Junk mail, the other spam

I hate junk mail. My mother used to call it "dog mail", because it might as well be addressed to the dog as "Resident". Today was a whole dogpile of dogmail.

I don't ever check the mailbox in front of the house because I have a post office box. Anything that is of importance comes to that address, not here. I had forgotten just how long since I opened it, until the doorbell rang today, and the postman stood there in his little postman short pants, with an armload of dogmail. He was checking to see if anyone was living here, because not another smooth postcard would fit in the box.

He was very nice, and I explained that I had a post office box and didn't really look for mail here, and I'd be more attentive to cleaning out the "boxholder" mail. That's the postal term for stuff addressed to "Resident" or "Boxholder", adverts, flyers, pitiful pleas from people trying to sell you Christmas cards for the poor little children on the Indian Reservation or whatever. He said it looked like there might be a few envelopes mixed in, so be sure to go through it before I tossed it. I assured him I would do that.

I dragged up a wastebasket, my letter opener (the one with the loaves and fishes on it that I got for a year's service teaching Sunday School to Episcopalian brats) and the paper shredder. First I went through and pulled out all the catalogs for Casual Male and trashed them. Next came all the adverts for pizza, tire rotations, oil changes, and Walgreens. Slam dunk! Then I opened and shredded at least fifteen offers for "pre-approved" credit cards. How can they pre-approve ME? I have no real job, and my ex took me through bankruptcy a couple of years ago. About half of them now come with a little faux credit card (see pic) that says on the back "This is not a real credit card." Duh.

The shredder stalled. I had to compact the paper in the basket to continue.

Then there was Sears telling me that the warranty on my dryer had expired. Last February.

About a dozen dunning notices from a firm in Ohio that is trying to get me to pay a chunk of money that the VA did not pay to a HEART SPECIALIST who must have been cruising through the ER about the time I landed there with a bowel obstruction. If the man even talked to me, I have no proof, just a bill for $550 that I refuse to pay. I've also gotten threatening phone calls from this same firm who has probably bought the debt for pennies on the dollar from the original office. They can eat my shorts. What are they going to do? Ruin my non-existant credit?

The best junk mail today, though had to be this thing:


First of all, it's addressed to DR. Alice (last name I used to have). It's congratulating me for being outstanding in my field, and that makes me eligible to have my name in their Who's Who book. The last field I was outstanding in was the cotton field I wrecked my last car in when I fell asleep at the wheel. They assure me that this is a great honour and that I will certainly be proud to tell my friends that I am listed in Who's Who. Oh, c'mon. This is more like What the Hell than Who's Who. In what field do I have a doctorate? Yes, I have a B.S., although I'm probably just full of that most of the time. Oh, and Strathmore's Who's Who is not to be confused with Someone Else's Who's Who, according to the minute print at the bottom of the letter. It was so small I literally had to get the magnifier out to see what it said. What a crock of horsecrap.

Rip. Shred. Slam dunk.

Sweating the small stuff

I had an "interesting" experience today. Went to the mail box at UPS and got a boatload of mail and my drugs from the VA. Also, a check for $25 for some patterns. Yay! Then I decided to go to Sam's club for some essentials, like toilet paper, freezer bags, milk, cheese, deli meats.

Got home to find my landlord had mowed the yard and was weedeating the drive. This was around 3:15, and it was scorching hot. I took in the cold items, grabbed a couple bottles of water out of the fridge and took him one. We talked in the shade of the house for about 5 minutes, then I went back to take the rest of the stuff in from the car. I had begun to break out in my normal prickly heat rash already. This happens everytime I get a little overheated.

By the time I was making the third trip from the car to the house, I felt like I was about to pass out. I had already downed most of that half-litre of water, so I chugged the rest, and sat down. I've had heat exhaustion before, so I knew the signs, I thought. I stripped and took a cold shower, then sat down on the edge of the tub to towel off, because I was feeling lightheaded. I went into the bedroom, put on clean undies and a tshirt, and fell onto the bed for a few minutes. I was noticing that everything looked to me as if I had just stepped out of the bright sunlight. Weird.

