14 June 2003 / Saturday - I was up all night doing whatever, as usual -- the night before my brother instant messaged me inviting me to my niece's place, Mary Frances and her hubby, Brian, for a turkey dinner and to see Peter, my nephew, who I had not seen in about a year -- he was returning to the Coast Guard Academy tomorrow. I was very tired, but said yes since I had not been able to give them the few Christmas gifts I had sitting here for over 6 months already, and I really do not have too much to eat here in the house, so a good meal is always something to look forward to. I also had to get to the post office to send some stuff out, and they were only open until noon on Saturdays. I left the house for the closest post office at 20 minutes to noon -- it were closed! OK, so I rush to one slightly further away -- the postmaster was at the door ready to lock it when I grabbed the freekin door, swung it open and walked in -- got that done, went home and showered -- grabbed my camera and a flat of canned green peppers and tomatoes to take to them -- this was at 14h, when I should have been there already! -- when I was about 5 miles out I remembered that I did not bring the Holiday gifts! DAMN! I just kept going.
Although my brother gave me really good instructions, I
goofed as usual -- I made a turn when I should have gone straight,
and wound up almost at the south Jersey beaches! Turned around,
and eventually found the place, like 2.5 hours late! -- I had
never been to their place before, and it is sort of back woodsy,
as I like it -- a pen with 2
dogs outside 
, which
I petted -- another dog inside and a 16
year old cat that is always outside 
-- I petted everything I could, but cannot remember any of their
names --
Besides MF and Brian, Lyn
(my brother's daughter) and Tom
(her hubby), Chris
(my brother's wife, who was using a crutch due to a fall or something),
Peter (sporting a kewl crop of chin hair!) and Matt 
(Billy's two boys -- and Mandy,
his youngest daughter), and of course daddy, Bill, were there -- they had all eaten
already, naturally, so the goodies had to be reheated. I noticed
that MF had a large black and blue spot on her leg -- it was due
to a spider bite -- gawd, a dracula spider?!
Everything was yummy, and we all had cake and coffee, real coffee, after I gobbled everything down -- the inside dog is kewl, a sort of mutt, but easy to like. I also saw the new grandson, Christopher, who is about 18 months old, a red head like his grandmother -- I forget the dog's name. Matt found a tick on my shirt as I sat at the table -- not really surprising because of the heavily wooded area.
It was still light when I left -- they gave me about a dozen home baked cupcakes, 2 bottles of wine, and 3 cans of coffee, and Billy gave me 10 large bags of cat litter from his stash, since he doesn't have a cat anymore, PLUS turkey bones from last Christmas and today for my cats -- they love them. All the stuff will come in handy. The drive back was easier than getting there -- on the way there I noticed that the Jeep swerved to the left when I would use the breaks, which I found strange -- returning it was noticeably less of a problem -- I think it had to do with a bunch of books I had in the back on the left side -- now with the couple hundred pounds of cat litter on the right, it sort of made the load more even. It got dark fast, the coffee I had from Wawa did not quite do its job because three times along the road my eyes closed for an instant, and I was already halfway into the left oncoming lane with cars coming my way when they opened again -- it was scarey! I even thought of stopping along the road somewhere and snoozing for a while, but decided to keep going and try to stay awake. I did keep going, somehow did not fall asleep at the wheel, and here I am, back in Trenton and half asleep! Zzzzzzzzzzzz
3 July 2003 / Thursday - I have been trying to crawl into bed at about midnight the last couple days -- but I still get tired about half through the next day! Maybe it takes getting used to after sooooo many months of staying up all night until daylight? My ass has been dragging way too much for me to feel comfortable with, thus the change.
I spent the last five hours making some new general images for my eBay pages -- and a sort of kewl animated thing, after five attempts, which you can see below. Tomorrow is a big holiday and nobody invited me anywhere, so I guess I shall be here cleaning the kitchen again and trying to get an entirely new batch of goodies up on eBay -- it has been VERY slow lately, and my new eBay store had a single sale in the four weeks it has been active! Some things I want to relist and others will go into a box for the hospital thrift shop, so at least I can hopefully have some tax-free donations to reduce my income tax this year -- I did not have any deductions last year, and 2002 really sucked otherwise, although this one has been even worse thus far! I have to go to Sam's Club to get food for me and the cats because the cupboard is almost bare again -- even stuff that I have had for many months such as dried lentils and a really old bread mix that had to be at least 4 years old -- it was yummy, though!
