The sonic booms being reported are from aliens trying to send a vaccine to cure the current Dear Leader Infatuation Syndrome in the United States and hitting the Stupidity Shield created snd patented by the Administration to keep the followers from becoming self-aware.
Since it takes a long time to travel through space, it was probably an attempt to prevent the current disaster that is our government. The aliens misjudged the thickness of the American Stupidity Shield and the speed and power needed for an effective penetration to disburse the vaccine.
Nice try, Aliens. You underestimated the thickness of American Ignorance. You’d never catch enough of them for individual vaccination since they’re incredibly anti-vax.
After high school, I got my first ever job as a collar pointer and hood turner in a coat factory. That lasted three whole weeks. I did alright with the poplin and cotton coats until the wool can out. Unfortunately, the fibers generated by cutting the wool pattern pieces with a huge bandsaw triggered a dormant wool allergy and caused breathing problems.
In college, I worked food service and for the Dean’s office. Also while in college, I learned what a nasty place a nursing home can be. Islso worked in the town library and Historical Museum — it’s amazing what winds up in there. Civil War uniforms, founding daughter’s doll collection, commemorative plates and weird artifacts found around town and brought back by travelers were all arranged in a little tiny room
I worked for a major corporation and got fired for telling off my supervisor. He was fired after a few more complaints from other female workers. This was in the ‘70s when sexism was rampant. To be honest, I did not fit in with the corporate environment. I wanted to talk theater and music, they were all sales and profits.
My next and best job was as a cook for a daycare center. According to some of the parents, the toddlers wouldn’t eat breakfast at home because what I made them was better than eating at home. I even had a few reports of picky eaters gaining weight due to my cooking.
The Director fired me because I asked for a raise. Of the 50 kids I was cooking for, 20 were pulled by their parents because the quality of the food declined and kids refused to eat. I went in to pick up my things, including my cookbook and wound up calling the Health Department on my replacement because he was cooking for MY kids with a cigarette in his mouth. That was in 1972
My next job was two years later working on a military base at the post exchange on the register and unloading trucks. That lasted 2 years until I took the Civil Service exam for a Federal job, also on base, working the phone for base and housing maintenance.
Concurrently with that job, I did a part-time job with K-Mart in the automotive department. Since this was pre-digital age, we had books to look up the replacement parts for the major brands. Yet somehow, men would wander all over the store to find a guy to help them find spark plugs and wiper blades, rather than accept that I could look in the same books they could use.
I spent the next few years being a stay-at-home mom until my marriage went to crap. Then in 1983, I started working at a chain store as a cashier and department lead. In 1984, I got a job working for the university in campus libraries, processing book orders and later working as a student supervisor. I retired from campus in 2011.
A couple of years later, I worked part-time for the state revenue service between January and June, processing tax returns. I did that for a couple of years. But now, I just have an almost full-time volunteer position at a local maker space. I find it way more satisfying than any paid position.
If I need extra income, I can teach classes in the things I know how to do with equipment already in the space. I usually only charge aa bit more than the cost of supplies per student, except for kids’ classes. Those are usually only $10 per child up to age 15. 16 year-olds are eligible for membership if a parent is also a member so I generally just charge them the cost of supplies or $25.
I bought a new HP Deskjet printer recently because it was cheap and was only going to be used in my studio. I also signed up for their free instant ink cartridges. My expectation was that I would use the cartridges and cancel the subscription since I don’t print many pages at a time. The thing is they can monitor the amount of pages you print and yo
There’s a catch. If you cancel the Instant Ink subscription early, you have to return the cartridges even if they’re not empty because they will turn the cartridges off remotely on the expiration date. I have two weeks to use up the ink. So far I have printed 50 pages. I guess I’m going to print a lot of reference photos for paintings as well as collage papers for future art projects.
So once again, Free does not mean free. Unless you make a lot of prints, I don’t recommend the Instant Ink. Just use the regular cartridges right from the start.
Sticking close to home since the cost of gas is so high. But I’ve finished a couple of projects.
Lucy Furr, Attorney-at-law
Miss Lucy Furr will be part of my art show in November along with her companion, Kitty Karlyle, a former game show panelist. She likes wine, maybe a bit too much.
