Monday is like a Dentist Apointment

Ok, so I had a dental appointment today, still, Mondays have not ever been my favorite day. I used a weed whacker and whacked some weeds today. I ran out of twine twice and gas twice, too. I cursed the stupid weed whacker each time. The weede whacker was not to blame, but, as machines go, weed whackers are not the brightest and so it took the verbal lashing stoically. I, however, was green by the end of my tenure with the stupid thing. My pants bore the brunt of the chlorophyllic covering. I used a broom to wipe off the majority of it, but the jeans I wore today will bear the stains of the plant lives I took for several weeks until Tide washes it away...which is a bit of an untruth, since we use an All derivitive(Costco brand).

I came home at lunch and got showered for my appointment with the dentist. The dental hygeinist took good care of me...I hardly felt the needle. They had the filling done in nothing flat. I had time to discuss adoption with one of the girls that works there...I went to school with her. She has a 10 month old baby.

On the way home I bought some vegis for stir fry. It was good but not altogether filling. I attempted to remedy that situation by making a Huffman standby: Graham Crackers and frosting. Simple: milk and butter and powdered sugar make the frosting which is generously applied to half of a graham cracker, the other half of which is slapped on top of the frostinged frosted part and eaten. The upside is Cora does not like these little crackers from heaven. The down side is I apparently stored them too long in the laundry room next to the laundry soap...the crackers took on a decided bounty smell and taste...which I did not notice until Cora told me. She had opted for a plain graham cracker and was munching on it before I was finished frosting my lot. She got a terrible expression and pronounced them bad. I took a small piece and said I could live with it...but that was before the chemicals had a chance to soak into my sensory membranes. I took a large bite of cracker and frosting only to find to my horror that it tasted decidedly of soap...ehhwww, yuck, gag. I then simply opted for the remainder of my frosting, which had partial success at displacing the soapy taste. I did not give Cora enough frosting to do the trick. What is it they say on the airplane? First tend to yourself, THEN your loved ones. Well, Cora, I am sorry if you lost taste buds or the power of smell, but I needed to tend to myself first( after all, Delta Airlines would not lie...and neither would Soputhwestern!).

I DID manage to read a bit tonight. about 20 pages of the prefered text and about five pages of a related text and some extras from one somewhat further removed. I feel I actually made progress. Proof, i suppose, is in the fact that it is 11:22pm and I am still awake. Well, i am going to go read a little more and then go to bed and work again tomorrow.

Daddy's Got a New Pair of Shoes!!

Yesterday was a relaxing day. We took it easy, but we did go to town to get a few things. I got my last pair of tennis shoes last spring…maybe last winter. I have not worn them as much since I have been teaching. I have some dressier shoes for that. However, my shoes are showing the wear of time and that hole in the sole from when I stepped down on that stupid T post is still there, too. I decided I would like to get a new pair of shoes. I don’t enjoy shopping for shoes…or anything else for me, for that matter. I would just prefer Cora get my size and do it for me. She does not like to do that, though. So, we both went shoe shopping for me…I am NOT going to do it alone! I found a pair that looked nice and looked to see if they had my size. They had one shoe that was a size 9. The other shoe was nowhere to be found. We looked high and low, no other size nine of that style. So, I decided to try a pair of 8.5’s. They seemed to fit. I thought a little snug, but decided to buy them anyway, then go to another shoe store to test sizes for that brand. Turns out the 8.5’s were fine. I was happy to get a new pair of shoes.

We came home and then yesterday evening we took the dogs for a walk. My shoes are great. I did not get any splinters in my toes. I did not have to limp because I stood on a pebble. My feet did not get too cold. When I stepped in a shallow puddle my feet did not get wet. They did everything a shoe is supposed to do. I was pleased. I kept telling Cora I was happy to have new shoes. I think she got tired of it and she told me to blog about my new shoes. Now, as I sit here barefoot and sipping coffee, I see them on the floor and I indeed felt the urge to blog and tell the whole world about my new shoes. (If you have not caught on yet, this might be a slow blog day.) I like them because they are green and tan. Not a pair of colors often seen in tennis shoes. They should go well with this year’s shorts. I bought another pair of shorts yesterday, too. I now have four pairs I am allowed to wear in public…Cora frowns on public showing of the holes in my shorts, so I am forced to wear new-ish ones. Just because there are holes in them does not mean they are bad!

We also got Cora a tiny pair of elf scissors. She said they were necessary for cutting butt holes. (She was talking about butt holes a lot yesterday. She was threatening to sew some earlier in the day…now she wanted to cut them?) Then she clarified when I looked at her funny. “BUTTON HOLES.” Oh, that makes more sense. I now knew she was talking about the dress she was making for Little Miss. Here is a picture of how it turned out. I think she did a really good job and her choices for fabric and butt(ons) were perfect.

We went and saw “The Spiderwick Chronicles” when it was in theatres and we both thought it was an excellent movie. So, when we found that it was out, we bought it on DVD. We watched it yesterday.

