Wheels!

I've been a pretty slacking blogger recently - apologies, dear readers (all three of you). Since I'm not posting as regularly anymore, I'm going to add a subscription bit to the right-hand column; you'll be able to enter your email address, hit subscribe, and get the most recent post in your inbox. Woo hoo.

I've still been enjoying the financial meltdown - enjoy might not be the best word choice. It's rather like watching Godzilla rampage through the world economy instead of Tokyo. And I'm pretty sure most people outside of Japan would rather Godzilla were rampaging Tokyo. Soon enough my mutual fund will be worth so little that I won't be able to by a newspaper with it, even a weekday edition. It was a gift, though, so it's rather like free money - all I can end up with is nothing, which is what I had before it was given.

I do have an extremely simplistic question about the market. It seems to me that if everyone quits selling, the stocks will quit going down. Right? I realize that there are occasions where that strategy doesn't pay off in the end, for example, if you had stock in WaMu or Lehman Bros (were they actually a publicly traded company?). I do understand that not tanking the stock market won't resolve the bigger issues of banks holding paper that's losing value at a depressing rate, or the credit freeze that bollixed up commercial paper, etc. But if you've already lost 30-50% of your worth in stocks, why does rushing to sell the rest of it off seem like a good idea? If any of you send me an explanation I can understand, I'll post it.

Then there's the fun of playing the unemployment game. Quel surprise, I screwed up my application and had to call the Unemployment Insurance (UI) office. The woman on the other end was exceedingly helpful, and we got everything straightened out. In fact, I was able to report that fact to a friend of mine just yesterday...but I spoke too soon. I checked my mail and found that their system did not like something, so I have to complete some paperwork and send it in. Feh.

Speaking of fun, the Presidential/Vice Presidential debates are over. I must say, Barack Obama seems to have gotten his act down, and I mean that in the performative sense of the word. One of my friends and occasional readers compared McCain's performance in the previous debate as remniscent of Grampa Simpson, an analysis with which I agreed. Last night, he still reminded me of ol' Abe Simpson, and I fully expected John McCain to say, "I'll be deep in the cold, cold ground before I recognize Missouri," or some other such nonsense as we usually hear from Grampa. In fact, I had summarized the first three debates (Prez & VP) thusly:

See! Sarah Palin act like a Barbie Doll! Hear! Joe Biden try not to say something studip! Watch! John McCain wheeze his way around the stage, talking to all his friends! Enjoy! The immaculate hang of Barack Obama's silk suit!

I spent a couple of days with The Mater last week. The most exciting aspect of that was going to a book sale where, for $15, I brought home many more books than I should have been allowed to buy all year. Bad Viviana!

I spent Saturday evening in the company of a poet. Previous experiences with poets were less than inspiring, part of that due to the fact that they weren't very good poets, and thus were tedious companions. This poet, however, is exactly to my taste - no crappy love poems, no bad beat poet imitations, but his own voice and a love of words that I'm sure surpasses my own. So there was plenty of conversation, some reading of poetry...and single malt double wood 16 yr old Oban. Now, I have to admit, I'm just a wee bit fonder of the Lagavulin; it's the peat. I love the scent and taste of the peat smoke in such a smooth and delightful delivery system as the 16 yr old Lagavulin. However, were I stuck on a desert island for the rest of my life with 20 crates of 16 yr old double wood Oban, I wouldn't shed a tear for my lost Lagavulin. I've always enjoyed the 12 yr old Oban, but the 16 yr old was delightful, smooth as anything. So please let me recommend - Oban 16 yr old double matured (as it is officially named). Super tasty stuff.

And finally - wheels. I bought me some wheels. A Diamondback bicycle. She's a nice little bike; I had to get the shrimpy sized frame (14 or 15). And panniers, helmet, gloves, dayglo jacket. It's not the lightest frame in the world, and I think it will be a few weeks before I can safely lift her high enough to get her on a bus bike rack (don't want to destroy my back), but I'll have enormous biceps once I reach that point.

Tell me, did y'all think I'd bought meself a car? Huh? Huh? I'm unemployed. I can't afford a car. Honestly, I'm not sure I can afford anything more expensive than a pair of discount running shoes, but I bought a bicycle anyway.

My social calendar is a little full the next four days - damn, how'd I get so popular? Anyhoo, I'll update y'all early next week.

