Site of lawsuit

These are the annuals well-tended on the grounds of Children's Mercy Hospital.

Even I knew that

The adage "it is easier (or better) to ask forgiveness than permission" does not apply outside of the culture whose moral relativism created it.

"We don't want to go without taking those books. It cost us a lot of money to bring them here," Klein said. "They're saying that it's illegal to bring the Bibles in and that if we wanted to, we had to apply ahead of time for permission."

I thought that you always looked up the rules when you went someplace with a passport.

Not a hint

Only sky

Wyandot

History moment: I didn't realize there was a Wyandot tribe graveyard in the middle of downtown Kansas City, Kansas. There is a field of unknown and unmarked graves, as well as a section with "knowns." (There is also a great view of downtown Kansas City, Missouri, to the east.)

And there is a spot where you can read about displacement, migration, killings, and even something bad that happened on my birthday before I existed.

Of course, there is the mitigating factor of the Mason-built place that now sports a flashing façade and smells like air-conditioned cigarette smoke on the outside (even when the entrance doors were closed).

And the biggest HVAC unit I've seen on ground level. Note to would-be copper thieves: there is a formidable fence and live guards. Besides, there are Indian graves watching.

Fate

Somewhere in the depths of a faux forest of youth, a tiny gnome cries "conspiracy" but knows that coincidence and God are just rolling the usual dice, the sort of gamble that makes the free pink bracelets handed out by one group at the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure this morning reading "Pray for the Cure" ridiculous (or at least ironic) to someone like me:

I'm sad that Bernie Mac (50) died the other day (from complications due to pneumonia, already having sarcoidosis), that Morgan Freeman (71) nearly killed himself recently while driving (flipped the car in Mississippi) and is apparently also getting sued for divorce from his wife of 24 years, and that Isaac Hayes (65) died today next to his treadmill (I'm thinking heart issues).

Dammit, stop messing with the excellent entertainers I like!

Heath Ledger was good, too, and far younger, but personally I had no fan-famousperson connection to him — no, I never watched any of his films (I'm one of those). Plus, he died from an overdose of things "everyone" (like his stupid doctor) knows you shouldn't mix (though Lord knows most of us want to).

Velocity

Making recommendations for taking in some breezes created by 50 cyclists at a time up on the recently (and ever-ongoingly) restored Cliff Drive in Historic Northeast. (Photo is from Kansas City, Kansas criterion portion Friday night.)

Check out the 45th annual Tour of Kansas City today. There is nothing like the sharp turns and grueling climb presented by this course, near the Concourse, Kansas City Museum, and other cultural points of interest.

If you need further incentive, they should have Boulevard beer again this year.

Or, if you can't stand the urban, they are flat-track racing tomorrow in Overland Park, Kansas.

(Insert joke about men who shave their legs and wear revealing spandex pants and funky clippy shoes here.)

Pretty fair

The carousel had seventeen animals
The wooden horse was alone
There were corndogs everywhere
I didn't want to go home.

The man said step up here
Your weight needs no scale
We can determine gravity
I'll pay you if I fail.

Anubis fell out of the Ferris wheel car
Feathers flew past the balance
Beauty is always skin-deep
Honesty is the challenge.

Headlines are hard

That lovely feeling of accomplishment has faded. Funny how the next round of must-do tasks wipes that out fairly quickly.

And, despite the fact that at 7 a.m. today and 7 a.m. tomorrow I had / will have a beastly headache from staying up so much, here I am once again, one hour and 52 minutes after I declared I was going to bed. Blame the Johnny Cash feature on PBS, blame computers and the fact that laptops mean that work is portable into the once-sacred hearth zone.

School starts again in 13 days. I don't know where that is going to fit, financially or temporally. What's more important, forging ahead with some made up "plan," or a rational evaluation of actual capacity? What is my capacity? Is this pace healthy in any way? I haven't felt sick in a while. Maybe I'm over it.

I cut the grass last night. Finally. I'm sure the south neighbor will do hers again tomorrow, even though she did it Sunday night. She has a regular gas-powered mower, and we don't. That means she was violating air quality karma (and being noisy when it's relaxation non-work time) and that my dusk-to-dark clipping and ripping was not. She strikes me as competitive about the lawns' height. I could care less — ours was barely up anyway, since it's not stupid zoysia grass like her yard and our back yard. Thick and stupid and aggressive trailing viney grass like that makes me mad. I mowed a path in the back yard and quit.

I feel bad about cutting our grass when the north neighbors' is high. I feel like I'm making them feel badly, when in fact, like I said, I don't care about grass height. The legal limit is 10 inches anyway. The north-north neighbor came out this evening and cut both of those lawns. Hmm. I hope everyone is all right. Aforementioned south neighbor's roommate / partner / friend went off in an ambulance the other Sunday. I noticed that she was back, and she seems o.k. They are not walking the dogs, presumably because it's too hot, so I haven't seen them in person to ask. And anyway, does one ask about that kind of thing? Concern versus privacy.

10-4

Ten hours on work Sunday.
Six of sleep starting when August 4th was already here.
Already 10 o'clock in the morning.
Have accomplished five correspondences,
one packing of magazine box,
several "do this, please, intern" assignments,
and zero nutrition.
Must pick a focus. So much easier to do at home.
Soon, 30 boxes to unload. Not a useful cloud in sight.

Miss-marketing

In honor of the muskrat that D. discovered recently on Cliff Drive, I should like to say that not only did he miss out on a great feast (apparently), he also could have cashed in on the fact that the GORSUCH (such gore?) company weaves their "angelina coat" out of such fur.

Holy expenditures, PETA-man, whose research justified sending a ski-apparel catalog with $1,000 coyote boots and $1,000 sport-specific pants to someone like me, who doesn't happen to have a cottage at Aspen?

You have to see page 3, however: ah, yes, the st. moritz poncho, crafted of Italian mink, available for a mere $10,430.

I recognize that location from Lily Bart's world, of course. Maybe the catalog people think that the "Blessings Coming and Blessings Going" mail from the mystery church — which advised that I put the two enclosed pennies in my shoes, walk a few steps and then put one inside and one outside the door — really is set to work, eh?

