Strep

Michael said...
Looks like summmm-budddy got a new Niiii-Kon!

Serena said ...

Yup. Armed and dangerous. :D

2007 Bumper Stickers

I received this by email, and thought some of these were too good not to pass on!

My Pedophile Priest Supports Traditional Marriage

1/20/09: End of an Error

That's OK, I Wasn't Using My Civil Liberties Anyway

Let's Fix Democracy in This Country First

If You Want a Nation Ruled By Religion, Move to Iran

Bush. Like a Rock. Only Dumber.

If You Can Read This, You're Not Our President

Of Course It Hurts: You're Getting Screwed by an Elephant

Hey, Bush Supporters: Embarrassed Yet?

George Bush: Creating the Terrorists Our Kids Will Have to Fight

Impeachment: It's Not Just for Blowjobs Anymore

America: One Nation, Under Surveillance

They Call Him "W" So He Can Spell It

Whose God Do You Kill For?

Cheney/Satan '08

Jail to the Chief

No, Seriously, Why Did We Invade Iraq ?

Bush: God's Way of Proving Intelligent Design is Full Of Crap

Bad President! No Banana.

We Need a President Who's Fluent In At Least One Language

We're Making Enemies Faster Than We Can Kill Them

Is It Vietnam Yet?

Bush Doesn't Care About White People, Either

Where Are We Going? And Why Are We In This Handbasket?

You Elected Him. You Deserve Him.

Impeach Cheney First

Dubya, Your Dad Shoulda Pulled Out, Too

When Bush Took Office, Gas Was $1.46

Pray For Impeachment

The Republican Party: Our Bridge to the 11th Century

What Part of "Bush Lied" Don't You Understand?

One Nation Under Clod

2004: Embarrassed

2005: Horrified

2006: Terrified

Bush Never Exhaled

At Least Nixon Resigned

Are We Kinder and Gentler Yet?


Michael said...

One Nation Under Clod

Priceless.

Algebra Final Exam:

Just something to look at if I feel like moping . . . Life is Good!

I Failed.

Well, I failed my first test. Ever. And in Accounting, no less!

Interestingly enough, the sky didn't fall, nobody died (or even bled a little bit), I continued breathing (after a brief moment of gasping desperately for air after receiving my grade), and life continued.

I emailed my professor, "I certainly didn't have the grasp on this material that I thought I did." He was kind enough to have an evening telephone chat with me to explain where I went wrong. I don't take comfort in the fact that my 64 was still one of the best grades in the class. Apparently everyone has a problem with receivables. Including me.

I'm okay, though. Interesting feeling. Not one I'd like to get accustomed to, but hey. I'm human, and that's fine. I'll work harder at it, and I'll remember to ask questions if I'm not sure about something. After all, what are the professors there for but to teach?

Happy Thanksgiving!

I love Thanksgiving. It isn't the weather, although this year it was certainly mild and easy to drive in. It isn't the food, although the food certainly is wonderful. It's the time with family, the socializing, admiring the new baby, seeing how much the little ones have grown, chatting over pumpkin pie about different preparation methods, chatting over clean up about new recipies, chatting over tea about life in general. My extended family takes it for granted. They have no idea how lucky they are, or how lucky I feel that they have made my son and me a part of it.

I had a conversation with my brother a couple of years ago about cooking, and one of the things he told me is that sometimes the key to learning how to cook something is in the kitchen chat. One woman in the kitchen will say to another, "I just love the [insert dish of choice here]. What is the secret ingredient?" or something to that effect. A technique is shared, or a new recipe is added to the arsenal. Today, I got to chat with Aunt Marlene.

I just loved this cucumber salad she served with dinner tonight, and Ian ate it like it was going out of style. So, over cleanup, I asked her, "How did you make that wonderful cucumber salad?" It was so easy! She chunked up some cucumbers, poured some Ranch dressing over them, and sprinkled on a little oregano. What a great idea! Another recipe/technique added to the arsenal.

The entire dinner was wonderful. Turkey that just fell off the bones was accompanied by mashed potatos, yams, squash, corn, cucumber salad, radishes, grapes and rolls...and HOMEMADE stuffing! I am SO full and I'm going to sleep for a week!

And for dessert, Bunny made the pies. There was pumpkin pie, pumpkin creamcheese pie (which is my personal favorite), apple pie and chocolate birthday cake. Which led to a chat about tradition...

Aunt Marlene always puts a quarter in the cakes she bakes. It's for luck. What a hoot!

This is the first year Aunt Marlene let me help out in the kitchen after dinner. I enjoy her so much, and I feel so privileged to be a part of her family's celebration.

Especially the chatting part.

Getting fed is just a bonus. I'll take it! :-)

(photo from www.thanksgivingabout.com)

The Tabors

(Image taken from http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/si-184.html)

or

http://www.houseofnames.com/xq/asp.c/qx/tabor-coat-arms.htm

or

http://www.5dollarcoatsofarms.com/gallery/T/pages/image003.html

I guess I need to find out more about where we came from!

