Coffee heat rising

Ouch! Ugh! and Whew!!!

by

Whew! It’s hotter’n’a three-dollar cookstove. The air conditioning just ran through what it defines as a cooling cycle and shut off. Still frying in here. Need to go out and fall in the pool again.

Ugh! Reports have it that Apple is going, oh (grumpily) hallelujah, to replace our fine defective goddamn keyboards, for freaking FREE!

So. I guess Monday I will have to traipse over to the Biltmore and hand this thing across the counter, there to have it gone for several days, probably the better part of a week. How can I express my annoyance?

Okay, okay, OKAYYYY you’re right! How can anyone complain when a company wants to make one of its fiascos right all by its little self, not being forced to do so by the federal government?

All very nice, I’m sure. But for what this thing cost, shouldn’t we get a keyboard that…well…you know…works? From the git-go?

Having to attach a Microsoft(!) external keyboard is the least of the annoyances. Yesterday this fine expensive little beast experienced not one, not two, but three system crashes. Plus FireFox crashed, apparently overloaded by having too many tabs open. (Is that even possible?)

These crashes occurred while I was working on the Drugging of America book, sweating over a chapter that has, to give you a clue to its complexity, 83 endnotes. Woulda thought I was gonna die, thank you very much, without the damn computer stumbling around all evening long.

So it was 11 p.m. by the time I wrestled that mess into a corner and then posted Friday’s chapter of The Complete Writer.

And finally, ouch! Now we have some direct evidence that stress makes me clench and grind my teeth at night.

Stopped wearing the mouth guard after the burning mouth episode, which hurt quite a lot and took a good three weeks to clear up fully.

Apparently this was ill-advised. Woke at 5 a.m., sat up, and…YOOOWWWWW!!!!!

Worst pain I’ve EVER felt!

It felt like somehow I must have dislocated my jaw.

In my sleep??? HOW???

Whatever…it was just excruciating, and I thought I was going to have to go to the emergency room…A-fuckinGAIN!

Managed to stagger in to the bathroom, heat up a wet washcloth, and apply. Still couldn’t close my mouth, but did contrive to get online and find, at the TMJ site, the advice that less is more. They’d posted a little physical therapy exercise that supposedly would help this phenomenon.

Couldn’t get any worse. So tried it out, and damned if it didn’t help.

These things always, invariably happen to me on the weekends. So calling the dentist was off the table. Oh well.

By 9 a.m. it had calmed down enough to be more or less tolerable. Resuscitated the mouth guard and left it in all day. That also seemed to help. I guess.

What fun.

Unable to chew anything…luckily a very ripe (and delicious!) watermelon was sitting on the kitchen counter. So that was a lot like eating sherbet. But less fattening.

This afternoon it was off to the nearby Sprouts in Crime Central to pick up a cucumber. Developed a craving for xergis, a cold soup perfect for a day like this. And it doesn’t have to be chewed. 😉

Sprouts has a security guard looming at the front door these days. That’s good. I guess. Yeah. I live in a neighborhood where the local grocery store has to post guards to keep its customers from being brained or running off in terror. Ducky.

You’d think Sprouts would have a decent cuke, wouldn’t you?

Not so much.

You had your choice:

Organic…  Armenian-type, wrapped in plastic but wimpy, no longer than a regular old-fashioned cuke, but thinner. Looked pretty puny under the plastic wrap: dented, scratched, verging on wilted.

Inorganic… Encased in wax.

The inorganic cukes were a buck apiece, but a) I hate that wax stuff and b) by the time you peeled off the contaminated skin, not so much would be left. The sickly-looking organic cukes were two bucks apiece(!!!!!).

Wave good-bye to the security guard…jump in the car…head down to AJs.

There the Armenian-style cucumbers also were $2 apiece — but you’d expect to pay that in the Jewel of Richistan. AJ’s is Arizona’s answer to Whole Foods, only it costs more.

Food’s better, too.

While there, picked up a package of overpriced dog food, obviating the need to drive out again on Monday, when the hounds will run out of the batch they’ve got in the fridge. So that was good.

At any rate, I’m pretty sure this jaw/TMJ thing is a direct result of sitting in front of the damn computer tearing my hair until 11 p.m. and then falling straightaway into the sack. It confirms the dentist’s suspicion: stress. And it explains where the stress comes from.

Working on a computer is a constant exercise in low-grade stress, punctuated by moments of frustration, rage, and despair. Last night’s Triple Crown crash-fest was more extreme than usual…but the fact of the matter is that a computer is a box filled with endless aggravation.

That notwithstanding, today I finished another chapter. It’s rather slight — only about 1670 words. But I decided it would be good to insert the “How to Read a Scientific Paper” squib closer to the front than originally planned. Follow that with the NNT chapter, which will require a degree of science-buff sophistication from the reader.

In theory, with chapter 2 I now have enough to put the proposal together and start sending it out. But I think I’d rather have a more solid chapter to include in the proposal, and the NNT rant is it. It will take two or three days to write that, I expect, using the original blog post as the bare-bones draft.