To A., who has experience writing catalog fodder:  it is of note that this one contains nary a narrative, just the basics of fabric and sizing.  They have even Frontgate beaten on the way rich people must know what they want and require no flowery language to induce spending.

ID me

One reason not to keep on the porch light is coleopteraphobia.

Ate two

Just a pun on the date. Not talking about batter-dipped weiners anymore.

Been sleeping like a baby. The kind that doesn't sleep through the night (the kind that most actual babies are, in fact, making one question the origin of such expressions — though, yes, I have seen kids and passed out drunks not wake up when all but the walls were falling down around them). The kind that doesn't have to be anti-sentence fragment for, please, please, just one hour or so.

I'm sick of waking up so many times a night, sick of cycling down so many times during the "day." Whose idea was it to go 16-8 all in a row anyway?

Up at 8. Fine, fine. Worked. Fine. Had to go outside to go take photos at Union Station (sadly cube art is only up a few days and won't be there tomorrow), but wasn't I lucky I didn't have to walk? The AC has been running for an entire hour just now. Shoot. Then there was a grocery trip, about $60, which was charged. Don't ask, don't tell.

Granny Smith apples are $6.50 a bag right now. Yes, I understand about seasonalism and such, but they haven't been under $3.99 for a year regardless. If I knew I'd be here long enough, perhaps I'd plant some trees. There really is no room for trees in the yards, though. I could dig out the stupid bushes that didn't quite "take" (previous owner planted poorly).

Won't think about that until the fall, though. The grass is high, the leaves from the storm are tackily all strewn still. I've become the homeowner-type my grandparents could never abide/understand. How can anyone let it go that long? Well, for one, it's hot. For another, I have too much employment-work to do.

Stopped by in-laws to get free tomatoes, fine. Groceries in car did not melt. Home again, still hadn't eaten more than a cookie, 2 p.m. Something I can't recall transpired, probably work, oh, and some birdseed sweeping, ah, yes, I recall, picking the two non-worm-infested tomatoes on my porch and dumping out the maggotty sludge bucket, my composting efforts, onto the brush pile designated for the purpose. I am not going to be raising fruit flies anymore. Screw it.

Making the salsa took a minute. Time flies to about 4 p.m., when she eats. Fine. Only took 30 minutes, and that was stretching it. Came back to office area, did a few more updates to work Web site, should have been revived and all, but sat on bed for some reason, looked at Lily Bart's* peregrinations for a few minutes, and then, can it really be that I feel like I'm drunk and just have to fall asleep? Already, for no reason?

Then I got up. That was an hour ago. I remember, yes, same air conditioner round. Must be the hottest part of the day. Nothing abnormal when other animals enjoy (sit out / sleep through) the sun-slant hours.

My other option was going to see Batman at the IMAX. I probably would have stayed awake, and then I would have felt guilty for being tired now and unable (unwilling) to slog through four more hours of webbing writing. Still, same results. Maybe I'll wake up tonight / tomorrow around 3 or 4 and feel rejuvenated.

I think I have what Diane has.

* Since when does she have red hair? Wha? I have read this book 20 times (not kidding, o.k., maybe 10), and I should say her hair color is never disclosed. If anything, she's a blonde. It's Undine Marvell who is the red-head. May Archer the blonde, and Madame Olenska, the "dark beauty." Note to kids: Cliff Notes are not always right.

Looking for Earl

Ended up with Lady Grey. She is the only semblance of real tea in this place. Only one packet. I shouldn't complain; my tea homefront is similarly lacking in British support. At the office tea-for-all, it's all tisane, chai blends and herbal entities. Jasmine. The bin is where people's rejected flavors end up. You can't tell tea taste by the box. I can tell, though, that someone should take out the trash.

Word for the day: Stertorous

Wish for the day: fewer animated ads competing for my eyes while I'm trying to read something.

*

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

500 days

Laying aside the possibility that new technology may discover more than the 10.4 billion barrels of oil estimated — by drilling proponents — to be in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge,* our efforts would be slashing in roads and pipelines and spending money getting supplies to the hinterland for a mere 500 days' worth of oil.

Some national legislators spent some dough recently going up to see this place they've been talking about, the United States' own personal oil desert.

Check my math on this, because it seems silly to go and make up 750,000 temporary jobs for only a year or so of oil.** In 2006, the government reports our consumption at 20,687,000 barrels per day. That is about 7.5 billion barrels a year.

It will take a while for all this infrastructure to get in place; until then, what else are they proposing to reduce our dependence (dependence period — foreign or domestic or Martian) on oil? Going up to ANWR will be good for people who own oil-related things and can speculate profitably on small price changes.

And after we have used it up, then what?

I have to agree with Born Again Birdwatcher and others like Birdchick and even FOX News (which quoted a classic example of a closed mind or, "you will only see what you expect to see."***): umm, how can you tell what wildlife exists in a place from a vantage way up in a plane? I'm sure trees are the only plants, and large game the only animals.

Antarctica has but weird wingless flies, some moss and a bunch of birds that can't fly … and what if we find oil under the Grand Canyon? Oh, that sort of thing. Dictionaries should reflect the 21st century change in the meaning of "refuge." Eminent domain rules. Not that I mind using mined materials. We live such messy consumptive lives.

(I am aware of most of my own contradictions, but at least I now understand the meaning of life, the universe and everything: there are 42 gallons of oil in a barrel.)

*If hoped-for additions expanded the proposed drilling area beyond the current 2,000 acres, arguments by Congresswoman Bachmann and others promising that drilling will be limited are contradictory.

**I wonder how many of these jobs are in the Arctic? Yes, let me leave my wife and kids and pay the mortgage from a pioneer-style distance. It's worthy to note, too, that the nine months of snow and three months of darkness the congresswoman points out certainly can't make it very efficient to support workers there.

***Minority Leader John Boehner: "We're going to look at this barren, Arctic desert where I'm hoping to see some wildlife. But I understand there's none there. But I'm still going to look for it. If I find any, I'll let you know."

