It just occurred to me when you have to define the words you are about to use, in a pre-amble sort of way, before you begin to explain something else, and the definitions themselves are paragraphs in length and sometimes refer to other sets of definitions, you have already complicated the process far more than necessary. I am, of course, America’s system of ruling itself.

Government web sites are not maximized for user-friendliness.

Now if you will excuse me, I must return to discussing the use of a hyphen in “user-friendly” and how exactly one would indicate the opposite of “user-friendly” … like do you add an “un” and if so, where. Is the damn word even hyphenated? What in the name of Hades is “friendly” modifying? I just want to know where to put the damn “un” to indicate the opposite of “user-friendly!” Aren’t hyphenated words treated as nouns, so wouldn’t the “un” go on user? But just because it’s a noun doesn’t mean it’s a single word, or does it? WTF?!

Yeah. That discussion right there. I have to get back to that now, so let me be blunt. Government web sites suck in just about every way imaginable. Have you ever noticed that?

Now should those last two sentences be two sentences, or should there be a colon there? Is the first word after the colon capitalized? Sh*t! I used ellipses incorrectly. I am certain of it!

I had something I was going to say, but the Grammar Harpy that lives in my head just will not shut up, and Lin, who also has an inner-grammarian, is always more than willing to explore the intricacies of modern grammar usage in American English. That has most certainly not helped put the harpy back in the box.

Whatever it was I wanted to say, is temporarily lost to the ether. In the end, I have been left with a browser window containing a page on the Florida Legislature’s web site and the knowledge that government web sites truly do suck for information retrieval. It took me so long to get close to what I was looking for, I completely forgot what I was looking for.

Thank you, Grammar Harpy! Thank you for ruining what, I am certain, would have been an excellent post about something concerning Florida. All I have been left with is hours of grammatical rules discussions with my husband, and this post. Thanks. Thanks a lot.

The cats have the right idea. It’s time to roll over on my back under an air conditioning vent and have a nap. I am off to the couch.

Everything you need to know about fertilizing with Epsom salts. I will be doing this soon. It won’t hurt, and it might help!

Do you know why Epsom salts are called Epsom salts? I thought it was probably named after some person, but actually it’s because it was found in the well water of Epsom, England. I learn something new every day.

This morning, I opened all the windows. Not all the windows, as all the windows don’t open, but the one each in the living room, den, and kitchen. Let’s see how long I can make it today before I have to turn on the air conditioning. Yesterday, I made it until 3:30 pm, but I only had the kitchen window open, and I didn’t turn on the ceiling fans. Right now, it’s very pleasant in the house, but I don’t mind being hot as much as some people do.

I’ve already been productive today and got an early start. The dishes were done by sunrise, and then I went and tended to my plants and pulled some weeds in the yard. I am beginning to enjoy being outside early in the morning, which is a good thing seeing as we are already having days with temperatures in the mid-90’s. Being outside later in the day is impossible due to the heat, and it’s only the end of May.

I’m still not having much success with all those blossoms on my various pepper plants setting and turning into fruit. I’m uncertain if this is due to my impatience — peppers take a long time to come to maturity — or if there is some other problem, like too much nitrogen in the soil, improper watering routines, or it’s already getting too hot outside. I’m going to move the jalapeños to a spot on the porch that doesn’t get quite as much sun and see what happens. It’s completely depressing to see a ton of blossoms on them one day and then find most of those blossoms have fallen off the next. I did find a hint during my research on blossom drop which suggested spraying the flowers with a mixture of one tablespoon epsom salts with a gallon of water, and if I don’t see improvement this coming week, I may give that a try. Apparently, the magnesium in the epsom salts helps the blossoms set.

I’d planned to spend the rest of the day finishing up the heavy cleaning in the den and kitchen, but I might put that off until tomorrow or Monday. I’m feeling lazy. Well, not lazy, more like not interested in doing any heavy cleaning today. Lin’s planning to mow the yard when he gets home from work, so that means I’ll be out there later helping him with yard stuff. I most definitely don’t feel like spending the early afternoon doing housework and then the late afternoon sweating my butt off outside. There’s only so much a lazy chick like me can tolerate. Getting the rest of the house Mom-Ready is only going to take a couple of hours. I’m not worried about getting it done by Monday evening. Besides, I’m thinking I will have a lot of nervous energy on Monday in anticipation of Tuesday’s early morning dental event, and I am a tornado of household cleaning when I am totally stressed out.

