Go Get TAFFY

Found on my post-Thanksgiving recovery walk, a water-spattered composition sheet with a hard-to-make-out-scrawl:  "Tell Karen I am Really Happy she works with me. She always has my Back whether asked or not [over a good job?]. Give her a little salt water Taffy and Say Thank You. GO GET SALT WATER TAFFY."

Hooray, scallops

I love it that scallops have 40 to 100 eyes circling their mantle; however, this now means I probably won’t eat them anymore. Recommended for science heads:  Evolution's Witness: How Eyes Evolved (Schwab), out Oct 2011.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Evolutions-Witness-How-Eyes-Evolved/dp/0195369742

 

 

 

Decorative contact lenses

The scary part about a Halloween costume shouldn't be the eye damage it leaves behind.

 

http://www.geteyesmart.org/eyesmart/eye-health-news/scary-lenses.cfm]

http://yourwordsworth.blogspot.com/

Part of my uphill loop in the neighborhood...

Am I blue? As I walked down Columbus  through North Beach, a Blue Angel jet flashed by about 50 feet overhead, scattering pedestrians and pigeons alike.  Part of practice for the weekend show. Years ago in a Chanel commercial,  Catherine Deneuve’s beautiful self would murmur, “Come close. Come closer….” “No, no” we would shriek, “noooooooo that’s too close. ”  Yes indeed, Angels too close. Loud and thrilling, but do we have budget for that, really?  Over the weekend, I was fleet-less in bucolic Oakland. Yay, Oakland…

http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2011/10/08/fleet-week-draws-1000s-to-san-francisco-waterfront/

Not much of whimsy has struck my fancy, as of late. However, this just in:

"For example, sales records show that bananas with Pantone color 13-0858 (otherwise known as Vibrant Yellow) are less likely to sell than bananas with Pantone color 12-0752 (also called Buttercup), which is one grade warmer, visually, and seems to imply a riper, fresher fruit."

Being primed by brands at the grocery store--it's enough to make me stick to homegrown everything, but then all we'd be eating, for the new few weeks anyway, is tomatoes, chives, and jalapenos.

http://www.fastcompany.com/1779611/priming-whole-foods-derren-brown

Thrift store art

Paint by numbers, too...

 

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1960176245069&set=a.1897458797172.2096872.1262693524&type=1&theater

 

Counting Crows

I've been noticing more crows than mockingbirds , so I turned to the "big brain" to investigate. Landed on this page:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20101118075931AArB2P9 . Became intrigued by the idea of a "Christian Factory."

 

 

 

Which do you prefer

Which do you prefer? We are surrounded, all of a sudden.

Around 6:30 am I wandered groggily down the hallway, past the back door. I looked out to check the fog (nada) and looked down  to see a fluffy baby skunk sipping water out of the basin by the faucet. It was about 8 inches long with a tail that stood up about a foot. It was adorable. So glad I didn't startle it. 'll keep the camera close by in case he/she comes back in the morning.

Sounds of Summer, Part II

I don’t love the sound of gunshots, about 2 blocks away. The teens had a melee Sunday afternoon. One of our neighbors found out, “There were at least 4 squad cars present yesterday between 4 and 6 pm placing numbered cards wherever stray bullets were found lying on the ground. There were at least 30. School hasn't even been out more than a couple of days, so it looks like we're in for quite a summer.” Some injuries to participants. Crazy behavior. I’d prefer the sound of chickens and mowers, thank you very much.

Summer

Fog finally burns off around noon these days. Love the sound of the lawnmower and chickens--as long as they are about half block away.

 

 

I'm stuck

Anything I e-mail post to my blog http://yourwordsworth.blogspot.com/ goes to my facebook wall, with partial text and and missing photos I may have attached. I'm buffaloed. May have to start all over. Again.

Uh oh, I was insensitive

My casual commute involved a conversation with a chatty fun person, a teacher who absolutely adores her job teaching elementary school in the Tenderloin, an area of SF whose reputation is less than stellar. Yes, I said, I feel the same way about Oakland: a little jewel. Oh, really?  Then she told me how folks were shot in front of her house (about a mile away) and people keep breaking into houses around the block and her house is underwater and won't emerge for at least 10 years, and she and hubby are thinking of simply walking away. To Florida? I feel sheepish.

Choking arty

Anyone experienced with growing artichokes?  My first plant is now 3 feet high and 3 feet wide, with 3 or 4 little chokes emerging. Yum. News  and film at 10.

Wouldn't you know it

From a text I’m working on: “The pathophysiology of chronic post-traumatic headache is believed to be due to a combination of organic and psychological factors. Post-traumatic headache may be more common in patients with pre-existing psychopathology. In addition, financial incentives also seem to increase the rate of disabilities among patients with post-traumatic headaches.”

 

 

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Jeer Review

Maybe only editors will laugh, but Harper’s magazine made me do it and led me to it:

 

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1462-2920.2010.02394.x/full

My personal favorite? Perhaps the last on the list: “The writing and data presentation are so bad that I had to leave work and go home early and then spend time to wonder what life is about.” Or a runner-up, “The biggest problem with this manuscript, which has nearly sucked the will to live out of me, is the terrible writing style.”

