Weblog 61
April 8, 2007~ 12:45am
So here I am at the new digs at Blogger. I was very sad to be informed by Shortal (which used to host my weblog)- that they were closing. (And no doubt, sold to the highest bidder- the way of ALL dot com internet endeavors it seems.) I can't say I'm surprised because it happens all the time, but I will say it was a shock.
You just never expect these things, even though they happen with great frequency. A body gets used to something and feels comfortable, and that's what the old place felt like: like giving up a comfortable old chair. I do like the look of this thus far- a bit neater, 'tidier' looking but I still miss the Shortal ease of adding entries. This Google reading and spying on everything slows things down, makes the keyboard lag, and overall just drives me nuts!
It behaves like a dull-witted driver, whose car you're stuck in as a passenger and you have places to go and things to do! There is a nano-second delay with every keystroke, and I just know that's Google listening in and saying, "Huh? What's that you're (saying/doing)- right this second?"- and that's kind of creepy. I do know one thing: this is the first and only entry I will compose straight into the box. Cripes, this is aggravating. I'll write it out in Wordpad, then copy and paste it (that's sure to give me a couple more years on my life, at least.)
In Shortal I could do everything without turning on javascript, which I hate like the plague! It, honest to God, is like trying to walk with two bowling balls strapped to your ankles....it's that boggish....ugh!
But beggars can't be choosers, and this is where I find myself and trying to circumvent as much of Blogger's damned "new, new, NEW" as much as possible- for instance: they can take every damn WIDGET and stick it up their asses! Give me good old HTML code, some scripts- some simple format- and by God, I'll go and do what I have to do, and do it cleanly and quickly. Of course, I'm more suspicious of internet surveillance than the average bear, and it galls me.
It's always dressed up real cute too, and that's how you know it's for shit. LOL!! Hey..............it's like Easter!
Happy Easter, btw.......here is my Easter greeting to all. My favorite bunny picture of all time-
Things still look 'weird' when I bring this up through Internet Explorer, rather than Firefox. The formatting is off in the skinny sidebar, but I'll figure it out.........eventually. Got to get some shut-eye now and be prepared to foist myself on the unsuspecting relatives tomorrow, who may not appreciate the frustrations of the past two days or the fact that late last night and most of today, I've had a recurrance of the galloping 'trots' that afflicted me some 2 weeks back.
I think my body is trying to make a statement: Life is more shit than you can handle.
Back to more of the stammering, twitchy copy-and-paste salt mines, get a couple more pages up from last March and march on up to bed myself. "Illegitimati Non Carborundum"~ don't let the bastards wear you down. Peace, all.
April 8~ 12:45pm
Had a good seven hours sleep, and I'm almost ready for the day's activities...picking up my mother for the Easter observance at my nephew's house, lots of chatter, seeing the grandchildren, (eating, of course...lol) and then back home to unwind and mentally prepare for another work week.
I do think I've got things ironed out in formatting this new blog; once that happens things more or less 'settle down' for me. I'm frantic until it does happen, and tend to walk around with the look of a crazed lunatic on some insane bender: eyes wide and circled, twitches and tics- anxious to scratch all the bugs out.
And, by Jove, I think I've got it!
I hope wherever you are, you're gorging on chocolate and deviled eggs. I hope the weather is better than it is here in Pittsburgh (it's 32 degrees) which means all the kids will be cooped up indoors. The noise level should be appalling. LOL!
I hope too, to get back to writing poetry soon. On this messianic mission to get a new weblog in place, I've all but forgotten about it and it calms me.
The one thing we should try to cling to in life is the thing that calms and centers us. I intend to seek it out like a hidden colored egg and run around the house, piping, "I found it! I found it!"~~a happy, blessed day to you. Me too.
April 8~9:45pm
Home for the past few hours, and working on restoring these old posts. In many cases the graphics have gone the way of the wind, and have to be re-uploaded and resurrected on a different free host server. It all takes time, but it's honestly quite relaxing to me just knowing this old blog is getting a sprucing up in its brand new home. Plus...I've had connection problems in Shortal recently- I guess that's because their servers were getting overloaded as all things began to fall into entropy while the creators shopped around for an interested buyer- (that's my guess, anyway.)
