Ejected!

The Boy was home the other morning, and Mrs. Fetched was heading out the door. She started up, then remembered she needed to tell him something. She honked the horn a couple of times, but he didn’t hear, so she went back inside.

He was already on the phone to one of his buddies, one that we really liked back when. He was in the stairwell and Mrs. Fetched could hear his end of the conversation: “[new girlfriend] is getting paid today... yeah, she said she was going to get us some stuff... you know, pffffft.” The conversation continued, but that’s all Mrs. Fetched needed to hear. He finished up, came down the stairs, and got that deer in the headlights look when he saw her.

“Yup,” she said. “You can just pack up and get out since you’re not going to stop doing that crap.”

“I don’t know what you think you heard,” he tried to bluster. It Wasn’t Working this time.

“I know exactly what I heard. You can either get your clothes, or I’ll bag ’em up and leave ’em outside.”

He left. Mrs. Fetched confiscated a couple of guitars after he left as collateral for about $300 he owes us. I guess he’s staying with his friend, but I thought that was a rather precarious situation for his friend. But hey, anything The Boy tells us is probably a lie anyway. He’s working really hard to lose a job with great benefits, if he hasn’t lost it already. He’s even going back to losing interest in his music. I have no idea how this is going to end, but I don’t have The Warm Fuzzies.

So that leaves Daughter Dearest, who pretty much nests in her bedroom anyway, and M.A.E. The latter has bounced back from the breakup, it seems. I’m hoping she’ll have her act together to the point where she can support herself in a few more months. If this keeps up, I won’t have much to write about beyond home improvement and recipes.

Parsley gone iNSanE!

Three weeks ago, it was about half as high as the rosemary plant (the light one to the right) that it’s trying to engulf. Now it’s waist high!


It was sprouting dozens of seed pods like this; I picked off all but two of them, hoping it would slow things down. I can think of worse things to be overrun with than parsley (cough kudzu cough), but this I can maybe do something about.

Ramen done right

It could use some mushrooms, but otherwise the broth turned out loads better than I expected! Chuck that sodium packet in the trash and Know the Potential of Ramen. As with all my CubeDweller recipes, all of the ingredients can be stored in a file cabinet or other dry place (no refrigeration required).

CubeDweller Ramen Soup

4 c. water
6 sun-dried tomatoes, broken
4 pearl onions, peeled and quartered
1 clove garlic, diced

Herbs (substitute as you please, this is what I used but would have added basil if I had some):
1 sage leaf
1/4 tsp. marjoram
1/2 tsp. black pepper
Mrs. Dash® Tomato/Basil Blend
3/4 tsp. chives, chopped
1 large parsley leaf

pinch of salt
1 tsp. olive oil
1 packet ramen
Protein source of choice, cooked if necessary (optional, I used a tin of sardines packed in water)

Put tomatoes, onions, garlic, sage, marjoram, pepper, olive oil, salt, and 2 cups of water in a microwave pot. Cover tightly and microwave on high for 10 minutes. Stir. Add ramen, protein source, and remaining water; microwave on high for 2 more minutes. Garnish with chives and parsley.

Serves two with a side dish, or one if you’re hungry.

Amen, amen, and amen

Douglas Crockford hits it on the head talking about “introduction” web pages:

What a Flash intro says to me is "I hate my job. What I really want to do is make films. But they won't let me do that because I don't have talent. So watch this Flash intro."

Web sites end up getting polluted with crap like Flash and JavaScript for various reasons, but perhaps the single most common underlying issue is that “designers” have no content to give you, so they substitute an “experience” for something useful. Yeesh. I don’t spend (way too much) time on the Internet to have an “experience,” I just want to get some information or look at pictures or something. It’s kind of like the now-defunct Damon’s, a restaurant chain that sported multiple big-screen TVs tuned to various games. They billed themselves as “A Dining Event!” I tend to think of a “dining event” as something like that time when The Boy found a dried-up roach in his cereal — I don’t want a “dining event,” I just want something to eat (preferably insect-free). Same with the web: I don’t want Flash and Java$#!+ substituting for content. If I wanted to waste time with mindless garbage, there’s a TV in the living room.

Think of a web site’s “design” in the same way you would think about packaging a product — what you’re really interested in is what’s inside. Apple is widely acknowledged these days (at least in high-tech) as the masters of package design — and guess what? The decorations are muted, even minimal. Even Microsoft (internally) acknowledges that they’re way behind Apple here (and everywhere else IMO).

Macromedia describes Flash as “the solution for producing and delivering high-impact web sites.” High-impact on my bandwidth, CPU, etc. I’ll show you “high-impact,” as soon as I find that sledgehammer.

---

Thanks to Doc Searls for providing both the inspiration and supporting links for the above rant.

Finally rain

We finally got some storms in here with some much-needed rain. We might get more tomorrow.

It does cramp our gas-saving program, because I don’t much like to ride in storms after almost getting hit by lightning a couple of years ago, but it also means we don’t have to worry about watering the plants.

Two down?

The Boy has been coming in extremely late again... and there’s some question as to whether he’s even going to work. His entire life seems to revolve around hanging out with his friends, and probably smoking herbal substances of questionable repute. Now he’s worn out the rest of his welcome — Mrs. Fetched told him he needed to find somewhere else to live by Saturday.

That just leaves M.A.E. — once she finished paying a fine, she can get a driver’s license, then her family in Florida might help her with a car, then she can get independent too. Hooray!

