neurotwitch

Friday, February 26, 2010

chiaroscuro

So far, we have about eight inches of snow. Yesterday, we had 2½ inches of rain. Squirrel Lake appeared at the bottom of the hill until the snow covered it. A lot of H20 this month. Supposedly, it’s not over until tomorrow. Just 22 days until spring ...

Stanley decided to dig out early—hopefully not much more snow will fall. (click to enlarge)

He’s listening to an audiobook while he shovels. (click to enlarge)

snowy yard 2/26/10
It was so weird, to watch it rain hard for an entire day and then watch it snow the next day.

Bingo and Ruby peeking over the edge of the patio. Bingo loves the snow—but Ruby, not so much. She probably needs a coat and booties since she doesn’t have a double coat. Stanley says Bingo would probably rip Ruby’s booties off her feet and destroy them. (click to enlarge)

I love this view of the school side of the yard—it looks like we’re in the snowy woods and isolated. (click to enlarge)

It looks like Bingo and Ruby are singing a duet. The reality is they’re playing at biting each other. (click to enlarge)

I hope it doesn’t get too cold tonight—the roads are clear for the most part, but there is just so much water around the roads will probably get slick. I’m glad we only got the edge of the storm—no blizzard conditions here.

I hope it really is finished everywhere because there are loved ones driving long ways over the next few days—Kelly, Leo, and Dale from Panama City Beach, Florida to Ann Arbor, Michigan and Dad from the same place to Natick, Massachusetts.

posted by lee on 02/26/10 at 10:01 PM
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Monday, February 22, 2010

in florida

Dad rented a condo in a hi-rise on the beach in Panama City Beach for the month. Why anyone would want to leave Massachusetts in February, I dunno, but he did in order to give family folk a warm destination for a winter break.

Jamie and Keith, Kristine, and Riley were first on the scene, followed by Maureen and Ben and later Kelly, Leo, and Dale. The latter five are there now—and I wish we were too. Alas, the logistics of dealing with two dogs and two cats and getting there were just not do-able this year. We watched the snowstorms instead.

Dad sent along some photos. I don’t know who took the one of Riley, but it’s a great photo. Keith took the second photo (I’m assuming, because he’s not in it!)

Riley enjoying the condo in Panama City Beach, February 2010. (click to enlarge)

Kristine, Riley, Granny Jamie, and GreatPapaJim at the condo, a cold Florida February, 2010. (click to enlarge)

Dad will be back in Massachusetts by March 1st or 2nd. Then we’ll head up there the next weekend to visit and to eat good food and watch the awards on TV for our annual Oscar party (Superbowl—feh!) We’ve only seen two of the movies so far, but it’ll be fun anyway.

posted by lee on 02/22/10 at 07:55 AM
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funk creeping away

It’s been more than a year since I fell into a hole, a funk, this low-level paralysis. After Mom died, I couldn’t seem to shake the sadness off. Not that it was unremitting—it wasn’t, or isn’t, just mostly. But lately, it seems to be lifting more and more. I don’t know if it’s the St. John’s Wort Stanley gave me to try that’s finally kicking in, or if it’s just time, or a weariness at being immobilized helping me emerge. Maybe a combination, and the telling of how bad I’ve been feeling to my sister and to Stanley a couple of months ago.

That’s not to say the blue is not kicking me in the ass still. It is. Hard sometimes. But I’m starting to get out of my way more. I love this song—it’s kind of my current anthem because, oddly enough, it cracks me up and helps me keep things in perspective:

I’m thinking about the garden, and what I want to do this spring. I even ordered tomato plants from White Flower Farm.

I’ve started to dig out the house. I’m so shocked about how messy, no, dirty it’s gotten. Clutter, cobwebs, dust frankenbunnies. Crap just piling up. Stanley’s been good about taking care of the day-to-day stuff, the dishes, cooking and cleaning up, the trash, cleaning up after the creatures. But I sure haven’t been pulling my weight. It’s amazing how much just piles up from just living. So I started by unburying the living room this weekend—the easiest to start with.

And started on the parlor, which we’ve been using as a repository of everything. This room, decluttered, is gorgeous—very plain, very New England, but something about the dimensions are just right and it’s just so, serene is the word, when it’s tidy.