Michael said...

Don't forget that our name might be a truncation, with that fact hidden in our family (lots of folks are ashamed to admit to Slavic blood).

For years, folks asked me if Tabor was Hungarian. The only Hungarian Tabors I know about are Roma - another stigmatized group.

Just thought I'd muddy the water for you. :D

Serena said...

Thanks. My mind wanders to thoughts of hara-kari.

Actually, I came across published genealogies (not to be taken as written in stone, mind you; anyone can publish a genealogy) that trace our origins back to England. According to one, our ancestor came from Essex, England to Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1630. (Descendants of Thomas Taber 1924, compiled by George L. Randall, published by Higginson Book Company).

We really are mutts, though, in a manner of speaking. Hungarian is entirely possible. And then we have the Fassett line, connected by Great-Grandfather Charles Tabor's wife. They allegedly came from Scotland and were formerly known as the MacPhersons, having changed the family name to protect themselves from extinction by Cromwell.

And, of course, we have mom's roots in Ireland, Mexico and England.

When people ask me what nationality I am, I tell them the best answer I can give. "I'm American." 'Mutt' just doesn't have a very nice ring to it.

Michael said:

Woof. :D

Insight from Ma

"An 88 on your Accounting test this morning? That's not so bad."

"Yeah, but I'm sure I could do better."

"Sweetheart, combine that 88 with your other grades and you still have an A. Not that THAT is such a big deal. Your mother is dead, and I'd bet your father doesn't give a fig. STOP OBSESSING."

All right, I'll admit it. I'm being too hard on myself. An 88 is good. I'm a single mother, I work full-time, and I've got a full course load. I'm tired. I don't need to be perfect. I must be a bit kinder to myself. I think I will sleep in tomorrow.


Michael said...

Your Dad always thought a C was just fine. Remember?

Just go at a pace. The numbers don't matter anywhere near as much as the internal gains you are making.

Serena said...

True. I'm learning so much. And I'm loving Algebra!

More on Aging

My son...what a jokester...

"Mommy? Did they have TV back in the old days when YOU were a kid?"

Michael said...

No, honey, we pressed styluses made out of reeds into wet clay tablets in a script called "cuneiform." Then we baked the clay tablets in ovens until they were very hard. Then illiterate folks stole them to make stone walls and sidewalks for their houses...

Serena said...

It's true! It's true! You know, this morning he was asking me about the dinosaurs like I was there. It's hysterical. He says, "My mom is gonna be 42," and he makes it sound like I was there when Eve at the forbidden fruit. Unbelievable.

Michael said...

And the Hebrew-speaking snake. Hey - here's an article about the dinosaurs being wiped out by an asteroid.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061201/sc_nm/dinosaurs_impact_dc

Now you can sound like you were an eyewitness. :D

Tracy said...

I know I'm a late responder; but I do have a good one for you!

The first time Teri saw an actual record (yes I still have a ton of them, unfortunatly I do not have a record player anymore.) Her comment:'Look at these BIG CD's mommy'

Oh and her face when she saw an 8 track....

Aging

(This is an Internet joke - I have no idea who to give credit to, but it sure made me laugh...wincingly.)

Have you ever been guilty of looking at others your own age and thinking, "Surely I can't look that old!"

I was sitting in the waiting room for my first appointment with a new dentist when I noticed his diploma hanging on the wall. It bore his full name and I suddenly remembered a tall, handsome dark-haired boy with the same name. He had been in my high school class some 40-odd years before and I wondered if he could be the same guy I had a secret crush on way back then?

When I got into the treatment room I quickly discarded any such thought. This balding gray-haired man with the deeply lined face was much too old to have been my secret crush... or was he?

After he examined my teeth I asked if he had attended Morgan Park High School.

"Yes, I did. I'm a Mustang!" he said, gleaming with pride.

"When did you graduate?" I asked.

"1959. Why do you ask?" He answered.

"Well, you were in my class!" I exclaimed.

Then that ugly, old, wrinkled son of a bitch asked, "What did you teach?"

Bumper Sticker

"If you think gas prices are high now, wait until after November 7th."

Too true to be funny.

Michael said...

Already reports are pouring in (mostly from Florida) of voting machines that will not allow a choice of Democrat (you select the Dem, the machine says you voted Rethuglican).

Ironic that we cannot call the UN to supervise our increasingly fraudulent elections.

Halloween

Ian is so cute. (Not that I'm biased or anything...) He doesn't really get into the door-to-door trick-or-treating thing. Last year we only went to about 5 houses; this year we went to about 20. He got his little pumpkin half full of candy and said, "Mommy, I have enough. Can we go home now?" Amazing. That will probably change when he gets older.

