Coming up on Christmas

St. Philips Cathedral held the last farmer's market of the season Saturday.
Purchases: arugula, butter and red leaf lettuces; watermelon radishes (white outside, red inside), carrots, local organic vanilla yogurt, 4 ounces locally produced pancetta, 2 ounces of fantastic Parmesan, 2 ciabatta; a pound or so of baby turnips and kohlrabi mixed; small Hubbard squash and a bundle of rosemary. There was also a nice bone from the homemade dog treat lady for Charlie.

Sunday - cold, cold and mostly gray - There was shopping with a certain young lady who needed to finish her shopping and then a library run for Ms. Packratty.

2009 - fairly productive - the bookbinding classes were the most exciting part of the year. Still at TVCC under conditions I consider less than ideal, but with 5 years in at one place, once the economy starts improving, I should be significantly marketable. Ms. Packratty is beginning to come to terms with the things in her lie that are't going to change and better about not having false hopes that other people will ever change their behavior.

The laundry calls, Ms. Packratty has only a 3 day workwekk ahead, but she needs to disassemble the computer tonight and try to get the DSL working.

Religious tolerance and Mohammedans

It seems the Swiss citizenry has voted not to allow minarets on mosques. Mosques will have to go unmarked by their traditional emblem of violence, the crescent moon of the scimitar.

The Swiss, who DO live in a country with state recognized and supported churches and do practice toleration of non-recognized churches and their adherents, are largely Christian, with 88% reporting that they are Christians of some flavor. Apparently the citizenry there recognizes the swelling Mohammedan population as a distinct threat to their religious freedom and their social values.

However, the really droll part of this is the remarks being made about the Swiss by various Mohammedans.

"The Swiss have failed to give a clear signal for diversity, freedom of religion and human rights," said Omar Al-Rawi, integration representative of the Islamic Denomination in Austria, which said its reaction was "grief and deep disappointment."

Mr. Al-Rawi is Iraqi - Iraq being a country where members of the Christian and Jewish faiths have been persecuted diligently for centuries. Where women are and historically have been, treated as legal inferiors of men. Let's talk about diversity, Mr. Al-Rawi, shall we?

"It's a sad day for freedom of religion," said Mohammed Shafiq, the chief executive of the Ramadhan Foundation, a British youth organization. "A constitutional amendment that's targeted towards one religious community is discriminatory and abhorrent."

Mr. Shafiq is a Briton, born to Pakistani parents. Pakistan - that beacon of religious toleration, where Sharia is the law and where waves of anti-Christian pogroms and violence have swept the country repeatedly since 1971.

For a Mohammedan to complain of lack of religious toleration is as silly as hearing a Daley of Chicago complain about political corruption or hearing Hugh Hefner complain about a lack of chastity in the community.

Bravo for the Swiss. They've got more sense and more courage than most of Europe.

Sheepish

Last week at the Peachtree Road Farmer's Market, Charlie and I were quite tickled to see Karen Fincannon and her sheep. Well, Charlie is always delighted to see anyone who will scratch his ears and tell him he's a handsome boy - which is nearly everyone.



Anyway, Karen www.karenfincannon.com had a fresh crop of sheep and a new flock of chickens.




Ms. P suspects a few will become presents for friends this year. Karen's work is charming and a good part of the charm is that every one of her animals has a face that is very much its own and not a carbon copy of the next sheep or chicken.

Falling into Autumn

Although we had an early first frost, autumn has been a bit on the slow side. We've had a few warm days, but mostly, the weather has been normally cool. A couple of frosty mornings, with rime on the car windows, but not yet a blast of bitter cold. So the leaves have mellowed slowly, at least up until Sunday morning. Saturday, this is a tree that struck me speechless as we rounded a turn on the way to The House At The Top of The Hill.



And then there was this beauty on the grounds of the condo complex:



Sadly, Saturday was the only pretty day. By dawn's sullen light on Sunday, the sky was pewter and blasting down a cold, bitter rain. When Ms. P came in with Charlie from his morning walk, and the poor little devil was soaked and shivering so that we threw him in the tub and sluiced him down with warm water before popping him into his crate with a clean towel.

Weather like that was, however, ideal for Ms. Packratty's major projects - sorting through junk and making soup.

There are 2 soups Ms. Packratty loves to make and feels she makes well - one is leek and potato soup (with bacon) and the other is ham and bean soup. There's only one trouble with ham and bean soup. You need a ham bone to make it. And generally, the only way to get a hambone is from a ham. That means eating the ham. Which is simply not a practical matter for Ms. Packratty who most of the time is cooking for one. So she was delighted to discover mention that HoneyBaked Ham stores that have attached cafes use their own hams to make sandwiches and then sell the resulting bone. So a week ago, while erranding, Ms. P nipped into the Sandy Springs HoneyBaked and purchased 2, depositing one at Marleen's house.

Well, such a deal. The bones cost $5 and they were hardly mere bones. Ms. Packratty sliced off ham sufficient for 2 sandwiches, a large batch of ham salad, breakfast for 2 and then tossed the bone in with 2 large packages of assorted beans (having found some bagged beans that included the beloved chickpea)and put them in the nice Calphalon pot with the dome lid and put it on the very lowest of simmers. There were also a couple of onions and a few other oddments tossed in, but other than that, all it got was a long slow cook. Sunday dinner and Monday lunch came from the pot and there are now about 12 serving either in the Packratty freezer or waiting to go to Mar's downstairs freezer. Total cost for about 18 servings of good soup? $8. Ms. Packratty is also very pleased with the inexpensive set of food storage items purchased at Ikea, although she figures she will toss at least 2/3 of the teeny-tiny containers and their lids. Typically, she does not need to store 4 tablespoons of anything and anticipates that keeping track of the teeny tiny containers and their lids will be an exercise in futility and a waste of space. At $5 the set, Ms. P can afford to keep only the sizes that please her and toss or give away the rest. The tiny containers would indeed be ideal for someone with a baby to feed, but that is not the case at Chez P.
Deciding that it is OK to toss items that she will not use and which will just take up space and be annoying is a big step for the Packrat. Formerly, she would have felt compelled since they were new and MIGHT be useful SOMEDAY to try to hang on to them. Not anymore. She might keep 2, but not 6. And the set is still a bargain even with the discards.

Ms. P also tracked down a pair of pinking shears and stuck them in the laundry where she has already used them to turn several t shirts and a nightgown that were too holey to wear into cleaning rags. Putting the scissors in the sewing basket might make more sense for most folks, but for Ms. P, having them at immediate hand when she decides to render something into rags is far more likely to be sure it happens. Sometimes you have to work with your quirks instead of trying to iron them all out.

Veteran's Day

Thinking about tomorrow - Veteran’s Day - I started remembering the July 4th and Veteran's Day parades of my childhood.

When I was a very little girl, perhaps 4 years old, there were plenty of World War I veterans. By and large, they were men in the late prime of their lives – a few years older than my grandfather, who came of age just as the war ended. Men who had fought and returned and worked through the Great Depression. Of course, to a child, they were elderly, but now I realize they were just men in their 60s, by and large. They were sturdy men, most of them, having survived the rigors of war and then the Depression.

I think I even remember having a few superannuated veterans of the Spanish-American War pointed out to me.

The ranks of the WWII veterans were immense – these were men and women just a few years older than my parents.