Oh, and I went over to the convenience store this morning, because I knew Insane Neighbor Lady was working. How long did you think I could resist? I now know her whole work schedule for the week. She’s going to be gone a lot. Yippee! It occurred to me on the drive home that anyone seeing us chatter in public would assume we were good friends. We probably could have been good friends, if she wasn’t an insane and racist harpy. I have to at least seem to be friendly with her for two reasons: I’m likely to be living next door to them for a long time, and it’s the only way to find out things like her work schedule for the entire week.

So what to do with the rest of my lazy afternoon? I believe I shall pour myself a nice tall glass of root beer and read one of the several books I am in the middle of reading. Am I the only one who usually has several books in progress at the same time? I can’t help it. I have a short attention span, am easily bored, and there are so many books to read before my time is up!

It is in how we treat the perceived outcasts, misfits, and undesirables in our society that the true form of our freedoms and rights are demonstrated.
–Orb

You knew there was going to be a new photo of this silly tomato every day until I get to eat it, didn’t you?

Look at it. Just looooook at it. It’s almost red. Almost!

I’m guessing, going by the progression of the color change for the last two days, it will be ready for consumption on Sunday. I guarantee you it will be eaten before I go have teeth removed from my head, because I am not passing up the chance to eat the first tomato of the season due to some silly technicality like not being able to eat solid foods. I don’t care if it isn’t quite ripe on Monday, it will be eaten by Monday night when I have to start fasting.

But I’m betting it will be ready on Sunday, and then Lin and I shall have it for breakfast.

We forgot to tell the DVD club we didn’t want to get the latest selection, and it came today. Just wondering: is Juno worth owning or watching? I’ll probably just send it back, because the refund would be nice right now, but if it’s a really great movie I really should see, maybe we’ll keep it.

Well, I got a couple of things at the store for tonight to make this at least a somewhat happy birthday for the old man.

The big news of the day is that I wore shorts to the grocery store. Shorts! Me! In shorts!

Now I wear all manner of shorts around the house, but I never wear shorts in public, mostly because I am one of those non-shaving females. Since I recently took part in the biannual de-furring of my legs, and it already feels like it’s 100 degrees outside, I decided why the hell not show off my skinny little paper-white stick legs. It felt weird. I may do it again.

In other news, I have gossip that happened the week I was felled by my toothache and forgot to tell you about!

Insane Neighbor Lady is now working at the convenience store just up the road. Apparently, she has been clearing out the hookers, dealers, bums, and whatever other people she determines are riff-raff (the list, it is long) by being an obnoxious ass, picking fights with people, and calling the cops all the time. As you may well imagine, this has begun to make her some enemies, and some of these enemies know where she lives. I guess they followed her home. Who knows. Anyway, the first day I was stuck in bed in an alcohol induced stupor to ease the pain of the toothache, I was awakened by the familiar tones of Insane Neighbor Lady shrieking just outside my bedroom window. I stuck my little eyeball to the window blinds, because the show over there beats any soap opera. I expected to see her screaming and throwing things at her husband (or Motorcycle Man), but no. She was screaming and throwing things at some truck on the road I did not recognize.

The only words I caught were “You stupid, crazy, drug-using whore!” Now that is rather like the pot calling the kettle black. Well, except the whore part. Pretty sure my neighbor is monogamous. No one else but Insane Neighbor Man would put up with her, I assure you. Anyway, the truck sped off as Crazy Neighbor Lady dialed a number on her phone, presumably the cops. Next I see Insane Neighbor Man pull up in their SUV, and she takes a break from shrieking at whoever is on the phone to scream at him that “they” had just gone down the street and to follow them, which he does at about 60 miles an hour from a standing start. Then all I hear is her telling the person on the phone that her husband is following “them” and giving them his cell number to call him to find out where they are … and then a bunch of unintelligible utterances at loud volume sprinkled with curse words. I went back to sleep. The show seemed to be over.

