Rantings and Ravings of an Insane Writer

We arrived back at the house after most of the day spent in Temple for two doctor’s appointments for me to discover we were without power.

This wasn’t a huge problem EXCEPT, we haven’t gotten the door installed in the garage yet, so our only entrance and exit is through powered garage doors.  When the doors are down, they are locked.  With no power, we don’t get the doors up.  Why is this a problem?  We put the dogs in the garage to keep them out of the weather (rain was expected and did fall) while we were gone.  They were now trapped until power was restored.  Fortunately, they had plenty of water and had been fed and walked before we left.  It was relatively cool yesterday — mid-80s.

We went in the house, powered down the computers (UPS units were still beeping, so power hadn’t been off long), turned off the A/C units, and opened a window upstairs and a door downstairs to create what draft we could.  About an hour later, power came back on, and hubby opened the garage doors and left to pick some items up at the store.  I checked a phone message and listened to a recorded message from the city about a water main break and an admonition to not water the yard and to boil water until further notice.

While hubby was gone to the store, I went out to hook the dogs up on their chains and make sure they were comfortable.  The A/C units turned off while I was out there, but I didn’t think anything of that until I tried to apply power to the box fan we use to help the dogs (especially our elderly Dazzle) stay cool.  It wouldn’t come on.  That’s when I got suspicious.  Sure enough, the power had gone off again.  I was thankful we had power long enough to get the dogs out.  They would have been ok, but we would have been worried about them.

This was between 3:45 and 4:00 pm.  Power did not come on until 9:35pm.  In the interim, we grew concerned about the refrigerator — it would be fine for a couple of hours, but if the power didn’t come back on, well, you can imagine.

We wanted to get the generator out of the garage, but hubby hadn’t opened all the doors all the way.  I reminded hubby about the emergency pulls on each door that would allow them to be used manually.  We opened the doors, pulled everything out of the third bay, and wheeled the 7kw generator out.  Once we remembered where the switch to turn on the gas was, the generator started right up.  We shut it down, poured in about 7 gallons of gas, and positioned it by the back door.  We plugged the refrigerator in, and, since we had plenty of juice, hubby hooked up his satellite TV, a light, and the box fan.  Thankfully, we have a gas stove (and matches since the piezoelectric starters didn’t have power to light the burner), so cooking dinner was no problem.

Not unexpectedly, our neighbor came over about 8 to ask if we were going to run the generator all night.  We assured him it would be turned off by 10 (campground rules, if you didn’t know).  He kept saying he wondered if we didn’t pay our electric bill (even though he didn’t have power, either).  I think he was trying to tell a joke.  Then we chatted a little about The Hamptons, and after getting assured once again that we weren’t going to run the generator all night, he returned home.  He’s been better the last few months — almost friendly.  I hope he’s beginning to understand we aren’t here to ruin his life.

He doesn’t like dogs.  He can’t figure out why we have all this stuff.  But I don’t think he’s harped on us trying to flood him out for several months now, so maybe we’re making progress.  If we can discuss a neutral topic, he’s quite interesting to talk to.

I’m still boiling water.  We had a case or two of bottled water, and we’ve been drinking that.  It’s a good opportunity to get fresh disaster supplies set in.  While the garage doors were closed, hubby realized all his kerosene lanterns were in the garage — behind locked doors.  He’s since picked out four to keep in our emergency shelter under the back stairs.  He also stocked up on lamp oil.

We turned off the generator at 9:30 pm last night, and power was restored at 9:35 pm.  We think an earlier storm dropped tree branches on a power line a couple blocks away.

Category : House

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Late last year, I promised threatened to begin a discussion of the US Constitution over at one of my other blogs.  I haven’t done that yet, but I did post my intention to do so with some elaboration of my thoughts over there today.

I also installed Tweetboard on that blog (just like here) for the sole purposes using it for discussion.  I’m not promoting this blog, but if subject matter discussion begins on Tweetboard for that site, it may generate traffic of interested people, and I’m curious how that might work (hopefully without negative impact).