Willows

I don't understand; I don't believe that it's "worth it" for the minority party not to risk possible backlash.

If you're going to stand up as an elected official and say things like "worst president ever" but are prohibited from using the word "liar," indeed, standing there with the legislative rule book in hand, a joke to CNN reporters, two women whose segment appeared on Yahoo's news clips, who concluded their piece with cooing over some babies whom President Bush was holding in Peoria, Illinois, for photographers …

"Not enough time left in the session," "Not enough time left in his term …"

What a marvelous statute of limitations. Way to procrastinate. All hail wiping one's feet upon parchments.

It's o.k.; I watched precursor Parliament go up in flames the other day when the Magna Carta was likewise wadded up into a little spitball.

"Stagecraft," indeed.

Exiting left or right is of no consequence. 'Think I'll go out through the aisle, house doors, street corner. Leave dressing room, script, direction behind.
(No applause; just throw money.)

Mr. Prufrock, don't dare eat that peach.

Eating one right now!

It is pork-free (ie: not from Sonic). This is not a sick joke, kids, I actually do like the taste. It isn't even because it brings back memories of Six Flags "over Mid-America" when I had one of my first, as a pre-teen, foot-long. Yes, it's all so obscene-sounding.

I've written about this lovely food before. And Pomegranate Pretty used to feature one as her self-image. Of course, she did just have a baby, so maybe it's a fertility symbol after all. I find they do not work, symbols. The tortoise is supposedly another representation of fertility, at least in some traditions (Polynesian, Greco, and Africa); I wear one around my neck. It was made in China of jade, so perhaps it picked up their additional connotations, the beast that carries the world on its back.

Needing to read twice? Any rambling about work is likely to be obscure, so it's not an indication of poor comprehension skills (more likely proof of what my Southern U.S. literature teacher once said: bad writing). It's all inside jokery.

I looked up three words today:

[Origin: 1250–1300; ME quilte < OF cuilte < L culcita mattress, cushion]

[Origin: 1175–1225; ME queinte < OF, var. of cointe clever, pleasing ≪ L cognitus known (ptp. of cognōscere; see cognition)]

[Origin: 1275–1325; ME cunte; c. ON kunta, OFris, MLG, MD kunte]

Yes, my job is quite marvelous. The worst part is that there are no corn dog vendors within walking distance.

I only put up that shot from the festival in June because the blog was looking so bland lately. I have no new photos; the only thing on the camera of late is another dead bird shot. This one is a nestling, and there are slugs.

So, you see.

It's not just me

Women love corndogs.

Fear-o status

Stalker writers must be stopped.

How many times can one hear, "Go ahead and write something up on that, tell me what you're thinking about, here are some topics I think would match up well, send it in and it's likely to be printed, we can work on it from there," and still say annoying things like, "I really want to meet you?"

So far, five times over as many months. I don't care if we are geographically proximate. I know that the changing times must be a bore to those who cherish the face-to-face, but the rest of us are happy that technology has provided a wondrous crutch for the demure, a useful tool for the diffident, a time-management panacea for the non-circadian.

Stalkers in general are annoying.

I once busted up a whole friendship by being honest about Relationships 101: if someone doesn't respond to something, it usually means something and you should quit trying.

Oh, lamentations and histrionics, said the wanna-be urban shut-in with 17 parrots, the backyard gardener on 50 acres with a herd of goats, the seaside writer isolated in Ilium — wishing away all social requests, even as related to "work."

Someday, she will be lonely — and then she'll be sorry!

I do see plenty of people on a professional and sometimes personal basis. Lunches and coffees, etc. add up week after week. Rather than view these occasions as unmitigated highlights in a dull series of computer-sitting and wordsearching (not crossword puzzles, no), I tend to weigh them as Anubus would in the Hall of Maat.

Blessed are those who find limits.

So, in this case, writer keeps asking and not getting way — means something. Writer keeps trying to get way — means something. I'm not getting my way, no "proof that's in the pudding," no product — means something.

Semes mostly to be a power struggle now. Writer requests face-to-face time-sharing preceed submission of written content. Perhaps does not like act of submission? I didn't make the rules.

I only govern my time.

One must, after all, have enough left for wasting it one's own way.

Occupational hazard

This is really more of a Twitter thing, but I am not bird-like in that area of life yet, so, I shall merely report that I almost lost an eye just now.

Bowl, day-old pastry, plastic fork >>

Flying plastic and crumbs.

No injury. Thanks, random physics!

If any cats had been watching, they would have laughed at me.

Can't even have a normal "coffee break," apparently …

Early birds

I think it's a cardinal. I never spent much time learning to identify constellations or bird songs, but robins and cardinals were staple birds of my childhood starings; we had two or three pin oak trees and a blue spruce. I am surprised, after less than a moon's-cycle of time since summer's peak, it's already — again — still dark at 5:30 a.m.

The birds didn't get started until recently.

Of course, there are people who get up like clockwork regardless of the sun's timing. I suppose they use a clock of some kind or a dog or a baby. I hear the Metro bus as early as 5. The helicopter pilots for the hospital, the local news, the police department are up. The person driving the train. The retired lieutenant colonel who runs a ROTC program at a public high school. A number of high school and pre-school and before-school teachers. Roofers and road construction workers. Doctors, other personnel at the medical centers.

I am not fond of waking up at this hour. I know some people who get up early in order to be alone. Some spend hours grooming or exercising and making food.

Speaking of food, I finally emptied the mulch bucket. There was an extra bag of mostly corn parts, as well as a half-inch of wine with a molding strawberry — a failed drosophila trap. The compost bin is dry and brushy for the most part. I had a terrible time scraping up enough dirt to bury the moldering stuff, molded into a cylindrical shiny mass and hard to love.

The quantity and speed at which regular flies congregated on the bucket edge was alarming. Thank goodness soil is as magical as it is, full of it's odor-killing properties, microbes, other organisms in various places along their growth cycles. It is better than washing with water, dumping some earth in and coating the residue with a faux brown-crumbed cake crust.