I have got to get me a half-way decent camera. I'd have loved to catch the look of delighted suprise on his face, which showed each time someone gave him candy. He was so excited at all the different kinds! He's a great kid.

Unintended Lessons

Sometimes I feel compelled to write. The words come out of me with the force of hurricane winds and, heart pounding, I in turn find myself pounding on the keyboard, unable to type fast enough, not being able to stop, desperate to get the feelings out of me, out of me, faster, faster, and onto cyberpaper where it belongs, like the words are poison that must be quickly and forcefully expelled.

And then I am relieved. The storm is over, and I can find calm.

My first English Composition paper was to write a descriptive narrative about someone that had influenced us, either positively or negatively. I started to write about my relationship with my mother, and I couldn’t stop.

Oh, it’s not a pretty essay. Be forewarned. But it was cathartic, and I feel better, calmer.

I’m going to be fine. And also as importantly, so is my brother. And because we are going to be okay, so will my son.


My relationship with my mother effectively ended on my 18th birthday. The road to its destruction began in my early childhood, a rough and windy path commencing in some of my earliest memories. I did, however, learn many good lessons from these negative experiences.

I was born into a religion that never made sense to me. My parents were strict to the point of being unreasonable, insisting that my siblings and I walk a religious line that was incomprehensible to two of us.

One of the first religious principles I learned was, ‘Spare the rod, spoil the child.’ (Proverbs 13:24) This came right on the heels of, “Children, be obedient to your parents in union with the Lord.” (Ephesians 6:1) I remember it as if it were yesterday.

I was three years old. We were living in an upstairs apartment on the west side of Buffalo, behind Grover Cleveland High School, during the period that race riots sometimes occurred during dismissal. I was small enough to be able to walk under the dining room table without ducking. My favorite piece of furniture was a little wooden blue chair, just the perfect size to fit between the two desks my parents had sitting in the dining room. It was the perfect place to hide.

My brother, seven years my senior, asked too many questions. In the spirit of ‘spare the rod’, my mom beat him with a wooden paddle, bruising him about his back, buttocks and thighs. The voice in my head was screaming, “Noooo!” as my brother stoically took what he was deemed to have deserved. I hid, crouched in that little wooden blue chair, between the two desks in the dining room, long brown hair covering my tear-filled blue eyes, eternally hoping I wouldn’t be noticed. I learned not to ask questions. I must be quiet.

While growing up, I was not permitted to socialize with any of my classmates or to join in any extracurricular activities. I was not permitted to read any material but those the religious society produced. When I wrote book reports, I wrote them concerning various religious materials my mother chose for me to read. The voice in my head continually asked questions, screaming in frustration at my inability to voice them. I, however, was well-taught. I must be quiet.

I graduated from high school as class valedictorian at age 16. I won scholarships and may have been able to call my own shots. I was not permitted to attend college. I am a female. It was my Christian Duty to become a missionary for a few years, preach the “Good News in Foreign Lands”, then marry, have children, and care for my household. A career was not necessary – no, a career was forbidden. I must be quiet.

My eighteenth birthday finally arrived, and with the age of majority, I left the religion. I told my parents I wanted no more part of it. They, in turn, accused me of promiscuity and drug abuse. I was directed to leave their home almost immediately.

I felt like a complete failure, unloved and unable to be what my mom wanted me to be. I was completely crushed, and the voice in my head became silent, not for lack of questions, but for a black cloud of depression. I felt I deserved the hard times I received, the “wages of sin”. I married because that’s what I thought I was supposed to do, and I divorced after my husband, while ‘teaching me a lesson’, cracked my ribs.

As difficult as it may be to believe, I have learned many good lessons from these negative experiences. After leaving the religion and getting divorced, my life education began.

I have learned that religion doesn’t have to be a straight-jacket. I can ask questions. I can embrace science and concepts that make sense to me. I have no ‘religion’, and that’s okay. I no longer have to tow an incomprehensible line. I no longer have to be quiet.

I have learned that the way I was reared is no way to treat a child. My son asks questions; I encourage him to ask questions. He gets loud. That’s okay; he’s five. It’ll be okay when he’s ten, and fifteen, and twenty. He will never be beaten. He will know that he is loved by my hugs, kisses and praise. I support him. I am proud of him. I let him raise the rafters with his joie de vivre! LOUDLY!

I have learned that the way I was brought up is not the way a female should be treated. I am an intelligent human deserving of opportunity and accomplishment. I am neither a baby factory nor a whipping post. I am a single mother, I support my family, and I am finally getting my education. I am still sometimes quiet, but the voice in my head no longer screams. I can scream aloud if I need to.

I have learned I don’t want my son to have feelings of incompleteness when I pass on. I wish that my mother and I had resolved our issues, that she would have accepted my adult choices, that we could have conversed honestly, but I have learned that will never be possible.

