I have 3 accounts with them (don't ask; dh thinks I'm insane...it's like one of those collection things, I guess. You buy one gecko knick-knack thinking it's cute and the next thing you know, you've got a collection of 300 geckos), and one of them I actually pay for thinking that I'd get better "service" with payment.
Well, as it turns out, I've had probably the worst luck with that account. Today, at the height of my feeling exceedingly grumpy and unloved, it suddenly ate one of my msgs. It had placed this msg into my Spam folder. I clicked on the msg, hit the "Not Spam" button, which would normally place the unoffending msg in the Inbox, and Voila! gone forever. I searched high and low in all my folders of that account to no avail.
I'm just hopping pissed because that was one msg today that could have brought a smile to my face (that's a hunch based on the fact that the sender was someone I had sent a thank-you note to yesterday, and I'm guessing it would have been a lovely you're-welcome note back).
A friend of ours had sent me a msg about the evils of Google mail and how it spies on your msgs, but, really, I don't give a crap about being spied on if the provider promises not to eat my messages up before I get a chance to read them.
"To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge." ~ Benjamin Disraeli (1804 - 1881)
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Heeey, were they talking about me?
This was in a little blurb in an About.com e-newsletter, and I swear it's something that could be about our holiday newsletters (I don't claim to write the funniest ones, but we've had compliments to that extent).
"Written by two very funny people, my husband's parents' annual holiday newsletter is one of the best reads of the year. And every year they threaten that it's the "last one they'll ever write." Eventually, when they make good on that threat, I'll have to get over it, and keep in mind how stressful it is for them."
Stressful, yes, and I threaten every year not to do it too.
"To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge." ~ Benjamin Disraeli (1804 - 1881)
"Written by two very funny people, my husband's parents' annual holiday newsletter is one of the best reads of the year. And every year they threaten that it's the "last one they'll ever write." Eventually, when they make good on that threat, I'll have to get over it, and keep in mind how stressful it is for them."
Stressful, yes, and I threaten every year not to do it too.
"To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge." ~ Benjamin Disraeli (1804 - 1881)
You know you're a writer when...
1) other people worry about voices inside their heads, and you worry that the voices inside your head are merely yours and not your characters'.
2) you eavesdrop for a 'greater good'.
3) nobody you meet in real life is as much fun as your imaginary friends.
4) people piss you off and you can't wait to get your revenge by putting them in your story (doing the literary version of a voodoo doll on them ).
5) you know you're getting ass-spread, but you sit and type anyway (guess this applies to online addicts too).
"To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge." ~ Benjamin Disraeli (1804 - 1881)
2) you eavesdrop for a 'greater good'.
3) nobody you meet in real life is as much fun as your imaginary friends.
4) people piss you off and you can't wait to get your revenge by putting them in your story (doing the literary version of a voodoo doll on them ).
5) you know you're getting ass-spread, but you sit and type anyway (guess this applies to online addicts too).
"To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge." ~ Benjamin Disraeli (1804 - 1881)
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Got the garlic in
Life got so crazy this fall, dh almost forgot to put the garlic in. Luckily, he took a moment this past Wednesday to put in 70 cloves, which, unless the onion maggots take over, should yield some lovely bulbs by next fall.
Since I'm PMSing, and feeling mighty pissy right now, I guess I should refrain from typing anything else here I may regret later. The in-laws can be so touchy.
"To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge." ~ Benjamin Disraeli (1804 - 1881)
Since I'm PMSing, and feeling mighty pissy right now, I guess I should refrain from typing anything else here I may regret later. The in-laws can be so touchy.
"To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge." ~ Benjamin Disraeli (1804 - 1881)
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
The family that rakes together...
...gets to reap the benefits of the "black gold" that composted leaves become. We can't get over the people who bag their leaves to be hauled to the dump or who *shudder* burn their leaves. C'mon! They are throwing away the best free rich soil.
That said, I am thankful we don't have more trees up by the house. And, of course, we don't rake all the leaves on the whole 27 acres. But, it was good exercise, and we have free mulch and gold soil later. Plus the dogs (we're dog-sitting for a friend right now - see Sadie and Gali in the photo together in the pen right after their nap) had such fun. They were worse than the kids...running through the leaf piles and jumping on our tarp every time we pulled another load down to the blueberries area.