So I got up and nearly had a vertigo spell. This was not good. I stumbled into the living room, drank another half-litre of water, and it occured to me that I hadn't eaten today. Maybe I was also having a blood sugar drop. I grabbed a piece of this peppermint sugar stick candy that I love, and ate it, hoping that might also help.

The funky thing was what my vision was doing. Everything looked sort of splotchy, like looking at the ground under a tree where it's dappled with sunlight. I could barely read the computer screen, but I looked up heat exhaustion on WebMD, and found that I had done all the right stuff so far, except go to the ER. I seriously contemplated calling 911, but decided that I wouldn't because I didn't seem to have a fever, and I was still sweating. (If you stop sweating, it's heat stroke...get to the ER.)

I threw some cheese tortellini on to boil and sat down to answer emails. My vision began to clear, and I began to cool down. After I had the tortellini, I decided to lie down and take a nap. I didn't wake up until almost 9PM. I just can't take the heat at all any more. I probably wasn't outside a total of more than fifteen minutes out of the air conditioning. Another reason I don't go out during the daytime heat.

Twice before, I've had a collapse from the heat. Both those times were in Navy boot camp, where we were marching in the 97 degree heat of the Orlando sun. The first time, I made it back to the barracks, where I collapsed on the way to the bathroom. Next thing I knew, they had stripped me down and put me in the cold shower and were forcing me to drink water.

The next time, I was running the 2-1/4 mile run, and on the next to the last lap, I fell out. I remember people jumping over me. I got some water down me, and the drill instructors informed me that I was now joining "Special Training Division" because that made me fail the run. I spent three months in boot camp, when most people only spend two, or go home. I didn't want to be a bad statistic. I also spent my thirtieth birthday in "special training". The instructor asked me one day why I just didn't give up and go home. I told them that day I turned thirty, and I wasn't going to quit until I was out of there. The next day, I passed the drill.

Reworking the scrapbooks

It's been a long time since I stuck all this stuff into one of those horrible "magnetic pages" albums. Last week I found a really nice photo album with those archival slip in pages that was marked down to $4.99. Bargain! It also has the Navy emblem on the front, and twenty empty pages!

This particular page isn't going into that particular album, but buying THAT album got me started pulling things out to do a rework of the old albums.

The origami paper doll and the paper are some things I picked up when I first got on island. I am such a packrat! Still have UNFOLDED origami paper I bought in 1984! One of the coolest things I discovered when I got to Okinawa was the brush pen. I'd never seen one before, and I just loved writing with them, and the title strip was one of the first things I did with that new implement.

Looking through my scrapbooks, I now know that there is a whole lot of material here to play with, and remember the good days I spent halfway around the world. I used to scrapbook before it was the thing to do. I can't believe all the stuff in the scrapbooking aisles of the stores now. To me, scrapbooking is putting the stuff you collected yourself into a book. Maybe I've just always been such a packrat that I have all kinds of cool stuff to use! My goal is to buy nothing except maybe some background paper and the page sleeves to store the pages. I want to keep the funky album covers I bought overseas. That's the charm of scrapbooks, to me.

Happy Flag Day!

Call me a flagwaver, because I am. No apologies whatsoever. I love my country, despite her flaws. I've served my country proudly. Long may Old Glory wave!

Kitten Kaboodle

I spent the weekend helping a friend move her houseful of rescued cats from Memphis to Nashville. She has bought a house, and it has the most wonderful playroom that I'm sure belonged to kids before, but will now make a great cat playhouse. There are cubbies for nearly everyone, and a great patio door that looks out onto the back yard with several trees. I would love help her build some catwalks to traverse the overhead space. Maybe that will happen someday soon.

When I came back from Nashville, the resident feral kitty, whom I call Pippin, met me at the door. She's a sweet cat, not quite tame enough to let me touch her, but recently has decided to rub on my pantleg. Suppose that means I'm ok.