Anyway, I'm sick of the fruit flies. The one time I attempted to mitigate them by putting the trash outdoors instead of the "mudroom," a mammal came and got into it. The sought meal was a bag of batter for Amish friendship bread. Yes, I had to abort the second generation. We could not finish the first, even though a whole loaf was consumed by my co-workers and the other was presented at a July fourth food event. I don't care for chain letters, Tamagotchi, or things that one has to take at the same time each day.

I suppose my life is quite unstructured. I would have to change that if there were any dependents. Fortunately, the only things I'm harboring are birds, small spiders, and a colony of dreadful silverfish that seem to live only on the south side of the house.

Auto Toilets

The kicker quote at the end of a New York Times article about Seattle's lost battle with human nature says that U.S. Americans are too uptight about our toilets. We might not use one that had door gaps designed to deter illicit activity-seekers, for example.

I have never used a million-dollar automatic toilet, but I do have experience with a variety of places-to-go, including the old fashioned (90s) French and Spanish kind of place where you had to have about a dollar in change to open the door, as well as the Mexican highway rest area, spattered with everything and reeking enough to drive me to an "I'll wait another two hours" conclusion.

Seattle's problems are being blamed on toilet placement, in areas where there was already a high occurrence of drug or prostitution activity. Of course, Los Angeles hasn't had this issue, so really it's an interesting study in urban situational outcomes.

And, if you thought your city government made bad business deals, consider that the usual funding mechanism (advertising) was pre-thwarted by Seattle publicity rules but that their policy-makers went ahead and put the $5 million burden directly on the taxpayers.

I am glad Kansas City is not even thinking about this (as far as I know). We come to blows over bench placement, you know. "People will sit on them!"

I "Ironic" New York

Chris Rubino made me laugh.

Fasting

It's not fun. It's not healthy. It's not mandatory, but my inner food balance ticker tape reports a high quantity of chocolate and blue corn chips over the past 30 hours, and my future includes a dinner at an Italian restaurant. So, my belly is full of tea at the moment. I did have two pieces of whole wheat toast. But there was butter. Cinnamon alone is not enough. No sugar.

On my birthday, my brother and I had a disagreement over the phone regarding work ethics. Ethics, one of the five or so branches of philosophy. I think the problem was that I tend to be an aggressive devil's advocate, and people take that personally. Of course, I did not need to be allied with any demon, as my own opinion regarding so-called worker's rights falls thusly: Don't do any work for free.

It's a simple position. I think it is even admirable. Free labor is devalued. One form of free labor is called volunteering. One should never be called to volunteer for one's employer, I believe. (Another form of free labor is called slavery.)

Our conversation did not invoke any of those things, but it would have been simpler if he had recognized I was being (non-intentionally) female in my implied inquiry as to the existence of personal days at his job.

I had asked about his writing something for me. About his possible return to the Midwest. Among reasons he cited for wanting eventually to move back was the presumption that people here, as opposed to in Houston, are more conscientious about work commitments. They do not, he says, call in "not coming to work" upon the mere prediction of an ice storm. Other bad reasons not to work include "just not feeling like it."

While I agreed that it was rotten for the rest of the staff to have to pick up unexpected slack, I asked whether some cushion time was not built into the production schedule. This is an architectural firm. I understand that the faster things move, the better for the clients' expense, however, I don't see there being much difference between an absence of convenience and one of necessity. My brother says it's a matter of principle.

I asked whether he would feel the same about their taking of sick days. The results, after all, are the same.

Yes, sick days are fine. What if they were lying? Not fine. But no one would know the difference …

Where I have worked, I am always in charge of completing all my own work regardless of days off, planned or unplanned. I believe this point was also not clear in our conversation.

I suspect he believes that sick days should not be used unless actual, physical sickness is present. His place does not have personal days; I do not know the vacation amount. I would venture the standard two weeks. I wonder how mothers with sick children are supposed to operate. I wonder how folks get their driver's licenses renewed or conduct any financial business such as home purchase or account management, though this at least can be planned. Car repairs usually can not.

There is not much disparity between professional salaries at that firm, he tells me, but I do wonder now whether anyone is paid for their overtime work.

In other words, that would account for our difference in perspective. I, for one, have no recourse or compensation when my time spent producing work accumulates past 40 hours in a given seven-day period, nor anything to balance the fact that some work-related obligations must occur after the standard 5 or 6 p.m. or on standard weekends or holidays — besides time itself.

It seems that I've read dozens of news articles about how many hours per week CEOs work — or doctors; the standard American work-week for the successful (perhaps also the double-employed minimum wage crowd) is something like 70 hours long.

Yes, but I'm sorry; my price for such devotional labor is higher than $9 an hour. Isn't yours?

Vote (it's your birthday present to me!)

Go to here and press on star 5!

Amendment

… to an e-mail I sent … to some of you … who know …

I meant EXCEPT for Tom Huck's, which is why, I suspect they chose to reveal that one on the promo's.

Vote happy.

You know who I want you to vote for; I cannot be objective NOR have an opinion, so go ahead and do what you will : )

When I'm 34

It's coming soon, to a body near you. Only 30 years away from being able to sing with McCartney, who will be 96. I have to go get my driver's license new-phototed today. Must "show me proof" that I'm am American. Yes, the former license was all bogus and based on nothing, I'm sure.

Benadryl dreams gave me a flight to Houston with my father, brother and unidentified females. I think I know, but their faces are not shown in memory. The Astrodome was about the size of a Giza Pyramid, round and stony and looming from the highway. "People died there." They went through all my luggage, and for some reason, I had packed for another experience. Jewelry box, wrapped sets of lotions from Bath and Body Works, a lawn chair perhaps. We looked for a locker. Who knows what happened to the car.

Later, I was in a country where people with prettier skin were speaking English, French and something else. They were nice children, Catholic, it seems, and we were enjoying a school day. There was some English graffiti on a cabinet (these were junior-high aged kids) that said something about "if the devil is knocking at the door, why would God work in place like that?" A challenge to doctrine. I pretended to feel my way through "our father" in a patois.

Then I was charged with some ocelot-type cats that could not be released into the environment wherever we were. They were for tourists to paint and cuddle. I miss them.

