MSN Spaces constricted by censorship

I'm aghast and appalled but why was I surprised? MSN Spaces, the new blogging app from Microsoft, censors user blogs. We are being protected from offensive words like "cocktail," according to a Microsoft evangelist who does not appear particularly impressed by his employer's new product.

Of course, everyone agrees MSN Spaces is sure to catch on big. Bland and mediocre is the American way. If anything could stop blogs from being hip, this'll be it.

Grinches, unite!

I love the holiday season, but I know some people who don't. This year, those grinches needn't grouch alone. Apparently there's a whole organization, with a website, devoted to Christmas Resistance. Ho, ho, ho!

Buy stickers and other agitprop, or read the amusing letters to Satana (and, no, that's not a typo) from both pro- and anti-Christmas visitors.

Let there be (better) lights

Thanks to my favorite local electricians, our Thanksgiving table was beautifully lit and I am newly enlightened about light fixtures.

The back story: Two years ago, I purchased a dining room ceiling fixture by Murray Feiss at Harold's Lamps in Seattle. The fixture was featured in Seattle Magazine a few months later, so I was mildly amazed that I'd selected something so stylish (nicely frosted and marbled glass and a brushed-pewter metal).

Sometime this past summer, three of the five light bulbs burned out. I noticed this a few weeks ago and trotted off to the store to buy replacements: 40-watt, thin stemmed small clear globes. When I got on a ladder to remove the burnt-out bulbs, to my astonishment, each of them twisted right off the stem, leaving the broken glass stems wedged in the sockets. My attempt to remove the jagged stems with needle-nose pliers worked for two of them, but the third just wouldn't budge. I called the electricians (feeling silly, it was such a small job) and they said they'd try to get to me before Thanksgiving.

In the interim, I fumed, and considered calling Harold's to complain. However, I'd purchased the lamp two years ago, and they are notoriously rude. The last lamp I bought at Harold's, a pole lamp, came in a box clearly marked "lightbulbs included." Since the bulbs were a weird compact fluorescent style, I'd called them to report that the "included" lightbulbs were missing from the package. There was a brief silence on the other end, and the saleswoman said, "oh, well, go get some at a drugstore," and hung up. Nice.

The electrician turned up just after 5 p.m. the day before Thanksgiving and fixed the fixture. Even better, he told me a few interesting things about lighting that will help me prevent future fixture frustrations:

Standard incandescent bulbs like the 40-watt bulbs that broke say "120v" on them, meaning they are rated for 120 volts. However, power companies now run voltage closer to 123 volts. He recommend buying a brand of bulb sold at Home Depot that is rated for 140 volts and can better handle the highter voltage.

Many expensive fixtures, such as my designer ceiling fixture, use the same plastic sockets as very cheap fixtures. He recommended that if you are investing in a fixture, you purchase one with more durable ceramic sockets.

Now if only the electricians could fix our stove...

Thanksgiving recap

Thanksgiving was: friends, relatives and pies, pies, pies! (The turducken breast was nice, but not very Thanksgiving-y. Next year, back to the regular bird.)

Sally brought three pies: mincemeat (not Crosse and Blackwell mincemeat, but the real thing from de Laurenti's at the Pike Place Market); four-nut pie (from a Greg Atkins recipe in the Seattle Times Sunday Magazine); and Japanese squash pie. I made traditional pumpkin pie with 2/3 the sugar and used a new pie crust recipe that turned out to be just fabulous. It includes rice vinegar, which imparts a lovely, flakey lift to the crust.

Here's the crust recipe from Puyallup Fair prize-winning baker Carol Lagasca, as published in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

No-Fail Pie Crust
(makes four single crusts for 9-inch pies)

1 egg
1 TBSP rice vinegar
4 TBSP cold water
3 cups unbleached flour
1 tsp salt
1 cup Crisco
1/4 cup butter

Mix egg, rice vinegar, and cold water; set aside.

Mix flour and salt. Add Crisco and butter, mix with fork or pastry cutter until coarse and gritty.

Poke a hole in the middle of the flour mixture, and add liquid mix, a little at a time. Form into large ball.

Divide into four equal parts. Roll each crust out on a floured board.

I made one pie, a couple mini pies for another household's Thanksgiving, and used one crust to make little flower-shaped piecrust "cookies" to decorate all the other pies. Since pumpkin pies have no top crust to decorate, I baked the flowers on a cookie sheet (20 minutes) and dropped them on the pumpkin pies when those came out of the oven. Next year I hope to have a set of leaf-shaped cookie cutters to make fancier decorations.

After Thanksgiving I took the extra raw cranberries and dipped them in sweet Dolci Frutta dipping chocolate (usually used to make chocolate strawberries). The contrast of sour cranberry and ultra-sweet chocolate is a real kick. (If you make this, be sure to use fresh, crunchy cranberries.)

Walmart, watch out!

Target has a product very hot in certain areas--previous obtained only in boutique environments, now at your local mall.
[Editor's note: Target finally spotted this prank page on their site, a low-key listing for a modest amount of marijuana, and removed it. But it's captured for posterity here.]

Cy Coleman

Just spotted the obituary for Broadway composer Cy Coleman, whose compositions included the amazing "The Best is Yet to Come." There is not a particularly good Sinatra rendition in the iTunes Music Store, but I did find great performances by Nancy Wilson and Shirley Horn (also Johnny Mathis, Tony Bennett, Sara Vaughn, and Peggy Lee--you get the style). If you're a dancer or a musician, "The Best is Yet to Come" is memorable be cause the melody tumbles along over the beat like water over rocks. You can't imagine anyone singing this tune a cappella--the tension, the swing, would be missing.

Coleman also wrote "Witchcraft" and "Big Spender," and scored movies, among the The Heartbreak Kid.

F1:E2 means we're ERC-ed

Beep! Beep! Beep!

As soon as I took the cornbread out, our oven beeped at me, shut off and displayed the message F1:E2. Eventually it calmed down and the rest of the controls became accessible again.

Our KitchenAid electric stove is the Chevy Vega of cooking appliances. Epinions reviewers have targeted this model as a classic lemon, though it can't quite match the KitchenAid electric model (also memorialized on Epinons) that activated its oven door lock while the owners were making a roast for a dinner party. Three days and multiple repairmen later, the door was still locked and the kitchen redolent of rotting meat--apparently KitchenAid has the door screws on the inside of the door, where no one could get at them.

But back to our KitchenAid...thus far, the occasional F1:E2 problem has not prevented me from cooking. But it hit with a vengeance tonight while I was making cornbread for stuffing. With Thanksgiving tomorrow, I started to panic. While a couple error messages are mentioned in the KitchenAid manual, this is not one of them. (But, of course). Thanks to Google, I was able to get the complete list of KitchenAid error messages from doityourself.com. There I learned that E1:F2 means that the ERC needs to be replaced.

The ERC?!?#?

According to the Samurai Applicance Repairman at fixitnow.com, the ERC is the electronic range control. He explains that when an ERC fails, the appliance is still in fine working order--just the fancy control system is fried. And you'll pay big bucks--not to fix the oven, but to fix the shoddy electonics system that controls it. On a stove not even three years old.

Let's just say I've printed out a recipe for roasting a turducken on an outside gas grill. And one thing I won't be giving thanks for tomorrow is the KitchenAid company.

Strange worlds, nu?

The strong influence of Jewish writers on contempory science fiction is not news to aficionados of the genre. At the Jewish literary site nextbook.org, Daniel Oppenheimer takes a look at what has, and hasn't, happened since the definitive compendium of Jewish SF, Wandering Star, was published in 1974.

Google Dating

No, this isn't a meet-up service. Google Date is a weird little Google add-on that lets you type in the date, and then Google tells you what things happened then. Obscure things, mind you. You can reduce the level of obscurity somewhat by using the keyword option.

(Thanks to weblogwannabe for the tip.)

The Best of Thanksgiving

It floors me that I've been blogging for more than a year. Last November, I responded to question from the (now defunct) Friday Five about my aspirations by saying that I "just want to survive Thanksgiving." (Obviously, I did.) And I was ranting about our ghastly electric stove and threatening to grovel, once again, before the gas company and beg them to run a gas line to our street.

Here it is, a year later, and still no gas line. But the gas company employee who kept telling us the line was coming, and losing all the papers the neighbors signed committing to buying gas appliances, is mysteriously no longer with the gas company. The woman who took over from him now says we will have a gas service by the end of January. Which would be lovely since, believing her predecessor, I purchased a Wolf gas stove, which is now sitting in a warehouse waiting to be delivered.

Thanksgiving will be at our house this year, for various amusing reasons, and it will just be my mother-in-law, our friends John and Sally, and Zorg and me. I suspect there will have to be a "kittens table" in the garage, since the kittens view our sitting down at the dining room table as their signal to begin "cleaning up" on the kitchen counter.

Having been ordered by the m.i.l. to get an organic turkey from a particular vendor at the farmers market convenient to her, I instead ordered a turducken from the Cajun Grocer. An organic turducken, of course, cher.

Since the turducken is by definition already stuffed, I'm making a cornbread stuffing sidedish that includes lots of yellow and red peppers, mushrooms, and apples. And I've tested a fabulous light salad:

marinate sliced celery and apple in oil and vinegar, salt and pepper

toss lettuce and parsley with that dressing

then sprinkle it all with a good blue cheese (crumbled) and toasted almonds

A pumpkin pie fan, I'm making an extra mini pie to send over to some friends who dislike pumpkin pie but are having a guest who likes it.

