Box of light

    I've wanted to post this for years, and maybe I did. If so, this also works as an update. I'm not sure how to word it, which is one reason I haven't (or may not have) posted it before, and it's pretty minor even by my exacting standards. It's about a photo I want to take.
    This town was the last of the 100 largest in America to turn over its public transit (such as it is) from private ownership (the power company) to a regional transportation authority. When they did, between 10 and 20 years ago, they got a bunch of spiffy, new (or spiffy-looking new-looking) buses. There's something funny about these buses. Not bad; just odd. At night, if you see one, it's so lit up on the inside compared to dark surroundings, it looks like a moving box of light.
    Now I've ridden buses a lot over the years, though more often in Philadelphia decades back. Here, the bus system has always been so bad that I would normally walk along the bus line and get to my destination before I saw a bus, no matter how far away that might be. Point is that I've seen buses at night before; I can't say why these seem unusually bright. (I mean, all city buses keep their lights on inside at night, and probably during the day, too, right?)
    The RTA has changed its name (ironically, to COMET), and they're either getting new buses or redecorating the old ones. Mainly, there's gigantic Comet artwork on the sides (cool, though not as cool as it sounds), including on the windows. The windows also seem to be smoked. Most likely that's why other buses in other towns or eras didn't seem so bright; either they had little windows or smoked ones. But my chances of getting the box of light picture are diminishing. I still see some of those buses, but fewer of them. I'd really like to get the picture. Would I like it enough to hang out on street corners at night waiting for the right bus to come along? Well no. Let's go serendipity!

Bull Street

    Since the 19th century, the South Carolina state mental hospital, or lunatic asylum, or possibly a few more names, has been on Bull Street at the end of Elmwood Avenue in Columbia. (For people not familiar with South Carolina, Columbia is the capital, and where I live, more or less.) The address has been well-known throughout the state for all my life and probably a century longer. In other words, in any town in SC, if somebody said, "They're going to send you to Bull Street," everyone knew what it meant.
    Now the State Hospital is closed, and developers are going to turn the site into a mixed residential/commercial/baseball (you heard me) development. They've given it a non-mental-hospital-related name and to call for more information, you phone a toll-free number (not 1-800, but for argument's sake), say it's 1-800 BULL STREET. Just me, but I would think that that would be an association that they're trying to get away from. Also NUT HOUSE would have been ever so much more creative. Face. Palm.

Tai chi vacuuming

    The new canister vacuum has a dirt sensor, or so it claims. There's a red light and a green light. The green light is on most of the time. If the red light comes on, you're supposed to stop while the vacuum gives the carpet an extra thorough cleaning. However, if you fail to stop, the red light just goes off. If you return to the same spot, it seldom comes on again. This is why I put in the "or so it claims" part.
    I act as if it really works. It usually comes on in places that I would expect to be dirty, like where the cats hang out or where I eat. However, the fact that you have to stop immediately whenever you see the red light leads to some very herky-jerky, tai chi vacuuming. It's literally like Red Light Green Light from kindergarten, except with less giggling. But even if I'm not giggling, I'm very tickled by it. And I still think the house is getting cleaner and our breathing is getting better.
    How long this may last is another question. I've had the thing for a month or more and the Check Bag light has still never come on. I'm sure I already should have changed the bag by now. Also, if you open the canister to look at the bag, there's a notice printed inside to clean the filters. If you read the manual, there is only a warning that the filters must be changed, that cleaning them will destroy their dirt trapping ability. Who to believe? Who to believe? I believe I'll take it to the vacuum shop across the river and ask them.

