Ask the ghosts

It's 100 years old. Mostly nice woodwork. Lots of energy-inefficient windows and crusty elements to repair.

Time spent

It's gone to daydreaming about houses such as this.

Coney Island (of the mind)

Even if you do not know Lawrence Ferlinghetti (who changed his name at the age of 36 back to the surname that his Italian immigrant father had changed to the more "English" Ferling), perhaps you envision hot dogs, wooden roller coasters and tawdry, beach-front entertainment.

For, I apparently pay "no attention" to things as they develop, despite my unreturned phone call, and outside of so many hours spent with all four (now) of the groups concerned.

Thank you, fellow Hermit Crab, for alerting me to the Star's breaking news such as I plagiarize 'eretoforthwith:

KC, Union Station reach temporary agreement on Kansas City Museum

KCMuseum is second fell swoop for doing-good-job Union Station. No offense to anyone who can't, but I enjoy being able to walk to that palatial and free space sunny indoor space. I drive there from time to time, to go to the post office, too.

Anyway, just as Christopher Leitch had told the faithful attending members of the Indian Mound Neighborhood Association this month, the Corinthian Hall-based portion of the Kansas City Museum civic-dino-casa "will remain open while Kansas City and Union Station officials continue to negotiate a new contract" (it was announced Wednesday, but I have no idea where or when. I was at the e-mail until after 5 p.m. today.)

Spider frown!!

:::: (

"The city" (who the blazes is "the city?" Did I miss a bellowing announcement from my local pavement?) "had said it would terminate its contract with Union Station to operate the museum next Tuesday in a dispute over ownership of the collection. Both the city and the station claim ownership."

Because, you know, "cuidad del Kansas redundant Cuidad" knows a lot about running museums.

When I came to live here about nine puny years ago, the Liberty Memorial was a crumbling, roped-off oddity. Now, even though it requires still some tax crutches flung at it by a benevolent city council, it is doing much better. Yes, having to repair a substructure again is a bit of a drag, but they do have a museum they tout as unique. It's an interesting bunker-place, and one that I hear has a great experience of a museum. And, I was able to go and stand and see the view.

And there has been the Zoo, now also under control of a "Friends" group. But the official Friends of the Kansas City Museum is "siding" with Union Station and its decent management thus far, despite reported deficits, towards more exhibits, better maintenance and brainier programs, for adults and children. At any rate, "the city" is not quite qualified to run any museum.

Even mini museums, threatened albeit by encroaching city "development," such as the Fire Brigade one, in a quaint brick building, no less, are casting their lots with the train station in faith that it's going places.

So, the good news is that Union Station's good job is acknowledged legally for the next six months by a contract hammered out in front of some reporters.

Glad they agreed to "try to reach a resolution in two months, however, so as not to interfere with the renewal of Union Station’s professional accreditation."

Worker bees

The Colony Collapse Disorder of genuine honey bees in the United States is probabaly well-known by now. If not, wait until you try to buy some almonds later in the year.

It struck me how many humans are out working in certain parts of the city. Take Crown Center/Grand/Washington Square Park/Union Station (collectively called __?). A quick spin shows quite a few people doing things I guess are necessary.

Temptation

This is bad, very bad. Badder than Friday the 13th or snow in mid-April: impulse shopping for snacks.

Not just any snacks, of course, but the ones that made me gain 15 pounds 10 years ago.

However, since many of these come with trinkets and such, I don't know how much longer I can resist.

Pocky is my downfall!

Smart human moves #1245

Wearing protective gear and a breather mask, this chemical-applicator person was out applying weed killer or whatever in the rain today at Troost and Truman. Regardless of the creatures who live in the waterway where the streets' sewers drain, he's exercising an acute form of job preservation, I should say.

Note to self: Do not go barefoot at Truman and Troost.

Windy things

The Kansas City Kite Club was floating fanciful undersea things through the rain-spitting gray by Liberty Memorial.


They got my attention, so I was late to pick up my taxes, froze my fingers and had to hear a guy say "yeah, we fly our balls a lot." Still I'll promote the Flights of Fancy kite festival planned at MCC-Longview on April 21.


There will be 100s of kites, and about 25 of these giant fun things.



Susie Gilson of Olathe, Kan. made some of them, though the main source these days (since KC's kite place, Wind Wizzards, closed a decade or more ago) is Into the Wind.

Thirteen-year-old Elizabeth Gilson, who took fourth place at last year's national kite flying competition, told me that 10 to 15 mph is the right wind speed for good kite-flying. In this region, the season lasts from about April to September.

I think I want to buy a bunch of these and tie them to everything I own.

Easter Monday

It's a holiday in the UK.

And Canada

Hi, Mom

Volunteer

Plants will grow just about anywhere. Concrete is no match for the forces of little cell walls multiplying and pushing roots, stems, leaves, buds.

This used to be a nice vegetable garden, but the stingy man who owns the building where the wild violet is now growing thought it would be an "improvement" to asphalt over the strip of soil that was diverting water and providing diversion and food for the first-floor residents of our apartment across the driveway.

His stupid building is still vacant after a year. . . .

Having just listened to the city's mobile Wet Weather $4 Billion Projects presentation, I am finding myself angry all over again.

1826 Forest

This stone shell is the former Wheatley-Provident Hospital, the city's first medical facility to serve the black community, founded 1916.

The building was originally opened in 1908 or 1910 as the Perry Sanitarium and Training School for Nurses, named for Dr. J. (John) Edward Perry, a black physician no one (like me) has ever heard of.

This is a clip from the Kansas City Public Library site that shows the interior, women working with babies in cribs.

The hospital was replaced by Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Hospital long after it was due, and on June 12, 1972, the last patients of Wheatley-Provident were moved to the newer facility. It was at 2525 Euclid and only lasted 11 years.

I'm having a hard time finding information on the Web about Kansas City's history of segregated hospitals and the development of the existing public health care system we have today.