Today, upon return from some errands, I got a surprise. Little kitty-heads popped up from behind the concrete border bricks along the porch. I had my camera with me, so I took a long shot, assuming they would bolt. I quietly walked up to them, and found three little guys cowering under the ledge. One is a mini-Pippen, one looked to be entirely black, and the third is orange and white, and a good bit fuzzier than the others. Two made a break for it, and the third stayed put, probably because its eyes were matted shut.

After I put up some things in the house, I came back out and gathered the little guy up and brought it in to try to wash the gooky off its eyes. Otherwise, the kitten looked fine. No matted hair, fairly clean ears for a feral, and no sneezing. Quite a voice, however, when I began gently soaking off the icky with warm water and some cotton swabs. As soon as I got it cleaned up, I took it back out and set it back on the porch, and it immediately retreated to the same corner. I peeked out later to see it munching on the moistened kibbles I put out. The other two haven't come back, but they ran toward my fenced back yard, and are probably hiding under the outbuilding.

Now, what do I do with more kitties? I can't bring any more into the house. If I can catch the mother cat, she is going to get spayed, and I will try to find homes for the kittens.

Net Neutrality

Do yourself a favor: take a look at what is going on with internet neutrality.

There is a lot we all stand to lose if legislation is shoved through on this, so do take a look at this issue. Please.

New bookshelves

Uffda! I've been working on these things all day long. Well, I have to admit that I work fifteen minutes, sit down for a few, then work fifteen more. Days like today are the ones where the mind is willing but the body is weak, and it takes way longer to do something that you thought it might. I know at the end of today, I might have these all assembled, but the place is a wreck from all the stuff I took off the old shelves.

It's midafternoon, and I'm beat. I might have to take a siesta and come back for round two. I already have bumps and bruises showing up where I have dropped a piece of shelving or banged against another piece of furniture. Grrrr.

What you see here is one set, with one more layer to add to the top, and the bottom layer of the second set.

Which side are you on?

In case you aren't familiar with this joke, Marvel comics has a new storyline called Civil War, where the superheroes are divided over a superhero registration act. Some are siding with Captain America; others take the same stance as Iron Man. Pictured here is Toby, dressed up to play Darekitty. I think I'll go with him. ; )

I've been working toward reorganising my library space with new shelving from Ikea. I bought their Effektiv storage units, and am presently building them in the living room, six feet to the right of where I'm sitting now. They are easy to put together, but heavy. I might have to call in some reinforcements to help me get this job done. Film at eleven.

Another Great Adventure

Wow, what a weekend! The Free Comic Book Day festivities at CAPE 2 (Comics and Popculture Expo) in Dallas, TX, were sponsored by Zeus Comics. We drove down from NE Arkansas to participate in an event we hadn't attended before, but had heard great things about it from others.

The first part of the trip was rather uneventful: nice weather, not too hot, not a lot of traffic, and didn't have to speed to make time because the roads are not under construction right now. We didn't get away from town quite as early as we first planned, but we had enough leeway built in that we didn't feel rushed to get going. My car was well-loaded down with the display rack for the quilts, tshirts to (hopefully) sell, my sewing machine, K's artwork, and what I now believe to be a lot of good karma.

We only stopped a few times, once in Texarkana, TX, to get gasoline and some sketchpaper and pens (ooooo! New Stardust Pentel pens!) and make a pitstop. K read Good Omens to me as I drove. That was so much better than listening on tape or cd! We decided to take a break one more time around dusk somewhere between Greenville and Dallas. It wasn't until we got to our hotel that K realised her wallet was missing.

For some reason, I didn't feel panic at all, probably because it was not MY wallet and life that wallets tend to contain. I called my ex, and asked him to pull up the Subway sandwich shops website and see where they were located along the interstate. He gave me the phone numbers, and we called all of them to see if the wallet had turned up. No one had seen it. I had a feeling that possibly there was a shop that was too new to be on the website, so we jumped back in the car and drove some forty-odd miles back across Dallas and out to look for where we had stopped.