By the time I was a teenager, the Spanish-American War veterans were gone and the WWI veterans were showing their age – by 1970, most of them were in their mid 70s or older, but they’d still straighten their uniform caps with age-gnarled hands and
march. In turn, the WWII veterans were starting to grizzle – lines and gray making their presence known. And a new bunch of veterans – the Korean War vintage – had joined the parade.

By my 20s and 30s, it became rarer and rarer to see the occasional WWI veteran – by now, they were withered men, propped up in wheelchairs or tucked into a convertible, waving feebly or simply staring basilisk through thick glasses. Now, out of the millions who served in the military during WWI, there is only one former Doughboy left in the US and no actual combat veterans. In Britain, there’s not a Tommy left from WWI, but one sole naval veteran, now living in Australia, survives. He would, therefore, be the last combat veteran alive from that war.

Now it is the turn of the WWII veterans – their ranks thinning by the day. My high school principal was a survivor of the Battle of the Bulge and dozens of the officers just a bit older than my father had fought across Europe and the Pacific. Grey Wyman, who flew bombing raids across eastern Europe, night after night. His brother, Austin, a pilot lost on a mission he never came home from. Oscar “Ozzie” Duttweiler, fought his way up the spine of Italy with the 10th Mountain Division and
later married Valeria Fulvio. They were heroes, but everyday heroes. One of the unique aspects of growing up as a military brat is that you grow up surrounded by quiet, everyday heroes. Our WWII vets are in their 80s and 90s. Many, like Grey and
Ozzie, have died and left memories in their place.

Honor them tomorrow and remember that in a very few years, they too will have shuffled off this mortal coil. And pray for us that we have other generations as brave and disciplined as they to follow.

I have a little list, they never will be missed ...

Add this mook to the top of it. Someone with a Barrett and good aim needs to deal him out of the game.

WASHINGTON – The personal Web site for a radical American imam living in Yemen who had contact with two 9/11 hijackers is praising alleged Fort Hood shooter Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan as a hero.

The posting Monday on the Web site for Anwar al Awlaki, who was a spiritual leader at two mosques where three 9/11 hijackers worshipped, said American Muslims who condemned the attacks on the Texas military base last week are hypocrites who have committed treason against their religion.

Anwar said the only way a Muslim can justify serving in the U.S. military is if he intends to "follow in the footsteps of men like Nidal."

And I'm thinking that mosque in Virginia would look sooooooo much better after a bulldozer treatment - preferably with all the devout gathered inside, if this is an example.

And, yes, I *am* a bigot. I despise Mohammedans and their degenerate, violent and woman-abusing creed.

Damn Political Correctness and "commitment to tolerance"

That commitment to tolerance just got people killed and it will get more killed in the future.

This paragraph from the Associated Press says it all:
Dr. Val Finnell, a classmate of Hasan's at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, attended a master's in public health program in 2007-2008. Finnell says he got to know Hasan because the group of public health students took an environmental health class together. At the end of the class, everyone had to give a presentation. Classmates wrote on topics such as dry cleaning chemicals and mold in homes, but Finnell said Hasan chose the war against terror. Finnell described Hasan as a "vociferous opponent" of the terror war. Finnell said Hasan told classmates he was "a Muslim first and an American second."

Did you read that? A Muslim first and an American second? Uttered by someone in the US military to OTHER members of the military in a US military educational institution and he wasn't summarily bounced out of that medical school and sent off to Alaska to break rocks for 10 years? And his classmates who heard this didn't report it? Or has the military become so "tolerant" that it too has abandoned common sense?

Fort Hood - another consequence of political correctness

Can we please just make all the Mohammedans into martyrs? All of them. Because it's becoming increasingly clear that we can't trust them as part of our society and institutions.

They need to hang this Nidal Malik Hasan. For murder and treason. For violating his oath and betraying his citizenship. And while we're at it - the family who raised this serpent whom we have sheltered? Deport them. The penalty for any immigrant's child taking arms against this country should be the explusion of the clan, entire. Root and branch.

And to hell with the idiots on the tube calling him the "alleged shooter".

Atlanta Bizarre

Last week, while checking out the future relocation site of one of Ms. Packratty's favorite restaurants, she was flabbergasted to see this at the intersection of Buford Highway and Clairmont Road.

Ms. P reminds any readers that Atlanta is a good 5 hours from the ocean and notes that this "vehicle" appears to have wheels - not just be trailered.

One wonders. Deeply.








The restaurant in question is a planned reincarnation of the beloved and massively shabby Havana that formerly occupied a bright yellow/green building on the lower end of Buford Highway. Since junior high in Tampa, Ms. P has retained a great fondness for Cuban food and when the Havana burned down last year, and the owners announced they were not rebuilding, she was sad. Other allegedly Cuban restaurants have been found lacking and it was a joyful day for Ms. P when she checked The Blissful Glutton and discovered that the Havana was to be reborn.

Pleasantly surprised

Well, both miscreants got a talking to in the manager's office. Further action? I don't know if they were warned, suspended or whatever. Frankly, I think the filthy mouthed one should be fired and the one who was using the company Blackberry for personal use should have an unpaid vacation. But I don't get to decide. Frankly, sitting across from SBM now gives me the creeps.

Upsetting

To set the stage - in our department at TVCC (The Very Conservative Corporation), the Helpdesk has an on-call person. Currently, this duty rotates between Ms. Packratty, Our Hardware Wizard (a quiet man, packed with knowledge) and the Massive Minister (at least 500 lbs. + and a youth minister at some church). The drama also includes SBM, a co-worker who has usually been quiet and had hitherto projected a pleasant demeanor.

So anyway, Ms. Packratty had taken the oncall laptop and Blackberry from MM on Monday and assumed her weekly duties. Tuesday midday, while out at lunch, the Blackberry started chiming in her pocket. When she checked the Blackberry, she discovered that MM had apparently been using the device for personal messaging and that his IM ID was still signed in. What Ms. Packratty then read was one side of a disgusting conversation between MM and SBM in which she could see only SBM's messages.

In this conversation, SBM complained about co-workers and then launched into a vile discussion of someone in another department, speculating on her availability in the crudest sexual terms. Ms. P turned the Blackberry over to her manager upon returning for lunch Tuesday and showed her the nasty IMs, but here it is noon on Wednesday and both of the miscreants are still at work. Note, I did NOT say working.

Considering that a white male co-worker was suspended for 3 days because he was suspected of surfing naughty sites (it turned out that he had remoted a tower at a detached location and forgotten to log off and someone at that location abused his login), the fact that these two lumps, who were a> using a company Blackberry for personal use (MM) and b> while at work, carrying on a vile discussion and denigrating women (SBM) are still sitting here is a bit upsetting. Frankly, I feel queasy sitting across from SBM after reading the way he refers to women (think as "pieces of meat") and revolted that an alleged minister would participate in a conversation like that.

I'm beginning to think I should have taken it directly to HR, but since I have been dinged for going over her head, I did not, nor did I stand my ground when I asked her to call HR before I showed her the IMs. I'm beginning to think that it's all going to disappear. Big surprise.

I'm late, I'm late, I'm terribly late

Actually, Ms. Packratty is just behind. She has housekeeping to do, laundry, desperately needs a haircut, must get to the library, and Home Depot and yesterday's flurry of activity skipped the regular shopping errands, so that too, maybe.

