The Lydster, Part 44: Mess


In the room where Lydia had been sleeping, there was a large closet that really limited the space a growing girl would need. So, while I was on a business trip, Carol, her father and our contractor had it taken down, which was fine. The trouble is that it left big holes in places that will have to be patched before the room can be reoccupied, mostly to avoid the dust.

This meant that Lydia had been sleeping in the guest room, in a very large bed. While she was comfortable sleeping alone in her Lydia-sided bed, she’s loath to do it in the big bed, but “needs” someone to sleep with. This is normally my wife, who I wake up 30 minutes after we they go to bed. But sometimes, I can’t wake her, and end up sleeping alone. When Carol has evening meetings, I’m the one who ends up sleeping with the child, and apparently, I cannot be awakened, though I generally wake up on my own and go back to my bed.

Once the room was repaired, then the room was repainted, for the former closet area was totally a different color from the rest of the room. I’m thinking, “I cannot wait. My daughter in her room, in her bed. My wife and I in our bed, all night. I can’t wait.”

So the room is ready, but the girl is not. As I feared, she got acclimated to the guest room, and finds her nice new room foreign, even with all in there. I hear patience is a virtue; I must be a virtuous soul.

ROG

Oscar-Worthy Movies I Have Seen: 1937

I used to do this once a month, but haven’t since July; if I’m ever going to get to movies that came out after I was born, I’d better get to it.

Picture:
THE LIFE OF EMILE ZOLA, “The Awful Truth”, “Captains Courageous”, “Dead End”, “The Good Earth”, “In Old Chicago”, “Lost Horizon”, “One Hundred Men and a Girl”, “Stage Door”, “A Star is Born”
Actor:
SPENCER TRACY in “Captains Courageous”, Charles Boyer in “Conquest”, Fredric March in “A Star is Born”, Robert Montgomery in “Night Must Fall”, Paul Muni in “The Life of Emile Zola”
Actress:
LUISE RAINER in “The Good Earth”, Irene Dunne in “The Awful Truth”, Greta Garbo in “Camille”, Janet Gaynor in “A Star is Born”, Barbara Stanwyck in “Stella Dallas”
Supporting Actor:
JOSEPH SCHILDKRAUT in “The Life of Emile Zola”, Ralph Bellamy in “The Awful Truth”, Thomas Mitchell in “The Hurricane”, H. B. Warner in “Lost Horizon”, Roland Young in “Topper”
Supporting Actress:
ALICE BRADY in “In Old Chicago”, Andrea Leeds in “Stage Door”, Anne Shirley in “Stella Dallas”, Claire Trevor in “Dead End”, May Whitty in “Night Must Fall”
Director: LEO MCCAREY for “The Awful Truth”, William Dieterle for “The Life of Emile Zola”, Sidney Franklin for “The Good Earth”, Gregory La Cava for “Stage Door”, William Wellmann for “A Star is Born”

I’m sure I saw, on TV, Captains Courageous and The Good Earth and quite possible Emile Zola and Stella Dallas, but none of them since I used to watch movies on Saturday and Sunday afternoons as a kid, and none of them have stuck, except The Good Earth; I found the struggle to survive on the farm quite moving.
***
100 Movies, 100 Quotes, 100 Numbers

ROG

Plastic QUESTIONS

Certainly, you’re aware of all the problems with plastic. I was recalling some news story some months ago about how even the very efficient recycling system in San Francisco can’t deal with plastic bags and end up throwing them away. And, of course, plastics are made of petroleum, adding to the demand for oil which helps raise the price of gasoline.

Bottled water has been banned by several municipalities to try to hector people not to add more plastic bottles. But recently, my wife told me about a story that washing and reusing plastic water bottles carry a risk as well, the solution for which is to buy more bottles of water made of plastic (?!).

So, the question is simple: how do you minimize use of petroleum-based products? It can be anything from carpooling to reusable canvas bags. And do you think sometimes that stores make it difficult to refuse a bag because of their policies?