The place caught the eye of one person at Studio 109 apparently. Know that "someone" is working on connecting the Crossroads and the 18th & Vine districts.

To me, the area is a bit of an oasis, since I like the isolation of empty spaces and wrecked buildings; the folks behind our annual Mardi Gras celebration (Dirty Force Brass Knuckle Street Band and Soul Revue, etc.) happen to march themselves from Wyandotte Avenue along 18th Street all the way to the Mutual Musicians Foundation once a year. Connections are organic.

(Remember that heritage march dealy the city did May 3, 2003? That was rather lame, and being faux-created by the government, it died the next year, I believe.)

The kind of real connection between "there and there" is still a very long time coming.

In the meantime, there are some lovely ornamental pear trees across from the old hospital. Plastic is flapping from one, while a mangled shelf pretends to be street sculpture, and broken glass sparkles up from the sidewalk.

Anyone with a few million could create quite a living space in the old medical building, though I'm sure it's haunted. It still has the "Assylum" haunted house sign frame on the north side, after all.

Santa Fe and Nearby Places

That's Santa Fe Neighborhood, not New Mexico. Benton Boulevard, will it rise again?
Benton and Victor, houses painted in monochrome, perhaps under renovation, view to the southeast.

Across the street, view to the northwest.

Benton and Benton, apartments, view to the southwest.

Benton and 22nd Terrace, view to the west, houses in need.

Only one

Two of the three candidates called Brooks were defeated.

Funkhouser said government of the people, by the people, for the people, was "not just good rhetoric, but a damn good idea" in his victory speech.

He said his opponent always has had the best interests of Kansas City at heart.

Almost an equal number of civic-minded residents care about heart as do care about logic.

The city's slim majority selected someone non-native to this city to lead it.

Personally, I think it was an interesting tactic for him to state at a forum both his starting salary as our city auditor and what it was 18 years later when he retired - the same information anyone hiring someone would have at hand from their application.

People like to be told true things upfront without having to dig for them.

I guess this place is still to be a "tale of two cities," although maybe one half can be joined with the other.

I found out that my neighbors downstairs don't vote because they can't or haven't tried to reinstate their rights (post justice system participation issues). But, if a former prostitute can do it, so can they!

My other first-floor neighbors can barely walk and need to learn how to do absentee by mail.

A bit of work cut out for me for the summer. . .I think we're voting next in renewing PIAC.

PS - Saundra McFadden-Weaver, finally! Maybe people are waking up. . . .or, perhaps they figured that since Troy Nash was out, why not start all over with two newbies (though certainly both no strangers to state politics). . . .

. . . anyway, to all of you - I better not be disappointed this time.

Patience

I hate waiting for election returns. This critter was a Saturday highlight. It was in the "butterfly garden" at Scuola Vita Nuova. I was indoors most of the time. It was a writing conference. . .I wasn't there to write, just to move chairs, desks, risers, and to give information and smiles and coordination.

Olive Trede

Olive and Truman; Third District Council signs courtesy of candidates who like to use vacant lots. Graffiti courtesy of someone who seems to have had fun.

Thou shalt not covet

Thou should get your own!

For all of you who (don't read this blog but) have said "cool purse" to my made-of-diverted-trash handbag, check out Ecoist.com which is having a sale on such. . .

I'm excited about the new "chain mail" soda tab bags. Looks like you can really smack the heck out of someone before they steal your stuff, use your ID, spend your credit and recycle your bag!

Happy Spring

Courtesy of my "it's not summer" window marigolds.
Of course, it's raining.

Woodland in springtime

This was the state of affairs in early January.

This was Monday, 26th and Woodland:
25th and Woodland:
22nd Terrace between Woodland and Highland:
Note "no dumping" sign on 22nd Terrace.
This was Tuesday, 25th and Woodland - Did someone get special trash service?
And today, while such things as this remain on the 2300-block:

It seems that my call to "The City Manager's 311 Action Center" was telepathic. 22nd Terrace was cleaned (when we say "no dumping," we mean we'll use tax money to pick it up eventually anyway), the trash at trailer-man's place and a few other random items. That wasn't the usual bulky item pick-up truck, though.

Thank God

- it was only the Sisters of St. Joseph.

(My neighbors. The one we call Sr. Blah blah blah, which is not cruel, because we have good long talks with her. Anyway, she accosted* me Monday morning as I was moping my way to my car to drone towards work and she asked me if I had received some flowers.

(Ah. See, it's not the strangers, after all. It's the people you know. The laundry thing threw us off completely. She said "Yeah, I thought about leaving a note," but offered no real reason why she didn't. Ugh, attribution, people! It really helps. The next day when I came home, there was a little cake outside our door. She had told me about that and I had accepted.)

*(actually, she startled me, for I suppose she had been watching - she spends much of her time taking care of someone about 20 years older, infirm, a fellow nun, so of course, she takes in all the chatting she can; she used to be a Catholic grade school teacher)

KARaMAel

Two events, blasé and common: a man possibly "hitting on" a woman who half-folded his laundry and whom he thinks paid 50 cents to complete drying those shirts, and a woman's house getting burglarized.

Does anyone deserve anything?

Latter-she has had her radio stolen from her car at work. She does not live near work, but recently had workers at her house, checking up on a flooded basement and a potentially, but not ultimately, fried furnace. A few days later, a break-in.

She, former, shook his hand and offered to give up the dryer she hadn't placed money in yet. He declined. Even though it was technically still "his."

That's what makes me think the bunch of white tulips are motivated by a cultural sense of Karmic whatever-I'm-assuming rather than any sense of woo-thee. He's Indian, and I've never seen him before (normal when you live in an apartment).

However, there was chocolate by my door when I came home today as well. Three Belgian, shell-shaped pieces. Knowing what I do of Asia (though not so much of India, no matter what three books I read a decade ago), I should go count the flowers.