It was not the first couple of places we saw, because we remembered it being connected to a service station/convenience store, although we didn't remember what brand of gasoline they sold. Finally, we spotted the right Subway/Exxon station combo across the freeway, and went to the next exit to turn around. The news was good. The person who spotted the wallet told the store manager that there was a wallet in the restroom, and she didn't want to pick it up, just report it. Everything was still in there. Good people still exist out there.

Breathing a collective sigh of relief, we went back to the hotel and decided not to try to attend the mixer on Friday night, because we had some things to do and were already tired. I worked on some braille t-shirts and K worked on some sketches.

We arrived at CAPE a little before 8AM for setup. They were just finishing the tent setup, and we waited a few minutes for the tables to be placed, and to find our spot. We were on the outside edge of this huge tent in the parking lot, near the power source so I could run the sewing machine. We had good neighbors with the guys from Stumblebum Studios on one side and Larry Dixon on the other. Very nice setup, very smooth, and the folks who put on the show from Zeus Comics had plenty of staff to help out with anything and everything. They had portajohns on site, lunch provided (really good pasta and salad!), table covers to make the show look more polished. They are quickly learning how to run a great show. And to think that this event is FREE to the public to meet the guests and to pick up comics, and FREE to the guests as far as setting up tables and attending the parties. You can't beat a deal like that all the way around.

More soon.

So close, but not quite.

I just couldn't do it. It's about 4:30 pm, and I just shut off the sewing machine after a marathon sewfest. I was down to the last bit of background quilting, but the borders needed to be put on, and they would need to be quilted, too. I went in to square up the quilt and my brain no longer functioned. I haven't really slept in about 36 hours. I tried to nap yesterday, but my brain at that point was in high gear, figuring all sorts of cool things to do on this quilt. If you look closely, some of those things are the three dimensional belt on Gunther and the archer chick, the 3D quiver with arrows, something you can't see in this shot...a 3D scabbard for a very cool dagger on the archer chick's calf.

The lesson to be learned here is...get your act together, Alice. Starting this thing one day earlier would have made the difference. I tossed in the towel knowing that I had less than 3 hours before FedEx closes to mail my photos for the jurying of the contest. Reality sunk in when I thought about the fact that it will probably take me that long to put the binding on, once I get it cut.

Face facts, girl. You might be Darediva, but you ain't WonderWoman.



I quilted a boatload of oak leaves into the background, rather than do all stippling. They aren't really yellow, that's just a highlighter effect to show you where a couple of them are.

At least, this will be done for us to take with us this weekend when we go to Dallas for Cape 2!

Will she make it?

Here's what is done at the moment. I have until 8 pm to have this done, photographed, and the photos to FedEx. No rest for the wicked.

I have the side panels to sew onto here, the background quilting to be done, and the binding. Screw the hanging sleeve for now. I can add that later, along with the fancy label on back.

The finishing stuff will go on after the quilting. I will add some shadows to her hair to make it have some definition, and the bowstring will be adding in the quilting step, as will some metal studs on the armour and jewels on the wand.

Gotta run.

On being a Disabled American Veteran

Some twenty-odd years ago, I joined the Navy to see the world and get a college education. Mostly, I got to see a lot of Florida. But the point here is that during my service to my country, I injured my back on the job, which screwed up any plan of making the Navy a career. The good thing to come out of this was that college education now came free as part of my voc-rehab. The bad part would be I would find out how much the VA discriminated against women for the longest.

I was told upon discharge from the Navy that I should go directly to the Veteran's Affairs office and apply for that system. I did just that, getting an appointment for a C&P exam. I was also told that I wouldn't have to worry, the VA would up my disability rating, they always do.

Nothing could have been further from the truth. I went in for the evaluation, and the doctor there asked me questions such as "Are you married?" "Who does the laundry?" "Who does the shopping?" "Who does the housecleaning?" It appeared that if I was married, I had a husband TO TAKE CARE OF ME and therefore didn't need any compensation for an injury that usually gave a man a 100% rating. They "gave" me a 10% rating, patted me on the head and sent me on my way.