Inoxyable

    We are NOT going to discuss how long it took me to figure out what stainless steel means. OK, we are. But I swear it isn't my fault! It just don't make sense!
    It took until about a month ago. I was hunting for pots and pans and saw one with the polyglot label, the kind on everything nowadays with either English and French, English and Spanish, or all three. This one said stainless steel and acier inoxydable, although I would have sworn it was inoxyable. (Yes, I'm so proudly ignorant, I put my incorrect memories in the subject line. And THAT'S when I figured out what they mean by "stainless." (Inoxydable means, roughly, unrustable.)
    So see? It isn't my fault. They don't mean stainless steel; they mean unstainable steel. And I suspect the reason I never figured out the meaning is that I've seen plenty of stained stainless steel in my time, so the obvious interpretation would be that it's stainless at the time they sold it to you, and that I think is what I always took it to mean.
    Then again, I like to think that I've figured this out many times over my 52 years, and it's just not important enough to remember that stainless means inoxydable. Yeah, that's it! I'm not dumb; it's just unimportant!:)

Dammit, I'm doing it again

    So sorry. Someday, even if I can't wean myself from the silly game, I hope to wean myself from talking about it. (Also someday I hope not to have to look up the spelling of "wean." I blame the homophonic band.) This is just to say that I tried Civ IV Beyond the Sword again and got to use both the Apostolic Palace and the corporation function. The former never quite gave me the early diplomatic victory I was seeking, but I could have used it to order people to give me their towns had I wanted to, which is pretty cool. The latter never really started to make any sense, but at least it made for something else to do in the late game when everything is built up and you're just waiting to win. So both fun things, if not essential.
    One sad thing: Gandhi and India are stripped of their superpowers in this expansion. Darn it! I mean, I'm sure he'd still be very fun to play and all. It's just that there's so many new people to play as now (Churchill for goodness' sake!) I may never get around to finding out. Since after all I'm weaning myself and all.

Somewhat improved feline relations

    What cracks me up is the continued "your food is better" dynamic. When I started feeding Harry indoors, he wanted Amelia's food and Amelia wanted his. As I mentioned before, the food in the two bowls is identical. If anything, the food in the kitchen would be a little worse since that's where Amelia's food bowl has been forever and so the area smells like old cat food no matter what I do. But that's what Harry wanted.
    When Harry moved in officially, if not actually, I just let him eat Amelia's food and her eat his. But I figured that eventually they would figure out that Harry's food wasn't Harry's anymore and Amelia's wasn't Amelia, and jealousy would force another switch, or something. Or something turned out to be that they both eat from the stinkier food in the kitchen, taking turns nicely. They also both eat from the food by the front door, but less so.
    Their relations more generally are a little bit better, I guess. The other night they nearly came to blows and then tore ass around the house for an hour or so. I just went to sleep. They zoomed across me once, but I was amused rather than annoyed. This was repeated last night, but more briefly. They both wound up on the bed with me, not entwined or anything, but not hostile either. So I guess things are getting better.

Modesty and humility

    I may have something intelligent to say about these concepts as they apply to me personally at some point, but at the moment, I'm just concerned with the words. Because I don't think the words mean what we think they mean. Perhaps this is a result of my modest imagination or my humble education, but as far as I know, each word basically means poor, or rather poverty. When a person downplays his achievements or abilities, we always call it being modest or being humble. OK, not always, but usually. Mostly, the words alone are applied to a modest upbringing or humble beginnings, again just another way to say poor.
    The noun form of both words nearly always applies to, if not poor-mouthing oneself (or as they say in California, poor self-esteem), then a certain quietness of behavior, dress or mien that might best be described as the opposite of obnoxiousness. (There ought to be a word obnoxion; I have loads of people I could apply it to!) I think strictly speaking the poor-mouthing one is called false modesty or false humility, but I might be wrong. (Is this false modesty?)
    What I'm trying to say, badly, is that I'm not sure there's a word in English for what I'm trying to say. That might explain it, or is it more false modesty? I'd love to read some comments, assuming they don't involve predestination. (Just. Don't. Ask.)