Speaking of the cats, here is my latest male Sphynx kitty
-- have not named him yet, but he is the friendlist ever 
, and he loves to sit on the PowerBook
when I am at my desk! He was the only kitten born on April
Fool's Day, so he is about 13
weeks old now -- it was a kewl 1 April
surprise because I did not even notice that Fabiola was pregnant,
although her nipples did start to develop -- I guess I should
have known! You may notice that the pic file number is 2108,
meaning that I took that many pics with the digital Nikon since
I got the thing!
17 July 2003 / Thursday - OK, where should I start, and how can I make long stories short?
At the beginning of July I took a pic of the large carp in the pond in West Trenton -- now I cannot find the photo -- I take loads of pics, process them, then file them in computer folders until needed -- have no idea where that one got to! I feed the fish when I go to West Trenton -- after going to Sam's Club, I took some bleach and fabric softer to W.Trenton because I still do my wash there -- could not find the large carp, and it always swam up to me looking for food -- took some of the usual leftovers in the fridge, MY refrigerator -- a lifeless salad, 2 unknown-looking things, some pasta with 3 shrimp that looked dried out already, half eaten potato salad, and some kind of a hunk of meat with vegies -- that evening Bernar calls me asking what happened to some food they wanted to eat that night! Many months ago he said that anything he did not want me to take would have a note on the top -- NOTHING had a note on the top! I said that I would bring all the crap back the next day but he said not to bother, he would make something else. I asked about the fish -- he said it jumped out of the pond and was loaded with eggs, so I guess it was a female -- I did not even bother reminding him that I had told him several times that if and when it died that he should put it in MY freezer so I could use it for the cats -- I was not interested in whatever story he would come up with simply because I have heard so many over the years! Oh, yes, and not a mention of the laundry stuff I left there for his use -- also not a big surprise! If the pic eventually is found, I shall include it.
On 7 July I looked in on Hillary. She was barely moving, which was unusual, and she had just about finished the last of the batch of crickets I brought her a couple days before.
On the 11th I got together about 8 boxes of stuff and took it to the local Hospital thrift shop as a tax deductible donation -- new printed t-shirts, old medical books and others, Beanie Babies and other stuffed bears, LP records and VHS tapes, some framed pictures, etc. -- the entire back of the Jeep was packed. Over 3k worth of goodies!
Yesterday, 16 July, I finally went to transfer title to the Jeep and get the yearly registrations renewed for the Jeep and the Festiva. Since the Trenton DMV is impossible to go to because of the monster crowds, I went to one south of here in Deptford, sort of on the way to my brother's place, where I was going to stop as a surprise visit to drop off the Christmas gifts -- got to the Department of Motor Vehicles place at 09h -- went in with cane, as I usually do -- went to information desk to see what I had to do and where, and the lady was very helpful -- asked if they had any accomodation for handicapped -- NO, said a decidedly redneck-looking security guard, I have to stand in line like everybody else! I found a cubicle on the other side of the room with ledge and chair to fill out the couple forms -- lady from in back comes over and says I cannot sit there, I have to fill out the forms in the lobby -- I mentioned they are high counters with no chairs -- like it mattered to her! So I found another unoccupied cubicle and finished doing the forms. I was in an upbeat mood simply because I was out of the apartment and enjoying the nice day, even though it was very warm, away from the dumb computer!
Back to info desk -- where do I get all this shit done? In line 5 -- OK, so I go to line 5, which was about 9 people long already, so I looked for a chair to sit on -- the stupid chairs in the waiting room were all connected together, so I grabbed one from an empty cubicle and dragged it over to the line -- my turn comes after a while -- nice lady, Jean, waited on me -- she took all the papers and said to have a seat in the waiting room -- redneck dude comes over and says I should move the chair back to where I got it! QUITE LOUDLY I told him that there are federal laws that provide handicapped accomodations just about everywhere, and it was NOT my job to find a freekin chair, drag it back to the line, NOR take the thing back to where it was in the first place -- this state agency was in non-complaince of Federal mandates! -- he mumbled something or other about why didn't I come in a wheel chair -- would that have helped since all the counters were above standing elbow height? What does he do, lift the wheelchair to the counter height? He diappeared fast!