The Easter celebration at my nephew Michael and his wife Maryann's house was truly enjoyable. The food was terrific! My goodness, homemade gnocci, and brown-sugar glazed ham, potato salad, fruit salads and vegetable salads galore, and LOTS of homebaked goodies. (Fresh out of the oven rolls and bread, too!) The kids were well-behaved- little Kay dressed up in splendor with sequiny pink shoes and painted fingernails, a "Madeline" style white hat with ribbon and lacy tights. Bill had on dress pants, a plaid shirt, and a HUGE tie.........LOL!!! He didn't seem to mind at all; as long as he could play with his cousins' army men and TRANSFORMERS, he was in hog heaven. When he gets older (and can reach them) the Foosball table, pool table and air hockey table will transport him for sure. Right now....for both he and Kay.....anything close to the ground is found treasure.
My dumb 'glued in' tooth stayed put, even chomping on ham; I had no embarrassing moments where folks would most likely tend to pass me a jug to whistle into .....lol....and a corn cob pipe! And no-- I don't know when I'll get this taken care of but knowing me, this gluing process is likely to go on until I either- swallow it, lose it or break it..........
"I AM SLOTH."
April 9, 2007~7:45pm
First day back to work after the holiday was a real grind. Gawd I'm tired! I just finished archiving just a few pages, and I'm ready to head upstairs and relax in bed. Stretch out. I've been doing too much of this, and it feels like I'm going cross-eyed (and cross-tempered as well) so it's time to close this up for now, play some solitaire, read my 'Lincoln's Melancholy' book and get a good night's sleep. (Still cold, by the way. Going down to 25 tonight. At least it's good sleeping weather, though all the blossoms are officially killed and drooping, discolored and sad-looking.) Just like me.
April 10, 2007~5:15am
I slept deeply for six hours without waking. That hasn't happened since the middle of last week, and it felt wonderful. All I have to do is come fully awake- and right now, coffee isn't quite doing it...lol. Hopefully, feeling less sleep-deprived will allow me to feel more in the normal flow of things and not boxed in, on the edges of frantic over nothing. I believe it's the restorations of these old posts--- I'm like a snake that's been chopped into segments.
Once the natural continuity is restored into one long slow-moving anaconda of time, I think life's familiar rhythms will allow for more relaxation by virtue of the twenty-four hour inchworming of thought....right now, I'm Scrooge- being visited by the Ghost of Christmas Past(and that can't have felt very good.)
I need to live in the present again, and I'm getting there slowly but surely. Life is truly what we make it and right now, I'm re-making a lot of old- and in some cases, painful ground. The first flush of victory in creating this thing has now passed, and now it's a re-plowing of old fields- some of which are now fallow, and some that should not have been planted to begin with but it's my past, my true past- and there it lay in clumps of unattractive clay and I'm the arranger of plots in their proper order. There's an urge to get on with another growing season, not to be forever standing in that field, but certainly knowing it is there.
Have a good Tuesday the tenth, everyone. It's the only Tuesday the tenth, 2007 we'll ever see. (Scary, isn't it?-- this acknowledged weight of days.)
April 13, 2007-7:40am
I watched Bill and Kay last night- mostly, just keeping them occupied so my daughter and her husband could get the porch in shape and do a little gift shopping for Bill's big birthday bash tomorrow. It's his first party with kids invited from nursery school. Birthday number 4 is gonna be quite a bash. Holly made firemen hats for all 7 tykes coming, they will play 'Pin the Spot on the Dalmation', everyone gets firemens' badges- and as the 'piece de resistance' - the actual FIRE DEPARTMENT will bring their firetruck to the house, pile the kids on, and give them a ride to the station (which is located in the lot just behind Holly's house) and host a tour.
What a great party! So what did I do to occupy those two while mom and dad scrambled about vacuuming and pulling porch furniture this way and that? First of all, we watched their vintage "Superman" DVD, with 8 episodes on it of the fine Max Fleischer vintage, each one lasting about 10 minutes. It was terrific. LOL! Kay was content simply to sit on my lap and babble at the screen in 'Kay Language '(I believe she knows the dialogue by heart), and Bill had to go run and get his shoes, believing that once the shoes are on they in truth, become 'Superman boots' and allow the wearer to take on superhero powers and make with the "POW! POW!", entailing lots of karate jabs and kicks. What gave the evening its special flavor, however, was the episode with what Bill referred to as 'Gigantor', the giant gorilla. (I could find no such reference in the cartoon, but Bill was intent upon this name. lol)- which lead me to reminiscences about King Kong.
