I'm worried about my brain function

    Not, I'm glad to say, about Alzheimer's but more in the realm of autism. I'm troubled that the network of rules I weave around me sometimes gets in the way of plain thinking. I walk at least a half hour every day. I take an iPod with me nearly every time. When I'm done, I usually go out and run errands. I nearly always leave the iPod in the car. Today, after years of this, I finally figured out that I could leave the earbuds (replacement value c. $1) in the car and keep the iPod (replacement value: possibly irreplaceable. Sometimes the new ones won't work with old iTunes and you have to rip and load all your records all over again) in my pocket.
    Now this is pretty obvious stuff. The positive spin to put on it is that I'm just a trusting soul, and the fact that neither iPod has been stolen shows that I am right to be. And I'm pretty enthusiastic about this spin. But it might also be that I'm just so programmed that when I'm done with iPod, Hulk done with iPod and it comes off body. As I say, it's a little disturbing that this impulse was so strong as to override the very easy security measure of just disconnecting the earbuds and keeping the valuable and highly portable item in my pocket. It isn't something I'll be up at night about, but it is something that makes me go hmmm.
    Meanwhile, little cat capture efforts continue unsuccessful. I got him a squeaky mouse toy which he crazy mad loved. It was supposed to be imbued with catnip, but I forgot I bought it at Kmart. There inventory doesn't exactly move quickly; it probably WAS imbued with catnip a year or so ago. Anyway, he wasn't noticeably calmer and I couldn't even get him all the way to the cat carrier. I think for the next attempt Wednesday I'll have fresh (not from China) catnip rubbed on the mouse. Hopefully he hasn't lost interest in it; he had cooled on it even before the cat carrier attempt. Onwards and forwards!

Bereft, verklempt and-- oh, HI!

    Cats are Republicans. They are highly resistant to change. The little cat outside seemed so chill that I thought he would be an exception. I was mistaken.
    My porches, but especially the front one, are crawling with ants. The other day, I was playing with the small cat on the porch and subsequently my legs were chewed all over by ants. Or by one highly committed one, I don't know. Regardless, I decided to put furniture out there so I'd at least have a chance to avoid being ant food. My house is lousy with yard furniture anyway.
    This proved to be unpopular with my little friend. Apparently, he could forgive me being 20 times his size since I come across with cat food. Being larger still by carrying chairs was unacceptable. He wouldn't come inside the fence anymore; when I checked later, he was gone entirely. I was pretty worried that I'd scared him off for good.
    However, I went out for my walk and to run errands. For whatever reason (mainly that he would be getting hungry), I was absolutely sure he would be on my walk when I got back. And I was right. (I tipped that a bit with the subject line, didn't I?) I was much relieved. So, am I actually going to be able to get this kitty to the vet tomorrow? Oh, I don't think so. If he runs from stuff that doesn't look remotely like a cat carrier, I can only imagine what he'll do when he sees the actual cat carrier. Short of resorting to catnip, I can't imagine catching him. But perhaps catnip is in order.

Cathouse(?)

    Question mark is just because I've almost certainly used this subject line before. Although there is some question about the second cat ever getting in here.
    The other tabby cat on the street (who came over to Yow at me the other day when I was trying to get little tabby cat into the cat carrier) belongs to the house next to the house where I think little cat might belong. I had thought that Yow cat might be the little one's mom, but that turns out not to be the case. I'll back up.
    Back in February or so, a fellow knocked on my door to ask if he could use my wireless connection to upload the second half of his novel to Amazon. I explained that I just piggyback on my phone signal and that I didn't think it reaches beyond the walls. Because I was nice about it, he put a copy of the Word files of both halves on my computer. And told me that he lives in the grey house across the street two doors down. I read and liked the novel, but couldn't and still can't figure out how to put a review for a Kindle book I hadn't actually bought.
    Point is that the grey house across Ohio Street two doors down is where the giant tabby cat lives. This morning I went and knocked and was glad to see Robert again, to learn that the cat is Phil who has been neutered since kittenhood, and got even more fur on my pants legs than I get from Amelia. Robert didn't know who the little tabby cat belongs to, either, but noted that he steals Phil's food sometimes. We talked about his novel and writing in general until it was time for me to go pick up Dad for dialysis. It was a good time. I don't know why Phil came to Yow at me about putting the little cat in a carrier. Catese for "FREEDOM!" I suppose.
    Edit: Oh, but the cat house aspect is that the other outside cat was also around. This the apple-headed tuxedo cat that I have wanted for years but who runs away if I get within ten feet. And he was walking away from my porch on three legs, with one front leg in the air, as if my little prospective cat had beat him up to protect the empty food bowl. This makes me sad and slightly amused (assuming the wound isn't permanent) as well. The tuxedo cat did stay on the porch of the guy in the other half of my duplex, and let me get within five feet of him without running away, though he was preparing to. Brian in the other half so far isn't interested in adopting a cute cat, alas.