Beeting and Plumming

My friend, her cat Drusilla, and yours truly enjoying morning coffee & email

Yes, more canning work accomplished this week. Two bloody days of scrubbing, boiling and peeling beets for canning. My friend wanted to do 25 pounds worth - we both agreed, never again. Our maximum is 15 pounds, folks. At least we've established a limit, which is good, and we've enough beets canned to keep the rebel alliance alive through the winter.

The plum jam - three batches, but I must say, it's really beautiful, lovely, gorgeous jam. Some lucky few might get a taste of it. The rest of you will be living lives of deprivation, not knowing what you're missing except for my effusive descriptions of jam and toast.

Right now I'm trying to convince my friend that I've earned breakfast; after all, I baked a batch of chocolate chips early today (around 7:30 AM), and feel that I've earned a fried egg and some toast with just a smidgen of homemade plum jam.

I must apologize for being gone so long; two days last week were spent with the mater, trying to find a refrigerator that would make her as happy as the one she got in 1964 - if you think tilting at windmills is a waste of time, I assure you, the hunt for the refrigerator like the one the mater had in 1964 is equally as futile and uses much more gasoline.

Sunday was spent helping Egon, my mad scientist friend, construct a small space for his next series of experiments. The actual lab work probably won't commence until sweater season starts. After all, one must wear the proper clothing for the task at hand. I did explain to him Washington Administrative Code for the use of PPE the other day; he stayed awake through the entire lecture, telling me that he truly is a nerd. However, since I have so much to say about PPE, SOPs, NIST-traceable weights and calibration records, it's just as well I'm spending time with someone who finds that information useful. Monday was spent delivering beets. 25 pounds of beets. I think it will be a couple of days before I want to have anything to do with beets again.

I've also been reading up quite a bit for my novels. Titles include: The Steam Engine, It's History & Mechanism, Crimes & Punishments, Reminiscences of My Military Life, and The Girls Own Book. One must be thoroughly grounded in the political, economic, technological and social activities of the era one writes about, otherwise one will sound like a complete wantwit. I'm enjoying my forays into previous centuries, and it's entirely possible that I won't even bother returning to the present.

I have to admit that I was excited last week when I saw the headlines, "Palin is McCain's Choice for VP" until I realized it was not Michael Palin. For some few brief seconds I was looking forward to a Vice President who would jump up and down and yell, "Come and see the violence inherent in the system! Help, help, I'm being repressed!" No such luck, sad to say.

That's okay - Ralph Wiggum may yet end up being my choice for president in the end. After all, he's been a good boy!

Porkland

Anyone who has talked to me for more than 15 minutes should know that I spent the most formative years – and some of the most traumatic – in Porkland, Washington, a small community southeast of Tacoma. I’ve tried to explain what Porkland is like to those unfamiliar with the place, but it’s really difficult to convey the reality. My parents became more disappointed and disillusioned with their community over the years, to the point that my mother and I now have a “Porkland is in the news again” watch in order to exchange news of the latest atrocity.

But before I begin listing said atrocities, let me give you a little census information about Porkland, courtesy of Wikipedia:

As of the census[1] of 2000, there were 24,053 people, 8,869 households, and 5,782 families residing in the CDP. The population density was 3,267.2 people per square mile (1,261.8/km²). There were 9,340 housing units at an average density of 1,268.7/sq mi (490.0/km²). The racial makeup of the CDP was 73.91% White, 8.07% African American, 1.04% Native American, 6.64% Asian, 1.81% Pacific Islander, 2.06% from other races, and 6.47% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 5.33% of the population.

There were 8,869 households out of which 32.6% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 45.8% were married couples living together, 14.1% had a female householder with no husband present, and 34.8% were non-families. 26.3% of all households were made up of individuals and 7.4% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.55 and the average family size was 3.05.

In the CDP the population was spread out with 25.0% under the age of 18, 16.9% from 18 to 24, 28.3% from 25 to 44, 19.7% from 45 to 64, and 10.1% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 31 years. For every 100 females there were 94.2 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 90.8 males.

The median income for a household in the CDP was $39,653, and the median income for a family was $46,210. Males had a median income of $36,169 versus $27,036 for females. The per capita income for the CDP was $18,649. About 10.6% of families and 15.4% of the population were below the poverty line, including 18.7% of those under age 18 and 6.5% of those age 65 or over.