What did Ms. Packratty do Saturday? She got up early for an appointment in connection with a way to earn some extra cash over the next 2-3 months - always a good thing. That took a couple of hours. Then she went to see Marleen with Charlie and while Charlie hung out, Ms. Packratty and Marleen went to look at some puppies fathered by Master Jack, then hit Joanne's and bought yarn (Ms. P) and sewing stuff (Mar) and then went to Sam's where Ms. P did manage to get her biweekly supply of San Pelligrino water and looked at slow cookers. The only crock pot at Sam's was immense, but there was also a combination rice cooker, steamer and slow cooker that looked interesting and was small enough to store and large enough to be useful - there's a very small overlap for those 2 factors, you know when you have a teeny tiny kitchen like Ms. P's.

It's some cruel fate that keeps handing Ms. P, who loves to cook, small kitchens and no space for things like a freezer. Ms. P truly misses the days in Greenwood and Toccoa when she had space to put up jam and preserves all summer long and have the space to store things, even though those kitchens lacked a gas stove and a microwave and dishwashers. In retrospect, it's probably a very good thing that Lucifer never appeared to offer Ms. P a dishwasher at the pinnacle of peach preserve making, when everything was covered with peach puree and jam drippings and .... She might have been tempted at that point.

But unless Ms. P does some exceptional income enhancement in the next couple of years, she will never be able to get out of this place. And while she deeply loves the location of the current Chez Packrat, she craves a workshop, a garage, a larger kitchen and just the tiniest bit of a yard for Charlie and enough to spare to have a wee garden.

Off to the races - time to start tackling that pile!

Have we lost our collective minds?

NEWARK, Del. – A Delaware first-grader who wanted to eat lunch at school with his favorite camping utensil, a combination of folding fork, knife and spoon, now faces 45 days in the district's alternative school for troublemakers.

What sort of completely cockeyed and neutered moron could mistake a camping utensil for a weapon? Ms. packratty has been informed that in the 1930s, young lads routinely brought their pocketknives to school so that they might play an old-fashioned game called Mumblety-peg. In Ms. Packratty's own youth, any young gentleman would have a penknife in his pocket - very handy for trimming paper, opening parcels and multitudinous other minor chores. No one ever imagined that such a thing would be called a weapon.

Of course, Ms. Packratty clearly remembers her beloved grandfather telling her that there is little common about common sense. However, sending a 6 year old child to reform school over a Cub Scout device strikes her as madness. Sheer and utter madness.

Fade to Black

Once again, Georgia Power is providing their usual deplorable (lack of) service.

What, you say? Well, there is a reason that Ms. Packratty has the power outage reporting number on the speed dial of her phone.

Why is the power out? Well, it's raining. Big surprise. Most places that aren't located in deserts get rain every now and again, but here in Georgia, the power company seems to be unable to provide reliable service. The power goes out at Chez Packrat at least 2-3 times a month for varying periods and all too often, it goes out roughly once a week.

This morning, there was a SINGLE crackle of thunder and the power went out. It came back up and then 15 minutes later, we descended back into darkness. According to the morons at Georgia PPower, the service was supposed to be back on by 11:30 a.m., but now they have moved that estimate back to 4:30 p.m. God only knows when the power will actually come back on. If the power is out for 8 hours, that's roughly 5% of a week. I don't think there are many people who would consider it acceptable if their water went out for 8 hours a week.

Ms. Packratty is SOOOOO not happy about trying to shower and dress in dark - thank heavens the load of clothing she had in the drier from last night had dried. Even so, the load in the washer, which she had planned to dry first thing and which contained almost all of her standard wear black trousers, is still sitting undried and will probably turn sour enough to require a rewash. Which wastes water, wastes electricity, wastes gas (for a warm water wash), wastes detergent and hence sewer treatment capacity, wastes her time, adds additional wear and tear to the washer - all because Georgia Power IS NOT AS RELIABLE AS FLORIDA POWER & LIGHT WAS IN 1969. That's 40 years ago, folks. 40 years ago and Georgia Power can't meet the standards of another company from nearly half a century ago? Because Ms. Packratty checked with her mother, who told her that the only time she recalled the power going out in Tampa was when there was a HURRICANE.

If Ms. Packratty wanted to live in a Third World country with unreliable power, etc., she would go do so. In the United States, she expects her power to stay on unless there is remarkably severe weather or other natural disaster. A moderate rain with little or no lightning is NOT an acceptable reason for a power outage and there is NO acceptable reason for the power to go out weekly.

Color Ms. Packratty annoyed. Very Annoyed. Calling the Public Service Commission Annoyed.

The da Vinci that isn't

Sunday, I went to the High Museum and was greeted by this.

This is the Sforza Horse, the monumental statue that Leonardo never completed.

In the late 1400s, da Vinci envisioned the world’s largest, most technically challenging statue, one that would depict Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan, on horseback. For more than 15 years, he studied the anatomy of horses, sketched and drew the statute numerous times, developed detailed plans for the sculpture and techniques to cast the immense horse and rider in bronze. He created a huge clay model, but war with France intervened and bronze for the horse was requisitioned for cannons. Invading soldiers destroyed the great clay horse, the one da Vinci expected to be a defining work.

This horse is a 26-foot-high recreation of the Sforza horse, manufactured by the Opera Laboratori Fiorentini and loaned for the exhibit. In order to assemble it in the courtyard ouside the main entry, it was lifted - in pieces - over the building and reassembled.

This may be the largest ppiece of the exhibit - ironic, considering it was the work that Leonardo never finished - but it is hardly the most amazing.

The sketches and ink drawings by the dozens and the terra cotta pieces from Verrocchio's workshop and the baptistry panel with comparisons between the pieces and Leonardo's sketches and the scholarly conjecture about what parts Leonardo did as a student. Plus three immense bronze figures by his student, Giovan Francesco Rustici:

Freestanding and somewhat cleaned up, these figures are vastly more imposing than in the picture above in their "native" setting. Awesome. Seeing examples of Leonardo's mirror writing was fascinating - equally to see how incredibly legible his handwriting remains. There were bits and pieces of notes written left to right where I could clearly read the Italian or Latin words.

I hope to go back again. I do find the herds of people with their audio tours standing about slackmouthed who appear to be listening more than *looking* to be annoying. I watched one man stand in front of a display case, blocking others from viewing, who was staring intent at the audio tour device for 9/10ths of the time that he was hogging access to the display. Read and look, people. Then stand back and play the little speech. Or vice versa.

My other gripe is that Americans clearly have no idea how to queue. They crowd in from left, right and center and don't follow any sort of traffic pattern. Of course, places like the High and the Aquarium could do things to encourage a traffic pattern and they don't. A few ropes and arrows would go a long way to make up for the fact that people are too stupid and rude to queue out of courtesy.

The rest of the weekend was trying to help out a little at the K9 Daze at Wills Park - I fear I was not much help - errands and a bit of reading, knitting and movie watching. It started raining right around 8 p.m. Sunday - not a pounding sort of rain, but hard enough to soak you in a minute or two and that rain was still streaming down at 2 a.m. and only tapered off to spots and spits around dawn. The front that brought it, though, was apparently moving much more quickly than our earlier deluge and while the creeks were higher than normal this morning, nothing seemed to be over its banks. We certainly don't need any more flooding while people clean up from last month's mess.

AND, a certain driveway got concrete Friday and Saturday so life for my dear friends should become much nicer today or tomorrow when they can finally drive on it!

Because sometimes you just need something silly

http://www.lutralutra.co.uk/squirrelizer/

ICK!

So Ms. Packratty arrived at The Very Conservative Corporation Friday morning to discover that the city water main up the road had broken again and the entire building was without water.