I'd thought I'd blog about a few of the great Thanksgiving disasters of the past--the flying turkey, the return of the stuffed cabbage appetizers, the whipped cream cannister that attacked Nina--but maybe later in the week.

Installing Palm desktop for Mac for a Treo 600

First of all, don't install the new (Nov. 19 2005) Palm Desktop 4.2.1 for Mac if you are going to sync to a Treo 600. Bad things will happen until Palm releases a new version; read all the info on the download page and make sure the Treo 600 has been added to the list of supported devices.

For the time being, you will want to install Palm Desktop 4.1 for Mac.

If you are upgrading from a previous version of the Palm Desktop, be sure to make backup copies of up your User file (in Documents>Palm>Users). Things are going to get hairy, and losing your User file could be the element that shoves you right over the edge.

OK.

Start by opening the Palm Desktop 4.1 installer for Mac that came with your Treo 600 or with the software MacDesktop_41_T600.sit you downloaded from the PalmOne site.

Using Mac OS X, 10.3.x? Alert! Alert! Alert! The installation will choke and you'll get a cryptic system error message from the installer (not from your Mac system). Again and again and again. Don't change those settings! The problem is at Palm's end.

You could go to their Treo help pages, which will give you a number for TMobile, which will helpfully connect you to their tech support which will have no idea why you are getting the error message but will connect you by some back channel to palmOne's tech support. That's assuming you call during business hours--TMobile is available round the clock, but palmOne isn't.

You could, of course, search for several hours on discussion boards for a solution to the installer problem. Too busy? OK, here's a hint: You need to download a little file hidden on the palmOne site. It's called the palmOne Permissions Fixer.

Downloading and installing it takes but a few seconds. However, you won't be able to launch the palmOne Permissions Fixer unless you have expanded its .SIT file using the latest state-of-the-art version of StuffIt Expander. Got it? OK.

Once the Permissions Fixer is launched and runs, the Palm Desktop installer will, indeed, work.

If you are going to sync to the Treo using Apple's iSync, make sure you have the latest version of the Apple iSync Conduit (v1.2). Download it, but don't install that conduit until after you have the Palm Desktop 4.1 installed.

OK, now read the iSync instructions. The worst is over. Tell the cat it's safe to come out from under the couch.

Just call me the Repo Gal

Today I repossessed my own car and spent $400+ on a cell phone. Neither activity had been on the horizon this morning when I sat down to my desk.

At noon, I caught the bus down to the detailing shop to pick up my car, thinking I'd zip back home in matter of minutes. "Out to lunch" said the sign on the shop door, with a phone number underneath. I dialed the number thinking it was his cell phone, only to hear ringing inside the garage and an answering machine pick up. I spent a frustrating hour pacing the parking lot and waiting for the detailer to mosey on back. After a hour had gone by, I gave up and went next door to the graphic arts business and asked if they had a cell phone number for him. No, but the owner of the graphics shop turned out to be the building landlord. She let me into the garage and, apparently deciding that nobody would try to steal a 1990 Honda Civic (detailed or not), she let me have my car. I spotted my name and a price on the desk calendar; she calculated the sales tax, and I left the detailer a check where my key had been, along with the note "Ask Rose what happened."

While waiting for the detailer, I opened my own cell phone and half of the lid snapped off. It didn't really snap...it sort of bent, cracked and peeled (being plastic). This is a common stress problem with Treo 300s. The only options are to send the phone (which has the earpiece in the lid) off to have a new lid hooked up. That means no phone for a week, $70 plus shipping, and every likelihood that the lid is going to break off again in a few months. (No doubt why Treo 300s are not sold anymore.)

Thus I found myself at the T-Mobile kiosk at the mall after work, buying a Treo 600 (T-Mobile is the only cell phone service that has a decent signal on our street, and the Palm-OS Treo is one of the better phones for syncing with a Mac running OS X).

I had synced the 300 data to the machine, so, supposedly all I need to do is charge the 600 and sync it to the computer. Ho. Ho. Ho. More later...

Novels like golf

Actually, I like Patrick White's writing, but I love this comment from a discussion of Australian literature: "I always like that description of Patrick White's novels as being like golf--great swatches of scenery interrupted by bursts of snobbery."

Left, right--and another dimension

The political compass test shows which way you're pointed.

In our wildest dreams

Here, from a blogger on Democrats.com, is the concession speech we wished Kerry had given.

Remember the Persian Gulf War?

I do, every time I look at my UGG Australian sheepskin boots.

In 1990, Saddam Hussein had invaded Kuwait, renewing the claim that Kuwait was historically part of Iraq and asserting that Kuwaiti oil drilling on the border was tapping into Iraqi oil fields. In January 1991 the US came to the defense of Kuwait, putting us into our first international military conflict since Vietnam. The US went into shock, one of the effects of which was that commerce ground to a halt. Shopping, dining out--doing anything but sitting glued to TV and radio--was unpatriotic.

It was during the first week of the war that a friend and I enjoyed dinner at Seattle's renowned Le Gourmand--as the only party of the evening. And during that same week that I discovered how panicked merchants get if they don't have any customers.

I'd never seen UGGs before, but they looked warm and cozy up there on the shelf at the funky shoe store in the University District. My old Seattle bungalow was cold and drafty, and sheepskin boots seemed the solution. The price--$120--was too much for me in those days, so I asked if they'd take $89. The store manager, who hadn't had a sale all week, agreed, and I went off with the boots.

The UGGs became an integral part of my at-home identity. I wore them after work with sweats, and I wore them in the morning with my bathrobe. Since my feet are always cold, I wore them from September to June every year.

One cold, relentlessly rainy night in February, my cat Betaille rushed in the cat door carring a huge, struggling rat. She dropped the rat in my bedroom, and it leaped into one of the UGG boots. Betaille immediately shoved a paw in after it. Terrified she'd be bitten, I tossed her out of the room. In the chaos, the UGG fell over, but the rat remained inside. There was no way to get the rat out of the house without tossing the boot, too. So I closed the boot with kitchen tongs and, opening the back door, hurled the rodent-stuffed footwear out into the deluge. Two days later, when the rain stopped, I went out to get the sodden boot. Fortunately, the rat had departed. But what had it left in the boot? I brought the boot in and soaked it (and its mate) in Woolite in the sink to eradicate any remaining rodentia. Do you know how much water sheepskin can absorb? It took many, many rinses to get the soap out. I dried the boots in a warm room, and they were as good as new.

Last year those UGGs entered their 13th season of wear. They'd been washed a few times, and the sheepskin was getting a bit matted. The soles were wearing down, getting stiff, and didn't provide much traction any more. So I decided it was time for a replacement pair.

That's when I discovered, to my horror, that in between wars my UGGs had become celebrity footwear wear at ski resorts and at the beach. They now came in baby blue, pink, and every color imaginable. And there was a growing backlash against LA bimbos who went trotting around in UGGs and mini-skirts: apparently, they are known as "UGG sluts." As a result of all this fuss, UGGs were selling at full price, or at least they would have been selling at full price if there were any. The black ones I wanted were backordered for a year on the Nordstrom website. Imitation UGGs were springing up all over eBay. It was just too discouraging.

By this fall the industrious Aussies had been able to dye up plenty of sheepskins, and I was able to snag a pair of real UGGs on eBay for $90 plus shipping. They are identical to, and just as gorgeous as, my first pair.

The problem now? It's hard to put that old pair into the Goodwill bag. Those boots know more about the past 14 years of my life than even my best friend does.

Spice up your backups

I have been patting myself on the back for taking the plunge, buying a superb 250GB external drive, and making bootable copies of my two computers' hard drives on a weekly basis, using the very friendly Carbon Copy Cloner shareware.

But this would be so much more fun.

Hack the vote

An overview (with links) of mounting statistical evidence that there may have been hacking of the central PCs where optical-scan votes were tabulated. Oh, arggh.

Democrats' conundrum

"If we have to act like Republicans to beat Republicans, then I'm not sure what we win."
--Stephen Elliott, author of Looking Forward to It

Cat news flash

Kaylee the hyperactive kitten went in to get spayed Tuesday and the vet called to say that when they opened her up they discovered she was still in heat. Since her behavior for the past week had been far calmer than the shrieking we'd assumed was heat, this was a surprise to us. It made the surgery more difficult, and Kaylee returned home a very subdued, tired little cat. But she is expected to make a full recovery.

If you don't look, you won't see anything wrong

The Seattle group blackboxvoting.org headed by Bev Harris has gone to court asserting that major voting machine errors occured in the recent election and that no spotted them because no one was looking--or knew where to look for the weak spots. They're calling for audits by computer security professionals.

What makes it weird is that they are warning people about what they call a "deceptive" site, blackboxvoting.com, where there is a lot of yakking but no action.

Oy.

Now, let's go to the maps

A thoughtful, in-depth look at what's behind the red and blue states. And an irreverent one.