Worked quite a bit, and have, in my head, a to-do list that’s quite long. I started feeling bad that I wasn’t getting as much as I wanted done, but stopped that train because it’s taken a year to get this bad and because I know it would go faster if Stanley could help, but he’s been working on a job that has a tight deadline and has been coming home exhausted every day (he even got blisters on his knees). So I’ll be content to get a little done every day until my house is back under some form of control (it’s never completely under control—200-year-old houses are in no way easy to maintain and we have a lot to do). I know it will get done. And I know it isn’t necessary to get it done yesterday.

Work is starting to get better, too. I’ve been able to get more and more done. I’m still way behind, but I can feel things starting to get back to my normal output.

There are some more issues I really need to deal with. One step at a time, though. I can’t get frustrated at slow, as long as it’s mostly forward.

posted by lee on 02/22/10 at 04:47 AM
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Friday, February 19, 2010

teevee news lesson from charlie brooker

Broadcast new scripts have always been loaded with clichés, but I never thought much about the visual clichés. Until I watched this video:

Here is his take on the U.S. media:

The only thing he didn’t get was Chris Matthews asking a guest a question then talking over the guest as he or she tried to answer.

TV news, cable news in particular, gets so tiresome. Rachel Maddow is currently the only one I can stand to watch for an entire hour, and even her show gets chopped up too much and gets boring when she has the same group of pundits, night after night, almost always spewing the correct political line, though she does try to get “the opposition” on.

I don’t so much mind pundits with credentials (especially when the shows reach out from the usual gang)—attorneys, professors well-versed in the topic area, actual government officials elective or bureaucratic. But I usually don’t get how hearing another journalist/pundit opinion adds anything to the topic—just smacks more of making sure buddies give each other paying gigs, more of a circle jerk than substance. I want to see these so-called journalists interviewing people that are involved in whatever the topic is rather than interviewing another journalist or pundit or commentator unless they absolutely add something substantive to the report.

Even 60 Minutes bugs me sometimes, particularly when one of the pack of on-air so-called journalists ask a head of state a question such as “How dare you build nuclear weapons?” rather than asking them to please explain things from the head-of-state’s perspective. Or explaining why it is wrong for Country X to do exactly the same thing we do. I guess investigative journalism, at least in broadcast news, is a lost art. Too bad.

posted by lee on 02/19/10 at 09:20 PM
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Wednesday, February 10, 2010

the worst is yet to come

We managed to avoid last week’s mammoth snowstorm, but not today’s storm. We currently have about six inches on the ground, and the WTNH weatherguy, Geoff Fox, just said the we’ll be seeing more snow tonight than we’ve seen all day. Oh boy.

Inside, anyway, it’s been kind of peaceful. The cats are keeping me company as I work—when they’re not sitting on my mouse, anyway.

Twitch and Slink snoozing on their cushion beneath the window. (click to enlarge)

posted by lee on 02/10/10 at 09:31 PM
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Thursday, January 28, 2010

two new sites

A lot of what we’ve been busy with is behind-the-scenes stuff. But we recently launched two new websites.

The first, Cerulean Advisors, is for a company that provides capital markets advice as well as unbiased financial and strategic guidance to emerging public and privately held healthcare companies. It’s an elegant site that will expand as the company does. This site, as well as the one below, are built with the Expression Engine content management system, which we like more and more as they polish and improve it.

The second site, which is in a soft launch as we fine-tune things, is Robin’s Resources, a site that reviews Fairfield County, Connecticut stores, restaurants, bars, coffee shops, charities, and more, and is geared to busy women. It features succinct reviews and tips on what to look for or to order or why to give your money to a particular charity. Eventually it will have a full directory and be supported by advertising.

posted by lee on 01/28/10 at 12:41 AM
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Saturday, January 02, 2010

the only annual list i care about

The 2010 List of Banished Words from Lake Superior State University (Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan):

[Note: I’ve trimmed the comments—you can read them all, and more, and even get your Unicorn Hunter license at the link above]
Shovel-ready
“Apparently, the generally accepted definition of this phrase is to imply that a project has been completely designed and all that is left to do is to implement it ... however, when something dies, it, too, is shovel-ready for burial and so I get confused about the meaning. I would suggest that we just say the project is ready to implement.” – Jerry Redington, Keosauqua, Iowa. “Stick a shovel in it. It’s done.” – Joe Grimm, Bloomfield Hills, Mich.

