A Rerun Post for the 4th of July

A is for All of the citizens serving to protect this country and the peace of the world.

M is for Mercy. America has proved time and time again to be a terrible enemy but a merciful victor. This is another tradition I hope and pray we continue to follow even though it undoubtedly makes us appear weak to barbarians.

E is for English, our common tongue. Yes, we butcher the King's version, but American English is vibrant and lively and borrows freely from almost every culture we encounter. Barbecue from the Arawaks, amok from the Moros - if we find a useful word, we'll appropriate it. Look up boondocks, for example!

R is for our Revolution. We won our freedom and we have tried to spread the gospel of freedom.

I is for Invention. America was the first country to recognize intellectual property with a patent system and trademarks. The US Patent Office has patents that you can view online going back to 1790, when our country was barely a going concern. One of our Presidents has even held a patent.

C is for Charity. We excel at it both at home and abroad. If tragedy strikes a community or a country, Americans will be sending soup, bandages and cash within hours - and not primarily through government agencies, but through groups such as the Red Cross, the Salvation Army and dozens and dozens of smaller groups.

A is for ambition. In America, ambition and hard work can make you. Who your parents were or where they came from is much less important than what you want to achieve and how hard you are willing to work to do so.

The truth about this country is illustrated most vividly in the fact that all over the world in countries of every type, there are people standing in line and staking all they have on a chance to come here, whereas, I am informed, the line to leave here is small.

An honest prayer for President Obama

"Pray
for Obama. Psalm 109:8".

Psalm 109:8 ~ "Let his days be few and brief; and let others step forward to
replace him."

I was in a small accident a couple of weeks ago and got bounced around the interior of the SO’s car. I had my seatbelt on and the airbag deployed and all that, but it’s been a potent reminder that when you have fibromyalgia, everything can be a bit more difficult.

My right leg is still swollen and sore, even though the visible bruises have faded. I have to elevate it every evening for the swelling and aching to go down. And I’m sore and stiff all over in a way that is a continual reminder of the accident and I’ve been very worried that the physical stress from this would put me into a flare up of the fibromyalgia. I think I may have dodged the bullet on that, because I actually got some decent sleep despite a> being on-call and b> sleeping on the guest bed because the waterbed sprung a leak and I’m waiting for a replacement. A week on a regular bed is a potent reminder of ALL of my sore spots.

But I’m getting better – eating lots of fresh cherries and the amazingly sweet Athena cantelope that will be gone in another week or so not to return until next year.

And my garden has started to yield. Mostly tomatoes, but I've had arugula, sugar snap peas (eaten in the pod tossed in salads) and some lovely radishes. Since it is a small, not quite 4 foot by 8 foot bed, the yield has been quite generous. However, it only stokes the desire for a yard where vegetables and flowers and a happy little dog could all have space.

Gardening

After about 3 weeks of scant or no rain, we had a fabulous drencher Wednesday night, followed by late afternoon soakers on Friday and Saturday.

My garden at the North Fulton Community Garden is growing well and I expect to have ripe tomatoes in the next week.
Pictures to come

Whew!

It's been as hot as the hinges of hell's barbecue grill this week and no relief in sight, although we usually get a brief cool spell in June before the bronze bowl of summer heat closes over us for the duration.

On call this week, so up at 7:30, waited until after the office opened at 8 to walk Charlie, then zipped down to the Peachtree Road Farmer's Market at St. Philips. http://www.peachtreeroadfarmersmarket.blogspot.com/ It was already steamy by 9 and by 10 a.m. I was happy to be back in my car with the ac on. Ran by Trader Joe's and then by the community garden to water my plot and Mar's and clip away some of my beautiful, pungent arugula and lettuces. I even found a couple of the watermelon radishes big enough to pull. Whee. Picture of the garden soon. The tomatoes are fruiting like mad - I have all Romas in my plot and an assortment of heirlooms in Mar's - all but one of my Italian starts from seed were flattened in our late April hailstorm. The sole survivor is doing well. Ah, next year - a girl can hope.

It's time for more housework as well as trying to fix the disposal. It whirs, but grindeth not, so I have tried the reset to no avail and wend and bought a set of Allen wrenches looking for the size that fits in the bottom to try to clear whatever is ailing it. If that fails, I'll have to buy a new kitchen pig, darnit. Not something I want to do. For the moment though, I'm, loading the dishwasher, catching a shower and waiting for 1 when I have to got online to my computer at work and publish the June schedule.

Housework done properly can kill a woman

I have:

gone to church
done 4 loads of laundry
washed out the fridge
cleaned the stove
two dw loads of dishes
gone to the library
walked the dog 3 x
handed out pool keys and parking permits for an hour
grocery shopped

and I have to clean the cat box
take out more trash
do one more load of laundry
and cook dessert and make a salad for the staff potluck tomorrow
and walk the dog at least 1 more time
and I'd like to get down to the community garden and water my bit, but I'm kind of thinking that's not happening today.


As far as the community garden goes, it's chugging along, especially since hail trashed all the first planting of tomatoes and then it's been on the dry side. My arugula is awesome, awesomely pungent and the other lettuces thriving. The watermelon radishes have started out well, as have the sugar snap peas.

I'm so thrilled by having a real garden space, small as it is

Roundup

We got back to work Wednesday after the great snowstorm. A skeleton of the loyal came in, the usual suspects failed to show. We closed up at 5 prompt on both Wednesday and Thursday and we got paid for the full day. Those who didn't show lost vacation or floating holiday time or pay. Dumb. By Friday, there was absolutely no reason why anyone shouldn't have been at work. And not very fair to the rest of us who did come in and handle the whole horrid pile. But that's about what I expect from a significant cross section of my co-workers - slackness.