Perhaps tomorrow. Perhaps you could do it for me.

At least my husband is joking about it. As I intimated, he was the one who dried the man's Park University t-shirts instead of sending the note "done, dryer free" under T__'s door as I hap-hazardly had arranged.

The old-ass washers, while only costing 75 cents, are inefficient and frustrating. One does not fill quickly at all and takes over 45 minutes to cycle. The other (perhaps both now) does not spin, leaving clothes so soggy that even seven t-shirts in the most efficient dryer of the pair don't get done after 45 minutes.

Note: other "good" dryer bears a ball-point sign "decommissioned." My landlord is funny, sometimes; there is a random extension cord wrapped around the coin intake, as if someone would go ahead and try to try clothes anyway (or in case the sign would get lost). A cord would not deter most people anyway, but it would show up well in "Clue" or "CSI," you know.

I asked T___, and he said he had had the same problem with the washers. He hadn't called the landlord about it; I suppose he's as nonchalant as I am about such things. Laundry is the most horrible chore in the world.

Anyway, those harbingers of spring could be making up for the fact I thought in his presence though did not utter, "Ah, you got a new Gateway computer last fall, right?"

You may recall the praying mantis blog. That was the day I had spent over 20 minutes breaking down five or six huge boxes fully formed and full of styrofoam and filling the trash container for all 12 apartments. It was how the bug got a ride, I guess. The boxes bore the packing slips, itemizing the printer, the router, all kinds of crazy individual parts, and a name that I presumed was Indian. I thought it was a female's name.

I have no idea what he meant by "we live" in apartment 2N.

And Sunday night, I was "making" my husband do his own laundry just as this guy was having to do (though not keeping very good track of it. I had an earful of such woes when I came home Sunday at six). No indication about couplehood in these modern times can be found in who's doing what chores.

The men's problems with laundry is why I went down to the basement in the first place. . .

For all I know, his roommate, sister or wife encouraged him to remember my apartment number, which I also had described as "ours." Surely he saw the socks, quite male things. He was nice about how the soggy laundry basket had leaked on his towels. I noticed that and had moved aforementioned items, to floor and drying poles, respectively, before he showed up.

As for the other odd incident (which left my soon-to-be-not co-worker to finish ads, intuit the layout, engange in a "do this and then that" oral dialog that made me realize why I put up with other things the other other does and that lasted four hours, two or three past the usual finishing point) I have strange post-eclipse feelings.

Two semi-surreal things in one day's span. Surreal at my age just means slightly out of the ordinary; you know, "news."

So, without a choice, I spent a twelve-hour day, following a 57.75-hour week.

My plan for Tuesday was to clean the apartment all day - recycling, scrubbing, and then washing and drying two hundred pounds of laundry (beds! towels! etc.!) - all work that sucks but that is piling up (obviously) and driving me insane. However, I have to do several hours-long tasks that I did not have time for today - surprise, it always miraculously happens that way, no matter how hard I try - to do. Why plan?

Well, I guess if your home is invaded and a few pawnable, useble, fun things are stolen, you want to go and guard. She at least had to fix the entry-point anyway. Understandable.

I haven't slept much, so little that Saturday slanted-light late afternoon I ran through a red light at a very prominent intersection (two boulevards, no less) long before I noticed what I was doing.

Fatigue turns all those extra/double traffic signals into simply too much to look at. I was watching a red-painted little bus go ever so slowly in front of me; it was after four and I had been up since seven, and I decided to go around. I swear I saw no yellow light, but a smart pedestrian did see me. (He was on the oncoming traffic side anyway, quite safe from spacey I who took so long to process all those details, that I took on the default of "just get through, stopping could upset things and cause others to crash into you" and drove home.)

Thank you for lack of incident.

Saturday night, after two hours at another work-related event, I slept on purpose and purposefully for about 12 hours. Thank goodness you can make some things up.

During the winter, when I wouldn't eat "enough" and would break down into a pained disaster. As of late, though, I can well-survive on less than 1,000 calories a day. Nothing is consistent.

I'm still too fat. No one looking at me would agree, of course, but I know what percentages are supposed to be. People over 30 start to lament their lack of motivation/time to run around most of the day like kids (used to) do.

Sadly, my little hopes of walking my work-hood for fun and for exercise as during my bus-taking summer are running away from a new accumulation of facts.

Robberies, burglaries, stupid things.

Is it just that we collect more experiences overall as time in our lives go by, or are things really "getting worse?"

Mrs. Archer in "The Age of Innocence" laments every Thanksgiving the downward trend of society.

I don't claim to use the word in the same way whatsoever. New York of the rich and structured in 1870 is far different from our loose associations and commercial ambitions. Then again, I suppose we are what she meant was to happen. Also, she was lucky, as all of us are, to go to the family vault before things got too radically-intolerable.

It's what "news" focuses on, you know, the tragedies and psychoses of contemporary humanity. No one applies any of the proffered solutions, either, of course, for we're all streaming down the river of Now. We ignore suffering as much as we shudder to wonder how the citizens of 1942 Germany were able to.

And so we go; we do what we think is right, and we all - don't we? - reason away the implied consequences because they are coming from different times, from different people who are not as smart as you, as "you" as you, as completely thoughtful and right as you.

Our actions still draw their drawn-out consequences. Drawn-out, they still so seem to be grouping and of such numbers that they are felt all the time.

There is a drug dealer living within blocks of you. Drug users, functional and actively criminal. Alcoholics. People who use assault for every purpose. Those who smash out car windows for no reason but to be accepted. Arsonists, random robbers whose motives we so try to search out and use for strategies to avoid. Kids who are so wronged that I would cry if I had to name their experience, whom we somehow don't see. People like you. People like I.

That's annoyingly correct grammar now, eh? Good thing English is so strange, otherwise I would have had to rhyme.

Anyway, I think it's time.

