Thursday, July 29, 2010

Thor's Day!

I was looking through some old files yesterday and realized how impossibly cute Thor is.


Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Tuesday Time Wasting

The other day, I was on my neighborhood walk when I passed by a house at the end of the street. There were several people in the yard. I was just shuffling by when the one of the gentleman called out good morning to me. So I said good morning in return and gave that I-know-I'm-all-sweaty-and-gross-but-howdy smile.

Then he said it. It. That phrase that makes me want to smack people upside their heads.

"I ain't got time for that, do a mile for me, will ya?"

Ain't got time.

"Oh, I don't have time to waste on the computer."

"Oh, I don't have time to put pictures in an album like that."

"I don't have time to read books."

It annoys the shit out of me. It is such a rude, snide little put down. Never has the phrase been used in a I wish I could tone, always that superior I have better things to do tone.

I know I've ranted about this before but really. Just don't say anything. When you are talking about the latest showing of American Idol, I don't puff up and say I don't have time to watch all that. When you are drooling over Team Edward or Team Jacob, I don't tell you I don't have time for that.

How you spend your time in your leisure activities is none of my business. Nor do I judge you on how you spend it. You watch TV, I blog. I'm sure the same amount of time is "wasted" in our pursuits.

Stop with the judging.

Loki sez: I don't have time for people who don't have time for kittens.

Sunday, July 25, 2010

Loki Sunday

Loki was very upset to hear that Thor got a movie deal. He has been working on his portfolio to prove how much more qualified he is.

Dramatic actor:

Action hero:

Dancer:

Comedian:

Friday, July 23, 2010

One Deer, Two Deer, Three

Momma Deer and the babies going home:

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Thor's Day!

Thor was very excited to learn Hollywood is making a movie about him.

He's getting his fangs all pearly white.

Finding his "best side".

Practicing his serious actor pose.

Displaying artistic temperament. (He'll be in his cat bed if you need him.)

And working out.

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Hey, Y'all, Watch This!

This is freaking awesome! I love the people I work with.

Look quick towards the end for the people dressed in black and white, that's my portion of the St. Francis family.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Tuesday Afternoon

A bit of a conversation with a very brief acquaintance about the Beatles led to the speculation about John Lennon's religious views. The gentleman I was speaking with said something along the lines that Lennon may have been a spiritual person, but not necessarily a religious one, citing the words from the song "Imagine". He then went on to inform me that there was a difference between religion and spirituality.

Blink.

What I thought: Well, duh, but thanks for thinking that I'm some sort of moron.

What I said: Oh, that is so very true.

There is a level of what we label human spirituality (which I think is merely the attainment of the ability to separate your own thoughts, wants, needs, and prejudices from your consideration of others), but there is a level that transcends even the term spiritual.

Mother Teresa, even though supposedly working under the banner of the Catholic religion, had attained that level.

Certainly Ghandi had attained it.

Buddha, absolutely.

I think John Lennon could see it. I think if he hadn't been taken so cruelly and so soon from us, he certainly would have continued to strive towards it and we all would have been more loved for it.

If only more of us would strive to transcend to that level of love and service to our fellow inhabitants of this earth, human and non-human, what a wonderful world this would be!

Thor sez: Imagine!

Monday, July 19, 2010

Monday MishMosh

Oy. Wasting time until I have to go get a cavity filled, my blood drawn and a PPD placed. It's Monday, might as well get stabbed with needles all day, huh?

Contacting my father was worth the risk just to get this bit of information: My great-grandmother came over from Ireland with her pet canary and a load of homemade Irish butter to trade for necessities. (Makes me wonder what I'd bring - the boyz and a load of Benne seed wafers perhaps?)

This project is getting pretty big, thinking next time I print it out (I have to have hard copy to line edit off, for some reason I miss so many errors when reading on line) I may have to take it to Kinko's or Office Depot.

I have four chigger bites from our Daufuskie excursion. Jason has like 400. Poor thing. But when they started handing out "snake sticks" to beat the grass with, I bailed out. No way, not this chick. And my original Parent Trap reference of clapping sticks together was completely wasted. Sigh.