Reaction from the blogosphere and beyond

"The red/blue split first noticed in 2000 looks less like an anomaly of a tight election and more like a long-term alignment of the American people: The coasts, the Northeast, the Midwest -- almost anywhere that people are gathered in big cities -- for the Democrats; the West and the South for the Republicans. The last time the nation faced this kind of split, in the mid-19th century, we ended up shooting one another."
--Scott Rosenberg's Links & Comments

"Apparently, my country holds a fundamentally different set of values than I thought we did, and that scares the shit out of me."
--Wil Wheaton

"I have no doubt that the pendulum will swing back in my direction, perhaps in 4 years, perhaps in 8 or 12. I only hope that incurious George and his band of imperialistic jingoists do not do too much harm to the US and the world in the meantime."
--THEZORG

"It's over. Let it go."
--Larry Lessig

"I’m going to spend time these next few days looking for the America in my heart. It may be a while before I see it anywhere else."
--comment posted on Lessig's site by adamsj

"My stomach is a mess. Even though I knew it was not going to be easy, just seeing those numbers come in are giving me agita. I'm smoking like there's no tomorrow--and since I have to go outside my apartment to do so, you know I'm freezing my butt."
--culturekitchen

"Now, without constraints, Bush can pursue the dreams he campaigned for--the use of U.S. military might to bring God's gift of freedom to the world, with no more 'global tests,' and at home the enactment of the imperatives of 'the right God.'"
--Sidney Blumenthal in Salon (Nov. 3)

Why we keep losing to this idiot

If you can choke down just one piece of post-election analysis today, consider seeing what Slate writer William Saletan considers to be the lessons learned--and how we should apply them.

Crimes Against Nature

"Your public servants serve you right."
--Adlai Stevenson

Liberal thinking this go-round was that if we just mobilized all the like-thinking Americans who'd been staying home from the polls from distain or ennui, we'd win this time.

We were wrong. We did what we told ourselves was our best, spoke out, moved on, assembled our numbers, made sure the choir was thoroughly preached to, affected the disaffected, and--we lost.

Our best has got to be better.

It's tempting to fume on the morning-after that the lesson learned is that half of the country lives on the far side of a bottomless chasm, believing that a (Christian) God is on the hotline to Bush, the world environment is ours to plunder, might is right, and women and gays are second-class citizens.

But the self-righteous right was merely the minority core of the Bush victory, not the deciding factor. I believe that those who cast what were the deciding votes for Bush look just like our friends. And that they voted for Bush not because they believe in his ultra-right views, but because they checked with their budget book and made selfish, short-term decisions about money.

Bush is the good buddy not only of the rich, but of the upper middle class. He lets you keep more of your capital gains. He's phasing out the inheritance tax. Four more years of Bush can be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars if you are in mid-level management and have a family with property. I think it was an all-too-easy choice for middle-of-the-roaders to make, particularly if they are sufficient isolated by geography or numbed by consumerism to be able to ignore increasingly poisened water and air and increasing class divisions in the world and in the nation.

Our mission between now and 2008 will be to bring an awareness of environmental and economic issues to those middle-of-the-roaders and expand their political consciousness so they will look beyond next April 15 and the next quarterly dividend. Your assignment: Read Robert Kennedy Jr.'s new book Crimes Against Nature. Then give it as a holiday gift to a Republican you love.

21

10 p.m. PST and according to CNN Bush is 21 electoral votes away from four more years of ruining the environment and the economy. I feel like throwing up.

In the meantime, wear shoes around here

Many years ago, I was up late working on a fiction writing project when my big orange tabby, Bosco, wanted to go to bed. He began walking along my bookcase, and, selecting a volume, pulled it out and let it tumble onto the floor. The volume? How to Sell What You Write.

Not long after that, I woke up on my birthday to find a tiny stuffed animal on my pillow, holding a little sign that said "Happy Birthday." I found out later in the day that my cat Betaille had stolen this from my nextdoor neighbor's house—she was a cat burglar any way, but how did she know it was my birthday?

A few days ago, Kaylee, the little Stripe Sister, began trying to tell me something. It started when I noticed she was coming into my office, standing up on the back of the sofa, and picking push-pins out of the bulletin board. She'd then take the push-pin and bat it around the house until it was lost under some piece of furniture.

That particular bulletin board is covered in memorabilia: Handmade cards, favorite snapshots, bookmarks, my tags from MacWorld and Northwest Bookfest--you get the drift. The bulletin board gets assembled slowly over time as a collage (similar to those "mindmaps" drawn by the touchy-feely facilitator-types at the non-profit bureaucracies where I used to work).

So this morning Kaylee is busy taking apart the last three years of my life. She's worked her way more than halfway up the board and can't reach any new push-pins by standing on the back of the sofa. Now she just launches herself onto the bulletin board, hangs there by her claws, and works at the next push-pin with her teeth. When she gets it, she releases the claws, pivots, and bounces down onto the sofa with her prize. Cards and photos are all over the sofa and the floor, where big Stripe Sister Zoe is helping play with the push-pins. Now even Sheba, the deaf white cat, is involved in the push-pin soccer game. (Don't try taking a push-pin away from her!)

I could get the squirt gun and stop Kaylee, but at this point it's fascinating to watch. Clearly, I'll have to build a new bulletin board--after she outgrows her push-pin obsession. In the meantime, we'll be wearing shoes around here.


The bulletin board bandit makes her getaway with another push-pin.

The one-click iPod for those who need it

Apple spoofs abound, but the Ashlee Simpson Karaoke Edition iPod ad is distinguished by the prankster's attention to tone and graphic detail.

Spring is here

The Eddie Bauer spring catalog arrived today. Yes, spring. What on earth can they be thinking? Their website appears to know it's still fall, moving in to winter.

Three cheers for the Bush family!

A group of distinguished members of the Bush family are been running a website that urges visitors "Please don't vote for our cousin."

This story got quite a bit of press today, but what's weird is that nearly all of the print and online news stories omit the URL, so readers can't go to the source. It took ploughing through several of the results of a Google search until I hit a site that included the address.

It was a pleasant surprise. Each of several Bush cousins contributed a photo and a long quote on why he or she had decided not to vote for George. Many of their statements were thoughtful and eloquent, and the site includes some of the most articulate refutations of Bush's "God and Country" blather I've read in the entire campaign. Unless you are a member of the Bush campaign pep squad, you'll relish the observations of people like Chris House, a teacher in Olympia, WA, Jeanny House, of Wisconsin, and Samuel Prescott Bush, who writes "I find it difficult to understand the patriotism behind giving tax breaks to corporations that export jobs overseas, leaving well-meaning and hard-working folks at home without a solid chance to support themselves. I find it incomprehensible that patriotism of the brand our president practices, includes ravaging our environmental policies, resulting in an immediate and lasting degradation of the environment for the foreseeable future, hurting my children and their children, the future patriots of this country."

The awful thing

When I was in Cupertino for the day Thursday, I overheard people say things like "yeah, he has the awful thing she had last week." It was only when I woke up Saturday morning, violently ill, that I realized what "the awful thing" was, and that I had brought it back with me. At its worst, I was so dizzy I couldn't walk up or down stairs. Couldn't remember being that sick since I was in Poland in 1983. It was apparently only 24-hour bug, because I feel nearly normal now--just a little weak.

But don't get this thing.

Interestingly, when I spoke with my doctor yesterday, he said it was a flu "but not the kind you get flu shots for." Which is good, since Zorg and I will be going up to Victoria, BC, next Saturday for flu shots; some clever marketing person at the Victoria Clipper set up a package deal that includes the cruise and the shot. After your shot, you have the day to sightsee in Victoria. (Three cheers for socialized medicine.)

Even Republicans are worried by Bush

Thanks to Mystical Forest for bringing this to my attention: a lengthy NY Times article documenting growing Republican--yes, Republican--concerns about Bush's competence.

The secrets of tub caulking

[IMPORTANT NOTE: An updated and more detailed version of these instructions is posted at:http://themysterioustraveler.blogspot.com/2007/05/how-to-caulk-tub-shower.html]


The caulk between the tile shower walls and the bathtub gets mildewed and every year we try to come up with a better way to replace it.

First year: Throw money at it
I called a bathtub re-caulking service recommended by a local consumer group. They sent two teenagers to futz around in the bathroom for a few hours, charged more than $300, and told us to keep the shower curtain open (between showers) to promote air circulation. Well, duh! We installed a more powerful bathroom fan that sounds like a 747 taking off four feet overhead. Neither of these strategies prevented the mildew from returning in a few months.

Second year: Do it yourself--twice
Inspired by several do-it-yourself articles, I prepared to recaulk the tub myself. Since the damp, mildewed area behind the removed caulk must be treated with a bleach solution and then thoroughly dried, and the new caulk must have time to cure without moisture, this involves taking showers in our other bathroom. Unfortunately, that's a tiny upstairs shower stall tucked under the eaves, and the shower head only comes up to chest level on my husband.

So I waited until he had gone on a long mountaineering trip to start the process. I peeled off the caulk with a special plastic hooked tool, and applied the bleach to the grout in the mildewed area. I noted that the grout hidden by the caulk was not only mildewed but crumbling, and took out decayed sections. This worried me, and I consulted a few of my handyman friends to see if I should re-grout before re-caulking. The concensus was "no," so I forged ahead (mistake #1). The last step in the process involved applying the silicon caulk (a tube purchased at the local hardware store--mistake #2) and smoothing it with a little plastic caulk-smoothing tool. It was much stickier and messier than I had imagined, the caulk rapidly drying and getting tacky. Of course, it was a this moment when the phone rang. My husband was calling from the mountain top. Holding the phone with the backs of my wrists while caulk got into my hair, I tried to sound enthusiastic for five minutes (fatal mistake). By the time I got back to the bathtub, the caulk looked and felt like day-old chewed bubblegum; there was nothing smooth about it. I carved off the excess glop with a razor blade, then called a handyman friend and made plans to start the whole process from scratch when my husband went on his next mountaineering expedition. For round 2, I removed the glop with a razor blade (an evening's work) and the next day my friend came and applied the silicon caulk. "It's not great," he said. No argument from me. But it looked slightly less blobby, and cost much less than $300. The mildew returned, on schedule, a few months later, despite fans and cleaning efforts.