4X

    4X is not an especially dirty movie, but maybe I'll get more hits for mentioning the possibility. 4X is a type of video game named for eXplore, eXpand, eXploit and eXterminate. Civilization is generally considered a pioneer of the genre. My problem, of course, is that I only really like the first two Xs. The last one I try to avoid entirely, but that isn't because of my high moral fiber. In Civilization at least, you can get pretty tired of your jet fighters being brought down by bowmen. I'd just as well avoid the whole thing.
    Beyond the Sword continues to be big fun, but I think where Civilization IV (and III) differ from the first two is that you could do everything and win big in the early versions. Here, there's just too damned much to do and trying to do everything just gets you bogged down. I read some reviews. It's funny that where I, as a player looking for a lollipop game, found Beyond the Sword easier than just plain Civ IV, the serious god-setting gamers found it more challenging. I suppose this makes everyone happy.
    Some of the new features are just weird. There's an Apostolic Palace that's supposed to serve as a medieval UN, but I never got the chance to offer any resolutions with it. Apparently, it's only useful in specific situations that I didn't happen to meet. And the corporations might be cool and might be annoying (reviewers seemed to think the latter) but I haven't been able to found any, so I don't know. Lots and lots of stuff in this game; someday maybe I'll see it all. Or maybe I'll find a nice 2X game and be able to suck my thumb in peace.

Moldie oldie goldies

    I did go back and get the other expansion pack for Civilization IV, called Beyond the Sword. It is really crazily above and beyond the call fun. A lot of stuff that was less fun in the gold edition, like the fact that it was hard even on the easiest setting, have been relaxed. I think. Speaking of a lot of stuff, there's a LOT of stuff added, so I'm not sure yet if it will turn out to be easy or hard, fun or frustrating. But I get to be Charlemagne.
    I also found a copy of The Sims 2, which Alice and I were crazy about back when it was newer. It wouldn't work without a patch, but that was easy to find and it works fine. The Civ IV expansion would work without a patch, but I kept getting warnings that it was changing my screen settings to primitive levels, so I got a HUGE patch for it, too, and now I don't get those warnings. It maybe plays better, too.
    All this delight for $3, total. (Civ IV was marked $3 but the lady charged me one.) I also found an ice cream suit, all silk (a cream jacket and cream trousers, not a match, but acceptable) for $2, and 3 shirts for $3. Thrift stores been very very good to me!

The meaning of meaning, and stuff

    Last night, I saw a band called Ultrafaux. They were very, very good and you should look them up, but that isn't the point of the story. They said that they found out after choosing that name that it means "out of tune" in French. They did not say whether the name is affecting their bookings or sales in France, but they are a new band and perhaps they don't know yet. They then said that the name actually comes from a Django Reinhardt song called Ultra Fox and was meant as a tribute to him. (Did I not mention that they were a gypsy jazz band? Oh, that was probably important.)
    What I want to know and they didn't say is whether the Django number was a pun on the French phrase for "out of tune" in the first place. It makes more sense than anything; why else would a band playing in Paris choose an English title for a song, and one that doesn't make much sense in English either? Unfortunately, Ultra Fox isn't quite big enough to rate a Wikipedia entry 60 or 70 years along. Can you believe it? So I'll probably never know. But I like the idea that Django named his song after a pun on out of tune and then a band named themselves after a pun on his song, accidentally naming themselves out of tune. Only in Baltimore. (Did I not mention they're a gypsy jazz band from Baltimore?)

Oh no (kitchen edition)

    Oh no, oh no, oh God no! Not the way I would have preferred to wake up this morning. I had a rubber band on the kitchen counter. One of those big thick ones; might have come with the mail or something. It was sitting harmlessly under the spaghetti pot, not bothering anyone. I think you know where I'm going with this. This morning, the spaghetti pot doubled as the bean simmering pot. For reasons of its own, the rubber band decided to stick to the pot. The smell was horrifying, but at least I figured out what it was pretty quickly. Dead rubber band has been removed; smell has nearly dissipated. Efforts to make this happen quicker (heating up a couple brownies and baking an apple) didn't help at all, however. Both probably needed more time.
    To update the all-important "Lying accidentally" entry, I went back and bought the same item and the scanner again wouldn't show a price. This time I told the correct price, but I paused so long that the clerk went and checked. She told me I was right and I said, "I know." Well I did! Honesty: not always the best policy.

