Living In the World, Not on It

On 1 December I posted the Old Farmer's Almanac information and other fun tidbits for this month. If you read it, you may recall that I described the Ember Days that come up four times a year, predicated on specific Roman Catholic holy days. Today is the first Ember Day in December, and by folklore, determines the overall weather in January. Here is a reminder of the Ember Days and how they work: Ember Days: The four periods formerly observed by the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches for prayer, fasting, and the ordination of clergy are called Ember Days. Specifically, these are the Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays the follow in succession following (1) the First Sunday in Lent; (2) Whitsunday - Pentecost; (3) the Feast of the Holy Cross, September 14; and (4) the Feast of St. Lucia, December 13. The word ember is perhaps a corruption of the Latin quatuor tempora , "four times." Folklore has it that the weather on each of the three days foretells th...

The Blue Memory Meme, Part One Welcome back to Sunday Stealing which originated on WTIT: The Blog authored by Bud Weiser. Here we will steal all types of memes from every corner of the blogosphere. Our promise to you is that we will work hard to find the most interesting and intelligent memes. You may have heard of the expression, “honor amongst thieves”. In that age-old tradition, we also have our rules. First, we always credit the blog that we stole it from and we will “fess up” to the blog owner where we stole the meme. We also provide a link to the victim's post. (It's our way of saying "Thanks!") We do sometimes edit the original meme, usually to make it more relevant to our global players, to challenge our players, sometimes to select that meme's best questions, or simply to make it less repetitive from either this new meme or recently asked questions from a prior featured meme. Let's go!!! Today we ripped off a blogger and...

Welcome to The Queen's Meme #94 7 Royal Questions on Tuesday This week has been wide open. In case you haven't noticed, I tend to meme-blog about those things that are concerning me at the moment. Or making me laugh. Or driving me crazy. I can't get my mind off a conversation I had with a new guy possible love match maybe kinda sorta we'll see acquaintance this week. He's conservative. But edgy. Liberal with his opinions. But not haphazardly. Tall. A littttttle younger (I said a "little!") and downright challenging. But in a good way.  The Love Match Meme 1. Which is more important.... romantic chemistry or friendship? Friendship comes first - once a good, solid friendship, then the relationship can slowly develop into into something more than just friendship. Time is the biggest factor after type of relationship; RUSHING is the next killer of relationships. 2. Would you date someone who is much taller or shorter...

Don't laugh - they are out there and bigger than ever. I know there have been articles back in the late spring about the mosquito problem with too many stagnant pools of water, but they say this every year as if the mosquitoes might have an uprising, stage a coup and take over the government. (Of course, given the state of the union and our monetary situation, maybe we should give the mosquitoes a shot. They could hardly do worse.) I had the mosquito repellent device from last year that comes with an insert and two batteries that one wears on the belt and it worked very well. When I was in my hammock, it hung off of one side, gently whir ring away and keeping the flies and various insects at bay. When we went to events, it hung from my belt and worked very well - not a single welt anywhere. It was wonderful. Earlier this summer, after a day in the hammock, I came back into the house, turned off the little repellent and as I was putting it down, it slipped from my hand and crashed o...

[01] What is your reaction to the results of the Casey Anthony trial? I'm tired of it. The fact is we will never know what happened. So I feel the jury did the best they could with what they had. That is it. [02] Do you think the President and congress will be able to resolve the current debt issues? No, not unless some magic force gives him the answer. I do feel overpopulation and illegal immigrants are not helping the issues. [03] What do you think of teaching " gay history " in public schools? Absolutely! Please allow that. I feel teaching tolerance and history - accurate history - is very important. [04] Do you think a presidential candidate's religious affiliation should affect his/her ability to be a bi-partisan president? Wow. Sure. Do any of them really have it, though? [05] Will there be an NFL season this fall? The bigger question is do I care if there will be an NFL season? I suspect you can guess my answer...!

