If you'd been listening in

Our weekend morning routine has a decidedly techie aspect. As I come out of that blissful halfway point between dreaming and full wakefulness—you know that state of consciousness where the sounds in the room don't quite jive with the dream you're having and you struggle with trying to reconcile the two—I begin most mornings by grabbing the iPhone and checking the weather. I expect no excitement from the updates. I just want verification that, indeed, Meanwhile Manor is a sieve and the temperature outside the covers is probably not very different from the temperature outside the walls.

The T came to as I was going virtual and the morning inter-romp followed the following path: check the headlines, change apps to check the weather, scan the radar map, change to the Maps app and search for Nevada City, California, search for Alamosa, Colorado, search for Area 51. In other words: random map perusal. This is our idea of a good time.

Comment of the morning: Hmm, shouldn't that be Roswell Intergalactic Air Center?

If you'd been listening in

This morning at breakfast while perusing the birthday announcements in
People magazine, The T mentions that Dolly Parton is 63 years old.

Me: Wow. She looks good. How old do you think her breasts are?

T: Much, much younger.

Happy Valentines Day 

Miles Per Step

This one's for you, Frenchie. I have no information on availability, efficiency, pricing, or registration requirements with your DMV or MVA.

2 Sugars, Cream, and the Letter Y

Which one of these does not get along with the other three: sugar, cream, coffee, and the letter Y? Let me give you a few hints. Three of the four were quite content to be safely encapsulated in a travel mug. One of the four had no idea its demise was so near, about as near as the travel mug was to the keyboard upon which it was perched.

Apple, Inc. recently celebrated the 25th year of the Mac's existence. Here's to many more. This morning, I toasted the end to my own streak of approximately 28 years of using keyboards attached to Apple computers and drinking beverages of all kinds without the two ever coming to a nasty impasse. More than 10,000 consecutive days of keeping the liquids separate from the solids right went down the drain.

And the Y paid for my clumsiness with its life. All the keys around the Y dried out unscathed after a gentle swabbing with many tissues and some canned air. An additional odd injury to the keyboard was the inactivity of the N if the shift or command key to the left of the space bar was depressed but not the shift or command key to the right of the space bar. At that point, I placed the order for a replacement.

Entered in the budget ledger for the day was $65 ... for coffee.

Seems a contradiction

In my efforts to be a little greener, I adopted reusable canvas bags for grocery shopping. A couple of these are all I need since I am not stocking up the way my parents did with only one shopping trip per week and six mouths at the trough.

I noticed something odd after my last trip to the store. If I use my own bags, 3¢ is discounted from the final bill. That's swell. But this begs the first question: how are those three pennies charged when one is not supplying their own bags? I've never seen a charge for 3¢ on a receipt.

There is also another question. When I purchase just milk or just some other single item for which I do not need a bag, I am not credited 3¢. Why does the discount only kick in when I use my own bag?

I believe I am going to request the 3¢ discount the next time I buy items I carry out in my hands and I am a) checked-out by a manager at the register, and b) it is not crowded so we can talk about this without a line forming behind me. Stay tuned.

Post-Soiree at Meanwhile Manor

Well, that was fun. The T is embarking on her own new year and so we threw a little shin-dig in order to get it started right. Those of you who know us well know that we need very little excuse in order to throw open the doors and have a party. You also know that when the guest list expands beyond five or six people, my upbringing at the knee of a woman whose house always looked ready for a Good Housekeeping photo shoot kicks in and I need to clean furiously lest I get a rash. So we cleaned. And cleaned and cleaned and cleaned...

...and barely made a dent in the debris of the abode. But at least it was presentable and somewhat child-proofed. Our breeder friends have a cute little routine upon entering the house. While Ma chats and trails the Mini while he investigates everything, Pa follows behind at a slower clip and tries to see the house through Mini's eyes. Wires, pointy things, fragile items, catfood dishes all look different to Pa, Ma, and Mini than they do to The T and I. Mini amused himself for a bit by trying to find all the occurrences of Bugs Bunny present in the house. He found a few I forgot about. Thanks, kid.