But at least I mostly slept. Dizzy head was a bane yesterday. The bad thing is that you still wake up at 4 or 5 in the morning, and cloudy as you feel, can't really go back to dreamland. So, here I am. Here.

Stay tuned for Art the Vote updates, or click there yourself. They said it would be today. I am all about pulling some Florida on the thing, if you know what I mean. I have seen the work of the other (non-contest) artists. I'm not allowed to show it, but I can spew an opinion: some are not quite billboard-worthy, in terms of design or in terms of "oh, yes, I get it," without reading those 21st-century essentials, artist statements.

But I feel that way about most billboards.

Oui

Ouch

.

Independently wealthy

Thanks to the fact that a friend lives in the carriage house apartment of some folks who have nice things, I got to celebrate Independence Day someplace quite different.

The weather is so un-July, though, so despite how I am supposedly a water sign, I didn't get in.

That's all I have to say about that

Hackers are targeting the ATM system's infrastructure, which is increasingly built on Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating system and allows machines to be remotely diagnosed and repaired over the Internet.

It's here!

Ah, yes, now it's a proper cold. Thank you, harbinger-vertigo and crummy lung-cough, for laying the groundwork at a time when you knew host-body was not able to get enough rest and food to stave off attacks to its immune system.

In honor of all that, let's gaze upon some lovely beef on the hoof.

E-mail is like debt

You hack away at it, piece by piece, but the output of money or replies is always less than the expenditures or inquiries.

A week or so ago, I was proud to have fewer than 90 e-mails in the workplace-related In-Box; today, they number over 200, and that was with my "concerted effort" to answer and/or erase/file everything.

I think the piece above is a joke; at any rate, in another literal meaning, it is true that it is meant as such here. I had a fine day; I am still tired as can be, but that has nothing to do with art.

$1.50 Mistake

You try to save a buck, and then you end up with merely something barely droll to disseminate via blog. Those who know me in "real life" know I rarely shop at stores.

When I had money, I surfed such lovely sites as Patagonia, Athleta, Title Nine, J.Crew, J.Jill, et. al., giving UPS and the USPS plently of business back and forth. There is something about seeing a model in action hanging off a cliff that motivates shy people to purchase clothes — shy people who hate driving, and communicating with sales people or being in a room with shopping strangers and seeing the gross quantity of all the sizes of a single thing hanging on a rack, one of many racks all across the country. It's one of those obvious self-deceptions, yes!

My co-worker is charmed by people like that, me and a friend of hers, who are "wasteful" about sending a truck to a single destination with but a few goods, who inevitably end up paying $20 or so to return items whose fabric in person is just not right or that happen to hang poorly on the particular body type in question.

Well, yes, it was silly, but apparently it used to spur the ecnomony, which is practically patriotism these days (remember September 15th or so, 2001, when the president told us all to go shopping?), and when I read once that most of those clothing companies were targetting people called "educated, middle- to upper-class women," whose income was, well, let's say, not really mine, I decided that my education should filter into my common sense and stop the madness. It helped that we had a goal, a house for which to save, that made it "important" to zero-out the credit card and sit back and say, "yes, two pairs of running-type walking shoes is enough."

The former I was quite the thrift store queen; however, those places require driving, too — and it's even less of a guarantee that anything will come of the trip. This was a concern before gas in the U.S. was $4/gal., since travel time is and always has been money, too. Also, my bureau-drawers and closet still bear witness to the fact that a number of those cheaper buys didn't work out either. As with a store of new things, one ends up buying stuff simply because it's presented, not because it was anything on the mental list. Most second-hand items are mere approximations of what I really (think that I) want.

Where we stay in Salina is next-door to a Goodwill, though, it's always a fun part of the psuedo-vacation to drop in and see what they have. This year, I paid $9 for a rolling table to enhance my in-house bird-cage management, and imagine my delight when I found something to make my work-day go by nicely — and for only $1.49.

Once again, I am thwarted. I should have read the back more carefully, as, of course, you knew it, I knew it, these little dealies, while distributed by the Rite Aid Corp. of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, are made in China:

Handling the coated electrical wires of this product exposes you to lead, a chemical known to the state of California to cause cancer, birth defects and other reproductive harm. Wash hands after use.

I like how they don't mention ear-washing — or that other states have any thoughts on the matter of self-poisoning.

Needless to say, they are still in the package.

Mardi blah

I welcome the rain that will water the tomato plant without my effort; I'm reminded that we still need a ladder, that the starling nest in the gutter probably is the cause of those newer tan cracks in the second-floor ceiling.

I wish the soothing sounds of soft thunder and all the swishing and drops would have started three hours ago, when I woke up and when it was still dark. Then maybe I could have slept.

I'm happy that my friends sold their house, loss-taking as they have to be having to move for a better job opportunity after only living there about a year, but this is "that one economy" and one is supposed to take heart in the cycle.

I think I will try for an hour …

Give a monkey

… an LED light, a sunset and window, add camera, and see what happens …

View with some rooms

More Artists in Salina

Cue Snoopy's imagination and "here's Kansas City's art magazine editor not being able to figure out Flickr and Wordpress simultaneously and after two days of slogging around in the sun," ergo some more photos from the Smoky Hill River Festival, in case anyone is watching and wants to spend Father's Day out in mid-Kansas.