"To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge." ~ Benjamin Disraeli (1804 - 1881)
Thursday, November 15, 2007
To paraphrase Robert Palmer...
"Might as well face it, I'm addicted to House."
Since starting up NetFlix in October, we've been watching House. We'd never seen it on T.V., so we began with the first episode, season one. I am embarrassed to admit (in addition to quoting Robert Palmer) that I am rather addicted to the show. I guess what appeals to me, beside acerbic humor, is that fact that the nicest and prettiest character on the show is an atheist. The main character, House, may also be atheist, but it was never announced out-right like it was for the other character.
Luckily, I'm not (and neither is dh) an addictive personality, so I can quit at any point. On the other hand, I hope that we'll have caught up to the current season by the time we stop NetFlix in the spring when the days lengthen and the growing season starts. We plan to do NetFlix only in the winter when it's too dark and cold for being outside in the evenings.
"To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge." ~ Benjamin Disraeli (1804 - 1881)
Since starting up NetFlix in October, we've been watching House. We'd never seen it on T.V., so we began with the first episode, season one. I am embarrassed to admit (in addition to quoting Robert Palmer) that I am rather addicted to the show. I guess what appeals to me, beside acerbic humor, is that fact that the nicest and prettiest character on the show is an atheist. The main character, House, may also be atheist, but it was never announced out-right like it was for the other character.
Luckily, I'm not (and neither is dh) an addictive personality, so I can quit at any point. On the other hand, I hope that we'll have caught up to the current season by the time we stop NetFlix in the spring when the days lengthen and the growing season starts. We plan to do NetFlix only in the winter when it's too dark and cold for being outside in the evenings.
"To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge." ~ Benjamin Disraeli (1804 - 1881)
Monday, November 12, 2007
They're molting...they're molting...
Not a very good parody of the Wicked Witch of the West. :}
Our chickens are molting. Not only do they look bad, but our 9 hens (2 of which may still be too young to lay) are giving us 1 egg every 1 to 2 days. Pretty pathetic.
Speaking of chickens, we ate one of the ones we had culled a few weeks back last night. The flavor sure was intense. For some reason, the skin was pretty tough though. Oh well, saved me from eating too much fat.
Speaking of fat (as the song goes "One thing leads to another..."), I think I may have gastric reflux (GERD). At least I hope that is what it is and not something more serious involving the heart. I am going to lay off the alcohol, coffee, and chocolates for a bit and see if that helps. Dang! I refuse to lay off fatty foods for now though. Life would just not be worth living if I couldn't have at least that.
"To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge." ~ Benjamin Disraeli (1804 - 1881)
Our chickens are molting. Not only do they look bad, but our 9 hens (2 of which may still be too young to lay) are giving us 1 egg every 1 to 2 days. Pretty pathetic.
Speaking of chickens, we ate one of the ones we had culled a few weeks back last night. The flavor sure was intense. For some reason, the skin was pretty tough though. Oh well, saved me from eating too much fat.
Speaking of fat (as the song goes "One thing leads to another..."), I think I may have gastric reflux (GERD). At least I hope that is what it is and not something more serious involving the heart. I am going to lay off the alcohol, coffee, and chocolates for a bit and see if that helps. Dang! I refuse to lay off fatty foods for now though. Life would just not be worth living if I couldn't have at least that.
"To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge." ~ Benjamin Disraeli (1804 - 1881)
Friday, November 09, 2007
Bees and not bees
One of my beefs is that people tend to call any flying, buzzing thing a 'bee.' So, in addition to bees, they call wasps, yellow jackets, and possibly even flies, bees. It's not so much what they call these insects that bother me, however, it's the fact that they treat them all the same, and that is their tendency to "swat to kill."
If you didn't already know about the wonderful qualities, and quirky life-habits, of bees, the NY Times article below will enlighten you. And if you do know the difference between bees, wasps, and yellow jackets, then you should also know that you are dooming your food future by killing bees indiscriminantly with, say, yellow jackets. Nectar for thought, isn't it?
---------------
November 9, 2007
Op-Ed Contributor
The Real Life of Bees
By SUSAN BRACKNEY
The walking, talking, sneaker-wearing honeybees in Jerry Seinfeld’s animated film certainly are cute. But if a beekeeper like me had been in the director’s chair, “Bee Movie” would have looked quite a bit different.