And not only does the plumbing not work, but because TVCC has a cooling system from the 1950s that relies on the water system for chilling power, the air conditioning is only working at about 1/4 strength.

Now, to Ms. P, the humane thing would be to send everybody possible home - especially since the main building houses a couple of hundred people and there are no working toilets. But TVCC did not ask Ms. P. Their solution? Four portapotties on the back loading deck, shared by men and women.

Ms. Packratty held it. She was unhappily reminded of the post-to-post treks in the station wagons of her youth, but the ... er ... fortitude acquired then stood her in good stead.

And, of course, by 8 p.m. it was uncomfortably warm and this was annoying too, since Ms. Packratty feels that some church somewhere should canonize Willis Carrier.

She is increasingly less impressed with TVCC's cheeseparing, uncaring ways. Ironically, it came the day after the annual United Way extortion session. She would have a higher opinion of TVCC if they skipped their United Way match and the endless hullabaloo and had an insurance plan that wasn't embarassingly bad. TVCC's biggest step into the second half of the 20th century was to start allowing women to wear open-toed shoes in the summer. With hosiery only.

Drying Out

The rain has stopped, and although the NWS warned us that we might have rain through this week, that has not come to pass. It's really terrible hearing about people who have lost loved ones or homes, but I suppose it is also a good warning that if you live ANYWHERE near a stream or at the bottom of a hill, you should have flood insurance. Of course, even The House At the Top of the Hill had water come in during the worst of it Monday, when the lower patio flooded into the kennel floor and the gutters on the east side of the house could not keep up with the sheer awful volume of rain. So really, anyone can get flood damage.
Fortunately, Chez Packratty mostly on the second, third floor and fourth floor of the building did not suffer any water problems except that pesky place in the upstairs bath where water comes in along the roof vent and drips near the exhaust fan. That happens about once a decade, so Ms. P really doesn't view it as an issue.

We are also waiting to hear about Miss Jill, who should be presenting Mar with a litter in the next few days - it will be nice to have little white polar bear pups around again.

Over the banks

By the time Ms. P left work on Monday, Peachtree Creek was over the banks and flooding the parking lot.

There is normally about a 20 foot drop from the edge of the parking lot to the creek. NWS said the creek crested at about 1 foot below its all time record, which is more than a century old. Wow.

Fortunately, the spigot seems to be turned off or turned way down. There has been no more rain today.

However, all this rain has led to some interesting new fauna on the grounds of Chez Packratty. While walking Charlie around the condo complex this morning, we observed:












Ms. P rather suspects that the variety and quantity of fungi sprouting will increase over the next week or so unless the weather predictions of off and on rain are completely wrong.

I suppose this is global warming too?

It's been raining - ranging from light to torrential - for almost a week. The remains of the old Civil War embankments behind my condo are full up for the first time in years and Peachtree Creek near my office (which flooded one of our buildings in 2004) is well over its banks - ironically as a construction crew has been trying to stabilize the banks and prevent future flooding. Here's the parking lot after my miserable 1:15 hour drive in:











Two hours later:



The building that flooded in 2004 is the one behind those picnic tables. Cars are usually parked down there where the water is covering them.







And why is this happening? Here's a precipitation map for the last 36-48 hours:
Atlanta is solidly covered by the 6-8 inch area, while the 12-16 inch area is just to the southwest. This is some major rain. To put this in perspective - when Hurricane Opal dumped significant rain on the area in 1995 (Ms. Packratty was visiting England at the time), N Georgia and the metro area got between 5 and 8.66 inches of rain. We have gotten close to double that in the last week in many areas. Ms. P suspects that many drought-weakened trees will come crashing down if there is the least little bit of rain in the next few weeks, because the ground is beyond sodden.

I'm pretty sure the drought is over

ATLANTA (AP) - A record rainfall has showered parts of the Atlanta metro area with more than five inches of water.

A new measuring station in East Point recorded 5.04 inches between midnight and 1 p.m. Saturday.

The National Weather Service said between daybreak and 1 p.m. nearly three and a half inches had fallen at Atlanta's airport. Meteorologist Kent McMullen said that crushes the previous record of 1.62 inches, set in 1953.

I kid you not, I think we had at least 3 inches here in Sandy Springs, based on how many times I emptied the plant saucers. And three times during the night, I woke up to really loud thunder within a 2 miles range. None of it right overhead, but there was enough rain to produce an audible drumming on the roof. All is soaked.

Ms. Packratty is on call this weekend and can't stray too far from home and it is gloomy and humid and icky, so she is sorting through books and some knitting and bookbinding supplies and working on peeling away the rest of the blue tape. If the sun would come out just a little, she would go try to find the new dog park AND hang the new blind in the lower hall window, but it is too darned damp to paint, even with the a/c on as she is reluctant to put up the new blind until she has painted the window woodwork. Silly, considering it takes 30 seconds to remove the blind once it is properly installed ...

This says it all

Tired, tired, tired

Ugly weather moved in Tuesday night and brought a migraine and a two-day allergy attack. Ms. P is not a happy camper and cannot wait to get home tonight. Mar is marooned at the top of the House on the River of Mud - what a nightmare. Of course, the workers would still have encountered the Immense Boulder if they had started when promised, but then they would have had time to deal with it before the rains set in.

I like the rain, but since it was overcast most of last week and only finally commenced raining, it is starting to feel as though this has gone on forever. Time to go pick up my camera and go home to Charlie Rufus.

There's no place like home

As comfy as the guest accommodations at The House on the Hill were, it was nice to be home. The house was still stinky from paint, so I opened it up and turned off the air. Even if it is clammy tonight, it will be nice to have it thoroughly aired.

I left Charlie behind for one more night - there was a lot to carry and I was really, really tired. poor little guy - I bet he'll be glad to be home. And I'll bet Miss Snootypuss will be outraged that not only have I returned, but that I've brought that DOG back. Miss Packratty believes that Delilah thinks the house is hers and that Charlie and I are interlopers.

The next step is to finish the bottom 3 stairs and then clear the landings and foyer. Then we start painting stringers and risers and get back on that ladder and finish up the areas on the banisters that only got one coat. And hang the last 2 new blinds. And the new curtains. And get someone to haul the old green sofa out - not replacing it while Delilah can shred fabric. Lots of projects and lots of time. Just got to do it one bite at a time - we won't even start thinking about the remaining ugly wallpaper in the bathrooms and kitchen.

Monday, Monday

So after making a list of things that she needed to do to wind up her "artist in residence" at Maison au Sommet de la Colline (The House at the Top of the Hill), Ms. Packratty went to bed Sunday night. First light found her up and about, taking care of dogs and trying to leave the place reasonably neat and clean.

So, of course, right at about 8:15 a.m., the doorbell rang and sure enough, it was the driveway crew, finally arrived to begin their mayhem - just as Mar and Joe were leaving Boston to return home. So Ms. P drove down the hill and trudged back up (amazing how fast that driveway conditions the legs). She looked about to see if she could spot Mar's keys, but couldn't find them OR her phone (sitting in the car's console at the bottom of the hill) to call and ask where they were.

So Mar and Joe will have a wonderful treat awaiting them - her car stranded at the top of the hill and Joe's at the bottom.

Off to the right and out of frame is a dump truck, which was already half full of concrete chunks. The fellow running the little backhoe thing on the upper left was a real artist - he said he wasn't going to need to move any of Mar's plants and I honestly think he might have been telling the truth. The part of the driveway shown here is actually the part with the gentle slope.

This is a view from the top that shows where the steep part suddenly drops off. That's the hump part that is supposed to be regraded to something less taxing.