I did get into the VA hospital system; they could not deny me that because it was a service connected disablility. Twenty years ago, the way that the doctors handled someone who complained of pain was to give them enough drugs to make them a zombie, then they wouldn't squawk. I was given enough stuff to make me stupid, and I found I had little choice other than bear the pain of everyday living or take the drugs and forget about everything else. I chose not to take the drugs. I like to be able to find my ample backside with both hands.

After several years of no monthly compensation because I had drawn severance from the Navy, I found the Disabled American Veterans post, and joined. One of the local chapter members had been a National Service Officer at one point, and he kindly showed me the ropes of reapplying for increased benefits. (Even though it was painfully obvious that the old boys' club that was the DAV would rather have me sitting out with "the little women" of the Auxillary.)

My benefits increased to 40% with no problem, and the doctor who interviewed me this time was appalled to hear what the first doctor had said. But not appalled enough to raise my benefits above the 50% mark, which makes a huge difference in your standing in the VA pecking order.

A couple of years later, I went through the evaluation again, this time pulling 60%. I would have been very happy had I not known that one of the fellow vets from my post had just been awarded 100% for the very same injury I have. One the way home from the evals, he was bragging about the new boat he had just gotten, and how he really had put one over on the VA finally. I was fairly steamed.

The point of telling all this, I suppose, is to point out how the odds can get stacked against a person who is trying to get benefits. Just being female kept me from getting the same as someone else.

Today I drive a car with disabled plates bordered by a "DAV Life Member" frame. I still get countless dirty looks when I get out of my car, and people assume nothing is wrong because I don't use a chair. (Or they assume that my husband is the disabled vet. Funny now, because I don't have a husband any more.) They have no idea what kind of pain I deal with when I go shop for necessities. If I didn't have the plates, I would avoid places with large parking lots, because it would be all I could do to get into the store, much less spend a great deal of time shopping. As it is, I am dragging at the end of a grocery shopping trip. I hate it. But I am ABLE to deal with it because I did get the plates. (P.S. I never park in the "van" spaces. That just wouldn't be right.)

All is not bad, however. I would like to say that overall, the care I have received from the VA is very good. It's much better now that I have a 60% rating that makes me eligible for prescriptions without copay. Services for women veterans are also much more available. But I do see a lot of things evaporating as the government pulls money away from the VA healthcare system to pay for other budget shortfalls. That's no way to treat those who gave of themselves in service to the nation.

Thank you for reading.

Gettin' there

The characters are beginning to spring to life! Pyrus is pretty much done save for a few details, and I have the hair done on all of them. I don't have the beard done on Gunther yet. I may have to take a couple of test runs at that to determine how to do the best stubbly beard.

Once I get all the figure work done, I will cut away the layer of batting that I'm working on top of now, leaving batting only under the figures. The side panels will be squared up and placed with the main panel. The whole top will then be sandwiched with another layer of batting, and the backing. The background will be quilted, and we are thinking about leaves or possibly a castle turret. Woohoo!
This isn't photographed on a flat surface, so a bit of distortion is resulting. It will all make good sense when I get it flat on a wall and get a good overall shot.

Gunther looks odd with no beard! ; ) The belt buckle is a real one, and the belt is a 3D added piece. There will also be one on the archer chick; you can see that above Gunther's shoulder, where it hasn't been sewn in yet.

Flame on!

That refers to Pyrus' hair. Not a lot to report today, even though progress was made. I found out what NOT to do the next time I attempt this type of project...I will NOT use a fusible bonding agent underneath the applique pieces for this type of work where I am doing freemotion embroidery over the applique. I've found it gums up the needle and causes the thread to fray horribly.

I'm using Metafil size 80/12 needles, and Sulky rayon embroidery thread. The fabrics are all 100% cotton, some from Red Rooster fabrics, and some hand-dyed. This is what I've used on all my other embroidery projects, and it has to be the fusible that is causing the grief. I normally do almost all of the freemotion embroidery without any applique, but the size of this piece (51 inches square) would make it impractical.

