The Next Dark Age
We're in it Now
Skunked
A fundamental difference between my two dogs:
First morning potty break. Gibbs is at the door first, but Fiona shoves past him and tears outside to run two laps around the perimeter of yard to be sure we are safe from demons and squirrels. Gibbs walks out a dozen steps and pees. Then he wanders a bit to find the best place to do the rest of his business. Upon completion, he returns immediately to the porch because he knows it is time for breakfast. Hopefully, by this time Fiona has urinated and we can go inside. But sometimes not.
So at Last Potty of the Night, I had been in the habit of putting Fiona on a leash. No patrolling. Potty and then bed. Wednesday night, after returning from Ohio, my head was not in the game and she was out the door in a flash.
To corner a skunk. She was sprayed before I walked around the corner of the house. Then to the rolling around rubbing her face in the grass. The skunk meandered under the fence and away from the drama. Luckily, it didn’t get into her eyes, but it was totally in her mouth. I herded her into the house and my mother started making the hydrogen peroxide solution to remove the stench.
She was foaming so badly at the mouth that I actually called the doggie ER to make sure it was just the gawdawful taste, as opposed to a systemic reaction. It was.
I didn’t see Gibbs, so I ran upstairs to be sure he was in bed. Gibbs doesn’t like drama, so it is just like him to run up to bed when something weird is happening.
He was not there.
I went back into the yard. Gibbs had the skunk cornered on the other side of the yard. Luckily, the skunk was skunked out. But I should seriously bring this to a vote. Of the three – Fiona, Gibbs and the skunk – which is the dumbest?
I cannot tell you how much washing I have done in the last few days. I have also thrown away several reusable shopping bags. And sprayed special de-skunking solution over a dozen surfaces in my house. I still smell it everywhere.
‘Tis the season, I am told. Kelly, at Doggie Do Rite, recently had to de-skunk all four of her dogs, her cat and herself. Maggie at Wags on Willow, had to de-skunk her bulldog.
Seriously, I would rather deal with a coyote.
Blankets 40 – 44 of 2012
Today was the bi-monthly Blanket Day for my chapter of Project Linus. I hadn’t quite finished my stash, which is ok because Starbucks night is this week. However, I managed to bring in five:
We are about at the point where I don’t know what kind of yarn I use and where it comes from. I believe the blue one had a variegate yarn from Red Heart. I know the middle one with the flames used Black from Red Heart and I think the maroon one was a variegated yarn from Joann Fabric.
I used Caron white on the Bears blanket, and I think the purple yarn from the other one was Caron Simply Soft. But it may have been Red Heart Soft.
I am starting to suck at this.
Yesterday at the Dog Park
Gibbs wanted to play ball. So we played ball. After awhile, Fiona wandered off into the small wooded area, and Gibbs and I stopped at the park bench about halfway back to the entrance.
I knew Fiona would realize that she had lost us and would come tearing around the bend. I even took out my camera to film it. We waited, and she didn’t come.
I had just decided to go back and find her when she came running. So fast that I only caught about two seconds on camera that WordPress won’t let me upload, anyway. I pulled a snapshot, which WordPress is also not letting me upload.
I think WordPress is doing a full court press to get me to upgrade.
The American Revolution, Joanne Freeman
A couple of weeks ago, I checked back on Academic to see if there were any new courses. I was in a bit of a panic because they moved a lot of courses from “History” to “Humanities”. But after I figured it out, I found Yale Professor Joanne Freeman’s course on The American Revolution.
Awesome.
I am partial to the Yale history courses and Professor Freeman tells a really good story. The most educational piece for me was the first lecture, entitled “Freeman’s Top Five Tips for Studying the Revolution“. It included thoughts like – language was different two hundred years ago. Even “democracy” didn’t mean the same thing then that it does now. Another was to keep in mind that we, as students of history, tend to make assumptions based on the knowledge of how things turned out. We have to keep in mind that the colonists and early Americans didn’t have that luxury.
Another good one was “Heroes and Villains“, which told the story of Benedict Arnold. Worth the 45 minutes, particularly if you’ve never heard the story before.