I doubt, however, that Mar and Joe are going to enjoy getting 4 suitcases and Jack up to the top with the driveway down to dirt and gravel. I'll get a look tonight, because I need to go back and fetch the rest of my stuff and Charlie. Poor Charlie - he is going to hate going home to being an only dog again.

It's going to be nice to be back in my own bed again though - although I wish I could kidnap Miss Joy to be my foot of the bed dog. Charlie is way too wiggly.

Finito - well almost

There are still 3 stairs to be done, but that's for another weekend. The other stairs? All three flights? Polyurethaned x 3 and they look gorgeous, I can really spot the two areas of the woodwork that only have their first coat of poly - somehow after that day I fell off the ladder, I never managed to get back up there to finish the job. That was scary.

I got some movement on once again editing out the stacks of books - I have a big box in my car and most of the keepers have been conveyed to the proper place. I do have a book problem. I read a lot and even if I only buy one book out of every 20 I read, that's a lot in the course of a year. I've been relying on the library and the online hold system - but there are always problems with books they don't have that I really, really want to read. I used to budget for bookstore spending. Now I don't.

I am so grateful that Marleen and Joe let me caretake this week which gave me the chance to tackle a REALLY BIG project and complete it. It's difficult to keep momentum going when you don't have real time to devote to something. Having this opportunity come when I had leave I could use and when I was relatively painfree was just a perfect intersection - without all three things coming together, it wouldn;t have been possible - and, in fact, when I hurt my hands last weekend, I was afraid I was going to stall out. I know I can do the risers and stringers in little bits that won't kill me and in latex paint which is easier to deal with all the way around. I'll be pumping up 3M's revenues some more though buying more blue tape.

Charlie has really had a great week too - he loves being here with Marleen's crew even though the girls pick on him. I'll feel guilty taking him home tomorrow night.

A testament to the role of sound sleep in resolving pain - I was sore as a boil last night and decided that if ever there was a night for a sleeping pill, it was then. I slept almost 6 hours straight and then 2 hours after an initial waking and when i got uup I was stiff, but not sore. Amazing.

Big day tomorrow. Got to buff this place up before I leave and then my first full day of work in 11 days.

Things I am thankful for

Kneepads. My brother-in-law Chris told me what kind to buy and I am deeply thankful. I think the stair project would have been a non-starter without them.

Blue tape. The stuff is amazing and worth every penny.

Polyurethane instead of varnish. Hardens so much faster and it's so much easier to get a good finish.

Good paintbrushes. Many thanks to my grandfather, Ralph M. Willard, for teaching me that painting with cheap brushes is a waste of time. Also for teaching me that prep time and effort is never wasted.

My little Mouse sander. Does a great job, doesn't hurt my hands or behave badly. Maybe not the tool for huge jobs, but definitely the ticket for almost everything I have tackled to date.

Aleve and hot showers. Just saying, you know?

Holy Carp, I'm sore

The second coat of varnish went on flight 2 Friday and flight 3 was prepped for taping. That and a third cost for flight 2 and the taping and first coats for flight 3 are the plan for Saturday. If Ms. P gets the first coat on flight 3 before 1 p.m., she plans to go back 8 hours later and do the second coat - with the third coat on Sunday, following the detaping of the other flights. Note, this plan leave fudge factor on Sunday if things do not go as planned.

The three steps at the entry? Next weekend, doing alternate stairs so that entry and exit remain possible.

And then Ms. P plans no further projects for at least a month. Please. She hurts in places she did not know she had places. There is still the matter of unrolling, mothproofing and rerolling the oriental carpets which Joe says they can store for me until the floors are done. But that's an afternoon's labor each, not the death march of this past week.

It's been an utter and complete blessing to stay at Marleen & Joe's - not only as a respite from CONSTRUCTION ZONE, but also because knowing that I need to go tend dogs has kept me from staying on too long and doing too much. About the time that I've really had it, the watch tells me it's time to go exercise dogs or such.

Time for a cuppa tea and an Aleve.

Never forget, never forgive until Islam is *gone*

Stranger and stranger

Well, when I got back from work, the first set of surveyors stakes were all gone and a different set in their place (in entirely different places). And a bunch of plate sized holes have punched in the concrete of the driveway. But nothing else.

Ms. P nonetheless left her chariot at the foot of the hill - it was a little late to be pulling into the neighbor's driveway, waking their 2 large dogs and clambering up through the ivy. Instead she parks across the street and did the buns and thigh workout by walking up the driveway.

At this rate, the driveway might be done by Christmas.

Now, Ms. P on the other hand? Third coat on the very top flight; first coat on the next flight down. Tomorrow morning the plan is to remove the tape from stage 1, put a second coat on stage 2 and start the prep on stage 3 - which is also the longest of all the flights. I need to move the bundle of quarter round and pull the covers and staples etc. But if I can get that part done Friday a.m. and tape it and first coat it Saturday before noon, I can get 2 coats on Sunday - early am and late pm and by Monday night? walkable. Meanwhile, stage 2 will get a third coat Saturday. Ms. P will not get home until 8:30 or later Friday, so she doubts she will have time or energy to start taping Friday night - but all things are possible.

Got to get more varnish and more blue tape. But I'm really seeing that this can get finished before I go to bed Sunday night. The last flight of 4 steps? That's going to be harder because I'll probably have to do them while using them. But I had to do this top down or I wouldn't have been able to work on more than one section at a time, so ... However, this entire exercise does not fill Ms. Packratty's heart with joy thinking about the painting of the risers and the stringers. That will have to happen slowly and, Ms. P suspects will be just as painful as the varnishing, although it won't involve all the vacating of the premises. The taping will be much more critical, however.

Enough woodworking though - the big news at work, other than the VP shuffle, is that The Conservative Corporation that Ms. Packratty labors for has actually decided to allow women to wear open toed shoes - although not sandals of any sort. Ms. P doubts this will truly affect her much, as the shoes available for her large boats that are also not painful to wear are generally lacking in anything that might be termed "style". However, the dress code amendments came with some vigorous restating of other standards, including the requirement that skanky tattoos must be concealed, that earrings may not dangle to the shoulders and that clothing may not be skintight or see-through, all offenses by some of her co-workers that have made her shudder (and feel cranky about) in recent months. If Ms. P has to obey the rules, she expects everyone else to have to obey the same damn rules.

Progress Report

Well, the driveway at Joe and Marleen's had stayed completely untouched. Then a surveyor came. Then nothing. I was no longer getting up early and shifting the car down the hill. So of course, this is the day the heavy machinery started to arrive. But once again, that might have been a false start, because when i came back from taping stairs and going to the dentist (where a tooth cleaning uncovered yet another damaged filling that wants replacing), the heavy equipment was gone and the surveyors were back.

Joy.

Getting some real traction on the stair project, the second flight is taped and I'll third coat the first flight and first coat the second one tonight and move on to prepping the third flight tomorrow morning when I have an even longer morning - I don't go to work until 4 p.m. I think I may be done with everything but the first mini-flight (4 steps) by the time Mar and Joe return.
Please, I hope, hope, hope. I need to reroll and mothball the rugs and keep moving steadily toward getting the floors laid. We're getting there. It's slow, but Ms. P really feels, for the first time, that she has really finally got some traction on getting this project done.

House Pixie

The House Pixie put the crowbar back into the toolbucket. The toolbucket that Ms. Packratty moved twice while searching for the crowbar.