Today the sun was out and the temperature close to balmy - a lot of melting, but the entryway is far from clear and I suspect it may take through Monday to clear it up. I picked up my new glasses, went to Whole Foods and Trader Joe's and also got a new filter for the humidifier and some goodies at Tuesday Morning - including some rain boots - because I don't think the snow and ice are over and I discovered that none of my shoes were really great for coping with soggy snow.

Read "Citadel" by Ringo; "Intrigue" by Mercedes Lackey; "Finders Keepers" by Craig Childs and an utterly forgettable continuation of the Pern series by the son of the original writer - who, sad to say, does not have enough of his mother's skills. By the end of the book, I had no clear image of any of the protagonists, no desire to read an more about them and no real idea what had happened other than a lot of action and running around. Off to the library for a refill tomorrow.

Charlie drank some meltwater in the parking lot and sicked up - have to keep a firmer grip on him - even if he's just had a quart, any standing water interests him - silly beast.

Impending snow?

The weather people are going bonkers, but no snow in sight yet. On call this weekend and hence have not done much - other than mislay a piece of jewelry that is quite dear to me. And tear the house apart trying to find it. Unsuccessfully.

Ms. Packrat has been very tired this weekend, possibly as a result of being on call and constantly having one ear cocked for the phone.

Books for the weekend "The Room and the Chair" by Lorraine Adams. Odd, vague, meandering. Not a great read. "Body Work" by Sara Paretsky, good thriller. Have a nice stack of fresh reads, most light, for the week ahead. 10 books read by the 9th. Could I possibly go 365 for the year? Actually, I read two utterly frivolous and forgettable bits of fluff Saturday morning, but I really can't bring myself to count total fluff. A good mystery - yes, but chickfic? Nope.

Find of the week - a thick tome on sharepoint at the library from 2005 but 50 cents instead of $49.99 The basics of handling data can't have changed that much.

Latest books; knitting progress

Finished "All Clear" by Connie Willis and "If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This" by Robin Black. That's 8 for the YTD.
Finished and Kitchenered Xmas sock for MPU, working on hat for PPU, need to start hat and mittens for nephew.
Have a lace edging for a bride's hankie to finish, finish a scarf for Mark, a market bag for a friend's MPU, the edging on my Aestlight, the beginnings of a Citron. So 7 UFOs and one pending project. Oh and I have some pretty alpaca to make a burgundy scarf for moi to match new leather gloves.
Speaking of Kitchenering, there's a blogger called TechKnitter who is a total GENIUS. Her Kitchenering with knitting needle instead of sewing needle is nothing short of brilliant.
On call this week, looking forward to the weekend being mostly spent at home and hopefully productive - err, well, if you can call getting rid of things "productive" ...

2010 kind of vanished...

And here we are in 2011. A new decade.
Ms. Packratty is still at the same employer, but there have been many changes, almost all for the better, including the departure of her manager for a non-managerial job. Ms. Packratty is always distressed when another woman makes a total hash of it, and severely disappointed when a woman behaves worse than men. And that is all she has to say. Suffice to say that her desire to come to work has returned to a great degree.
Charlie is well and happy and somewhat calmer and this is approximately the 5th anniversary of when I went to Alabama and got him from the foster home for Louisiana Westie Rescue. Yes, it's odd, but Charlie was rescued in TN and the closest formal rescue was Louisiana and the lady in AL was the closest person to pick up Charlie and the little girl Westie with whom he was found. Not a day passes that Ms. Packratty is not thankful for Charlie.
The latter part of 2010 brought back a return of Ms. Packratty's knitting mojo and she has completed quite a few UFOs and started a couple of small amusing projects, while staying focused on finishing things before casting on new stuff. However, there always needs to be a relatively mindless project for work. Useful to prevent foaming insanity during printer and scanner installs.
Much progress has been made toward the elimination of debt and savings - although it may be the end of this year before all but the house is discharged. Still, even with making extra payments on things and savings, Ms. Packratty often finds a bit of money remaining at the end of the month. This was facilitated greatly by a bright young AC repairman who discovered that the reason the AC was not cooling was because some aged fire dampers in the ductwork had snapped shut from old age and metal fatigue and were preventing any real airflow between the cooler and the vents. Although the summer was nastily hot, the portable wheel around ac upstairs was not pressed into regular service and the upstairs remained tolerable most of the time.
And on a final note - Ms. Packratty discovered a wonderful product and a lovely service during 2010. The product is Firefly vodka's Sweet Tea vodka made in SC and the service is organic vegetable and fruit delivery from Nature's Garden Delivered which is a special benison during the 4 long months when the Peachtree Road Farmer's market is closed. Ms. Packratty is also enamored of Malabrigo's Chunky and Rasta yarns, but yarn pashes don't count.

She does have three friends who are suffering from long term unemployment and asks any readers to think good thoughts in their direction. For some reason she is quite sure that 2011 will be a better year and hope this is true, especially for these friends.

2011 Reading to Date:

"The World Made by Hand" and "The Witch of Hebron" by James Kunstler.
"The Garden Angel" and "Secret Keepers" by Mindy Friddle.
"The Sound of A Wild Snail Eating" by Elizabeth Tova Bailey.
"Provence A-Z" by Peter Mayle.

In progress "All Clear" by Connie Willis.

I am only counting new reading, no rereads and no books on tape count.



bout to start "All Clear" by Connie Willis.