I did finish the second Celtic knotwork panel, so that intricate stuff will not be making me crazy at the last minute. I hope. I'm sure that something will go awry, and make me sweat bullets before this is over. Ah, but that's half the fun!

Keeping odd hours

That's really nothing new for me. It's 5 am, and I've been up all night doing the Celtic knot border for the quilt. This was fun, but quite the challenge. To keep me entertained while I worked, I put on a couple of movies. First I watched Sneakers, which always makes me think about the fact that Frank Miller modeled his version of Matt Murdock after a young Robert Redford. After watching that, and the "making of" portion of the dvd which I had not seen before. I put on the director's cut of Daredevil, which I haven't watched for at least THREE months! Travesty! Yeah, it's as good as I remembered ; )

Here's a close up of the knotwork. In the far off view, the purple part doesn't show up much. I may have to use some contrast thread in the quilting to make it show better. There's way too much work there for it to not show.

I just spoke on Yahoo Messenger with Wonder Alice. She has had a migraine today, and so did I earlier. I slept most of the day trying to get rid of it, and didn't wake up again until almost 10 pm. It was down to a dull roar, so I was able to get work done on the quilt again. There wasn't enough on the main part that I accomplished to even document. But it's progressing nicely, and I work well under a deadline.

Shaping up

Not me! The quilt project! As you can gather here, things are looking up. I found some sparkly things today to use to add to the wizard's wand, and a good rough leather-looking fabric for Gunther's boots.

This is the part where I look at the project and know it will all come together, but I know other people really aren't feeling it yet...




This is most of the applique cutting, and the next step will be to start the thread painting details. That's the fun part, when the figures take on dimensions and the various textures start to show. I should have the faces all done tomorrow.

More Work in Progress

This is how we build a quilt...

Step one: Trash through the extensive fabric stash for that one piece that is PERFECT for Pyrus' hair, Gunther's boots, or the archer's outfit. The inner sanctum of the domestic goddess will remain in total chaos until the project is finished.

Who wants to clean up when you are in manic creative mode? Not me.

The pattern is traced onto a fusible webbing, placed on the back of the specific fabric, and cut out. K got introduced tonight to the joys of pinning patterns to fabric.

This is Gunther's hair and his collar to his cape. On the white sheet behind are random pieces of his armour waiting to be cut out.

This is the elven(sp?) archer's face and headpiece.

We will be working this piece from the background to the foreground.

The pieces are assembled and pressed onto the background fabric with a small Clover iron. I have to wear white gloves when I work with fabric. A few years ago, I developed the occupational hazard of dye allergies. My hands crack open and bleed when I handle fabric if I don't wear these lovely designer gloves with the fingertips cut off.

Details will be added when the stitching begins. All the facial features and garment details will be done in free motion machine embroidery.

We had to quit at midnight. K has to go back to her real job, and I have to go to Memphis to the VA for an eye exam. I do hope it doesn't take all day.

Work in progress

Sometimes what seems should be the easy part of a project isn't. Once you settle on a design, picking fabric can be quite the challenge, especially if you are working out of your current stash rather than going out and buying from scratch.

I think I have pulled through every piece of fabric I own, and friends, let me tell you, I could stock a small store with what I have in the collection. Nearly twenty years of serious fabric collecting, and I haven't even bought any in the past couple of years.

What you see here is the background fabrics that I have decided on for the Shining Armor project. The mossy green will be the major part, and the wheat print will be the background behind the Celtic knotwork pattern I've put together for the flanking panels. I've chosen fabrics for the characters' clothes, hair, skin tone, and the binding. There most certainly will be things that I will decide won't work, once I'm started sewing, but I have to make hay whether the sun shines or not in the next week. Photos of the completed 51" square quilt must be in by May 1, 2006.

Here is the full scale pattern for the Celtic knotwork border. It measures 7 inches wide by 49 inches long, and will run vertically on either side of the main characters. It will be woven of 1/4 inch wide bias tubing, in purple and a steely blue.