My mother died June 18, 2006, culminating the end of the relationship that began to die on November 23, 1982. My brother and I spoke at length about how her passing brought relief, but with it a tremendous sense of loss. We still speak about our feelings of loss, but in our conversations and our writings, we find comfort. We are no longer subjected to physical or verbal poison arrows. I no longer must be quiet.


Michael said...
>… stoically took what he was deemed to have deserved...

Nope. I was full of rage and hate, because it was a contest of wills – (internally) “No matter how hard or how long you do this I will not cry. I will not give you the satisfaction of winning.”

Serena said...
Funny how our viewpoints were so different then. I had no idea what was going on in your head. I'm so glad it's over.

Oh, The Weather Outside is Frightful…

We broke records in the Buffalo, New York area on, yes, Friday the 13th. We were the lucky recipients of 6 inches to 2 feet of snow, depending on where your house was, from the time the snow started falling on Thursday to when it finally quit on Friday. Here are a few pictures from Reuters:

Buffalo, New York

Clarence, New York (a suburb of Buffalo)

My neck of the woods, Tonawanda, New York

They have recommended that we stay indoors because of the falling trees and downed power lines. Ian wants to go outside and play. He just sees the snow, which means fun. I get the Mean Mommy award again.

I do have to say that the strangest part of this time of year, other than freak storms, is having mittens and shorts in the same load of laundry.

Gold

Here’s a cool link my brother found…

Do you know someone who is worth their weight in gold? I am worth more than I care to admit.

God

It occurred to me that, during the course of history, when man hasn’t understood something, he assigns a god to it. The God of Fire. The God of Thunder. The Goddess of Love. Soooo…Isn’t Christianity just a modern-day version of, say, Greek Mythology?

I have my usual fall sinus thing going on. Hmm. The Gods must be angry.

Michael said...
The SINUS God must be angry. :D

Sadness

I woke up this morning feeling sad. It was an awful day at work yesterday, it's raining, it's getting cooler, summer is over.

Perhaps I need mornings like these to fully appreciate happy days? Still, I'd rather do without.


Michael said...
“It was an awful day at work yesterday, it's raining, it's getting cooler, summer is over… and my mom died a few months ago.”

No matter how complicated your relationship with your mother was, it is still a powerful loss as an unconcious reminder of mortality and our individual solitude on the planet.

And death is final. All hope, however closely held or carefully hidden from yourself, is over. There will be no reconciliation, no understanding, no happier outcome, no forgiveness, no welcome, no acceptance, no validation. The door is closed.

These are emotional awarenesses, not rational ones, and I think the heart holds desires that the mind fiercely denies.

I think some of your sadness is the leakage of a small, vulnerable child crying for her mommy.

Serena said:
You know, I didn't think of that. You are are probably very right, especially since just your comment brought tears to my eyes.

I am finding writing somewhat cathartic. My first 'paper' for my English Comp class is to write four to five pages about someone who has had an influence on me, either postive or negative. I started to write about mom, and ended up writing about me. You'll see it here when it's done. I'm in rough draft right now.


Michael said...
In a related vein, when I wrote the Ocean Blue post http://lensbrushquill.blogspot.com/2006/07/ocean-blue.html

I should have been more direct, I guess. I should have simply said, “I’m having a hard time coping with all of this loss, but I know there is nothing anyone can do to help."

Serena said ...
I read that shortly after you posted it and wept. It may have been the first time I cried since mom died. I think you were direct. You expressed so well what we go through, and you're right. No one can help.

I wonder if our situation is different from those of many other people. A friend of mine told me, "I don't know what I'll do when my mom passes. I'll be a mess!" I don't feel a mess. I'm sad. We never will have what we needed and wanted . . . to be loved, unconditionally, and accepted, without judgment or caustic comment. That, in and of itself, is sad.

As you put it so well, "The heart’s deepest wish is to lovingly bonded, and the soul’s deepest need is to be understood." I wish...

English Comp Essay: Freewriting Exercise

My assignment last week in English Comp was to freewrite for ten minutes straight, not stopping for spelling errors or punctuation errors or even when I ran out of thoughts. The topic was to freewrite concerning something that had angered or frustrated me in recent weeks:

False advertising, or at the very least, companies who don’t deliver what they propose to deliver. On-line education should be on-line. Many people have a multitude of reasons why traveling to a campus to sit in a traditional classroom is not conceivable. Single parents working full-time. Business travelers. Last semester I took a course with a soldier in Iraq. The war doesn’t stop for orientation. Remember the audience, be careful not to offend. Assuming knowledge that no offense is meant, on-line education and distance learning should be just that. I expect to receive what I pay for. The cable company is another entity that doesn’t deliver. Every month the price goes up, but no extra services are rendered. Perhaps they need to recoup all the money they lost in their white-collar scandal. Loads of consumers dissatisfied with them, and turning to satellite television instead. I wonder if that is a viable option for me. Do satellite television companies deliver what they say they will? What exactly do they promise? And how misleading are the cable television commercials when speaking about satellite services? The price of gas keeps going up; I think that’s the Republicans not delivering what we are paying for. I should probably stay away from the political. I wonder if my audience for these papers will be just the professor or if we will be ‘discussing’ ideas with our classmates. Ideas exchanged on-line, of course, from a distance. Distance learning should not be turned into an oxymoron. It’s extremely frustrating, and will quite probably result in my changing educational institutions. I wish I had defied my parents and obtained my education when I got out of high school 25 years ago in a traditional manner. There’s another thought…reasons people don’t go to college. Financial obstacles. Religious objection. The folly of youth.


Michael said...
Excellent stream-of-consciousness capture.

This is the sort of thing that you observe in zazen meditation, but do not attach to – you simply observe these thoughts passing in your head like a river. Eventually you learn to stay out of the river – to not grab onto one of those thoughts and stay with it, ride it to wherever it goes. The word “non-attachment” has a powerful meaning in Zen – the ability to let things happen without feeling judgment, without feeling the need to get involved, to try a “rescue,” or to attempt to alter anything. It’s a tough trick at first, but it’s pretty cool once you have the hang of it.

In another direction, this is the sort of writing that you look at in five years and marvel at your overall mood… Save this in your journal. It’s important. Don’t have a journal? Start one. This process of “education” is going to profoundly change your life in a good way, and it will be a powerful gift to yourself to have preserved a record of where you came from, and how long the journey was.

You go, girl!

Serena said:
Thanks! I just let it floooooooow. For my first paper (I described it in the post above), I started with freewriting, too.

I don't have a journal. I guess this blog is the closest thing I have to one. I feel more comfortable at a keyboard than with a pen and paper. I should rethink this, though. If this site decided to discontinue their service, my thoughts would be lost.

What do you think?

English Comp Essay: Forgetful

My assignment this week (in English Comp) was to write a paragraph concerning a specific topic. On the list of choices was, “Barb is forgetful.” The twist was that I was not permitted to use the word “forgetful”, nor was I permitted to use another form of the word (“forgot”) or a synonym of the word. Here is what I came up with:

Barb begins each day with the search for her to-do list, carefully placed on the counter in plain sight beside the lunch she packed the night before, so she can walk out the door without either of them. She once left the house without first checking to make sure her clothes were in order, leaving for work without putting on her skirt. There are times she doesn’t know how she got to work. All is well that ends well, though, as she is always in the right place at the right time to pick up her son.

Michael said...
Sounds... autobiographical... :D

Serena said...
Durn tootin'.

Got all the way to work just to discover I didn't have my skirt on. One of life's more embarrassing moments. I can laugh now, but then? I wished the floor would have opened up and swallowed me whole.

Bussing Frustration

Why is it that I live five minutes from my son's school, and it takes 1 hour and 35 minutes for the school bus to get him home, when he is the "second stop"?

Taxpayer dollars at work.

The school district provides one bus for the school my son attends, which has an elementary school, a middle school, and a high school. He is dismissed at 3:10. The bus then pulls around to the high school and loads the high school students at 3:40. Then the bus goes to the middle school and loads the middle school students at 4:10. By the time every bus is loaded and they are on their way, it is 4:45 when my son is deposited at his stop.

Why is it that I seem to be the only one who sees something wrong with this picture? Why isn't the bus taking the little ones home and then going back to the middle school to get those students, and why aren't the high school students bussed separately?

I have no idea who to call. I called the school district transportation department and got nowhere. They don't have enough busses, is what I'm told. Yet last year he was home by 3:35.

Ridiculous.

Logic Humor

Question:

You are traveling in a car at a constant speed.

On your left side is a double Decker bus and on your right side is a fire engine traveling at the same speed as you.

In front of you is a galloping pig which is the same size as your car and you cannot overtake it.

Behind you is a helicopter flying at ground level. Both the giant pig and the helicopter are also traveling at the same speed as you.

What must you do to safely get out of this highly dangerous situation?

Answer:

Get off the children's Merry Go Round, you're hammered.


Michael said...
Very funny! Thanks for posting this!

Serena said...
I had been deeply engrossed in Algebra homework when I decided to take a brain-break and check my email. I was sitting here thinking, "a bus and a fire engine and a pig...huh?" before I realized it was a joke. Takes me a minute, sometimes. :D

Rethinking things.

I lay in bed at night sometimes thinking about writing. Sometimes I will wake up thinking, "I should write a blog entry about this or that." Now, I have a notepad by my bed so I can write things down that wake me out of a sound sleep at 2:00 a.m., but do I write these ideas down? No. Without fail, I say to myself, "Ah, it's not that important...it's just a blog entry...I'll remember tomorrow." And I never do.

