infinity m.p.g

I got a new bike. My first bike shop bike. I fell in love with it the minute I saw it. I got a ridiculous deal on it and I wonder if that is why I love it so much. Even if that's the reason, it's enough. I shopped around, I looked at 5 bike shops and considered two bikes from REI that I had yet to see in person.

This is my Christmas/ Anniversary/Mother's Day gift. I know that if I had left it to Spencer, he would have bought me a perfectly serviceable Schwinn from Costco or Fred Meyer, and really, that would have been fine if I had never set foot in just one of those bike shops- if I had never seen my bike.

It is a Viva brand bike. I am not sure where it was made, but Viva is a Danish company. They aren't really much in the US, in fact, mine got to Corvallis via a Canadian distributor. The owners manual is written in German, I think. Since they aren't sold much in the US, there aren't a lot of reviews online. I had to go with my gut. I guess I have a month to return it if my gut fooled me. But then again, I am no bike expert so I really wouldn't know if it isn't that great.
I know that on my test drive it was fun to ride. The thumb shifter is the coolest thing ever-since the gears are in the rear wheel hub, it is okay to shift at anytime, not just when in motion. And quiet! It is sort of a ninja bike.

I got a rack and two bags to go on the back, and I have a basket to go on the front if it is needed. I should be able to haul all sorts of groceries. I am going on a milk run first thing in the morning.

Vinegar. It really does work.

I'm sure everyone has seen internet posts or magazine articles about all the amazing things you can do with vinegar and/or baking soda. I've seen many, and discounted them all.

Until a couple days ago. My husband brought our trailer home to wash it. I went inside to clear out some closets and replenish supplies. I was really disappointed to find that 4 shirts I had left in my closet were wet and moldy.
Our trailer is not old and it shouldn't leak, but that's my husband's problem, which I am certain he will take care of. My problem is that I really liked those shirts and I was afraid I wouldn't be able to get the mold out. They all smelled terrible, and three of them had actual green fuzzy mold... but thankfully I guess, no black mildew. I last saw them dry a month ago.

So I googled: "How to remove mold from laundry" and the first answer I got was to add 3/4 cup of vinegar to the washload, and keep doing that until the mold smell was gone.
I tried it, and was amazed that it worked in one load. Who knows, maybe the detergent alone would have done it... but I would like to think I used a special trick.

A Craigslist fairy godmother, sorta.

Sometime in the near future, I am going to have 50 seedlings that need to be planted. Since a traditional garden is incompatible with my big dogs, I have turned to container gardening. Last year I successfully grew tomatoes and basil on my patio.
I was thinking that I ought to buy some more containers to plant my seedlings in. Since pots are spendy and I need many, I thought I would check Craigslist before Home Depot.
I typed "planters" in the search box, and I got one good result.
The ad, which had two photos, was for several large planters including three half-barrels, as well as potting soil, three hummingbird feeders, and some hand tools "and whatever else I can find."
The price was right, so I called her up and made arrangements to pick up the planters.

When I arrived at her home, she said, "This is your lucky day." and pointed to two boxes on her living room floor. She told me that she had given up cooking, so there were cooking utensils (Score! I needed to buy utensils, measuring cups, etc., for the girl scouts!) and some weird candles which ordinarily would bring forth a "no thank you" groan, but I have been asked to save wax for girl scouts, too.
And three brand new, nice hummingbird feeders and two bottles of nectar and some packages of nectar mix.
I grew up with hummingbirds, my mom and stepdad have quite the hummingbird feeding operation at their home. The hummingbirds come to feed, 10 or more at a time, sometimes draining a feeder in an hour. In the mornings, if the feeder is being cleaned they will lightly tap on the window with their beaks to speed up the process. I think my parents have three or four feeders now so that the birds always have access to nectar. Since the birds have come to depend on the feeders, my parents have to think carefully about going out of town.
I've only seen one or two hummingbirds at my house, but I do enjoy them, so I hung up one feeder close to a red rhododendron that is about to bloom. We'll see how it goes.
The box also contained garden gloves, a couple hand tools, a water bottle, a book on rose care, a string of black "pearls" and a pair of earrings- all in new condition. The strangest thing, ever. Her house was clean and tidy and she seemed normal.
I wondered if she was some sort of Robin Hood shoplifter.