Bill was all ears, and Kay babbled enthusiastically. After we had our pizza, with Holly and Gary out shopping, Bill wanted the King Kong story very badly- so I hammed it up and told it over and over until Bill of course, "became" King Kong. He was a bit disturbed that the giant ape dies at the end in his plummet from the Empire State building, but piped enthusiastically -(as he does now with every reference to 'death', a scary concept which he is currently struggling to get his mind around)- "and then, GOD AND JESUS make him NOT DEAD anymore!" -his face beaming like a little Billy Sunday.
He soon got into the drama of saving Fay Wray by putting her safely down before he does his 101-story swan dive, and the scene would go like this: Bill would talk to the imaginary little woman in his palm, "Goodbye, little one...." and gently put her down, then pound his chest- snatching and clawing at the unseen airplanes, and do a dramatic death scene while I made the whistling "falling down forever" sound through my teeth.
We did this over and over......Bill never tires of something once it's captured his imagination. He told me King Kong 'lives' behind his television -(a special place he shares with Hulk, Dr. Doom and Spiderman) once I convinced him that Kong was a superhero in his own right- stolen away from his jungle home and falling in love with the 'little lady'- then finally saving her life. He loved the idea of an ape-martyr. I told him, "a coward dies a thousand deaths, Bill- but the valiant taste of death but once!" "What? What did you say??"- that phrase caught his ear but good, so I'd repeat it. (Bill's hearing is fine. It's lines that really smite him that he'll ask you to repeat, so he can commit them to memory. LOL!!)
Oh, I was a lovely evening. More memories....tucked away, recorded here as an assurance I will not forget them, and the party tomorrow. Life is good. Is very, very good. And when we die.......there is 'GOD AND JESUS to make us NOT DEAD anymore!" -(she beams.)
April 13, 2007~ 7:15am
Here's Pittsburgh, taken from our Grandview Avenue webcam right now.....dreary and drizzly, and Friday the 13th (!) but always a beauty from this angle.
I really love this place....with its confluence of three rivers and all the bridges.
***
(Return To Weekly Archives)
So here I am at the new digs at Blogger. I was very sad to be informed by Shortal (which used to host my weblog)- that they were closing. (And no doubt, sold to the highest bidder- the way of ALL dot com internet endeavors it seems.) I can't say I'm surprised because it happens all the time, but I will say it was a shock.
You just never expect these things, even though they happen with great frequency. A body gets used to something and feels comfortable, and that's what the old place felt like: like giving up a comfortable old chair. I do like the look of this thus far- a bit neater, 'tidier' looking but I still miss the Shortal ease of adding entries. This Google reading and spying on everything slows things down, makes the keyboard lag, and overall just drives me nuts!
It behaves like a dull-witted driver, whose car you're stuck in as a passenger and you have places to go and things to do! There is a nano-second delay with every keystroke, and I just know that's Google listening in and saying, "Huh? What's that you're (saying/doing)- right this second?"- and that's kind of creepy. I do know one thing: this is the first and only entry I will compose straight into the box. Cripes, this is aggravating. I'll write it out in Wordpad, then copy and paste it (that's sure to give me a couple more years on my life, at least.)
In Shortal I could do everything without turning on javascript, which I hate like the plague! It, honest to God, is like trying to walk with two bowling balls strapped to your ankles....it's that boggish....ugh!
But beggars can't be choosers, and this is where I find myself and trying to circumvent as much of Blogger's damned "new, new, NEW" as much as possible- for instance: they can take every damn WIDGET and stick it up their asses! Give me good old HTML code, some scripts- some simple format- and by God, I'll go and do what I have to do, and do it cleanly and quickly. Of course, I'm more suspicious of internet surveillance than the average bear, and it galls me.
It's always dressed up real cute too, and that's how you know it's for shit. LOL!! Hey..............it's like Easter!
Happy Easter, btw.......here is my Easter greeting to all. My favorite bunny picture of all time-
Things still look 'weird' when I bring this up through Internet Explorer, rather than Firefox. The formatting is off in the skinny sidebar, but I'll figure it out.........eventually. Got to get some shut-eye now and be prepared to foist myself on the unsuspecting relatives tomorrow, who may not appreciate the frustrations of the past two days or the fact that late last night and most of today, I've had a recurrance of the galloping 'trots' that afflicted me some 2 weeks back.
