The stationary department has moved

I really did see that on a sign once, in a department store, when I went in to purchase a greeting card of some kind. It was maybe 25 years ago, but I still giggle about it sometimes, because that's the kind of gal I am. I still wish I'd photographed it.

This blogspot address will no longer be updated as of right after I publish this post, and (if I did everything correctly) this blog will no longer accept comments. I'll re-direct my URL in the near future, so if you have alphabitch.org in your bookmark or link list, the magic of the internets will automatically redirect you to the new location when it's ready.

Which, it is. Go there now for new posts, or you can find old posts listed by date and (if you click on the year/month, by title).

And if that's not working yet, the new URL is http://alphabitch.wordpress.com. You'll have to register if you want to comment, and you'll have to wait for me to approve your comments before they appear online. Sorry about that.

Happy New Year.

Ruby just had her first bath

The whole thing was a great deal less stressful than I expected it to be. She rolled in something horrible on our walk a little while ago, and I tried just washing the affected areas but she still stank. Julie has warned me that I needed to put her into the bathtub and give her a real bath, just to get her used to it, while she was still young enough to think it was fun.

I was prepared to concede that she might be right. That it would be a bummer to find out she hates baths when she's filthy and I'm on my way out the door. But it's like me to put things off.

I needn't have worried; she liked it just fine! I brought her into the bathroom & closed the door, sudsed her all up briskly with a warm washcloth and then picked her up and put her into the tub. I had put an old towel on the bottom of the tub so she wouldn't slide around, and once I shut the tub enclosure door (and, well, I got in there with her -- no photos, it's Christmas), she was completely calm and happy about the whole thing.

Ruby: "Wow! I'm in the tub! This is fun! I love it in here! Mom, look: a washcloth! I'm taking it! It's mine!"

Me: "Awww, who's a good puppy? Give me your other foot. What a sugar bear." etc., ad naus.

And I sudsed her up a little more, turned the handheld shower thingy on and rinsed her off and we were good to go. No panic, no attempts to escape, and a whole lot of tail-wagging when I dried her off. I did underestimate the number of towels it would take to get us both dried off, but that was a small problem, easily remedied. Plus the bathroom floor is clean now, too. The whole event took about six minutes.

Number of seconds it took for her to leap into my bed once I opened the bathroom door? About 4, but I had put a clean sheet over it in anticipation of that very thing. At least she smells good.

She's sleeping all curled up on the sofa now.

The color of Tang®

If you are looking for a color to paint your kitchen -- or even, say, the kitchen in the apartment over your garage -- don't pick the color of Tang®. It's really ugly, plus unappetizing. And you can see it through two coats of primer and one coat of paint. And now there's a song stuck in my head, even though I was painting a kitchen, not a living room. I can't find a link to the song or a video of it, so here are the lyrics. It's a peppy little waltz, with guitar & accordion:

WHY AM I PAINTING THE LIVING ROOM?

Holes in the ozone the size of Brazil
Barges of trash in the chewable breeze
Pools of industrial wasteland pate'
Sulfur dioxide dissolving the trees
Pretty soon it will all end with a boom
Why am I painting the living room?

I have the whole day off
Cause it's a Saturday
There is a bluegrass band
Somewhere along the bay
Look at the lilacs bloom
Why am I painting the living room?

A pinhead evangelist pays for his sin
With a five dollar fine for a black collar crime
Kingpins of industry knowingly nod
Just like lake Erie they're 12% slime
They wink at the president too I assume
And here I am painting the living room

I hear the bluebird sing
Don't let the day go by
Look at the blossoms blow
Over the blue blue sky
All with a wild perfume
And here I am painting the living room

Why am I painting the living room? (repeat)

(Lou:)
Ah yes I can see how my tombstone will read
Here lies someone of exceptional worth
Though she did not do a lot for her kind
Or help hold together this crumbling earth
Here lies a woman they're saying of whom
Sure had a goodlooking living room...

©1988 L&P Berryman. Words by Peter, Music by Lou.

Julie was a lot more helpful yesterday than Ruby was today. In fact, the whole thing was Julie's idea. She even found some primer and paint in her basement and got the whole project rolling. Thanks, Julie!

I think that the next coat (coats?) of paint will have to wait until next weekend.

Environmental enrichment for dogs*

When I leave the house, I always leave a bunch of toys in Ruby's little space. And the radio playing. She gets confined to the hallway and bathroom; there's a window, but it's up high so that she can't look out and bark at the neighbor dogs or the mailman. There are several doors that get locked with hooks: to the basement, the living room, my bedroom, a linen closet, the stairwell going upstairs, and my sewing room. The only furniture in there is a small desk in the hallway. She has never chewed on it, though she did peel some paint off of the closet door and the door going upstairs. I leave a broom leaning against each of those doors, and she hasn't bothered them since.

The brooms kind of scare her. She is very careful not to knock them over.

A couple of the toys are the kind that you can put treats inside, and it's kind of a challenge for dogs to get them out again. I always do put a couple of treats in those for her. When she sees me gather up the toys and put the treats in them, she gets very happy, and goes into her room, sits on her bed, and waits.

Separation anxiety? Not a problem at all. She loves it when I go away.

