I'm no fan of Storm Team coverage.

When I went to bed last night after 11, the Portland weather forecasters were promising freezing rain and snow in the valley. Here in Albany, we had about a quarter inch of ice on everything, and Highway 34 to the coast was closed.
I woke up at 6:15 like a kid on Christmas morning, excited to see the car crashes on tv.

But the storm didn't make it to Portland. Albany and Corvallis still had ice, but that doesn't matter in Portland.
All three tv stations had reporters at Les Schwab centers well before they opened for business at 8:00. They had reporters at a truck stop in the Gorge and on Sylvan Hill, and they all talked about how pleasant the weather was. KATU did have a reporter in Salem, who reported on the rain there.
The anchors did acknowledge that the roads were terrible in Linn and Benton counties, and they asked for reader photos and videos. We could be I-reporters!
I was left wondering why they didn't get in their Ford Explorers and drive for 45 minutes to get crash footage.

Here is how I think storm coverage ought to go down:

First of all, no one needs reporters. Just put camera operators where the roads are bad, and start rolling. Once you have a crash, or even a good fishtail, you can jsut roll that on a loop for hours. I will watch. I love that shit.
Second: We all know that Les Schwab gets busy when the weather gets bad. Also, people stock up on groceries and buy space heaters. Remove the reporters from the strip malls and get them out where the real news is: slippery streets.
Third: If there is flooding, that is good tv, too. But don't waste time showing us people filling sandbags. I want to see deep water.
Fourth: Once it is apparent that the weathermen were wrong, get off the air and return us to regular programming. You could just scroll "False Alarm" across the bottom of the screen and let us watch Good Morning America.

Apples to Apples

I can't remember if I have previously blogged about this, but just about every year our family gets a game or two as a Christmas gift. We always chuckle about the games for four or more players. Triploey, still in its plastic wrap, sure looks fun. Apples to Apples was unopened for a couple years, until Madison and I took it to a girl scout function, where we played it and had fun.
The game is played like this:
one player is the judge, and he turns over a green apple card, which has an adjective on it- Cheesy, for example. Each of the other players chooses one of the seven noun red apple cards from his hand to put before the judge. (pizza, mobsters, tacos, Albert Einstein, big toe) The judge selects the card he likes best.
I know it doesn't sound fun, but it really is.
We took it to Grandma's for Thanksgiving, and again, we had a great time, except we played with my 7 year old niece, and there were a lot of famous people that she hadn't heard of. I decided to buy Apples to Apples Junior to play when Madison's cousins come for Christmas.
Tonight, my girl scout troop came over for a Christmas party. We ate pizza and played Apples to Apples Junior, which was just as fun as the "senior" edition.

Maybe next year we will give Tripoley a try.

There Goes the Neighborhood.

It's official. Walmart is coming to Albany.
Maybe the impact won't be as bad as I fear- after all, many businesses have already gone under. Off the top of my head, in the past couple of years, we have lost:
(GI) Joes, Gottschalk's, two furniture stores (they really DID go out of business), two new car dealerships, Big Lots, Mattress Land, Washington Mutual, Napa auto parts, and countless small salons, restaturants, and coffee stands.
I suspect that the grocery department will have the biggest impact. Albany has two discount grocery stores: Mega Foods, formerly ShopNKart, and Save A Lot. Mega Foods has carved out the Mexican foods niche in town, so maybe that business will keep them afloat... but I don't know.
What will I buy at Walmart? Yarn. Albany suffers from a terrible lack of yarn. My choices are Joann fabrics, which never has enough of the color I need, or Fred Meyer, which never has any yarn I like. The Walmart in Lebanon has 2 aisles of yarn. If they bring selection like that to Albany, I won't be able to resist.

The Santa hat.

I've got myself in somewhat of a blog-bind. I would really like to share my thoughts on Christmas gifts that I may be planning to make or buy, but that's not the sort of information I can make public.
I can share this photo of a Santa hat that I made for Madison to wear in the Twice Around The Block Christmas Parade in downtown Albany. Her school band marched in the parade, which lives up to its name- 10 or so fun entries go around the block twice.
She can also wear it to the Salem Festival of Lights Holiday parade, which we are planning on watching. We Headleys are accomplished paraders, but we aren't participating in the Salem parade, we get to sit and watch. That parade is on Saturday. She can also wear her hat next week when we go caroling with the Girl Scouts.
I like her hat so much I am making myself one, as well. Hooray Christmas!

8 things I learned this week (?)

Okay, so I didn't blog yesterday, I was at my mom's house. The three of us went to the Little Ballet Theater production of the Nutcracker in Astoria, which is a mostly-annual tradition. This particular production is at its core a glorified recital, but they so bring in two professional dancers each year to dance the principal roles.
Here are 8 things about my weekend:

* Washington DOT is using a new deicer on the roads that they manufacture themselves from a saltwater by-product delivered to them from Darigold. When applied to the road, it looks like frost.

* The prima ballerina in the aforementioned production was 14 years old. Fourteen! She travels the world, dancing.

* We usually go to tea before the nutcracker, but we have never been to the same tea house twice because they keep going out of business. This year, we had a tea party at my mom's, and the scones were more delicious than at any tea shop. By far.

* My daughter is old enough to notice the bulge in the man-dancers' tights.

* We had delicious razor clams and oysters for dinner. Maybe it is because I didn't have to clean them, but those clams were extra-tasty.

*I thought it would be sweet to sleep in the same bed with my little girl, just like when she was a sweet baby. I was wuh-rong. My child slept on top of the covers, with her head at my butt.