Three 3

I think I once bit a dog that was born on March third.

It has been so long, I do not remember exactly.

He yelped, and I was only teething past babyhood.

Sometimes you get stuck, growth detours.

He ran away eventually.

Don't walk around outside

Indeed, what would we do without such advice from our preemptive meteorologist/journalists on T.V.?

Two hours after Brian Busby and his crew interrupted our social hour, the hail finally hit our Midtown, and even so it has mostly abated.

I heard Busby mention a half-apology for cancelling our show, despite having turned the T.V. way down, despite my friends' jeers, their faux-frantic cell-phone-grasping - "do you want me to call them?"

Be careful for what you wish for, they say. Darn them to FCC Hell. Less than a week ago, we made fun of the insignificant and misleading "three secrets will be answered" so-called plot of LOST, also pointing out the impossibility of how all the women are perfectly clean-shaven and all the men in a perpetual state of Miami Vice shadow.

Fast-forward to today, when "America's Top Model" hogged two hours of prime time during good weather, so by 9 p.m. when things start to turn soggy and dangerous with the coming of spring, right after a scene in which Charlie nicks his face shaving with an undoubtedly-old disposable razor, the weathergasam kicks in and we're stuck watching red trapezoids on a multi-colored map, grateful we aren't in Olathe, I suppose, but indignant as all Americans get when separated from Choice; we feel entitled to things we have merely grown used to do.

NOAH radios are programmable for your geographic location, and it's a sad fault of television broadcasting (broad, yes) that it blankets everyone around with forced awareness about something that may or may not affect them.

Busby said, "something something, T.V. is rebroadcastable, but we have a life-or-death situation on our hands."

I don't know, back when I was a kid, we didn't need much goading to be herded into the basement like the British in 1944; we had a mom who was paranoid about fire, and by association, lightning.

We always used to unplug the television, too. Black and white. In the days before surge protectors. At the moment, I am defying our modern concerns and typing on a plugged-in laptop. Note: it is a 486, I believe. (Uploaded afterwards - there's no viable modem left!)

And to think, I rushed home (to my friends' house near our apartment) from City Hall's "exciting" budget hearing, sloshing through deep streams of rain in the streets and braving the fruits of my stubbornness, my having refused to pay $3 an hour just to have a spot in a parking garage with neon art. At least the first half-hour is free, and I was able to spin around and get out.

Because you can't read the sign until you're in.

So, I'm tramping down 13th, perhaps, towards Grand, which, I read later, is closed to pedestrians.

It's odd that at 8:30 at night I'm not the only one out. You may recall my having skipped this hearing last year due to feeling eerily uncomfortable.

Tell me, what kind of man (young man, young black man) walks up to a whiter woman, young but older than he, and, half-communicating with rain-drowned statements (having said something to start it from nearly a half a block away, newspaper over his head, chasing me down half a block), asks, "Hey, how about you share that umbrella with me?"

Very sociable, indeed. Note: my umbrella is compact, not one of those giant affairs you can raise a family in.

So, you pretend to know that you know that it's not going to be a bad situation, despite what every statistical scenario you've read about and seen, and heard over the phone, through neighborhood newletters, crimewatches and e-mails, television shows, the rest. Not fear, but vague confusion, the kind brought about when there's no time to talk, no convenience to shelter conversation and no earthly normal reason to do so regardless.

I never heard his question, or rather, I did not answer it with any statement that rhymes with "no," yet he thought he got my reply, probably through my expression, or maybe because I was walking fast to begin with or that the absurdity of the ruse was too evident.

So, he called me "stingy," asked where I was going, and when I told him "to my car" (the truth, it's not supposed to be a smart thing to say, is it), he was on his way west down 13th and said, "well, next time I see you downtown, I'm going to say 'no.'"

It's not really a threat, is it?

He was smiling, kind-of, anyway. Still.

Last night, at the Thai restaurant on Walnut - the one with reverse happy hour and regular happy hour and cheap wings and dumplings and tempura and tofu things - there was a flock of male people whom I found annoying. The bartender kept referring to me as "babe," and the guy three stools down started in. (I sat far away on purpose, and I didn't engage anyone other than to give my order to the guy behind the bar.)

I try so hard to keep it general, to say about the chicken wings, "yeah, those are good, we come here all the time," so that, he got it, he asked who the "we" was, and I said "my husband, my friends, etc."

They only seem to stumble on that for a second.

He offered me some of his chicken wings, which, I guess were overwhelmingly presented for four bucks.

No, why do you have to ask twice? Same with the server, he asked me twice whether I wanted something to drink.

When the woman used to be at the bar, she would ask once and then bring me just water anyway. He, on the other hand, just kept offering the water as a second choice. I did not giggle or demure or anything. Why this urge to get the cute girl drunk?

Is this what you're thinking: Wah, wah, it sucks to be hit on, I hate it so much, etc. "You must be doing something to attract this attention. And why are you being as racially-minded as all the voters who either picked Brooks or Funkhouser?"

Whatever. I wear goofy clothes, unsexy shoes, have hair that's styled about 120 years too late, lack both make-up and exercised features. How does a normal smile, even if spontaneously-honest and without any backstory or insinuation, go so far as to "encourage" anyone. Note, I didn't smile at the Rainman.

Speaking of encouraging events, the budget hearing was just one advocate after another getting up to speak for increased neighborhood funding.

Several kids from the Kansas City Youth something spoke on behalf of a budget line for ACT and SAT preparation classes for four of our school districts. (Whether this item is currently in or out, I'm not sure; the document is dreadful to read, and people's ability to summarize their positions or start out with facts is often lacking.)

See, no need for any of those mayoral candidates to talk about fixing the schools; the money is already a line-item (or twinkle in someone's - Wayne Cauthen's - eye). While it makes me ill that the schools themselves do not have time to teach kids how to take these make-it or break-it tests, I guess I can't be sad about my other tax money going to catch these kids falling through the proverbial gap.