David Exline, Aliso Viejo, California Reinventing the Wheel kinetic sculpture
on Kenwood Bridge

Smoky Hill River Festival at Smoky River: Juniper "TJ" Tangpuz, Kansas City, Missouri, Oh No…Fish Traffic installation in river; David Exline, Aliso Viejo, California, Reinventing the Wheel on Kenwood Bridge

Juniper "TJ" Tangpuz, Kansas City, Missouri, Oh No…Fish Traffic installation in Smoky Hill River, Coroplast, zip-ties, LED lights, dimensions variable and all fun

More Oh No … Fish Traffic

TJ adjusting storm-felled branches to serve for "construction" that diverts catfish cars

GEAR, Kansas City, Missouri, Beaks and Wings, one of four, 8'x8' aerosol paint on panel, in progress

Finished …

Matthew Dehaemers, Kansas City, Missouri, Attack of the Creative Crawlers: The Fab Five IN-Spiders, one of five sculptures

Kat Corrigan (background), Minneapolis, Minnesota, working on Cars as Canvas (for OCCK of Salina, Kansas), with Jan Elftmann's circle car in foreground

Roof detail from Jan Elftmann, Minneapolis, Minnesota, "dino fuel" car

Matthew Burke, Lawrence, Kansas, Salina Art Center artist-in-residence working on The Massasauga Project sculpture, approximately 40' long
Festival participants working on The Massasauga Project

The head of the massasauga river snake sculpture, after more weaving

A-mid Kansas

The town of Salina, Kansas, experienced a tornado Wednesday night, but that was before we arrived. We have learned (it is not new knowledge) that females respond to bird-art. Got three hours of gasoline in your car and a desire to pay the same price ($3.8999/gallon) as in Kansas City, Mo.? Come to the Smoky Hill River Festival, eat fun things, buy crafts, see art, hear music, and watch some of the nicest-seeming folks go by and chat with you (I swear you can literally see family values with your eyes, and, yes, there is diversity here that is surprising); then see us.

Telling the difference

Is it easy to know who is lying to you? Can you see in their eyes that there is a gun under the seat? Or, is it about catching the least-prepared, those who leave it all in plain view … it's in plain view, and it's been going on longer than any single presidency. The third branch approved it, the ACLU echews it, and I'd like to see stats on efficacy, please. The Washington Post does give it lots of virtual ink, but I feel some key facts are lacking. Juxtaposing the number of homicides year for year does not explain anything.

Reverse outsourcing

The McClatchy-run daily in town outsourced Internet ad sales (I believe, something related to — you look it up for once; I have limited time and so far have proven to be fairly reliable, tee hee) to India within the last month, but in England, Fujitsu (yes, a Japanese company on British soil, par for modern business Earth) employees are ready to strike over their jobs' being shipped westward across the Atlantic.

I guess we forget that Indian labor may be cheaper, but U.S. workers are cheap, too.

Our gain is their loss. My loss is your gain.

Anchors aweigh on the HMS Beagle, circa 2008.

Beco dog

It was windy, and, yes, there was rockfest in the air, but this dog on Baltimore really could have used some water. Touring galleries on Saturday means you will have no one in your way; of course, it also means certain places (Third Eye, Hilliard) are not open, which is frustrating. Color me not-paying-attention, but when did the Cube gallery move out of the flower shop?

Is Rockfest over yet?

Oh, boy, 12 hours of live rock, from two stages and 15 bands: Stone Temple Pilots, Shinedown, Sevendust, Saliva, Chevelle, Trapt, Another Animal; Saving Abel, Theory Of A Deadman, Bloodsimple, 10 Years, ASHES dIVIDE, Another Black Day, Redline Chemistry.

I disagree that the roads, as the main paper posted at 2:45 this afternoon, were jammed beyond use; I was wandering Crossroads and found a great spot to park at 1, with ease, and I didn't have any trouble going towards Westport for food a couple of hours later. It's funny to see folks tailgating in Hallmark's and the Jackson County junvenile justice center's parking lots.

Fifty thousand people is a lot.

I guess it's a good thing that the Battle of Normandy (anniversary #64) was in World War II and not I, since if I were a tourist come to see the nation's "one and only World War I museum" and found it closed for rocking, I would not opt to pay $75 to hear grim- and gruesome-named bands. Alas, I could not, as the fest 'o Rock was sold out. I thought they weren't going to hold it here any longer due to park impact.

Perhaps that was another fest.

I can't tell when it started … 12 hours … when is Rockfest over?

Autre cauchemar

And another reason not to leave the house. Two days in a row. It's not the tree's fault it's a cool place to catch speeders. No one has driven down the street forever today. Darn the pesky neighbor who thinks things are too fast. The quickest thing going is the stupid ambulance and copter traffic.

Le sigh.

Can't even cut the grass. Hate audience!

Now, Really

How can you bear to stay in tonight,
when there are such wondrous things to eat and see?

Tared u'the starms

Punctuation

Or, an abreviation of sorts. Ampersand for "and" for &.

New blog I found celebrates the minute finer things. Do you ever wonder who decided it would go above the 7 on the keyboard?

Anyway, they are quaint, I think, with some elements of Skull A Day, but at least they are not worshipping figures found in snack foods and grilled cheese sandwiches.

Personally, I would like to read the full copy of the master's thesis (and see the grade; of course, I'm like that).

My worst nightmare

Hyperbole* aside, I am still reeling from recently learned

(by me; I was in denial, by that one desert and pyramids, though not affiliating myself with any kind of anti-American activity, I assure you)

information about off-season tomatoes the U.S. imports from southern neighbors, tomatoes that have been grown the "old-fashioned" DDT, etc. way and thus kill birds (not to mention reek of hypocrisy),

and now they tell me that my favorite food — indeed, something I hardly can live a week without (lycopene* junkie) — is all full of chicken-and-egg bacteria (though not necessarily from chickens; it could be anyone's fecal contamination.) They say those who became ill in a number of states ate restaurant or store tomatoes raw. I have one tomato plant, but it's only six inches tall. It seems hardy, but one never knows. The trees have that splotchy condition, again. Cilantro faring well. Oh, and there's this monstrosity of a "zucchini?"


It grew all winter long, compact but green and seemingly never frozen. I don't think I should eat the fruit of whatever this is. It seems out of hand. I can't find the bugs that are eating the holes in it, except for these little long-nosed beetles. It is almost five feet tall — won't the squashes bend the plant in all directions and break it? When I say I fear eating it, I mean that there are so many flowers or pods or whatevers forming that I'll be sick of eating what they become for sure. I tell you, the plant is obsessed or possessed or something. The same soil that rejected basil seeds, tomato seedlings, sunflowers, and a variety of peppers (but grows morbid pale broccoli sprouts in the horfrost compost holes I dug — sprouts that wither in the light like vampire plants) is nourishing this crazy thing.