The lady also asked if I had a daughter. How did she know? She asked if my daughter would like 5 or 6 cards of metal hair barrettes, the kind that sorta look like paper clips. They were brand-new and we are in the height of growing-out-your-bangs. Barrettes are like gold.
"Here is a set of hot rollers I bought right before I cut my hair." At this point she is no longer offering things, she is just telling me what I am to take. I worry a little about my borderline hoarding tendencies.
She handed me the box pictured above, which as you can see contains a watering can, a sprayer, an unopened bottle of vegetable oil, epsom salt, baking soda and brand-new vinegar. She reached into that box and pulled out a recipe that she had written on half of an envelope for an all-natural bug deterrent.
add to one gallon water:
1t. Ivory Soap
1T baking soda
1T white vinegar
1T vegetable oil

spray on leaves am or pm.

I'll try it. Every time I squirt it on, I will think of that lady.

seeds of doubt

Yesterday I planted some seeds : two varieties of tomato, catnip, lavender, Italian parlsey and basil. I will have to do all of my gardening in containers so I tried to pick things that have done well for me in the past in pots on the patio.
This is the first year I have started from seed, though. Usually I buy a mostly-grown plant at the farmers market and take the credit for growing it myself.
One packet of tomato seeds contains 50 seeds. I can't help but wonder why. Who would use 50 seeds? I figure people either need 4 or 5 for a family, or 50 bazillion for a farm.
I was reminded of the first year Spencer and I ever tried a garden. I left the planting up to him. He planted an entire packet of zucchini seeds in a row about 50 yards long. He was so proud of his nice mounds, evenly spaced. He must have worked on that row for most of an afternoon. three or four months later the smell of thousands of gourds rotting on the vine was overwhelming.

A mindbump to get things going again

After my long weekend off, I found myself at a loss for things to blog about, so I returned to mindbump.com, where I got this prompt.

suggested by Spelling Search

"If tomorrow morning you woke up ten years younger, what would be the first thing that you would do?"

Is it terrible that I wouldn't quit smoking? That when I think of myself 10 years ago, I fondly remember being a thin smoker?

I would get my daughter's Turner Syndrome diagnosis right away so that she could start growth hormone treatment as soon as possible.

I would enjoy my big dog-free back yard... maybe plant a garden.

I would pick a major and go back to college.

What would you do?

Sorry, We are closed

I am going to ESA convention this weekend, be back Monday.

a thoughtful tip

This may well be one of those things that I discovered late in life, only to learn later that everyone else already knew about it, but: BUY BODY GLIDE.

I have a new pair of shoes, and they may be the finest shoes I have ever owned. They are all leather, even the sole. They are just pretty basic black sandals with a kitten heel. I plan on wearing them all weekend.
I wore them to work today to see if I would get blisters, and I indeed did begin to feel the sides of feet begin to sting where the strap rubbed. So I googled, and I learned about Body Glide, which has the most convincing Amazon reviews I have ever seen for a single product, including the three wolf shirt. Google also suggested vaseline, but there is no way I am going to get these new shoes all goopy.
So I called my local sporting goods store and got to ask if they had Body Glide, which was fun. The guy knew what I was talking about, thank goodness. An hour and 8 bucks later I walked out ready to lube my feet.
I applied it to my feet and went for a little stroll once it had dried. Amazingly, the tingle was gone. The shoes weren't stained at all.
Hooray for Body Glide!

A tax day miracle

Tonight my brother in law came over so that I could show him how to do his taxes. He is a full-time student who also works part time at a fast food restaurant.

He also is a miracle worker, because he can survive on less than $8200 a year. I can't even imagine how he does it. He has a cell phone and I assume he pays rent, he moved in with his girlfriend and her roommate. (He is getting his own place, a rented room, next month)

Here is the kicker. His tuition for half of last year was over 4 grand. Fortunately for him he does have some savings in trust that he uses to pay his tuition, but only tuition. I know because he didn't have a 1099 for any interest income.