Twitter used to be fun and funny, now it is nothing but people being so serious and using it to further their professional image and status. So much for "social". Too much self promotion and not enough snark.

How can I remember all the words to American Pie, but I can't remember where I put my phone list?

And, because snuggly kittens are cute at any age:

Friday, July 16, 2010

Daufuskie Daytripping

We went to Daufuskie Island yesterday. Left late, caught the last ferry to the island so we could get up at the butt crack of dawn to begin taking photographs. Jason was on assignment for Sandlapper Magazine and I tagged along because I've never been there before.

Quite an interesting place. Dinner was what the restaurant owner/chef said we could have because she was "in a mood".

I had fresh squeezed goat milk in my coffee this morning.

While riding through deep woods on the back of a souped up go-cart with a 81 year old man at the wheel, I had the opportunity to say, "Did I just see a giant bull?"

Ate lunch at a wonderful place called the Dirt Road Diner.

Had to carry a snake stick.

Had to do a tick check.

Going to bed now.

Loki sez: Thank Ceiling Cat you made it home! I almost starved to Death!

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Thor's Day


Wait, that's not Thor. Look behind Momma Deer and you can see her little baby watching her. A few minutes later, baby wandered off into the neighbor's yard and I saw another baby. So we have twins again! Momma Deer jumped the fence when one of the babies started walking out of her view, then they both ran up to her and tried to nurse. It was so cute. The battery on my video recorder is dead or I would have tried to get a film.

Thor sez: Sigh. Upstaged by the Bambi twins again.

Monday, July 12, 2010

Stirring up the Ghosts

The last time I saw my father, I was 16. I'm pretty sure that is the last time I spoke to him. There was a brief correspondence around age 23 that didn't end well.

There are probably plenty of reasons on both sides for this, but 50 has a different way of seeing the world than 16 or even 20, so I'm more likely to forgive myself and him for whatever mistakes we may have committed.

As many of you know, I am working on a huge genealogy project. It's been an odd voyage of discovery. The Nye side has been very well documented by others over the years, so all I really had to do was copy down names and dates, all the way back to Denmark in the 1200's.

The Nimitz side was a bit more of a mystery. I've been spending most of my research time chasing down Nimitz's, Godfrey's, Sanders', and spelling gods help me, the Eikerenkoetter's. This has led to a wealth of old photographs and stories. With even more to come.

But as I watched the dry, dusty born, married, died names and dates come to life with the addition of young, vibrant faces and stories, I realized that I had nothing personal (except for my and my brother's recollections) of the Nye family. The family history went cold and boring with my grandparents.

So I turned to a researcher's best friend: Google.

And found a six year old address for my father and step-mother.

I wrote a letter, explaining what I was doing with the genealogy and what I was looking for. I sent it off into the vast blue of the US Postal Service expecting one of two things: nothing or a returned envelope.

I was so unprepared that when the out of state number popped up on my caller ID with the name "W. Nye", I spent at least three rings trying to figure out why my nephew Douglas' phone would have a "W" in the name.

But it was my father. It was a pleasant conversation. At 80, I suppose his perspective is different also. I won't say it was a great reunion or that any personal issue was solved. He was very happy with the genealogy project (I didn't remember until days later that his mother was very big into the Nye family genealogy and had, I think, helped with the printing of the second volume of the Nye Family). He has photographs he will scan and send to me. He has stories that he will write up and send to me.

It's good. If we start a correspondence, fine. It this is all there will be, fine. At least my last contact with him will have been a pleasant one.

My father and grandmother, the only photograph I have of her. Hopefully, not for long.

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Friday, July 09, 2010

Yippee!

Poor, long suffering, all around good guy Jason has finished processing the approximately 10 trillion pictures he took in Amsterdam.

Now, I get to go through them and select those to have printed. Then put together the photo album. I have a photo album/scrapbook for every trip I take. But not those crazy scrapbooks, just bits and pieces of receipts, tickets, brochures, stuff like that. There are no glue guns involved.