Really, the relevant posts are functioning like preliminary outlines. This stuff grows like algae on the side of the pool. And of course every word of the content has to be rewritten to sound like something a university press would care to publish… Bloggish doesn’t make it.

It’s 7 p.m., I haven’t finished the current chapter of Ella’s Story, which needs to go live on Monday. And I’m too tired to function. To reiterate:

Ouch! Ugh! and Whew!

 

Ars Bloggiendi: The Art of Blogging

by

Almost a day late and certainly a dollar short…finally got this week’s installment of The Complete Writer online. It was easy (for a change)…but the whole day was occupied with finishing a long, fully researched chapter for the new book on overprescription.

This, I hope to have ready to send to the first of several proposed editors within another week or ten days. Unfortunately, reaching goals entails (ugh!) actual working. The horror of it!

Today’s TCW chapter begins a new section on blogging, from the writer’s point of view. Why do writers blog? Do they make any money at it? And what are the ethics involved?

So get thee over to Plain & Simple Press and enjoy that amazing *FREE* squib. Meanwhile, yrs truly and the dawgs are, at last, going to bed.

😉

Ant Wars: The Battle of the Butter Dish!

by

The Ondt Queen is back!

🙂 This morning come 5 a.m., her minions were swarming the kitchen counter, joyously singing their Ondt Battle Song:

As we go marching, marching
In the buggy of the day,
A thousand counters greasy,
A hundred dishwashers left off,
Are touched with all the glory
That a kitchen light discloses.
Bread and butter
Bread and butterrrrr….

LOL! The little gals are beside themselves with buggy joy. I left the butter dish out on the counter after my friends went home. I don’t ordinarily eat bread and butter, and so when cleaning up after dinner didn’t even register the presence of the butter dish…or rather, that it was loaded with Ondt Bait.

Ants are strange and marvelous little creatures, like a thousand discrete brain cells trotting around independently yet somehow mysteriously in touch. Collectively, their dietary needs shift. Sometimes they crave carbs — preferably sugar from your kitchen. At other times, the hive needs oil. Butter will do nicely, thank you very much. They were pleased, very pleased.

The human, ambushing the Ondt Queen’s troops by dawn, deployed chemical warfare: sprayed them all with home-made glass cleaner (rubbing alcohol + water + ammonia). This dispatches the little gals on contact. But when you have hundreds of them swarming around, a lot of contact must be made.

Ran a line of diatomaceous earth along the kitchen door threshold, where I could see them entering through a crack or two.

Ants do not like DE, but they can learn to tolerate it enough to walk through a line of it. Supposedly when they get it on their exoskeletons, the tiny sharp grains cut through like glass, exposing the insect to eventual dessication. Do they take it back to the hive and contaminate their sisters? Unknown. Folklore says so, but…

By this evening they were distinctly not done in. When I went out to get a glass of tea, a whole new division of Ondt Warriors was bivouacked on the counter, even though there was nothing (that I could see) for them to eat. Removed everything from the counter, sprayed again, scrubbed down the kitchen counter and sinks, turned the dishwasher to the steam-blast ultrasanitize cycle, and laid down some more DE.

If they’re not gone tomorrow, I’ll have to go out and buy some ant baits, which effectively do them in.

I hate to kill the ants. They’re very effective janitors. The other day I found them out by the pool equipment, carrying off the corpses of the revolting worms that live in the palm trees. These unlovely creatures fall into the drink and then collect in the pool’s skimmer basket and pump pot filters, where they become entangled disgustingly in the mesh. Easiest way to get rid of The Deceased is to have more than one filter. Drop a clean filter in and leave a full filter sitting out in the heat. Et voilà! the debris — and worms — will dry up and then you can just shake the stuff out. Otherwise, you have to scrub it out with a hose sprayer and a brush.

But no. The other day the ants were carrying the dead worms away. 🙂 No clean-up.

If they’d just stay on their side of the battlefield…uhm, property, we’d all be fine. Détente! But I can’t have them taking over the kitchen counters. They do bite. And…well, the sight of a kitchen counter undulating is a bit disturbing. 😀 Especially at five in the morning.

Woo hoo! Lifestyle change WORKS on blood pressure!

by

Dayummm!!!! You’ll recall that in response to a recent test indicating  mildly elevated liver enzymes, I decided not only to lose a few pounds but also to go totally, completely on the wagon?

Well, I’ve been riding that dietetic wagon for a little over a month. Lost about five pounds. It’ll be the middle of August before we know whether the present frolic has an effect on one’s liver enzymes — the medicos like to wait three months before retesting.

But… In the absence of my favorite potables, something amazing has happened to the blood pressure: the average — yes, average! — is down to 117.4/79.6.

Holy mackerel!

After 18 days off the sauce, I decided for the heck of it to check the BP numbers again, even though I hate it and even though MayoDoc said to knock that off. Thought I’d take a look about once every ten days or two weeks.

So.

18 days into the Wagon Ride: Average = 127.2/87.6  (This, after discarding the initial reading of 142/91.3. Two systolic readings were in the 130s.)
24 days off the sauce: Average = 124.8/83.4 (all readings)
32 days booze-free: Average = 117.4/79.6 (no discarding of anything!)