Oh no (game edition)

    The Goodwill in Lexington has further expansion packs for Civilization IV for $3. Oddly, the set is called Beyond the Sword, which would be right up my pacifist alley if the name were accurate, but the description on the back suggested not so much. Except you can play as a corporation, which I guess could be construed as pacifistic if you don't read much, but goes against my Trotskyist tendencies pretty strongly. Only $3; I held out on buying only because I'll probably be going back on Sunday, I'll probably crap out on finding anything in the Clearance Corner, and it'll be nice not to waste the trip. And I was so close to kicking the Civ I.V. habit!

Some kinda record

    This is not a weird dream. This is the mind's even more perverse trick, a dream so normal that you believe it utterly and only later realize that what you took to be reality was total BS. I dreamed I looked up the bluegrass musician Sam Bush on Wikipedia and found that he isn't really from Kentucky but rather Chicago and that his birth name was something complicated and Polish. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I found when I remembered the dream a couple of days later that I didn't remember it as a dream but as a false memory. (I did look Sam up today; from Kentucky, named Sam Bush.) I have no idea what my brain is up to with stuff like this, except sending the message: unplug, dude. A damned fine idea!
    Last night, I dreamed of "Philadelphia," which is to say that there was nothing Philadelphia-like about the scene nor even any setting that required it to be in any specific city at all, but my brain said it was Philadelphia. I was back in college (now there's a surprise) and had taken an apartment that had an enormous number of uncomfortable high-backed chairs arranged as for an audience to sit in. I inexplicably immediately assumed I was looking at the aftermath of a Super Bowl party. Then an attractive young woman turned up and that was the end of the dream (but presumably also my interest in the chairs).
    Then I went to the bank and asked for some money and the teller/branch manager type guy laughed at me, telling me that I had an overdraft. I'm not aware of being worried about money in real life, but one would certainly infer as much. Then again, I keep meaning to change banks in real life. Maybe my brain is just trying to tick me off and give me a nudge in that direction.

Lying unintentionally

    One of my items at Publix today wouldn't ring up. The checker asked if I knew the price. I guessed $3.99, which at that instant was an honest guess. A moment later, I remembered that it was in fact $5.49, but by then she had accepted and keyed in the first price. I said, "If I'm lying, it's unintentional," which was true enough for the instant when I made my guess.
    Still, the fact that it wasn't on the computer with a perfectly good UPC on it is not a good sign. The same item was sold out at my more usual Publix, and there weren't anymore and the space where they had been was filled with something else. So apparently, Publix has quit ordering them. The item is Udi's gluten-free soft tortillas. The next sound you hear will be revolution from the celiacs. Torches and pitchforks, baby!

Spoke, er, ate words too soon

    As nice as it is to have signal indoors in places where I previously had not, my hopes were dashed that the same could be said for Congaree National Park. In fact, signal crapped out even closer to Columbia than with the previous phone. It was still good as far as the county jail, though, so there's that. A boon to my dissolute lifestyle!
    Or was it good? The other annoying thing was that I would get an indication of signal at the park, only one or two bars, and try to message or post to Facebook, and without me having moved an inch suddenly there would be no signal. I think I'd prefer not to be teased like that. But I like to think that if somebody had tried to reach me at one of those moments, the call would have come through. (Why a message, only typed words, would need more signal than a voice is another of those mysteries that I'm not going to be able to plumb.)
    On the brighter side, it was a lovely morning at the park, with only minimal mosquitoage, just enough to dissuade me from making further attempts to text or post. I did catch one spider web to the face, but knocked down several others before wearing them, so I'll call it a win.

Eating words

    I have to take back some of the terrible things I said about T-Mobile and some of the good things I said about Windows Phone. I lost signal indoors in several places. I didn't lose it in many other places, but unfortunately, the ones where I lost it were some of my favorite places. One of those was Bill's Pickin' Parlor, a music store that has a bluegrass open stage Friday evenings.
    Last night, fed up with Braves losses, I went to Bill's instead of listening to the Braves game. And my phone had 4G LTE all evening! To be fair, lately the Windows Phone had been getting a little bit of signal, sporadically there. But this was a vast improvement. So there's little doubt that the problem wasn't T-Mobile's service but rather the Windows Phone's antenna. If I had known this, I would have ditched it much earlier.
    The other place where service was even worse was Congaree National Park. I'm going to try to go out there tomorrow and see if I get similar improvement. That would be awesome, because I've nearly quit going due to the service blackout. It'll be nice to return there regardless.
    (PS: The Braves won the game, too.)