Obsolescence

    After I wrote yesterday's missive, I realized that I was wrong about nearly everything. They are using the word obsolete correctly. The problem though, is that they're using it differently than they used it before. Or possibly my memory has dripped the rest of the way out of my ears and I'm totally misremembering previous iterations of Civilization. Point was, mainly, to try to describe a problem most readers wouldn't encounter in a manner that they would nevertheless be able to follow and hopefully be interested enough to do so. I probably flubbed, but it was worth a try.
    Small cat has again declined to get in the cat carrier for the trip to the vet. He has locked in the name Harry (for Houdini or Potter) however. I will try again Monday. Catnip may be employed.
    It was a great joy to see Margaret and Dad together again yesterday after she got back from a couple of days in the hospital and he got home from dialysis. Happy, happy day.

Obsolete

    Although I'm complaining about Civilization IV again, this is mostly a writing exercise. Describing a question of word usage turns out to be trickier than I would have thought, or at least it is inside my head.
    In Civilization IV, certain technological advances make some buildings, resources and wonders of the world "obsolete." I've been playing various versions of Civilization since the beginning. I'm pretty sure that in the past, obsolete meant obsolete: that these things were absolutely useless. What obsolete means this time, though, is that you can no longer build them or get access to them. So if you're building an obelisk, say, and you attain the technology that makes it obsolete, you get a message that you can no longer build the obelisk. If you have one already, though, it continues working fine.
    Again, I grasp that nobody likely to read this is likely to play the game, and vice versa. But it's a fairly major thing. The word "obsolete" just doesn't mean what they're using it to mean, and it makes a huge difference how you play the game when you find out what they do in fact mean. You have to build all that stuff before you can no longer do so. Before, I wasn't bothering to build a lot of really excellent stuff because it would just be obsolete soon. So I really, really wish they would have just said "can no longer be built" after some given technological advance. English is important.

The rare funny stress dream

    First, the rest of the story: Margaret is fine. She was admitted to the hospital overnight, but the abdominal pain is gone. She's expecting to go home this afternoon. If that fails to happen, it will more likely be a paperwork problem than a medical problem.
    However, with her on my mind, I had this weird, wild dream. She and my dad were staying at this little motel in a little resort town which I at first thought was Florida but which turned out to be Alaska. (Because, you know, they're so much alike and so near each other.) I met a guy working there who said he was Margaret's dad. I'm guessing that this was my mind's stress release; making Dad and Margaret young enough that her dad might still be living. Anyway, the guy didn't seem to be 120 years old. He had a lot of palaver which I don't remember; what I remember was getting pictures of unusual scenic vistas that convinced me I was in Alaska rather than Florida.
    THEN everybody drove to Florida, which as I've mentioned was only about an hour away, for some kind of family reunion. THEN turned out that back in Alaska, Margaret's dad was some kind of supervillain running an elaborate plot that I really wish I remembered any details from. Or possibly it was one of those dream changes and it wasn't Margaret's dad anymore. Anyway, I had a great villain to foil for a while there. I will take it as given that I foiled him. I always have a lot of Reynolds Wrap.
    Meanwhile, the small tabby cat outside is showing strong signs of attachment, as am I. I'll continue trying to ring the doorbell at the home where I've also seen him if I ever see their cars home and I'll ask before taking him to the vet. But I think I'll be taking him to the vet pretty soon.

Emergency

    So I'm waiting for Dad to come out of dialysis when I get a call from his sweetheart Margaret's daughter Bunny. Margaret had been feeling poorly and Bunny took her to the doctor who sent her straight on to the emergency room. He thought she might have an intestinal blockage. I called later to check up and they were waiting for another doctor to arrive. He would order a CAT scan, Bunny thought. The fact that nothing is happening fast suggests that this isn't an EMERGENCY emergency, but more a medical problem that required the facilities at a major hospital. I and we are certainly hoping it's nothing very serious and will be resolved quickly. But you can understand why I'm not too inclined to wax wittily at the moment. We would be grateful for your very best wishes.

About a game

    I'll try to be brief. The game is nine years old and I doubt anybody much is playing it anymore. Also one of my three loyal readers heard about half of this yesterday. So close one eye, dude!
    Yes it's about Civilization IV. Yes my I.V. joke proved to be prescient. But if the addiction isn't fading, the first blush of the love affair is at least a bit lighter. One comment at least applies to every Civilization/ Sid Meier game I've played so far. So much relies on chance. It depends where your first city lands and where the other players' first cities land. If you're lucky, you're very very very lucky. So I played a game as Gandhi and just absolutely rolled. Keep in mind that even when I don't play as Gandhi, I play as Gandhi. I am a committed Civilization pacifist. I do trounce barbarians because they're barbarians; they're perpetually at war with you. But otherwise I'm totally non-militaristic. And this game just went perfectly. This is great until I do all the exact same things and wind up taking 200 years longer to win, ending with a terrible score.
    One reason the latter happened (you can close the other eye, Paul) is that I didn't figure out that the key to a diplomatic victory is bribery. The way you win a diplomatic victory is to build the United Nations, get elected secretary-general, and then pass a resolution making you world leader. Gandhi did this no problem. But nobody else I've played as has. It took me centuries in game time and hours in real time to figure out something. When you have the UN elections, there's a turn before you get the result. What you're supposed to do is give everybody something, money, a technological advance or whatever. Once I did that, elections started going my way. I actually went back a couple of centuries to replay one of the more frustrating endings. I didn't wind up with a Gandhi-like score, but it did improve. Somewhere Genghis Khan is much relieved.