I guess.

The others who testified talked about the conditions of our neighborhoods - housing as infrastructure was a basic concern.
Again, what they talked about were exactly the ideas the council (especially the neighborhood committee) has been talking about for months. Well, okay, the finance committee heard the majority of the testimony earlier about the landlord licensing ordinance. The one that Saundra McFadden-Weaver sponsored and Mayor Kay Barnes struck down. It's not a bad thing to have this new housing administrator position, but sheesh, what took them so long to think of it?

The neighborhood people, 20 representing ACORN, asked for harsher penalties for landlords who refuse to maintain their property. They want swift, efficient action on complaints, for the city to be able to impose not only liens but receiverships, etc. Someone mentioned the bill currently in the Missouri Senate that would authorize just those kind of measures.

Those same measures came up over five years ago, though, when Iris Archer was head of Neighborhood Preservation, before Wayne Cauthen's early retirement buyouts. And then people had to go and get up to speed, and people were busy courting downtown development and condo after condo after condo, and nothing happened. Nothing but cuts on the neighborhood services - less tree trimming, less dangerous buildings demolitions, less enforcement of existing laws.

Good news, tonight Cauthen alluded to shifting work-shifts so that we can have animal health and public safety workers after five and on the weekends. What a concept. I wonder if he's doing the same with health inspectors and others. Budget Director Troy Schulte, in response to a question from Councilwoman (and still in the race, I'll be darned) Saundra McFadden-Weaver, said that as of two weeks ago, nearly all the additional neighborhood preservation inspectors had actually been hired. Five new ones and eight vacancies.

Others spotted included the rest of the finance committee, of course, Alvin Brooks, about whom Councilman (termed out) Troy Nash deliberately made a slip-up, calling him "mayor" instead of "mayor pro tem," which is what he is. It's funny, since Nash's assistant was working for the Janice Ellis campaign.

Completing the committee, Councilman Terry Riley (also close to incumbency) and Chuck Eddy, the chair and one of those who fared the worst in yesterday's election, were up there spouting comments to commenters. Outside the committee, besides Nash and McFadden-Weaver were Deb Hermann, Bill Skaggs, George Blackwood and a dejected-looking Jim Glover.

There were a number of non-electeds there tonight, including clear-speaking Ezekiel Amador, who spoke about the value of Community Action Network (CAN) centers (receiving a slight raise this year) and who made me wish he hadn't been knocked out of the race - he has such an admirably-clear and articulate manner.

Where has public speaking gone? You can hardly understand Brooks - I'm sorry, but he mumbles and squeaks and mashes up clauses into impossible combinations as far as transcription is concerned. Funkhouser is a bit difficult to understand, too. Talks too low and swallows words, though what he says makes clear sense. He didn't speak unclearly when presenting audits, as far as I remember; I didn't see him there for the hearing. Glover likewise is difficult to listen to, as we all know. Nash talks fast for some reason and quietly, and Riley, while louder, spins around phrases in a whiney way that makes me want to be angry. Barnes, I'll give her, has a great speaking manner, aside from the undertone, real or accidental, of condescension. Hermann and Nace (who was not there) are good, clear, logical speakers. I appreciate that. I appreciated Deth Im's diction as well.

Diction is a must for anyone in elected office, I believe.

It does not seem to be a requirement from our voters here in Kansas City.

More non-electeds; Brandon Ellington was impressive when he got up to talk; it was the first time I heard him speak. He lost his election, too. Octavia Southall was more mellow and easier to understand than I recall her being at the Northeast forum. It may be simply the comfort that comes from being in a room of mostly people of your race instead of the other way around. I don't feel that one way or the other, but I'm not speaking in public.

The police chief and (retired?) Deputy Chief Kevin Masters were there. Osco Bolton, from POSSE. He had some sharp things to say about street-level mediation programs that are working. Southall also talked about having mitigated a potential retaliation after a funeral where the family was overheard saying, "we know who did it and we're going to go get them."

There's people doing something, naysayers.

Despite how incredibly boring it is to listen (from the back row, where you can hardly hear anyway) to two-minutes of blather from 25 people and responses from politicians and such, you do pick up a few tidbits.

Colony collapse disorder

What's become of society? Humans are acting up and out at an alarming rate. Do birds do it? Apparently, bees do it.

Millions and millions of them are leaving their apiaries and never coming home.

Aliens?

No, it's probably just earthly viruses or other factors that our actions are to blame. . . breeding, pesticides, trucking bees around to do pollination gigs, which are more profitable than competing with imported Chinese honey. . . .

It's a fascinating industry, absolutely necessary for producing human food such as almonds, and only makes a person about $30,000 a year or $11 profit per hive.

Back with the Catholics

My polling place was upgraded, I guess.

Instead of the Baptist church a couple of blocks south of my home, with the bumpy tables and the crumbling sidewalk, I go now to the fancy Catholic one to the north, with its big, smooth parking lot (shared with Hallmark), flat sidewalks and sharp pencils. And now I have white judges. I only recognized one man from my old spot; maybe the others just finally got too old. I miss the guy who used to monitor the ballot and give me my "I voted" sticker, though.

Of course, I didn't know you could park in Hallmark's land (this sign does not help those who park before they see it, and this is that weird stretch of Gillham where there's a hill and several intuitive merges) and so I walked around the block before it was all said and done.

Lost solidarity

Everything I was thinking about how this show is going, but expressed in classic Square Peg style.

Name my finches

They are a couple. They're Java Sparrows. I don't know this pair's particular heritage, but I will presume they are legal and not a result of bird traders' trying to help rid an island of a rice-eating "nuisance."

They came to me via a friend, who is in the Beak n' Wings bird club, which helps rescue pets others can't keep.

Free birds!

The male is in front, looking disapproving, and the female is stretching up to see how to escape the scary silver thing pointed at them (the camera), while showing off her bad feather week.