Get Up Mule

    There is an obvious problem with spending all your time listening to radio shows from sixty, seventy, or eighty years ago. This is that when you find something you're enthusiastic about, you may have a fair amount of trouble finding more information about it. Usually I've been pretty lucky, because the Internet is an amazing resource and I'm a fairly talented searcher. However, now I'm stumped.
    There was a show for the black troops during World War II called Jubilee. It was a huge mountain of awesome. There was a song that I thought was performed often, but listening closely it appears to have only been on one show that I happen to hear a lot. The song was performed by Erskine Hawkins and was called "Get Up, Mule." It was a motivational song designed to whip up patriotic fervor among farmers. It really works; all these years later, I feel like going out and plowing the north 40 when I hear it. The refrain is all the I get clearly and only part of that is completely clear: "We've got to farm to win this fight." That follows something that sounds like "Hard to the left/G to the right," but "lean to the right" makes more sense. Unfortunately my knowledge of mule-based farming is limited; it's possible that the former would have made perfect sense in the early '40s.
    Googling, for once, is beyond my powers. Erskine Hawkins was a popular bandleader and there's at least one record of his extant, but it doesn't feature "Get Up Mule." It's really a kickbutt song and it's so frustrating not being able to share it. Well, I could of course rip it from the Jubilee CD and edit the file, but it would be neat if I could find a more official source. For now, you'll have to take my word for it. Or search Jubilee old-time radio on archive.org, which you ought to do anyway. And anyone knowing anybody at Smithsonian Folkways, I'd love to talk to them.

Flux

    or AN HOUR WITH NO PHONE! So, the not beloved, but rather beliked bottom-of-the-line Windows Phone was grinding to a stop, as I may have mentioned here and there, because the operating system was taking up all the space (or memory) there was to take up. So I went to T-Mobile to see if there was a solution not involving buying a new phone, but of course there wasn't. Last time there was, but I used up the "add a card and put your photos on it" trick and that's the only trick that phone has.
    Strangely, given my bad experience with their phone engineering skills, I wanted another Windows Phone. I really liked the camera, or anyway the display. However, the young man behind the counter, with brilliant sales skills, pointed out that I could get a better Droid for $50 less. Once I saw its camera and display, I was sold. So we did the dirty deed and he transferred as much of my info (data?) as possible from the old to the new. He also pointed out that I could still use the old one, running it off my mobile hotspot, which is nice since there's one game exclusive to Windows Phone that I really like and would miss.
    I asked if there would be a delay before I could use the new phone and he said none at all. This proved not to be true. However, as I'm an overly trusting soul, it took a while for me to figure that out. But when I couldn't get to the Google Store, use the hotspot or send messages, even I finally figured it out. An hour later, though, I got the Welcome to T-Mobile message, and it's worked fine ever since. Well it's worked. I haven't checked out all the functionality; still a trusting soul, I figure it probably works fine. Knock on wood.
    Tomorrow, maybe an interesting entry! Maybe. (By the way, the weather emergency lately went right by me. I hear that other parts of town got deluged, though, so it's not like it was a total joke.)

Weather emergency

    That's not a subject line really, but a reason why there isn't really a blog entry today. Big humongous storm is rolling in. At the moment, there is only frequent thunder in the distance, but it's supposed to pack really high winds. I had a really good entry in reserve (I mean in my head at least) but don't feel like trying to dig it out under threatening circumstances. I mean if this were war reporting, that would be one thing, but this is a frickin' blog.
    So I'll talk about the cats again. I went out last evening, leaving them inside together. I wasn't out too late by the clock, but by Kitty Central Time it was another story. Harry didn't go out immediately when I came in; I think he wanted to follow me around and complain first. THEN he went out. And didn't come back. He was still around when I changed the litter boxes, but had vanished by the time I finished vacuuming and took out the trash. And he hadn't come back when I went to bed. And he hadn't come back when I woke in the night at 3. At 3:30, however, I still hadn't fallen back to sleep and heard something on the porch, or thought I did. I looked, and there he was.
    This morning he ran out again, but came back. There was a fair amount of conflict with Amelia, but I think I brokered it, or maybe they just went into napping mode. This weather emergency is problematic since Harry would normally go out now, but being a cat is not a large fan of rain. Hopefully, peace can be maintained. Or maybe my latent cat whispering skills will finally emerge. Sorry this is so dull, but I'm actually pretty concerned. I wish these darn sweet kitties could just be sweet with one another!