The next day, the Insane Neighbors put up floor to ceiling wrought ironwork bars on their porch. All around the porch. So I guess she may have pissed off someone she is actually afraid of, which wouldn’t surprise me. She pisses everyone off, even her own family members. The woman is toxic.

Now I have no idea what is going on, and I am not about to ask. I do not need or want their drama spilling over onto my property and life. I do not go out of my way to get in the face of dealers, hookers, bums, or any other riff-raff. I’d call the cops, if I saw anyone doing anything horribly criminal, but I wouldn’t call attention to the fact I had. Pretty much, I leave the riff-raff alone, and they leave me alone, and that’s just fine by me. I do not need stupid, crazy, drug-using people driving by my house being upset with me. I have some living next door already who, thankfully, are not upset with me (yet — I’m sure the day will come though). There’s a right way and a wrong way to “reclaim” a neighborhood from riff-raff, and she has obviously chosen the wrong way. She always seems to do that, and it really only makes it worse for everyone else. You want to call the cops to get rid of some hookers hanging out in front of your store? Fine, call the cops. Don’t call the cops of your cell phone while picking a fight with the hookers and telling them you are calling the cops (which a neighbor told me she did). That’s just stupid. I swear, she must love the drama.

I’m also imagining that in addition to not making any friends with the local hoodlums, she is driving the poor cops stark raving mad. I heard she called them ten times her first day at work, mostly about bums being on the sidewalk panhandling, and she apparently picks a fight with everyone she wants gone before doing so too. Good grief.

It’s been peaceful around here since that incident. In fact, it’s been really, really peaceful. More peaceful than usual. Quiet even. First off, she has a full-time job now, and she’s gone a lot. That alone adds to the peacefulness of the neighborhood. But now that she has pissed off someone she might actually be scared of, they are never outside anymore. No more drinking cases of beer and doing drugs in the driveway before breaking into an all-out domestic quarrel. No more pestering of neighbors, yelling at whoever has pissed her off that morning (at least not around here, can’t vouch for her yelling at work or not), and no being obnoxious asses a foot from my bedroom window. They have been keeping it all indoors and quiet. Even Annoying Boy isn’t out and about much anymore. He makes the trip to his friend’s house down the road on his bicycle every couple of days, but he is real quick about getting on his bike and zooms out of here at top speed. Doesn’t even take the time to be a pain in my ass anymore.

In a strange kind of way, even though I do sometimes have a worried thought about getting caught in the crossfire of some insane gun battle between her and a thug of some sort, I am almost thankful. I mean it’s really been nice around here the last two weeks with them all sequestered away in their own home all the time. Running up against someone or something that scares you can lead to important life lessons, like not taking big matters into your own hands, not picking fights with people who may want to hurt you for it, knowing which battles are worth fighting (at least publicly), that being an obnoxious ass 24/7 gets you absolutely nowhere in the long run, unless you are rich and powerful to begin with, and that you never, ever let drama of large proportions know where you live. I’m hoping they are learning some lessons.

Mostly though, I hope the peace and quiet continues. The whole tone of the street has changed. All the neighbors are outside more and talking to each other again. That’s been really great. That family really is a blot on this street. It only takes one household of raging lunatics to drag things down. I’m pretty sure most of us around here are far more scared of them than by any criminal element that might be out there. I am also pretty sure that some of us are secretly hoping they get scared enough they decide to move away. Now that would be the ultimate blessing, but we’ll settle for them locking themselves aways in a fortress whenever they are home. That has been working out really well for us all so far.

In closing, I’d just like to mention that when I heard her call someone else a stupid, crazy drug-user, I had to put my hand over my mouth to keep from laughing loud enough for her to hear. Really? She called someone else that?! See, in addition to being insane and having anger management issues, that family are total hypocrites about laws and rules. Everyone else has to comply, but they most certainly don’t. For example: she wanted everyone to drive 25 mph on our street. She got her way, and who never does? The Insane Neighbors. I’m not even going to get into any of the other hypocritical things they do. That’s a post for another time. Right now, I’m going to go outside and stare at my ripening tomato and enjoy the silence and serenity of my street. Then I need to do the dishes, because it’s Lin’s birthday, and I am making a big meal tonight.