Today when I got home, however, she had found something else with which to entertain herself: aloe vera/Vitamin E foot creme, which she loves. I have to put my socks on very fast or she tries to lick it right off my feet. And of course I have to remember to put the jar somewhere she can't reach it. Well, either I forgot to do that or there is no longer any such place in the bathroom, alas.

Fortunately the stuff is really cheap, and I bought two jars of it last time I was in the drugstore.


*[2009 update: OK, perhaps this post should be more accurately titled "Environmental enrichment for dogs: here is what happens when there is not enough for your dog to do." I'd hoped that it would be obvious that it was not meant to be an example of proper enrichment activities for dogs; I regret that this was not clear enough to those who take the time (still!) to write to me about it, and I do apologize if I was rude in my response to you. I understand that you were trying to help. So if anyone is inclined to email me more dog-rearing advice based on this two-year-old post, please note that a) she was six months old and not crate trained (nor had she ever even been in a house!) when she came to live with me, so no, crate-training is not essential to her well-being; b) puppies and young energetic dogs need to be confined for their own safety, not for the integrity of the furniture, so yes, it is a good idea to put her in a small, relatively featureless and den-like room; it's stressful enough for dogs in a new environment without having to guard the whole house and keep it safe from potential intruders like the mailman and the neighbor kids and so forth; and c) the brooms were not intended to 'terrorize' her in any way, just to impede her ability to chew on the woodwork and ingest paint chips. In any case, she's all grown up now and no longer confined to a small room when I leave. She has no lingering fear of brooms. My leaving does not stress her out in the least, as she looks forward to the routine of the treat ball before I go out the door. But thanks for your advice all the same. Also: I do not adhere to any single method or theory or set of rules for dog training or rearing. Every dog is different.]

Yesterday is over; tomorrow is another day

I'm planning to have a good day today, because yesterday was really really lousy. It started out fine. Ruby's friend Kalei had spent the night, and they were having a great time. Running around in the backyard, taking naps in the sun, sleeping on the couch. I was determined to change the furnace filter, because when I turned the heat on the other day I realized I couldn't remember when I'd last done it, so I turned it off again and of course it got cold. I tried to open the furnace and check for the size, and couldn't remember how to open the damn thing up. The one in my old house had a snap-off front and it was easy to open that, but the bracket was kind of tricky and you had to lie on the dirt floor in the crawl space to reach it. This house has a great basement anyway, with real floors. So I looked up the specs online and bought what I thought was the right size filter.

I went down the basement, with my toolbox, and found that you not only had to unscrew the panel, you also had to remove another panel to get the relevant one to move. It was fairly simple once I figured it out. The bolts were not on the spec sheet, but at least one of them was clearly added later. Maybe they all were. I got the old filter out, and it was one of the fancy high-end reusable ones, which was good because it was also four inches smaller than the one I'd bought.

So I brought it outside and started to clean it out. It was pretty seriously filthy. I decided I needed hot water, so I brought it inside and blasted it with the shower thingy. With which I immediately splashed and sprayed my fleece bathrobe and got soaking wet. Very soon it became clear that the tub drain was obstructed, so I turned the water off and let it drain a while, then decided I needed to add some drain cleaner to give it a hand. As I'm doing this, I hear wild barking and dogs running in a huge circle: hallway, kitchen, dining room, living room, hallway, kitchen, dining room, living room -- up on sofa, down, then run the other direction. There is a dog toy involved.

And then I notice that the floor is covered in blood. There is blood everywhere, and I have no idea which dog is bleeding; they've both got blood on their paws just from walking through it. And they won't stop running. Neither of them seemed upset or angry at the other, and neither of them was limping or seemed impaired in the slightest. I finally shut both of the hallway doors and cornered them in the bathroom.

It was Ruby's ankle. A fairly small cut, but maybe it needed stitches? I didn't see anything still in it, no broken glass, etc. Had Kalei bitten her during the scuffle? I got the bleeding to mostly stop, and the dogs to collectively calm down. I called a friend to come and get Kalei, because every time I turned my back and tried to wipe up some of the blood, they started running around in circles again.

The place looked like a crime scene. All I needed was some yellow tape.

After Kalei left, I got the wound cleaned up. I was still kind of on the fence about whether to take her in, but my friend seemed to think I was overreacting. Ruby was asleep on the sofa. Not fussing with the cut or anything, but the furnace was still not reassembled and it was getting colder fast.

I gave up trying to clean the filter without a pressure washer. I thought about it briefly and wondered how difficult it would be to cut a furnace filter. Not that difficult, it turns out, so I cut four inches off the edge, and went downstairs and popped it into the proper spot, facing the proper direction. Sort of. I couldn't quite get that one corner to pop in the holder. The old one had 16x25x1 inch stamped on the frame and it had fit perfectly. And I'd cut exactly four inches off the 20x25x1 inch filter I'd purchased. I couldn't quite see or reach that farthest-away corner, and kept thinking maybe it was just caught on the bracket or something. And part of the problem is that the furnace is perched on a weird little concrete platform-type part of the floor, which slopes away from it precipitously and in more than one direction, so I couldn't quite get down on my knees and still reach at the right angle.