It’s not a large population, and I don’t think it qualifies as densely populated (not like my neighborhood in Seattle). But boy, it sure is a sick population. Let’s check out the news stories for this year:

August 10th: A 55-yr-old cancer patient, neglected for several days by his caretaker and his daughter, became puppy chow for his 27 dogs. This was discovered after the daughter dropped him off at the emergency room. Apparently a neighbor had been forced to help the man on previous occasions because of this neglect, and animal control had been called about the dogs a few months ago when a woman was attacked by one of them. I’m sure readers will be shocked to know that his prescription painkillers were missing.

July 29th: A 23-yr-old Porkland man phoned for help as the baby he was watching had apparently died in its crib – according to him, after falling several times and being crushed by a bookcase. Oh, he did shake her and squeeze her in an attempt to calm her after her calamities, and yeah, he did accidently whack her head against a wall, but, dude, that was totally an accident. The coroner came up with slightly different results – skull fractures and evidence of a ‘massive blow’ to the 1-yr-old’s abdomen. The police interrogated the bookcase and found no evidence that it had fallen over.

July 28th: A 40-yr-old man was beaten with a stick (or bat – the news stories are conflicting) and then shot inside his home. He was treated for non-life-threatening injuries. There was no reported reason for the assault.

May 31st: A church employee in the process of locking up the church was stabbed in the arm by a nutcase.

May 28th: Toddler was fatally beaten by mother’s loser boyfriend. He had a previous conviction for assaulting a child. The child’s father had continually complained to CPS about the treatment the child was receiving in his mother’s home, but to no avail.

May 7th: A 31-yr-old man was shot several times in a dispute with another man. The suspect was arrested shortly after the incident.

You know what, I’m going to stop now. I can’t go through another four months of Porkland drama; and I’ve left out the tragic house fires (they also happen several times a year) and drunk drivers and organized crime. If I went back to last July I’d have to include the serial-killer pedophile, and I really don’t want to write about him. Depressing, isn’t it. Admittedly there wasn’t this level of violence occurring when I lived there, but I have not been surprised at the evolution of the place from redneck nightmare to violent redneck nightmare.

So next time you hear of some horrific event in Piercing County, make a little bet with yourself as to whether it happened in Porkland or not.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to watch some Simpsons to get the taste of pork out of my mouth, if you will.

ETA: Goat Girl made an excellent observation in the comments section, although I disagree with how far her premise actually accounts for such a life as many live in Porkland. And I offer her my sincere condolences on her plum bushes.

Eeeew! Spiders!

This morning when I opened my front door an icky spider had constructed his home completely across my doorway. The nerve! Never fear - I dug into my arsenal of nano-nuclear weaponry to find one of my anti-spider missiles and handily dispatched him to spider Valhalla (and I really don't want to know what goes on in spider Valhalla, thank you).

I've been away from the tubes of the interwebz for a few days (for those not in the know, esteemed Alaska Senator Ted Stevens conceives of the internet as a series of tubes; the only thing appealing about that image is a recurring fantasy of Robert DeNiro a la "Brazil" busting into my apartment to repair my internet connection as well as my ducts...). I'll start with Wednesday evening.

I finally presented something for my reading group to peruse. They said I was redundant and verbose. Me? Redundant and verbose? Redundant and verbose? Me? Really? Redundant? Verbose? Hmm. Redundant and verbose. Maybe a little verbose. Redundant? Never. I'm not the least bit redundant. They did have a couple of nice things to say about my writing voice, and catching a nice 18th tone in my narrative. But redundant? I'm not the least bit redundant. Not at all. Maybe a little verbose.

However, as with any good spanking, inspiration was nonetheless derived, making me want to spend the next month in the stacks at Suzzallo, researching steam-powered submarines and whaling with a vengeance...but I've still got other things to attend to. Housework. Bills. Finding out when I can start collecting unemployment.

Thursday, on the way to the mater's house I stopped in at work. It was rather like a high school reunion - it was great to see everyone, and it took me forever to get in and out. I told them my tales of woe on being unemployed - sleeping in until 7:30, lying in bed for an hour or so to contemplate my day's activities, thinking about my blog entry, looking out the window and contemplating the universe...they didn't have much sympathy for my plight.