Lin, do not read any further. Hear me? You are not allowed to read this post. I’ll know if you do.
Continue Reading »

I need a new keyboard. It isn’t an emergency or anything. There isn’t anything actually wrong with the keyboard I have now. In fact, considering the rate of one keyboard a year I used to go through, due to being a manual-typewriter-trained key-pounding touch-typist, this one from Apple has held up surprisingly well. There are only a few keys that are only just now beginning to show some issues, and there’s almost no wear on the keys at all. But … I need a new keyboard at some point.

I have discovered a usability issue with my iMac. Not software, but hardware … the extended keyboard.

I find myself either leaning to the left to type, or I find my chair scooted over and not directly in front of the monitor, or I find myself reaching to the right to use the mouse and the keyboard off-center to the monitor. I don’t need an extended keyboard. I just about never use the ten-key pad. It’s just wasted space as far as I am concerned.

I see the new Apple wireless keyboard is a short keyboard, but it’s also $80 and doesn’t match my computer. Wireless would be nice, but I really want a white keyboard and not a silver one. It’d also be really cool if it was really cheap. I’m going to poke around on the internet today to see what I can find, but if anyone knows where to find cheap, short and non-extended, USB or Bluetooth keyboards that will work with an iMac, let me know. Not getting one right now, but this leaning and typing or reaching for mousing thing is what is making using my computer less comfortable to use. It’d be really great to sit squarely in front of my monitor with my keyboard directly in front of me, and my mouse right there in a comfortable location.

Now what I really need … really, really need is a new pen for my tablet or a new pen and tablet. Using a mouse SUCKS! I’ve adapted well enough, and it is pretty great for surfing internet, but for working on graphics, I just can’t do it. Drives me insane, and as we all know, I am already as insane as I need to be.

If Lin were sitting here writing this post, he’d tell you the moment those words come out of my mouth, preceded by or accompanied with uncontrollable giggles and hand waving, it usually means I’ve been riding a train of thought, and it came to a silly end. Actually, the resultant end is usually a somewhat sane thought and not really worth busting a gut laughing about. It’s the journey my brain took getting there that amuses me to the point of breathlessness. I am easily amused … obviously.

I was being forced to watch an engineering program about the Apache helicopter for about the hundredth time, so my mind wandered. I will now try to recreate the thought process necessary for me to move from thinking about what an awesome and scary piece of machinery the Apache helicopter is to the statement “I need a yoga tent.”

Oh, and I am not proofreading this monster, at least not until tomorrow.
Continue Reading »

I’m bored and hungry. No one is entertaining me or feeding me. Do I have to do everything myself?!

See, I knew it was changing colors this morning. It’s changed even more while I wasn’t staring at it today! Any day now it will be red, and I will be eating it.

Here’s a bonus photo of one of the blossoms on my TAM Jalapeños [TAM = Texas A&M — that’s where it was developed]. The flowers are so pretty, and I can’t wait to see what they taste like! From what I have read, they are high producers, and with three of them, maybe we’ll be overrun with (mild) hot peppers too. Tomatoes and jalapeños, can you say salsa? Yes!

I’d have loved to sit out on the porch longer, but it’s just too darn hot. 92°F at 4:20 pm, and it isn’t even June yet. This summer is going to be a scorcher! I’m not looking forward to the extreme heat or the extreme electric bills. My plants are well suited for the hot weather, so they are going to love it, but I’m going to have to re-adapt to sweating while sitting still. Can’t afford to run the AC all day every day!

Even though the rest of the day is going to be one big waste, as soon as the pain pill kicks in, I have had an incredibly productive day! The bathroom and living room both look great, if one ignores the facts that my bathroom, even when clean, never looks great and that there is an ever-present stack of boxes in the living room corner. I’ve learned to ignore both of these facts over the years.

Of course, the kitchen and den are both utter wrecks, but hey … I got a lot done today! Tomorrow is another day, and Lin has to help me with the den anyway. Three-quarters of that mess is entirely his. I wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot pole for fear of moving something he has deemed important to have right where it is. I learned that lesson the hard way.

I’m giving myself a gold star and popping a pill. It’s time to go watch tomatoes ripen. It’s a slow and somewhat tedious job, but someone has to do it, right?