For those of us that have dutifully read our Joseph Ellis and David McCullough, et al, there aren’t many big revelations in the lectures. But there are plenty of great quotes and anecdotes pulled from old letters. More than once, Freeman confesses to re-writing a lecture on the fly because she wants to highlight something different. Just the kind of history geek I enjoy. In fact, I picked up one of the authors that Freeman mentioned at Half Price Books today. Which leads me to a complaint regarding Academic Earth:
One of the things that made me fall all in love with the site was that the syllabus and all of the course reading were also published on the page. I have literally purchased some of these books in the past to read during or after watching the lectures. This course didn’t have them linked. That made me go back to Professor Blight’s Civil War course, which I knew had them posted. No longer. There is a list of “Related Resources”, but a couple of things I recall being assigned were not listed. However, I now see they can be found on the Open Yale Courses website. (And OMG I just found three more courses I want to see!)
But I also have books to read, so the Half Time show is now over.
P.S. Oh! And Freeman says that the HBO mini-series on John Adams was pretty solid.
True Blood, Season Four
So. You may recall that in this, my last remaining vampire guilty-pleasure, I am a season behind. HBO is running Season Five right now and Season Four was released on DVD.
If you are keeping score, True Blood now has vampires, werewolves, shape shifters, fairies and witches.
This is the season of the witches. Eric, the thousand year old viking-prince vampire, has already been set up as the official anti-hero. The twist here is – MINOR SPOILER – the Big Bad Witch casts a spell on him that takes his memory. He still has his crazy-strong vampire powers, but he is lacking all of the personal history that made him..Eric. So that was interesting.
I am pretty sure I told you about how the TV show sketches out much of the main plot of the novels, but it twists and tweaks a bunch of stuff to make for better TV. Generally, I like their choices. The biggest one for me was sparing a supporting character that I love in the TV series that was killed off in an early novel. But I must take issue with the twist at the end of Season Four.
MAJOR SPOILER
In the novel, when the spell is broken, Eric regains his all of his memories except for the last weeks (when he was with Sookie). Or so he says. This allowed Sookie to pretend it never happened (at least for now). The TV series allowed him to keep those memories (or own that he has them) so as to Fast Forward the love triangle with Bill. Bleh.
Another divergence, which was actually rather awesome, is that when Sookie visits the witch, Gran inhabits her and warns Sookie off of Eric, saying, “It’s only temporary.”
New Rule: Always listen to your Dead Grandma.
OK, so remember in Attack of the Clones when Anakin killed the Sand People and told Padme all about it and we were all, “Lady. Run. Now.” ? So right after Eric regains his memory, SPOILER, they are confronting the witches and the lackey stands in front of Big Bad Witch with the “You’ll have to go through me” and with all vampire-speed, Eric runs up, tears out his heart and slurps the blood straight from the aortic valve*. Of course, that was totally funny. But:
“Lady. Run. Now.”
There are several other interesting plot threads going on – I continue to appreciate Jason’s evolution, Jessica is not nearly so annoying and don’t get me started on Alcide – and the finale left us hanging on the proverbial cliff.
So now I can go read the next book.
Just Kids, by Patti Smith
Book 30
Musician Patti Smith’s memoir of her friendship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe won lots of awards. I didn’t know who he was and I barely know Smith’s work but Critical Acclaim + $1 at Half Price Books + Rock Star/Pop Culture = I am there.
The big appeal to this book, in my opinion, is that it is a story of New York in the 1970s. In fact, I cannot believe that my friend Miss Busy hasn’t read it yet. You know when they say the city is like its own character in a story? Like that.
So. Patti and Robert begin as sort of a romantic couple, but Robert is a recovering Catholic coming to terms with homosexuality and Patti is geographically on the move quite a bit. Their relationship evolves as they go from starving artists to struggling artists to budding successes, and I daresay that the art makes them soul mates.
I was interested in Patti’s observations of her own feelings as Robert sort of tiptoes out of the closet and explores romantic and sexual relationships with men. Much of this happens while they are living together. She doesn’t over analyze and doesn’t apologize for her lack of analysis. She merely says that none of Robert’s other encounters/friendships/relationships had any effect on hers. She also pursued other encounters/friendships/relationships. She was secure in his love and in her place in his life.