Miss Kitty Karlyle
I’ve done few paintings as well and need to get caught up on my new 100 paintings project. I’m way behind, I think. I need to count what I’ve completed.
I need to move stuff back into my craft room from my studio now that I moved the Boomerang Child out. He still has a bed here but not a room. Since he is employed, he can save up for his own place and get his stuff out of my garage so I can get to the yard tools and put my car away.
I finally replaced the water softener. The plumber called this morning and asked if I was available for the install. I thought they had forgotten. So the last of the home equity money is done. I can wait until fall to get a new dryer. I hang clothes on the line until late fall.
In car news, I spent way too much money after a little accident caused by being run up onto a curb. It was the only way to avoid being hit by a car that ran a light. Now I have a different problem— the rear driver-side window is inside the door. I’m back to plastic and duct tape until next week. I didn’t even have to Mike my name, I just asked what Kia he thought had a new problem.
I think I need to just take the bus. This past Wednesday, I had a re-check at the Orthodontist. Not a problem. Except it turned out to be a problem. First I took a wrong turn because I misread the map. Once I got going the correct way and was going down the off-ramp, I was forced to the right by a car that ran the yellow and forced me to move too far to the right to avoid having another insurance claim.
I was closer to the right side that I thought and ran up the curb and then dropped back down to the road. I continued on to my appointment without hearing that particular sound that a flat tire would make. When I came out and started the car, I got a low tire pressure warning light. I walked around the car to get to the air gauge in the glove box, looked down at at the tire and realized I didn’t need the gauge. Called for a tow and called the shop that services my car to tell them the car would be on the lot when they arrived in the morning.
I let the folks at the reception desk know I was outside waiting for a tow in case anyone mentioned someone was just sitting in the parking lot. I had to wait an hour for the tow and had the car towed to my regular repair shop. It was still open so I was able to drop the key inside and tell them what happened.
I’m still waiting for the car to be done. There were six cars already on the lot for service this morning. I did get a call yesterday saying they are changing both front tires so they’re the same. I told them no rush, so I guess they’ll call me this afternoon.
I had the dubious pleasure of using our new and improved (not!) transit system to go to the makerspace for a meeting. I missed my transfer connection by 3 minutes because the connecting bus was running early. I texted one of the members to meet me on at a corner at the bottom of the hill. They showed up very quickly. After the meeting they brought me home.
What a mess. If I had kept my Saturn, this would never have happened because I’d be on a different timeline. 😂😂😂
Yep. I decided that with the petty thefts going on at the shop, I would monitor my studio. It’s not an expensive camera, but sufficient for my needs. It watches the entry and I can access it from my iPad. It works well enough for my purposes and notifies me when someone walks past my studio.
I was just reading an old Buzzfeed article asking how many years old you are without giving your age or birthdate. The answers were mostly from “youngsters”— the ones who grew up with remotes and color televisions. The oldest was “I’m riding in the back of the station wagon-years old” I can beat that. I’m “crouch under your desk and cover your head with your hands”-years old, also known as “duck-and-cover” air raid drills
Early Atomic Age— prepare for falling atom bombs AKA early Cold War Era. Eisenhower was President and Russia was Enemy Number One. We could be attacked at any time by the godless communists. Air raid sirens went off once a month. If you couldn’t get to shelter, you did the “duck-and-cover.” Yep. That’d save you from a real bomb.
Maybe with the current state of the country, we should start those drills again. Not that they’d do much good. Just ask the folks from Hiroshima and Nagasaki how well they did. The weapons we have now would literally blast us back to the stone age, not metaphorically, literally. There’s nowhere to hide. Maybe Greenland or maybe Antarctica.
With the luck of most of us, a nuke would strike Yellowstone and send us all not back to the Stone Age, but back to the Primordial swamp. Millions of years from now, the future inhabitants of Earth will be drilling for hydrocarbons in the areas formerly known as Chicago, Minneapolis, New York.
