Banks

I don't want to mention money much, but I do have investments.

But oh man was I ever pissed at my bank today!  I had moved some money from a money market account (savings) to a stock index fund.  The index fund sends a test amount of some few cents to make sure the transaction works and I needed to confirm the amount with them as a security measure.  When I looked at my bank account online, later I found $165 "excess withdrawal fee". 

Happily, the bank was just about to open, so I printed out the transaction, highlighted them (there were actually 2 fees, $180 total) and drove straight there.

"Hi, how can we help you" as I walked in (they ARE friendly).  I said "I'm pissed and you better help me.  These fees are going away or I am."

Got me straight to an assistant bank manager...  I was told that withdrawals from the money market account can generate fees.  I pointed out that I could have just moved them to my checking account and out from there at no fee, and I wanted the fees reversed.  And if that wasn't the case, there were plenty of other local banks who wanted my account.  

Lo and Behold, the fees vanished!  Kind of them to do that.  It didn't actually cost them anything to move my money, so it didn't cost them anything to make the fees disappear either.  Actually, it probably cost them more to pay the person to undo the fees. 

But the moral of the story is that if you get charged fees by your bank that don't make sense, it is worth confronting them about it...

They CAN and WILL give in.  If you go in pissed and determined...  And I really was pissed.

Welcome 2015.

Dear 2015...  May you be better than 2014.  2014 kinna sucked.  Politicians were stupider than usual, there were seriously bad plane crashes, the Russians are acting stupid again, too many white policemen killed too many black guys under questionable situations,  there are too many people unemployed, the world economy is not all that great, and the food supply is not all that safe. 

It your job to fix all that stuff right?  So get at it.

Happy Old Year 2014

HAPPY NEW YEAR   HAPPY NEW YEAR   HAPPY NEW YEAR   HAPPY NEW YEAR
HAPPY NEW YEAR   HAPPY NEW YEAR   HAPPY NEW YEAR   HAPPY NEW YEAR

Yesterday...  Had accumulated points at the grocery store worth 90 cents per gallon of gas expiring yesterday, so I HAD to go shopping to use them.  And since I was there...

Happy OLD Year,
Happy OLD Year,
I couldn't let this go this year.

I wanted to end 
The Old Year right
So Grocery-Shopping off I went.

Happy OLD Year,
Happy OLD Year,
I couldn't let this go this year.


"Loaded up the big store cart.
Went for all the stuff I love
Though at Winter prices, not that smart.


Happy OLD Year,
Happy OLD Year,
I couldn't let this go this year.

Didn't bring a list this week
Depended on inspiration
Got the bill, it made me weak.

Happy OLD Year,
Happy OLD Year,
I couldn't let this go this year.

But I'm happy now at home
Admiring my treasures.
Steak, hot sausage, cordan bleu.

Marinated artichoke hearts,
Even fancy oliveses.
Aparagus, fresh brussels sprouts.


Long seedless cucumber

Even went for cheddar cheese
(Not my favrit, but seemed right).

Grape tomatoes firm and sweet.
A bag of Navel oranges.
Had to have some apples too. 

What's an apple without a pear.
Good ones, ripe.  Those are rare.
Got to have a melon, too.

Dead of Winter, so I cared
To buy some soups of hen and beef.
Pop-top soup is all I dared.

Wanted a lobster but even fer me
There are limits to my budget.
Shrimp are very much the same.

Got butter for the melting,
Made my own coctail sauce,
Ketchup, horseradish, lemon juice.

Now I just have to eat this stuff 
Sometime in the next 2 weeks.  
Trying not to put on pounds...

Happy OLD Year,
Happy OD Year,
I couldn't let this go this year.

 -----------------

Not exactly a poem, but I had a great time shopping and it registered the event.  I'll discuss packing stuff away tomorrow.

But goodbye 2014...


 

December

Why is December such a hard time on cats?  It seems so many leave for The Bridge in this month. 

Is it the short days that depress them? 

Less time outside for those who DO go outside?  Or just fewer sunpuddles for those who stay inside?

Do the longer nights just suggest going into "forever"?

It seems to me that we lose more cat-friends in December than any other month, and I don't know why...

The short days sadden ME.  I have to fight it; I get depressed at this time of year too.  But I know WHY.  Maybe its harder when you DON'T know why maybe they just get saddened and all.  Who knows the minds of our cats.  We try, but as close as we feel toward them, we cannot ever truly understand their thoughts.

I just know that December is a real hard time on cats. 

And so, for myself, and for the cats, I keep the house brightly lit, I keep them active, I stuff them with food, and I keep them on my lap as much as possible.  I don't know if that makes the slightest bit of difference. 

But it makes me feel good to try...  Special places to make them happy.

My lap.

Good places to sleep at night.

Interesting new spots.

Anything I can do...