Recycling cost/benefit.
***
Getting catalogs that you throw away or recycle without even looking at them?
Sign in at Catalog Choice.org
Raid your recycling box for all the catalogs you want to stop
Look up the catalog company names on the website
Enter your name the way it appears on the catalog
Enter the customer number
Do this for each catalog and within 10 weeks, they’ll stop coming to your door.
***
Got an e-mail from the Central Administration of SUNY, which read:As you know, the State University follows Executive Order No.142 which requires all state agencies to reduce the amount of waste by separating recoverable materials from regular solid waste. Consistent with this order, blue recycling bins are currently located in all office areas throughout the building to dispose of paper products.
GREAT! So, I called the contact to clarify a point. I discovered that, since we’re in a private building, rather than in a state building, the landlord does not have to follow the same rules. Another reason why I hate the place I work.

ROG

When Black Friday Comes…

Got this e-mail this week:

This is of utmost important to our communities.

Friday after Thanksgiving is the biggest shopping day of the year, It is the day that most retailers make enough money put them in the Black for the whole year. We as Black People are consistently getting the bad end of the stick. Our children are being terrorized each and everyday by the police across the country. Nooses are being hung around everywhere. We are being disrespected in all places. Our men and children are being killed by police, stopped and searched, new prisons are being built for our children, there is big business in investing in private prisons and they must keep them filled up. We are terrorized on our jobs with constant threats of being written up and fired, losing our livelihood, our homes and just feeding and taking care of our children. We are treated in a dehumanizing manor on these jobs. So many of our people who have worked for the city for decades are being pushed out with trumped up charges, criminalized, degraded, insulted and threaten and some are even losing their pensions.

Brothers and Sisters we must act! It will visits your door, it is coming! We must stand together to say NO JUSTICE! NO PROFIT! This has got to be the new battle cry of our people. Our elders stood together during the Montgomery bus boycott in order to get some form of justice for our people. We must do it again!

If we stand together and sacrifice one day Friday November 23, 2007 and DO NOT SHOP! DON”T BUY ANYTHING ON THAT DAY! We will send out a message. Things will have to change. Let this country feel what it feels like to not have our dollars. If you buy something, buy from your own people. Please pass this message to everyone on you e-mail list. No Justice! No Profit! If you do not know what I am talking about remember:
Noose Epidemic
Racist Mob Attacks
14 yr old stripped and left in swamp by police
5 yr old hand cuffed
Va. woman kidnapped, stabbed, raped, made to eat vomit, blood, feces
35 students arrested for attending funeral of classmate, who had parents permission
6 month pregnant Principal stopped by police and made to lie face down on ground in front of her small children
Jena 6
Police Terrorism
Michael & Evelyn Warren attorneys assaulted by terrorist cops
Sonny Carson Avenue
Viola Plummer
Sean Bell
Katrina
Health Care Crisis
Land Grab of the Black Community
The list goes on and on and on

TAKE THE BLACK OUT OF BLACK FRIDAY
NO SHOPPING THE FRIDAY AFTER THANKSGIVING – NOV 23
ECONOMIC SANCTIONS ARE THE ANSWER TO RACISM!

My reaction: Eh. I don’t know how this particular boycott – and I’m in favor of strategic boycotts – has any effect on the issues mentioned.

Last year, I got e-mails that led me to Buy Nothing Day, A 24 hour moratorium on consumer spending – participate by not participating.

Here’s the real deal: I’m not buying anything today, not because of some political agenda – I happen to think, if anything, that people should be out supporting SMALL businesses today, and every day. I’m not shopping today because I HATE shopping today.

One year this century, I got talked into doing the 5 a.m. thing. At the end of the three hours, I was exhausted, not from getting up early, but from that crush of humanity. In fact, the only time I ever enjoyed shopping on Black Friday, it was at a department store in a little town called Delhi, NY, probably the size of two Wal-Mart departments; it was warm and friendly and not crowded at all.