My House Pixie has an odd sense of humor. Ms. P wishes he or she would return my missing earring.

How do you misplace a crowbar?

I had it the other day. I used it to pry up tread covers. I had it in my hand Saturday and this morning? So missing.

I don't mind having multiple pliers. Or even having 2 hammers (they are different weights). Extra screwdrivers are a good thing. But I refuse to buy a second crowbar.

Holy carp, losing a CROWBAR? in a 1200 sf condo? I know I either leaned it against something or put it down someplace where it couldn't fall over and go bang and now it's just missing (and I may have just remembered where - since I brought in a box from Mark & Liana's house Saturday night ....)

In other notes, prep on the second flight? Every single staple came out - only two broke and had to be yanked with vise grips. No countersinking. Karmic payback for Saturday? Or will section 3 break my heart as I get overconfident? Perhaps it's the blood sacrifice. I knocked my head on one of the newel posts and have a 1/4 inch cut on my forehead. Section 2 is ready for taping - section one was sanded, wiped and got the second coat of varnish. Taping on section 2 begins this evening.

Painful Progress

I have some degree of victory. The second shortest flight of the four has been prepped, taped and gotten coat one of varnish. It's been quite a learning process that I am sure is not over and my blistered, cut and abused fingers bear testimony.

I learned that if staples won't pull out, yanking on them until your fingers are blistered is not smart. Also, take off your jewelry, as that only makes blisters worse.

There are pliers that can cut off the sharp bits very close to the woood, however, finding the sharp bits by running your hand over the tread is a good way to get cut.

Once the staples have been trimmed down as far as you can, a countersink is your best friend. So is wood filler that is color coordinated to the type of wood.

Blue tape is good stuff. So are kneepads. So are tack cloths.

Ms. Packratty is estimating that she can get about half the prep work done on the next section of stairs tomorrow after her early appointment and before reporting for work at 3 p.m. That would be removing the tread covers, pulling all the staples possible, countersinking the ones she can't pull and putting woood putty in the resulting holes. She also hopes to do the light sand, tack cloth wipe and a second coat of varnish on section one before she goes to work

The worst part of the prep, the taping, she hopes to start tomorrow evening, after work and after exercising dogs. If Ms. P can spend so much as 45 minutes at it, she will be in far better trim on Friday morning, when her worktime is neatly bisected by a dental appointment.

Friday morning would be her chance to repeat the revarnish for coat 3 on the first section. If section two is taped and wiped down, a first coat could go on that Friday afternoon and a second on Saturday morning and the third Saturday evening.

Section 3, the longest run of stairs, would be the Saturday and Sunday project In between the varnishing on section 2. The plan would be to pull the covers and prep and start taping, with the hopes of getting 2 coats on the stairs Sunday. Since Ms. P won't be back home until Monday evening, two coats should be sufficient to make it through the week with a third coat applied on Saturday and the final 4 step section for later. If need be, the bottom section could be done in alternate steps so it could be used even though it was being worked on. Ms. P simply hopes she does not wake up tomorrow feeling as though she has been thrashed and pummelled.

Now, the pictures:

Before - tread covers off, no other work:

Taped and prepped:

And finally - first coat on - isn't that oak PRETTY?

A few complications

The Stair Project has hit some complications. First, the staples that had secured the temporary tread covers were coming out in pieces, leaving other sharp little pieces sticking up. Wrestling with them cost me several hours of sweating, a blister on my right index finger and about $22 in new pliers, to little avail.

I also managed to slice my left index finger in the same spot as the blister on my right - right on the pad of the middle section of the finger. Right where almost everything you do hurts. Thank you, Mr. Murphy.

So back to Home Depot on the advice of a friend to get a countersink. So I will shortly go back to the house and simply countersink the sharp little buggers and wood putty the holes. But not until after I get Norman washed. It is not easy looking after a herd of terriers and those puppies poop like geese.

And, of course, the people who swore to Joe that they were starting work on the driveway this morning? So not here.

Ouch

I have blisters. Getting the staples that secured the covers to the treads out has been miserable. I cannot find the tool I used to do the job before nor my vise grip pliers. A stop at Home Depot is indicated if I am to get the sharp little spikes out.

However, I have some of the job done and an idea of what I am facing. I may not get the entire thing done this week. I am NOT going to try to paint the risers - only to do the varnishing. The risers can be done one or two at a time.

And I didn't get to devote a great deal of time to the house today. There were two dogs dropped off this morning, so I waited around for that to happen. And I am due for dinner with Mark & Liana shortly, so I am flying out of here, wine bottles clanking in a cooler!

Hoarding lightbulbs

Ms. Packratty has a serious issue with the push to force people to use compact fluorescent bulbs. There's a light quality - to her they are sort of the processed cheese food of light bulbs - but they also contain mercury. And people are not going to recycle them, they are going to throw them in the trash.

So anyway, she's been stuffing light bulbs by the box into the tall space at the top of the linen closet and today, when she was picking up some wood putty and sandpaper for the coming stair finishing festivities, her local Home Depot had a special. Boxes of 4 60 watt bulbs for 25 cents a BOX. Ms. Packratty bought $5 worth - 80 bulbs. They are some weird offbrand, but Ms. P suspects she will nonetheless get more than 6.25 cents worth of use out of each of them.

And speaking of energy, Ms. Packratty had commented on a friend's Facebook that she was desirous of purchasing a bottom freezer fridge unit as she is tall and tired of bending over to see the contents of the fridge and having to kneel on the floor when the fridge needs a thorough cleaning. Another friend of her friend posted a reply pompously informing her that a bottom freezer was less efficient than a top freezer and that Consumer Reports blah blah blah. So when Ms. Packratty was in the Home Depot, she compared the energy estimates on a GE bottom freezer fridge of 22 CF and one for a top freezer of 21.8 (close enough, in other words). The big energy savings that Ms. Packratty should sacrifice her back and knees for? FIVE dollars a YEAR. Five hundred pennies 41.6 CENTS a month. Yes, indeedy. That's advice from Consumer Reports on the par with their ridiculous advice on dog and cat food, in which they posited that corn and starch-laden cheap foods were a better value than meat protein based foods. Which is when CR basically lost most of their credibility with Ms. Packratty.

Speaking of consumer issues - have you ever felt like screaming at the television over an advertisement? This morning, Ms. Packratty was running around preparing for work when an ad appeared on the television. In the ad, this purported mother was talking about how her child - who appeared to be four or five years old - would not eat - "anything green" or this or that, "until it finally began to affect her growth" when "mom" consulted the doctor, who "told" her to feed the kid a canned vitamin-enhanced milkshake called Pediasure. Excuse me? What is happening to parents? Do they not have the sense to deal with their own children? Letting a child pull something like that over eating to the extent they were worried about their health is insane. Absolutely, totally insane. And any doctor who would prescribe fortified milkshakes as an alternative to real food for an otherwise healthy child ought to be defrocked.

Someone Ms. Packratty knows was confronted with a grandchild who was using eating as a way to control his parents. The Wise Grandmother invited the parents to leave the grandchild with her at the beach and for the parents to go off and have a vacation of their own. The first time grandson declined what was offered at a meal as well as the proffered leftovers from a prior meal and demanded something not on the menu, the Wise Grandmother looked calmly at the Picky Grandson and said "You must be ill, if you can't eat this nice whatever. Let's get you into bed for the afternoon." So while other children were with their Wise Grandfather at the beach and tennis court, the Picky Grandson spent the afternoon in bed. At dinner, the PG again declined the offered dinner or a chicken sandwich and demanded a hamburger and french fries. The Wise Grandmother again looked at him and said "That isn't what we have tonight. If you can't eat the ham or a chicken sandwich, you must still be feeling ill. Off to bed with you." And the PG spent the evening in bed while the other grandchildren had ice cream, played Monopoly and went to the movies at the Beach Club.