There was some big deal name dropping, and some interesting descriptions of the art and music scene. What I found most interesting is Patti’s evolution as an artist. From drawing to poetry to music at the same time Robert was discovering photography. It is also, I expect, a clear reflection of the time. I wouldn’t be surprised if it is assigned reading somewhere a hundred years from now.
On Conferences
I was at SHRM, a big city-wide national conference last week. The sessions were great, the key note speakers were fabulous and I feel like it was totally worth my time and (my employer’s) money.
However, I am growing old and judgmental so I feel the need to pontificate on some rules of etiquette that made me freakin’ crazy.
If you are a participant:
- Show up to the session on time. Being late is disruptive, particularly at a huge conference where the aisle seats are the first to fill up.
Even I have changed my mind after the introduction, and decided that this isn’t really the session I want. In fact, last week I walked out of a 7am session because the speaker (in a theatre-style lecture hall) told us to “organize ourselves into learning groups”. I scurried to the session across the hall and was much happier. But seriously if you have to do it, minimize the disruption. Which leads to:
- Don’t eat in session.
I had a guy with a vending machine Egg McMuffin behind me. It was loud (as he unwrapped a section at a time) and smelly and when he was finally finished he struggled to jam the wrapper into his empty water bottle for ease of not recycling. That was several minutes of trying to control my blood pressure instead of listening to the session.
And don’t get me started on people that can’t drink coffee without slurping.
- Shut up.
- Stay until the end
I realize this one is tough. Sometimes, we just have to pee. And again, sometimes we realize that we chose the wrong session and there are many others available. But out of courtesy to the speaker, please try.
Here’s one for the speakers:
- Don’t tell me to take notes.
I understand you didn’t feel like creating a PowerPoint. Not judging you for that. You told us to print out your five-page handout before coming to the session. Bad luck for those of us that don’t pick our sessions until we arrive onsite. But we are adults and we don’t need you to tell us (over and over throughout the session) what to write down. Are we going to be graded? Is this on the final exam?
Overall, SHRM puts together a great program. This was my second year attending and I cram in a whole lot of learning. But the biggest thing I learned? HR people have no better manners than anyone else.
Back in Town – Atlanta 2012
I am back from a few days at a conference in Atlanta. That city I vowed never to visit again. I did not take a single picture, but I finished a book and have plenty to say about running a good meeting.
But now I am tired and just want to watch True Blood.
Dog Park Redux
Today I took Fiona to Evanston C.A.R.E.‘s dog wash fundraiser. 10 bucks for someone else to wash your dog and they had lots of toys being sold for peanuts, including two of Gibbs’ favorites. I actually made them take more money than they charged. Fiona did fine, but she was not pleased with being hosed down.
Anyway. This reminded me that I had pictures from Fiona’s first trip to the dog park. Gibbs was out of commission a couple of weeks ago due to a backyard accident, so Fiona’s first trip was solo:
She was perfectly pleasant, greeting dogs and people politely and she pretty much came when she was called. She didn’t play the way Gibbs plays, but she had a lot of exploring to do.
When we went back with Gibbs, he was all excited to play, play, play. They did some romping together, but it is pretty clear that when we are at the dog park, Fiona has a job: to keep the pack together. She will probably run when he runs, although when it was time for some serious Fetch with the Chuckit, she went two rounds and then lay down in the shade. Gibbs will go until he is sick if I let him.
I just read that you shouldn’t take your dog to the dog park this quickly – not before you are sure of her behavior and not before you are sure of her Recall. Again, she did fine. (The same article advised not to take a puppy because a puppy might not understand the other dog behavior, might get his butt kicked and then be traumatized. But Gibbs was a veteran of Doggie Do Rite, so I took him at 6 months in accordance with the dog park rules.) But the really good news is that it as clear to me from watching them that they understand they are a pack.
Blankets 34 – 39
Starbucks night is tomorrow and here is my latest batch of Project Linus blankets:
On the left with the vintage cars has four rows of Caron white. The red one in the center has a variegated yarn from Red Heart (I forget the name) and the flaming sports equipment on the right is also Caron white.
Here we have an outer space themed fleece with Caron white, the solid purple fleece has a variegated yarn from the house brand at Joann Fabrics and the peacock-looking fleece has a purple yarn from Caron Simply Soft.
The Next Dark Age 