Geologists will speculate on the enormous pools of fatty hydrocarbons that were formerly Americans. Archeologists will be confused by the incredible amounts of crumbling plastic artifacts. Anthropologists and Paleontologists will be using carbonized and crushed shards of bones to assemble what earlier life looked like and will come up with creatures assembled from the fragments of humans and their pets.
They’ll mine the great rust beds that were girders of skyscrapers and wonder about the fragments of tarry ribbons winding about under the dirt. They’ll wonder why there are uncountable seams of copper that extend for thousands of miles but are scarcely thicker than a twig. And they’ll find the Twinkies of a bygone era- still in the plastic wrap, still with the creamy filling, and the soft yellow sponge cake.
I filled my taxes Saturday. My refunds arrived in my bank on Tuesday. I suspect they ran it past my prior forms and discovered it was within parameters. I usually file the first of February and get my refund when applicable by the end of March. I waited until Saturday because I didn’t think I would be getting any refunds. As Gomer Pyle used to say, “Surprise, surprise, surprise.”
It’s probably because there aren’t enough people to actually examine returns too closely and just thought “I don’t care. It’s not my money. Returns look okay. Refund granted.”
So my new washing machine is paid for with that money. It was an impulse purchase made as I walked through Menards. The size and price were right. My friend Paul went with me to pick it up and he and the boomerang child swapped the washers. The old one was put down to the street for pickup next week. There was no charge for the pickup ticket, probably because washing machines aren’t too complicated to recycle.a
The new washer is a top loader so the next rugs I weave can be felted properly. The front loader didn’t do that great a job. I tossed my winter comforter in and it came out without dripping. It killed the front loader. I also pulled five dollars in change from the front loader’s filter. Since I don’t keep change in my pockets, I suspect the boomerang child is not careful about emptying his pockets.
I just looked outside and the old washer is gone. Since it’s not trash day, I suspect a junker took it. No big deal since I didn’t pay for the removal. I know I’ve pulled enough stuff from the curb – a trailer’s worth of boards, a porch rocker, a walker for when I need one.
Mini-me once attempted to drag a plastic basketball hoop to the driveway from down the block. A neighbor saw her and helped move it up. The person who put the hoop out, later brought the ball over. When she outgrew it, I dragged over to a neighbor who had a little boy.
We carried her sandbox around the corner one day when we saw a new toddler boy playing with sand in a plastic shoebox while on our walk.. Her toddler bike went across the street to a new family. We had already given away the tricycle.
Yep! This is another ramble from an aged mind. Almost forgot— bringing that washer into the basement meant disturbing the basement wildlife. There’s spiders everywhere upstairs now. I don’t like spiders. Eventually, they’ll go away. Have a good day!
That’s just a word I made up. I was given two tickets by my friend Carolyn, to “25 Cats From Qatar,” a film about cat rescue operations in Qatar. Carolyn couldn’t make the show so I asked the former “mini-me” aka my youngest granddaughter, to join me.
The film is part of the Wisconsin Film Festival which started in 1999 and highlights cinema from around the world. These are not your Hollywood-type movies, but the work of filmmakers from Wisconsin and different parts of the world.
“25 Cats from Qatar” is about an American cat rescue group based in Wisconsin. The camera follows a woman from Milwaukee to the capital of Qatar, the city of Doha, to choose 25 cats to bring back for adoption. You find out that 25 cats isn’t even a percentage point of the number of feral and abandoned cats in the city.
Most of these cats are abandoned by Qatar’s temporary workers who leave after their contracts are done. Rather than take the cats back with them, they abandon their cats on the streets. “It’s just a cat.” I learned that there is a rotating population of 3 million temporary workers and an estimated 3 million cats abandoned on the streets.
There are people who have been feeding and providing some care for cats in their neighborhoods and these are the lucky cats. Most have to scrounge for food and risk starvation or being killed by traffic or disease.
The film showed several people who take a few cats off the street, primarily to treat wounds and injuries, and offer them a place to recover before turning them loose again. The healthiest of the cats are held for foreign rescuers to pick up and take to their home countries for adoptions. Very few of these make the cut.