We introduced something new at this party: games. The germ of this idea was planted over xmas when I spent a goodly amount of time playing with a Wii. I thought we'd have a Wii bowling tournament. Well, I couldn't find a Wii for rent anywhere (I am not ready to buy since the remodel is still looming and I am leary of buying one only to have to pack it up for an extended period of time) so we fell back on the toychest of joy. The game of choice was Taboo. What a great way to learn how people see the world. It's essentially a word association game with some words disallowed. How can I make you say glasnost without using the terms perestroika, Gorbachev, or Reagan? After a few drinks, the question becomes even more amusing.

Today we'll do an assessment of the party protocol, debrief regarding the pros and cons of pizza toppings and wine choices, and begin planning the next gathering—optimally timed for when the house needs another good cleaning.

What time is it?

Who: Flight of the Conchords
What: a post dedicated to Amelia
Why: she said she liked the idea of feety-pjs; this gives her another reason to do so
What do you mean? Listen for the line about socks and all will become clear, Grasshopper.

Looks sleek, but how does it handle in the water?

Color me one of the stunned folks regarding the airplane landing in the Hudson River. What sticks out in my mind is that in all the news stories I've been reading about this event, there was only one mention of the actions of any member of the crew besides the Captain. The flight attendants repeated "brace for impact" and gave other instructions while the plane was descending and then they disappear from the news reports.

It is interesting piecing together the atmosphere inside the cabin based on passenger stories: some prayed, some brayed, and one gent began reading the information card to review how to get the door open once they hit the water. Once they were down, the crowd all ran to the back of the plane. They then reversed course and ran toward the front of the plane. Where were the cabin attendants while this was going on? Pretty quickly, rafts were in the water and people were on the wings. One woman now regrets having worn 3-inch heels (she made it onto the wing but ended up in the drink as she removed them and her feet slipped on the smooth, wet metal). Then the armada showed up and all passengers were eventually on dry land.

We're hearing all about the "heroic" actions of the pilot. Yes, he should be commended for his cool head and his skills and his professionalism under pressure but didn't he simply do what he was supposed to do and what we hope every pilot would do if we were the passengers? He is a role model for other pilots to look to for the way it should be done in the time of crisis. But I stop at calling him a hero. He did his job. The word hero is overused. Where is the line between doing your job right and stepping up when conditions demand it and the opposite end of the spectrum of just mailing it in? If you cross the line—toward the positive side—should you be called a hero?

Multitasking

There's a new gadget here at Meanwhile Manor and it has made me very happy indeed. It allows me to do two of my most favorite things simultaneously.

When the sun goes down and the grrllzz have been fed, watered, brushed, and whatever other [___]-ed that requires attention, I don my feety pajamas and head off to bed. This is Thing One. I love sleeping.

Thing Two involves numbers: collecting, sorting, graphing, analyzing, describing, drooling, etc.I love random data collection. I bought a pedometer to count the number of steps up the hill. I carried a GPS to collect data on altitude change, heading, and more. I write down my gas fill-ups religiously. The problem with all the sources of those types of data is that I have to be awake to experience them. Not so with my new gadget: a SleepTracker watch. It tracks my sleeping and sets off the alarm when I am at an optimum place in my sleep cycle.

The data collection is a total perk. I got this watch in order to combat the six months of overcast skies here in the Northwet. After the clocks get turned back and darkness rolls in around 4 pm, I have the darnedest time waking up in the morning. This is not conducive with morning classes. So I figured this watch might help.

And then I discovered the data review mode. Heaven. It records each time I am at an almost awake moment, before I start to drift back down into the inkier depths. If an almost awake moment coincides with the alarm time, then I should awake most refreshed. My breakfast time just got a wee bit more exciting. I've got my oatmeal and my sleep data.

I've only had it a week and two of those days were a weekend when my sleep schedule is totally whacked. My jury is still out on the effectiveness of this gadget but I'm loving the data in the morning.

No one ever asks what would doggie do

1) Are you pondering what I'm pondering? Probably not.

2) The fascinating thing about typewriters is that they have built in printers.

and this one is for you, Frenchie,

3)

Found here.