My name was called twice -- something about they could not find my handicapped ID number in their database -- big freekin surprise because my ID card was typed by hand and dated 1990, which was probably before they even thought about a database! She would have to call Trenton and fax them stuff. So after 12h, following a 3 hour wait, I finally paid and asked where I could get the Jeep inspected. It was down the road a ways, and they gave me a sheet with directions, which was sort of useful. Years ago I would get my Festiva inspected there on my way to my brother's place when he lived in Glassboro. OK, I arrive -- it had changed completely -- the line was at least 30 cars long! The day was already sweltering hot, and the fan in the Jeep is not working, so I could not use the air conditioning -- left the door open and stuck my feet out -- put on a German CD with really kewl disco music and had the volume at the max -- it was fun! I was even going to stand up and dance beside the car, but decided aganst it, for no good reason. A blobby middle-aged female who did the inspections in one of the bays screamed something at me, which I did not hear nor had interest in hearing. There were 4 bays, as I recall, and guess which one I finally got? Yuppers, that screaming lady's!
5 August 2003 / Tuesday - [continued - the Jeep story]
So I drive in -- you used to sit in the car for a couple tests and drive it up to the next one, but now, apparently, they get you out right at the start and herd you to the other end of the inspection lanes. That nice lady seemed to take forever with even the first whatever she was checking, then came other stops along the process, each just as slow -- cars in the other three lanes came and went while mine sort of languished at each whatever. I walked outside a little, came back in, then walked some more -- the day was getting hotter and I was really sweating already.
OK, so the Jeep finally makes it to the end of the line, and another lady looks at some printout -- I went over and asked her how it did -- she looked at the paper, then looked all over the car and said she would have to check with that nice fat-as-a-well-fed-hog gal at the other end because she did not see anything wrong with it. While she was gone I noticed a smallish thingy under the windshield wiper that the second gal must have missed, so I took it and stuck it in my pocket -- she returned and stuck a FAILED INSPECTION sticker on the inside of the windshield -- I, naturally, asked why -- she then had to recheck the car, taking a while to find the really serious defect -- a god damn screw was missing from the lower part of the right front turn signal!! You gotta be kidding me! She grabbed the facing and it did not move -- how the hell would that be dangerous when driving if the fuckin thing was rock solid on the chasis? So the lady says to me, quite straight-faced, "You need a screw" -- curiously, and quite unlike me, I did not say a word and just left -- in reality I was thinking of going to that fat bitch at the other end and telling her she needs a screw more than I do, and that it could be arranged somehow!
On the way out I stopped and took out that little slip of paper I found on the windshield and looked at it -- at least she was a master artist and drew a very good portrait of her over-fed lovely face!
hmmmmmm Was that her idea of a joke? I was finding it less funny by the second! OK, so let me see, what to do? When I got to the town I stopped in a ratty-looking car dealership garage and asked them if they had a screw for the light -- the two dudes were having lunch, and about the only thought about a screw they might have had was when they got home to their girl friend -- they could not help me and continued eating whatever it was they had in their brown bags -- so I continued on to a small mall and went into a dollar store looking for packs of screws -- they did not have any! Parked near me was a truck from some TV cable company with a guy inside talking to somebody on the parking lot. I went over and briefly explained to them my slight technical glitch, and he scrounged around on the dashboard and found me 4 different ones -- one of them worked -- I thanked him profusely and returned to the inspection station -- went around to the far side where one usually goes for a minor reinspect. Some male comes out and tells me I would have to get back in line! GAWD, they seem to have a really good intercommunication system working among themselves! I left, slightly pissed, but what the hell -- I finally did some positive things, missed going to my brother's place because it was too late already (after 15h), and I would now go back to Trenton.