* I drove to Naselle with a Christmas tree strapped to the roof of my station wagon, just like Clark Griswold. This was Saturday, in 40 mph winds. I was scared the whole way that the tree was going to fly off of there... but it didn't.

* Apparently, Christmas is optional, and my stepdad has opted out this year.

How to remove tarnish from silver

Since my wedding ring is in the shop, I need a ring to cover the unsightly dent that my wedding ring has made in my left index finger over the past 15 years. I have one other diamond ring, but it has a thin band and it doesn't feel right.
I do have a pair of of sterling silver cubic zirconia rings, one with channel set stones and one with a (garishly) large center stone surrounded by channel set stones. The second ring has the correct width to make my finger comfortable. It's my second-stringer, I used it once before when my starter got injured.
Years of warming the bench have tarnished my ring. I haven't ever polished silver, and I didn't know if I should buy a cloth or a dip or a paste, so I googled.
Google told me to try to remove the tarnish myself, by dipping the tarnished jewelry into a glass dish containing a salt and baking soda solution and lined with aluminum foil. So I tried it.
Here are the rings, before. Sorry about the poor light. The earring is new and tarnish-free, for comparison.I dissolved about 3 tablespoons of salt and a teaspoon of soda into about a quart of boiling water. I poured that into a pyrex loaf pan, and added the foil.In went the ring.
Madison and I could see something happening right away. Tiny bubbles rose from the ring... and bubbles = science.
I removed the ring after about 3 minutes, and the tarnish was gone. I took a photo of it next to its tarnished mate, but the quality of that photograph doesn't show that one ring is clearly tarnished and the other is not. But that's what went down. I cleaned the other ring, and here is a picture of them both, followed by the 'before'.
So, you can see that it worked. Here is the ring on my hand. Easy!

The most delicious wedding ring ever.

That is my wedding ring. See the big, fat ugly prongs holding the center stone in place? They are there because that stone once fell out. I found the stone on my floor, and took it to a jeweler and asked him to strap it down good. My ring is often catching on things. It is bent and misshapen, and today, a small stone at the top of the ring came loose from its setting, which is the gold "o" on the right.
I noticed the stone was gone at about 3:00. I tried to remember if I had caught the ring on anything today. No, not really. I have been exceptionally sedentary today. I mostly sat and crocheted a Santa hat for Madison to wear in a Christmas parade tomorrow (which I had intended to blog about today...I'll save it for tomorrow).
I really only got up to make a sandwich, which, thinking back, had what I thought was an odd grain of sand in it...but I ate it anyway. I ate a diamond.
The diamond that I ate is very small, I can't imagine it would cost too much to get a replacement. However, I have two rings with small diamonds from my husband's grandmother, and we have decided to have the jeweler cannibalize them for a replacement.
The whole situation brings up a question: How large would a stone have to be before it is reasonable to sift poo?

My thoughts for a penny.

This morning, I read this article about the possibility of a United States without pennies. The penny now costs more than a cent to produce, so each cent represents a loss to the treasury. The article cites statistics about how inefficient pennies are, and even quotes the president as being anti-penny.
I have mixed feelings bout the penny. On one hand, I use my debit card or a check for just about everything I buy, so I probably wouldn't miss them much. On the other hand, I live in Oregon, where no sales tax means that I get a penny back for every 99 cent item I buy with cash.
I am saving those pennies for a Nikon D40 camera. I have a perfectly serviceable camera, so I can't justify spending real dollars on a new one. Coinstar machines will count your change for free if you use them to buy an Amazon.com gift card (there are other merchants, too, that participate, I think.). So I have been saving my coins, waiting for the day that I can lug $500.00 worth of change into the grocery store. I wonder how heavy it will be. I wonder how long it will take. [note to self: you should probably figure out how much change a coffee can can hold, for estimation purposes.]
Maybe we don't have to kill the penny. Perhaps the mint could halt production for a few years. Surely we have enough to get by on, if we all empty our ashtrays and sock drawers?
Or, could we make the penny worth two cents? Just rename it the two-pence? I don't see any reason why not. Currency is only worth what we say it is worth, right?
If the penny does disappear, we will have another national problem on our hands... and that is that few people know how to spell 'nickel'.

Crazy Cat lady

I think it would be very nice to have a cat. Cats can do things that dogs cant' do, like purr. Also, they can kill mice that come into the house or garage.
So I have been keeping my eyes open for a good cat. I've decided I want a Scottish Fold cat, because they are good, quiet cats that are funny. Some Scottish Folds, the ones that are used in the show ring, have ears that fold forward. I thought that I wanted one with folded ears. But then, I saw this cat.
The one on the right is the one I am thinking about getting. His ears aren't folded, but isn't he the prettiest cat you have ever seen?

Charles Dickens wrote shitty first drafts, too.

If you had asked me this morning what I would be blogging about this evening, my answer would have been: Anything but my novel.
The exhilaration of finishing had given way to exhaustion. I was tired of my story. I had read on NaNoWriMo message boards and in "No Plot? No Problem!", the unofficial NaNo how-to manual, that it's a good idea to separate yourself from your week for at least three weeks before beginning the editing process.
I thought that sounded like a good idea. Maybe my New Year's resolution will be to get it edited.
But the thing is, I can't let it sit there, knowing it is full of typos and spelling errors. It's festering.
So today, I printed it. It's 137 8.5 x 11 pages. I took a red pen to it, but I only got a few pages in before I got bored and disinterested. Let it fester, I decided.
Which leaves me the question, what to blog about?
As I often do, I searched the internet for interesting little stories. I found this story, which includes digital images of the only surviving manuscript of A Christmas Carol, which Charles Dickens edited so much that it is difficult to read. I wonder if he waited three weeks.