Edit: OK, I'll have mercy and not add another CivIV post but just edit this one instead. As it turns out, bribery doesn't always work. I suspect that the problem is another odd one: in earlier eras, it seems like it takes two turns rather than one before your UN election happens. I suspect that if I skip a turn before trying my bribery, it will then work. But at the moment, I've just let that game hang and started another. Should some Civilization IV fan some day surf in, surf back in again later; no doubt there will be another edit.

Editedit: Nope. It was just my imagination that there were 2 turns. CivIV just hates Russians.:)

Edit3: Fortunately, I had a previous save just 50 years earlier, so I went back and bribed like a madman and when I built the UN, I squeaked by with a diplomatic victory. I still wound up with what seemed like a lackluster score, but as it was my 2d best ever, I guess that's my imagination. Lesson: don't make a defense treaty with somebody who is very unpopular unless you want to have to bribe the world to get a couple more defense treaties. Once you're allied with half of your rivals, you're probably going to win. If you're not, you won't. I want to go back and see what in heck I did as Gandhi, but I suspect that I was just lucky.

Humans, cats and jealousy

    This outside kitty keeps coming back and I keep going out to play with him and Amelia the cat keeps looking jealous. I thought this was very funny until yesterday when I saw the little cat cavorting and frolicking with a lady at a house three doors down. And I found myself feeling jealous, with much less reason than Amelia has considering that this is almost certainly the cat's actual home I was looking at.
    So later the little cat came and begged. Being a total pushover, I fed him again and also gave a try at playing with him with string since he had previously seemed so starved for entertainment that he wanted to play with a leaf I was trying to throw off the porch. I am now two for two on kitties more wanting to eat the string than play with it. This one is even more intent than Amelia. String is delicious! Who knew?
    Point to all this palaver is that I eventually tried to carry the cat home, but he was having none of it after a dozen steps or so. So I led him home and he followed no problem. Since there was a car there, I rang the doorbell, but there was no answer. But another tabby cat, much larger, appeared from next door, and gave me an earful. Very baleful, if not hostile, kitty. I assume that I met Mom, who was also fairly jealous. The house had water out on the porch and a cat toy. So maybe they are also in the process of adopting the friendly little kitty. I'll try to talk to them about it sooner or later. If Amelia lets me.

Let's check in with Ben Franklin

    Wild wacky dreams last night. I was traveling with my dad and we got separated. I was all thrilled for some reason about getting a new (dumb) cell phone. There was some business about coming up with a very complicated password, thinking I'd forgotten it already and then finding I hadn't. I guess my dreaming mind just wanted me to feel relieved. So then I went back and found my dad, who had gotten a motel room and was sleeping.
    It's always a question when remembering dreams whether there was an awkward transition or whether your waking mind just reconstructs one and what you're actually putting together are just the bits your remember. So I don't think my dad transformed into George Washington, although that would have been cool. I think I just started dreaming about George Washington. I apparently could time travel without a machine. (Take that, H.G. Wells!) The business with George was first to go back and see what Ben Franklin hadn't invented yet and maybe help him out. (No-line bifocals, say.) Then I was trying to figure out if there was still a George Washington in his original timeline and maybe he could go back, take the wig off and pass for somebody else. This of course makes no sense to the waking mind (nor did my thought that he was red-headed; I was thinking of Jefferson) but it made all the sense in the world at the time.
    Then I just wanted to use my time travel powers to go back to the first half of the twentieth century to various cities (Atlanta, Los Angeles and Columbia for some reason suggested themselves), ascend the tallest building in each and take pictures of the skyline back then. The waking mind feels that there is just a chance that somebody did this already and it might be fun to try to track down such pictures. At last a use for my crazy dreams? That's impossible!

Our grand architecture

    Olympia is a mill town on the edge of Columbia. For reasons that I can't fathom, it has never been annexed into the city. Many of the mill houses are, as we used to say in England, "quite nice actually." (No, they really are!) But where Olympia really shines as an area of architectural interest, please don't smirk, is the vintage single-wide trailers.
    Just like I don't know why it hasn't been annexed into Columbia, I don't know why so few burned down or otherwise destroyed houses in Olympia are not replaced. Or to be more precise, I don't know if there is any rule or law against building here. It is certainly near a flood plain and it certainly floods easily in heavy rains, but not dangerously so. For all that, the only house I've seen built here in my 5 1/2 years in the neighborhood I blogged about, and mentioned at the time that I guess that means that you can build here if you want to. So it's a matter of supply and demand, apparently.
    Regardless, there are a number of lots where the fallen houses have been replaced with mobile homes, and especially near me, a number where there are several mobile homes on one lot. And they look like they've been there a long, long time. Longer than I've been here. Not longer than I've been in Olympia, but on Earth. Some are pretty stylin', in spite of their long lives. They remind me of a place on the coast, one of the protected areas that had originally been a hunting preserve for rich folks up north and they brought the first mobile home into South Carolina, and it's still there. (They must have been so proud.) Also very stylin', though.
    Thing is, I'm tempted to take pictures, but people still live in most of these places. If you live in mansion, you probably get annoyed with people trying to photograph the place, but there's also a measure of pride. If you live in a 50-year-old mobile home, not so much. So thus far I have resisted the temptation, but who can say? Lately, I've been finding that some of the cool stuff I've photographed in the past few years has gone away, and I was glad I got the pictures. So maybe that rationale will apply again.