The next morning, the PG threw a temper tantrum at breakfast, refusing scrambled eggs, oatmeal or Cherrios and demanding some chocolate flavored cereal. The WG put him right back in bed and so it went for another entire day. On the evening of the second day, the PG actually ate some of his boiled shrimp, but refused salad, rice and the other parts of the dinner, so he got no dessert and had to go to bed early. But lo and behold, on the next morning, the PG came out of the young boys' bunkroom at the beach house early and found his Grandfather making some oatmeal and marched up and said "Grandpa, may I please have some oatmeal with brown sugar?" And that was that. Ever after, all his mother or father had to do if he started playing food games was to put him to bed because a boy who won't eat "must be feeling ill". You can't cater to those sorts of games with children. Pediasure - for a perfectly healthy child? The problem there isn't the child's nutrition, but a lack of calcium in the parental spines.

And now, if you will excuse her, Ms. Packratty really is going to the dogs. She needs to head out of here and go tend the pooches and collect her overnight bag.

So much for cash for clunkers

Observed this Sunday at a local parking lot. Seriously, folks, if the cops pull people over for a burned out brake light, exactly how does this thing make it even a mile down the road?

This is sheer insanity that something like this is allowed to move on the public streets. But there it is.

As I was walking into the store this was parked in front off, I saw a man coming out with a very odd expression on his face. I turned and watched, and it was the owner of this hunk of junk. He struck me as having ... problems deeper than the condition of his ride.




The monthly death march of month end close has started and, off course, GA 400 did me in this morning. I left the house with a 15 minute margin of error and ended up late - not only did I use up the margin, but another 18 minutes besides. One disabled car and a 4 car fender-bender caused the road to back up for close to 20 miles and 40 minutes. Go figure. Imagine if it had happened during real rush hour instead of between 9 and 10 a.m.?

I'm also very pleased - I used a Tuesday Morning gift certificate that was about to expire to snag an Outward Hound dog booster seat for the PU's pup who likes to see out and tries to ride in laps. Now I just have to get it all mailed. I have about a crate of stuff to send down there.

I am still trying to make sense of the new camera, but perhaps I'll have a chance to study it in the evenings at Marleen's next week. Turns out there will be three pups in residence rather than two, but my feeling is - what's 50% more poop? You''re cleaning up after two, might as well clean up after three. And there's the fun factor - watching three puppies is about 500% more amusing than two. Pictures, I hope, to follow. Along with pictures of the work on the house. I hope.

Charlie Rufus, Terrier Extraordinaire

I'm very proud of my Charlie this week for a couple of reasons.

Saturday morning, Charlie went with me to the Peachtree Road Farmer's market . It's a very exciting place for a dog - lots of people of all ages, other dogs, good smells, the possibility of scraps of something tasty, as well as the lady with the home-baked doggie treats.

Charlie was in fine form Saturday, he was behaving very well and making friends left and right and really being very good. he sat quietly and let any number of small folks pat him - I've been very pleased with his tolerance for the attentions of children. But then, on our way out, we stopped to get a few yellow squash and some figs at the Taylor's booth and there was a little girl with glorious red curls who was watching Charlie with a mixture of fear and curiosity. I asked her if she wanted to pat him and she shrank away in fear. Just as I was thinking "What a pity for a little girl to be so fearful", her father who was standing behind me, told me that a large dog had jumped in their car when she was small and licked her all over the face while she was in the baby seat and couldn't fend him off and that she had been scared ever since.

Well, I sat down on the curbing and asked the little girl, whose name was Susannah, if she would pat Charlie if I held him tight so that he would not lick her, that it would be up to her to touch him. And darned if my little fellow didn't snuggle up to me and sit patiently while this little girl got her courage up to pat him. Not once or twice, but a dozen times. She even got the nerve up to look at his face and ask me why his eyes had black rims and why his lips were black. And then she went over to the dog treat lady, picked out a treat and put the treat on the ground right in front of my boy. And he didn't snarf it or gulp or grab, he picked it up and carried it.

Then later, at Marleen's, he was out on the back patio and he was patiently letting the two Norwich pups and Jack's son chew on him, chase him and generally harass him, without any impatience with the pups. Nancy seemed to realize that he was no danger to the pups as she made no effort to get between them and him.

All in all, my dear boy did very well and behaved like the dog I've been hoping he would become. Good boy, Charlie.

And the Rains Came ...

Somewhere around 5 a.m. Friday, Ms. Packratty was awakened by the thunderous drumming of rain on the roof. No thunder - just a torrential blast of rain that apparently dropped about 2-3 inches of rain in the space of 90 minutes to 2 hours. That amount is estimated after emptying the plant trays outside the front door and looking at the level of the pool in the condo complex, where the water was close to the top of the tile coping. It was still wet enough at Charlie walking time for him to get quite drenched - he's so smart - he knows that when he's wet, he's supposed to go into the travel crate with the nice clean dry towels.

For a brief moment, Ms. Packratty actually thought she was back in her tiny cinderblock rental house that she lived in as a young reporter in Beaufort SC — the back side of the house had a tin roof and a good rainstorm was an event. That house, sadly, was soon after her departure from Beaufort, torn down to make way for an anonymously ugly apartment complex.

The temperatures took a plunge too - it is about 10 degrees cooler hour-by-hour today, than it was on Thursday. Marvelous. And it is payday, as well. All told, the ingredients for a better than decent day.

It followed on the heels of a delightful evening with Ms. Basketcasecafe, a classmate from the bookbinding class last winter. We have been meeting once a week to catch up and we're making friends ... Ms. B is exceedingly talented in the webpage area of the world, a skill Ms. P envies terribly but suspects she does not have the patience to master.

With the weekend at hand and the fact that Ms. P is the Officer of the Day, so to speak, and has to stick close to home and access to the internet connection, there are high hopes of a productive weekend. But heavens, after last weekend's baked bean frenzy, there is plenty of the cleaning still to do - so rather than make ambitious plans, Ms. P is going to be conservative and just take it as it comes - the library, picking up the veg co-op and possibly going to the farmer's market for tomatoes are about all of the hard and fast plans, although she hopes to get the kitchen recovered completely from the Beans Of Hell.

The sad thing that Ms. Packratty does not understand is seeing people - many of whom have more creative and remunerative jobs than she - spend their weeks counting the days until the weekend arrives. While Ms. P hardly sails into work singing, she does not dread the workweek very often, except when she ill enough to feel dreadful, but not ill enough to use a precious sick or vacation day. Oh well, they have to live their lives as best they can and Ms. P has to live hers - but she feels slightly sorry for them somehow - spending 40 hours of your life - or more - focused on the 48 in the weekend seems a bit starved.

Excuuuuse me?

NEW YORK – Crystal Renn was miserable as a super-thin model who had heart palpitations when she'd worry that there might be calories in Diet Coke.

Her moment of epiphany came when "I couldn't walk another step without being exhausted, or having hair clumps falling out." She knew she needed to live in the body she was supposed to have — specifically a curvy size 12.

Just how the Hades does a size 12 translate to plus size? The *average* American woman is a 14. The notion that a size 12 is a model for plus size just makes me want to throw things.