I tried to reach with a screwdriver, a long piece of wood, a hammer. I was cursing loudly and banging around, and poor Ruby got a bit restless and came downstairs to see if she could help. And before I knew it was out the dog door and chasing something in the back yard.

I rounded her up and got her back into the house and of course her foot was bleeding all over again, and she was all excited and trying to outrun me. I caught her and soaked her foot and cleaned it up again. I also put a sock on it, which she didn't seem to mind too much.

By then I needed a time-out. I sat with her on the couch for a while and listened to the news. Then cleaned blood off the floors again, and I got the bright idea to measure the old filter with a tape measure. Because it had fit in that bracket pretty snugly, and I thought maybe I'd mis-read the dimensions printed on it.

It was 15-5/8 inches x 25-3/8 inches x 7/8 inches. I went downstairs, cut another 3/8 of an inch off the longer side of the filter, replaced the cardboard frame along that edge, popped it right into the bracket, reassembled the front panels, and came upstairs and cranked the thermostat all the way up to 62. And then later I went back and turned it up to 66 and made myself some cocoa.

Ruby is fine. The furnace sounds vastly happier. The bathtub drain is clear. And this morning? I scrubbed all the floors. Soon, I am going to go grocery shopping just so I can use my nifty new mixer (see yesterday's post).

Ruby's encounter with the law

Sometimes the dog park is a bummer. We walked in yesterday and there was all kinds of mayhem. That dog whisperer dude on TV would have said there was a lot of "unstable energy." My pals Artie and Snuffy went off and played ball, oblivious to other goings-on. Ruby got in a couple of minor scuffles right off the bat (two of them with dogs she knew, none of them escalating into anything, but there was a weird lady who started kicking Ruby and trying to get her to leave Tigger alone, and telling me my dog was out of line. I tried to explain that she and Tigger knew each other well and played like that all the time.

She told me to control my dog, and kicked at her again. Then another dog charged Ruby, and that dog's owner was nowhere around so I pulled Ruby away and kept her and Tigger occupied a while until these three unruly, poorly controlled (but quite sweet) Dobermans left. Things calmed down a bit, pack behavior-wise, but then another lady, who (I think) had been talking to the weird lady who'd already kicked Ruby, appeared out of nowhere, about four feet away from me, holding a snarling, angry poodle aloft.

Ruby got very excited and tried to jump up (is it a squirrel? a treat? why is she waving it around like that??), scaring the poor woman (who was not exactly frail and elderly, but she wasn't young & spry either) and making the poodle angrier. Very bad case of fear aggression in the poodle. The lady kicked Ruby a couple of times in the few seconds it took me to grab her and put her on the leash. I apologized to her and left the park immediately.

I'm not one to argue with people about whose dog was at fault, or whether the owner's behavior was perhaps the problem, but I don't like it when people kick my dog. And yeah, she's boisterous. She was not going to give up on the squirrel poodle as long as it was being waved in her face.

On my way out, I ran into a friend (a dog rescue person, who is very experienced with dogs) in the parking lot. She hadn't seen what had happened, but had had words with the poodle lady already, apparently. My friend was leaving on account of the chaos, and we talked a little about how sometimes the vibe is just bad and it's better for the dogs if you just leave.

As we chatted, the poodle lady walked up and started screaming at me that my dog needed to be put down and how I should be arrested if I couldn't control my dog and how somebody coulda been hurt and her poor little precious poodle blah blah blah and how she was going to call the police as soon as she got home and I should get the hell out of the park if I knew what was good for me. They impound dogs like mine.

Or something. I couldn't follow her arguments, and I'm not sure she was making any sense.

I pointed out to her that there was a squad car at the other end of the park, and she could save time by just going over there and reporting me. I told her I wasn't leaving right away, as my friend was still in the park with his dogs, and that I'd be happy to talk with the police about my bad dog.

I just wanted her to go away, but of course she marched over to the cop car and reported me. So then the two cops came walking towards us, smiling. My friend stopped and talked to them briefly on her way out. Then Ruby and I walked over to meet them, and Ruby obligingly sat when told and was utterly charming.

We chatted for a bit, and they told me that a couple of people had complained to them about the lady and the poodle, but that there was only the one complaint about Ruby. And me. No charges were being filed, however. They patted Ruby on the head and went off to fight some crimes or something.

Neither of us was arrested or impounded.

Hollow victory

Not really much of a victory at all, though, for a group of people who are profoundly affected by workplace discrimination: transpeople.

The Employment Non Discrimination Act (ENDA) passed, apparently. Without the language that included protection from workplace discrimination for an individual's "real or perceived gender," which was the only remaining language in the watered-down bill that could be said to almost explicitly protect people who are transsexual.

More at Pam's House Blend.

I have lots more to say about this because it really toasts my tits.

At the moment, however, I gotta go. Ruby just stole my breakfast off the counter and I have an appointment with the psychoneuroatriologist. Sleep disorder doc. Whatever he's called.

Area 51 is just not open for business

So I missed the whole 'vajayjay' dust-up on/about 'Gray's Anatomy.' Which actually sounds like a pretty good show, from what I've heard. But apparently the hall monitors over at wherever they produce the show didn't like them using the word 'vagina' quite so much, so a while back the writers had a character -- a doctor who was also a patient -- use the word 'vajayjay' instead. In a medical show. During what I gather was an obstetrical-type scene.