She really needs some attention to those pin feathers coming in on her head, but I never see them co-groom; they just peck at each other.

Sometimes, he sings.

There is a bird expo Saturday, too, up at the KCI Expo Center, so watch for more "help me with my addiction" pleas.

My goal is to stick to buying tree-perches, food and toys and no new conure or budgie.

Chucked from a church

Practice voting

If you live in Kansas City, you're probably "all set" to vote in a week on city council and mayoral candidates, to advance two of them in each district/office to another election in March.

Today and for 13 more days you and everyone else in Missouri can vote on which dorky license plate we'll have if we live here in 2009.

There does not seem to be a one-driver, one-vote rule enforced. Feel free to battle my preference with your own.

I think #3 - "Reflection" - looks too 1980s Florida, #2 is a good attempt at "river," but the font is bad and the sun-ball is stupid. Also it's called "Ribbon," not river, so that's dumb.

The motto at the bottom on both of these is blocky and ugly like it is now.

In the FAQs, you will learn that putting the motto on the plate is state law. Wow, they really know how to use legislation for important things.

Choice #1 is blue-ish like the current one, too, which I prefer to bland, blank white. It's also "educational," with the shape of the state and that bird no one ever sees.

The FAQs will also tell you that indeed, it's true that inmates make our plates (another state law) and that they are aluminum. What they don't cover is how many miles of roadway might be repaired with the money from cashing in all that scrap metal.

Why do I have to turn my old plate in? Can't I make a buck off recycling it? And what are all those license plate artists supposed to do?

I miss the maroon-on-white style from 1979 that made it look like you just might be from Arizona, if you didn't look too closely for the little cactus in the middle. In fact, a park ranger in Texas once got into an argument with me and a friend of mine about where we were from based on that similarity. Like lots of law enforcement, he was looking so hard to "catch" us in a lie of some kind.

When he stopped being angry, he turned paternal on us girls and said to be sure not to photograph the "mules" or anyone who randomly was going through the desert.

"You don't want to make the drug runners angry," he said.

Throw Beads at Me

You'll have to take my word for it; Blogger has rules like prisoners' mail. I'm married and employed and all that, too, and Kansas City is conservative and wouldn't understand.

Another reason: my Photoshop won't open.

My old work-Mac has desktop-lock - my attempts to change system preferences are not being heeded. It's stuck on green with a blue square in the middle. Click, nothing. Click, nothing. I hate it when buttons are faux-active.

Snow alley

I Heart My Cat

Even if her eyes make her look like a junkie.

Bird Vengeance

While some of my friends are happy to shoot winter songbirds with nothing more than a camera, apparently some old ladies can't leave well enough alone.

Thanks to Bird Chick for bringing attention to a recent Newsweek article about how it's okay, apparently, to shoot birds illegally.

The same rule applies to humans, you know; you only have to claim (and prove) self-defense. Or, you determine that the assailant is a "terrorist."

Since the cardinal is dead, he won't be called in for questioning.

He was sure scary, bashing into the windows all the time, waking everyone up. I guess since she lives in a solar house, the killer feels "balanced" about ending the life of a bird. Never mind the fact that the bird was mentally tortured by the house first. Eco-granny said she was tortured, too. Couldn't sleep! The one with the bigger weapons always wins.

NOzone

I do not have much to contribute about the much-publicized ChemCentral explosions and fire yesterday, smoldering into today, except that you might want to check up on their usual environmental scorecard.

The smoke seemed to move up high and then to the south and west, and somehow, I never smelled it.

It was bad to breathe it in, just as breathing burning mineral spirits would be on any given day, but the EPA gave us the "all clear" for being outdoors. The school district evacuated a bunch of elementary schools; three are still closed today - one is just up the street.

I'm sure I'm safe because I'm older than an elementary school student.

My photos also have little to contribute to the masses of them already online, but my perspective is my perspective. Yesterday, that perspective was Kessler Park.

This is Carlos, who was giggly and wearing only two button-up shirts. No hat, coat, gloves. He asked if I spoke Spanish. A lot of people ask me that, and I always say the same thing, feeling shy and awkward: "I know some, but you know some English, too."

The other day a high school girl asked me the same thing. She wanted to rely on a friend who knows both languages well, but in the middle of our conversation, when trying to answer my question about what store her parents had at the Super Flea, she was impressed that I knew "zapatería" without assistance.

It's no big deal. I wish we all didn't feel so dang shy.

The only two humans to talk to me on the hill yesterday afteroon were guys, of course. One tall black one and one short Carlos. Flirtation, apparently, knows no boundaries. (I didn't initiate the conversations. I ended them by being the first one to move - away). The pretense they both took was that it seems weird for a solitary female without a camera crew to be catastrophe-gazing. "Did you get out of school early today?" the first asked. We chatted a little about "the fire," he took a call, etc.

Carlos said I looked younger than I said I was. Asked if I was married. Did we have kids. He also said, in reference to the smoke pouring out of the factory in the bottoms below us, "The Earth is tired."

A Pathological Liar

A man I have a hard time forgiving for the grief his personality inflicted on my family for about a decade also receives credit for introducing the PC into my life. He had a great LP collection from the 60s, too, and thus indirectly introduced me to Bob Dylan as well. We used to watch NBA together in the late 90s.

He also is the one who opened the sliding porch door and allowed my white budgie to escape. His humorous slant on the event, which may have been an accident but for which I did not receive an apology was, "Your slave is free!"

(Annie flew to the top of a huge tulip tree and was never seen again; an afternoon thunderstorm may have contributed; granted, the bird was not fond of me or captivity, but I loved her all the same. You can tell because I named her Annie, for "animosity.")

Anyway, this pathological liar and interesting case study also was the one who brought my attention to the fact that the Beatles received the royal Member of the British Empire award in 1965. Subsequently, some have turned down the MBE, he said, because their snobbery could not stand the thought that "great" can mean merely widely popular. The honour had been debased.

