep Izzy's lip clean and rub the ointment on her wound. Today was the first time I've ever seen Izzy on a leash. Usually when John takes her for a walk, he lets her run for a bit and then carries her home, but Susan is not taking any more chances with letting her run. Izzy, BTW, is the only dog around who puts Squeak in his place. John once made the mistake of giving Squeak a treat out of Izzy's treat bag, and all heck broke loose. Squeak was mystified, but Izzy has never forgotten. Squeak gives her a wide berth.

While yrs truly was standing in the parking lot getting all the news from Susan, Mike from the other building came out, and we learned that Master Oliver, 4 months, is sleeping from 8 pm to 3 am these days! Much to the relief of Brittany and Mike, they're actually getting some sleep. When our kids started sleeping that many hours at a stretch, I'd wake them up at 11 pm and feed them. That way, they'd sleep until 5 or 6 a.m. Bliss!!

The burning question for today is has Mr. Hyde moved?? We think so.

Minnesota Quarters

GET THIS OUT TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW WHO USES QUARTERS!

Hang on to any of the new Minnesota Quarters. If you have them, they may be worth much more than 25 cents.

The US Mint announced today that it is recalling all of the Minnesota quarters that are part of its program featuring quarters from each state.

This action is being taken after numerous reports that the new quarters will not work in parking meters, toll booths, vending machines, pay phones, or any other coin-operated devices.

The problem lies in the unique design of the Minnesota quarter, which was created by a team of Norwegian specialists.

Apparently the duct tape holding the two dimes and the nickel together keeps jamming up the machines....

H.R. 1955

MAW (Most Arresting Woman) sez "Here's some food for thought!"


MAW first learned of this yesterday morning on Time Goes By

Thought Crime Bill Passes House

While the media were pretending all other news was on hold during the California wildfires, a dangerous bill made it through the House of Representatives and has now been sent to the Senate where it has been referred to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

Should a majority in the Senate approve the bill, all it requires to become law is the president’s signature and since it does not deprive children of healthcare, there is no reason to think he would veto it.

WTF!? Nothing in the news about this?

MAW found this link in a Hill blog....

http://community.livejournal.com/amnestyint/128481.html

The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed HR 1955 titled the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007. This bill is one of the most blatant attacks against the Constitution yet and actually defines thought crimes as homegrown terrorism. The Bill passed 404-6.

This Bill criminalizes any act of, or promotion of, anything the Government interprets to be "radical" or "extremist." This may include Animal Rights, Environmentalism, Socialism, Labor Organizing, anything that may upset the status quo, hell anything that may upset a politician. And that's the scary thing here; it's entirely up to State interpretation.

Tortas de Aceite

This is the packaged version

clipped from casaoliver.com

OK, here's a recipe for those yummy Spanish olive oil tortas (courtesy of Susan at wildyeast.com):

125 g. bread or pizza dough (1/2 cup)
1 T. sesame seeds
2 T anise seeds
1/4 c. olive oil
zest of 1/4 lemon in WIDE strips
1.5 t. anisette liqueur
70 g. of flour (1/4 cup)
sugar

toast the seeds in a skillet until they start to pop

heat oil and zest in a nother skillet untl the peel turns BLACK.
remove the peel and let the oil cool

place the bread or pizza dough in a food processor with the seeds, oil, and liqour. pulse until the oil is evenly distributed. Add flour and pulse some more until you have a humongous soft, oily ball.

separate the ball into 8 pieces, and roll each piece to 4"round.

place on a parchment lined baking sheet and sprinkle with sugar

bake 15-17 minutes

turn the oven to BROIL and broil the rounds 5" from the broiler flame until they're toasted and the sugar melts...about 40 seconds

cool and whatever....eat them or store them in something.

NOTE: I HAVE NEVER MADE THESE BEFORE, SO I'M NOT SURE OF THE MEASUREMENTS of the dough and the flour. I think it's ok, but ver vaist. You start with (thawed) frozen bread dough or leftover pizza dough, add a lot of oil, and toasted seeds, run it through a food processor with some flour and then roll out 8 pieces of dough into 4" rounds and bake/broil.

But I know Sally is crazy about these things, and they don't seem too hard to make.

Spaniards love these with coffee in the ayem, i'm told. But of course, how would I know? I never go anywhere, I never do anything.

Hmph....

Rats! New England beat Indianapolis 24-20. Not that I care a whole lot, but I wanted Indianapolis (I still can't get used to that. Indianapolis?) to win because their quarterback, Peyton Manning, is 6'5", and that's the same size as our friend Jim in Mt. Vernon. He used to fill the kitchen doorway completely. What's-his-name of the Patriots is a mere 6'4". And, of course, the Patriots had to gloat all over the place even though they almost lost. "We haven't had game like this all year...it's nice knowing we still know how to win it." Shaddap....

