My Yankee Doodle

I tried to say this on my own Facebook page, but it just sounded scoldy and soapboxy, so it felt like I should maybe take it over here, where I actually have a soapbox.

There's a nuclear power plant in our region that has been bad news for lots of very real reasons, and people have been protesting its existence for a long time.

And now it's slated to shut down.

 And a lot of folks are celebrating, and I get it, but — I grew up near a nuclear power plant that employed a lot of people, and this is not all good news.

In a town of about 2,200 people, 630 jobs were just lost. Obviously, not everyone who works at Vermont Yankee lives in Vernon — which means we'll feel the effects regionwide. And 630 people either lost their jobs or will be relocated to other areas. That's hard for many of them.
And also:

• For those who benefited from those individuals' presence in the community
• For those who made money selling them goods and services
• For those who are served by the nonprofits they donated to or volunteered for
• For those who were already looking for jobs who will now have to compete with a whole new pool of skilled labor
• For really, probably, everyone in the region, whether they understand it or not.

Other people have also already acknowledged that (there's a really great editorial out there that I suddenly can't find; if you know the one, please feel free to link to it in the comments), but my own circle seems much more inclined to rejoice first, ask questions later. And I do not mean to diminish the role of people who've spent countless hours working to stop something that has been (and will continue to be for decades, actually) a real danger. I know I sound scoldy. I don't mean to sound scoldy.

But I'm seeing this as a mixed blessing, for sure. There are people I like having around who will not be as a result of this, and it makes me sad.

Facts of life

Note: On the Facebook page, I mentioned a little while back that I had a folder full of drafts I never finished: More than 60 of 'em, in fact. I'm going through that folder now, deleting what's not worth it, posting what might entertain you. This gem dates back to November 2009; I'm skipping around some, chronologically. 

 Been watching the third season of Bones. It's a good show, but that's not why I'm here.

Without spoiling anything for those of you who have yet to see any of that good show, in the second season of Bones, a great great character necessarily has to leave his or her job. In the third season, this character is still around, but someone still needs to do his or her job in the lab. Bones has taken a page from Murphy Brown, and given that job to a rotating cast of characters who are excellent in the short term but might get annoying in the long term.

One of them just spews forth facts. Some of them are relevant to whatever case the team's working on, most of them are tangential at best. He has a British accent. I am not sure what that adds.

And no one wants that character around all the time, but will you maybe be amused if I just spew forth a bunch of random facts right now, just to show off a bunch of stuff I know?

• The eight vegetables in V8 are tomatoes, beets, celery, carrots, lettuce, parsley, watercress and spinach.
• "5150,"in the name of the Van Halen album, refers to Eddie Van Halen's home studio, also named 5150. "5150,"in the name of the studio, refers to the section of California state code that allows people to be involuntarily committed.
• The nine prepositions that take the ablative case in Latin are ab, cum, de, ex, in, pro, prae, sine and sub.
• In circus lingo, "First of May" is a performer still in his or her first season. OK, I learned that from Bones, too.
• All four of the above facts were in the original 2009 post. Between then and now, I'd lost the knowledge of two of them. I think I stopped writing because I don't have a lot of facts that are good without context. This one is new to 2013.

Arresting developments

I got up this morning at about 8:30, let work know I was too sick to go in, and then took a two-hour nap from the exertion.

At 10:30, my cousin, who is staying with me, had just woken up.

"Good morning," she said.

"Good morning," I said.

"Do you know you slept through the police coming and searching the house?" 

Which— No. No, I did not know that. 

I have two cousins staying with me this week, but we've all been pretty sick. For me, yesterday was the worst of it. It's mostly a bad cold, but I also had a fever and just felt entirely miserable, like, I'm not sure when I've been that sick.

I slept most of the day, and then last night, fell asleep with the door to my bedroom open and the lights on.

Apparently, the police came at around 2:30 in the morning, rang the bell a bunch of times, and then yelled "police" and banged on the door until my cousin woke up and answered the door. 

Apparently someone crashed his motorcycle near the house, and there were outstanding warrants on him, so he fled on foot. 

Apparently, they were making sure he wasn't hiding in the house. 

Apparently, he was not. 

So, things this brings up for me:

• My cousin said she was a houseguest. Doesn't it seem like the police would have wanted to wake the actual resident/homeowner? 
• The reason my falling asleep with the door open and the lights on is relevant is that when the cops looked in my room, in which I was sleeping, they didn't need to shine flashlights. Doesn't it seem like the police would have wanted to wake me then?
• Boy, I sure am glad I was sleeping with clothes on, fever and all.
• I don't, as far as I know, have anything illegal in my house (including a fugitive). But let's say I had, I dunno, a body or a meth lab in the basement. Once the police have entered the home with no warrant and permission not from the homeowner but from someone else, can they do anything with that?
• Good thing I don't have a body or a meth lab in the basement.
• When my cousin woke up and finally went to the door, a police officer had actually opened the door and stuck his face in the doorway. Can he do that?

In case some of you are worried that the fugitive may still be in the attic (where the police did not look, by the way, just because my houseguest didn't know I had an attic), he is not, according to my local paper. He eventually called the police, in fact, presumably because of his injuries, and said he'd been assaulted. There is no evidence to support that. He's in the local hospital now.

A real conversation that happened tonight

My dad, to my cousin who's trying to remember a book title: Is it How the Irish Saved Civilization?
Cousin: No, but now I'm curious about that one.
My dad: Or is it "How the Irish saved Western Civilization"? No, it's not. But that's what it means.
Me: Gross.
My dad: Western civilization's not like Westerns. Not like the wild west.
Me: [42 years old and staring, astonished] I know what "Western civilization" means. I'm not seven. I just meant, gross to refer to "Western civilization" [already a problematic phrase, because, hey, whole Southern Hemisphere] as "civilization."
My dad: Oh, right. I'm with you there.