I took some weird, unknown road back, and discovered that it went right by the Sam's Club in Delran that I like to go to -- did not feel like stopping there, but remembered there was an inspection station just slightly north, found it, and drove past all the cars to the far end where the reinspection stop was. It was now about 30 minutes to closing time, so hopefully I would be in luck -- some young dude was inspecting a motor cycle and told me I would be next -- not a problem, at this point I could wait! OK, so I told him about the bitch at the other place, what I thought about telling her, how I got a screw (oh, shut up and get your mind out of the gutter!), went back and they said I would have to get in line again -- that surprised him! No Shit Sherlock! In any case, he took a very quick look at the light cover, saw it had 2 screws, felt it to see if it was tight, went inside and brought me back the usual sticker that it passed inspection! I felt like giving the guy a big hug and a smooch, but somehow I held back my emotions!
Along the road back home I thought about that missing screw -- Bernar never had to remove that turn signal cover for anything -- the bulb you replace from inside the hood -- every other screw on everything else external was intact and in its place -- hmmmmmm Why was that single screw not where it should have been? I saw that blobby hippo bitch who does not like disco music even almost crawling / bouncing around the lower parts of the Jeep at the far end of the inspection lane and never saw that kind of activity before during the yearly inspections of any of the vehicles I ever had over the years -- I bet you are thinking the exact same thing I did?? In the end it really does not matter that much -- she got her jollies, and I passed inspection -- we both got what we wanted! Well, almost -- I still think she needs a good screw!
Oh, yes, and the days have been very hot, humid and muggy lately -- with a lot of rain.
Horacio sent me a photo of what his new casa de campo looks like -- only the small one on the left was on the property when I visited Tenerife last year, and that is the kitchen -- the new addition is a pre-fab from Scandinavia and is really kewl looking -- now Inma and he can spend weekends there, among all the tropical plants and savoring the wine harvest that I assume he will have this season.
7 August 2003 / Thursday
- Oh, well, the inevitable happened -- actually, just like the
KERNAL PANIC I had when playing with
my TiBook on OSX, I had been almost wishing for this to happen
to me, just to have another new experience -- and anyway, just
the word they use for it sounded so, ehhhhhhhh....... prohibited,
sexy and erotic -- I did not
know how it would feel when it happened to me -- so last night
I checked on a pic file that I had on Libro.ws,
and instead of the web site or pic I got the following 
page -- ahhhhhhhhhhh,
it was almost too much to handle on an otherwise slow and uneventful
day that found me resting up a lot more than usual -- so that
is how these teenaged undersexed
third world country males get off? If they are as uncreative in
bed as they seem to be with their hacks, I guess Turkish women
must be some of the least satisfied
on the planet? Not even a pic or anything, and the freekin email
link was not
active, so I could not send my best regards for a job well done!
I guess he thought he was proving something to the cyber world
-- whatever it was, it escapes me completely.
I called the virtual host around midnight to see what happened and what could be done about it -- the seemingly tired dude, Bobby, said that the hacker hacked the root password for that particular UNIX server and each and every web site hosted by it had the same charming message posted on it, replacing the index page! Curiously, I always chose UNIX servers because I thought they were more resistant to hackers than the usual Wintel servers -- I guess I cannot be right about everything! Anyway, he said that ALL the files on the server were wiped out and that I would have to put them back up -- not a real problem for me because it was one of my more recent web sites and there was not a whole lot in that folder yet -- what was on the web site was linked to stuff on my other servers, and they had not been hacked. There was a slight glitch though -- MANY of the loose pics I had there were for eBay auction items, mostly books, that I had loaded over a couple months -- ALL of those files were in my eBay folders and I would have to fish them out individually using my hand-written item lists -- there are dozens of list pages, each containing 50+ items -- fuck it -- that would take me weeks!
I checked my latest couple pages of active eBay auctions and luckily there were only a couple dozen files on that server -- checking the things on eBay I saw some other missing pics that I use for my item description formatting, and it was sort of easy to gather them together and reload -- everything current was reloaded before 02h and things were back to normal once again.
Boy o boy would I really like to meet that dude, whoever he is -- we might even become great pals! You know, my web site was nothing compared to the corporate web sites that were probably sharing that server -- they would have zillions fo files, cgi script and other techy stuff loaded and would have to reload it all, IF they had updated their backup files on a daily basis -- in the meantime they would be losing business -- matter of fact, since the virtual host did not bother notifying their clients about the hack, it could be weeks before they even noticed it -- the web masters would probably get really pissed! As I said at the start, I was secretly wishing for a hack just to see what it would be like -- now I know -- what a freekin disappointment -- even casual sex used to be a lot more exciting -- sometimes, anyway!