Meanwhile, the Redskins won 23-20 in overtime. They haven't had a real game like that in a long time, either.

Congratulations, Ronniecat!!!

Ronniecat has a swell new job! She'll be doing what she's doing now in the private sector (working with multicultural and community associations) for the Canadian gummint. Her new gig involves lots more money, better benefits--and doing it all in FRENCH! Is this a brave young woman, or what?

The downside will be either a 4-hour commute each day or, alternatively, spending part of each week AWAY from her dear Husband and Cats!! I WAS hoping that on days she picks the commute, she could do so via the fabulous Canadian rail. Four hours of naps, breakfast or dinner (or both) in the cafe car, reading, listening to tunes, and at night sleeping in her own bed.... but ha...Canadian Rail, alas, is no more fabulous in the wilds of New Brunswick than Amtrack is in, say, North Dakota or Iowa. There seems to be but one train per weekday that runs between the town where Ronniecat will start her new job and a station that is relatively close to where she lives now (but not RIGHT IN TOWN).

We've learned to look up to Canada as superior and more civilized than our beloved US of A. But golly whiz...it's THEIR polar bears who are being forced to swim where once they could sit on the ice and have a civilized Canadian dinner of baby seals. You'd think the Canadians'd, um, do something about beefing up their trains instead of bragging about all their new highways.

Oh, they are superior. I'm not being snide. As a Yankee, I've come to expect greater clarity of thought from the rest of the world on the whole issue of global warming. But get this, the Loonie is now worth more than the US peso-formerly-known-as-dollar! Methinks the end is nigh....

Why don't I do this for a living???

Write trashy novels, that is....NANOWRIMO is SO MUCH FUN!--unlike anything i've ever writ before, it's an adventure!!! I'm laughing, too, cuz nobody will ever publish this new one, either. On the other hand, they just might. Then I really will have to move to the south of France....hahahahaha

Following Red Nose's example, I'm gonna post pictures instead of writing much.

l to r: Paul (Jim & Joyce's #2), Peggy (way in back),Katie (sailor collar), Michael (Jim & Joyce's oldest), Tom (in front), Sally

Here's one from the past: my sweet little babies plus two cousins out in front of the pine tree in Grandma Carew's side yard. She planted that tree her own self when it was about the size of Tom, there, being propped up in the front.

Nanowrimo....the gift that keeps on giving

(Prefatory note: I still have dialup, and I have always had two phone lines because this place used to be two apartments until I combined them...such fun).

This morning I discovered why there is such terrible interference on the phone line in my bedroom. I've lived in this condo for 10 years and never knew about the interference. As the deaf would sign, making a flicking gesture as if knocking crumbs off both shoulders simultaneously, it was "not my problem."

This spring, however, I got a cochlear implant and when I attempted to talk on the phone for the first time in 40+ years, I discovered the interference is so bad on that telephone, I can't talk on it. So I bought a second phone and installed it in the den, where it was sharing phone line #2 with my laptop.

Long story short, I started Nanowrimo today and,in a great burst of laziness, decided to move my laptop into the bedroom so i could write in bed. Lots of authors do this, I've heard. And guess what? To my astonishment, the little airport icon at the top of my screen was lit up and all the bars were solid. If you have an iBook, you will know wot I'm talking about. I clicked the airport icon, and discovered it was ON!! High speed internet, just like Starbucks!! There actually are about 5 or 6 airports for me to take off from, too.

It's been an amazing day! Not only did I stay awake to finish my daily quota of fiction, I downloaded all the software repairs and upgrades that have been nagging at me weekly since last year in less time than it took to clean and slice a quart of strawberries! Usually, it would take all day to download ONE upgrade, and I'd have to sit there and poke the return button every time the dialup connection threatened to cut off.

I got SNOOD on trial, too, and some kind of clip thing that lets me cut clippings online and, once the copyright stuff has been taken care of, post them on my blog or email them or just save them. (Great! Electronic clutter, too!!)

Best fun on the phone for the week: As if being connected at high speed were not enough excitement, I got a NOTHER call from a telemarketer today, and I neglected to turn on my phone coil (more technology)...anyway, I had to ask him to repeat several times, and when he finally ast me to give him the "make and model #" of...??? (I think it was my car, which I sold back in 1991). When I said "make and model of what?" he hung up on me!!! Tsk. I never hang up on telemarketers. I just tell them I'm very sorry but I'm not interested in whatever it is they're calling for, and that's that.