Anyway, the term has apparently kind of caught on -- I gather even Oprah said it -- and I've been extremely amused by what folks are saying about it. It first came to my attention over at Feministe, but, I mean, it even made the New York Times, for dogssake. And them some whackjob columnist (and sometime co-host or stand-in for Bill O'Reilly) at philly.com by the name of Michael Smerconish weighed in with his opinion that, basically, vaginas are kind of gross. Or they are if you call them 'vaginas.' A 'vajayjay,' on the other hand, seems a little more accessible to him. More 'open for business,' so to speak (I don't make this shit up; he really said that). It seems to him that The Feminists want us all to use an intimidating word like 'vagina' to scare people away, because maybe we have some kind of 'proprietary interest' (his words, yall, not mine) in what goes in there. According to him and his man friends (whom he consulted on this topic), we (The Feminists, that is) don't want anybody to be attracted to our vaginas -- or anybody else's -- so we won't let them use any fun words for it.

Is it just me, or is this bizarre? Personally, I don't care what you call yours. What I call mine depends on the circumstances, obviously. It's not something I talk about frequently, to be honest. But sometimes 'vagina' is the right word. Like when you're at the gynecologist. Which, a few years back (maybe 11? 12 years?) I moved to a new town and had to see a new gynecologist. I picked this one guy because he was involved in some interesting, high-quality research and he had a good reputation and was said to be a great guy. And he actually is a pretty good guy, all in all, though I have a different gynecologist now. But before I'd actually met this guy, I saw one of the nurse practitioners at his office for some (sorry, TMI & all, but I do have a point here) minor itchiness in the aforementioned region. Was treated successfully. Went back a few weeks later for a follow-up visit/yearly exam. The guy looked at my chart, blushed bright red to the tips of his sticky-outy ears, and said, "so how is your, um, bottom?"

I didn't quite know how to respond. I probably said, "better, thanks," or something lame, but fought the impulse to say, "my ASS is fine, thanks, and the VAGINAL ITCHING has improved quite a lot since I used those VAGINAL SUPPOSITORIES youall prescribed. Say it with me, buddy: VAGINA VAGINA VAGINA." I mean, this poor guy is a freaking gynecologist, and he can't say 'vagina' without blushing? I'm thinking he needs a new line of work.

Because I do think that if you're going to be looking at, and talking about, and writing research papers about something, you should be able to talk about it. But maybe that's just me. I somehow don't think 'vajayjay' would have helped this guy.

But I do recognize that 'vagina' is a seriously taboo word. My first name, in real life, is 'Regina.' Which is frequently mispronounced, especially by people with clipboards in waiting rooms. Who have very loud voices. And everybody in the room gets kind of embarrassed, especially at the gynecologist's office, because nobody wants to talk about cities in Saskatchewan. Or something.

Call me Nora, please.

But the thing about vaginas, is that there are lots of other words available to use. Unless you are a gynecologist and you are talking about the particular girl part that is properly called a vagina. There are other words, clinical and specific just like 'vagina,' to describe other related and/or contiguous parts. But nobody, not even The Feminists, are forbidding people to use whatever silly word they want to use, in private. Sure, there are times when you need to be specific about what hurts or itches or isn't working right. Just like you don't want to tell your gastroenterologist that you have a tummy-ache.

And it's good to be able to talk about your girl parts, in a specific and intelligible way, when you need to, or want to. That's kind of the point of that whole 'Vagina Monologues' thing. But who the hell cares if I call mine a tweeter? Or a hoo-hah? Or a cunt, for that matter. It's mine. Plus I really did enjoy some of the words for girl parts that people shared over at the Feministe thread. Area 51???!!!! I haven't laughed that hard in a while.

Time is on my side, for the moment

I'm really looking forward to getting my hour back tonight. The one the government took away last spring. I'd really like to know what they've been doing with it, but I don't think they have any procedures in place to account for their actions.

They certainly don't send out little pie charts that tell you where your time goes when they have it. They'd probably just lie about it, if they did. That's how they are.

I'm trying to decide what I'm going to do with it, though, when I get my hour back. The possibilities, as usual, are endless. I mean, whatever you're doing at two in the morning, you get to do for an extra hour, if you want. How cool is that?

I'll probably be asleep, if you wanna know the truth, but my law-enforcement buddy last night assured me that I could get in an extra hour of drinking, if I happened to be at the bar. As in, bars here close at 2 a.m., right? But at 2 a.m. the clock goes back to 1 a.m., so we get to keep drinking for another hour. He had to explain it a couple of times before I got it right, but I guess it makes sense. I was kind of mixed up, thinking it was Sunday that we moved the clocks, and that the bar would be closed Sunday anyway, so what did it matter. And yeah, it is Sunday, technically, when we move the clocks, but it's the part of Sunday that is still Saturday night.

We don't lose an hour of drinking when the clock moves ahead in the spring, though, on account of it doesn't spring ahead until the bar is already closed.