In Hollywood’s version, there are more than three times the number of male roles than female ones, but a cartoon of my own hive would have thousands of leading ladies and only a handful of male extras.
The nurses that tend the young and the workers that forage for pollen; the guards that keep predators like skunks away and the undertaker bees that unceremoniously haul out the dead: they’re all female. And whereas the movie’s protagonist is repeatedly told he must choose just one job and stick with it, my honeybees rotate through all of the available duties.
“Bee Movie” makes only passing mention of the queen. But she’s the life of the hive, too busy producing perhaps a million eggs during her two-to-three-year existence even to feed herself (she has attendants for that). Were my Russian queen drawn for the big screen (think Natasha from “Rocky & Bullwinkle”), she would make quick work of the macho pollen jocks in “Bee Movie.”
That’s because non-animated drones don’t collect pollen, or make beeswax, or even have stingers. If Mr. Seinfeld wanted realism (and an R rating), his male bees would be sex workers who do little more than mate with the queen — after which their genitals snap off. Worse: when winter comes, worker bees shove the freeloading males out into the cold. If drones are required in the spring, the queen will simply make more of them.
Apiarists haven’t had much reason to laugh this year, because bees have been ravaged by colony collapse disorder, a mysterious malady that’s caused some beekeepers to lose 90 percent of their hives.
But one of every three or four bites of food we eat is thanks to bees; we truck bees many miles to pollinate about 90 different crops, from apples and oranges to almonds and blueberries, a punishing circuit that overtaxes the few colonies left. Of course, in “Bee Movie,” pollen jocks merely buzz past and barren landscapes bloom instantaneously into Technicolor glory.
But all these apiarian inaccuracies will be easy to forgive if wise-cracking animated honeybees finally get people to care about the rapidly disappearing real thing.
Susan Brackney is the author of “The Insatiable Gardener’s Guide.”
"To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge." ~ Benjamin Disraeli (1804 - 1881)
If you didn't already know about the wonderful qualities, and quirky life-habits, of bees, the NY Times article below will enlighten you. And if you do know the difference between bees, wasps, and yellow jackets, then you should also know that you are dooming your food future by killing bees indiscriminantly with, say, yellow jackets. Nectar for thought, isn't it?
---------------
November 9, 2007
Op-Ed Contributor
The Real Life of Bees
By SUSAN BRACKNEY
The walking, talking, sneaker-wearing honeybees in Jerry Seinfeld’s animated film certainly are cute. But if a beekeeper like me had been in the director’s chair, “Bee Movie” would have looked quite a bit different.
In Hollywood’s version, there are more than three times the number of male roles than female ones, but a cartoon of my own hive would have thousands of leading ladies and only a handful of male extras.
The nurses that tend the young and the workers that forage for pollen; the guards that keep predators like skunks away and the undertaker bees that unceremoniously haul out the dead: they’re all female. And whereas the movie’s protagonist is repeatedly told he must choose just one job and stick with it, my honeybees rotate through all of the available duties.
“Bee Movie” makes only passing mention of the queen. But she’s the life of the hive, too busy producing perhaps a million eggs during her two-to-three-year existence even to feed herself (she has attendants for that). Were my Russian queen drawn for the big screen (think Natasha from “Rocky & Bullwinkle”), she would make quick work of the macho pollen jocks in “Bee Movie.”
That’s because non-animated drones don’t collect pollen, or make beeswax, or even have stingers. If Mr. Seinfeld wanted realism (and an R rating), his male bees would be sex workers who do little more than mate with the queen — after which their genitals snap off. Worse: when winter comes, worker bees shove the freeloading males out into the cold. If drones are required in the spring, the queen will simply make more of them.
Apiarists haven’t had much reason to laugh this year, because bees have been ravaged by colony collapse disorder, a mysterious malady that’s caused some beekeepers to lose 90 percent of their hives.
But one of every three or four bites of food we eat is thanks to bees; we truck bees many miles to pollinate about 90 different crops, from apples and oranges to almonds and blueberries, a punishing circuit that overtaxes the few colonies left. Of course, in “Bee Movie,” pollen jocks merely buzz past and barren landscapes bloom instantaneously into Technicolor glory.