I can find no evidence that this is true in particular, although apparently, a lot of people have declined such honors for various other reasons.

There is no risk that I shall ever be nominated for something with the word "Nobel" in it, but in theory, I might decline the prize for peace if Rush Limbaugh were to receive it.

The man who let my budgie out was also an avid listener of the Rush Limbaugh Show.

(The two men share traits such as: they both sucked at college and neither of them went into service during the Vietnam War.)

I agree that promoting the reduction of pollution-causing behavior through a film is not peace-oriented, which is one of the arguments Limbaugh makes against Al Gore's receiving the prize earlier. I can see some connection, though, since my country blatantly ignored the Kyoto Accord.

That was not very peaceful, Greatest Nation that consumes the most energy.

That brazenness embarrasses me, along with funny assertions like this one from the Hoover Institution:

Global Warming, "if it were to take place" would be "generally beneficial" because:

"One of the most feared consequences of global warming is a rise in sea level that could flood low-lying areas and damage the economy of coastal nations. But actual evidence suggests just the opposite: a modest warming will reduce somewhat the steady rise of sea level, which has been ongoing since the end of the last Ice Age—and will continue no matter what we do as long as the millennia-old melting of Antarctic ice continues."

(I mean, tee hee, right? Hotter temps would slow down sea level increases - because of… evaporation and increased humidity?)

Even if Gore's crusade is not deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize, why should a hypocritical, megalomaniac with drug issues get a prize for peace-promotion?

It is beyond my current comprehension. Is it because he has the most popular show?

Here is a clip from the transcript, likely as copyrighted as everything else we quote and link to as bloggers, that talks about the nomination:

"The Landmark Legal Foundation tapped the talker, calling him the foremost advocate for freedom and democracy in the world. Landmark, by the way, is the leading conservative public interest law firm in the US, and Limbaugh serves on it’s [sic] board of advisors."

(Limbaugh says the connection is irrelevant, since he is not paid. A-hem, I'm on a board - most are volunteer-based, you know - and it definitely colors my views. The world of adults seems to operate on the principle that one's own indeed will promote, nominate and support you.)

I think that this man, Thich Quang Do, is more deserving, since he actually did something to promote peace.

Limbaugh just promotes divisiveness. Not very peaceful, Mister Millionaire.

Yup, information is power and powerful, and all sides are valid and deserve expression. Democracy/the Bill of Rights protects that, but opinions that are as predictably Rightwing and pro-Republican as mine are predictably Leftist and tepidly pro-Democrat, are not worthy of any kind of medal having to do with peace.

Vote NO Nobel for Rush!

Vote NO Nobel for C. Girl!

We'll have to wait until mid-December to find out if the Nobel team listens.

(It's funny that they say the nominees are not revealed for 50 years. This, of course, means that anyone may say they were nominated, especially if they could fairly count on dying in the next five decades. How old is Rush, anyway?)

That was Monday

This is Friday. As we all know. In this time zone. Of sentence fragments. And under-productive, over-caffeinated grammatical troubles.

By the way, since we've all cleared up the "stupidest" grammar problem of the month (a month being a series of 28 to 31 days, regardless ((not irregardless)) of calendar divisions), help me understand why it's better to say "toward" and not "towards."

If thou art bored. Of course.

Four Legs and Furry

You Are: 40% Dog, 60% Cat

You and cats have a lot in common. You're both smart and in charge - with a good amount of attitude. However, you do have a very playful side that occasionally comes out!

Are You More Cat or Dog?

Cheer Up!

Scientists come up with 20 ways life on Earth could stop.

Diphenhydramine HCI

Three things:

1. I find it disturbing (or perhaps just shocking as all new, unexpected, unsought-for knowledge is) that you can buy meds on Amazon.com.

2. I find it disturbing that it was not easy to find information about this drug in particular.

3. I find it odd that most of the "hits" I could find referred to this as merely "the active ingredient in Benadryl."

(Note that "insomnia" is not checked off as a symptom that the pink pill will tackle. The sleeping-labeled pills are blue. They are the same size, small. It only grows if you have to add Tylenol. Why is Tylenol so big?)

So, they sell this as a sleep aid, and that's why I have it around.

So, does this mean that if you have allergies that you are more prone to being awake, or does this mean that if you take Benadryl for your allergies and expect to drive, go to work, function, etc. that you are falling for a bad pharmaceutical joke?

A page selling something called Sonador says that this concoction can also be used to treat "certain forms of parkinsonism, motion sickness and certain allergic conjuntivities."

It reduces the time to fall a sleep [sic] and gives more depth to your sleep. Sure, that explains why when I take it I wake up four times a night. I guess falling back to sleep seems easier, but this stuff's definitely a dehyrant.

Is it because ". . .side effects from diphenhydramine are not common," that they don't list them on my OTC sleeping potion? Are my symptoms of these severe enough or not going away enough that I should tell my doctor: dry mouth, nose and throat, drowsiness, upset stomach, chest congestion, headache?

I have headaches all the time, regardless. My sinuses are dry as scabs. These things are normal for winter, for people who can't drink enough water because it is tiresome and time-consuming.

PS - How long is "not go away" for drowsiness? Twelve hours?

Tomato Trifecta

Gosh, one sure sees funny things on the ground in Northeast.

This is the 100-block of South Elmwood Avenue.

My best guess, as none of the jars are busted or seem to have been opened, is that someone dropped their groceries in the snow, the jars sank, and the tomato-lover never looked back.

I can't imagine being so cold and cranky that I couldn't dig up my name-brand salsa and such, so what was this person going through?

No, I did not pick them up (ie: steal or clean litter). Another one of those small, urban moral dilemmas.