This year: the grout/caulk combo and the miracle of dish soap
Fortified by more do-it-yourself articles, I stripped the ghastly mildewed caulk, bleached, and then panicked when I saw even more disintegrated grout. I called the experts at the local tile store. Could they recommend a subcontrator to apply new grout and caulk for me? The tile person snorted like a sommelier at the Four Seasons being asked for Kool-Aid and said they did not know anyone who would be interested in such a small job. He suggested that I call a handyman. I informed him that I could do just as crappy a job as a handyman myself, and I didn't want a crappy job. He started to laugh, and told me to come over to the store to get a good grout and a special professional caulk instead of the stuff from the hardware store. That night my husband came back from a trip out of town to find the tub devoid of caulk. The "when can I use the shower?" clock began to tick, loudly.

The next morning I went to the fancy tile shop and a salesperson listened to my tale of woe. She told me there is a grout/caulk combo used by professionals that looks like sanded grout and is extremely good at filling spaces and keeping a tub wall watersafe (tip #1). She handed over the sanded grout/caulk (a mere $9) and told me to put it on and smooth it. She recommended dipping my finger in a mixture of water and a bit of dish soap to really make it smooth (tip #2).

The good news is that her technique worked. But it wouldn't have worked as well if I hadn't followed advice from one of the articles and masked the area to be caulked, 1/8" up the wall and 1/8" on the tub, using wide painter's tape (tip #3). My own touches included 30 latex medical gloves (available in bulk at your local drugstore) and a large grocery bag. You'll see why. Here's the drill:

[IMPORTANT NOTE: An updated and more detailed version of these instructions is posted at: http://themysterioustraveler.blogspot.com/2007/05/how-to-caulk-tub-shower.html I suggest you refer to the new version instead of the following.]

• Make sure the area to be caulked is clean, bleached, and dried and all traces of loose grout and old caulk have been removed.
• Tape the area to be caulked, as described above.
• Apply the grout/caulk bead using a good caulk gun.
• Place the grocery bag next to tub.
• Using a series of latex gloves and dipping your finger in a small container of water with a little dish detergent, begin smoothing the caulk bead. If glove gets gunky with caulk, put on a new glove. Otherwise, you will smear caulk on everything. Dump sticky gloves into grocery bag.
• Once the bead is smooth, remove tape from the tub side of the caulk line and dump the tape into the grocery bag. The do-it-yourself article didn't mention that there will now be a bit of a raised edge on the caulk where the tape was removed. Get out the gloves and start smoothing that border flat. Then remove the tape from the wall, put on more gloves, and smooth that border.
• You may also want to grout/caulk a few inches up the inner corner (or corners) of the show stall. Apply a short bead of caulk, and smooth to join the main caulking.
• Recap your tube of caulk with plastic wrap and tape. Dump bag of trash. Wait 72 hours, then enjoy.

No on Initiative 83

How many times do Seattle voters have to reapprove the monorail before the coalition of NIMBY groups in the city "gets it" that most people want an environmentally sensible rapid transit system in Seattle?

Initiative 83 would ban Seattle from ever considering the building of any monorail systems. Well, that'll certainly save us from ourselves.

What are people so scared of? Is Seattle so "special" that we can't live with overhead transportation like Chicago or Boston? I grew up in a house on a lovely residential street half a block from the El (elevated train) in Boston, and no one minded it--and that was a low-tech system built in the early 1900s! Mostly, we bragged about the convenience of our location. It was a fabulous connection for our neighborhood into all the resources of Boston's downtown. Seattle's downtown is a place I now avoid because of egregious parking prices, ghastly traffic, and skimpy mid-day bus service.

I was particularly disheartened by the hysterical anti-Monorail protests of one community group that turned out to be affected by the proximity of a monorail exactly four days out of every calendar year.

Let's Monorail! (Once again)

The Editor sounds off

some of my young colleagues in the tech industry affect a writing style for email that's devoid of capital letters. when i get messages from them, i'm never sure whether to be offended (because they can't be bothered to reach for the shift key) or flattered (because it's the way they write to other hip young things). at the moment, i'm amused.

Unable to recall the rules for capitalization in the real world, they apply initial caps with a heavy hand. While editing content for a website recently, I got to deal with gems like "big Savings for new Members" and "take advantage of this Limited-Time Offer."

If that is the way they think capitals work, I can see why they aren't using them. There were paragraphs that looked liked 18th century poets had come back from the dead and were working in marketing.

Editorial note: using an initial cap for concepts such as "savings" is called personification. An example is: Big Business. Personification conveys a poetic or ironic flavor, and should be used sparingly.

Zorg, aloft

My husband, aka Zorg, is on his way to Chicago. Here's his report from Sea-Tac departure, filed via his Treo:

"Some dolt was annoying everyone at the departure gate by repeatedly and endlessly saying 'testing 1-2-3-4-5' over the PA.

"Finally another voice came on the PA and said, 'Okay, we all know this guy can count to 5, but can he make it to 7?'

"We all chuckled. After a short pause a voice started repeating the 'testing' drone again.

"Wasting no time, the heckler came back on and said, 'Ladies and gentlemen, here at United we need to know how to count at least as far as 10.'

"We didn't hear any more 'testing' after that."

That's my cat, not the Thanksgiving turkey

Your vet might not tell you, but there are two ways to stitch up a cat after spaying. One is "internal" or "buried" stitches. The other is the traditional external skin stitches, in which the cat is laced up like a Thanksgiving turkey.

Buried stitches seem to be a bit more complicated for a vet to execute but have some advantages: Since they dissolve, the cat doesn't have to go back for a second visit to have the stitches removed. And since they are invisible, they don't tempt the cat to pick at them and rip them out. Buried stitches are used for spaying feral cats that are released into the wild a day or two following spaying.

Our sweet-tempered cat Zoe, spayed a couple weeks ago, was so pathetic in her plastic collar than we asked the vet if her high-strung sister, scheduled for spaying later this month, could have internal stitches. He said absolutely yes. And he urged us to let our friends know they can always ask to have their cat spayed by a vet who uses that option. So: Spare everyone the grief, ask for internal stitches.

Now this is hot chocolate

It's not just the calories and cholesterol that are dangerous when you serve these chocolates. Chocolate Roulette promises an unforgettable experience, particularly for the individual who selects not one of the praline-filled bon-bons but the jalapeno-filled bomb.

Suggested antidotes include fat, milk, banana, cider-and-milk, and olive oil. Bon apetit!

Seattle Industrial Chic

Friends were over to dinner Friday night and we were discussing the extreme artsification of the formerly industrial areas of Seattle's Fremont neighborhood. My husband, who used to have his law offices in the Pro Lab building, was saying something about a building that had been across the street, Fremont Bolt and Screw.

"With that name, they probably turned it into an ultra-hip nightclub," I said, thinking myself very clever.

"No," he corrected me, "that would be The Screw and Bolt."

Domestic notes

Cat updates: Zoe has been released from her cone-collar. She appears to be fully recovered from being spayed.

Washing machine: After reading up on the Maytag Neptune washer and learning that a sizeable number of owners are complaining about mold growing in the gasket around the door, I bought a Whirlpool Duet instead. It uses very little water (apparently this is a characteristic of front-loaders), is gentle on clothes, and has fast, medium and slow spin options. Now, if the gas company would just stop losing all of the applications from people on our street (they've done it three times already), we can get the matching dryer delivered.

Repossession

I like to go to bed early and lie there listening to the seals barking down at Shilshole Marina and the rumbling of the trains heading north to Canada on the tracks three blocks west of us.

I don't often get to bed early, but Thursday night I did. However, if there were any seals or trains, they were drowned out by the sounds of a commerical truck going forward, backing up, and idling loudly. Our street, which dead-ends in an alley, gets so little traffic, and most of that local, that we can recognize nearly every car that goes by. This truck was definitely not on the approved list.

We got up and went to the French doors and saw an open flatbed carrying an enormous glistening white SUV. The truck appeared to be offloading the SUV in the alley. We watched, puzzled, as the strange SUV was placed in front of the house across the street, because it certainly did not belong to the family in that house. The truck continued loudly maneuvering around and seemed to be positioning itself in front of the small brown truck that belongs to our nextdoor neighbor. He's been in hospice for the past week, dying of bone cancer. His teenage daughter had reported that afternoon, as she played with our kitten on the lawn, that her father was in a coma.

"Repo," my husband said grimly. "They're taking his truck. They always come in the middle of the night, or when no one's home."

Sure enough, the nextdoor neighbor's wife's car was gone; she was visiting him at the hospice.

There was no possibility of sleep with the ruckus out in the street, so I went out and asked what was going on. "He didn't make payments on the truck," the burly repo man said, defensively. By now several other folks were out on their front porches, watching. Call me sheltered, call me middle class, but repo men were something I've only seen on TV or in the movies.

Eventually the repo folks got our neighbor's truck loaded, and drove off with it, and at some point they removed the huge SUV as well. When we got up in the morning, there was an odd, empty space on the street where our nextdoor neighbor's truck had always been parked.

It gets worse (the debates)

Four years ago, watching the Bush v. Gore debate, I noticed Bush pause with that deer-in-the-headlights look of his. I was struck by how much he looked like someone listening to something else...like a prompter. I speculated uncharitably that Bush had been implanted with a device that allowed his handlers to tell him what to say, and his bizarre pauses were caused by malfunctions or slowdowns in the transmission.