How is that even possible? How can a person live a relatively normal lifestyle on 700 bucks a month? I can't wrap my head around it. He wears clothing and gets haircuts and
eats, although he admitted he eats mostly cereal.

I told him to go get some food stamps.

8 things I learned today about the Westboro Baptist Church

Here is an interesting article from 2006 about Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church. The WBC is infamous for its nauseating protests at funerals and their delightful "God Hates Fags" signs. Their most recent protest was at funerals of miners killed in West Virginia. The WBC contends that God smote the mine because West Virginia is tolerant of homosexuals. Here's what I took away from the article:


1. The church is made up of about 75 people, and about 80 percent of the congregation is directly related to Fred Phelps. (that means 60) (I always thought it was a big church)

2. Phelps has 15 children, 10 of whom are lawyers.

3. Phelps himself is an attorney. He has been disbarred.

4. Phelps says that the fact that he is almost universally despised pleases him, as he believes it is proof that he is saved from damnation.

5. He does not try to save others, he thinks God has already made up His mind about who is to be saved and who is to be damned. According to Phelps, most of us are literally God-damned.

6. He makes money for his church, which funds the protests, by winning 1st amendment lawsuits. Surprisingly, the church doesn't collect any donations.

7. He was an early supporter of civil rights, but later protested Coretta Scott King's funeral. He left the movement when "the fags" took over.

8. He looks forward to states passing laws that would restrict protests at funerals so that he can challenge them on constitutional grounds, all the way to the Supreme Court.

Things I learned this week- photoless edition

I'm still working on the camera-computer connection. When I say "working on", I mean I haven't found a solution yet and I am procrastinating.

I did learn something a couple weeks ago that I forgot to blog about, and then I promptly forgot what it was that I learned. I learned that there is a term for the period after you eat, post- "___" , and it is not uncommon to get post-________ chills. I'm hoping my friend Erica the nurse will chime in here. (if I remember correctly, it sounds like parietal, but I know that's not right.)

This week, I learned three things about Stouffer's lasagna.
1. Don't buy it again
2. It takes hours to cook
3. It tastes EXACTLY like Spaghetti-Os.

I learned how to make a better A chord, with my index finger on the middle string. It makes it easier to switch between A and E, and theoretically D, but I have not mastered the D chord yet and so I am making it a mission to find songs to play that don't use it.

You should see The House Bunny.

We aren't big movie watchers. We typically wait for highly-anticipated movies to come out on DVD, and we catch lesser anticipated movies when they come to cable.

I am shocked to admit that the funniest movie I have seen in a while is The House Bunny, which is on Encore this month. And it's all because if Anna Faris.

Anna Faris's Shelley is an orphan who spent her formative years at the Playboy mansion. When she finds herself out on the street due to her advancing age, 27- which is like 59 in bunny years- She spends a few nights in her car before she stumbles onto a college campus and eventually gets herself a gig as a house mother for a struggling sororoity, Zeta. Shelley turns Zeta around and there is a happy ending. It's a typical fish out of water story, only the fish is hilarious.

The House Bunny is as good as Clueless and Legally Blonde. In fact, it was written by the Legally Blonde screenwriters. You won't learn anything, except maybe to never, ever stand over a steamy manhole cover a'la Marilyn Monroe. Those things are hot. But you will laugh.

Ptomaine Wednesday: Strudel edition

On Sunday, I cooked a rather tasty ham from Trader Joe's. It was an uncured glazed ham, and it was delicious. This morning I typed "Leftover ham recipe" into my google bar and this recipe for ham strudel is what I came up with.

This was the first time I have ever used phyllo dough. It was easy to work with, flaky and tasty as promised.

The strudel turned out really good. My husband insited on calling it fricasse and/ or strussel.

I took a picture, but I am still having difficulties getting the photos out of the camera and onto the computer. It looks just like the photo in the recipe.

