1) Sweet Potatoes
My whole life I've been eating yams. Yams in Chinese food in the form of Yams & Broccoli at Chef Jia's place, yams as a side dish at Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner, yams & tofu at home. But I'd never eaten an actual sweet potato. Tonight I had my second meal with sweet potatoes, a quick stir-fry with broccoli stalks and lots of sliced garlic and a splash of soy sauce. (Broccoli stalks because I like to eat the florets either raw or steamed by themselves. I have been cutting the stalks and peeling them and cooking them as a regular vegetable. Sometimes with carrots.)
2) Meds
My prescriptions arrived and they didn't cost as much as I had thought they would. My co-pay is usually ten bucks each but now that my doctor has changed a couple of them, I'm getting twice as many as before and I thought the co-pay would have gone up more. But it didn't.
3) Jewel the Cat's litter box
I hate changing it, but I also don't want her to be unhappy. So I changed it today and when she's happy, I'm happy.
4) Networking
I found a new contact who seems to be very cooperative and friendly and halfway promised to help me network to a new job.
5) Frank
I heard my friend Frank's voice on the radio today. He's morbidly obese and I thought he might not be alive anymore. We'd lost touch about five or six years ago. Now I gotta remember his last name so I can track him down.
--30--
17 November 2010
14 November 2010
If I were in charge
As I was saying...
If I were in charge, all library branches would be open on holidays and weekends, and open until 9 two days a week (if safe).
If I were in charge, I'd use surveillance cameras to catch graffiti vandals and force them to do community service cleaning up buses and bus stops.
If I were in charge, cigarettes would be a controlled substance, and smoking in any public place, even outdoors, would be forbidden. To those who say this is unreasonable, I hope you never get trapped in a bus shelter on a rainy day with a smoker.
If I were in charge, people on public assistance would not be able to buy snack foods, soft drinks, and prepackaged crap such as Lunchables. Don't use my tax money on that.
If I were in charge, I'd find some way to make voters who approve sports facilities pay triple taxes to pay it off.
If I was in charge, if you're from another country and you want us to change our laws to "respect" your culture, I'd send you the hell back home.
If I was in charge, you couldn't graduate from high school unless you knew how to sew on a button, fix a flat tire, re-wire a table lamp, cook a meal from scratch, and balance a checkbook.
If I was in charge, Election Day would be a public holiday. When you vote, you have to answer 10 civic questions. Miss three of them and your vote doesn't count.
If I was in charge, school teachers would earn as much as bus drivers.
If I was in charge, military service would be mandatory for both sexes. Conscientious Objectors and the disabled could serve in hospitals or non-combat positions.
If I were in charge, all library branches would be open on holidays and weekends, and open until 9 two days a week (if safe).
If I were in charge, I'd use surveillance cameras to catch graffiti vandals and force them to do community service cleaning up buses and bus stops.
If I were in charge, cigarettes would be a controlled substance, and smoking in any public place, even outdoors, would be forbidden. To those who say this is unreasonable, I hope you never get trapped in a bus shelter on a rainy day with a smoker.
If I were in charge, people on public assistance would not be able to buy snack foods, soft drinks, and prepackaged crap such as Lunchables. Don't use my tax money on that.
If I were in charge, I'd find some way to make voters who approve sports facilities pay triple taxes to pay it off.
If I was in charge, if you're from another country and you want us to change our laws to "respect" your culture, I'd send you the hell back home.
If I was in charge, you couldn't graduate from high school unless you knew how to sew on a button, fix a flat tire, re-wire a table lamp, cook a meal from scratch, and balance a checkbook.
If I was in charge, Election Day would be a public holiday. When you vote, you have to answer 10 civic questions. Miss three of them and your vote doesn't count.
If I was in charge, school teachers would earn as much as bus drivers.
If I was in charge, military service would be mandatory for both sexes. Conscientious Objectors and the disabled could serve in hospitals or non-combat positions.
03 January 2009
Insult to my eye
It's a small thing. See it, right there, in the first word. An apostrophe.
There are many things which insult this old copy editor's eye. The worst of all of them is the incorrect use of our friend, the Apostrophe.
Folks, apostrophes are not used to indicate plurals. Please don't insert an apostrophe between the terminal consonant at the end of a noun and the "s" indicating a plural.
It's just wrong. Stop doing it. Now.
So far I've use the word "It's" twice in this post. Correctly. When you want to say "It's" and you mean "It is," use the apostrophe. When you want to write "its" to indicate a possessive, DON'T.
I feel better now.
There are many things which insult this old copy editor's eye. The worst of all of them is the incorrect use of our friend, the Apostrophe.
Folks, apostrophes are not used to indicate plurals. Please don't insert an apostrophe between the terminal consonant at the end of a noun and the "s" indicating a plural.
It's just wrong. Stop doing it. Now.
So far I've use the word "It's" twice in this post. Correctly. When you want to say "It's" and you mean "It is," use the apostrophe. When you want to write "its" to indicate a possessive, DON'T.