The Winter Holidays

To All My Friends -

The shortest days of this season have caused people the world over, of all times and cultures and beliefs and philosophies, to create reasons for celebrating the lengthening days. 

From ancient pre-history days when the Winter Solstice was celebrated to recognize the first longer days, to the old Persian Sadeh ("to defeat the forces of darkness, frost, and cold"), to Malkh (a celebration of the Sun in the Caucasus Mountains), to the Saturnalia of the Romans (Saturn was their god of plenty, wealth, and renewal - with exchanges of gifts), Yalda of the Iranians ("the turning point"), Modraniht of the Saxons ("Mothers Night" - and I'm guessing there was a fertility festival 9 months earlier), to the celebrations of Hanukkah and Christmas in the modern religions, this time of year has always been celebrated in some sense of renewed life.

I tend to think of the initial causes of all these celebrations as the Winter Solstice and think of that day as my holiday.  There is no unique belief associated with it, as it is a natural function of the Earth's rotation and axial tilt.  Holidays established to recognize this event vary mostly on the precise date due to historical calendar changes.  Another reason I prefer the Winter Solstice itself...  That event is consistent.

So to everyone, whatever your reason is to celebrate at this general time of year, Celebrate and Be Joyful!

Meat

Not sure why this came to mind, but I suddenly remembered this vaguely, and I had search far and wide to find it again.  Its why we haven't been contacted...


Imagine if you will... the Leader of the fifth Exploratory Force speaking to the Commander In Chief...

Leader:"They're made out of meat, Sir."
Commander:"Meat?"
Leader:"Meat. They're made out of meat."
Commander:"Meat?"
Leader:"There's no doubt about it. We picked several individuals from different parts of the planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, probed them all the way through. They're completely meat."
Commander:"That's impossible. What about the radio signals? The messages to the stars."
Leader:"They use the radio waves to talk, but the signals don't come from them. The signals come from machines."
Commander:"So who made the machines? That's who we want to contact."
Leader:"They made the machines. That's what I'm trying to tell you. Meat made the machines."
Commander:"That's ridiculous. How can meat make a machine? You're asking me to believe in sentient meat."
Leader:"I'm not asking you, I'm telling you. These creatures are the only sentient race in the sector and they're made out of meat."
Commander:"Maybe they're like the Orfolei. You know, a carbon-based intelligence that goes through a meat stage."
Leader:"Nope. They're born meat and they die meat. We studied them for several of their life spans, which didn't take too long. Do you have any idea the life span of meat?"
Commander:"Spare me. Okay, maybe they're only part meat. You know, like the Weddilei. A meat head with an electron plasma brain inside."
Leader:"Nope. We thought of that, since they do have meat heads like the Weddilei. But I told you, we probed them. They're meat all the way through."
Commander:"No brain?"
Leader:"Oh, there is a brain all right. It's just that the brain is made out of meat!"
Commander:"So... what does the thinking?"
Leader:"You're not understanding, are you? The brain does the thinking. The meat."
Commander:"Thinking meat! You're asking me to believe in thinking meat!"
Leader:"Yes, thinking meat! Conscious meat! Loving meat. Dreaming meat. The meat is the whole deal! Are you getting the picture?"
Commander:"Omigod. You're serious then. They're made out of meat."
Leader:"Finally, Yes. They are indeed made out of meat. And they've been trying to get in touch with us for almost a hundred of their years."
Commander:"So what does the meat have in mind?"
Leader:"First it wants to talk to us. Then I imagine it wants to explore the universe, contact other sentients, swap ideas and information. The usual."
Commander:"We're supposed to talk to meat?"
Leader:"That's the idea. That's the message they're sending out by radio. 'Hello. Anyone out there? Anyone home?' That sort of thing."
Commander:"They actually do talk, then. They use words, ideas, concepts?"
Leader:"Oh, yes. Except they do it with meat."
Commander:"I thought you just told me they used radio."
Leader:"They do, but what do you think is on the radio? Meat sounds. You know how when you slap or flap meat it makes a noise? They talk by flapping their meat at each other. They can even sing by squirting air through their meat."
Commander:"Omigod. Singing meat. This is altogether too much. So what do you advise?"
Leader:"Officially or unofficially?"
Commander:"Both."
Leader:"Officially, we are required to contact, welcome, and log in any and all sentient races or multibeings in the quadrant, without prejudice, fear, or favor. Unofficially, I advise that we erase the records and forget the whole thing."
Commander:"I was hoping you would say that."
Leader:"It seems harsh, but there is a limit. Do we really want to make contact with meat?"
Commander:"I agree one hundred percent. What's there to say?" `Hello, meat. How's it going?' But will this work? How many planets are we dealing with here?"
Leader: "Just one. They can travel to other planets in special meat containers, but they can't live on them. And being meat, they only travel through C space. Which limits them to the speed of light and makes the possibility of their ever making contact pretty slim. Infinitesimal, in fact."
Commander:"So, we just pretend there's no one home in the universe."
Leader:"That's it."
Commander:"Cruel. But you said it yourself, who wants to meet meat? And the ones who have been aboard our vessels, the ones you probed? You're sure they won't remember?"
Leader:"They'll be considered crackpots if they do. We went into their heads and smoothed out their meat so that we're just a dream to them."
Commander:"A dream to meat! How strangely appropriate, that we should be meat's dream."
Leader:"And we can mark this sector unoccupied."
Commander:"Good. Agreed, officially and unofficially. Case closed. Any others? Anyone else interesting on that side of the galaxy?"
Leader:"Yes, a rather shy but sweet hydrogen core cluster intelligence in a class nine star in G445 zone. Was in contact two galactic rotations ago, wants to be friendly again."
Commander:"They always come around."
Leader:"And why not? Imagine how unbearably, how unutterably cold, the universe would be if one were all alone."