Transparent/Transparency
“In the lexicon of the political arena, this word is supposed to mean obvious or easily understood. In reality, political transparency is more invisible than obvious!”—Deb Larson, Bellaire, Mich.

Czar
Long used by the media as a metaphor for positions of high authority, including “baseball czar” Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, appointed by team owners as commissioner-for-life in 1919. U.S. president Woodrow Wilson had an “industry czar” during World War I. Lesser-known “czar” roles in government during the last 100 years include: censorship, housing and oil czars in 1941; rubber czar in 1942; patronage czar (1945); clean-up (1952); missile (1954); inflation (1971); e-commerce (1998); bioethics, faith-based and reading czars (2001); bird flu (2004); democracy (2005); abstinence and birth control czars (2006); and weatherization czar (2008). George W. Bush appointed 47 people to 35 “czar” jobs; Pres. Obama, eight appointments to 38 positions

Tweet
And all of its variations ... tweetaholic, retweet, twitterhea, twitterature, twittersphere ... “I don’t know a single non-celebrity who actually uses it,” says Alex Thompson of Sault St. Marie, Mich. Jay Brazier of Williamston, Mich. says she supposes that tweeters might be “twits.”

App
“Must we b sbjct to yt another abrv? Why does the English language have to fit on a two-inch screen? I hate the sound of it. I think I’ll listen to a symph on the rad.”—Edward R. Bolt, Grand Rapids, Mich. “Is there an ‘app’ for making this annoying word go away? Why can’t we just call them ‘programs’ again?” – Kuahmel Allah, Los Angeles, Calif.

Sexting
Sending sexually explicit pictures and text messages through the cell phone. “Any dangerous new trend that also happens to have a clever mash-up of words, involves teens, and gets television talk show hosts interested must be banished.” – Ishmael Daro, Saskatoon, Sask., Canada.

Friend as a verb
“‘Befriend’ is much more pleasant to the human ear and a perfectly useful word in the dictionary.” – Kevin K., Morris, Okla.

Teachable moment
What might otherwise be known as ‘a lesson.’ “It’s a condescending substitute for ‘opportunity to make a point,’” says Eric Rosenquist of College Station, Tex. “This phrase is used to describe everything from potty-training to politics. It’s time to vote it out!” – Jodi, Youngstown, Ohio.

In these economic times ...
Nominations concerning the economy started rolling in as the 2009 list was being put together last year, i.e. “bailout.” They kept coming this year, in these trouble economic times. ” South Park ” warned us about what would happen if we angered The Economy. “In this economy, we can’t afford to be wasteful…In this economy, we all need some security…In this economy, frogs could start falling from the sky…In this economy, blah blah blah… Overused for everything from trying to market products as inexpensive to simply explaining any and all behavior during the recession.” – Mark, Milwaukee, Wisc. “When someone prefaces a statement with ‘in this economic climate,’ its starts to sound like a sales pitch, or just an excuse on which to blame every problem. And if a letter or e-mail message from your employer starts with this phrase, usually it means you’re not getting a raise this year.” – Dominic, Seattle, Wash.

Stimulus
“What next, can I go down to the local bar and down a few drinks and call it a stimulus package?” – Richard Brown, Portland, Ore.

Toxic Assets
We think we’re going to be sick. “Whatever happened to simply ‘bad stocks,’ ‘debts,’ or ‘loans’?”—Monty Heidenreich, Homewood, Ill.

Too big to fail
“Does such a thing exist? We’ll never know if a company is too big to fail, unless somehow it does fail, and then it will no longer be too big to fail. Make it stop!” – Holli, Raleigh, NC.

Bromance
“I am sick of combined words the media creates to make them sound catchier. Frenemies? Bromances? Blogorrhea? I’m going to scream!” – Kaylynn, Alberta, Canada.

Chillaxin’
Nominated for several years. We couldn’t chill about it anymore. “A made-up word used by annoying Gen-Yers.” – Chris Jensen, Fond du Lac, Wisc.