This, I think, will be my official Jubilee Year photograph. Perhaps I'll have a print made up and framed like the Queen. Taken at the Kuekenhof Gardens:

I sort of like this one of me outside the Poezenboot, but I was so darn tired I could barely smile.

This is in the neighborhood just behind Vondelpark. I made Jason take this picture because I liked the colors.

Vondelkerk just outside Vondelpark. A rare glimpse of the sun that day. This church is no longer a church, but office space.


Now, these are some vacation kittens!
Artis Zoo
All photographs by JAZ

Thursday, July 08, 2010

Thor's Day

Napping as an art form.



Thor sez: Um, do you mind?

Tuesday, July 06, 2010

Ch-ch-ch-changes

One of the criticisms of health care reform is that once uninsured people gain insurance, there won't be enough doctors to serve them. So, critics warn you might have to see a -insert ominous music here - a physicians assistant (PA) or a nurse practitioner (NP).

Ahhhhh! Oh noes!!

Guess what will happen then?

Gasp!

You might get better care!!!!

Ahhhh! Oh, wait, what?

For non-urgent, non-surgical problems, seeing a PA or NP may get you better results. NP's are especially good at helping patients manage long term health problems like diabetes.

I see a family practice doctor for my general health needs, she is the manager of my overall health, sending me out to various specialists, but she is the one who has the entire picture. Family practice docs are a critically endangered species and I hope they can attract more new docs to the field. They have a little different mind set than most specialists, in my opinion, it is closer to the way nurses look at health, which is looking at the whole person, physical, mental and emotional, instead of whatever body part the doctor specializes in.

But within a specialists office, a PA or NP can be a huge asset. Case in point, my ortho doc. If ever I needed someone to grab a scalpel or a saw and operate on my knees, he'd be my choice. Last week, I went to his office to go over the results of the MRI to my left knee. I know he looked at the results because I heard him talking to the PA in the hall. But I saw his PA, who must be new because I'd never seen him before.

Here is how an appointment with the doc goes: How's the pain? Do you want a cortisone shot? You've got arthritis and there is nothing we can do surgically at this time to fix it.

Here is how an appointment with the PA goes: What can't you do now that you would like to do? Other than the arthritis, most of your problem is caused by the fact that over the years, the swelling has rotated your knee caps slightly out of alignment and that is causing all the lateral knee pain. You need to build up your muscle mass on the quads here, you're built like Gumby (to which I added: Dammit). He then showed me some exercises to do to build the exact muscles I need to build up, gave me a prescription for an arthritis medication since the 10 billion ibuprofen I take obviously doesn't work, gave me a cortisone shot to each knee, had an honest discussion with me about my wants (probably will be able to do a 10 mile a day hike, probably won't be able to get back to working three 12 hour shifts in a row, most definitely should not attempt to return to yoga for quite a while).

I left there finally feeling like my $50 co-pay was well spent.

So, if you have to see a PA or NP, give it a chance. You might be pleasantly surprised at the quality care you get.

Thor sez: Nice try, but I'm still putting up a fight next vet visit time.

Sunday, July 04, 2010

Thursday, July 01, 2010

Money, Money, Money

Watching President Obama speaking about illegal aliens is making me want to scream. Can we just get down to brass tacks here?

First we must admit that money is the impetus for everything. Money. If you want to know the "truth" of any political hot issue, look to where the money is.

Now, follow closely:

1. Illegals come here for jobs.

2. Businesses that hire them profit from the lower wages.

3. Businesses' bottom lines will suffer if they cannot hire illegals.

4. Businesses contribute to political campaigns.

5. Politicians won't go after the source - THE JOBS - because it would upset their contributors and they won't get money.

6. Illegals come here for jobs.

Go to the top and repeat for the rest of your life until someone grows the balls and/or ovaries to seriously go after the employers.

Let's say you were deadly allergic to wasps and bees. You put a hummingbird feeder in your yard so you can watch the hummingbirds. But bees and wasps start hanging out in your yard in greater and greater numbers, attracted by the nectar. Do you swat and kill individual bees and wasps or do you take down the feeder?

Loki sez: No! No owie bugs!