I don't know why this one got dredged out of my memory, but I'm sure glad I found it again.

The Other Special Decorations

The other decorations are so special.  Some on the tree this year, so not.  And for reasons.

Of the special ones on the tree, this is among the best.

It was a housewarming present from Mom when I bought my house 28 years ago...  This tiny 3" decoration has my name, and a the mailbox open to suggest receptiveness.  Sometimes, when I don't even have a tree, I dig this one out of the box to set it up on the table.

And it shows up nicely in the dark too...

The ones I haven't used this year are the glass icicles.  I have dozens.  But with the built-in white lights on the tree, it didn't seem to me that they would show up, and I don't like to over-do a tree.  I'll save them for next year with a real tree.

Instead of 1,000 white LED lights, there will be glass, reflecting strings of blue lights.  And after after that, strings of red and green lights.  Its good to have changes.

The Decorations Up Close

 It's not your usual tree...

Well, lets see the close-ups of the ones I used this year...  The cardinals always have to be there.  I love Cardinals. 

A general view of one side of the tree.

The bird nests are favorites.  And yes, those are real bird nests.  The eggs are painted wood.  

I love my apples.  They are at least 40 years old. 

I didn't even remember these.   Glass pine cones all covered in glitter!

A view of another side of the tree.

A glass hummingbird.  I have 6 of pairs of colors.  I LOVE those.

And of course, what is a tree without a cat?  This is an old decoration from Mom.  I think there used to be buttons for eyes that got replaced when she (Mom) was young, by ink.  I hope to pass this one (and others) along some day.

The Tree

Start To Finish...  And a long one; as someone said, "grab a beverage", LOL...

I was initially discouraged by all the branch and stem and twig adjustments needed.  It sat there with just the base opened for a week (I seem to have lost THAT picture sadly).  I dithered about returning it and buying a real tree, the amount of work to adjust all the ends was daunting, but adding all the lights to a real tree is no great fun either.

It seemed so balanced either way... 

But my earliest jobs required a lot of repetitive work, and I WAS good at that, so I considered managing all those bendy branches from a repetition work point of view.  They were assembled in a way, they must open in a way.  I found a pattern.  The internal branches go "left, right, up, down" just to fill in the background.  Its not like you are going to hang ornaments next to the trunk of the tree.

So I just started spreading the tightly packed stems and twigs.  The instructions said "10 minutes and you have a lovely tree".  HAH, HAH, HAH!  But 3 hours and I did!   just had to actually stnd there and DO IT.  The biggest annoyance and time-waster, was that the outer "new-season" twigs were flat on one side and full on the other, and they were almost always upside down.  Easier for the poor people constructing the trees I assume, but poor quality-control at the end of the production line.  I'll bet I had to turn over 1,000 stem-ends.  But only once.  Next year, I won't have to.

It helped to wear thin "driving gloves".  Those plastic needles can wear on you after a while.

So it was a good-looking tree after all the set-up.  It looks better than I expected, actually.

Then I turned on the built-in LED lights...  WOW!

With camera flash...

With slow-synchro camera flash...

With camera flash OFF.  The lights really shine that way.  And it looks the same with the room lights off.

And decorated!!!   With flash on...

And off...

Hmmm. ..  Didn't notice that one cardinal was fallen over...  Well, everything can't stay perfect.

I love real trees for the smell and reality.  And you don't have to arrange the branches.  And I'm not sure tree farms harm the environment.  They produce oxygen.  And I know one cat who survived under them until finding a Forever Home...

But fake trees have advantages too.  One lasts for a decade or so, they have 1,000s of built-in LED lights, they don't require watering so they are safer.  And in theory, they can fold up "OK" with the branches spread (but folded up, if that makes sense).  Well, let's just say it wouldn't fit back in the box, but it will take up less space than as currently spread out.  All the branches are on hinges.