I need to readjust my thinking.

Maybe these things are not important to others, and in 100 years, no one may care, but right now, in my reality, this is important.

Writing is important. Expressing myself is important.

Repeat after me..."I am important."

I will start writing down those 2:00 a.m. ideas.

Michael said...
One of the most important people in my college experience was Dr. Joan Roberts, who taught “Introduction to Poetry.” She encouraged us to take our writing seriously, to honor it, and keep it in a notebook. She also encouraged us to save all of our efforts, as opposed to throwing things away that we judged unworthy, because saving all of our efforts creates a concrete record of our improvement as writers. It also creates a reservoir of ideas from which to launch future efforts.

Before I took that class, it never occurred to me that the attempts I was making at poetry were worth keeping, and taking her advice (along with other class lessons and activities) improved my writing dramatically.

Serena said ...

I am looking forward to my English Composition class this semester. When I make the time to write, I do actually enjoy it. It's the 'making time' part that's tricky.

So humid.....

I never complain about the heat. I would rather have a toasty 95 degree day than shovel snow in arctic winds. I do have to say, though, that as I have gotten older, the humidity kills me!

The humidity yesterday was 85%, and the temperature was about 90. The air was so thick - it was like breathing soup. It saps your strength. I haven't wanted to cook or do much of anything but rest. Ian has loved it - we've been hitting fast food restaurants for two days for '99 cent heart attacks' so we can be in air conditioning.

I'm thinking about getting an air conditioner for the living room in my apartment, which is 11x16, but I don't know what to buy. Thoughts are welcome!


Michael said...
The size of the unit you can buy will probably be limited by the width of your windows. Measure the width, then begin your search. Buy the most BTUs you can afford, because it will wind up cooling most of your place, given the floor layout.Watch the Home-Depot-type-ads in the Sunday paper. As you get to the end of summer, there will be sales. They might be starting already. Call Jeff and ask him about the timing of sales when he worked at HD.Whatever you buy, it will be money well spent - I know from experience.
8/04/2006 8:48 PM

Michael said...
Another thought about your place - when you cool the lower level, you can cool the bedrooms by using window fans pointing out for about 20 minutes - thereby drawing cool air out of the lower level. Or you can just sleep downstairs on the really hot nights...
8/04/2006 8:50 PM

Serena said...
Glad I asked...I didn't think of window size when considering an air conditioner. Didn't know it mattered! Another thought... The landowner is replacing my two living room windows. After he does this, he does not want me to hang any curtains or put any holes in his brand new window frames. I will need some sort of air conditioner that doesn't need to be screwed in. Do they even make such a thing? I currently have a 5,000 BTU air conditioner in my bedroom, and I keep my bedroom door closed to keep it cool in here after I shut it off. I have to admit, though...during that humid spell, I ran the air conditioner for the entire night for two nights in a row!

Graves

In December of 2003, I gained 13 pounds, seemingly overnight. I could no longer get to sleep at night; I just couldn’t shut my mind down long enough to get any rest. I became anxious about everything, even about things over which I had no control and even no personal knowledge. I worried about everything and began to obsess. And then I began losing weight. Rapidly. 35 pounds over six weeks. Now, I have never been considered "normal", but I made an appointment with my primary doctor because I knew there was something wrong with me. I just didn’t know what.

During that visit, my blood pressure was 170/100 and my pulse, at rest, was 102. I was having occasional chest pain from heart palpitations. And I was scared. I am a single mom.

The good doctor sent me for blood work, which showed my thyroid hormone was being suppressed. Off to an endocrinologist I went, and finally got an appointment for April of 2004.

My diagnosis? Grave’s Disease.

“Grave’s Disease,” I said. “You mean, ‘grave’ like in ‘dead’?” Sure enough. Also known as hyperthyroidism. The doctor told me to do as much research as I wanted to do to obtain as much knowledge as I felt comfortable with, and he would answer any questions I have.

I read everything I could get my hands on, from Thyroid Balance by Glenn S. Rothfeld and Deborah S. Romaine, to Thyroid for Dummies, by Alan L. Rubin, M.D. and Rich Tennant. I checked out websites like http://www.webmd.com/ and http://www.ngdf.org/ (National Grave’s Disease Foundation).

I got my Will in order. I got Tapazole.

I stabilized, but in April of 2005, the doctor decided I should have Radioactive Iodine Therapy. I went off the Tapazole for two weeks, and then went in to have another thyroid scan and set up the appointment for the Day to Kill the Thyroid. I had spontaneous remission. I figure the whole idea of RIT just scared the Grave’s right out of me.

As it turns out, remission was temporary. I gained 12 pounds during the month of March, an instant tip-off. And then in June, my blood pressure shot up to unhealthy levels again. I’m on Altace. I’m not overly anxious about anything yet, and I’m still sleeping at night, but doctor assures me that might not last. And I might also gain more weight before I start to lose again. He’s just a ray of bitter sunshine, that one.