A-n-n-d this happens at the time of day when my BP is normally at its highest.

Is that ay-mazing or NOT?

The BP did drop the last time I lost weight…but five pounds is not very much. The last weight-loss gambit associated with this flap was thirty pounds.

The difference is…last time I decidedly did not get off the sauce. A glass of wine or beer with dinner — the big meal of the day — is one of the very few small pleasures remaining to me. I do not drink myself into a stupor — very rarely do I drink enough to feel even faintly high. And there is a limit to the array of lifestyle blandishments I’m willing to do away with.

But apparently…if you believe there’s a connection…apparently even two glasses of wine a day is enough to push your BP upward.

Maybe the Christian Scientist relatives had something.

Fighting Uphill through Dystopia

by

Wow! This has been One of Those Days. Ever have a day where you felt like every  moment you were fighting uphill…against yourself? 😀

So for the fourth night in a row, I wake up at 2 in the morning and don’t get back to sleep. Along about dawn, I give up and roll out of the sack.

Normally at 5 a.m. I’d take the dogs for a mile-long walk: good for them, good for me. After yet another five-hour night, though, instead I wandered in to the computer to glance at the news. Then drifted over to the chapter I’m writing, which has been going exceptionally well. I’ve been working toward finishing a particularly difficult section of the thing…and when I sat down, got pulled into that.

Come 7:30 a.m., that section was written — we’re now at 62 endnotes, just for that one chapter. (This stuff is astonishing! What has been and still is going on boggles the brain.)

By now it’s getting a bit late for a doggy-walk, but thanks to Hurricane Bud’s outer fringe breezing through a couple days ago, by 7:30 it’s not yet unduly hot. So I decide to shoot out the door, despite the late hour, because the other day we failed to go out and I need not to get back into the no-walk habit.

Foolishly, though, I elect to take the route south from the Funny Farm, which is less shaded than the path through Upper Richistan. This: mistake.

Southward from here is Cassie’s favorite place to take a dump. I do not understand what it is about this particular house, but by damn, Cassie wants more than anything on this earth to dump upon its lawn. Specifically, to take up her position in front of the shack’s huge picture windows so the resident can watch her defiling the yard.

Naturally, I carry blue doggy-bags around with me. But really: every goddam day this dog has to dump on THAT lawn? If I were the homeowner, I’d be irked.

So to minimize the effect, I walk them past the house on the other side of the street and then go south on the sidewalk that passes along the side of the house. That way, when she hunkers down she at least isn’t making a spectacle of herself (and us) through the front-facing windows.

This takes us over a long stretch of fast-heating concrete and asphalt. Meanwhile, Cassie is putting up a fight: she drags  backward while Ruby drags forward. And at this moment, as we’re crossing the street, she decides to sit down in the middle of the goddamn road anbd not budge.

Here we have the flavor of the day: drag me forward, drag me backward.

Finally I cut short the stroll, leave the dogs at the house, and go out to finish the mile-long course.  By the time I get back, it’s starting to get hot.

A-a-a-n-d I haven’t watered the plants in back. In Arizona heat, you either water your potted plants or you watch your plants die. Fly outside to do that job and see the pool walls are draped with moss. Again. Mustard algae: it was cleaned up pretty well yesterday, and now here it is back again.

Feed the dogs. Fly back outside.

Screw on the pressure sprayer, jump in the drink, wash down the steps and seat and walls and walls and walls and walls and walls… Dump in more chlorine.

Notice that I must have slopped olive-oil marinade on the patio while I was entertaining friends Sunday evening. Spray the spots on the concrete and sandstone flags with diluted Dawn, let it sit.

Visit my neighbor, WonderAccountant, to gift her and Mr. WonderAccountant with the remaining half-bottle of wine from the recent shindig. It’s my favorite wine. I, however, am on the wagon and do not want this elixir to be wasted, so figured they might enjoy it. Hang out for awhile, chatting pleasantly.

After the series of sleepless nights, I decide to go back to bed for a short nap. Amazingly, it works: I’m out cold and even enjoying a dream. A fairly involved dream, complete with developed plot and characters…and of course the phone rings:

Hellooo, this is Rachel from Card Services…

Fuck!

Onward to spend the rest of the afternoon cleaning and oiling the kitchen cabinets. Fun job… 😮 But the result is pretty nice.

And speaking of Fuck…

If you are not listening to Rachel Maddow on what that bastard in the White House is doing to the children he has stolen from their parents, you sure as fuck should be. Get it on the Internet: google Rachel Maddow. Or better yet, go straight to the horse’s mouth: Pro Publica: https://www.propublica.org/article/children-separated-from-parents-border-patrol-cbp-trump-immigration-policy

This is simply inexcusable. We put a wannabe Balkan dictator in the White House, funded by multibillionaires who want to change America to fit their perverse tastes, and what we get is a country converted into a wannabe Balkan dictatorship.

If there breathes an American who does not feel shame for this, then that person is not much of an American.

Or maybe we should say this is not America. We have lost our country.