Collections in the garage

Mother Nature is mad, the president still looks sad (but he's oh so articulate), and I have a ridiculously minute (my newt) problem: whether/how to transfer my excellent record collection that's been moldering in the garage  to MP3. To transfer to MP3 my excellent record collection that has been melting, baking, fossilizing in the deep subconscious morass that is our garage ...whoops, editorial moment. Supposedly the sound of MP3 is questionable, to the fine-tuned ear, but I can't hear that well anyway, so pulling the usb turntable out of the box would be one step farther toward whittling collections and possessions.

The lament of giant fingers

I’ve been passed 2 Smart phones to play with, should I wish to get back on the tech train. All abooooooooard.  But ah, my fingers seem to belong to a giant man, not to me. Jolly Green Me.

 

Exuberant flowers

We seem have a nasturtium field in the back 40. No flowers yet, but some leaves are 10 inches across. Yowsa. The old-world impatiens are about choked out...every year or two something new takes over.  At least the fennel, kudzu, blackberries, ivy, and bamboo are giving it a break.

Dancing at the Desk

Whenever I hear “In Motion” by Trent Reznor/Atticus Ross, why, I just start bobbing and bouncing. Reflex. Kind of like my grumpy cat J. used to do whenever she heard Balinese Gamelan on the Nonesuch Sampler. Pavlovian.      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yczul_609Gg

Transcription Part 2: eating cheating also

Another fine message transcription of a voicemail: "Hi Mr., well all game. He said we probably will but with afternoon 81888 or you used to see if you've eat 218123 you would let him know one these listening to these things on bed rest for the they still, they close up the building. I'm been busy probably a woke up so anyway tell him I need to be eating cheating also, you know I love you. Please call me back at 2121 and I see you there at 1:00. Okay well call them 3415. I would with you. Okay. I wouldn't really important. Thank you. bye bye"

Voice Mail

Why humans are still better than machines at transcription (my latest Vonage delivery): "Hello Kim ...I saw a question about how putting your mother and the knowledge and so I have her in there is no loader in the learner and I know that I almost the lowest Arlene. I was having. Yes I think it's like but anyway yeah. So anyway I don't know how they didn't get in and because I've been anyway. Kiss me a call because that was the last. It's the last thing I pay. I think and we'll figure that out and didn't you the interest that way you could get that video to them tomorrow. So I hope you're having a good time up in Southern Moon my night. He has some graduate on the 18th."

Milo

Our kitty Milo passed away last Thursday night, and I'm sad. We rescued him from a spa in Calistoga in oh, about 1998. He had been failing for a few months. Our senior kitty boys seem to suffer from kidney problems eventually, no matter what we try.  I just returned from the midwest and I'm having a heck of a time adjusting to the time change.  

Tiptoe Tuesday

The tulips are poking through; some of the daffodils are in full bloom. But oxalis dominates. Squirrels are raiding the bird feeders, as usual.

Ruth said I could use her sighting. Each year about this time, down on MacArthur, a tax outfit takes up residence in the old video store next to Subway. Each night in the thick of the commute time a kid dressed as Lady Liberty stands and jiggles and twirls a sign, aiming to lure in tax neophytes as he (and it has always been a he in our neighborhood) dances. Recently she passed by and noticed the police taking down the latest Lady Liberty, who knows what this child did. He was spread-eagled. he pointy foam crown on Lady Liberty's head askew. Just sayin'....My husband gets upset when I suggest he could get a job--any part time job-- to help meet the current gap,including doing a Lady Liberty stint. I envision that I'd sell my body, if times were excruciating (depending on pt of view), but who would want it? Comes to mind. Just sayin'....

Just when you thought it couldn't get any better...Daniel Handler plays the ACCORDION:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_xY4Gto7EY&feature=related

A friend at work, Diana, and I are working out way through the Lemony Snicket series of unfortunate adventures. Oh would that I had these gloomy tomes to read as a kid.

Hail, Bopp

Twice it hailed today, a harbinger of pagan rites ahead? 

Puppy Bowl

Just when I think I can't get it any better, Puppy Bowl VII has chickens for cheerleaders...

quote of the week

““The Swarmatron is a gateway drug to other Dewanatrons.”  Read more http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2011/01/24/110124ta_talk_paumgarten#ixzz1CeGGUM5W

 

Many years ago, these cabins were $25 a night. Now they're $110 and nearly impossible to get via the State Parks System. But we snagged one night, for the start of a (gulp) milestone birthday. http://picasaweb.google.com/wordsworth99/SteepRavineCabins

Kindling

Halfway back on the tech train I am. My new Kindle has on it Scrabble*, The Autobiography of Ben Franklin, Oxford Dictionary of English, How to Camp Out, The Possessed: Adventures of Russian Books and People Who Read Them,* The Emperor of all Maladies,* Everyday Foods in War Time, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Autiobiography of a Yogi, and the New Oxford American Dictionary.  (*=purchased) There's a lot of free words out there, especially from the 1940s and earlier. CONS: no paper turning, no paper corner folding, no good back button functionality, hard to prop, cool tactility vs warm, easy to lose. PROS: easy to take along, can make type big, can highlight stuff, share highlights via facebook etc, thin and small. Audible feature that reads text to you in a mechanical voice I find vaguely hypnotic. Ben Franklin's description of monitoring his habits is very entertaining. The dictionaries aren't particularly browsable; 'tis a shame.

Loud shoes

No doubt about it, the women with loud boots always seem to be right behind me as I huff up Columbus, from Market St. on my way to work. I cross over, they cross over. Grr. Now I know why my father used to tip me cash money to not wear Dr. Scholl’s around the house.