Apparently, it's true, though he wears the device rather than has it implanted. Read this sobering story in Salon. If you don't need as balanced a report, check out the site isbushwired.com which includes gossip, speculation, and reports of broadcast equipment at Bush appearances accidentally picking up a channel with a prompter's voice (a different voice, saying many of the words of the speech) during Bush's speeches.

It's only a matter of time before someone figures out a way to hack Bush's prompting channel while he's mid-rant--even just a nice blast of loud noise would be delightful to watch.

Ready for the recount

This should interest Zorg, J Leroy, Moonlion and all the other election geeks: I just got email from the Kerry campaign (I'm a contributor) notifying me that the FEC has issued a ruling that authorizes the campaign to raise money for a GELAC fund. Translated into English, the Kerry campaign can now begin to raise money for a General Election Legal and Compliance Fund that will be used to finance recounts. The Kerry message to donors is "we'll be ready this time."

I was sort of mystified, as I thought "the government" paid for recounts. But I can see how you wouldn't want to rely on that these days.

Zoe is a brave little cat

Zoe is back from the vet, wearing a big clear plastic cone-shaped collar on her head so she won't be able to chew on her stitches. In spite of running into everything with the cone, she is purring away and trying to live life as usual. We took off her cone and let her go running in the backyard and fed her dinner (no fun in a cone). Unfortunately, when she stops running around she sits down and tries to chomp at the stitches, so we had to put the get-up back on again. Kaylee is being a jerk and hissing at poor Zoe. Little does she know that in three weeks, it will be her turn to get spayed and collared!

Mount St. Helens webcam

If you are following the hot air from the volcano, instead of from the debates, check here.

Two kittens are better than one

In June we got a pair of kittens and all summer we've enjoyed watching them tear through the house and play. They're cheerful, affectionate kittens. Today, Zoe, the larger and more mellow kitten, went off to the vet to get spayed. Kaylee, the small, high-strung kitten, couldn't go because she went into premature heat and just got out of it yesterday. So I'm home alone with Kaylee. I have had my ears washed three times, my toes bitten, and found myself breaking out the catnip at 10 a.m. in the hopes of getting a respite from my new job as stand-in for sister Zoe. Sheba demanded to be let out of the house, and Betaille is hiding somewhere upstairs.

We should have arranged for a "loaner" kitten, I think.

Plain and simple

Here's a link to one of my favorite websites: Well written, easy to navigate and easy to use. Decidedly unglamourous, but it follows the basic principles of good web design for small businesses. The phone number is the most prominent feature on every page and the answers to basic questions (what are the services, how do I pay, etc.) are in a lefthand nav bar and thus always just one click away from the page you are on. Plus, there's a sense of humor throughout--check out the FAQ.

Only two more days til BlogACatMas

According to the Accordion Guy blog Friday is BlogACatMas, celebrated by posting the picture of a kitty on your blog. Don't ask me, it was his idea.

What's next?

Kaylee the kitten went into premature heat yesterday, and by last night was crawling around on her elbows and knees, trilling. It was pathetic. Even more pathetic--and somewhat alarming--was her sister Zoe, who was trying to help Kaylee out by performing the male role without the necessary equipment. By this morning both of them seemed exhausted. We're told Kaylee's first heat could last anywhere from two days to two weeks, and she can't be spayed until she's completely out of it. They were scheduled for spaying mid-October, but I immediately called the vet and got them to take Zoe this Friday, hoping she won't follow her precocious sister's example before then.

The phone, which lately seems to be controlled by a cosmic routing system that knows exactly when I'm in the shower or asleep, rang at 7:45 a.m. this morning. By the time I got to it, the caller had hung up, leaving no message. Caller ID showed it was our housecleaner, who then didn't show up for the weekly cleaning gig at 9.

It's probably just as well. By noon a garbage bag had leaked in the kitchen. At 1 p.m., a horrible "hrorrrping" sound had Kaylee and Zoe and me all standing at the bottom of the stairs looking up at the bedroom. When it stopped, we crept upstairs to find the walk-through closet, the bathroom, and the bedroom covered with cat barf, and Betaille glaring at all of us. I set about cleaning that up with spray cleaner and a roll of paper towels, with Kaylee and Zoe "helping." That, of course, is when the phone rang again. One of my contractors is coming over to look at the fence posts which are rotting out from under the fence (another reminder of the previous owners and their artsy cosmetic construction techniques).

After the work day (yes, I work full time from home) is over, I have to go down to the basement and have another go-round with the washer. It's objecting to full loads, and making its feelings know by accessing a cache of old dirt and adding that to the rinse water. I'm coddling it with medium loads and planning to buy a Maytag Neptune or a Whirlpool Duet. Recommendations, anyone?

Why Bush is going to stay in office

Bush is going to stay in office for two reasons:

1. Because he'll stop at nothing. Florida 2000 was just a taste of the nasty polling-place antics that will be going on in swing states (face it, the other states were written off months ago) in the final few days of the campaign.

2. Because, in our heart of hearts, most Americans want Bush in power. Even plenty of Americans who will go quietly to the polls and cast a sanctimonious little vote for Kerry will do so because they're secure in the knowledge that Bush's camp will figure out a way to stay out on top.

Bush's foreign policy is our dirty little affair. Here we are, with our ultra-luxurious lifestyles, laying waste to the natural resources of the world. Now we've got a president who's doing everything he can to protect those lifestyles by protecting the big corporations that make them possible. It used to be feasible for the U.S. to purchase other countries' resources by purchasing the regimes that controlled those countries. Now that it's become more difficult to keep those rented regimes in power, Bush has cut out the middle man and simply invaded an oil-rich country with the aim of setting up a structure the U.S. will control from the outset. That other nations and the UN would have no part of these goings-on has made it even easier for the U.S. (and even more terrifying for the people being invaded, but that's another story).

Bush has made it clear to everyone that his foreign policy consists of conquering and controlling the world's oil resources while repeating the words "fighting the war on terror" with all the sincerity of a jerk who, kicking and barging his way through a crowd, mumbles "excuse me."

The really scary part is that lots of people are secretly grateful. And just look around and you'll see plenty of people who are publicly grateful. They were brought up to believe that Americans have the God-given right to live like kings at the expense of the majority of the world's population. In their view, who cares if Bush is a buffoon, a lightweight, a dim bulb, and a hypocrite? He's defending, perpetuating, and glorifying "the American way."

Is it any wonder that skilled politicians like Gore and Kerry and even Dean end up looking like wimps and scolding nannies by comparison? What else is the anti-Bush message except: We're greedy hogs and we need to stop buying SUVs, sucking up power, eating strawberries in January, and swimming in a sea of packaging materials.

Yeah, people really want to hear that.

No wonder Bush has that smirk on his face.

Today in Afghanistan

Well, I'm not blogging much, but everyone else is. On the serious side, check out the new Today in Afghanistan.

On the lighter side, Kaylee and Zoe have started a diary on their Catster page. Look them up on the site and scroll to the bottom of their page to see the world from the perspective of two five-month old kittens.

More from Adlai Stevenson

My husband brought up another Adlai Stevenson quote that's all too appropriate for the current presidential campaign:

"I have been thinking that I would make a proposition to my Republican friends... that if they will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them." (from Stevenson's 1952 campaign)

Read more Stevenson quotes, and here's Slate's take on Stevenson's political appeal.

Why I'm campaigning for Kerry

During Adlai Stevenson's 1956 presidential campaign, a woman at a rally called to him, "You have the vote of every thinking person!" Stevenson replied "That's not enough, madam, we need a majority!"

Welcome to 2004. If you want to see the last of Bush and the cronies he fronts for, it's not going to be enough just to vote for John Kerry. You'll need to bring someone else along with you. Maybe it's a well-intentioned neighbor who gets "too busy" to go to the polls, or a newcomer to the state who hasn't registered yet. Get off your butt and get out the vote.

I'm not just voting for Kerry, I'm campaigning. My expectations of Kerry are modest and reasonable: I don't expect him to agree with me on every issue. I don't expect him to end the war, create millions of jobs, rescue social security, institute universal healthcare, legalize gay marriage, or save the environment. I do expect him to turn the ship of state slowly in those directions. Most importantly, I have every confidence that his administration will foster an environment in which we can discuss and work on these issues without the likelihood of being labeled anti-Christian, extreme, or wimpy, or--if we keep sounding off--getting labeled a "terrorist" and swept off to a prison where we will be held indefinitely without access to legal representation.

Whining about Kerry not being liberal enough for you? Get off it. It's not going to be Kerry's job, as president, to change America. It's ours. His job, leadership, is to return us to an environment in which we can do our work as citizens without fear.

Walla Wallas

Cookbook author Maida Heatter writes today in Salon about onion sandwiches. The article includes a recipe from James Beard. Heatter notes "Before Beard became famous for his cooking classes and cookbooks, he ran a catering business that specialized in hors d'oeuvres--and he told me once that onion sandwiches were his most popular item. He'd sold millions of them, he said. That may be, but I later learned that his recipe for them varied from publication to publication."