24 hour drop box

    It's a little thing, but I guess reflects how little thought people put into anything these days. The electric company moved its nearest satellite office, and in fact they moved it much nearer to me, so yay. The new office has three drive-through stations, you know with the kicky pneumatic tubes. The one nearest the office also features the 24 hour drop box. Over each is a green light (or red if they're closed); over the two farther from the office is the word "Open" (when the light is green). Over the one nearest the office is only "24 hour drop box"; I can't be the only one who infers from this that since it doesn't say "Open," it must not be open. The green light tells me otherwise, but I have yet to drive right up to the actual teller because the sign doesn't say "Open." (Also I'd still be using the pneumatic tube, so it's not like there's any greater contact there.) As I say, a little thing, but you'd think they would have thought this through. How about have the electronic sign read "Open" and then have a non-electronic sign over the actual drop box with an arrow pointing down and "24 hr drop box" written on it? Crazy, I'm sure.
    Dreams last night were also wild and wacky but again I remember few of them. I seem to have multiple wives rather frequently lately. Don't know where on Earth that came from. Although that may not have been me; some of my dreams are more like movies I'm watching than dreams I personally am involved in. A relief?
    Yesterday, I went walking at Congaree National Park and, as so often happens, kept going. This was maybe not the best idea ever in 95 degree weather with only a small bottle of water. I've had cramping around my right shin ever since, making driving a little tricky. But it seems to be getting better. (Knock on wood!)

Failing the sharpest tool in the shed audition again

    I always get up at 7, but today I actually HAD to. Dad had an MRI that will supposedly show why he burps so much scheduled for 8:30 in the morning for heaven's sake, so up I had to get. And last night, I had a nasty headache that seemed sinus-related. I couldn't do much about that, but I took a Benadryl figuring that if it didn't help it would at least help me sleep. And maybe it did.
    I slept and dreamed and woke and slept and dreamed and woke and slept and dreamed and-- you get the picture, don't you? None of the dreams were nightmares, just weird and fairly vivid. I remember few, you lucky dogs. One involved my old apartment in Philadelphia, except of course completely different. The weird part about this dream was that I had hundreds of very dark, practically identical snapshots of my face. I seemed to like them a lot. Later I dreamed about being in an apartment with a family with a young child. I seemed to think I was auditioning for a TV reality show. There was a small bathtub in the middle of the apartment, something like a one-person hot tub. I was running hot water when my cat (or a reasonable facsimile, considering my limited visualization skills) jumped in. She was not best pleased.
    But for all these weirdnesses, I slept fairly well and restfully and woke in due time. Dad's MRI was straightforward and quick, and we were home again not long after 9, I think. But all this has been pushed out of my head by my latest not the sharpest tool in the shed rodeo. I used to cut up carrots by slicing width-wise, winding up with rounds. These, while pretty, tended to roll away, often onto the floor. So I finally figured I should make one cut length wise, and then I would have half-rounds that wouldn't roll. And I cut each half-carrot up width-wise, taking twice as long as before. I did this for the last five years or so. Today I noticed that I could just cut both half-carrots at the same time. Face. Palm.

About a phone

    Two things. One regards an emailese discussion I had with one of the three or four people who regularly read this blog. Another regards something I had beed and moaned about earlier on these imaginary pages. Oh and the third thing is that after 3-odd years of this thing, you know I wouldn't be able to resist titling an entry "About a phone."
    Thing one is that someone was bemoaning a generation whose eyes are glued to their smart phones instead of reality. This morning, spending an hour in a full waiting room at the dialysis facility with more than a dozen people most of whom had already been waiting longer and were getting fairly grumpy about it, the smart phone proved to be an excellent salve at least for me. So there's one good thing to say about smart phones: since people generally frown on adults sucking on pacifiers, smart phones make an excellent substitute. (Although service at the dialysis facility has been sketchy lately, today doesn't necessarily reflect on them. There was a routine (so the sign said) federal survey going on, and apparently only one person could be admitted at a time. This is blatant insanity; I wanted to suggest they send the surveyors out to talk to us. But that would have probably gotten Dad delayed another hour, whereas asking politely got him ahead of many of the waiters. See? I'm learning!)
    Thing two is just flat odd. I mentioned long ago the many peculiarities of this Nokia cell phone. One I'm not sure that I mentioned is that I can't (or rather couldn't) edit profiles on my contact list, at least not the ones that came from Facebook. So if Dave didn't have his phone number on his profile and gave me his number, I had to create a new profile called Dave Phone Number (or whatever) to include that information. Last night, a friend gave me her number and... it let me edit! It informed me that this would not change her Facebook profile (well duh), but it let me edit. Well that only took a year!