As I sit and wait

    Best Buy wants to know what my shopping experience was like. A week ago. While I wait to get the item I purchased delivered. All day. You know, the item I went into their store to purchase. And got to stand around being ignored until someone finally asked, "Do you have any questions, sir?" I said no, that I wanted to buy something, but that doesn't really constitute a question. (There were signs around saying, "If you have questions, go to the balloons," and he was one of the people at the balloons. As I say, I didn't have any questions, and the people at the balloons seemed to be in the business of selling Verizon, so I had waited by the item I wanted.)
    The young man who then waited on me was superb and took great care of me. However, the item I wanted was not in stock. So he took care of me to the Customer Service desk where they took my info and my debit card. That young lady did a fine job, too. But the point is, now it's more than a week later and I'm still waiting on an item I went into a store to buy. What exactly is the point to going there instead of clicking on Amazon, who also deliver faster?
    Moreover, since I gave Best Buy my email address, I've been deluged with spam from India. Coincidence? So I'm fairly disinclined to reply to their email asking about my shopping experience. Perhaps one day they'll google themselves and find this.:)

Coinkydink

    (I can't remember which ex-girlfriend hated "coinkydink" and anyone who would say it. One suspects it was a short-lived relationship, or she got over the prejudice.)
    My friend Walt and I are both puzzled to have been adopted by young cats, both fixed (spayed in Walt's cat Mara's case, neutered in Harry's) but neither chipped. They are both very, very friendly, both willing to jump in a stranger's car having done so to each of us. So maybe they jumped into the wrong stranger's car and then couldn't get home. It's just a puzzlement that two separate owners would go to all the trouble and expense of getting the cat fixed (fairly great) and not get them chipped (fairly little). Also, the best time to chip them is when they're getting fixed, because it's a big needle and it's best to do it when they're unconscious already. All strange.

Bluestein's

    In this town, there's a dry goods store called Bluestein's. Fifty years ago almost, when I was 3, my family moved from Charleston to Columbia. I actually remember a lot about the period after the move, although nothing about the move itself. (I was really 3, as in a week after my 3d birthday.) I guess we bought a pile of new towels after the move. My mom always mentioned getting them at Bluestein's and always wanted to go back there, but never did.
    This month, Bluestein's is going out of business. So I had to go buy. If I went in there for the towel raid 49 years ago, I didn't recognize anything. But it is a fascinating place. More like an army/navy store than the bed & bath place I was expecting. Or maybe a uniform store. I liked their stock, but didn't particularly need redcap trousers. But it was nice finally to visit. And I did find some towels and was embarrassed to be caught saying aloud, "There you are!" They did look somewhat like the towels of my childhood. I left them there. But the sale runs through the end of the month.

Nuts!