I have a better recipe, a non-hors d'oeuvres version, than the one she provides. It came from my late uncle Bob Anderson who demonstrated it one summer when he was visiting me in Seattle during Walla Walla season. Here it is:

• Black Russian rye bread (such as Bremner Brothers)
• buttter
• Walla Walla onion, peeled and sliced thinly
• Dijon mustard
• sugar
• lemon juice

Cover the bottom slice of bread with butter and the top slice with Dijon. Place sliced onions on the buttered slice, sprinkle the onions lightly with sugar (about 1/2 tsp. for a small sandwich, and 1 tsp for a large sandwich) and then dampen the sugar with lemon juice (1/2 to 1 tsp.) and top with the Dijon-spread slice.

Caution: It's essential to make this with very fresh, in-season sweet onions. Regular yellow or white onions will taste bitter, and older sweet onions will make you think that Heatter, Beard, Uncle Bob and I are all crazy.

Good news in the polls

The Seattle Times reports today that Mark Sidran is gaining on Deborah Senn in the Washington State Attorney General's race, great news for anyone who watched Senn ride roughshod over the state healthcare system during her notorious tenure as the state Insurance Commissioner. Her name recognition is higher than Sidran's, but for all the wrong reasons.

I find that Sidran is a sharp, principled guy who can stand up and take it if (gasp) someone doesn't agree with him. I don't agree with all of his actions as Seattle's city attorney, but I respect them. I could go on at length...but Al Franken says it so much more entertainingly.

Summer's end

Summer means fried clams and chocolate malts. So yesterday I walked down to Gordo's on Seaview for lunch. Seaview Avenue looks like the main street of a small, Northern California coastal town; the sort of town where the private investigator in a 70s movie drives to question an obscure and reluctant witness. Restaurants, boatyards, and marinas line the water side of the shore road, and an assortment of shacks, beach cottages, and 60s-era commerical buildlings (stucco with bulbous brown-tinted windows) line the other side. No cross streets--a railroad runs behind the buildings.
Gordo's take-out is in one of the shacks, with wooden picnic tables on the front and side. Judging from the pop-art font on the signage (listing every item on the menu) Gordo's has been there a good long while. While the food is hardly health food, the portions are modest, and inexpensive. My little bag of clams and a medium-size malted came to under $5, and the clams were as close in taste (though not texture) as you get to Cape Cod style fried clams on the West Coast. The malted had a subtle cocoa taste--not sickeningly sweet like most of the soft ice cream that turns up at more commercial places.
Next to Gordo's parking lot is Abbondanza, an outdoor lot filled with concrete garden art surrounded by a chain-link fence. The art ranges from the tacky to the chic. They have dark gray Japanese lanterns, elegant green leaping fish designed as fountains, cross-legged Hindu gods, huge Buddha faces, elegant Greco-Roman pedestals, elaborate English planters, and New Age wall plaques of suns and moon. I saw bunnies and, I think, some gnomes and gargoyles in there as well. And some statues of the Virgin Mary. And some Grecian nudes. Every September Abbondanza has a huge 50-percent-off sale, advertised on with posters on phone poles all over North Seattle. Otherwise, it's rarely open. It's definitely where the private investigator would be snooping around, looking for the mysterious witness. Then he'd go next door to Gordo's and get some clams.

Blogging fantasy

In the early days of the internet, you'd stumble onto sites that were so esoteric as to be incomprehensible. Today, most sites fall into a readily recognizable pattern. Yawn. Well, here's one that will have you pondering. Check out a couple of blog listings; scroll all the way down to the bottom of a page. Not sure what's behind this, but someone's sure gone to a lot of trouble to create it. And, yes, The Mysterious Traveler Sets Out is listed.

Firefox

Mozilla's new Firefox browser gives me access to more blogger composition features and shortcuts. Very cool. Very very cool. Soon I'll be abusing things like font sizes, bold, italics, and lists. And colors.

Spoiling the kitties

A few new products for our feline friends:

Beastie Bands are ultra-lightweight stretch material cat collars with velcro closures. They are the perfect first collar for kittens. (Kaylee demonstrates.)

You simply cut the collar material to adjust the length (so the poor kitten isn't running around with extra collar flapping). And there's a small grommet so you can attach a little tag. We made "trainer" tags for the kittens on the machine at the pet supply supermarket. These are just tiny metal tags--the big plastic reflector tags the adult cats wear would have been ridiculous.

The Self-Warming Cat Cushion from Petsmart actually requires a cat to supply the power. This faux-fur plush pad has a lining made out of reflective material (a space blanket?) that reflects back the cat's heat. Our cats love it. Completely washable.

The big find was the Berber Deluxe Slumber Ball from Drs. Foster and Smith. The 26" medium size slumber ball is an immense ball of ultra-light fiberfill covered in synthetic berber fleece. A big cat like Sheba climbs on and sinks slowly into the middle, purring furiously. Show 'em, Sheba:

The kittens like it too but since they don't weigh enough to compress the ball, they tend to slide slowly off while sleeping. I'm trying to imagine what the large (32") slumber ball would be like--perhaps if our next cat is a mountain lion...These are completely washable, but you'd have to have a big washing machine.

Last but not least--we came across tiny round faux-fur throw rugs at Fred Meyers called Faux Katti. Despite the name, these are not in the pet department, but in the rug aisle. They have non-skid backing, so you can put them on the floor or the desk and the cats won't go surfing all over the room on them. We had been putting fleece throws on our desks for the cats to hang out on, but the rugs are much better. The cats think so, too.

Farewell to Fremont

Twenty years ago, the Seattle neighborhood of Fremont was a hillside community of old clapboard houses anchored by a commercial crossroads of cafes, vintage junk stores, and artisans' shops. The inhabitants were aging hippies, youthful artists, and everyone in between. I used to go there to hang out for hours over big breakfasts (late in the morning), cheap teriyaki (late at night), and gooey pastries and coffee (all afternoon).

Flash forward. A behemoth natural foods boutique supermarket now stands at the heart of the Fremont universe, next to a condo/office building encircled with gleaming metal trim that resembles high-end barbed wire. A famous software company inhabits a sprawling complex across the street. Many of the people on the street sport the company's security badges. Vintage is gone; reproduction vintage abounds.

If you are in the low-ceilinged, crowded underground parking garage beneath the natural foods shrine (where I was at noon today) you might get the sense that something is wrong in Fremont. Take a deep breath. The air smells of rotting produce and garbage--organic, I'm sure, but decidely unpleasant. Watch out for the pricey sports cars and immense SUVs circling the garage in a hunt for spaces. They are driven by attractive young women wearing up-to-the millisecond fashion or graying, middle-aged ex-hippies wearing expensive dress casual. Everyone is wearing an expression of impatience and disgust as they wait for you to scurry across the road—or don't wait, and zoom right at you. This is not a friendly place.

I'm here for my first lunch with a group of area professionals who gather once a month at a restaurant in the middle of Fremont. I walk in to a high-ceilinged, wood-paneled quasi-Asian bistro. The noise level there is comparable to the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. The waitress points out the professional group, crammed together at four tables without a seat to spare. This is not a place I want to be. I walk out and head back to the parking garage, where I patiently extricate myself from the cramped spot, waiting while the driver of the SUV in front of me indulges herself in a meditative trance in the middle of the exit lane. Then I work my way, block by block, out of Fremont, each intersection gridlocked by a truck or a van trying to get into a parking space or around another commercial vehicle. Perhaps a Bostonian could feel at home here.

Eventually, I'm on Leary Way, headed back home to Ballard. I park on Ballard Avenue, go into Burk's Cafe, order a gumbo with tasso and an iced coffee, and sit in the cool restaurant watching people stroll by on the quiet cobblestone street outside. A Beau Jocque zydeco CD plays in the background. I recognize several of the people lunching in the courtyard. One of the kids from my drumming class comes in and we chat about what they covered in the Tuesday class I missed. The restaurant packs up my leftovers for me, and I head back to the car.

On the way home, I stop at Limback Lumber to pick up a piece of plywood I'll be using to winterize Betaille's outdoor cat shelter. The salesman recognizes me; he goes back and cuts the plywood to the exact size I need. I recognize two of the five contractors who come in while I'm there.

Like a few other older businesses on Leary Way, Stone Way, and Elliot Avenue, Limback maintains a large reader board atop their building. On my way out, I look up and check out the latest.

"Ballard's a-changing," it says. "But we aren't."

Amen.

[FOLLOW-UP NOTE: In summer 2006 Limback took down their reader board, leaving me to wonder if change had caught up with them at last. Fortunately, it was just temporary while the building was re-roofed. -- MT]

Pears everywhere

It's hard to walk across our patio without being hit on the head by a big, falling pear.

Whomp! Guess I need to get out there and pick them.

I'm never quite sure what to do with pears, other than slice them and eat them with cheese or poach them in wine. You can't really put them on cereal, pear cake isn't as interesting as apple cake, and I'm not into making elaborate tarts and stuff just to get a few pear slices on top. Pear jam? Pear sauce? Brandied pears?

Tonight I researched pear soup and came up with a surprising number of recipes. Some of them date back to European medieval cookery.

Categories include:
• Sweet, chilled pear soup: usually with other fruits, pureed, seasoned with aniseed, and often served for dessert.
• Savory squash and pear soup. All sorts of squashes, sweet potatoes or yams join pears and onions.
• Pear soup with melted brie: involves chicken broth and sounds pretty good.
• The weird ones: pear soup with broccoli, etc...
• My favorite: roasted eggplant, red pepper and pear soup. The recipe, credited to the Mistral Restaurant in California, makes 3-1/2 gallons of the stuff and involves 14 pears.

Turns out you can stuff pears with cheese (blue cheese, cream cheese, ricotta cheese) and bake or grill them.