Further refinements to Dates With Assorted Nuts

    I keep changing the recipe and keep getting asked for the new one. I could just post the link to the old one with a message containing the changes, but let's face it: nobody reads recipes like that. So here it is again.
    This is the continuing exploration of making cookies with cocoa butter and brown rice flour. You get most of this stuff at Rosewood Market (assuming that you're in Columbia, SC). The cocoa butter chunks are in Health and Beauty. The local honey is towards the back and right. Unsulphered, unsweetened organic shredded coconut is also packaged by Rosewood Market (like the cocoa butter) is also towards the back but in the middle of the store. Staff are incredibly nice and will point you the right way. I use Bob's Red Mill brown rice flour, which I got at some Publix or other. I got almond meal at Trader Joe's. I get the pecans, walnuts, vanilla, raisins and cocoa from Aldi; also eggs when I use one. I think I got the Chia seed (when I use that instead) from Rosewood Market. I should note that all this stuff costs a million dollars.
Ingredients:
A package of cocoa butter chunks (these run about 1.5-2 oz by weight, which turns out to be about 1/2 cup liquid volume)
1/4 cup honey
1 egg OR 1T chia seeds + 1/4 cup purified water thrown in a blender. I've had more success throwing the seeds in first.
1t cocoa. This is just for me, as I'm incredibly caffeine sensitive. You'll be MUCH more happy with 1T.
1t vanilla
1/3 cup unsweetened unsulphered coconut
1/4 cup brown rice flour
1/4 cup almond meal
6 pitted dates chopped up about raisin size, or of course you could buy chopped dates
1/4 cup chopped walnuts
3/4 cup chopped pecans
Heroin, to taste

    First, melt your cocoa butter. Throw in a small sauce pan, cover, put on medium heat. Keep an eye out; it takes maybe five minutes to melt the stuff.
    As with any recipe, you want to start by mixing your liquid ingredients. Problem here is that honey isn't all that liquid and egg might get cooked by the now-hot cocoa butter. This is one reason I prefer chia seed paste. (The other is I like to soft bake and it's dangerous to undercook eggs; chia seeds shouldn't present this problem.)
    You might want to preheat your oven to 350 now.
    Lately, I don't measure the honey. I put 3 looong squirts (which I've found to be equivalent to 1/4C) in the mixing bowl, the cocoa and the vanilla, add the melted cocoa butter and stir to the extent these ingredients will mix. (Not great.) Scramble your egg and add it and stir until your arm falls off (hereinafter, SUYAFO).
    Add coconut, SUYAFO, brown rice flour, SUYAFO, almond meal, SUYAFO, dates, SUYAFO, walnuts and pecans and finally, SUYAFO. I stress all this stirring because my cookies turn out mostly very nice but then some taste like shoe polish. So I think that more mixing is needed. The dough that you wind up with looks like all STUFF. All walnuts and coconuts and dates and you'll wonder if there's going to be any cookie at all. There is. All that stuff vanishes. So feel free to add MORE stuff. It could probably take more dates and walnuts and coconut. And as I say cocoa if you can handle the hard stuff.
    I spoon these out onto parchment paper on my available pans, which are a pizza pan and a regular baking pan. Obviously a cookie sheet would be ideal. I cook them 15 minutes. They'd be firmer and browner with more time and you'd be more confident that the egg is fully cooked, but I'm not sure they would be better. And nobody's died yet.
    It's a good idea to let them cool for 5 minutes, then flip them so they don't stick down. They're really wonderful fresh out of the oven, but you don't know what they're really like until they're fully cooled and the cocoa butter is solid again. So try to save a few so you find out!

All that jazz

    Brother Malcolm's here; we just listening to jazz. Hey, even though I'm not a father, I can phone it in on Father's Day on my father's behalf. We have nearly the whole family here and are going out for supper to the place of Dad's choice. While it isn't cordon bleu or even white glove, it's where he wants to go. And that's what matters, isn't it?
    On the kitty front, I had left the bowl of water on the porch. This morning I noticed the water bowl had been spilled all across the porch, as if somebody was telling me "There should be food in this bowl!" Everybody's a critic.

Zoo yard

    So the outside cat that I wanted to adopt before this friendly one turned up had been gone a long time. It's an apple-headed tuxedo cat. A friend who also lives in the neighborhood and is also a Facebook friend replied to my status update about him to the effect that he isn't a good citizen. He certainly isn't friendly. Or rather, he certainly is skittish; he vanishes whenever I approach at all. I had feared that he had died, but he was on my back porch this afternoon then in the yard later in the afternoon. Maybe if I feed him, I can tame him. Unlike the friendly cat, he is almost certainly feral. I left water out for the friendly cat (feeling bad about feeding him since he seems to belong to someone), so maybe that's why this one came back. Or maybe it was just one of those feline brainstorms. Somebody ought to warn him that I believe in neutering.
    Then, then, then-- I'll back up. There's this great dog that's always loose in the neighborhood, some kind of shepherd/husky mix, but not mean at all. A pickup drove by and turned at my corner and the dog must be attached to them somehow. He ran by me, into my gate and used my yard as a shortcut to catch the pickup. Yeah, I know, so what, but I am starting to feel like domestic animal grand central station. I can't say that I mind too much, though.