Obama-prefix or roots?
The LSSU Word Banishment Committee held out hope that folks would want to Obama-ban Obama-structions, but were surprised that no one Obama-nominated any, such as these compiled by the Oxford Dictionary in 2009: Obamanomics, Obamanation, Obamafication, Obamacare, Obamalicious, Obamaland ... We say Obamanough already.

posted by lee on 01/02/10 at 10:10 PM
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another year begins

Well, 2009 was both good and bad. Good because we have three new babies in the family. Bad because a friend, Catherine Gordon, died way too young of cancer on November 18.

Christmas was better this year—I wasn’t so numb. Dad gave me a wedding portrait of Mom that is so beautiful I cried (between that and the note he wrote). Stanley gave me a Kindle which I like even more than I thought I would. Maureen kept Christmas fairly simple this year, which is what we all needed.

Maybe 2010 will be better. I can sort of feel this miasma of funk I’ve been in since my mother died start to clear up—like seeing glimpses of the road through the fog. I’m starting to think about what I want to create and projects I want to do—next step is starting something that’s not work-related. Maybe the President will keep one or two of the promises he made. Maybe there will be jobs and maybe they will straighten out the economy ... and maybe I’ll get some good tomatoes from the garden this year.

posted by lee on 01/02/10 at 12:51 AM
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Friday, December 18, 2009

words can’t express what a slime lieberman is

And what spineless cretins most of the Democrat Senators are. Maybe now the dumbasses who voted for LIEberman over Ned Lamont will understand what a mistake they made—especially if they lose their jobs or get sick or both.

posted by lee on 12/18/09 at 12:11 AM
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Sunday, December 13, 2009

i keep waiting ...

Back in November 2008, I voted for Obama. I bought the dream and was teary-eyed as I watched events on Inauguration Day. Not that I could ever have voted for McCain—I just can’t vote for the mean-spiritedness and intolerance that is the Republican Party now. But I was so happy to be voting FOR a candidate for a change, not holding my nose and voting for who I thought was the lesser of two crappy choices, as is usual.

I feel like such a sucker now. The war in Iraq is still going on, the war in Afghanistan is escalating, we’re killing people in Pakistan, it turns out that the country really is a banana republic, credit card “reform” has kicked our collective ass backwards as far as paying off debt goes (gee thanks Senator Dodd), and health care insurance reform is turning out to be another joke that will probably wind up hurting us rather than easing the pocketbook pain we feel as we send of our health “insurance” check every month, and I know too many people out of work with no hope in site. Sure, the stock market is higher than it’s been in a while, but that can change at any second and it’s meaningless to most Americans, anyway. Obama won the peace prize for nothing and it still turns my stomach that he accepted it.

Why is it so hard for our leaders to do the right thing? To pull our troops home, to institute universal healthcare, to end the credit-card terrorism waged by the banks, to create real jobs, to rein in the greedy and regulate Wall Street, to house our homeless, to educate our students, to take care of our vets, to grant equal rights to all? Christmas time just makes it more acute that despite all the pious platitudes spouted by our so-called leaders, we are far, far from a Christian nation. Godless socialism is such a better deal for most Americans. At least a homeowner wouldn’t lose the house due to medical bills.

And I should have known better—I let my cynicism slip. I read William Blum and I know he’s been dead on for years. I’m so disappointed in Obama and the brain-dead wonders of our current “Democratic” House and Senate I’ve had to cut way down on watching the pundits blab on TV—the bullshit and the shittiness of most of the “leaders” is beating me into an even bigger funk.

Obama has done nothing. I don’t want to stop believing in him, but I can’t help it—unlike those who are able to have faith in the absence of any evidence, I need something tangible to sustain me. I sign petitions and send letters to my senators and representatives—what else can we do?

I think Matt Taibbi is right: first Obama needs to get Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street tune masters out of our government. Read “Obama’s Big Sellout” to see what I mean—Taibbi might not be without flaw in getting the details exactly right, but he gets the important stuff right and, more importantly, he gets the big picture right. He articulates my outrage.

All I can do is hope Obama cuts his puppet strings and starts working on the world he wants his daughters to live in. But I’m not holding my breath.

posted by lee on 12/13/09 at 12:46 AM
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