And I did manage to come up with a recipe for brandied pears:

Scald and peel the fruit; make a syrup of half a pound of sugar to each pound of fruit; drop in the pears, and, when done, put in jars. Boil syrup a little longer, and allow it to cool; then add one pint of brandy to each quart of syrup, and pour over the pears.

Bon apetit!

Thud.

Bad beginnings

I work up around 7:45 this morning to see the white cat slinking guilty off the bed. Sure enough, she had barfed on the blanket. I whisked the blanket onto the floor, rolled over, and tried to sleep for 15 more minutes while the kittens rocketed around the bedroom in pursuit of the white cat. The white cat took refuge on a high shelf, then began moving items on the shelf off the edge and onto the floor to alert me to her predicament. As she worked her way over to a glass candle holder, I got up and got her off the shelf. Confident I was ready to get up and feed them, the three felines thundered downstairs.

I showered, dressed and sat down to work at the computer. At 11:30 I remembered I'd invited someone to lunch. It was not someone I wanted to have lunch with, so the cooking (Mark Bittman's version of salad Nicoise, from How to Cook Everything) was more fun than the actual meal. After the guest left, I remembered the blanket upstairs, took that down to the laundry room, and ran a load of wash before sitting back down to work. At 3:45 I went for a walk. My neighbor Henry was out working in his yard, as usual, and I remarked on his ancient metal trash cans--they really have attained collectible status! As I got back from my walk, my husband called with his daily report and we discussed how to keep the more enterprising kitten from flying, leaping, and slithering out the door at every opportunity. Then it was back to work, which is pretty much tying up lots of odds and ends this week while my boss is on vacation.

This evening I wind up the final phase of our anti-flea campaign, spraying cat tree Number 4 (which is outdoors drying off from being carpet shampooed yesterday) with Adams Inverted Carpet Spray. I haven't found any fleas on the cats for several days, but I want to be vigilant while the weather is still good and I can take the cat trees outdoors to be sprayed.

The kittens are now taking Frontline (the genuine veterinary version), but before they were old enough for that treatment, they managed to infest the house. Fortunately, we have hardwood floors and leather furniture, so I've been able to address the flea problem by washing the cat beds every couple of days and taking each of the cat trees outdoors for washing and spraying. Adams Inverted Carpet Spray (I just love that name) is supposed to be effective for more than 200 days, so we should be safe until next spring.

Adieu, Julia

ABC News has a wonderful obituary for Julia Child.

I met her in 1980 when the Meriden Record-Journal assigned me to write about a local chef (from Wallingford, Connecticut) who'd been asked to cook lunch for Julia Child while she rehearsed for a show at Long Wharf Theater in New Haven. I arrived at the theater and was given the brush-off by a snotty young theater employee who left me to cool my heels in the darkened lobby. Suddenly a door flew open and very tall woman peered into the lobby--it could only be Julia Child. I identified myself and explained I was there not to bother her but to write about the local chef. "Marvelous!" she whooped, putting her arm around me and ushering me into the theater. She had a kitchen set up on-stage, and her husband was sitting on a stool, reading the newspaper. Child hustled me backstage to a corner where the local guy and his assistant were freneticly attempting to prepare an elaborate lunch for America's most famous chef on a small table using a couple of electric frying pans.

"Oh, it's going to be wonderful," Child assured all of us. And it was.

Here's a story about all the folks visiting the Julia Child kitchen exhibit (her actual Cambridge, Mass., kitchen) at the Smithsonian to pay tribute to her.

San Jose airport, revisited

Stuck in the San Jose airport tonight and not sure when the plane, scheduled to take off 11 minutes ago, will arrive. I'm connected to the internet using the Wayport WiFi service ($6.95 a day), and wondering why airline terminals are filled with people with laptops but pretty much devoid of electrical outlets for recharging them. I remember writing about this problem 12 years ago for my Mac user group newsletter; it's appalling there's been no noticeable improvement in the interim. I suspect that people who commute more often than I do simply carry a spare battery (about $100 for most laptops) with them.

The 5 p.m. to Phoenix is now boarding (more than 2 hours late) so that doesn't bode well for our flight.

Now they moved us to another gate....

Yet more alarms at night

When I babysit, my favorite story to read to kids is James Thurber's "The Night the Bed Fell," in which the visit of hypochondriacal cousin Briggs sets off a chain reaction of nocturnal disasters in the already volatile Thurber household.

We've had a couple nights like that here this week. Monday night someone exploded fireworks on a barge anchored in Shilshole Bay a few blocks below our house, terrifying the cat who sleeps at the head of our bed so that she pounced, snarling, across my pillow on her way out of the bedroom.

Last night I was awoken by the crash of pottery down in the living room. Sheba, the deaf white cat, spends the night racing between various first floor windows, "guarding" the house from racoons, possums, and neighborhood cats. Something on the front porch scared her badly enough that she leaped onto the fireplace mantel, displacing a Mission-style yellow vase that shattered on the hearth below. I went downstairs and found Sheba, purring in terror, under the coffee table. All the racket had awoken the kittens, who sleep in the basement, and they were meowing and scratching at the door of their room. Betaille, the cat from the head of the bed (who had been hiding under the bed in case of more fireworks) came tearing down the stairs to be let out the front door. By the time I got Betaille out and Sheba comforted, and went back to bed, the fun had just started. Alaska Airlines, which has a flight path directly over our street, seemed to be staging an invasion of Sea-Tac airport. Then the seagulls started up, and the train went by, and the newspaper delivery person, who must be earning money to afford a new muffler, roared down the street thwacking newspapers onto the porches. My husband began snoring softly, with overtones that sounded like a phone ringing far, far away, though not quite far enough.

I knew better than to complain. A bleary sleeper is no match for those who are abroad in the night. In the Thurber essay "A Succession of Maids," Mrs. Thurber wakes in the wee hours to hear Gertie, the family's housekeeper, coming in from a night on the town, crashing into chairs and tables as she makes her way to her room. "What are you doing?" Mrs. Thurber shouts inanely. "Dusting," replies Gertie.

Geek lifestyle

Popular Science writer Larry Smith spent the first 10 days of 2004 using no technology less than 50 years old. Ironically, much of his article is still about chasing technology. Only instead of checking out the latest iPod, he's visiting old technology shops buying typewriters and black and white TVs. I think he missed the point that there weren't enough geeks around for there to be a geek lifestyle in 1954. Had he been a genuine 1954 geek, he'd have been putting together a ham radio operation, or building a Heathkit stereo or television.

Smith's article holds few surprises--quite the opposite of "And the Dish Ran Away with the Spoon," Paul Di Filippo's mind-blowing, and wildly amusing SF story about quasi-sentient 21st-century household objects that gang up on their owners. You can find this gem online (scifi.com), and in The Year's Best Science Fiction, 21st Annual Collection.

Life with kittens: Insect phase

The kittens have entered their insect phase: They have long legs, spring like spiders, and are definitely pests. This morning I opened the front door to let Sheba out and, like most adult cats, she paused on the threshold to ruminate about life. Meanwhile Kaylee, the smaller kitten, launched from the staircase, crossed the livingroom in three sproiings and flew right over Sheba out onto the porch. Kaylee was temporarily stunned when she landed, enabling me to grab her--which is why I'm writing this rather than crawling around in the neighbors' shrubbery cooing "here, kitty, kitty, kitty."

Zoe is still busy collecting and shredding credit card receipts. MBNA called this morning, trying to upgrade me to something, and asked if I was "the primary card user." Zoe trotted by with a receipt and I considered letting the sales rep talk with her.

I set up the Panic Mouse and let them play with that while I was working. But eventually Kaylee came in and got interested in the cursor on the screen. I decided to amuse her by playing a QuickTime movie, and Googled "kitten movie." To my surprise, the third result I clicked on was the kitten movie I'd made of Kaylee and Zoe, so Kaylee ended up watching her younger self rip apart our diningroom curtains and wrestle with Zoe. I grabbed the new digital video camera and quickly taped her pawing at her own screen image...yes, this is getting ridiculous.

Cats' past lives

On my bulletin board is a copy of the famous New Yorker cartoon showing a couple and their horrified guest as they come upon the family cat savagely attacking an upholstered chair. The resigned owner explains cheerfully "We believe that in a former life she was an editor."

I'm sitting here watching our kitten Zoe as she selects a credit card receipt from the bowl on my file cabinet and carries it off to the livingroom to be shredded. When she finishes with a receipt, the ink is invisible and the paper is perforated to limpness with thousands of tiny pinpoints of claw marks. Then she comes back and carefully selects another. I check the name of the store as she goes by to make sure it's nothing I need to save.

Her sister Kaylee cares nothing for finances, but appears to be planning an assault on the bookcase. Lightweight and powerful, Kaylee is able to go halfway up the flat surface of a door before losing momentum.

Hot

Hot. Hot. Hot. Hot.

The fan on my iMac was running unusually loudly this afternoon. I realized it, too, was hot. It's now 9 p.m. and 88 degrees in our livingroom, even with both the front and back doors open and a fan running. The upstairs, a converted attic, is unspeakable. The basement TV room is about 78.

Perfect weather to listen to a ballgame on the radio. The Mariners are leading Anaheim 3-2 in the 7th...

Perhaps it looked good on paper?

Everytime I battle my way into one of the ladiesrooms in the Southwest terminal of the San Jose airport, I expect to encounter a group of architecture students taking notes on the utter idiocy of the bathroom design. It must be a textbook example of how not to design a public restroom.