I spent the final portion of my evening attempting to catch up on some reading for the master’s. I hope I can manage it, it is just SO hard to set time aside for that particular reading, when I would rather re-read the Harry Potter series again…Some books I can read over and over, and those are some.

Oh, we also opened a bottle of Piety Flats Mercantile Red...Mmmm-mmmm, I wonder why other wineries bother, when perfection in a glass can be obtained from Piety Flats? It is GOOD wine. Oh, and check out Toby's position...which, I assume, he felt was comfortable, but did not quite look like it was.

I don’t know what we are doing today, maybe some more relaxation. Cora got up and had part of a cup of coffee while fighting to keep her eyes open, then she gave up and went back to bed. I think I will go read a little more about the Cold War and maybe make some notes after I finish here. I hope everyone enjoys their Sunday!

My Other Jet Fighter is a Camry!

I took the car in for oil. I then drove up to the college for my meeting with the professor. Seems those questions he asked me last week are basically what I will be facing in the written portion of the exam…IN DEPTH. By that, I mean DEEEEEEEEEEEEP CONSIDERAAAATIOOONNNNN! Breaking each question down by administration, and further by how each answer was affected economically, diplomatically, and militarily. It is completely possible, but take into account also that there are two more professors who have not been heard from. Then add to that I have done much less reading in their areas…for the love of Dog! I may die! Ok, maybe a bit melodramatic…

I also have a dentist appointment in about an hour, which means I had better finish my popsicle and brush my teeth. I believe they will be inserting my crown…no, I am not royalty. Yet. It was a mix-up at birth and soon Prince Charles will come knocking…

Oh, and the car? Well, I got to drive it to the college. It goes fast. REALLY fast. I like it. I'm a jet fighter pilot.

Wire Pulling, No Water, and Hard Questions

I went to work at six this morning. I came home 10 hours later. I helped the electrician pull wire. Pulling wire, for those of you who don’t know, is taking what the electrician calls a fish tape and sending it through a length of conduit…which is easy if it is perfectly strait, which it rarely is. Fish tape is not tape. It is steel wire, 1/8 of an inch by 1/16 on an inch and VERY long. You stick it through the conduit, when it comes out on the other end, you attach the wire you want to put through the conduit to it. Then you pull the fish tape and the wire back through the conduit. Each corner and bend in the conduit induces more drag…making the entire rig harder to pull. The electrician is nice, though, since he does not make me pull all the time. We switch off. It was kind of fun, though. We wired a new fuel pump for the bus garage.

I came home and the water was off. No, not the sprinkler. The water, all of it. In the house, everywhere. I called the city, because I know we paid the bill. The guy who answered said he had just changed the meters today, from what we had to a radio transmitter type. It allows him to read the meter from a block away! Anyway, he said he must have forgotten to turn it back on again. He came over a few minutes later an put it right.

Now we are watching a video. Fool’s Gold with Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson seems to be a good movie so far. I also rented Jumpers, but we have not watched it, yet. There appears to be nothing on tonight.

So, I called my professor yesterday and sent him my book list. He sent me a reply. More like some questions to ponder and try to be prepared for. Here they are if you are interested:

Here are a couple questions to practice on.

1) John Gaddis argued, “For all [containment’s] contradictions, mutations, and irrationalities, [it has] been a surprisingly successful
strategy: historians looking back on the post-World War II era are likely to rate it as one of the more stable and orderly of modern times, and to give the architects of containment no little credit.” Is Gaddis’s assessment compelling? In answering that question, include a discussion of the factors that were important in shaping the evolution of America’s containment policy from the Truman to Reagan administrations. Discuss the key phases in the nation’s approach to containment policy, with particular attention to military, economic, and diplomatic considerations.

2) Discuss the role that the Third World played in the shaping of the Cold War with particular attention to how it influenced American and Soviet policy.

3) In what ways did domestic issues and trends interact with foreign relations between 1945 and 1975? How much did they determine positions taken by presidents, diplomats, and other politicians in this period?

O.k., I think I can handle the second one, and I could probably work with the third one. Since I haven’t read the book for a very long time…if, indeed, I did read it…I can only answer the first partially. I have an appointment with my professor next Wednesday. Well, I guess I will have to sit down and think real hard like Pooh Bear. Wish me luck.

Today's picture seems illustrative of how I feel. I am alone in a desert, looking for a

glass of cold war knowledge...these are the Superstition Mountains, by the way. Taken on our wonderful trip to AZ!

Chemical Warfare and other Ant Remedies!

So, I had the day off. I got started by making coffee for both Cora and me. She got up and went to work. I got up…you don’t expect me to do anything but sit on my butt until 8 in the morning, do you, especially on my day off? I got up and began to do the dishes and laundry. The cat had been whining and mewing all morning. He does this because he has forgotten he has food. He knows where his dish is, he simply does not remember if he has any food and is loathe to check on it. Most of the time you just walk toward his dish, he jumps up in anticipation and then finds, much to his surprise, that there is food already there! He honestly looks surprised! Only on rare occasions has Cora or I forgotten to check his food. Today his crying seemed a bit more persistent than normal. I ignored him anyway.