Spontaneous remission is possible again. I believe the mind is a very powerful thing. I will set my mind to remission. I will have it.

Positive thinking never hurt anyone.

Baseball

I love baseball. There is no place I’d rather be than sitting three rows up from the field on the third base side, feeling the warmth of the sun sink into my bones, sipping a Labatts Blue, watching the boys of summer play. There’s a rhythm to it, activity in its leisure, that is as exciting as it is relaxing. Watching the manager sending signs, looking for the hit and run, and occasionally witnessing the two most exciting things on the planet - the suicide squeeze and the in-the-park homerun - it’s a wonderful way to pass a Sunday afternoon.

I always want the season to last forever. This is Buffalo, New York, after all, and fall is coming, and on its heels is snow. It is only 67 degrees here now, and I have goosebumps from the chill.

But no, I can’t think about that now. Not with the smell of Coppertone fresh in my nostrils and the memory of a 7 to 6 win fresh in my mind. Yet I’m not the first to want the game to last forever.

A. Bartlett Giamatti, the former commissioner of baseball who banned Pete Rose from the game, wrote an essay entitled, “The Green Fields of the Mind”. I read with a heavy sigh...

“It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops. Today, October 2, a Sunday of rain and broken branches and leaf-clogged drains and slick streets, it stopped, and summer was gone.” [link]

Could we write this poetically about football? I think not.

I just love this game.

(Above photograph of Miguel Ian playing t-ball, copyright 2006 by Michael Tabor)

Shakespeare

I’ve been a fan of Shakespeare since my senior year in High School. That year I had to take two English electives, and over my father’s objections (“Shakespeare. Nothing but 18th Century Porn, that’s all that is.”), I chose to take Shakespeare.

Our field trip that semester was to Chautauqua to see A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It was the funniest thing I’d ever seen, and I wanted more.

Our senior play that year was MacBeth. I not only played Lady MacBeth; I understudied the scenes I wasn’t in. I memorized most of that play. Definitely my fondest memory of my senior year.

One of the courses I had to take last semester was Sociology. I struggled with it, and discussed this course with my brother at length. One of the topics we discussed was the prison system, which led to a conversation about revenge, which led to a conversation about Shakespeare. He suggested that if I wanted to see a movie that was directly relevant to my studies, I should watch The Merchant of Venice starring Al Pacino and Jeremy Irons. [Movie Photos]

I rented it. I don’t think I moved during the entire course of the movie, except to grab a box of Kleenex. Al Pacino was phenomenal as Shylock, the Rich Jew. I forgot it was a movie and became completely engrossed in the story. (It's spoken entirely in Old English, but I found that wasn't a problem. After about a minute and a half, your brain sorts it all out, and you don't even hear the dialect.)

Jeremy Irons played the merchant, Antonio, who had nothing but contempt for Shylock and would even spit on him in the street. When Antonio needed to borrow a sum and sought it from Shylock, Shylock saw an opportunity for revenge. He gave Antonio the loan interest-free, but should Antonio default on the loan, Antonio had to repay with his flesh.

Shylock’s need for revenge so completely unbalanced him, as the story progressed I felt bottomless pity for him. For example, when rumor had it that Antonio lost a ship at sea, Shylock often said, “Let him look to his bond.” Salarino asked him, why would Shylock take Antonio’s flesh? What good would it be?

Shylock said, “To bait fish withal: if it will feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge. He hath disgraced me, and ... what's his reason? I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, ... If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villainy you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.”

I wept through that entire speech. Wept. He was so angry, so hurt, and so hell-bent on vengeance that he was mentally ill. And in the end, before the Court, he lost everything. In the end, his unbalanced, unreasoning need for revenge cost him everything he had.

There are many more layers to this story. I was surprised to discover that The Merchant is one of Shakespeare’s comedies. I have no idea why; I didn’t find it funny. It made me think.

It’s best to let things go, isn’t it? Vengeance gets us nothing, and grudges are weights that only hurt our own backs.

If you haven’t seen it, grab a box of Kleenex and watch. It is immortal.

Michael said...
There is an idea in our family that Shakespeare was merely pornography for the seventeenth century. For example, “Hamlet” is usually cited as a story of incest, but nothing could be further from the truth. The Danish Prince was on the verge of murder while in his mother’s chambers, and in fact commits one.

The classics are known as “The Classics” for a reason – they contain the archetypes and mythos of our culture. You can read “The Merchant of Venice” today, learn from it, and then read it in ten years and learn a new set of lessons. The story doesn’t change, but we do, and so the lessons we extract are changed through the lens of individual perception. I think this is one of the things that makes life worth living.

One of the first things I did after I left home was to begin reading the classics. Shakespeare, Coleridge, Hemmingway, Steinbeck… It is a process of absorption, adaptation and growth that will never end.

