This is the first photo of the new member of the Daley Family.
Much better ones will be forthcoming, sometime after the child comes forth next year.
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Well, it’s not broken anymore
Thank God.
That was an ordeal, but i figured it out all by myself. No emergency IMs to more experienced nerds, I did it.
Perhaps it was partly because this new platform really is user friendly.
But I am inspired to go buy a book about how to do this better. I’m just so glad I can BLOG again, instead of
work-on-my-blog again.
Trying to fix it
Thank you for your patience, dear readers.
After many trials with the move to a new server, I am trying a new platform for my blog. I hope this one works better.
Stay tuned.
I am sorry
This site looks like heck.
I am trying to fix it. It takes time
In other news, Chris turns 40 on Friday. I told him he makes it look good. I bought him a Fountain for our garden for his birthday. He’s pretty excited about it.
test
test
a worthwhile exploration
Okay, it’s not my usual thing…But it’s amusing
Inpestation
Sunday afternoon, a bee got in the house.
Chris chased it out with a newpaper. We shut the door, so it wouldn’t come back in.
Then there wer two more.
They were coming in from the stove vent. on the roof.
Chris taped a priority mail box flat against the hole, so no more bees would come in.
We went to sleep.
Monday, they were back. The tape had come loose, and after he taped it up again, there was an angry buzzing.
Oh no. We do not want to extend hospitality to bees.
Chris climbed into the attic to make sure the vent was no leaking into the attic. The roof creaked as he carefully stepped from rafter to rafter, freaking out the dog.
The vent was secure.
And the buzzing contiumed.
We got into a bit of phone tag with bee exterminators.I left a message, and then kept calling down the list till someoen answered. THey said they might be able to come.
The first guy called back, and had great doubts about the ones that actually answered.He would have been cheapre, but he said he would need holiday pay.
The other people finally came, and de-beed our stove vent.
The buzzing is done. But we are leaving the priority mail box there for another day, just in case.
Words that break your bones
A friend told me he’d just been on a rant inspired by his daughter, age 13.
“I can’t think of any worse insult than to be told I’m stupid. Calling someone stupid is just about the worst thing. Don’t you think?”
So, I had to think about it. Being called, truthfully, stupid is pretty bad. I would hate to be stupid.
But the thing about insults, is they so often have little to do with truth.
It reminded me of a book, The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man by James Weldon Johnson. He was a light-skinned black man, and it turned out he could pass as white if he wanted to. The book explored what it meant to be identified as one thing or the other.
It would be what he was called that made the difference.
What became the turning point was when he saw a man called out in the South, called out as ‘Ni***r’. He was then lynched, hung from a tree for no other cause.
The narrator of the book refused to be called black after that. Or, in the word of the day, “coloured”.
I can understand why my friend was not considering those sorts of insults. He was a strong, empowered white man in a society where white men are empowered. It would be an occasion VERY far out on the bell curve to be insulted in a way that would cause him harm or death.
But I know, that there are certain words, certain insults, that mean I am in physical danger. As a woman, if someone called me a “b***h” or a “c**t” in certain contexts, it would be as if they were flashing a permit allowing them to hurt me.
“Because I am this, and you are that, I may now rape, hit or even kill you. It’s part of the way of the world.”
I am not going to say I’m agonized over this fact. I just know that, if I hear certain words in certain settings, I better find a very quick and obsequious way to get OUT of there.
I fear those insults worse than being called stupid
HUGE
So, one of my co-worker friends gave her daughter the Miriam book for her 13th birthday.
Daughter was SO impressed that her mom KNEW a real author
🙂
That was about a year ago.
Yesterday, co-worker mom sent me an email:
Hi, My daughter Laura has now read your book 12 times (she told me last night) she wanted me to ask you when the next book was coming out :)???
wow. I have a fan.
TWELVE TIMES!!
I promised that I would stop slacking on the next book.
too hot to walk
it’s a heat wave. Not a hundred, but too far up the 90s for comfort, that’s for sure.
Chris is out this weekend doing ship business, and so I thought I would get a lot of things done. I have, but not nearly as many as I thought I would.
The heat drove me to get ice cream. I should not be eating ice cream, because it’s not good for me, and my shorts are tight from previous lack of self-control.
I lay on the couch, bowl of ice cream on my chest, eating as I watched some dumb movie that was on.
Dog sat and stared at me. Not moving, and her face about a foot from my face.
walk she was willing at me. But it was still too hot, and I had this ice cream to finish.
WALK
She was not moving.
I didn’t want to walk. But she did, and it was only me to take her.
I suppose the self-discipline came back when I finished the ice cream. We had an extra-long walk.