    Today was the day Harry's booster shots were due. Well, tomorrow would be, but the spay/neuter clinic at Pawmetto Lifeline isn't open but on the first and third Saturdays for walk-ins, and this isn't one of those. So the first problem was getting him into the cat carrier again.
    I had a shrewd notion that I wouldn't be able to surprise him by grabbing him as he walked in the door again, and I was right. Little kitties know how to make themselves big when they don't want to be put in a box. So I tried taking the cat carrier apart, putting him in the bottom section and reassembling it around him. That worked about as well as it sounds like it would.
    So I played with him with the laser pointer. And played with him with the laser pointer. And played with him with the laser pointer. And when he started looking tuckered out, I picked him up and dumped him in the carrier no problem, just in time for the afternoon walk-in session at the clinic.
    I didn't know how the neutering procedure is conducted there, so I thought I could have it done today. But no, he needs to be knocked out, so the drill is that I drop him off at 8 one morning and pick him up at 7:30 the next. So all he was getting today was his booster shots. (This played hell with my joke about hearing, "You've Got To Fight For Your Right To Party" on the ride over.)
    They gave him his shots and the tech said, "You had on his form that he's unaltered? No, he's neutered." So Harry gets saved a trip. Might explain his antipathy for the cat carrier, though. He still has one more set of booster shots (and the microchip) and then he's done with vets unless he gets sick.
    Only thing is, the fact that somebody had him neutered definitely means he was somebody's pet. I should really put up flyers saying that he's been found. The problem with that is that grey tabby cats are not exactly rare; the only thing that stands out about him are the fangs, and they don't stand out much. So I'll think about it. Considering how starved he was when he turned up on my porch, I'm not sure I want him going back where he came from anyway.

Kitty suicide attempt

    Harry, the new kitty, continues to behave in a matter that I consider strange. I'm sure he feels the same way about me, of course. He mostly stays outside, even though yesterday and today were insanely hot. Then again, he's a kitty. Last night, though, he slept inside, sleeping on my legs like Amelia has for much of the last nine years. Only at 6 a.m. or so did he start trying to eat my left arm, which I recognize as Harryese for "I would like to go outside now, please."
    He came in briefly to eat, but spent the rest of the morning outside. About ten minutes before I was due to go pick my dad up for dialysis, I checked and he was on my side porch napping. When I went out to the car, however, I noticed a dark grey blob just a bit in front of my driver's side front tire. It was Harry all right. I have no idea why he would have decided that this was the moment to get off the porch and lie in front of the car. I hope his little kitty wristwatch didn't tell him that it was the exact right moment for a dramatic gesture. I like to think he went there because it was warmer and the timing was coincidental. It's just so odd that I had just checked and found him somewhere else, and fortuitous that I didn't just jump in the car and roar away. I like to think that cat-quick reflexes would have got him out of the way, but still.
    In general, he's acting better and his cute voice and appetite have both come back. I suspect that the hairball was a rough experience for him, quite probably his first. I imagine the neutering tomorrow won't go over too well either. Ah well, kitty, if you would just stay inside, it wouldn't be necessary (Amelia being nine-years spayed) but you love your freedom too well!

Bait and switch

    I think I made it clear what I was talking about yesterday (kitty hork) without being too gross. Today, I'm no longer worried, because Harry seems fine. However, I do feel a little hoodwinked. He wormed his way into my heart with a little cute piping trilling voice that I thought I would get to enjoy for years to come. Since soiling my carpet, though, he's gone all Siamese on me. If you don't know cats, that's bad. Sort of like Barry White doing Fozzie Bear, if I can go all '70s on you.
    I assume that this is just a kitty sore throat and not kitty adolescence, though that is due, too. I'm hoping I get my sweet kitten voice back, but I guess I can live with the world's only tabby Siamese. He's still a pretty sweet fella, no matter what Amelia might think.

Blog entry about nothing

    Harry the cat did something gross last night that you definitely don't want to hear about, but it's much on my mind and thus it's hard to blog about anything else. And of course I wouldn't want to blog about it anyway (I mostly don't show off my willingness to be gross unless I have to) except I'm worried about him. He barely ate yesterday and today his voice was a few octaves lower and he barely ate all day. However, he was still playful and eventually he started eating again. His eyes look good and he's still friendly and playful, as I said, so things seem pretty good.
    Amelia actually treated him with less disdain when he was seemingly feeling poorly. It's not like she started acting motherly or anything, but she didn't chase him or hiss or otherwise act unfriendly. Hey, maybe it's a start.



    (Now aren't you glad I didn't use the subject line, "Baby's first hork"?