22 August 2003 / Friday - Boy, do they have plenty of worms for everybody! I have gotten hundreds of emails generated by the latest offspring of some hacker/s -- almost ALL through the eBay servers, a detail that they obviously neglected to make public! It caused a three hour outage on their web site, and they blamed it on a six minute switch from generator power to grid power at one of their several main server farms. DUH!
What it shows is that way too many commercial / company servers do not have effective firewalls or updated virus detection software on their, YES, you guessed it, on their Microsoft operating systems! It sure keeps their IT (Information Technology) people from joining the ranks of the unemployed! As usual Apple / Macs were not affected. And the normal peep, the person who just has a computer to send emails and buy stuff online, unwittingly opens the attached virus files which are executable, meaning they begin doing their thing on that puter -- they simply got to the email lists of the affected machines and sent copies of itself, that wriggling worm, to the names on that person's email list, some of which would also open the attachment and perpetuate the creature.
An uncle in Virginia who recently installed firewall software on his PC told me he was finding 1-2 emails per second attempting to get through the firewall -- none of which did, of course! It is sort of like the domino effect, causing ripples of mass emails to clog up servers and in some cases, cause them to shut down. The sobig worm and its several variants has been extremely active for 3 days already, but there is also good news -- it was coded to stop proliferating on about 10 September, as I recall -- maybe it is the hacker-geek's birthday? If this is the case, I would like to extend my most sincere wishes on his birthday, and ask that he send me his home address so that I can make it public -- I am sure that he would receive many surprises arriving to his front door!
Fresh29 August 2003 / Friday
- On Tuesday I went to the Super
Fresh supermarket in West Trenton to get some oatmeal raison
cookies, and to take some stuff to the post office. Got there
at a tad after 13h -- I slightly
glanced at large signs in the windows, a couple saying 50% OFF -- once inside I noticed
many half
off signs and it began dawning on me that the signs in
the windows 
also
mentioned that they were closing!
There were not too many shoppers -- many senior citizens and minorities -- some of the shelves seemed slightly bare -- hmmmmm, let me see -- half off -- maybe I could get a few things cheapo -- where should I start? OK, how about the cookies -- great there was a pack left, right into my small hand basket -- hey, and they have a couple birthday cakes, which I love -- OK, that fits in the basket too -- how about bananas? Oh, but the produce, fruits and vegetables are NOT half off -- oh, well, let me see what is in that aisle -- oh, kewl -- pickles, marinade, steak sauce -- stuff I never buy because they cost more than I can afford -- OK, so I pick a bottle of this, one of that, a couple of that other -- damn, my little basket is full already!
So while I am looking for a normal shopping cart more customers walk in -- back to seeing what I can use -- kasha, cuscus, Spanish rice mix with saffron, bags of lentils, large cans of crushed tomatos and tomato sauce -- hey, this is way cheaper than at the dollar store! Many different condiments, large tins of sardines (basically for the cats) -- not much cat food left on the shelves, but I did find 2 boxes of something they would love and 3-packs of Canadian liquid supplement which they enjoy -- a carton of 18 eggs, 4 packs of Munster cheese, a container of cottage cheese, gallon of milk, 3 thingys of butter -- oh, but the meats are regular price too! A couple large cans of Goya garbanzos, a package of small round corn tortilla thingys which are great for improvised sandwiches, all the Starbucks bean coffee they had left, and the all the Bokar beans too. I slowly did all the aisles a second time just to see if I missed anything! Many elderly ladies literally scooping stuff off the shelves into their baskets! Not a lot of men or kids -- it was a work day, and very hot outside. Many gals were grabbing things from the frozen foods sections, but I rarely buy them because I prefer fresh -- even though many fresh things end up in the freezer compartment of my fridge anyway! A couple kinds of mustard and horseradish, a few Toblerone white and dark chocolate, Greek seasoning, Turkish seasoning, the last 2 thingys of cat treets on the shelves, small grinder bottles of pepper corns -- it is always fun to grind the pepper when making whatever I put together! OK, let me see if they have anything in that pile of stuff at the closed customer service window -- GAWD, DVDs -- a pile of Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets, another bunch of Spiderman and one of Lord of The Rings! In my shopping cart some of them went! Hey, while I am here I may as well get some bananas, even though they are normal priced.