It seems like I'd have noticed this before now, but I guess it's possible that I've never been in a bar at closing time when the clocks get set back before. Or if I have, I forgot. Or I wasn't paying attention.

But it's the kind of thing I would pay attention to. I don't know why I find the time change so upsetting, but I do. Every year, I get all freaked about it. Twice. I'm normally not very punctual, but pulling the rug out from under me like this really messes me up. I have moved clocks in the wrong direction; I have moved them in the right direction before bed, forgotten it was already done, and then moved them again in the morning. I have moved some of the clocks in my house, but overlooked my alarm clock. Or my watch. And then there's a week or two every time change during which I don't believe any of the clocks I see. Or I'll see someone else's clock that they didn't change and it won't match with the time I have, and I'll figure they're more likely to have the right time, so I switch mine to match theirs.

You see how it gets.

But there's actually quite a fascinating history behind daylight saving time. The idea is to somehow adjust for the fact that, as you get further from the equator, the amount of daylight you get is different in the summer than in the winter. The various advocates for daylight saving time have offered different rationales in support of it over the years, but basically they range from increasing the time available for golfing and other activities that need daylight, to reducing the need for coal, to increasing traffic safety during peak travel times. Or something.

And the reason that daylight saving time is extended this year has to do with energy saving. The change was mandated in the Energy Policy Act of 2005, and the actual effects will be analyzed before they decide whether to keep doing it this way or go back to the way we used to do it.

How freaky is this, though? What they did in latitudes further from the equator, back when they told time with sundials, is just give you less time for everything in the winter. Except sleeping, I guess. Because no matter when you have sunrise and sunset, the sundial is still divided into 12 hours. So each hour got shorter and shorter until the winter solstice, then longer and longer until the summer solstice. In the northern hemisphere, I mean. Sundials travel backwards in the southern hemisphere, or something. But the only time an hour was actually an hour long -- no matter what hemisphere you were in -- would have been, of course, the spring and fall equinoxes. Unless you were on or near the equator, when they would all be the same all the time.

I can't think about this too hard.

Water restrictions: what's a gal to do?

We haven't had much rain this year, like a lot of places. We're not on fire or anything, but we have been subject to water restrictions, and a lot of people are pretty upset that they can't wash their cars or water their lawns. I don't have a car, and my lawn is too small to bother watering, so my hands are clean in that regard, anyway. The rest of my yard is landscaped with ground cover and surprisingly drought-hardy shrubbery and trees. The guy who built this house was an expert gardener and obviously put a lot of effort into planning it. Given that I do so little to it, I gotta say it looks pretty good despite the lack of water.

But I have been making an effort to conserve water around the house, and feeling guilty about not doing more about this problem, even though I don't do any of the real high-intensity water-consuming activities. I was raised by hippies, see, and this just isn't the first time I've thought about water use around the house. According to one Bill Laxton of the N.C. Division of Environment and Natural Resources, quoted in the local paper, “Conservation must become a way of life, not a short-term fad.”

Which is exactly what my dad told me, back at the dawn of time, in the early 1970s, when we moved from the city to a house way out of town, on a lake, far from municipal water and sewer hookups. We had a well, and a septic tank, and were under strict instructions to flush only when necessary, don't run water while brushing teeth; and there were procedures to follow when washing dishes so as not to waste water nor overtax the rather delicate septic system. Bathing was perfunctory; bathwater was frequently shared. Once a week was plenty often to wash my waist-length hair (not that I minded; combing it out after washing was sheer torture). My mother did water her garden if there was insufficient rain, but that provided food, so it wasn't a problem. The woods came very close to the house; there was no lawn to speak of, and "watering the lawn" was not something we'd ever done, even in the city.

Except for a few months after he bought that Cadillac in about 1976, I don't think I ever saw my father wash a car in the driveway; he pointed out (correctly) that the drive-through carwashes used much less water, on average, than doing it at home. Sometimes, during dry years, our neighbors complained about the dried-up dead lawn. But they complained about the dandelions and weeds, too, when there was plenty of rain. You can't win with some people.

Even after moving back to the city, most of these household water-saving habits remained mandatory, or at least strongly encouraged. Showers? You wash your hair, put the conditioner in, then turn the water OFF while you soap up, shave, scrub, and then turn the water back on to rinse. Quickly. Of course, in a house with four people and one bathroom, that was as much about ensuring that everyone had hot water as anything else, but still.

Also, if you took a hot bath in the winter (which we all did from time to time, just to get warm, because the house was so freaking cold on account of we had to keep the thermostat down so low), you had to leave the hot water in the tub until it was cold. "We paid for that heat!" dad would say. "No sense letting it all go down the drain." Plus, you can use a bucketful of tub water to flush the toilet. Just pour it in the bowl with the handle held down & there you go. There are, of course, lots of ways to save water in the toilet department, if you're interested. See Toiletology 101 for more info.

I still do this, leaving the hot water in the tub. It also increases the humidity slightly in a dry, winter house. I don't do it in the summer. People think it's nuts, when they come over and the tub is still full, but there you go. And Ruby does like to carry things into the bathroom and put them into the tub and then bark at them: pencils, dishtowels, her toys, empty soda cans, magazines.