We all need a little grid.

This guy inspired be, right up to the part about the composting toilet and the closed loop. That's going too far, man.

War is Hell.

This morning my radio woke me up with a story about this video. If you are my daughter, don't click that link. In fact, if you're my daughter, stop here.

It's a link to a video titled "Collateral Murder" released by an organization called Wiki Leak, an anonymous whistle-blower shelter.

The video is from an Apache helicopter flying over Baghdad in 2007. I don't know proper military jargon, but what I see is that the guys in the helicopter find a group of guys on the ground. The guys on the ground have things in their hands and slung over their shoulders. The helicopter guys, according to the Pentagon, had received reports of insurgent activity in the area. The provided audio suggests that the guys in the helicopter believed that the guys on the ground had weapons, and so they fired on them.

Two of the guys on the ground were Reuters reporters, and the things in their hands and slung over their shoulders were cameras.

It is terrible, terrible that anyone should be killed in war. Journalists risk their lives when they cover war, and I am sure that these two knew what they were getting into, I am sure they were aware that their lives were at risk just by being where they were when thy were there. It is unfortunate that they dies but almost understandable.

Except.

One of the Reuters guys didn't die right away, and the guys in the helicopter could see him trying to crawl to safety. They wanted very badly for him to make a move as if he were drawing a weapon so that they could justify another shot. You can hear that. He did not make such a move, but a van pulled up to help the man. Two adult men got out of the van and took the photographer by his wrists and ankles and tried to load him into the van. According to the Pentagon, insurgents will try to collect the wounded, so the helicopter guys opened fire on the van. Which contained 3 more adults and two children.

When ground troops arrived, two soldiers grabbed the wounded children and asked for them to be evacuatued to a US hospital, but those requests were denied. The children were turned over to the Iraqi police for transport to an Iraqi hospital, where the standard of care, according to the video, is lower. A US soldier is heard saying "It's their own faulkt for bringing their kids into battle."

Also one of our tanks runs over a dead Iraqi. And some soldiers laugh about it.

So that's all pretty disgusting, but I guess that's what happens in war and why I should be thankful that I am shielded from it. After watching 17 minutes of video, I almost don't blame our soldiers for their cavalier attitude about what they do; I think that they must have that kind of attitude to cope. How else could they do the things they are asked to do?

But here is what pisses me off: We have the technology to kill people from far, far away. I noticed in the video that the people on the ground weren't bothered at all by the helicopter overhead, and the helicopter wasn't making any wind. I know from experience that it is very windy when a helicopter is overhead, even pretty far up. So I wondered how high up this helicopter was flying.
So I googled it.
That's a pretty high-tech helicopter.
Why don't we have the technology to tell the difference between a camera and a machine gun?

My fashion dilemma

In a couple weeks, I'll be going to an ESA convention where I will need to wear a formal dress. Sounds easy, right? Wrong. Because I have to wear a formal dress that is 1. floor-length and 2. Pastel, but not sage green. These are the rules. Every year, someone gets to dictate the dress code for officer installation.
The problem is that floor-length dresses come in three varieties: 1. Bridesmaid 2. Prom 3. Mother-of-the bride.

Last year, I went the prom route. (I had a 'jewel-tone' directive) The dress looked pretty but it was obviously a prom dress and I worried about looking like one of those women who refuses to dress appropriately for her age. So earlier this year at an ESA function, one of the ladies told me that a bridal store down the street put some of their mother-of-the-bride dresses on sale for $50. My friend and I went to check it out. Among the chiffon pallazzo pant suits and beaded muumuus, there were a few tasteful dresses. I found a pink chiffon dress with a rouched bodice and cap sleeves that my friend swore to me did not look too matronly. I tried it on and it was big in the waist, but the salesgirl clipped it together in the back with a clothespin and told me that with alterations, it would be lovely. So I bought it. I told myself it was age-appropriate and it would never be confused for a prom dress.

Last weekend I realized that I have less than three weeks to get ready for convention. I called a seamstress that my friend recomnded but the seamstress had retired.