OK, it is check out time, but holy shit, there are 4 lines open and each line is at least 6-7 people long, each with a completely overflowing cart! Two black ladys were in front of me and one would keep running back to the frozen food section to get a more of something, while the other one was looking through the cart and picking out spices she said she took too many of -- I missed them, so she gave them to me -- some chicken and steak marinade stuff. The few times I marinade anything I just keep throwing whatever I can find in, and it is not really that exciting. It was now about 15:30h and the freekin post office closes at 16:30 -- will I make it? I chatted with the gal in front of me, which helped pass the time. I got checked out -- had about 9 plastic bags of stuff -- this blows my entire food budget for September!
Left for the post office at 16:10h -- GREAT, I got there in time. I told the girls behind the counter about the sale at Super Fresh, and they were surprised -- one said it must be due to the new ShopRite that opened not that far away that is taking their business. I then went to my old place and left 2 birthday gifts and a card for Bernar and did some wash there -- for some reason he never seems to remember when my birthday arrives!
Today I went back again, just to get the above pics -- the large 50% OFF ones had disappeared-- hell, why not go inside to see what is left -- got a couple packs of Mediterranean Matzos, large cans of sauerkraut, dried chick peas = garbanzos, the packages of tapioca that were left -- I love the stuff -- wanted to treat myself to some a couple weeks ago, only to find that the packages I had stashed in the kitchen cabinet (that were at least 11 years old!) were moldy! Grabbed the last two 3-packs of that cat liquid stuff, a package of wheat tortilla rounds for those quicky sandwiche snacks, and the last 2 packages of Bokar Arabian bean coffee left in the coffee section. MOST shelves were empty -- there were only a couple milks left in the entire back-of-the-store refrigerated section -- the couple live lobsters that were there on Tuesday were gone -- today there were younger women with kids shopping, and they seemed to crowd around the frozen food cases with the kids grabbing what they liked. The meats and produce were still normal priced. The check out lines were not as long as on Tuesday.
So half the cheesecake and 3/4 of the birthday cake have disappeared already -- half the corn tortillas were transformed into ham and cheese snacks -- I hard boiled half the eggs, and finished a Toblerone white chocolate thingy -- and for the first time in many months I just made a pot of fresh ground coffee Starbucks!
I had shopped there for some 10 years already, simply because it was close to the home I had in that area -- the employees are friendly, the prices are OK, and a lot cheaper than some larger places nearby such as the one that Bernar always shops at. At Christmas I would always take some beanie bears and give them as Holiday gifts to the gals and guys (which I also do at the West Trenton post office) -- during the last presidential elections I gave them Bush, Hillary and Gore bears -- at Easter I took them beanie rabbits -- so they knew me from way back, and some of the employees, even some of the younger ones, had been there a few years. Apparently, those having some seniority will have the option of relocating to one of their 3-4 other stores in the Trenton area -- the other, newer peeps (and there are quite a few of them!) will simply be forced to join the growing unemployment lines! I shall miss them all!
Lights out
-- Before I forget about it, in the early morning hours of 14 August there was
a major electrical power grid outage on the upper east coast of
the US and Canada -- several
states and major Canadian cities had no power -- somebody sent
me this satellite image which fantastically shows the area affected
-- an entire chunk of the map is missing, where the red X is! 
-- some areas had no electricity for several days
-- Trenton was not affected, although curiously, my side of the
street did not have electricity for several hours on 5 August, but it was related to a
transformer glitch on a telephone pole right across the street
from me.
15 September 2003 / Monday
- On the 6th
I stopped by SuperFresh to see
the place again, and found it all boarded up 
[sniff....sniff]
The next day I thoroughly cleaned my bedroom -- first time since Yakshini had her last batch of kittens on 17 March! What a difference! On the 8th I got a haircut, the usual flat-top, but not the way I like it -- at least it was not hanging in my eyes as it had been -- it had been several months since the last time.