The doorless entrances are twisting, narrow corridors that put luggage-toting women entering the room on a collision-course with women who have washed their hands and trying to find the paper towel dispensers. The two towel dispensers are positioned at the far ends of the long counter lined with sinks. Anyone who has used one of the five sinks and needs a towel must back away from the sink, hands dripping, leave her luggage blocking access to the sink, and clamber over the luggage of every other woman at the counter before colliding with the incoming stream of travelers entering next to the towels. Dripping, leaping and exhausted, the handwashers look like Pacific salmon heading upstream.

The toilet stalls are obviously the work of the same clueless designer. They can accommodate a toilet, you, and your luggage—but whoever designed them did not take into account the fact that the user would need to open the door to get herself and her luggage in and out of the stall. (Perhaps they though she'd heave the bag over the top, or push the bag in and vault over it?) I admit that I take the risk and leave my luggage outside the stall door. My bag is large, and my reasoning is that anyone trying to make off with it would get stuck in the bottleneck at the towel dispensers long enough for me to flush, get out, and reclaim my bag.

The looks on the faces of women as they try to get into those stalls range from grim determination (frequent fliers, they've been there before) to horror and panic--that usually from women who must try to figure out how to squeeze in with both their luggage and their squirming kids.

The restroom entrances are dog-leg bends without any doors, so the exterior signage for "Men" and "Women" must be posted elsewhere (such as high above the doors). Since the restrooms for "Men" and "Women" are right next to each other, it can be tricky to differentiate between the two. At least that's my explanation for what I witnessed a few weeks ago. I was sitting in a Southwest waiting area, facing the restrooms, and noticed a male business traveler clearly looking for the facilities. In his hurry, he turned one entryway too soon. There were shrieks from a herd of female towel-seekers; he emerged red-faced and hurried down the concourse, headed in the direction of the International terminal where, one hopes, they have normal restrooms.

Music for the Mariners

I went to my annual Mariners' game last night—seats behind third base for a Red Sox game were my gift to my mother for her 86th birthday. (And, yes, seats in a decent section are worth $120 each.)

It was about as good as baseball gets. Both teams are having lousy seasons, characterized by weak hitting in the bottom of the order for both. But it was a tight game, with lots of runners on base and full counts. It went extra innings, displayed a total of 10 pitchers (!), and included stolen bases, errors, hit batters, brilliant line drives, sacrifices, bunts, home runs, and a grand slam. About all we were missing was a manager yelling at an umpire and stomping on his hat--but they probably don't do that on the West Coast.

Pitching ranged from excellent (Boston's Arroyo went 7 innings, allowed only 1 run, and got Ichiro to strike out looking in the 6th) to wild (Seattle's Villone and the Sox's Foulke, who each hit a batter). I'd never seen the Mariner's reliever Mike Myers pitch before--his pitch appears to be underhand, quite fast, and, with two out and a runner on second in the top of the 11th, saved the game by befuddling Johnny Damon into flying out.

Safeco Stadium is a great stadium, well lit without glare, outdoors yet sheltered, and very "retro" in its feel. The fans were for the most part well-behaved. Though I think it's rude to depart in the 7th inning just because your team is losing at that point. And, as it turned out, it was stupid as well.

Initially I was appalled by the snippets of loud rock and pop music (not organ versions, but the actual tracks) that blast over the loudspeaker after every play. I fantasized that if I were Paul Allen I'd pay to have an evening in which the only music would be the traditional ballpark organ (the Mariners have a good organist). But I had to admit that the DJ programming the tracks was pretty damn sharp. After a runner was caught between first and second, he (she?) played The Clash ("Should I Stay or Should I Go?"); as the coaches huddled to discuss yanking a beseiged pitched, it was the Dave Clark Five's "Do You Love Me?"

If you've lost touch with baseball, this season with the Mariners could be the time to get back in the groove. Safeco Field is probably one of the best fields in baseball (terrific food, including the suishi bar featuring the Ichiro Roll, and Hebrew National hot dogs). And, if you haven't seen the brilliant fielding and selfless batting of Ichiro Suzuki, you haven't seen baseball as an art form.

A nice place to follow the games is on the Major League Baseball section of the well-designed Sports Networks site, where you can see plenty of game info absolutely free: Previews, Matchups, Lineups, a wonderful narrative Log, a Wrap, and the Box Score.

For tickets, try the official Mariners site, which will lead you to TicketMaster, or, for good seats, go to the Mariners section of Stub Hub where you can pick up tickets that season ticket holders are selling. The closer you get to game day, the cheaper the ticket prices.

10 good things this weekend

1. Free lunch. I had lunch at a local breakfast/sandwich place, family owned. When I went to pay, the fellow at the register asked me how long I'd been a customer. "Twenty years," I said. He smiled and said "I thought so," and said that many years ago, when he'd been working on the kitchen weekends and learning the business from his uncle, he'd seen me jump up from breakfast and bus tables to help a swamped waitress. Now he owns the place--and he wouldn't let me pay for my lunch!

2. Free beret. Every summer a 60-something woman who lives a few blocks from us has a huge yard sale. It's very cool, and a little scary, because it's obvious she has a house just overflowing with items: Vases, boxes, candleholders, baskets, rugs, kitchen items, etc. The sale is on tables all over her backyard, amidst a garden with beautiful flowers, shrubs, and vines. At the back of the garden is a shabby chic garden shed with strange metal items hung all over the exterior and all sorts of treasures inside. It's clear she'll never get rid of it all, no matter how many yard sales she has. I bought a hooked rug, and then noticed a purple sequined beret. She went in the garden shed, got me a mirror, and we agreed the beret was just right. And she insisted on giving it to me! I felt like I was being officially initiated into the cult of Crazy Old Bats. It could be worse. I could become one of those uptight old gals with astroturf on the porch stair, black wrought-iron railings, plastic ducks on the lawn, and plastic pots with bright red geraniums and bright purple lobelia.

3. Kittens. The kittens, now named Zoe and Kaylee (after the characters in Firefly) are 11 weeks old. They have the sweetest dispositions, and want to curl up in your lap and get petted.

4. Salad. I bought two enormous bags of gourmet salad greens at the Cash and Carry for a party we had Thursday. Now we are living on leftover greens. They're so delicious you don't even need to put salad dressing on them--just a few drops of vinegar.

5. Quail eggs. Ken brought us a half-dozen quail eggs Thursday. I can hardly wait to make French toast.

6. Karam's garlic sauce. While planning a huge salad for a potluck this evening (those salad greens!) I remembered Karam's garlic sauce. Fortunately, the QFC still carries it. Outrageous stuff. I used it, tempered half and half with vinaigrette, as the dressing for a Greek salad.

7. The storage locker. Every time I visit our storage locker and imagine all the stuff in there (30 boxes of Stanglware, a trunk full of vintage comics, the original boxes for all our computer gear, a dozen framed paintings we don't want on our walls, and extra pieces of our vinyl flooring, marmoleum, and Corian) cluttering up the garage instead, I want to get down on my knees and bless the person who invented storage lockers.

8. My husband. Who let me weasel out of going to the potluck this evening.

9. SF collections. So I can read without getting so wrapped up in a full-length novel that I stay up until 2 a.m.

10. Sheba, our deaf white cat. She has stopped attacking the next door neighbors' cat. The means we can now let her outside without hearing the bloodcurdling screams of her victim--and the victim's owners.

Need DayDoubler for OS X

A useful Mac utility called DayDoubler was mentioned in the MailBITS section of a 1994 issue of TidBITS. Does anyone know if it's now available for Mac OS X? I didn't try it at the time, but I think I could use it now. Here's the description of the original version:

DayDoubler is a new product from Connectrix that gives you those extra hours in each day that we've been asking for. Using sophisticated time mapping and compression techniques to double the number of hours in the day, DayDoubler gives you access to 48 hours each day. With the shareware hack MaxDay, you can easily stretch your day to 60, 72, or even 96 hours! Connectrix warns that at the higher numbers DayDoubler becomes less stable and that you run the risk of a temporal crash in which everything from the beginning of time to the present would come crashing down around you, sucking you into a black hole.

Should this occur, be sure to reboot with the shift key down.

I tried contacting the fellow who reviewed the product for TidBITS, but mail to his halycon.com email address bounced.

Turquoise moth (test)

Every night there is a small bright turquoise moth in our bathroom, visiting our cat, who seems very excited to see it. I searched the internet for information on turquoise moths, but all the information was about mottled, pale turquoise moths. This one is plain, bright, turquoise--verging on a blue-green.

Any ideas?

The revolt of the machines

I'll bet there's a "law" of some sort describing the tendency of household appliances to malfunction in groups of threes. I've always referred to it as "the revolt of the machines," and it seems to happen every couple of years. It's happening right now: First it was the coffeemaker (flooding); then the toaster oven (powering on and off at will); and finally the ancient fax machine (choking when I tried to fax a multi-page fax).

It was only after replacing the fax machine and discovering the problem was not with the old machine but with my employer's fancy fax server (it was accepting the first page of our faxed expense reports, then cutting off the connection) that I came to the chilling realization: Somewhere in the house, there is a third appliance getting ready to fail.

While ironing in the laundry room tonight I heard a tell-tale screeching from the washing machine. It sounds as though a belt or some such is in dire distress. Oh no! That machine has got to hold out until the gas company runs a line to our house in the next month or so and I can get a washer/dryer set with a gas dryer.

Maybe the cheap clock radio would like to sacrifice itself?