Cafe v. Harvey

While the Harvey House food court/diner dealy in the southeastern nook of Union Station is much-celebrated and usually crowded at lunch time, around 9:30 in the morning, there are hardly any people there, and personally, I'll miss the sun-blasted singular coffee shop that apparently can't compete.

I love that the post office is at Union Station, as it's always nice to come into a grand space for a mundane task, but it's pretty much you and the dust motes during the week. And bad news like "you can't get coffee at Java Time anymore." No chairs for you!

Happy Birthday, Virginia Woolf

Can you tell I have one of those "authors' birthdays" calendars from Half-Price Books sitting in front of me much of the time? This is the first week I looked at that fine print, though. Coincidence.

1882 was the year for Mrs. Woolf, a Modernist and so little like Mrs. Wharton. What a difference 20 years makes. She was brilliant but also what we would call bi-polar today, and she ended up dying by her own hand (a river's, really, but it was intentional). One wonders what a difference Paxil/Lithium/Prozac, etc. would have made.

W. Somerset Maugham was born today, too, in 1874, but I know nothing of him or his works. How this is possible with one of those "English degrees" is beyond me.

I'm just grateful I live in a time when I do have that room of my own. Time, however, is till a missing piece.

Happy Birthday, Edith Wharton

She was born in 1862. Perhaps you know of my addiction to her works. She was a rich woman who was not afraid to venture into the world of literature when such a thing was frowned upon by members of her society. She got to spend her formative years in Europe, where her New York family retreated after the Civil War had deflated the U.S. dollar.

Ah, to be corsetted and sipping tea at 4 each afternoon, told not to associate with "people who write," spend summers in Newport and "seasons" everywhere, to later have the chance to be in Europe often again, motoring around with a best friend such as Henry James.

You can read about what she wrote yourself, but I'll just point out that she was named a Chevalier of the (French) Legion of Honor in 1916 for all her work with World War I refugees in hospitals and hostels (the latter of which she founded).

I am particularly inspired by the way she could take her artistic connections and operate workrooms for unemployed French women, hold concerts for out-of-work musicians, and edit a fund raising collection "The Book of the Homeless" to put her money and privilege where her mouth was.

No mere "chronicler of society" was she, though I relish the lovely details of the lifestyles she provides access to, over 100 years later, the drawing rooms and domestic conversations that were behind those "robber barons" you may have been reminded about, if you watched Sen. Webb's response to President Bush's seventh State of the Union address.

After that generation's Great War, she remained in her beloved France until she died, returning only once, in 1923, to receive an honorary doctorate from Yale University.

I have a bit of a crush/role model thing going, as you can see.

(Chers Famille et mes Amis, oui, c'est vrai, we have inklings abroad. And if you can locate a cheap one, please send me a copy of "The Decoration of Houses," which she co-authored as her first book with an architect named Codman and which I somehow - I don't know - had chucked out with other "college books I no longer care about.")

And, even though she wrecked my GPA with her cursed "pass/fail" experiment, thank you again to Dr. Catherine Parke for veering off the published course content as well, from Woolf and Stein to Wharton and Cather.

Vaporize me!

When I was a kid, a "vaporizor" was the thing you got to have in your room if you were sick. Steam is fun.

Apparently, there's one for alcohol, too. It turns liquor into pure misty alcohol that you can inhale (at the rate of a shot per hour). It goes straight to your brain, doesn't fill you up and may bypass hangovers as well.

I'm inclined to believe the claim that talk-of-ban leads to increased sales - the first thing I thought when I read that Missouri is looking to follow the lead of Illinois, etc. to make sure no one can buy this kind of vaporizer machine, was

Hey, I need one of those!

I wonder if vaporizer stock is in any legislator's portfolio. The president of Spirit Partners said that within a few days of a proposed Kentucky ban, he sold 200 machines. At $300 to $3,000 a pop, that's no mean profit.

I wonder what else you can use them for? This seems to be behind the scenes, as well. What if you put an egg in it, for example? What about lighter fluid?

Now that I've seen them, they seem kind of dorky-phallic and I'd be embarassed to have one around, even if it was il/legal.

I hate bans, you know. Especially since the U.K. doesn't fear them as much as our Big Brothers do over here.

Okay, brain damage is nothing to sneer at. . .but alcohol already is known to do that. So, next time I'm in England, I just might try it out. Then go to an O2 bar and compensate with yet another silly trendy device.

Missouri Sen. Luann Ridgeway (R-Smithville) is the one sponsoring a bill that would ban the possession or use of alcohol vaporizers.

She called the devices "potentially deadly" to teenagers. . . .

Over the past two years, Nolte's bills proposing a statewide ban have failed to gain traction.

Maybe it's because they're all on the AWOL payroll, or, they're thinking what I can't help conjure, which is just because teenagers have bad judgment doesn't mean I can't use mine.

Hopeful thing

Humans operate at a lower tempurature than avians. Both are bipeds, according to Pangloss, though one distinctly featherless.

The virus now circulating in birds does not attach easily to cells inside human noses or throats.

Cause for minor celebration?

Sunny-cat sunny

The best kind of day, especially if you can spend it indoors behind south-facing windows.

For those of you who had to go outdoors today, for work or food or because you have no place else to go, rescued cats everywhere are expressing their empathy.

Temporary tundra

I had to go to a park to take photos today. It's sunny again, after all, and nothing is falling (from the sky).

It would be funny to say that I was looking at this:
and that then I was looking at this:
but it didn't happen that way.

The ice du jour is unique to my experience for its durability and meanness. Never before have I almost broken into tears while trying to scrape my car.

Falling was fine, as I'm not over 40 or brittle as frozen grass. I was expecting it to happen. I was standing still. I am wearing boots. It didn't matter. I landed flat on my back. My hat popped off, so I'm expecting some kind of pain tomorrow to emerge. Maybe I won't be able to move at all. It already hurts, of course.

My hands are all invisibly bruised from bashing car ice, too.