The soil is only six inches deep, mind you. The base is a concrete foundation from a former garage, perhaps. A tree's roots run through it as well — two, actually; there's this walnut stump that is quite persistent with its musty sprouts, despite seasonal hacking.

Speaking of bedrock, our lawn is practically an aquifer during these storms. I went out during a hail and gale hiatus since it was light enough to see, to try to determine why the ceiling of the offshooting section of dining room(ish space) has cracks and odd dry rust-colored seepage. Darn it if we're in some silly cursed place. Are starlings good luck? A screechy family of them lives in the gutter between the sleeping chamber windows; their nest seems not to be actually in the gutters. They are not clogged but in fact all gush out into a swamp, as I said, along the south and west side of the house; the back yard has virtually no grade and is 70 percent concrete. I need one hell of a rain garden. I think we should put it in the basement and keep alligators or at least frogs and turtles under glowlights. I have had nightmares as such, 20 years ago.

Good news! I'm saved from having to excavate the back yard by the fact that the former owner laid one-inch green plastic mesh under all the miss-matched grass patches and sod. I can hardly dig out weeds. I become terribly frustrated and start to dislike dog owners all over again.

When I went to pick up the magazine today, some stupid pit bull jumped on me. After I had transacted with a rather indoors-ish-looking skinny fellow with long hair, I walked at my usual quick pace and upset the stupid dog again; s/he chased after me. "Don't run," man said. "Yeah, it means I stole something," I quipped lightheartedly. I even had pet the stupid dog and let it smell me. I hate dogs right now. Why do businesses in the Crossroads feel the need to have dogs? I would say that the one at Digital Labrador is a good dog. Complacent enough to be tolerable. I never like it when they dogs are at my place, though I used to want a certain newsdog to come to work sometimes. It never happened. The best we had were a couple of kittens in incubator status one week, a baby opossum, and a few dead rats.

Read all about salmonella tomatoes. (This refers to the title. : )

This writing strikes me as pretentious. Let's end with a nice untouched / non-shopped shot of "Never Rub Another Man's Rhubarb (Seed Stalk):"

*I don't have this book.
*What's a hyperbole for? To put your bionic vegetables in, silly!

Pen strikes again

(RIP: 12-30-1938 — 6-2-2008)

Never saw him play, mostly know Bo Diddley as a reference in Dylan's "From a Buick 6," but you have to hand it to a guy who came up with this rendition of Woody Guthrie's "Some men will rob you with a six-gun and some with a fountain pen" line:

"I am owed. I've never got paid. A dude with a pencil is worse than a cat with a machine gun."

Daisy, a new cultural hero for you and the UFU.

Eat potatoes

The organic ones cost barely more than the regulars.  They cook up in a microwave four-minute flash, are easy to carry to work, and can be combined with any number of fancy extras, for those of you who need flavor.

It's the fourth largest food crop in the world.

And not terribly un-nutritious, though I found that I have to be pretty darn close to starving to want to eat them two days in a lunch-row, despite the fact that Americans do eat about a potato a day on average.

Mine are mostly in chip-form, though.  Actually, I hardly eat potatoes on purpose.

It's a cheap way to eat, so I'm trying.  I have 24 ounces of them to get through before all the eyes grow.

Bonus:  displaces salty oily processed chips in diet (but grants notions of "hmm, what if I sliced it up and fried it?" — because cravings are not abated by logic or full stomachs).

Postage

We think it's funny that our tax rebate dealy-o arrived in the bank account a week before the "notice" did.

In fact, it was already respent before the "keep for your records" page appeared in the mail box.

Not to mentinon that the notice presents my last name spelled in a non-accurate form completely unattached to my SS# or any tax return. This leads me to presume "we" hired a great consultant for this unnecessary job. Or, well, I guess I'm happy that they didn't just simply upload the database?

Let's all think it's funny that the rebate dealy-o is going for the mortgage in lieu of a flat-screen television, some gutters, or, sigh, coveted body- and house-textiles.

I have this huge stack of catalogs, pages culled, torn out, representing thousands of dollars of wearables and house-furnishings I probably will not buy. Oh, the desire.

Next up, Applecart ideas for saving money in the New Depression (such as clothing reconstitution / assemblage): not to be knocked — it will make you as a Buddhist!

Darn it, Country!

It may be a liberal opinion, and it may lack certain backing, but there is at least one hard cite in these two paragraphs, and the concluding sentence deserves to be in green:

Industries across the country are suffering and crops are rotting for lack of workers. Congress is debating a national right-to-work system that could mistakenly ensnare countless Americans and seriously overburden the Social Security bureaucracy. Federal agents and local police officers around the nation are rounding up the usual immigrants.

Such crackdowns have forced thousands of harmless people into a fast-growing, secretive detention system that is shockingly deficient in basic rights and decent health care. In a disturbing article, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that the United States government had injected hundreds of undocumented foreigners with mind-altering drugs to render them docile while they were being deported. This practice violates every imaginable standard of decency, not to mention a few international laws and treaties.

…

Note to country: Scratching never cured anything.

Saving Money

I'm all for suggestions about saving money, and with a name like Kiplinger, you'd expect good ones, worth a second or two to click.

Alas, I did not learn at all how to "turn $451 a month into a million bucks."

Disregard the fact that their calculation is based on someone four years younger than I, and still I can tell you that, no, I really do not have $200 or $450 to spare.

Maybe some of my friends do. Click over on writing fallout and read about the trials of someone whose one little indulgence is, as another colleague calls it, "professional coffee." I know she has little room to spare expenses, though the two health-related "suggestions" might apply; I doubt it, though, as I have looked into the so-called medical savings account old Kippy recommends, and it is no bargain.

Maybe I'm not understanding; note to self, look up what is a "flexible spending account."

The one about having three more exemptions is bogus, too; I know my tax person inquired about these, and so, no, it doesn't seem I'm in the 25% bracket. Actually, I have no idea. Note to self, more work — look up tax bracket.

I echew the two hints about not going out to eat. I don't go to lunch, and I don't buy coffee out for the most part. Once a month. I eat out-lunch about three times a month. I eat dinner out about five times a month. Maybe six. We only go to movies when it's a mom-related holiday (I am not in that "we," but it is a pair of tickets nonetheless).