Rowing

I have just learned my father can row a boat like it's nobody's business.

I was on the phone with my brother tonight discussing my father, as we have done quite a bit since my mom's ultimate demise. Dad’s a multi-talented guy.

When my brother was between 20 and 30 years old, he and my Dad went to Red House Lake in Allegheny State Park to fish. They rented a row boat, and my brother thought, ‘I should row this thing. I’m younger, (whatever) I really should do the rowing,’ or something along those lines.

He spent a while figuring out how to do it, what angle the oars should be in the water, does the angle make a difference when you pull the oars out and put them back in, etc. It was obvious that he was struggling; they weren’t moving very fast, and after a bit, my Dad said, “Here. Let me do that.” Not judgmental or sarcastic or anything, just matter-of-fact. “Let me do that.”

Dad took over, and the next thing you know, they are FLYING across Red House Lake, like Where’s The Motor FLYING.

My brother remembers it like it was yesterday. It completely amazed him, and up until that point, he didn’t realize rowing isn’t as easy as it looks. Dad learned to row as a teen. There was a lake near his home that they spent a lot of time at as kids, so he perfected it.

There are so many stories I’ll bet my Dad could tell. Hopefully, now, I’ll get to hear more of them. I've got to remember to ask him if he remembers taking my brother out. It would be interesting to hear his thoughts.

Independence Day

I spent Independence Day with my nephews Jeff and Eric. They hosted their own show...perhaps not the most legal thing to do, but definitely FUN! Jeff said the best thing about doing your own is that it is 'custom made', you buy what you want to see, and you don't get stuck watching things you don't want to see. Jeff bought some sparklers for the little ones, too. My son had an absolute blast!

Modified 7-21-06: To hear my son tell it, the sun rises and sets on Jeff and Eric now. Not only did they have Fireworks, they had SPARKLERS!

I was going to give credit to the photographer for the above photo of fireworks, but I googled it and found it on no less than four websites. I have no idea who to give credit to. If you are the one who took it, thank you so much for sharing!

In Memory Of...

Anne Lucia Tabor, my mother.

February 27, 1936 - June 18, 2006

About Anne

Grades

I got my grades... 4.0!

Why do I worry so?

Michael said...
It’s just a habit. You can change it, if you want to.

The people who love you will not stop loving you if you do poorly in school.

Test Anxiety

I remember when I was in 2nd grade, I brought home a history paper with a score of 98. My father looked at it, looked at me, and said, "Where's the two points?" From that day forward, I've always put undue pressure on myself to get perfect test scores. Unreasonable, I know, but still...

Today I took my final exam in Organizational Behavior. I get so nervous before the test that I am actually nauseous, and during the test I actually have trouble breathing. It's almost as though I am panicking about something. And after it is all over, and the computer kicks back my score, the nausea fades, and my breathing slowly returns to normal. I got a 96, which is really not bad.

Fortunately for me, there are no final exams for my Sociology or Consumer Finance classes. The final in Algebra I is tomorrow. Then that's it. I'll have lived through my first semester. Hopefully, as time goes on, the anxiety will fade. I've got a long way to go to get my Bachelors. I really don't need to be putting myself through this at the end of every semester.


Michael said...
>My father looked at it, looked at me, and said, "Where's the two points?"

I’ve thought a lot about this – I think he was curious or genuinely puzzled, not interrogative. Dad has always said, “Hey, nobody ever asks where you finished in your class.” (Which isn’t really true, but it illustrates his casual attitude.)

Dad is easygoing, but it was mom who was torquemada. Remember that it was she who continually wanted achievement so it would bring kudos to the religion.

Torquemada is dead, and dad just wants you to be happy. Take a deep breath, let a wave of relaxation flow over you. Life is good.

Serena said... I did ask Dad about this in later years. He was joking. Unfortunately, at that point in my life, I didn’t understand and took his comment to heart. It’s one of many things I make an effort to work on – overcoming my childhood. You are so right about torquemada. Breathing during exams will become even easier in time.

Finals

Finals are next week-the first exams I've taken in 25 years. I can' t believe my first semester is almost over. Next semester I'm registered for macroeconomics, English composition, accounting I and algebra II. I love math.

But first I have to get through finals. I'm nervous, but I figure it this way. With a 95 average, even if I completely blow the exams, I'll still pass. I just gotta remember to breathe.

Michael said...
You go, girl.

Kids are Great

My beautiful baby boy just asked me to marry him. What a kid. And having to accept rejection at so young an age... ;-)

It's a brave new world...

Hello!

My brother started a blog, and the entire concept interests me. Thus, here I am.

I am a legal assistant and secretary in Buffalo, New York, am attending college as a full-time student, and am a single mom to a beautiful boy in Kindergarten. I haven't slept in weeks.