Q1 - Life : Talking about yours for a moment ( i.e., the fact that you're among the living )... Do you think of life as a right or privilege , and how does your answer impact the way you live your life? It is a privilege . I have a genetic condition, so I consider each day above ground a good one. I enjoy every day, even the ones when I feel terrible, and do my best to see the magic in them. Q2 - Unexplained : Incidents of mass animal deaths have been reported in the U.S. and around the world in the past two months. Thousands of dead birds fell from the sky in Arkansas on New Year's Eve, following a massive fish kill just 100 miles away days earlier. In the week following, other mass bird deaths were reported in nearby Louisiana and Kentucky. Birds were also reported to fall dead from the sky in Italy and Sweden, and more recently similar incidents have been reported in California and Alabama. Mass fish kills have also been reported in Chicago, Maryland, Brazil and...

When I first left work, I had this puzzle I was working on. At the time I left, I barely had Spring completed. It was creeping along... Notice my blog has been creeping along and suddenly this month I've posted a month's worth in a mere 14 days? That is a LOT of free time. I've actually had a lot of free time over the last three months, but I haven't really felt good about it. I figured with enough time I would reach the "I feel better about this point" and while I might still kinda get down about it, in general, I would start to feel better. (Wow. What a poorly structured sentence that is...!) Well, I have reached that point. Not that I didn't think I would. I just did not know how long it would take. It feels so much better to be more my sunny self again. Like I said, I may get down about it again, but at least it will be temporary. I suspect I'll feel it more in the winter. I thrive on sunlight. We have the longer days now, so I'm thriving. An...

A friend of mine celebrated 20 years of working in television by posting "5 Things I Learned From 20 Years in TV" - he has five parts to this. I can list five items that I learned and any Human Resources Manager will understand this. The rest of what I learned is really too much to post on a forum as easily accessible as this is. Even I recognise what NOT to say about my 15 years in the trenches... most of it is too private and too case-by-case to keep it generic. So here are the five things that I learned: 1. All employees are innocent. It doesn't matter that I had several different infractions on video; paperwork statements from six managers and 25 coworkers; it makes no difference if the offending party's hands are covered with dye that traces the missing items. They all look me in the eye and say with great confidence, " I didn't do it." Hence, they are all innocent. 2. No one has been overpaid. Now, you know that if I don't find the error, s...

Yes, I've been more noticeable by my absence that my usually witty and urbane thoughts on this or that. Except for articles posted once in February and a few yesterday and this morning, I have not been around or online to digress or empty my monkey mind. Which is still screaming and scratching at its groin. I suspect it is not swinging through the trees, as that takes more energy than I can muster. My health is suddenly deteriorating very, very quickly. In the last two or three months, I've been getting more tired a lot more quickly and in the last two or more weeks, I'm having flare-ups almost daily. So when I get home, I take my "before I go to bed" nap. I usually hang out in my sky chair and maybe I watch the telly, but more often I read. Reading is much more worth it. Not that the telly is so bad, but it will never be as good as a book. So my last day of work is 18 March. A little weird, a lot unhappy, but also a wealth of relief. I've been pushing myself ...

I suppose there are a lot of people out there who just assume they are adults, that they have reached the line of maturity that labels one as an adult, not a child, not an adolescent. And by far, being an adolescent, real or imagined, is the worst. I never liked being a child. I never liked the company of children to adults, ever. But as a child, physically, most people are reluctant to treat children as anything other than children. But I have always developed attachments to people who appreciated the adult waiting inside, the adult that somehow - at age 42 - I seem to consistently misplace. I always liked Harry, my father. Harry is my biological father and while he missed out on a lot of things, I have to wonder if he really did. I know all people have their regrets, but would having to deal with the child me and worse, the adolescent me, be regrettable? Ask my parents, Ray and Ma, if that is true. I suspect they'd have been just as happy to miss that - those - bullets. Harry...