So, if you read here and have an interest in current events, philosophical discussions about the future of the world, etc, consider bookmarking or checking my Philosophical Meanderings site.  That’s where I want to keep my political, historical, and similar observations and discussions going.  I don’t anticipate a burst of activity there, but I intend to post more regularly than I have so far.

Category : Not Silly Stuff, Personal

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You should see a little tab on the left side of the blog window listing the number of tweets since your last visit to the site.  I’m not quite sure how it words yet, but it looked interesting, so I’m giving it a try.

It’s called Tweetboard, and it’s in alpha release.  You can find them on Twitter at @140ware.  As far as I can tell, you can click on the tab to see recent Tweets and responses.   There might be more to it, but I haven’t figured that out yet.

For now, 140ware is auto-approving requests but confirmation notices are delayed (I signed up last night and haven’t seen a confirmation notice yet).  That means, if you’ve requested it, just go to the support site and follow instructions — it should work.   To install, you copy and paste a line of code in your template above the  body tag and insert your Twitter username where the code says “insertTwitterusernamehere” or something equally obvious.

If I find I don’t like it, all I have to do is edit that line of code out of my template.  We’ll see how it goes.  Initially, I’ve noticed some slowness, but I suspect that’s due to the new release.

If you click on it, let me know what you see and if you think it is worth playing with or not.  For now, I still have the Twitter Widget installed in the right hand column.  If I keep Tweetboard, I’ll probably delete the widget as redundant.  If you can do anything with the tab, let me know — that seems like it might be worthwhile, but I don’t see how it can be used that way as it’s configured.  Here’s why I ask:

“Each time your website visitors post via your Tweetboard, a link back to the corresponding conversation is appended to their tweet, creating a viral stream of traffic proportional to the volume of tweeting performed via your Tweetboard.”

From that statement, it sounds like you could tweet from the board.  I suspect that means you could, if you found the board on other sites, tweet from any of those boards after logging in and giving Twitter approval connect.   I would hope you wouldn’t have to give permission for each TweetBoard you come across, but I’m not sure yet.

Category : Web Stuff

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Think about this for a minute.   Do you agree?  I know there sure are days when that seems like the right answer, but most of the time I don’t really think so.

What are your thoughts on the subject?  Feel free to reply in comments of post to you own blogs and let us know where to look.

Category : Not Silly Stuff

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I’m back in Central TX for a bit.  Hubby will be joining me shortly, but he’s stuck tying up some loose ends taking longer than he planned in San Antonio.

Grass is dry, dry, dry.  I’m watering (no water police here).

I plan to run a Home Blessing Hour tomorrow to take care of clutter and dust that has managed to collect while we were gone.  I’d like to have the house spruced up when hubby arrives.

I’d also like to get some revision work done.  There isn’t a place to work in SA that works for me (no place to sit down and spread out), so, while I brought the manuscript with me, I didn’t get much done on it — even with my back troubles laying me up.

I got laundry done before I left.  I think there’s a load or two waiting for me here.

As for my back, it’s better but still letting me know it’s there.  It feels like my whole right side is out of alignment, and I wouldn’t be surprised.  I think when my right ankle gave out, and I fell down (somehow managing to land on my back — that must have been an interesting mid-air pirouette) , I must have twisted myself up pretty good.  Oh, well.  I guess it’ll work it’s way out eventually.  I’m just taking it easy as it does it.

Category : Health, House, Twilight

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Water.  Falling from the sky.  What is this phenomenon?  Really.  Water fell from the sky for five minutes.  Amazing!

Category : Weather

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With my body not cooperating for getting work done, I have been able to read with less guilt for the last couple days.  I’m currently perusing, General Tommy Franks’ American Soldier, Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism, and Tess Gerritsen’s Life Support (which has started out really creepy!).