Twiggy

    In dreams last night, I had two wives. I guess I was affected by the old-time radio shows I listen to all night, where many plots hinge on memory problems, because I didn't remember having the first wife until I was with the second one. More alarmingly, I had a twig- or toothpick-tree growing out of my man-part. (What does that mean, Dr. Freud?) Fortunately it pulled right out, no harm done, and I'm not sure I was alarmed enough to wake up. Nor do I remember what the first or second wife thought about it. As ever, I suspect that it just meant that in real life I needed to go to the bathroom.
    Family is coming down for Father's Day from Boston, including the grand-niece/ Dad's great-granddaughter. We are prepared to be awed and awwwwwwwwwwed. Hopefully, the weather will co-operate. We have returned to the traditional summer pattern of the 4 pm cloudburst, which is delightful if you're inside, but really takes a bite out of your day if you need to be anywhere, especially when there's a flash flood watch everyday and you (or rather I) live in an area surrounded by flash-flood-prone streets. Crossing fingers. Indications are that rather than dragging Dad all over the place, we're likely to go out for dinner as siblings and then bring him and Margaret takeout, which works for them, too, since they usually like to eat later than we do. So fun restaurants may be on tap, too!

Unmad skillz

    The cable at Margaret's house was working only minimally. That is, the NBC affiliate would come in, but you couldn't change the channel. The remotes were both working in that they would change the volume, but the channel changer wouldn't respond, nor would the buttons on the cable box itself. At the time I dropped Dad home from dialysis, there was a flash flood advisory out, so I really really wanted to get home. However, an hour later, when the advisory had passed, he called and asked me to plug up the cable box and I was very glad to go do it.
    He had been trying to do it himself but couldn't. However, he apparently had gotten all the way on the floor to try, and then back up again. I am damn impressed! It was just a matter of reconnecting the power supply (which plugs in only one way, and he was trying the opposite way) and the Out cable. And it rebooted. I was glad (and I said so) that what was needed was within my limited skillset.
    Coincidentally, I had a dream last night where I had Dad's condition pretty accurately reflected. I was in one of those gigantic dormitories that my dream world so often is confined to, and Dad REALLY wanted to deliver something to one of the rooms. The only highly inaccurate aspect was that he was leading the way all the way. I was worrying that there might not be anywhere for him to sit and catch his breath when he made his delivering and wondering if anybody around there had a wheelchair. Anyway, I feel like it's a good sign that I'm starting to cope that I'm dreaming his condition more or less accurately. Or I hope so.
    I didn't really have a blog entry and was trying to get to the page where I post them anyway and I couldn't. It just wouldn't load until the third or fourth try. And I was getting really anxious, even though as I say I didn't have all that much to say anyway. I guess I'm getting a little attached to this old weblog.

Unease unrewarded

    Dad had an appointment with a new GI doctor today. Unfortunately, I had been there before. My former girlfriend Laura suffered from chronic indigestion, what at that time (the late '90s) was starting to be called acid reflux or GERD. We heard an ad for a clinical research study that would furnish free medications for GERD. She signed up.
    This is getting to be a very long story; I should warn you that there is a very limited payoff. The doctors office is in a split level building behind Providence Hospital. Returning to the present, Dad saw that the office he was visiting was on the Upper Level and assumed that this meant it was the second floor and worried that they might not have an elevator. So I went by to check and recognized the place. Because I was waiting for Laura in that upper level waiting area and she was in the lower level and she was mad as all hell at me that I would just bring a book and sit there and read instead of coming looking for her. When I got her home and she saw that I had built her a bed downstairs and then went and got carry-out pizza for her, she suddenly got a lot less mad.
    And the source of the unease came later, after she broke up with me. Because she followed up on the program, and used the medications. You remember those ads for the pills that would "stop the acid pumps" in your stomach? Well they really worked. They almost killed Laura. She recovered nicely; last I heard from her she was doing very well and has apparently gone into politics. But I was worried that the docs might have something similarly radical in store for Dad and his belching problem.
    Not so much. The doctor, like an internal medicine doctor who saw Dad before but unlike his previous GI doc, thinks Dad is just swallowing air. He has ordered x-rays for next Wednesday morning, which hopefully will tell us something. I suspect that Dad will be missing the previous GI doc, whose staff was a lot less competent, but who at least listened to Dad. We'll see. Anyway, no shutting down of acid pumps has so far been suggested.