I think my body is trying to make a statement: Life is more shit than you can handle.
Back to more of the stammering, twitchy copy-and-paste salt mines, get a couple more pages up from last March and march on up to bed myself. "Illegitimati Non Carborundum"~ don't let the bastards wear you down. Peace, all.
April 8~ 12:45pm
Had a good seven hours sleep, and I'm almost ready for the day's activities...picking up my mother for the Easter observance at my nephew's house, lots of chatter, seeing the grandchildren, (eating, of course...lol) and then back home to unwind and mentally prepare for another work week.
I do think I've got things ironed out in formatting this new blog; once that happens things more or less 'settle down' for me. I'm frantic until it does happen, and tend to walk around with the look of a crazed lunatic on some insane bender: eyes wide and circled, twitches and tics- anxious to scratch all the bugs out.
And, by Jove, I think I've got it!
I hope wherever you are, you're gorging on chocolate and deviled eggs. I hope the weather is better than it is here in Pittsburgh (it's 32 degrees) which means all the kids will be cooped up indoors. The noise level should be appalling. LOL!
I hope too, to get back to writing poetry soon. On this messianic mission to get a new weblog in place, I've all but forgotten about it and it calms me.
The one thing we should try to cling to in life is the thing that calms and centers us. I intend to seek it out like a hidden colored egg and run around the house, piping, "I found it! I found it!"~~a happy, blessed day to you. Me too.
April 8~9:45pm
Home for the past few hours, and working on restoring these old posts. In many cases the graphics have gone the way of the wind, and have to be re-uploaded and resurrected on a different free host server. It all takes time, but it's honestly quite relaxing to me just knowing this old blog is getting a sprucing up in its brand new home. Plus...I've had connection problems in Shortal recently- I guess that's because their servers were getting overloaded as all things began to fall into entropy while the creators shopped around for an interested buyer- (that's my guess, anyway.)
The Easter celebration at my nephew Michael and his wife Maryann's house was truly enjoyable. The food was terrific! My goodness, homemade gnocci, and brown-sugar glazed ham, potato salad, fruit salads and vegetable salads galore, and LOTS of homebaked goodies. (Fresh out of the oven rolls and bread, too!) The kids were well-behaved- little Kay dressed up in splendor with sequiny pink shoes and painted fingernails, a "Madeline" style white hat with ribbon and lacy tights. Bill had on dress pants, a plaid shirt, and a HUGE tie.........LOL!!! He didn't seem to mind at all; as long as he could play with his cousins' army men and TRANSFORMERS, he was in hog heaven. When he gets older (and can reach them) the Foosball table, pool table and air hockey table will transport him for sure. Right now....for both he and Kay.....anything close to the ground is found treasure.
My dumb 'glued in' tooth stayed put, even chomping on ham; I had no embarrassing moments where folks would most likely tend to pass me a jug to whistle into .....lol....and a corn cob pipe! And no-- I don't know when I'll get this taken care of but knowing me, this gluing process is likely to go on until I either- swallow it, lose it or break it..........
April 9, 2007~7:45pm
First day back to work after the holiday was a real grind. Gawd I'm tired! I just finished archiving just a few pages, and I'm ready to head upstairs and relax in bed. Stretch out. I've been doing too much of this, and it feels like I'm going cross-eyed (and cross-tempered as well) so it's time to close this up for now, play some solitaire, read my 'Lincoln's Melancholy' book and get a good night's sleep. (Still cold, by the way. Going down to 25 tonight. At least it's good sleeping weather, though all the blossoms are officially killed and drooping, discolored and sad-looking.) Just like me.
April 10, 2007~5:15am
I slept deeply for six hours without waking. That hasn't happened since the middle of last week, and it felt wonderful. All I have to do is come fully awake- and right now, coffee isn't quite doing it...lol. Hopefully, feeling less sleep-deprived will allow me to feel more in the normal flow of things and not boxed in, on the edges of frantic over nothing. I believe it's the restorations of these old posts--- I'm like a snake that's been chopped into segments.
Once the natural continuity is restored into one long slow-moving anaconda of time, I think life's familiar rhythms will allow for more relaxation by virtue of the twenty-four hour inchworming of thought....right now, I'm Scrooge- being visited by the Ghost of Christmas Past(and that can't have felt very good.)