Category : Reading

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I’ve been wondering, and I’ll be expanding my perusals beyond Facebook soon.  I still really haven’t gotten back in the swing of things.  As some of you know, I sprained my right ankle pretty bad last week.  It’s coming along nicely.  This morning, while trying to get back into things, I was trimming front hedges in San Antonio.  I reached across to clip on, and something has not worked right above my right rear hip ever since.  It’s as if I pinched something.  Ouch.  I’ve promised hubby I’ll try to be more sympathetic to his back woes.

I’m sure it didn’t help that I forgot to take my Tylenol and Aleve yesterday.  After a day of not taking that, I’m usually feeling pretty creaky.  It didn’t seem to help the back much today, though.

I hope you’re all doing well.  Talk to me — distract me from the discomfort/pain.

Category : Health

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We lost Pericles on May 21st.  I wasn’t in a position to do a proper post for him then, but I want to acknowledge his passing.  Pericles was the runt of his litter, and his breeder didn’t want to sell him to us, but the kitten she did want to sell us wasn’t interested in us, and Pericles was, so he came home with us.

Pericles matured into a full-size cat who didn’t look like a runt.  He did have one partially crossed eye — a common trait in Siamese.  He and hubby developed games they played while hubby was getting dressed in the morning.  He also displayed a fondness for shoes.  We would frequently find him hugging or sniffing or wound around shoes.

Then there was his pot.  As a kitten, he claimed an ivy plant for his very own and frequently, we’d find him sitting in the pot.  Of course, he killed the plant.  Inevitably, Pericles grew up, and got too large for the pot, but for awhile,  he’d still try to sit in it.

He loved to reside on the trunk at the end of the bed:

But even more, he loved to lounge in front of the fireplace when there was a fire.  Hubby kept boxes or something there for him to get comfortable on.

Hubby got Ajax a couple of years ago, thinking Perry was lonely. Unfortunately, Pericles wasn’t that fond of Ajax.  He warmed up to him, but we’d only find him administering discipline by doing a takedown, pinning Ajax to the floor, then dragging him around by the throat.  It was funny to watch.

All-in-all, we miss our ShoeCat, a gentle and unique soul.

Category : Pets

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A few days ago, I discovered the My Zoo application on Facebook, and I’ve been building Inuit’s Place ever since.  I’m having a blast.

I also resumed work on Twilight as of last night.  It’s been languishing in a shopping bag too long.  I pulled it out and went back to work.  The catalyst?  MarFisk inviting me into Writing Only chat.  I figured if I was going to be in Writing Only, I’d better be writing.

It had to be serendipitous, because shortly after Mar lured me in, she had to leave, but her mission was accomplished, and I got my tail in gear on writing.

Category : Silly Stuff, Twilight, Web Stuff, Writing

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Hubby arrived last night, bringing another truckload of stuff, which is he is grumpily stashing in his our garage.  Yes, it’s hot outside.  It’s Central Texas in June without the rainy season.  Ugh.

Our trusty air conditioning and heating guy arrived quickly after a service call to him this morning to repair one of the upstairs units.  It seems somebody wielding a weedeater at some time past managed to mangle the control wire.  (Yes, it was me, but not yesterday.)  He serviced both units and will be providing replacement estimates.  Both units are 13 years old, and we believe newer units would be more efficient and reliable.

Hubby found a great area rug for the parlor at a garage sale last weekend, so I moved things out of the way, cleaned and polished the floor, and got the rug (with pad) laid out.  Hubby wanted my rolltop desk moved to the opposite corner of the parlor, and we got that done as well.  I am now operating 180 degrees out from where I started the morning.

My oak hall tree bench is now unburied from the boxes that were sitting on it, because I had to move it and place my desk in its old location.  It’s such a comfortable bench, so I managed to find a few moments to sit and relax on it.  And, yes, we were reminded of the dozen or so boxes that have been stored in the parlor that we need to sift through and process the contents to their ultimate location.