If the dishes really have to be rinsed before going in the dishwasher, I either dip them in a shallow basin of water or wipe them off with a paper towel before putting them in the dishwasher. Which, if you use dishwashers correctly and only run them when full, you save quite a lot of water compared to the way most people wash them by hand, according this fine article at Virginia Tech's Journal of Extension.

But still I feel guilty. I take more baths and showers than strictly necessary, sometimes two or even three a day, not counting the ones I take at the gym. I often fill my very deep old tub all the way up, even covering the drain vent with a heavy washcloth so that the water goes almost to the top when I get in and it doesn't make that horrid noise. And I stay in there so long that I have to add more hot water. I get in the tub or the shower when I'm too hot or too cold, after I walk the dog, after I run or ride my bike.

I confess I also have a hand-held orgasmatron shower massager in there, so I every once in a while I'll take a shower when I'm, you know, all tense or have a headache. Ahem. TMI, I know, but it's impossible to enjoy that sort of thing now, in the face of these water restrictions. Definitely wrecks it for me. Maybe I need something solar-powered. Or solar-powered and silly [note: these are adults only links - the Honeysuckle Shop, by the way, is an independently owned mail-order sex toy shop, operated by fellow blogger Flea at One Good Thing, if you're shopping for sex toys].

But there is some good news: beer may be better than water after a workout, according to an article on FoxNoise:

"The study results came from testing 25 college students asked to do strenous exercises in 104-degree temperatures. They were then split into two groups, one given beer and other water to help them recover. The tests were conducted over several months.

"The hydration effect in those who drank beer was 'slightly better' than those who drank water, said study leader, professor Manuel Garzon of Granada University."

At least one of my vices is safe, for the moment anyway.

The news? It's all lies.

Maybe you heard this item on Weekend Edition last Saturday: a bunch of lobsters escaped their tank in a Stuttgart grocery store, and made a run for it. They were able to scuttle out under a loose shutter or metal grate and into the street, where were found by a passerby, apprehended by animal control, and brought to a shelter. Apparently the store has not claimed them. The source cited in the NPR story was this story in Spiegel Online International, but when I looked it up, I also found a link to the same story on the Australian site news.com.au, but the escapees were identified in that story as crayfish.

So which is it? The Spiegel Online story was posted first, but both stories were online well before the NPR story aired on Saturday. They had time to figure it out, I should think. I suppose if I had a choice, I would go on the air with the lobster story, as it offers the cheap but totally worth-it opportunity to play the song "Rock Lobster," which one doesn't hear often enough on the radio, but accuracy is kind of a key thing for me. On the other hand, maybe it's one of those weird Aussie "you say tomato, we say crayfish" type things. But still, which is it? Can we believe anything we hear on NPR? Anything we read online? I mean, a coupla dozen lobsters walking down the street is one thing, but a bunch of crayfish? I mean, they're a hell of a lot smaller than lobsters, in my experience.

Still, it would be weird to be walking down the street at 2 a.m. and see either one, so I guess the difference is maybe only important to certain types of people. Sort of like the whole octopus vs. squid thing. I mean, why would you find either of them in your driveway in Wisconsin while you were clearing snow out of the driveway? What does it really matter which it is?

Yeah, OK they're similar, lobsters & crayfish; they belong to the same phylum, subphylum, class, order, and infraorder (Arthropoda, Crustacea, Malacostraca, Decapoda, and Astacidea, respectively), but lobsters belong to the family Nephropidae, while crayfish are either Astacoidea (Latreille, 1802) or Parastacoidea (Huxley, 1879). Generally, lobsters live in saltwater, crayfish in freshwater, but in New Zealand there is a saltwater-dwelling crayfish commonly called the spiny lobster. And most lobsters are bigger than most crayfish, though there are some smallish lobsters and some biggish crayfish that are around the same size.

Anyway, I had to look this all up because when I heard it on the radio Saturday, I thought I was dreaming. Do you ever do that? I mean, have really wacky dreams when you're half-asleep, and then later you find out that they weren't actually dreams, but stuff you heard on the radio? Or that it was a dream, but the subject matter was heavily informed by the story on the radio? During the week, I have the radio on from about 6 am until noon, so I usually hear the earliest Morning Edition stories over again and realize what's going on, dream-wise, because the show is only two hours long and repeats itself. But on Saturday, they don't repeat it, at least on my local NPR station. So I had to look this story up on account of it was just so weird, and I couldn't tell if I was making it up or not.

Not least because it had one of my favorite B-52's songs underneath the brief story.

Don't set your clocks back just yet

I really hate this whole daylight savings thing anyway. But this year they've made it even worse -- twice! It's been delayed until next week. So if your cellphone or Palm Pilot or computer or that fancy light timer that you just bought has an auto-DST feature, it might have already removed an hour from your day. Be on guard.

I don't really understand how the twiddling around of time saves energy or money. But I just heard on the radio that delaying the switch will save like ooty pazillion barrels of oil or some such. Which makes me wonder whether it wouldn't be better not to switch at all?

I mean, the quantity of daylight is not mutable, right? But human activity marches on, I guess. And it's expensive, here in the land of time=money. So maybe it makes sense to manage the timing of it in such a way that as much of it as possible takes place during the part of the day. And it makes sense that it's easier to get people to agree to set the time back than it would be to get everybody to get up an hour earlier. Or later. Or whatever.