I always hate to say this, given my general sarcasm to "Martha Stewartism" but this IS a Martha Stewart Tree...  (According to the box and I didn't know that at the time).  All I knew at the time was that it was a pretty realistic-looking fake tree...

But what finally decided me on keeping the one I bought was that the branches are sturdier than real trees and I have a lot of rather heavy ornaments.  Ornaments that I could not keep hung on real trees stay on this one.

But I have a lot of very light ornaments too.  So I think I will alternate between live trees and this one.  Best balance I can make.

Tomorrow, close ups of the decorations...  I forgot to use the macro setting and they were all blurry up close.  So I need to take new pictures.

But the close-ups are great, so tune in tomorow.

Coincidence and Memes...

Its a small world after all.
Ita s small world after all.
Its a small world after all.

Its a small small world.

Now get THAT out of your head...  LOL!

And I was actually there to hear it originally...

The weirdest thing about the trip to the 1964 New York Worlds Fair (I was 14) was that we stopped to have lunch at some exhibit (I want to say "Wisconsin" but don't hold me to it) and there, just several places down these long tables, by utter coincidence, were our neighbors from up the street..

It WAS a small world after all.  According to a display, there were only 175 million Americans at the time.  If I recall correctly (but then, I WAS only 14 and memory is tricky).

And I'm STILL trying to decide whether to keep the artificial tree or buy a real one...

Holiday Tree

I should have known not to buy an artificial Holiday Tree!  I don't like artificial things all that much.  And I didn't even go shopping to get one.  I was at a DIY store to buy furnace filters weeks ago, and there were all these nice-looking artificial trees so nicely decorated.  Two thoughts came to mind.

First, I recalled memories of younger days with the family decorating the tree, and I thought a nice artificial one would be "satisfactory", convenient, and cost-effective over the years.

Secondly, I had had to empty the attic a few months ago to have the attic sealed and additional insulation sprayed in, so I had all these boxes of Holiday decorations stacked up in the cat room.  The decorations were on my list of things to keep or donate.

So I was looking at the trees in the store and thinking of the all the decorations I'd collected over the years and ON IMPULSE I bought an artificial tree.  Impulse purchases are not my habit, but by definition "impulse" is not planned.

I opened the box today, and it was NOT what I expected.  I EXPECTED a box of a dozen or so stacking rings of perfectly formed branches that would be ready to go with a simple plug-in (and me adding special ornaments and my bubble-lights.  Foolish me!

Instead, there are only 3 sections (of branches that DO hinge down, to be fair).  But each branch is as tightly squeezed into a tube-like shape as wrapping paper.  Each individual stem and twig has to be bent out into a realistic shape.  A quick estimate suggested there would be 100 branches of about 20 stems per branch and 20 twigs per branch (= 40,000 if you really do it right).

A sample branch of the middle section took 2 minutes to make look realistic.  So, 2 minutes times 100 branches = 200 minutes (or 3 hours and 20 minutes).  And adding in some time for discomfort caused by handling the prickly plastic needles, hand-cramps from all that bending of stems and twigs, and back-cramps from being bent over and around reaching them, I decided that was more than I wanted to do in order to have a Holiday Tree!

I re-evaluated my concerns over killing live trees.  I guess if I am perfectly willing to have chickens and turkeys raised just for the purpose of being killed for my eating pleasure, I can stand having a real tree grown and cut down for my decorating pleasure.  At least trees just use sunlight and produce oxygen.

Hey, I can rationalize my decisions with the best of them, LOL!

That's IF I get a real cut tree...  I probably will, but it's not definite tonight.  I haven't bought one for a decade, so there may be sticker-shock involved.  I have to think about this.

Its not like there are children or visitors who would see my tree.  But it HAS been years since I decorated and I DO have all the boxes of decorations out of the attic already.  And none of the cats has ever experienced a real tree in the house and that might be interesting.  Skeeter and LC (and the cats who came before) always seemed to enjoy them.

I could justify buying a real tree just for the cats, I suppose...  Hmm, yeah, that could work.  A tree just for the cats.  And they wouldn't mind if I decorated it with cheap plastic ornaments at the bottom where they could reach to whap them.  They'd LIKE that...  I'll put the "good" stuff higher up.

And the birds would like it too.  I used to dig a hole in the backyard to set the tree in after I was done with it inside.  The tree leaves a bare spot under it even when it snows and the birds LOVE picking at the seeds I toss under it.  I had almost forgotten about that.

So, well of course, I'm not buying a live dead tree for ME, I'm doing it for the cats and then the birds.  What could POSSIBLY be more noble?

Oh my goodness!  I better go shopping for a real tree ASAP.  The cats are waiting, and the birds will be happier into the New Year, and the New Year is something to celebrate too...

Mark