The reason for the red at the top? I forgot to change out the divider sheet in the printer and why waste a good print when it doesn't matter? These will be made by putting a piece of waxed paper over the pattern and weaving the knots, dabbing a bit of fabric glue at the intersections to hold everything together. When that is done, I will gently slide them onto the background fabric, pin and glue them in place, and stitch them down. Or that's the plan right now. 8 )

The goal for tomorrow is to get some of the first parts of the characters worked onto the mossy background. I will be appliqueing the fabrics onto the background, adding the precise details with machine freeform embroidery. Most of the threads have already been chosen, too, so what is left is to get rolling on this bad boy, and do it up right. Stay tuned.

Serendipity

Easter Sunday has come once more, and I was privileged enough to get to spend it with my mother. I got up this morning and prepared one of her favorite meals, chicken and dumplings (the puffy kind, not the flat rolled ones) and took it out to her at the nursing home. I had arranged yesterday for the ex to meet me there, because my mother had asked about him. He has always been good to her, and went above and beyond the call of duty when she was living in our home. My mother was quite surprised when he walked in her room, and cried when he hugged her. I think this is probably the first time in almost two years she has seen him, because of our breakup.

Mama and Mrs. Harris, her roommate, were very pleased with the dumplings, and made quick work of them. We went out to the front parlor area, and sat with my mother and talked a little and watched a couple of old comedies on TV Land. It was a pleasant day, and afterwards, the ex and I did a quick run through at Big Lots for some groceries. He hates to shop, and for some reason lately, has been asking me to accompany him. Odd, since he would never go with me before.

The high pollen count is still giving me a terrible time, so I downed some antihistamines and went to lie down for a while. I must have been tired, as I slept until almost 8 pm. I checked email, talked briefly with a couple of online friends, and cruised by a couple of blogs. As I was getting ready to sign into this blog to make an entry, I saw on the scrolling blogs that were being updated "wonder alice". Of course, that got me curious. Down the rabbithole that is the internet I went.

By extreme coincidence, wonder alice is also going through the problems of macular degeneration, but the wet form, which is so much more devastating than what I've been through up to this point with the dry form. She lives in Japan, and by reading her blog, I got the pleasure of seeing many views of the sakuras, something I only got to do once, and it was in Washington, D.C. instead of Japan. Still a beautiful memory for me.

Through her excellent photo blogging, wonder alice has rekindled my desire for some of the wonderful Asian cuisine that I sampled during my tour of duty on Okinawa. She also has something else in common with me...a love of floral design. Even though I no longer do it on a regular basis, the skills come in handy on occasion. Just the other day, when rearranging a lot of things in my flat, I came across several of my ikebana containers and the heavy pin frogs I bought off the base in Kadena and Naha. I must try my hand at this again. It does wonders for your soul to work with nature's beauty.

I have a lot to do this coming week, and I hope I can get it all done. So, if you don't see me around quite as much, it's because I'm concentrating in the inner sanctum of the domestic goddess, aka the sewing room.

The Ides of April

I've never been one to jump on a bandwagon, mostly because I couldn't catch it. If I did catch it, I'd have to have someone give me a hand to hoist me up there. So, what am I doing here, adding my blog to Blogging Against Disablism Day on May 1?

Maybe I will come up with something insightful by then. I hope so. Right this moment, it is 0416 and I am rather fried after a long day of helping celebrate my mother's eighty-sixth birthday, and doing a few other things important only to myself.

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I would like to say that I do not think Tiger Woods would have intentionally used the "s-word" had he known the connotations it has outside the US. I know it was a phrase that I have heard and probably used over the years without having any clue it was considered bad taste in other places. It's another case of two countries being separated by that common language again. Here in the good old U S of A, a bum is a guy who is too lazy to work for a living. Until recently, when a friend sent me a great dictionary of American/British terms, I didn't know it could be a part of your anatomy. Ah, semantics.