Wait — what?

Star Trekking

Note: On the Facebook page, I mentioned a little while back that I had a folder full of drafts I never finished: More than 60 of 'em, in fact. I'm going through that folder now, deleting what's not worth it, posting what might entertain you. This gem dates back to August 2009; I'm skipping around some, chronologically. Also, I am certain I posted this already, and double-certain because there are comments on it already. How it ended up back in the Drafts folder is beyond me.

So I've been watching the first season of the original Star Trek. I'm about halfway through the fifth episode now.

I could do reams of observations like my last post, but today, I feel that I should save you some time, rather than waste it.

In case you were going to do the same thing, for the plot, rather than for the entertainment value of the props and costumes, here is the storyline of each of the first five episodes:

Some creature that is or appears to be human (usually appearing to be a member of the crew) has a dangerous combinations of superhuman powers and pathological personality. The crew of the Enterprise is confused for a while, and havoc is wreaked; in some cases, someone claims they've never seen anything like this before, despite having seen it in the two or three preceding episodes. A female crew member is generally threatened with sexual violence as evidence of the creature's power and evilness. She's not actually violated, due to her fingernails or a convenient intervention on the part of a passing male crew member or both. Then the Enterprise's crew figures the confusion out and fixes it. In the first few episodes, several people die in all the chaos. In the next few, everyone's OK in the end.
The end.

I know that some of my readers are much more devoted followers of Star Trek than I am. Heck, I didn't even know who Gary Mitchell was until last night. Did I get any of that wrong?

A real conversation that happened last night

RI: [Something I agree with]
me: [Gives the thumbs-up.] [Pause.]
me: It's probably bad that I just gave you a real-life "like," isn't it?
RI: It's probably worse that you're calling giving a thumbs-up "a real-life 'like'" now.


In related news, I'm trying to be on Facebook less these days.

Several thousand words on the state of my deck

Note: On the Facebook page, I mentioned a little while back that I had a folder full of drafts I never finished: More than 60 of 'em, in fact. I'm going through that folder now, deleting what's not worth it, posting what might entertain you. This gem dates back to February 2011; I'm skipping around some, chronologically. 

Notes from 2013: That was the winter the ice fell off the roof and smashed the deck furniture, which I'd foolishly left out before the first snowfall, and then had never had little enough snow or ice to retrieve it.
And that pretty pyramid in the middle picture? That's my grill. Note the depth of the snow.

Ramblin', man

Friday night, I went to the Amos Fortune Forum with my folks. I think I've talked about this cool little lecture series here before, but in case not: Once a week in the summer, there's a lecture on some topic of interest, often by a renowned scholar or author, for which the speaker is compensated one jug of maple syrup. It happens in the meeting house of my parents' tiny town, about half an hour east of where I live. It's amazing. You should go, if you're in the area on a summer Friday.

Last night's talk was by a woman whose dad was a spy, about what it's like when your dad's a spy. It was cool, if a little strange that more of the talk was dedicated to bowling in her bathrobe than to spy stuff, but still, you know I'm a sucker for a good bowling story. And this was a good one. It's in her book.

Afterward, I decided I'd rather sleep on my parents' sleeping porch than drive home, even knowing that I don't usually sleep well there, and even knowing that I had a hair appointment at 9 in the morning about half an hour west of where I live, which is to say an hour west of where I spent Friday night.

But I got up in plenty of time and rolled up my sleeping bag and drove home to have a few minutes to putter around before I continued on to my hair appointment.

And once I got there, I realized I'd left my purse at my parents' house.

It's an easy mistake to make, because I almost never carry a purse.

But still, my purse had both my wallet and my checkbook in it, so I was not going to a) have means to pay for this haircut without making an extra hourlong roundtrip to my parents' place, or b) have time to make said roundtrip and still get to the hair appointment.

SO, I called my parents and then called the hairdresser to reschedule for later in the afternoon, and crashed on the couch for a bit (not having slept well the night before) and drove to my parents' house, grabbed my purse, drove back to my town, ran a few errands, went to the hairdresser, got a lovely new haircut which I paid for by check, and then drove another half hour south to cook dinner for RI (gazpacho and salmon, if you were wondering). We had a very nice time.

Sunday morning, RI had to be at work at 7, so we got up together and had the breakfast casserole I'd put in the Crock Pot the night before, and I slept for about three more hours, got up, did the dishes, and headed out for the hourlong drive home.

And once I got there, I realized I'd left my laptop at RI's. And rather than burst into tears, I crashed on the couch for about five more hours before deciding I just couldn't bear driving another hour back down there, only to have to drive an hour back, either last night or this morning before work.

All by way of explaining why you didn't get a blog post Sunday.

How was your weekend?

(Oh, and then I woke up this morning sick. You know how I love being sick.)

An open letter to my local Kia dealer

Note: On the Facebook page, I mentioned a little while back that I had a folder full of drafts I never finished: More than 60 of 'em, in fact. I'm going through that folder now, deleting what's not worth it, posting what might entertain you. This gem dates back to June 2010; I'm skipping around some, chronologically. 

Dear local Kia dealer,
When your ad campaign immediately makes me wonder if a terrorist sent it,

1. I lived and worked in a post-9/11 D.C. area for too long, and/or
2. I've been watching too much "Sleeper Cell," and/or
3. You need a new ad campaign.

Either way, I am happy with my car and will not need a Kia. You may save your plain white envelopes with my address handwritten on it, with no return address. You may save your first-class stamp, and use your creepy-vague post-it notes for someone else.

Thank you,
bzzzzgrrrl