The autistic chef

    I wonder if all perfectionists are more or less autistic. I only have myself to go on, especially as being more or less autistic, I'm not terribly good at insights into what other people are thinking or feeling. Going by myself, though, I find myself believing that there's a RIGHT way (yes in all-caps) to do anything and everything, and it's just a matter of finding out what it is. I appreciate intellectually that there is no real perfection (also a terrific song by Badfinger), but I can't seem to help believing in it anyway.
    Because of dietary restrictions (which, as has been pointed out to me, I've imposed on myself, but still) I find myself restricting my search for perfection to the realm of cooking. Yesterday and today have been all over the map in terms of this search. I was making my Dates With Assorted Nuts cookies and for no reason spaced out and put in almond meal instead of brown rice flour. It wasn't such a great idea in terms of making cookies that held together, but in terms of taste, it was crazy nuts exquisolent. (I'm not sure, but I don't think spell check is going to go for that word.) Maybe not the best thing ever, but definitely something worth exploring further.
    Later yesterday evening, I made chili. And found that I had bought the diced tomatoes with oregano and basil. So I accidentally invented chili italiano. I was doing tonight's cooking last night due to time constraints today, so I haven't tried it yet except for licking the spatula. I suspect that it'll be OK, but not the best. Most likely I've eaten worse things.
    Where I'm closing in on perfection is my shepherd's pie. Granted, smearing garlic mashed potatoes on top might be cheating, but this is really getting to be something people would eat on purpose. I think that if I put in tastier vegetables than okra, broccoli, turnip and carrot, I'd probably be able to sell it. That long ago crazy idea of making hush puppies with grits and lentils really turned out, even if not exactly as hush puppies. Anyway, I'm pleased with the results. If I were as autistic as I sometimes think I am, I guess I would just make it exactly the same way every time forever and ever. My madness takes another form; I tend to get bored with perfection and move on to try something else. So maybe perfectionists aren't autistic; just easily bored.

Alien outside kitty upshot

    Yesterday, I got home from supper and the small outside kitty, missing these past few weeks, was there to welcome me again! Bu-ut... he had a collar! So I guess I don't get to adopt him after all, seeing how he's adopted already. And I wouldn't feel right feeding him, since that could be construed by the owners as a further attempt to adopt him. But I did visit with him and make Amelia right jealous. He continues to be a trilling sweetie, and a cutie as leopards go, and still seems to like me even without getting fed by me. I'm just glad that he's alive, well and has a home, and hope they take care of him.
    Perhaps relatedly, I dreamed last night of Amelia the cat turning into a person. I don't recall her being a jealous person, mind you, but still.
    Civilization IV is still big fun, but I do find myself noticing the tedium of long games. Weaning from it is a real possibility. (Or, "I can quit any time I want!")

Pondering when the cat lets me

    At this moment, I'm tired, my eyes hurt and I have a slight headache. This isn't a complaint; just background. So I nodded my head forward, eyes closed, in an attitude of praying. And the kitty hollered at me like the house is on fire. (OK, an exaggeration, but she made an unusual and unusually loud vocalization.) I did it again and she started chewing on one of the cardboard boxes from Aldi that I keep on the floor to give her a hiding place. Apparently, cats don't like you looking like you're praying. Maybe they really are in league with the devil!
    Strangely, she doesn't much bug me when I'm playing games. Same chair, same laptop, but if I'm writing a blog (however briefly) or failing to, she is after me for attention all the time. When I'm playing a game, she's much more likely to give me a rest. I have no idea why, nor how she can tell the difference. I'd like to think that the blog is more threatening because I'm paying closer attention to it. (Whatever readers I have hope that this isn't the case!) Hmmm, I guess it's because my hands are all the way up here typing, and thus are unavailable for scritches. Most games leave one hand or another free. So, after only 3 1/2 years, I've finally solved the Writing When the Cat Lets Me mystery. Solution: forget how to touch-type!

An odditude

    In fact, several odditudes. First, a non-odditude: Sid Meier's Civilization IV is a hoot. I suspect that the IV stands for intravenous, rather than four; it's that addictive. A well-spent dollar, that was.
    The odditude is that when I installed the game (the Gold edition, as I mentioned yesterday), that's what I got and played, the Gold edition. This morning, what was on my Start menu was Civilization IV Warlords. I opened it and couldn't find my saved game. I searched for my saved game and found it under Civilization IV Gold. I also got results for the .exe files for both Gold and Warlords; the former was dated yesterday, the latter today. Now I installed damn thing yesterday. I didn't do anything with it today. I can only guess that when I went online, the program phoned home and said, "Hey, he has Warlords as well; let's show that, too." But it still shouldn't have been installed today. Ghost in the machine!
    Anyway, Warlords is also a hoot. It has a scenario where you can be barbarians and you win by destroying all civilizations. I already took out Genghis Khan, ironically enough. So yeah, I'm working on strategies to limit my playing time and avoid incursions on eating and sleeping time. Today, I took an extra-long hike on the grounds that if I came home, I'd just play Civilization. I'm open to suggestions.

If you don't see me again

    After all these years, I finally bought a copy of Sid Meier's Civilization IV (Gold, at that). I wanted it bad at the time it came out, but didn't have a computer that could handle it. Also Civilization III had been a let-down. Also also when I eventually got a computer that could handle the demo (one computer back, I think), I wasn't too captivated. Also also also, I might be growing up.
    But I found a copy for $1 at Stepping Stones Thrift Store. Disc 1 has seen better days, so it's an open question whether I'll actually be playing Civilization IV. And if I do, I may not fall in like I used to. (Heck, even disappointing Civilization III sucked down the odd year or so.) But should I vanish from the face of the Earth, you'll know why, and whom to blame. Darn you Sid Meier.