Want to know what time it is right now? Check out this animated clock [requires flash] from designer Yugo Nakamura.

What I really think

Tidying up my desktop, I found this list. I think it was written in response to some skirmish(es) in the ongoing feminist blogwars. I try not to get too intensively involved in online discussions of these topics, because it activates my PTSD. But I do have an opinion or two:

• The Patriarchy: Heavily armed and oppressive as fuck-all, and it's everywhere you look -- including inside your own head. And mine. Largely imaginary and mostly useful as a metaphor, it nevertheless must be dismantled, or at least seriously marginalized and its effects neutralized. Pointing at it and laughing sometimes helps, as long as you're not in a situation where that would compromise your physical safety. Also known as "The Man," "The System," and western civilization.
  
• Racism: See above. They are in fact related (and might even be the same); they feed each other and give each other power. Neither is "worse," and it doesn't matter which one we dismantle first. Both have got to go. Also known as "The Man," "The System," and western civilization.
• The Transsexual Menace: As menaces go, not a very menacing one. Some of my best friends, etc. I don't really care which restroom they use, unless they're ahead of me in line, in which case I'll use the other one if I'm in a hurry.
• Sex: Fun! Also funny and embarrassing and weird and full of emotional peril. Frequently re-purposed into a surprisingly effective weapon by The Patriarchy. Is it political? Yep. So is everything. Be careful about what thrills you. Not fun for you? Do something else. No need to apologize or explain. "Fun!" just happens to be my experience of it. YMMV.
  
• Blowjobs: Hilarious! Also wildly entertaining, unless you'd rather be doing something else, in which case: do something else. No need to apologize or explain.
• Rape: Not at all funny. Way too popular. Not in fact caused by alcohol, skirt length, chicks who leave home unsupervised, lipstick, high heels, or even pornography. Caused primarily by rapists, working on behalf of The Patriarchy.
• Shoes: I like them. I want more of them, no matter how many I have already. I don't care if that makes me a tool in the hand of the retail/advertising arm of The Patriarchy. Life is fucking complicated. Shoes support your body and comprise the very foundation of your relationship to the planet.
  
• Lipstick and the removal (or not) of body hair: Surely we have better things to quarrel about. Call me a sparklepony; I don't care. Be as pretty as you wanna be. Or don't. You're under no obligation, either way. You are free to ignore anyone who tells you otherwise.
  
• But alphabitch, what about the men? Yeah, yeah, you're oppressed too, dude. Quit yer whining and help us smash the damn patriarchy already. It's keeping us all down. You didn't build it, I know that, but you happen to benefit from it a little bit more than I do (just as I benefit every day from the structures of racism, which I did not cause and do not support). Yes, of course it limits you too. That's part of the problem. Join us.
  

Any questions?

I think I'm going to make cheeseburgers tonight

Worried about all the recalled meat, E. coli scares, etc.? Read this.

Sandy Szwarc, over at Junk Food Science, is really smart.

Happy Elvis Week everybody!

Not sure how to celebrate? There's something for everyone.

With the Wowwee® Alive™ Elvis® [no, I am not making this up], "you can touch his soft hair and sideburns, stroke his skin, feel his 1968 black leather jacket, look into his clear baby blues, and marvel as his lips form their distinctive "curl" before he sings in that soulful voice."

Yes, the good people at Sharper Image have made available this officially licensed animatronic robot that sings eight of the King's biggest hits, or you can sing along karaoke style, or you can even plug your iPod into it and watch him sort of bop along. Apparently. For only like 300 bucks or something. Plus shipping. Cool, huh?

Or you could listen to the classic Richard Thompson song about an Elvis fan gone mad:

Oh she dressed in the dark and she whispered amen
She was pretty in pink like a young girl again
Twenty years married and she never thought twice
She sneaked out the door and walked into the night
And silver wings carried her over the sea
From the west coast of Ireland to West Tennessee
To be with her sweetheart, oh she left everything
From Galway to Graceland to be with the king

She was humming Suspicion, that's the song she liked best
She had Elvis I Love You tattooed on her breast
When they landed in Memphis, well her heart beat so fast
She'd dreamed for so long, now she'd see him at last
She was down by his graveside day after day
Come closing time they would pull her away
Ah to be with her sweetheart, oh she'd left everything
From Galway to Graceland to be with the king

Ah, they came in their thousands from the whole human race
To pay their respects at his last resting place
But blindly she knelt there and she told him her dreams
And she thought that he answered or that's how it seems
Then they dragged her away it was handcuffs this time
She said my good man are you out of your mind.
Don't you know that we're married? See, I'm wearing his ring.
From Galway to Graceland to be with the king.
I come From Galway to Graceland to be with the king.

-Lyrics lifted from RT's website. I tried to find an mp3 of the song for you but I can't put my finger on one just now. Here's some guy singing it on youtube, though, in case you don't have your own copy of the song. Which you should.

Update: How could I forget this Elvis? I'm not sure what he's doing to celebrate this week. Likely out catting around is all. As usual.