Oh, I heard on NPR this morning two things. One was that the shopping season will be “soft:”, so that time for other bargains will likely pop up. The second is that one should avoid SUI, shopping under the influence; otherwise, you might bring home that dancing Santa you REALLY don’t need.
***
The lyrics to some Steely Dan song.

ROG

Food Quiz

I like Thanksgiving; it’s ecumenical. I don’t have to worry about it as I do next month, where hopes for either “Merry Christmas: or “Happy Holidays” is likely to tick off SOMEONE.

I was going to give a litany of everyone (friends, family, people of courage) and everything (music, writing, learning new stuff), but instead I swiped this quiz from Jaquandor. He did it on Canadian Thanksgiving, Buffalo being pritnear Canada. So I thought I’d post it on the U.S. variety. It’s about food!

1. How do you like your eggs? I like eggs almost any way possible: poached, fried, boiled, scrambled. In scrambled eggs, I tend to put pepper, Worcestershire sauce and a little mustard, plus whatever leftover meat and/or vegetables are in the fridge.

2. How do you take your coffee/tea? Coffee – not at all. Tea – varies with my mood. Sometimes with nothing, most often with lemon, or lemon and honey, or milk and sugar. Rarely lemon and sugar.

3. Favorite breakfast food? Favorite would be pancakes with fresh fruit, real maple syrup, with sausage. Unfortunately, it’s usually Cheerios and/or Shredded Wheat. Or oatmeal, which I do like quite a bit.

4. Peanut butter – actually hate the taste of peanut butter; the smell sometimes makes me nauseous. Since I ate it in great quantities until I was five or six, I theorize that I must have gotten sick from eating too much of it, though I have no specific recollection. Since my daughter is allergic to peanuts, we don’t have it around anyway.

5. What kind of dressing on your salad? Usually Russian, though when I’m out, it’s often ranch for some reason.

6. Coke or Pepsi? Usually Pepsi, but I like Coke too.

7. You’re feeling lazy, what do you make? Chopped apple and cottage cheese, with a touch of mayo.

8. You’re feeling really lazy. What kind of pizza do you order? Mushroom and sausage, or mushroom and onion, or onion and sausage, or plain.

9. You feel like cooking. What do you make? Lasagna.

10. Do any foods bring back good memories? Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup. Macaroni and cheese. Meatloaf. Mashed potatoes with gravy.

11. Do any foods bring back bad memories? Spaghetti-Os. Campbell’s Tomato soup. Waxed beans (canned). Beets (canned). Almost any vegetable (canned). Instant potatoes. Bologna sandwiches on white bread with Miracle Whip.

12. Do any foods remind you of someone? Anything with tomato sauce reminds me of my father; he’d cook the sauce for hours. Waffles – also my father, who had a ritual discussion of how he could tell the doneness.

13. Is there a food you refuse to eat? Sauerkraut – hate it. Most melons.

14. What was your favorite food as a child? Spinach. Seriously, Popeye had brainwashed me. Also corn on the cob, still a favorite.

15. Is there a food that you hated as a child but now like? Broccoli, tomatoes, many vegetables (fresh or frozen).

16. Is there a food that you liked as a child but now hate? Not hate, per se, but off-brand ice cream is generally not worth the calories.

17. Favorite fruit and vegetable: Pineapple, spinach.

18. Favorite junk food: ice cream.

19. Favorite between meal snack: Yogurt, with banana cut into it. Or the aforementioned apple and cottage cheese.

20. Do you have any weird food habits? I’ve been known to eat cottage cheese with almost anything, e.g., apple sauce.

21. You’re on a diet. What food(s) do you fill up on? Water, actually.

22. You’re off your diet. Now what would you like? The same.

23. How spicy do you order Indian/Thai? On a scale of 1-10, about 7.

24. Can I get you a drink? Sure, anything with vodka, rum, whiskey, tequila (but not gin or Scotch).

25. Red wine or white? White. Red gives me a serious headache.

26. Favorite dessert? Ice cream. Or cake. Or both.

27. The perfect nightcap? Tea with honey.
ROG

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