Search This Blog

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

The Shoemaker's Children Have No Shoes

And the Dumbplumber's wife has a leak in the pump house. Poetic justice I guess.

It has been cold, cold, cold here and as I said in my last post my hubby has gotten sick from being out in it fixing broken pipes and thawing out pump houses. He has been bitching and complaining about how people can't figure out how water freezes at 32 degrees and when it is -12 degrees it really really is going to freeze. Stupid people!!.

Well........despite keeping a nasty (and about to be banned in California) incandescent bulb on for heat inside our insulated and air tight (more about that in a minute) pump house, we sprung a leak. No. Not just a leak ......a flood. On Sunday, we went into the pump house for a few supplies and a necessary bottle of wine and everything was just fine. Yesterday (Monday) the hubby goes to feed the quail who have been nagging vociferously for their hand out and tries to open the door. We have two doors on the building. One that opens outward and another that opens inward. Hmmmmm? What's the deal? Why won't the inward door open? Because there is a foot of water flooding the building, due to the airtight condition!!!! That's why.

Opening the door, by forcing back the floating bags of now totally soaked bird seed, the water comes flooding out. Why is the pump still on? Um.... we forgot? Ok. We're stupid just like all of the people he has been complaining about.

So, Mr. Dumbplumber gives his wife a call at work to spread the bad news. Oh SHIT!!!!. I had a couple of boxes of books on the floor that I was planning to bring inside. They are history. Really sad, because some of them were hard back books from college that I liked that are now out of print and a couple of collect able Rex Stouts. Sigh. I guess, I'll start perusing EBay and ELibris to see if I can find replacements.

Also on the bottom shelves were several boxes of craft books/clippings, some old clothing patterns and boxes of fabric that I had collected over the years for quilting and was saving until I got my craft room up and running. CRAP! CRAP! CRAP! To put it mildly.

So, I drag in as many of the clippings and books that aren't completely soaked and strew them all over the floor in front of the heater. Put the totally soaked fabric in plastic bags and lug them into the laundry room. Well, I guess I would have had to wash the fabric anyway to make more quilt projects....how's that for trying to look on the bright side? Spin dry and tumble dry 8 loads of fabric. Wooooo fun.

Actually, it was fun. I sat on the floor with a glass of scotch and sorted the fabrics into color coordinated piles as they came out of the dryer. "Ooooh. Look there is the fabric that I made a dress out of for my Daughter when she was in 3rd grade and a piece of a really cool tropical fabric that I had made into a sun dress for myself when I went to college" (30 yrs ago). Memories like the corners of my mind.....


"What! Don't look at me that way, this fabric is valuable and irreplaceable and who left the water on in the pump house anyway!?! Would you pour me another scotch please?"


I found a couple of unfinished quilt projects that I had forgotten about.



And I started a project I've been wanting to do for quite some time. I'm scanning the clippings and idea files to disk and getting rid of the paper. Some of these things I've had since the 70's.



What!! Don't look at me like that.


As I go through these, I think.....What were we thinking, that this was a cool outfit to wear? Much less to spend hours upon hours crocheting?



Another thing that is now interesting to me about these old clipping is the advertisements. Cigarette and booze ads are all over Family Circle, Sunset Magazine, Better Homes and Gardens. Some products have survived the times and others have not. Some clothing and decorating styles have survived and thankfully, some have not. I'll scan some advertisements and post them later.


So, while this has been a disaster and I mourn for my lost books and craft supplies, there is a silver lining. I got my fabric cleaned!

Monday, December 22, 2008

Ho Ho NO!!

Christmas comes each time this year......at least that's what the Beach Boys tell us. AND the stores, radio stations and television stations are determined to pound the Season as soon after Thanksgiving is over. The turkey isn't even digested yet and you can't go for more than 15 minutes without a Christmas song on the radio, even on satellite jazz radio stations that you pay for. If I have to hear Ertha Kitt or Madonna sing Santa Baby one more time, I'm gonna explode.

"Grandma got run over by a rain deer" "Rocking around the Christmas Tree" "Jingle Bell Rock" ....worthless and annoying Christmas songs that you just can't escape from this time of year.

I don't hate all Christmas songs. This is one of my very favorites.





Now, don't get me wrong. I actually like Thanksgiving through Christmas. Its a great time for cooking up all the goodies like candy, cookies, cakes, pies, breads that you really have no excuse for making during the rest of the year, with the added bonus that you can give most of it away as gifts. Getting together with friends for a cocktail, glass of wine, some hors d'ourves and being thankful for just being alive.

What I don't like is the pressure. The commercial pressure: to buy things, to decorate, the decorating wars going on in the neighborhoods, the Christmas Tree versus Holiday Tree vs Festivus Pole controversy. The religious pressure: If you don't decorate your office, send out hundreds of dollars worth of cards, being careful to sort out the religious cards from the secular cards.....after all we don't want to offend anyone by actually reminding them that Christmas is a religious holiday. ....then people think you are a Grinch, Atheist or sick. How about I don't decorate because I'm lazy and it is a pain to drag all the decorations down from the attic only to have to undo the decorations in a few weeks, clean up and put them back in the attic? Sigh.....the pressure.

This year all my best laid plans were set astray by Global Warming in the form of the current Ice Age we seem to be experiencing. I was planning to go to a surprise party for my Father's 80th birthday, which is Christmas Eve. However, the constant snow we have been getting made me think that, while I might be able to take my gas guzzling earth destroying evil SUV over themountain pass......I might not be able to get home.






It has been snowing 1 to 3 inches every day since these photos



In the meantime, my husband The Dumbplumber (he's really a plumber, but not dumb at all), having spent the last week in sub zero temperatures (-12 to 8 as the high temperature for several days) trying to unfreeze people's pipes and well pumps so they could have water and then when it warmed up to 32 degrees standing and laying in icy water fixing gushing pipes under homes, has come down with a nasty cold and fever. So......his trip to see his Mother and my trip to see my Father......cancelled.


So....Ho Ho NO!

Tuesday, December 02, 2008

Infected Video Imbeds

I have deleted the recent video embeds from the posts 3rd rock and Playing for Change. It appears that there is a new virus actns/swif.t that opens in IE or Firefox when the web page displays the embedded video.

Sorry for any inconvenience. I strongly suggest you update your virus software, run a full system scan and do NOT open any pop up windows that might appear. Check with Bleepingcomputer for more information.

UPDATE: Crunch Gear has a bit more information on this virus

http://www.crunchgear.com/2008/12/02/actnsswift-virus-affecting-embedded-youtube-vids/

It seems to be a trojan that will redirect you to a phishing site to install AntiVirus 2009 which is a malware program and is very difficult to get rid of.

If you get redirected to any strange websites, just don't click on anything.