I'm better now

After wasting not only most of a three-day weekend but also about 80 percent of last week being sick, I'm finally feeling well enough to pick up the camera. I thank Julie and RT for their kindness to poor Ruby, who was just trying to have a good time. They let her come over and play all day with Snuffy and Tigger while I sat and coughed and sneezed and cursed the demons that had possessed my body. She came home tired, mostly, but not so tired that she couldn't chew up everything she could possibly reach. Which included the rug -- so glad I never got around to starting my war rug collection. I would probably have had to yell at her if this rug hadn't been destined for the heavy item pickup pile when I got it.

I still think she's adorable.

Who watches the watchers?

What did the FDA know and when did they know it? From contaminated ingredients in pet foods -- and now animal feed as well -- to arthritis drugs linked to cardiac arrests in humans, food and drug safety issues have been making a lot of headlines lately.

But not to worry -- there's a federal agency that protects consumers, isn't there? An objective, well-funded, taxpayer-supported agency, free from bias and corporate influence, that monitors food processors, regulates the drug industry, and ensures that we are all safe.

Yeah, right. You get a pony.

But not to worry -- you don't take any prescription drugs, you don't have a pet, none of this affects you. What about your chocolate? What's it going to take before enough of us care about this to start making noise? Lindsay's recent post contains links to an FDA consumer response website and to more information about this issue.

Actual consumers need to learn how to respond to this kind of thing, because this particular issue -- which affects the very definition of chocolate -- is being advanced by "consumers" who happen to be part of the problem. "Big Chocolate," the LA Times editorial calls them. And even if you're not afraid of Big Ag or Big Pharma, maybe this looming threat from corporate candy interests will give you pause.

There's more to it than meets the eye, though. The whole system is deeply flawed. The FDA is insufficiently funded, and supported in too great a part by fees from the regulated industries (follow the money -- who gets paid and who gets screwed?). Financial conflicts of interest within the regulating bodies are too common. And the agency has very little it can do with respect to enforcement unless and until it becomes too late.

This recent article offers some constructive suggestions for reform of the agency -- at least in the drug safety arena -- that would certainly increase consumer safety and reduce corporate influence.

Gotta start somewhere, or the next chocolate Jesus is going to be made out of that waxy, cruddy chocolate-esque stuff they make those bunnies and santas out of.

So it goes

I woke up this morning to the very sad news that Mr. Kurt Vonnegut is in heaven now. Or he slipped into the chrono-synclastic infundibulum. Or something. He's dead, anyway.

Bless his heart.

Mr. Vonnegut famously threatened to sue the manufacturers of Pall Mall cigarettes for on account of they hadn't killed him despite their promise on the package to do so. Apparently he died of brain injuries sustained after falling down in his Manhattan apartment. Maybe his heirs can build a case against Brown & Williamson after all.

I make it a point to re-read as many of his books as I can every couple of years; my copies of some of the novels have worn out, but his words never do. Of his more recent efforts, this is one of my favorites. Among its gems:

"[...] But I’ll tell you one thing: I once had a high that not even crack cocaine could match. That was when I got my first driver’s license! Look out, world, here comes Kurt Vonnegut.

And my car back then, a Studebaker, as I recall, was powered, as are almost all means of transportation and other machinery today, and electric power plants and furnaces, by the most abused and addictive and destructive drugs of all: fossil fuels.

When you got here, even when I got here, the industrialized world was already hopelessly hooked on fossil fuels, and very soon now there won’t be any more of those. Cold turkey.

Can I tell you the truth? I mean this isn’t like TV news, is it?

Here’s what I think the truth is: We are all addicts of fossil fuels in a state of denial, about to face cold turkey.

And like so many addicts about to face cold turkey, our leaders are now committing violent crimes to get what little is left of what we’re hooked on."

Busy, busy, busy.

I don't do tech support..

... but the guy in the office next to mine does, and when he's not at his desk, people come in and ask me for help with their technical difficulties. Sometimes the solutions are pretty simple, and I can help them:



[UPDATE: The video linked to above seems to have been taken away. Here is another copy, but without the subtitles. It's just as funny without the translation.]

Chilling effects

Salon.com brings us Amanda's take on what happened to her and Melissa over at the Edwards campaign; Melissa has her say over at the Guardian. Check out the comments, too. The vitriolic sputtering from their detractors doesn't surprise me any more, but I'm a little irked with so-called progressive types who are accusing them of "caving in" too soon, and how they should have seen it coming. Some lame-ass thing about certain kitchens and the heat in them, etc. More than a few of these dudely dudes even dismiss the numerous threats of violence, much of it of a sexual nature, as just part of the price one has to pay for trying to play with the big dogs.

Or something. I'm not sure I follow.

And speaking of tip jars (as I was in my earlier post), I still don't have one, but both Amanda (at Pandagon) and Melissa (at Shakespeare's Sister) do have tip jars, and they could probably use your support.

Oh, and if you do go over to read Amanda's piece at salon.com and you're not a member, you'll have to watch a short ad. If you feel ripped off having to sit through that just for one article, you can always read Camille Paglia's piece about how wonderful it is that she's back writing at salon once again.

I hadn't noticed she was gone, to be honest.