I can't change my husband's habits.

Also, their calculation is crazy: $33 per person on dinner out? Only when it's not happy hour at la Bodega.

Raising the car insurance deductible? I don't know what mine is, either. Self, … I get it confused with the medical one. Hey, out there, do most of you know these figures by heart? It seems mine change so frequently and are needed so infrequently that I don't carry them around in memory. This may be why we're not well-invested. I always forget even to check the one account there is. Another friend of mine was lamenting the dropping value of his retirement, and he's a truck driver with 20-plus years. He's thinking of cashing it in now; hard to say what the longer term will bring, and he would rather pay off his house.

Sigh, I already do buy the generic store-brand versions of pills, and we do take care of the car's innards.

And, where do I find a fund that averages 8%?

Trying to like potatoes.

Then what's this I hear about Yahoo and Microsoft laying down together? Eew, doesn't Yahoo know how dirty it's going to get? Hotmail is horrible. (In addition, experience dictates that Lycos is mean and that Google is oggling.) And, of course, let's not even mention Vista. (Sorry, couldn't think of telepathic or rhetorical way to convey indirectly. Some things are better stated clearly.)

III The Fire Sermon

At the violet hour, when the eyes and back
Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits
Like a taxi throbbing waiting,
I Tiresias, though blind, throbbing between two lives,
Old man with wrinkled female breasts, can see
At the violet hour, the evening hour that strives
Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea,
The typist home at teatime, clears her breakfast, lights
Her stove, and lays out food in tins.
Out of the window perilously spread
Her drying combinations touched by the sun's last rays,
On the divan are piled (at night her bed)
Stockings, slippers, camisoles, and stays.
I Tiresias, old man with wrinkled dugs
Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest—
I too awaited the expected guest.
He, the young man carbuncular, arrives,
A small house agent's clerk, with one bold stare,
One of the low on whom assurance sits
As a silk hat on a Bradford millionaire.
The time is now propitious, as he guesses,
The meal is ended, she is bored and tired,
Endeavors to engage her in caresses
Which still are unreproved, if undesired.
Flushed and decided, he assaults at once;
Exploring hands encounter no defence;
His vanity requires no response,
And makes a welcome of indifference.
(And I Tiresias have foresuffered all
Enacted on this same divan or bed;
I who have sat by Thebes below the wall
And walked among the lowest of the dead.)
Bestows on final patronising kiss,
And gropes his way, finding the stairs unlit…

Must love Bartleby.com.
Must wonder how T.S. Eliot ever made sense to me.

Good day for a wedding

Because it's just too charming when your earlier-married-years anniversary falls on the same day of the week when it all happened, we went to Loose Park. The weather was about the same; the tornado was the day before instead of after (because May 4, it turns out, is gorgeous), and I was wrong: there were two yellow rose hedges blooming, the sort of rose I can only describe as single-foliate and hardy, such as the type found growing up walls or along the highways where MoDOT planted them.

My camera missed a shot of the wedding wraping up at 3:30, but here are some of its usher-helpers carting a platform back to the trucks and interrupting the photos of some other wedding party. "Classic" black-and-white wedding was adamant about keeping other people from walking into their shots.

We don't look that much different after five years, we think.

Didn't get a shot of the brown satin wedding party posing for shots on the east edge of the park and getting on and off their limo-bus, but this guy, with his Nike ball cap, shades, and, importantly, long-standing interest in a fallen oak stick, proves that May 3, 2008 was a good one for all things brown.

Roofies

Shingles on ground. Two strips of attic-wood visible on southeast apex. Neighbor says, "yeah, that's where she (previous owner, crappy remodeler-who-shall-remain-nameless) had it patched."

A great job was done, apparently.

Darn 2 a.m. wind and rain. No sirens. Not like you can do anything in the middle of the night about the roof. Hardly can do much about it on a Friday.

Hello, estimates. Yes, see, the credit card was getting bored after the cat bills; you just know we had to keep a balance on it, especially after the federal refund comes and zeros it out again. Good thing it stormed so much!

Running for roses

Everyone knows roses don't grow in our region during the first part of May.

I am 100 years younger than the Kentucky Derby.

Also on May third, as the first Saturday in May, our wedding anniversary number five, returned full circle in only partial time, thanks to leap year. Nuptials (sounds like a drink made of nectar, Latin and plain-wedding-meaning as it may be) were held in the Loose Park rose garden, as I have previously disclosed, and while some people were missing their favorite gambling day, some of us were going at it full-force.

So, there were no roses, which is why I wonder about how much further south Kentucky's blue grass really grows; probably, the wreath is imported or grown under glass. Five years ago, though, there was a tornado, which followed our day, May 3, which itself was much like bits and pieces of this week's weather, together it equaled perfection.

Today, there were some minor (esp. compared to what happened across Missouri "back then") tornadoes, specifically, this evening, all in time, blessed be, to interfere with Ugly Betty and LOST. We, the married us, don't see how all humanity needs a pop-science lesson in panic every time it rains within 100 miles of our homes. I used to enjoy storms for having just enough danger in them to make life seem delicious — plenty of my bones are from the 19th century, and they thrill to darkness, drama, and danger. (They do not get excited about alliteration as much.)

But nowadays, I feel like I am watching someone die when there are storms, while I wait out the newscaster "weathergasm," as my friend calls it, immobilized and depressed, forced to think about imminent random doom, detached from my pacifier's usual programming and utterly unable to even enjoy the lovely clouds or the booms.

The piece de la résistance: when our local sirens started blaring — far longer* than any I can recall in real life, even when there was an actual tornado ripping through east campus in Columbia, Missouri, in 1997 or so — but thus were declared by weathercasters to be flung o'er the entire county, mere noise to be disregarded in central urbanland, and so, well, there is no need to point out any irony or emotion.

I strive so hard not to have emotion.

Happy birthday to Mom.

*yes, than any single "seek shelter" shout from my childhood, when we used to descend to the basement semi-religiously, because my mom took such things seriously and because back then the sirens were obviously more accurate.