Saturday, the 13th around noon I was, as usual, debating what I should do that might make me feel that I really accomplished something that day -- it was a tossup between going to Sam's Club to get things I need, or to my brother's place to take him last years Christmas gifts -- after a couple hours of trying to decide, I loaded the gifts into the Jeep and started out -- maybe I could even hit the Sam's in Dekran after I leave Bill's place -- I forgot m,y digital camera. There was little traffic, and between rain showers and clouds, I got there in about 1.5 hours without getting lost. He had some kind of a silent stroke some weeks ago, and looked very thin -- apparently does not have a lot of energy. We talked about stuff, had a yummy snack/dinner (?) of creamed dried beef on toast and salad, and they made me normal coffee (they do not drink anything but decaf) -- I hope it was just a snack for them because if it was dinner, I can see why he looks so thin! Somebody he knows (NOT an MD) told him that his symptoms are similar to somebody they know who has multiple sclerosis -- so now that is what he thinks he might have and asked me if I knew of anybody in the family that had it! As usual, I suggested to him that he reactivate his ham radio interests, just to get his mind off of more depressing personal things -- something which I do frequently, and I think it works.
I keep trying to get them to sell the boxes full of stuff they have sitting around on eBay to have some extra moola flowing in, but for some reason they do not seem all that interested. Their new back enclosed sun porch is basically finished and looks really kewl -- wiring connections and finishing off is all that still has to be done. So Billy, Chris and Matt opened their goodies, what there was of them, and the other stuff for Peter and the three girls was left for whenever they see them. The two dogs are still yappy until I give them something to munch on, as usual. Chris showed me the Ziggy cakepan that Laura, an online Beanie friend, sent her from me -- really cute -- it is for my birthday cakes -- Chris makes really yummy ones. I guess it must have been around 17h or 18h that I decided it was time to get back to Trenton before the Sun sets and I change into a vampire, so we did the usual huggy thing and I was on my way. No thought at this point of trying to find my way to Sam's -- I can keep putting that off for some other time when I debate what I might do on a particular day. For weeks already I wanted to just go to his place, but my thoughts always got waylaid into some other activity, not as important, of course -- I was glad I got there again.
When I got back to the apartment I puttered around a little
-- decided I would clean my computer keyboard, the external one,
because some keys were sticking and a couple were difficult to
press -- it had been going on for weeks -- so I took off most
of the keys, brushed off the crap that was loose and cleaned the
rest of the crud with Windex -- 
-- it was not all that surprising, but almost less than I thought
I would find -- one of these days when I clean out my trackball,
I have to take a pic of all that stuff that I get out of the thing!
Then I slept, in bed, with Yakshini
and TigerGirl -- and when I
got up on Sunday, after a really weird dream about George Bush in Paris, I felt something
sticking in my ribs -- it was one of the cat's plastic balls with
a bell inside!
Yesterday I scanned some books, hoping to put them on eBay that night-- but I washed dishes and cleaned the cat litter boxes in the kitchen instead, reheated the chicken and pasta from two days ago, had dinner and fell asleep again! With any luck, I might list some of them this evening -- IF something else does not pop up and occupy me!
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Oh, and we may get at least some of the effects of Hurricane Isabel later this week -- possibly on Thursday (the red X is where I am) -- it has been a Category 5 storm, the most powerful kind, but has been losing strength as it moved over colder water -- it could pick up speed again over the Gulf Stream, but will probably reach land, if it does, as a Category 2 or 3. I have always loved hurricanes -- they remind humanity that there are some things over which they have little or no control, and we just have to learn to live with them somehow -- I used to walk on the beach at Wildwood during storms, just letting the wind and rain beat down on me, and here in Trenton I sometimes take my shoes off and walk through the streams of water in the street and even sit below the roof downspout and get thoroughly drenched! It is kewl fun! |
25 September 2003 / Thursday - A couple days ago I repotted some of the cacti and other plants I have in the large windows downstairs -- most of the pots were way too small for the couple years of growth that had appearered since the last change of pots -- I did not get around to the LARGE ones yet -- also added some sand to the top of the soil because I like sand and/or rounded pebbles around the plants.