St. Willis of Carrier

Truly, this man:




















should be one of the patron saints of the South.

Last night, massive storms manages to skirt and even spritz the general vicinity of Chez Packrat, but there was no rain, just humidity. So this morning was as sticky as treacle, too warm in the house to even make breakfast. So the a/c is back on, drat it.

Ms. Packratty is looking forward to Labor Day. She has Monday off and then is working half days the remainder of the week because - DRUMROLL PLEASE - the plan is that she is going to stay at Marleen's house and finally get the stair treads polyurethaned. The weekend will be reserved to clearing stuff away and making ready and starting Tuesday afternoon, the top flights will get a first coat, with a second coat on Wednesday; the bottom flight should get a first coat on Wednesday and a second coat on Thursday. Third coats Thursday and Friday is needed, then Ms. P will begin the process of taping off and painting the risers, which can be done a few at a time and without major misery. By working half days, I only use 2 days of my precious remaining holiday time and I should be able to keep myself from overdoing. One hopes.

Tack cloths
Polyurethane high gloss
Latex enamel in bright white
Blue painters tape
find the kneepads

Once that's done, it's back to squirrelling money away toward laying the flooring in the living room and dining room. With some car bills probably coming up and another potential household cost - over and above the furnace and a/c, a conservative approach is required ...

Sigh of Relief, Maybe

The car's service manual said that the light that was on and blinking might be caused by a loose gas cap and to remove and replace it and drive on carefully. Lo and behold, the light is gone. I'm still holding my breath, as there are some other things that the poor baby Buick needs done, but if I can just avoid a horror story for a little while ...

It's hot again, I'm debating whether to turn the a/c back on or hope that the storm moving up from the southwest will cool things off a bit more quickly. Temps are forecast in the mid 60s every night, so it is hard to justify having the expensive a/c on when it's 12 degrees cooler outside in the am than it is inside with the a/c running. Someone needs to invent an air system that senses when the outside temp has dropped below the thermostat level and open an intake and pull in, filter and dry outside air.

Time to go to bed and try to sleep. The only good night of sleep I've had in 3+ weeks was when I took my last sleeping pill. Seeing the doctor week after next to get scripts refilled - I think I went 2 years on a scrip for 30, so that's not excessive. Heaven would be an Ambien every night, I think. I can't remember the last time I slept more than 5 hours straight. Fibromyalgia is a real pain that way.

Math-Impaired

Has Ms. Packratty mentioned what a dunce she is at the mathematics? She just had a panic-stricken moment when she realized that she had added instead of subtracting and it took some fast footwork with the emergency fund to prevent an overdraft. By, gee whiz, roughly the amount of the office party cooking expenditure.

Oh well.

And now the car is saying it needs attention. Dammit.

What was it that Dorothy Parker said? "What fresh Hell is this?" Story of my life.

And how was the rest of the weekend?

Now, on to the weekend. How bad could it be, you ask?

Well, try this - stayed up late prepping the baked beans; cost of beans and salt pork and other ingredients $13.09, plus disposable chafing dish $12.88. Then put them up for the night, tried to sleep and the house was overheated as the result of having the oven on, slept very poorly; up at 7:30 a.m., walked dog, etc., got box to pack the pans in for transport; bought 5 packages of hamburger buns and 5 packages of hotdog buns $17.70. At 9:30 a.m. put the beans in to reheat, at 10:45 a.m. got them out and packed them in box with newspapers to cushion and insulate; cost of aluminum pans and covers $5.98; showered, dressed, carried stuff out to car, drove to Piedmont Park toll .50 cents, gas undetermined; schlepped beans, dog, buns, water and chafing dish set to site; was subjected to loud music, too much heat, approximately 20 percent of those who said they would bring food had not showed by the time I escaped; after about 1 hour 45 minutes, I nibbled on a rib and ate a bit of my beans (side dishes and dessert being among the dishes of the missing "team" members), Charlie was getting more and more skittish due to noise and my headache was escalating, so I skulked off before the party games could begin as I hate, despise and detest such activities with a passion. Parking $4.75, plus another .50 cent toll. Grand total for 2 hours of relative misery and misfittery - 6 hours of work related to preparing food and $55.40 cents in direct costs for buying and preparing and transporting the food and myself to the park. Gas costs not included. I can't afford any more "fun" or "teambuilding" like that. I feel quite built upon, thankyewverymuch. Oh, and I brought 2 drinks with me as I was sure (and that conviction was borne out) that the only drinks supplied would be sodas with HFCS in them. So add another $2.50 to the cost.

Stopped and got my veg co-op on the way home and then went home and made a sandwich and tried to lie down and rest. Feet hurting terribly. Got to sleep finally about 4 a.m. Sunday and was awake at 8:30 a.m. Sunday was awful - I had to try and get done all the things that I normally do Saturday, as well as cleaning up the beanpots and Sunday's chores. Not again. $57.90. I could have gone out and had bloody lobster and champagne for that.

New Camera

Yes, the camera arrived, but not without some drama. When I got home Friday, I checked the mailbox and nada. Nothing at all, no bills, no delivery slip, nothing. Got into the house and checked and lo and behold, the USPS site said that a delivery attempt had been made and a notice left. There WAS NO NOTICE.

The last time I had difficulties with delivery on an insured parcel, the parcel arrived plundered. A set of expensive scissors was neatly removed from the ornamental fob and tip guard and a set of stitch markers was missing.

Needless to say, I was not having that with this and on Saturday morning, in between getting ready for the department "retreat" (more on that idiocy later), I ran by the post office with the printout that had the tracking number on it. When I rang at the call window, I was delighted to see my former carrier (the one who let Charlie kiss her) answer at the window. She took the number and disappeared into the bowels of the PO and emerged with my package about 10 minutes later. The box appeared to have gotten wet and had some "damage" to the sealing tape, so I opened it promptly and discovered that a> no water had reached the inside and b> the attempt to open the box had been unsuccessful. Perusing the camera and the manual though, Ms. P has determined that there WILL be a learning curve.

Wow!

Ms. Packratty came into her office this morning to find a large box waiting in her cube. Upon opening, she discovered an utterly yummy Namaste Knitting bag, one of their newest, in a deep plum.

See picture.

Yum Yum Yum.

Thanks, Mom!

(Yes, that is a case of San Pelligrino water the bag is sitting on. Ms. P is always fighting the food issue and she likes fizzy, hence, fizzy without calories.).

And she is deeply hopeful that the new camera will be here tonight, as the USPS website reported that it reached my local PO at 9 a.m. this morning. OTOH, if Atlanta emulates Chicago, said camera may be in limbo until sometime next week. The clever little camera bag I bought on eBay arrived in 3 days:
It's blue and Ms. P is very pleased with it.


Almost quitting time at the zoo and time to go home and ruin my evening cooking for the departmental "luau" that is being staged Saturday to improve team spirit. Yes, paying for and cooking food for people whom I only know from work and would not socialize with except that we work for the same company is clearly the way to waste half or more of my precious weekend.

And doing it in August is a public park in the center of the city is just another way to insure that Ms. P will be miserable. We do not fare well in the heat and we sunburn in minutes, so this is bound to be a trip to one of the circles of Hades. On top of the food, Ms. P also had to go purchase a disposable chafing dish. Clearly looking for a thrift store chafing dish, plate will be just fine, should be on the Packratty radar, since the disposable ones are not cheap and they are ... disposable.

Sigh.
2000 hours, time to go.