Great Reception ...

Cassandra showed me a great way to put on a jacket today, and then Rose showed me a great way to put on gloves. "Auntie Mary had a good idea. First you make a twist," says she, showing me a fist, "then you put it in the glove and go PFOO!" says she, opening up her fist and not getting the fingers into the glove's fingers. But she was paying attention to what she was doing (instead of off on some mission, while someone else tries to cram her hand into the glove) and got them straightened out soon enough. We had a grand visit at Mary and Robin's, with haircuts and playing, and yacking, and preparing and sharing of food (we feast well), and computer teching by Pete, and visiting the cats and chickens (like cats, chickens are soft, except for the sharp bits) and horses, and going for a walk along the frozen creek. Along the way to the creek, Rose showed me rabbit eggs that had baby mice in them (they looked for all the world like rocks ... good thing she was along to enlighten me).

Before I went to Mona and Pete's, I stopped for groceries. There was a relatively new, sparkly-clean pick-up in the parking lot with a rather tall step ladder standing open in the box. It was tied with those ratchet-type webbing straps and had an old-style TV antenna attached to the top. There was also an older sedan with a pentastar hood ornament to which had been duct taped a canadian flag on a stick. There was an Alberta flag on the antenna, flying at half mast.

Second Breakfast ...

I was feeling somewhat human on Tuesday (in spite of the election results), so I ran around and did a bunch of errands I've been putting off. By the end of the day, I was utterly wrung out and that hasn't improved much over the last couple of days. This is the most annoying cold/flu bug.

I had second breakfast with Barbara and Annailese yesterday. Good fun. I also tried something called Green Pie that Miles makes. Wonderful stuff.

I've been putting together a CD for Mom's cowboy friend in CA. I have the covers done and the CD. Tomorrow, I'll acquire a jewel case and assemble the whole mess, just in time to take it to the APs before they leave on Saturday.

Happy Birthday, Ernie!

Choices ...

First read the following (reprinted with permission), then go listen to Harper's Bizarre.

Or you could listen to Harper's Bizarre first and then read the following.

Or you could listen while you read.

"Harper's Bizarre" - An ElectroPolitica Diatribe from MC Puff Wheat and Upright Grand Master J.



Thanks for reading.

With the election looming in the near future, composers MC Puff Wheat and Upright Grand Master "J" have ground out another epic work of "ElectroPolitica"

"Harper's Bizarre" is a musical expose', a "flick of the earlobe," if you will, outlining some interesting past associations of one Stephen Harper, whose name seems to have been in the news recently.

Due to constraints on time, we are unable to provide you with a CD hard copy of the tune, but encourage you to listen to our broadcast quality mp3, which can be found by following the handy link below.

With our last work, "Ralph's World," we relied heavily on word of mouth, focused email, and the support of college radio stations in Alberta who were willing to tread where others feared to go. "Ralph's World" became a popular contribution to CJSR's "Rock 'Til You Ralph" compilation, and saw surprising popularity on internet peer to peer networks.

If you are of a mind to do so, please follow the link to "Harper's Bizarre," and accept our thanks for listening. We would appreciate your passing the link along to anyone you think interested.



http://harpersbizarre.johndoepro.com*



Thank you for your time,

MC Puff Wheat & Upright Grand Master "J"


"Harper's Bizarre" Copyright 2006 John Doe Productions.
Freely available for play on any media. Commercial resale or reproduction is strictly prohibited without the express written consent of the composers.


John Doe Productions,
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

johndoepro@canada.com

*If this link is not working, try this one. And give Ralph's World a listen while you're there.

I like the Sustainability Blog a bunch. This post got me thinking about chaos vs. order in my own space.

I don't think there's a clean gene. I think it's learned.

My parents are very clean and organized and tidy. Dad says that a truly lazy person cleans up right away and keeps things tidy. I didn't learn it from them.

I learned that I want to know whether or nor I've paid the bills that are due, and that I occasionally want to be able to find the one from three months ago to check it. So I learned to keep the bills in one place until they're paid and in another place until I file them and I learned to check the first place occasionally to see if it's time to pay them yet. I also learned that the bigger the receptacle I have in the second place, the longer it is between filings and the more tiresome it is. (Recently I learned that shredded paper is a problem for the local recycling program - so I've added the step of making soup from the papers I'm not willing to recycle unshredded and adding it to the compost) Eventually, I learned that Dad was right, but I had to take my own path to that lesson.

My kitchen cupboards are organized precisely, the drawers less so. I like the bed made but don't mind if I step on a shirt or two on the side of the bed that isn't visible from the bedroom door, as long as they're not blocking the heat duct. I rinse the dishes and stack them so it's easier to wash them when there are enough to bother with, but I'll soak a pan rather than rinsing it right away because it uses less water. I keep my paperwork in order but I have things hanging from every door knob in the house. There's way too much stuff on my bookshelves, but it's all standing up pretending it's in some kind of order and I dust it just often enough that I don't have to name the dust bunnies and give them collars. I dust mop the kitchen and hallways daily because I like to go barefoot and those are the places that get gritty. I vaccuum the area rug only when the layers of cat hair become visible. I take a couple of seconds to turn a pile of clutter into a neat stack; it's no less cluttered, but the appearance changes and now I've handled it and know what's there. I like to know what's where. I don't like hunting for things when I want them.

In my world, there's just enough cleanliness in the chaos so I feel like I'm actually driving this bus, rather than being an unwitting pawn on the giant entropy board. Once I feel I've exerted my will on the maelstrom, I'm content to let the rest whirl or settle or do whatever it pleases.

I'd like to live my life somewhere between Dad's truly lazy person who puts everything away right away and Spider Robinson's Jake Stonebender who figures if the bedroom's tidy there isn't enough fucking going on. Y'know, balance.

It seems like it's less about being tidy and more about being aware - aware of my immediate environment, and aware of its impact on the larger environment, and aware of the choices I make about how much I want to manage my impact on those envioronments.