I complained about the pack ratting of my folks, but we have at least as much stuff.  We’re just fortunate to have enough space to keep it all in.  I performed a rough calculation and between two houses, a garage, and a storage garage, I think we have 8k square feet of space to store things.  And we use it.  My mission over the next couple of years is to not need to use one-third of that.

Somewhere in there, I need to actually revise and write, because I’m not getting the craft honed by not doing it.

Category : House, Writing

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Home at last.

Eeek!  There’s SOOOOOOO much to do.  Thank goodness hubby got up here last week to make two passes on the lawn with the lawnmower.  Otherwise, I’d REALLY be freaked out.

Where to start?  Naturally, I turned on the Mac Mini and got all the updates, downloaded email, and triaged that.  Not the most important thing to do, but I triaged snail mail while doing that, and that was important.  I’ve sorted the critical mail and am beginning the lesser mail.

Hubby was right; the fertilizer we put on the lawn before I left has worked.  The front lawn actually looks like a lawn.  And I see patches of actual lawn on the rest of the yard.

I’m going to relax today and plan my attack.  I think I’ll head over to Temple in the morning to get blood drawn in preparation for Friday’s doctor appointment, check the PO Box on the way back, then stop at the dentist to schedule an appointment — a portion of one of my back teeth chipped off last week, so it looks like I’ll be springing for another crown.  That should effectively kill the morning.  Then I’ll pull out the string trimmer and begin trimming.  That should eat the afternoon, and hubby should be arriving with the kids.

But now I’m settling in to watch The Milwaukee Mile — Indy Racing.  Danica finished third in the Indy 500 last week, and I’m wondering how she’ll do today.  The media harps on her for only having one win, but she consistently finishes in the Top 10, and has been ranked Number 7 for most of her career.  I know she wants to do better, but, sheesh, in the whole scheme of things, that’s darn good.

Category : Health, House, Pets, Sports

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I had to head for home this morning, but I think Mom and Dad are in a place where they can complete the move by Sunday. Moving houses wasn’t the way any of us wanted to spend the last month, but I’m really happy they’ve found a better housing situation.  Mom and Dad kept finding themselves saying, “This fits perfectly right here.  It’s as if this house was made for our furniture.”  The layout is ideal for how they live.  And they have wonderful neighbors.  It’s turning out to be a good thing for them.

I’m spending the night in Ankeny, Iowa.  Today was slated to be an easy driving day, and I spent an enjoyable afternoon with Tammy, Bill, and the Original Issue Kid (who is every bit as charming and lovely as her mother says she is).  I also renewed my acquaintance with Stewie, Gozer (who has doubled in size since I saw him last and is an extraordinarily handsome 10-month-old lab-mix), Puuffy, Cooper, Malaysia, Gypsum, and Abbie (at a distance).  Did I miss anyone?  I also got to experience Guitar Hero.  It was fun to try, but I’m not missing anything by not having it.  Games requiring coordination in a musical manner are not for me.

I’m watching the Western Conference Finals, and since I really dislike Kobe, I guess I’m reluctantly cheering for the Denver Nuggets.  It’s halftime, and that Lakers run was not encouraging.  I’m torn on the Cleveland – Orlando series.  Do any of you have a preference?

Category : Uncategorized

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I’m going to try to get two loads tomorrow, at least one with a trailer, before packing my truck for the trip home.  It doesn’t look so insurmountable, but it’s still a pretty big mountain to get down before the 31st.  We’ve been cleaning as we go.  And we’re on our sixth dump truck load.  I know where I get my pack rat tendencies from.

Don’t let my sister’s comments below fool you — she’s been a huge help, even with personal issues of her own to navigate, she’s been there within minutes after a phone call asking for help.  Anyone who scoffs at a Chrysler Town and Country Mini-van is a fool.  Those things swallow huge quantities of household goods when the seats are folded down.

Category : Uncategorized

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I’ll be heading for home on Friday.  I can’t imagine how the moving part will be complete, but I have prior obligations at home and need to get back to them.

Category : Uncategorized

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