But all these apiarian inaccuracies will be easy to forgive if wise-cracking animated honeybees finally get people to care about the rapidly disappearing real thing.
Susan Brackney is the author of “The Insatiable Gardener’s Guide.”
"To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge." ~ Benjamin Disraeli (1804 - 1881)
Thursday, November 08, 2007
Organic solutions for the Mint Green: Move over Baby Einstein
This from my CafeMom friend, Susanna, about a green product (something dear to my heart), from Vancouver, my home town. How cool is that! What a small world. :)
Organic solutions for the Mint Green: Move over Baby Einstein
Organic solutions for the Mint Green: Move over Baby Einstein
Monday, November 05, 2007
The best laid plans...
I had planned on being online and doing a few things (including NaNoWriMo) while in DE. But, as we found out after arriving, my FIL's phone line had gone from bad to worse and it was so staticky that we couldn't log on. DH called the night we first arrived - Wednesday, but Verizon, being worse than AT&T (is that possible??), didn't come over until Friday afternoon. The guy said he tested the line and that it was a damaged cable. Promising me that it'd be fixed by Saturday morning, the truck left. And what do you know? Saturday night rolled around and still the line was bad. Big surprise. They called Dh on his cell phone Saturday night and said they'd be over on Sunday to fix the line. Yeah, right. We'll believe it when we hear it. We left before 6a.m. on Sunday so we won't find out until our next visit - which, I hope, won't be for another year, but that's just me being optimistic.
Today I, Ms. Excitement, am spending the day unpacking and doing laundry, trying to get rid of the disgustingly musty house smell that pervade our clothes (and hair) every time we stay at my FIL's place. The kids are under strict orders that when dh and I get old and start to lose our sense of smell and forget to open up the house to air it out and therefore start to get that stench that some old people who forget to bathe get, they are to 1) tell us right away, 2) forcibly air the house out if we're in denial, and 3) persuade us to move into a smaller place that we hadn't stunk up yet.
At the risk of seeming like I'm taking over my sister's blog (Thought for Food), I'm going to continue talking about the food we've had.
I could write odes to the crab cakes at Captain's Catch in DE! They are one of the best crab cakes we have ever tasted. Every visit, we try to have it once or twice (and hope we hadn't ingested too much heavy metals or other icky stuff that generally comes with eating seafood).
Then, there is Blacklab Breads that we discovered this past December. They make beautiful artisan breads and the most amazing focaccias. We took a special run to get their anchovy focaccia on Saturday because they only make those on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays.
A place we tried for the first time, even though we talked about going there for years, was The Back Burner. The food was excellent and the service friendly. We managed to catch it on Thursday, which is their lobster special night, and therefore I had to order that since I hadn't had lobster in a while. It was messy, but worth every minute working the meat out.
"To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge." ~ Benjamin Disraeli (1804 - 1881)
Today I, Ms. Excitement, am spending the day unpacking and doing laundry, trying to get rid of the disgustingly musty house smell that pervade our clothes (and hair) every time we stay at my FIL's place. The kids are under strict orders that when dh and I get old and start to lose our sense of smell and forget to open up the house to air it out and therefore start to get that stench that some old people who forget to bathe get, they are to 1) tell us right away, 2) forcibly air the house out if we're in denial, and 3) persuade us to move into a smaller place that we hadn't stunk up yet.
At the risk of seeming like I'm taking over my sister's blog (Thought for Food), I'm going to continue talking about the food we've had.
I could write odes to the crab cakes at Captain's Catch in DE! They are one of the best crab cakes we have ever tasted. Every visit, we try to have it once or twice (and hope we hadn't ingested too much heavy metals or other icky stuff that generally comes with eating seafood).
Then, there is Blacklab Breads that we discovered this past December. They make beautiful artisan breads and the most amazing focaccias. We took a special run to get their anchovy focaccia on Saturday because they only make those on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays.
A place we tried for the first time, even though we talked about going there for years, was The Back Burner. The food was excellent and the service friendly. We managed to catch it on Thursday, which is their lobster special night, and therefore I had to order that since I hadn't had lobster in a while. It was messy, but worth every minute working the meat out.
"To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge." ~ Benjamin Disraeli (1804 - 1881)
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