There are veterinarians who will verify that the cats are healthy enough for travel and who fill out the cats’ health certificates and their passports. Yep, today I learned that cats get passports. One of the cats turned out to be pregnant so she smuggled 4 kittens in in her belly.
The young woman actually brought 27 cats (+4) back to Milwaukee. All 31 found homes. I think the entire cargo area of the plane was wall-to-wall cat crates. At the end of the film, there was a question and answer period featuring rescuer and the woman who accompanied her to do the filming.
AJ and I didn’t stick around for that, because my bad knee was really giving me trouble. Apparently, the balcony of the 100 year-old theater was built for shorter people with good knees. I spent the entire film standing which was okay because we were in the very last row and I was able to brace myself quite well against the seat.
As we walked out, I took a tumble – very embarrassing, by the way. I made it down the steps okay. And as we were leaving the forecasted rain was pouring down. Being part cat myself, I really didn’t appreciate the wet, and sent AJ to get her car which she didn’t appreciate because she’s also part cat. 😀
My shadow box swaps of Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz are nearly done. I still need to make labels. I’m thinking of using cuts pieces from aluminum cans to make embossed title tags which will be attached to the top faces of the frames.
Alice in OzDorothy in Wonderland
These were just a wacky idea I had for using leftover papers from two cardstock bundles. I’ve already done tunnels books using these papers. I sold the Wizard of Oz tunnel book at my last sale as well as a smaller Alice tunnel book. I still have the larger Alice tunnel book.
I’m 2 days behind already with my new painting project. This week has been more busy than usual with two different mechanics to deal with a car problem, a doctor appointment, a lab appointment, and temporarily not being able to use my main arm due to straining my rotator cuff while prepping fresh veggies for the week.
The shoulder is less painful now. But I haven’t been as careful of that shoulder as I should be. I most likely should have had the surgery when I was diagnosed with a torn rotator cuff. Instead, I settled for 4 years of on and off physical therapy on the university’s dime because my boss wouldn’t believe me when I told her I couldn’t do certain motions during the move to our new space. I can be petty.
I hadn’t had too much trouble with that shoulder until recently. I’ve lifted more than I should trying to get my craft room back in order. I moved the guest bed back to its corner in an attempt to encourage the boomerang child out of the house.
He still can’t find a job. My thought is that in spite of a population of a quarter million residents, we still live in a place that’s more like a series of small towns where people in my son’s field know him as unreliable. I don’t think he’s worked more than a year at any of his jobs. There could also be the matter of his alcoholic past. The only reason he’s not drinking is he has no income except for selling plasma. That barely supports his smoking habit.
There’s not a lot I can do to help him, except maybe to trade him for my oldest grandson who’s not doing that well either. He lives in a town with two gas stations and a Walmart. Not much opportunity there. There used to be three grocery stores and some small shops, but nobody has any money, so no jobs. What a great time to be alive! /s
It looks almost new. The yellow paint from our road trip to my oldest granddaughter’s wedding was scrubbed off and the dent pulled out. That was the souvenir dent and scrape from our stop in Scranton to see the museum of the show “The Office.”
I finished both of my Lego succulent sets. They’ll last longer than most of my plants although I do have a plant that is over 30 years. I have no idea what it was except practically unkillable. It’s moved cross-country twice, moved from three rentals and two cities in the early part of this century and has been in this house for 19 years. It now seems to be in its last year. I have two others that were cuttings from this plant so it will still live on.
I’m almost finished putting my craft room back together. I brought the table I had in my studio back so I could set up my work area. I’m still sorting things back into their proper places. I’ll start bring things back from my studio for the paper crafting that I do and will keep the studio as a place to paint. At least for now, I’ll keep it. It may turn out that I may not have enough income to continue if the mess that we call a government keeps proceeding as it is.
Some of our more maga (I will not capitalize it) state representatives want to make criticism of Israel a hate crime. I’m already sent my “no way” to the Governor to reject this as a violation of the First Amendment protecting free speech.
My opinion is that Israel’s government as well as our government are not right to attack Iran or any other country that disagrees with our actions. Our Senators and Representatives needs to get their collective heads out of Tangerine Twittler’s ass and do their jobs.
Sillytoes Crafts 