Thursday and Friday were mostly spent in pursuit of maternal errands and quests - life just doesn't get more enthralling than standing in line at Costco, I tells ya. I did get a copy of "Dr Strangelove" for my troubles, and expect to amuse myself with it sometime today. Woo hoo!

Yesterday was the memorial service for a recently deceased coworker. A very nice and proper memorial service was held in his honor yesterday afternoon...however, said service didn't really represent the entertainingly subversive coworker we all knew well. I mean, where was the vermin? So after the service and meet-and-greet reception that followed, the less reputable of us retired to the Rogue brewery in Issaquah to drink a toast to our departed friend with a pint (or several) of Dead Guy Ale . DG, our departed friend, was an award-winning home brewer, and Dead Guy was one of his favorite beverages.


I downed half a pint (I like the stuff, but beer is too many calories for too little bang), and then moved on to Maker's Mark, a move DG would have thoroughly approved of. My kilt-wearing friend JB was my escort and fake husband for the event (his wife was out of town, camping with their kids, so I was the wife-for-a-day and he was my fake husband); we were everything prim and proper, except for the conversation around the Kobe Beef Bleu Balls they served there...and no, I'm not going to enlighten those who were not in attendance. Some things can only be fully appreciated in their immediate context. I reported to JB that a woman in the restaurant sporting a Dead Kennedys hoodie (she probably wasn't even born the first time I saw them live) was definitely checking out my faux-hubby in his kilt; I did tell my readership that he looks really cute in it. It's all in the attitude, lads, just in case you're wondering how he gets away with it.

Ah, y'all are wondering what my Mad Scientist friend might have to say on the subject of me acquiring a faux spouse for a few hours? Well, I was unmarried when we chatted yesterday at about 4:30 PM, and I was single again about 5 hours later, so I don't know that there's much he can make of it. Maybe it will inspire him to consider donning a kilt, though. There's definitely a lack of kilt-wearing men in this town, and I'd love to see more of them.

My day today? Hmmmm, yogurt (I've only had coffee today), shower, put laundry away, put groceries away, vacuum, yoga, maybe Dr Strangelove. Never a dull moment at Chez Wilde.

All caught up on my exciting life now, so let me leave my readers better informed about their world than when they started reading this post.

In case you haven't been paying attention, Obama says he will support limited off-shore drilling to ease gas prices. Yep, that will solve all our energy problems; we should concentrate on that instead of long-term solutions to energy production, consumption, and just living more sustainably. The only change I dare hope for is quarters for the laundry machines in my apartment building, sad to say.

More importantly, and much closer to my heart, is a new ISO standard for the proper cooking of pasta - woo hoo! For those who cannot wait, however, here is a submission from the Annals of Improbable Research for the proper cooking of pasta:

2008-07-10 Piero's Preliminary Pasta Procedure

Hunger for the standard, and hunger in itself, demand at least one recipe. Here, from Italy, is a pert, 46-word specification from Italian chemist and rock star and LFHCfS 2002/3 Man of the Year Piero Paraidino:

"To 3 L of already boiling water containing 2 tablespoons of NaCl add 250 g of raw Italian pasta. Boil the mixture for 9 minutes, then recover the solid by filtration. Add 20 cl of extravirgin olive oil and a previously warmed dressing of your choice."

The Annals of Improbable Research is one of those sites on which it is very easy for me to lose hours of my life; I hope to lose a couple of hours there next time I'm on campus stealing wifi from my Alma Mater.

That's it for today; hopefully tomorrow or Tuesday will find me inspired to new heights of verbosity and redundancy!

Another Productive Day - Really. I'm not making it up.

One of my regular readers (I think I have two regulars - woo hoo!) commented yesterday that I seem to be having too much fun while on the rolls of the unemployed. Of course, said reader's home was recently invaded by goats, so I can see where my existence suddenly seems an endless party. I love goats, but I have a healthy respect for their special kind of anarchy. I feel the same way about kittens, too.