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windows on side street showing the three hormongous cacti that have not been repotted in a couple years the rest of the plants are on square platforms in the center of the fronts of the two windows facing the main street |
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these are in the left front window -- what still has to be worked on is the spreading cactus stems that were growing up that wooden stick in the right background -- that will have to wait until I finally get around to cutting down all the bamboo across the street |
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these are in the right front window -- a few are from my place in Tenerife -- I eventually want to remove the old ratty linoleum tiles from the floor of the window parts and replace them with ceramic -- then I can rearrange the plants and spread them out a little -- maybe I could make lower wooden shelves for some of them which might allow me to get into the window spaces a little easier |
3 October 2003 / Friday
- Last week I went to West Trenton to wash some clothes and noticed
a red dog leash in the yard -- no dog anywhere -- on 1
October I went back, again to do some wash and to get leftovers
from the fridge and there was this adult female dog, one of those
Alaskan ones with the bright blue eyes -- really cute, large-ish,
and wildly playful -- 
-- sort of a hyper, over active woofwoof, but also friendly, even
though she growled at me softly a couple times. Yesterday I called
Bernar to, once
again, ask for the return of my Kodak digital camera that he borrowed
over a year ago, knowing that he would mention the critter --
and he asked if I saw the dog -- What
dog, I replied! I
did not see any dog -- where do you have it? Anyway, he
told me that her name is Natasha,
and that she is about 2 or 3 years old, house trained, runs wild
in the large yard and therefore has to be kept on a leash, and
usually sleeps on the sofa -- I went back today and took her out
in the yard with the retractable cord thing, and tried to take
her pic -- she just would not stay still long enough, so the photo
you see above was taken in the back porch after her romp in the
yard. He now keeps the 2 sphynx
cats in the basement, and they are always trying to keep warm
under some old blanket near the washing machine. Some months ago
he asked to borrow my oldest and first female, BeanTuska, to keep his male, AttaTurk, company
-- if I could I would take her back, but with the bunch I already
have, my others would get jealous after so much time, and I do
not need cat fights to worry about constantly.
I have been relatively uptight for about a year already because my teeth, what is left of them, are really in bad shape -- my usual assembly-line-type dentist told me last year that what I have left have to be taken out and replaced with an upper and lower whatevertheyarecalled, partial plates or dentures? Anyway, what I would have liked to do was have a couple implants, 2 or 3, in the lower jaw, with a denture that somehow was connected to them as it did with the crowns I had -- all the crowns just simply fell out and the dentist refused to put them back in again -- that is how the whole thing started over a year ago and they have been on a downhill swing ever since! But implants are extremely expensive and there is no way that I could get that kind of work done as I constantly struggle just to pay the reurring monthly bills. It is time that I do something about my teeth, even if it is simply replacing them with complete upper and lower dentures -- for many months I have not been able to even eat many things because they were too hard, and since I do not have a single molar left, natural or artificial, I cannot chew anything! It is not a very positive situation to be trying to deal with on a daily basis, along with my other worries, and I really have to try to remedy the situation before Christmas, if I can, anyway I can! Although I can feel absolutely no physical pain associated with the few natural lower incisor teeth I have left, my mental anguish sometimes gets the best of me! I did get a crock pot/slow cooker at Sam's Club last month and have used it twice already -- but that will be another news note when I get the pics taken and write the story about my experiments with it. I already have most, if not all, of my Christmas presents bought already, so that is at least one thing that I do not have to worry about -- if I live until the holidays!
It has gotten VERY cold lately -- I now wear long pants, a long sleeved shirt and undershirt, and a knit cap in the apartment, as I always do during the winter, but autumn has basically just begun -- inside the temperature has dropped to 60 degrees Fahrenheit, which is my usual COLD HANDS starting point -- actually I am almost shivering as I type this -- outside it is now 44 and going lower! The cats are all snuggled together to conserve warmth. If the inside temp falls much lower I will be forced to light the furnace, but then comes the greatly increased gas bills over a prolonged several months and I really do not have money for it.
Speaking of prolonged -- I just noticed that this YES page has reached the 80mB level, so for the first time, I guess I may have to start a third YES page this year! Maybe I should just be less yappy?
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