I began to clean house. I opened one of our armoires to put some potato chips away when I saw some ants. ( I know I have written about ants before. I intend to again. ) I raised the alarm! I began to search for their source, since they always come from somewhere. There were only a few in that spot…I looked and there…crawling up toward his food dish was a line of ants. His food dish resides on a shelf about 30 inches off the ground so the dogs don’t bother it. The line of ants stretched from the corner of where the counter meets the wall out in a diagonal line toward the corner of the shelf that his food is on. It then climbed vertically 30 inches (approximately 1.5 ant miles) strait up a relatively smooth surface. I immediately fell back for reinforcements.

I am an old hand at fighting ants. When I was young we had Red Ant piles all around the house. These red ants are usually about 3/8 of an inch long and possess a nifty little bite or sting…never stuck around long enough when they began biting or stinging. I have used numerous ways of combating them. A magnifying glass and the sun is a pleasantly gruesome death for small numbers of ants, but they run fast, so you must be steady with the magnifying glass. I have used shovels to open up their nests (I recommend an unblocked escape route). I have used water…desert ants get extremely confused when a deluge of water floods their compartments! And, my personal favorite, not necessarily recommended or supported by the EPA, OSHA, Department of Wildlife, or NASA, is gasoline…the lighted kind. You can see them wiggle and writhe in pain!! Ah, the horrid glory! I used to live for the smell of freshly burned Ant Hill in the morning.

My sister could probably tell you the story I am about to tell a little better than I since she was an interested observer, whilst I was a soon to be roasted participant. It was summer time. Red Ant season. There were several piles, but this one had for some reason warranted my attention. I had opted for gasoline and matches. The SOP was to poor gasoline on the pile and then throw a match on it. Watch the ants come out and die and then when it burnt out repeat the process. Gasoline was usually dispensed from any available container...from plastic cup to tin can. Today it was a glass Orange Crush bottle...you remember the thin styrofoam wrappers around them? Anyway, things were going splendid, several hundred ants had died, but the gasoline was still in my bottle. (Mind you this was the old style gasoline...remember the kind you could afford to burn up like that? Today, it is best to put your gallon of gasoline for the mower in a bank safety deposit box) I poored a little on this pile and lit it. Carrie watched from a distance, she had been participating, but it was my turn. I decided that the burn was not quite what I had anticipated (get it, ant-icipated) so, rather than waiting for it to go out, I simply poured strait from the bottle down onto the flames. Now, I KNEW the theory behind gasoline and how it would follow a dribble upwards, but apparently I had not studied the physics quite well enough. The properties of flame in gravity cause them to rise,and the pouring of liquids requires that the doaner be above the receiving parties premisise. The flame dutifully climbed the stream of gasoline, alighting (get it) at the mouth of the bottle. I stood for a moment and stared at this, then my fear struck and I tossed the bottle...remember it was still pouring? A stream of flaming gasoline flew from the bottle. We happened to be standing in DRY CHEATGRASS. The dry tinder lit immediately. I don't remember if my sister helped or just stood there laughing. I started stomping on the fire, and got it out. My beloved little sister had some things to say, though. I think we may also have been worried about how our parents would have handled a brush fire in the back yard.

Since these are ants in the house, I opted for a different weapon. I have used several weapons on the inside the house ones, too. I have used hammers, glasses, and other handy items to squish them, I have used water to drown them, and liquid soap to entomb them, but the old tried and true is Chemical Warfare. I am aware that NATO, UNICEF, and the WHO all frown on it and the Geneva Convention frankly bans it. I, personally, am not signator to any of those accords, so I freely unleashed a WMD (Weapon of Mass Destruction upon their little six legged asses!). It was a chemical weapons attack. I started at the food bowl. Then I hit the rear of the line, those in the middle were trapped, since we know that ants don’t travel outside the lines! Hah, it was shooting fish in a barrel. I made several runs until each one of them was dead.

A few weeks ago, I bought some Ant Barrier. If I sprinkled it around the border of the house it would keep them away from the house. After two applications, I still see lines of ants filing up the foundation. I called the 800 number and they will be refunding me my money. How nice. He also gave me another type that should work. He laughed when I offered to email him a picture of ants trailing past his product toward my foundation. Oh, well.

I also called my professor, who wanted to know when I wanted to take the test…ummm…never? Not an option. Because I really suggested that they just give me a degree and that way we would not have to bother with a test which would waste their time and mine…alas, I still have to read about a billion books. Why have I not been reading them? Well, I just have not felt the fire underneath my ass…trust me, it helps when you are like me. I will be unbearable to live with for the next couple months, but I should be able to get it done, if only I stress enough. I am a horrible student, and not much better as a teacher…or maybe I am too nice? Oh, well, does it matter? I still have to take an 8 hour written test on the Cold War and then sit in front of a committee and answer a bunch of questions…hmm, can’t I just have chosen something easy like a master’s in basket weaving?

So, with that in mind, what am I doing? Blogging. Figures.