I need to live in the present again, and I'm getting there slowly but surely. Life is truly what we make it and right now, I'm re-making a lot of old- and in some cases, painful ground. The first flush of victory in creating this thing has now passed, and now it's a re-plowing of old fields- some of which are now fallow, and some that should not have been planted to begin with but it's my past, my true past- and there it lay in clumps of unattractive clay and I'm the arranger of plots in their proper order. There's an urge to get on with another growing season, not to be forever standing in that field, but certainly knowing it is there.
Have a good Tuesday the tenth, everyone. It's the only Tuesday the tenth, 2007 we'll ever see. (Scary, isn't it?-- this acknowledged weight of days.)
April 13, 2007-7:40am
I watched Bill and Kay last night- mostly, just keeping them occupied so my daughter and her husband could get the porch in shape and do a little gift shopping for Bill's big birthday bash tomorrow. It's his first party with kids invited from nursery school. Birthday number 4 is gonna be quite a bash. Holly made firemen hats for all 7 tykes coming, they will play 'Pin the Spot on the Dalmation', everyone gets firemens' badges- and as the 'piece de resistance' - the actual FIRE DEPARTMENT will bring their firetruck to the house, pile the kids on, and give them a ride to the station (which is located in the lot just behind Holly's house) and host a tour.
What a great party! So what did I do to occupy those two while mom and dad scrambled about vacuuming and pulling porch furniture this way and that? First of all, we watched their vintage "Superman" DVD, with 8 episodes on it of the fine Max Fleischer vintage, each one lasting about 10 minutes. It was terrific. LOL! Kay was content simply to sit on my lap and babble at the screen in 'Kay Language '(I believe she knows the dialogue by heart), and Bill had to go run and get his shoes, believing that once the shoes are on they in truth, become 'Superman boots' and allow the wearer to take on superhero powers and make with the "POW! POW!", entailing lots of karate jabs and kicks. What gave the evening its special flavor, however, was the episode with what Bill referred to as 'Gigantor', the giant gorilla. (I could find no such reference in the cartoon, but Bill was intent upon this name. lol)- which lead me to reminiscences about King Kong.
Bill was all ears, and Kay babbled enthusiastically. After we had our pizza, with Holly and Gary out shopping, Bill wanted the King Kong story very badly- so I hammed it up and told it over and over until Bill of course, "became" King Kong. He was a bit disturbed that the giant ape dies at the end in his plummet from the Empire State building, but piped enthusiastically -(as he does now with every reference to 'death', a scary concept which he is currently struggling to get his mind around)- "and then, GOD AND JESUS make him NOT DEAD anymore!" -his face beaming like a little Billy Sunday.
He soon got into the drama of saving Fay Wray by putting her safely down before he does his 101-story swan dive, and the scene would go like this: Bill would talk to the imaginary little woman in his palm, "Goodbye, little one...." and gently put her down, then pound his chest- snatching and clawing at the unseen airplanes, and do a dramatic death scene while I made the whistling "falling down forever" sound through my teeth.
We did this over and over......Bill never tires of something once it's captured his imagination. He told me King Kong 'lives' behind his television -(a special place he shares with Hulk, Dr. Doom and Spiderman) once I convinced him that Kong was a superhero in his own right- stolen away from his jungle home and falling in love with the 'little lady'- then finally saving her life. He loved the idea of an ape-martyr. I told him, "a coward dies a thousand deaths, Bill- but the valiant taste of death but once!" "What? What did you say??"- that phrase caught his ear but good, so I'd repeat it. (Bill's hearing is fine. It's lines that really smite him that he'll ask you to repeat, so he can commit them to memory. LOL!!)
Oh, I was a lovely evening. More memories....tucked away, recorded here as an assurance I will not forget them, and the party tomorrow. Life is good. Is very, very good. And when we die.......there is 'GOD AND JESUS to make us NOT DEAD anymore!" -(she beams.)
April 13, 2007~ 7:15am
Here's Pittsburgh, taken from our Grandview Avenue webcam right now.....dreary and drizzly, and Friday the 13th (!) but always a beauty from this angle.
I really love this place....with its confluence of three rivers and all the bridges.
(Return To Weekly Archives)
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