It really was a long weekend. Normally five days is a little too long, but for once I really needed it. I've been going at 124% since April and while that is an expectation through May, while the hiring is happening in bulk, that's fine but timing and events conspired to make the headaches be much more than just the norm. I was ready for the norm; no one is prepared for what isn't expected or on the radar. At the same time, my weekend came with a price tag. I suppose there is the you can't have everything factor and this is it. (You can get the details on the 3 July post entitled Geriatrics and Pediatrics .) If there is not too much stress in this or that part of your life, then it will show up somewhere. I don't know if this is Fate's way of reminding us not to become complacent, but that is as good as any theory. In the world of don't tempt fate, here's a tip: don't carry too many items in your arms while walking on hot sand in Crocs. At least it ...

I love talking to people. A friend of mine from high school (and I do mean a friend ) sent me a message on Facebook asking how I was and I replied. I asked a couple of leading questions to get the conversational ball rolling and then got this: Message: "I am done with dog training... the course was a lot of fun. The only down side is the group is filled with mostly old women. Guys like me I do not think fit in. I have offered free basic training to everyone I know including friends and neighbors but no one has taken me up on the offer. Hell there are 3 new puppies in our neighborhood and ... nothing. I have also found out that people do not take dog training seriously enough and do not seek the help of trainers until there are big problems! And trying to fix a dog rather than train a dog is 3 to 4 times more difficult. I haven't written much lately or should I say I haven't found anything to write about in while. Deb and the puppies are well. We have 13 chickens now and th...

by Lynn Brenner Saturday, May 1, 2010 How'd you like to double the size of your Social Security checks? You will goose your future retirement income if you are able to delay the start of your benefits from age 62 to 70. If you can't wait that long, at least try to avoid taking Social Security until 66 — that will increase the size of your checks by one third. Sure, you'll forgo some income in those early years, but you'll make up the difference quickly once those larger checks start coming in. We know what you may be thinking: What Social Security? If so, take a deep breath. Yes, the Congressional Budget Office projects the program will have a $10 billion deficit this year and bleed another $9 billion in 2011. And still, Al Gore's "lock box" sits empty. But few careful observers think Social Security's checks will stop arriving (though how they're calculated may change). "I never cease to be amazed that financial planners and regular citizens ...

From The Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Plunges into New Jersey: "Since 1969 Elizabeth-born Judy Blume has been the patron saint of the Awkward Years, otherwise known as puberty. Anyone who's grown up in America in the last 35 years has probably had a Judy Blume book on hand to explain something that parents often felt uneasy discussing. Judy Blume, born Judy Sussman in Elizabeth in 1938, could have been one of the characters she wrote about in her own books, as she acknowledged in 2004: "I was a small, shy, anxious child with eczema, as fearful as Sheila the Great, as imaginative as Sally J. Freeman." As a girl, she was an avid reader--but not of children's books. The reason: "I never found my kind of reality in children's books. No child was anything like me. No child thought the kinds of things I did, leading me to believe I definitely wasn't normal." But with all that working against her, how did Judy Blume become the undisputed queen of a...

Granted that People Magazine has its interest in sleaze, it also has its interest in public issues and affairs (outside of the famous people and their affairs) and one subject that has been getting more and more notice is school bullying. When I lived in Wallington, NJ, I didn't love school, but it was okay. It was an onerous task with boring teachers and some wretched kids but it was just there. I prayed for snow days but in those ancient days (I sound the grandparents of any age, at 42) we had to go to school even when there were measurable inches of snow. But as much as I wasn't crazy about it, I usually had a couple of friends and did poorly in subjects I wasn't interested in and flew through the few that I was. Teachers loved to say I wasn't attentive and this and that, but I have discovered that adults lie as much as children and when put to the wall, even more. When we moved from Wallington to Wayne in 1981, I discovered what every kid dreaded - moving to a new ...