Last night's activities consisted of an unplanned dinner with the mad scientist, a much-appreciated attempt to cheer me up after news of a fellow coworker's demise (RIP, Bob). And a successful one, all things considered - good food, delightful conversation, and a brief visit to his home where we exchanged cultural goods...he got to download the sound effects from Star Trek TOS, and I got to watch Dr Horrible's Sing-along Blog . Would it surprise you to discover that Dr Horrible is a mad scientist? No? A bit of parody, and a bit of commentary, with entertaining musical numbers thrown in, it's extremely well-done, with the incredibly talented Neil Patrick Harris in the starring role. I found it wonderfully funny - and I hate Captain Hammer. (It should be obvious that I would sympathize with our mad scientist protagonist - c'mon, Captain Hammer is as bad as Zapp Brannigan.) Again, I was returned home well before the pumpkin hour, so I've had no chance as of yet to observe any post-midnight transformations in my mad scientist friend. If there is one, I do hope it's not a Jeckyll and Hyde thing; I'd rather date a Neanderthal from the Geico ads than Mr Hyde. He's just a bully.

You're wondering when I get to the productivity, aren't you? Does it count that I had my teeth cleaned yesterday? No? Well, today my BFF and I went down to the mater's to pick up a pen that's been taking up space in my parent's garage forever. I braved dust, dust bunnies, strange and frightening formations of cat hair, and spider carcasses, among other things, to disassemble this thing. It took three of us in the end - me, my BFF, and a very good friend of the mater's, all wrestling with poles, wire, nuts and bolts, cyclone fencing - and a good time was had by all. We almost cleaned up enough to look presentable at lunch; fortunately, the mater didn't notice us covered in dust, cobwebs, and cat hair. And she doesn't read my blog, so I feel safe in making such a public confession of sartorial disarray.

Upon returning home I had to shower and change clothes, and I'm still looking at taking a Benadryl in an hour or so. Dust is one of the most reaction-producing allergens in my life; small quantities are relatively safe...okay, okay, looking at my apartment, I should say large quantities are relatively safe, but a thick blanket (literally, blanket) of the stuff exceeds my body's capacity to cope.

After showering, I sauntered up to the grocery store in hopes of exploiting the 4 for $3 special featuring my favorite yogurt, Brown Cow Low Fat Vanilla. Breakfast of Chumps, I call it. Now that I'm unemployed, specials like that are to be treasured. I noticed it was on special when I went shopping Sunday, but there were only four cartons, so I thought I'd go back and get more. Today there was one carton. One carton. Why doesn't anyone buy the strawberry low fat yogurt? There's tons of it. So tomorrow is my last attempt to get my favorite yogurt on sale; if I don't succeed tomorrow, I'll just learn to like the low fat maple yogurt. Ugh.

This afternoon I told one of my caretakers at the coffee house closest to me that I had lost my job; a very sweet woman, she gave me a hug and much more sympathy than I'm sure I deserve. I'm fortunate to know as many kind and sympathetic people as I do; I often wonder why they put up with my cranky self, but I'm still grateful for my good fortune.

Finally, I'm going to seek some advice from my readers (you two regulars out there, listen up!). Dating a mad scientist, I'm not entirely certain what attributes are attractive to a delightfully warped psyche with a passion for physics and math; as kal pointed out recently, I am an outlier. I do not follow the normal distribution. But is that enough? Paris Hilton is an outlier too, after all, and she can barely put three sentences together. So, what do I do to make a good impression? Let's take my Geiger counter as an example. Yes, I have a Geiger counter. I mean, who doesn't want a Geiger counter, right? It's a beauty, too; it's a yellow civil defense model CDV-700 with an actual geiger tube. The day I found it was one of the happiest days I had in 2001. I even have an old book on radiation monitoring - I've got everything I need (if it were still 1961). It seems the perfect thing with which to impress a man, n'est-ce pas? There's just one problem - my yellow baby is broken. I put batteries in it and everything, yet there's no power going to the device. Big frown. I've been content to own it in its dysfunctional beauty; after all, it's more than most people have. For years she sat on the floor in front of my bookcase, a conversation piece and object of envy. But would a mad scientist be impressed? Do I get brownie points for owning a classic scientific instrument, or do I just look like I collect weird, broken junk? If I invite him over to my hovel, do I shove her into the closet, or do I display her proudly? Here's her photo for your consideration:

And a very informative volume to go with it:


He was impressed with my beaker mug, but I fear that I've already presented my best material. Let me know what you think about Mme Geiger up above; I'd like to keep making a good impression, if at all possible.