And so I googled around for a tailor in my area. I tried my dress on again, and although I am doing all I can to expand my waist, it still didn't fit.
Since my new dress was hanging right next to last year's dress, I was reminded that I should take last year's dress to the consignment store. The ladies at the consignemnt store would know of a good tailor!
I packed up both dresses and a pair of high heels and headed to the store. I told myself that the heels were because the tailor was going to want me to try on my pink dress with shoes so that she could make her markings.
I walked into the store carrying the red dress, which I put on consignment. I asked about a tailor. The shop girl told me about the tailor they use, but I couldn't really pay attention to her because in the back of the store on a headless mannequin there was the most gorgeous dress I have ever laid eyes on in person. Strapless, hand-beaded bodice with a gorgeous chiffon skirt, and pink. I was told it was a size 8.
This is an expensive dress, I told myself, so it's possible that it's an expensive 8, which is really a 10. I tried it on, but only half of me fit into it.
But.
There was another dress, a prom dress, brand-new, floor length and pink. And so I tried it on (lucky I had those shoes!) and eventually bought it. I have no idea how much dress alterations cost, but in that dressing room I conviced myself that alterations on the first dress would probably cost almost as much as this second dress, which made my boobs look good.
And so I brought the first pink dress into the store to put it on consignment, and the shop girl said it should probably go to their sister store for mature women since it is such a beautiful mother of the bride dress. I dont know if she did it on purpose, but the instant she said that any trace of buyer's remorse I had instantly vanished.

So now I have a perfectly lovely prom dress to wear, which would be fine, except that I am 37 years old. I'm too old for prom dresses and too young for mother of the bride dresses.

I found plenty of truly age appropriate dresses but they were all the wrong length, oh, and black, because I am an adult.

A new mission

Imagine if you will a photograph of a dusty guitar. A clever blog lady has drawn an unhappy face onto the shoulder of the guitar, using her finger to remove the dust in true dirty-car- "WASH ME!!" fashion. That is the photo you should be seeing here, but the batteries in my camera are dead.

The point is that my guitar has been doing nothing but collecting dust for over a year. Yesterday I couldn't stand it anymore, so I picked it up and strummed a bit, and recognized that it was out of tune. I tuned it, and googled around looking for online lessons, and I found this site: www.justinguitar.com.
Justin seems like a nice guy, his lessons are provided on a donation basis, and he seems to know what he is doing. I watched a few of the first lessons and he said many of the same things that my old guitar teacher said. But Justin is way cuter.

Justin reminded me how to make a D chord, and so I lined up my fingers carefully on the frets and plucked out the four notes, adjusting my left fingertips until they each rang clear, then I finally strummed a nice pretty D.

The flesh on my fingertips could take about 10 minutes, then I had to rest. I trimmed my fingernails and I am ready to tackle an A tonight.

Madison has to practice her clarinet 120 minutes a week, and I figure if I practice guitar while she practices her clarinet, I should get fairly good again.

Eight reasons this is harder than it looks.

Yeah so I haven't been keeping up daily. I try really hard not to make my blog a "Here's my to-do list" or "wanna read my diary?" and some days I can only think about what I have to do and what I haven't done yet and it's difficult to be interesting. Here are my eight whiny reasons why this is hard, then I'll get over myself and back to business.

8. I'm not that interesting. I do many of the same things over and over. I figure that readers don't want to read the same things over and over.

7. I'm not anonymous. My blog could be much funnier if there was no way to trace it back to me.

6. It's that time of the month and my stomach fucking hurts.

5. The batteries in my camera are dead a lot.

4. my back hurts, too.

3. I forgot to bring a Diet Coke in my lunch today. First time ever, I think. How can I blog without my daily carmel color?

2. There was a big earthquake

1. Ever hear of a little thing called Lent?

I did it! sorta.

One year ago, I made a commitment to blog every day. I haven't been perfect, but it's been a year.
I didn't improve my writing skills- in fact they may be worsening.
I'm going to keep going, I have a habit now and my mom worries if I don't blog.