It's awe-inspiring to see the way a mother bear protects its cubs.
I feel better now.
01 January 2009
Am I a Jerk?
Yesterday I was waiting for a bus. I like Alameda because it has a small-town feeling. Graffiti is still present, but I don't get the feeling I've stumbled onto a location set for a rap video, as I did when I was living in Oakland.
A young mother was seated inside the shelter, waiting for the bus. I greeted her, "Happy New Year!" and she smiled and said "Happy New Year." From her accent, I guessed she was far from the place of her birth, somewhere in Mexico or Central America. [I mention the ethnic difference not to be a bigot; I have scolded white parents on a field trip when the charges were fooling around less than 6 inches from the edge of the BART platform.)
Her two girls, 4 and 6, were close by playing on the handicap railings. I caught the mother's eyes and nodded towards the daughters. She smiled, but didn't look. She could hear them. She didn't have anything to read and didn't wear a Bluetooth, but was content her children were safe.
I wasn't. They were hanging off the railings. The older one, the one in the pink hooded jacket, was hanging from her arms and legs, at least two feet off the concrete. The younger one was hanging from a nearby railing holding on with her arms, but with her knees bent. "Be careful!" I said in a cheerful voice.
The mother glanced over, noted that I was at least three feet away from her daughters, then turned away, unconcerned with the possibility of injury. She was only concerned about me. Once satisfied I wasn't going to abscond with her daughters, she turned back, blissfully unaware that her two daughters were risking injury by hanging upside down on a handicapped railing with nothing but unpadded, bare cancrete below.
A couple of minutes went by, and she did nothing to call them to sit with her or at the least, not use the railings as playground equipment. So I said, "Be careful," in a soft voice, with less smile in my voice, but still polite. As a taxpayer in the State of California and the San Francisco Bay Area, one of the regions with the highest per capita concentration of personal injury lawyers in the world, I was concerned that the mother's neglect would lead to a 5-figure settlement which I and my fellow taxpayers would be forced to pay in return for her obvious neglect.
I wasn't thinking. Did the children understand English? They didn't respond to my polite -- and I must emphasize polite -- pleas to have them not behave recklessly.
On reflection, I should have taken out my mobile and snapped some pictures of them, with mother not paying attention. Or maybe I should have used a more menacing look. I was very careful to keep a smile in my eyes.
Instead, I tried once again. "Please, please, be careful." Finally the mother paid attention. Instead of cautioning her children to not behave recklessly, she scolded me. "...my children." I didn't understand the rest. Her face told me she wasn't concerned at all with the safety and health of her children; she was more concerned that this meddler was trying to give her parenting lessons.
Your call: Bigot, jerk, or concerned taxpayer?
A young mother was seated inside the shelter, waiting for the bus. I greeted her, "Happy New Year!" and she smiled and said "Happy New Year." From her accent, I guessed she was far from the place of her birth, somewhere in Mexico or Central America. [I mention the ethnic difference not to be a bigot; I have scolded white parents on a field trip when the charges were fooling around less than 6 inches from the edge of the BART platform.)
Her two girls, 4 and 6, were close by playing on the handicap railings. I caught the mother's eyes and nodded towards the daughters. She smiled, but didn't look. She could hear them. She didn't have anything to read and didn't wear a Bluetooth, but was content her children were safe.
I wasn't. They were hanging off the railings. The older one, the one in the pink hooded jacket, was hanging from her arms and legs, at least two feet off the concrete. The younger one was hanging from a nearby railing holding on with her arms, but with her knees bent. "Be careful!" I said in a cheerful voice.
The mother glanced over, noted that I was at least three feet away from her daughters, then turned away, unconcerned with the possibility of injury. She was only concerned about me. Once satisfied I wasn't going to abscond with her daughters, she turned back, blissfully unaware that her two daughters were risking injury by hanging upside down on a handicapped railing with nothing but unpadded, bare cancrete below.
A couple of minutes went by, and she did nothing to call them to sit with her or at the least, not use the railings as playground equipment. So I said, "Be careful," in a soft voice, with less smile in my voice, but still polite. As a taxpayer in the State of California and the San Francisco Bay Area, one of the regions with the highest per capita concentration of personal injury lawyers in the world, I was concerned that the mother's neglect would lead to a 5-figure settlement which I and my fellow taxpayers would be forced to pay in return for her obvious neglect.
I wasn't thinking. Did the children understand English? They didn't respond to my polite -- and I must emphasize polite -- pleas to have them not behave recklessly.
On reflection, I should have taken out my mobile and snapped some pictures of them, with mother not paying attention. Or maybe I should have used a more menacing look. I was very careful to keep a smile in my eyes.
Instead, I tried once again. "Please, please, be careful." Finally the mother paid attention. Instead of cautioning her children to not behave recklessly, she scolded me. "...my children." I didn't understand the rest. Her face told me she wasn't concerned at all with the safety and health of her children; she was more concerned that this meddler was trying to give her parenting lessons.
Your call: Bigot, jerk, or concerned taxpayer?
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