Texting while driving

    Talking on the phone while driving is or should be illegal, at least without a hands-free device. Texting while driving is or should be illegal. But texting while sitting behind the wheel of a car, say at red lights, works pretty well because of a nearly hands-free approach, speech-to-text. This technology has really, really improved since I first came across it in the '90s or so. My phone understands me way better than real people do, and gets what I'm saying even when I expect it not to.
    The other day, I was trying to get together with a friend. The weather was very unsettled in that it was raining lightly but the clouds ahead looked like the apocalypse. She was trying to get home ahead of the rain and I was trying to get Dad home and then me home, also before the deluge. It turned out we were both using speech-to-text to text one another. This sounds crazy; why not just phone each other? But as I say, it's not safe to talk and drive even in good weather and less so in bad. Speech-to-text texting lets you say what you want to say, check it at red lights, then send when you're sure you didn't just, "The horsie is eating pancakes." (Unless that's what you wanted to say, of course.)
    Anyway, I thought it was neat that she and I hit on the same solution independently. Now if only speech-to-text could handle punctuation!

Gandhi doesn't ALWAYS steamroll!

    Ouch. Sorry for further gratuitous Civilization IV updatage, but ouch and a half. In a recent game I played as the Inka (or Inca as the game has it) and didn't get horses until 1585. Har-de-har, Civilization IV. But this time out as Gandhi, I didn't get horses until 1865 I think, and it was awful. Mind you, I won, and easily, but it took for-freakin'-ever! So apparently, the big key is finding horses quickly.
    On the remote chance that anybody might be curious why that would be, it's because of barbarians. The game starts at 4000 BC but rushes along for the first couple of millennia. At first the only barbarians are wild animals; these are easy to avoid if you want to. Then there are marauding human barbarians, who are harder to avoid. Then, starting about 1000 BC, the barbarians settle down and make towns. Then you can go take them away from them, which saves a lot of settler-building time, and also lets you have towns on the other side of rivals' territories. Without horses, you can't get there fast enough. Boy howdy! Ouch!

Oh they speak English all right!

    I'm convinced that kitties speak and understand English perfectly well; they just pretend that they don't to make us look foolish. As soon as I leave, I'm sure that these two plot and plan like bank robbers. OK, maybe not like bank robbers, but like extremely cute and little felons of some type or another:
Amelia: OK, you act like I beat you up and you're really really scared of me!
Harry: Yeah yeah, and you act like you hate me. That'll worry him good!
A: Who's acting?
H: Hey!
A: So when he gets home, you go out the door like you were shot out of a cannon so he'll think you're really scared.
H: What's a cannon?
A: Never mind. Then tomorrow, we'll just nap all day, and then he'll relax and maybe he'll throw out the Vacuum Cleaner Monster!
H: What's the Vacuum Cleaner Monster?
A: You'll find out!
    The above, without the dialogue (I'm betting) is what happened yesterday evening and today. I went out to buy some pots and pans (or as it turned out, a Pyrex dish and a saucepan) and when I came back, Harry comes shooting out the door. He wouldn't come back in last night and he didn't come back in first thing in the morning either. He ate and popped right back out again. But since then he came back in and has stayed around, mostly napping. Cats do not have long memories. So the war can be said to be in abeyance. I hope.

Back to school? Seriously?

    I know everybody says that kids feel like school vacation flies by, but I'm very much feeling that way as an old guy. I'm also sure that parents and teachers feel the same. I ought to be exempt. I'm only affected by school returning to session to the extent that school speed zones go back into effect. This sounds very minor and of course I favor school speed zones, but Margaret's street is at the edge of one, when I turn left from it onto Rosewood Drive I can't see the School Zone sign and it would be easy to forget but that the traffic cops usually have already caught somebody somewhere along that stretch. In other words, I haven't run into any trouble yet myself.
    I have no emotional distress about school opening again; I rather think that I never did. What troubles me is that winter is coming again. I hate winter per se, but Dad also does very poorly that time of the year. As I mention all winter every year, he's very cold all the time and thus asks Margaret to keep the house much warmer than it should be, and thus they're both dehydrated all winter long. Or battling dehydration by drinking too much water, which doesn't mix well with End-Stage Renal Disease. So make August longer is I guess what I'm saying.