I'm watching a charming British movie, Kinky Shoes . I find these movies and they sound good. This one certainly did not look like anything else I've seen, but then, neither are Blow Dry , The Full Monty , Bridget Jones' Diary , and Calendar Girls . These are all wonderful movies and not so predictable as are American movies. (I will note that Bridget Jones' Diary appears to be an American made movie, but it is not. It did make a splash here, with American actress Renee Zelleweger, who did an excellent job in this movie and reprised the roll in Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason .) The shoe company, which originally made mens shoes, was founded in 1895. Must have been a good year. I was in the loo, reading about the making of t-shirts, and there was a reference to James Dean wearing a skin-tight tee in Rebel Without a Cause , and I was thinking that I had a thing for James Dean many years ago. And people would say to me, "Oh, James Dean was before your time." ...

A panicking parent called 911. Then the panicking parent began to calm down and hung up on 911, thinking the call hadn't completed. The dispatch officer called back three times, but panicking parents' parent, who doesn't really speak or understand English hung up on the dispatch officer. Ouch. We arrived and the one-year-old child looked and reacted normally. He was like every one-year-old in the world - only mommy and daddy can touch me. Who're all these strangers in the house? What's this thing on my finger? Why am I up at 2200? We checked him and the panicking parents said they'll just take him to the doc tomorrow. Perfect. If we go back, which is fine, then they go to the hospital. We allow patients one RMA but if we are called back it indicates a problem, so off to the hospital you go! I'm thinking this is one call we won't have again. One-year-old children barf. A fact of life. I didn't log a singe call in September. Not one. Not even a half. I...

This phrase was at the bottom of the Webpage for Patrick's Place ( http://www.patrickkphillips.com/ ): Bad Behavior has blocked 1389 access attempts in the last 7 days. What does this mean? What exactly is bad behaviour? It's a blog - when did free speech become bad behaviour? I'll have to check out the link part... now I'm curious. I need to know what that means. And what 1,389 attempts to be bad was... Oh, look at this: Welcome to a whole new way of keeping your blog, forum, guestbook, wiki or content management system free of link spam. Bad Behavior is a PHP-based solution for blocking link spam and the robots which deliver it. Bad Behavior complements other link spam solutions by acting as a gatekeeper, preventing spammers from ever delivering their junk, and in many cases, from ever reading your site in the first place. This keeps your site’s load down, makes your site logs cleaner, and can help prevent denial of service conditions caused by spammers. Read More on ...

LONDON (Reuters) – In a pinstripe suit, silk tie and polished shoes, David Rowe has all the trappings of a successful London city worker, except for one stark difference -- he is wearing a sandwich board that says "JOB WANTED." As he walked down Fleet Stre et, home to legal firms and investment banks, the 24-year-old history graduate showed the human face behind the "lay-offs" and "recession" headlines. "The first 20 paces are the hardest, you feel very conspicuous, but you just steel yourself to get on with it," he said, starting a slow trudge toward the Law Courts before turning toward St Paul's Cathedral. In previous economic downturns it was manufacturing and heavy industry that were worst hit. Now in Britain, and much of the West, white collar jobs have been culled in the financial crisis -- marketing directors on six figure salaries, IT specialists with 20 years experience. That makes it especially hard for young men and women like Rowe...

Americans are abysmally ignorant when it comes to geography. And I'm not talking about real geography, which has a whole lot more to do with the world than just identifying countries, capitols, large-scale geological features and their placements on maps. I'd be happy if people knew what the capitol of France is! So I'm rereading The Complete Idiot's Guide to Geography . Just to refresh my memory. And in the beginning of the book, there is a basic quiz, to get some idea of your knowledge.There is a map with countries marked by Roman numerals and then the following questions: 1. This country used to comprise the bulk of theSoviet Union: find Russia a. ix 2. This country has the second largest population on Earth: find India a.xv 3. This country was the stomping ground for Evita Perón, the subject of a recent hit movie: find Argentina a. v 4. When a United Stgates teenager was caned for vandalising a car, this country was in hte news: find Singapore a. xviii 5. This count...