Further brilliancy

    ...he said sarcastically. I've been vacuuming semi-weekly for years now to cut down on the kitty hair to oxygen levels, at least that is my hope. Today I had a brilliant insight. Those ceiling fans that go 'round and 'round almost year 'round; they pick up a fair bit of kitty hair. So instead of vacuuming the carpet today, I vacuumed the ceiling fan blades. In further further brilliancy, I found that it's a good idea to use your attachments more than every several years, because I forgot how.
    Oh sorry. I've totally forgotten how to construct an essay, or at least how to state my problem. My problem is that in spite of all this vacuuming, my right eye tends to blow up every evening. Why only my right eye is allergic to the cat, I don't know, but it's a crappy eye anyway. The fact that this nearly always happens when I'm lying in bed, underneath the ceiling fan led to the train of thought... that you can probably guess.
    Anyway, I'm hopeful that cleaning the fan blades helps, and I didn't quite set the bed on fire by putting the vacuum on it instead of using the correct attachment. But that would have been pretty funny, too.

Gonna need a bigger sleep mask

    Lately, I can hardly ever sleep past 6 in the morning, or at best sleep fitfully. I'm starting to think that instead of having daylight savings time for more weeks or months, we should have it for more hours in the month or two around the summer solstice. I need sunshine at 6 a.m. hardly at all; having it at 10 at night would be fairly delightful on the other hand. Or to put it another way: I'm sleepy; don' wanna blog!
    Tick bite has faded away nicely, never showing any sign of infection. I didn't exactly decide not to go to Urgent Care to have them look at it. I just went to Congaree National Park instead, and had an especially lovely hike. I figure I'll give the ticks another shot at me.

Terrible tick tribulation not too troubling

    My tick bite continues red, but unlike the infection I got in my leg last fall (or maybe early this year), their aren't scary red lines leading away from it like fiery rivers of infection. Or, you know, inflamed arteries. I called my clinic, but they aren't my clinic anymore. They remembered me last time, but apparently their records only go back so far. I've fallen off the face of the Earth, and would have to start again as a new patient, and couldn't get an appointment for a month.
    Last time, the nurse from the clinic's health line recommended I go to Urgent Care; the fact that this one did, too, might indicate that she's the same nurse. She said that nobody would be too interested in testing my tick; since the pathogen wouldn't necessarily have been transmitted to me, they need to test my blood instead. Due to Dad's appointments, I've been putting it off, but I'll probably stop by Urgent Care tomorrow morning and get some not particularly urgent care. I didn't much enjoy the antibiotics last time (nor for that matter, the probiotics) but I did OK with them and no doubt can handle them again if necessary. Crossing fingers and toes.

Ugly babies

    My cat is very cute (as in, even at 11 she has a face like a kitten) and has a very cute voice most of the time. Studies say that cats wrap us around their figures by making a sound like a human baby; Amelia does a good job of this.
    The cat that was visiting me had the voice trick down, too, sounding almost exactly like Amelia. But in spite of being very young, just out of kittenhood himself, he was not anywise cute. The pictures say that he looked like a ruthless killer. Tabbies in general are pretty scary looking unless they're fat like a B. Kliban cartoon. And then they sing about the mousies they love to eat, so it's even worse.
    The point is that in my mind's eye, I remember him as a much, much cuter cat. I'm always surprised when I look back at the pictures at what a stone-cold killer he appears to be. I figure it's the voice. The voice was so cute that it told my brain that this is a cute cat and so my brain supplies the picture of a cute cat as my memory of him. Or possibly I'm just an idiot.
    I was wondering if people who have ugly babies (or for that matter, ugly pets) experience a similar phenomenon. Your mind's eye pictures a prettier baby or pet. Or is love truly blind?
    Regardless, another Monday has rolled around. This is his traditional day to appear, and he has not. So I assume he found a home, or went home, or his owners moved away. I just hope he's well and well-fed. He was a good 'un.

Panorama

    All the best flowers peak around the time of my birthday. The rare rocky shoals spider lilies of Landsford Canal State Park in the northern part of the state towards Charlotte always peak around now. As they bloom out in the middle of the Catawba River, it makes for a nifty, almost spectacular sight. A beautiful panorama.
    When I found out that I could use my phone camera to take panoramic shots, I was very excited. There were two places I was particularly excited to photograph: Landsford Canal and another up the side of a mountain. I haven't been up too many mountains lately, and after Landsford Canal I'm not sure I'll go. Paul and I went today. The word had certainly gotten around that the lilies were peaking. The lot was overflowing, the trails were overflowing, the viewing area was overflowing. But that would have been okay if the pictures had been better. I forgot something important about the Catawba River: it's pretty wide. (Downstream a bit, it's called the Broad River.) The flowers were way the hell over there. So with a telephoto lens or zoom function, you can get a good shot of the lilies. Panorama doesn't work with zoom. So I've got these nice pictures of a pretty river with itty bitty flowers way the hell over there. And I took three pictures with the Nikon, side by side (panoramically, if you will) and stitched them together using different panorama software. That panorama is better, but still not what I was hoping for. I did zoom in and get some pretty pictures of the lilies, but at that degree of zoom, they're also pretty blurry.
    So a letdown, though we had a gloriously beautiful day at least. And went on to Charlotte for Ethiopian food. So yay anyway, on the whole.