Comma comma down, dooby doo down-down

It’s official: The Boy has broken up with M.A.E. She’s not taking it too well, even though she kind of expected it. Actually, he announced the breakup while we were coming home from Florida, but I’ve learned to not take statements from most of the denizens of FAR Manor at face value. He has another girlfriend already; I’m not sure if he was seeing her before.

I’m hoping this doesn’t drive M.A.E. back to old behaviors or anything. It might be touch & go with her for a while.

A taxing situation

The one redeeming feature about tax season this year is that TurboTax has a vastly improved interface over the last time I tried it. I switched to TaxCut some years ago, but they dropped the Mac version so I’m back to the old one. I’ll have to admit, it did a pretty good job of knocking out a rather complex return (wife’s business, lots o’deductions, capital gain income from selling the timber and some stock options) — in fact, it went so well that I had already e-filed before realizing I’d forgotten a couple of items. The IRS phone support people told me to just file an amended return and it would be fine. Fortunately, I got that taken care of Saturday (the 15^th).

If that sounds rather chaotic, consider some friends we helped out with their taxes. They hadn’t filed since 2002, and decided to catch it all up. The IRS was rather surprised to hear that they were wanting to get things cleaned up, and gave them some slack. To add insult to injury, it looks like each year would have resulted in a refund so far (we have 2002 and 2003 done, and he got disabled in late 2003 so there won’t be much of any income for the next two years).

Then there’s the handyman dude that helps Mrs. Fetched with the chicken houses and the in-laws with the farm. He summarized all his stuff for last year and asked us to take care of it. At the last minute. With him gone somewhere with a full voice mailbox on his smellyphone. Needless to say, I hit two show-stopping snags early on during the Monday night marathon session and couldn’t get it finished. As of Wednesday night, we still haven’t heard from him or been able to reach him. Maybe he lit out for Brazil or something. He had H&R Block do his taxes last year, and they charged him over $80 to do a 1040-EZ and Planet Georgia’s form (which is simple enough to do in 15 minutes on paper with a calculator).

I’m seriously considering looking into whatever needs to be done to do this stuff for money next year. I’ll just figure I won’t have a life from March 1 to April 15, then take whatever I make and go on a two-week vacation. Our piano player at church works for a CPA, and they’re totally swamped during tax season... maybe they would funnel the piddly jobs to me. I could charge maybe $50 for an EZ/state package; if I got only 20 of those I could take a nice vacation. I tend to be fairly conservative about what can and can’t be deducted or claimed... maybe I leave a few bucks on the table here and there, but I don’t worry about audits.

Fair warning

If I ever find the spamming cretin who owns degree-programs-online.info, it won’t be pleasant.

Figures that the buttmunch has hosting at theplanet.com; they’re pretty spam-friendly from what I’ve heard.

Full bloom

Spring has sprung, the grass is riz —
I wonder where the birdies is?

So goes a favorite doggerel of an old college buddy, whom we called Johanna Banana back when. The current answer to her question might be “Florida,” judging from the birds we saw in abundance there last week. Anyway....

We came home to find everything is in bloom around the manor. Dogwoods usually flower around April 1 on this planet.


This tree stands guard at the corner of the garage. This time of year, it buzzes to warn intruders away... or maybe it’s just the bees who swarm the top of the tree and leave us the bottom eight feet.


A closer look at that tree.


On the opposite corner of the manor house, there’s a flowering cherry tree. Cherry blossoms are supposed to be a favorite subject of haiku poets.


The dogwood tree by my outbuilding. During the summer, it provides a little shade. It won’t be long before I have to hoist the air conditioner unit into the window, though.


The dogwood bloom resembles a blood-tipped cross. That, and its flowering close to Easter, has obvious connotations among us Christian types. As a kid, I pointed that out to a Catholic friend and he promptly ate one — much to my astonishment. He didn’t get sick, but I wouldn’t make a habit of that. Some plants are toxic, after all (cherry trees are toxic to cattle, for example).


Planet Georgia’s flower is the Cherokee Rose, but if I’d had to guess I would have said it was the azalea. Or kudzu.


My sage plants are about to bloom and the parsley has gone absolutely bonkers in the last two weeks — it’s starting to produce seed and is threatening to engulf the adjacent rosemary plant. I picked up pennyroyal and lemon balm, and another rosemary (it looked so cute) while out and about yesterday as well.

Busy afternoon

Errands, errands, errands.

First, it was off to Home Despot to get some outdoor stuff & some other stuff to shore up the bug defenses. I think I wound up getting a bag of grass seed for free. Not sure how that happened.

After that, I had to zip by the auto parts place for some oil (I already have a filter or two) and a new battery charger for the bike. I also got gear oil for the final drive, but I don’t think I’ll have to change it yet. Mrs. Fetched is going to start driving my Civic around, since it gets twice the gas mileage as Barge Vader, on days when I take the bike to work (which will be as often as possible). Did I mention that gas is up to $2.75 here?

Speaking of gas, the last stop was to get some for the lawn mower; I topped off the Civic while I was at it. It took a while, since the gas station was crowded with motorcyclists and other tourist-types stopping by. I just parked & listened to the iPod until a pump opened up; it only took a couple of minutes.

I got the oil changed in the bike, in between doing a few other things (like fixing a dog pen a bit too late to keep one of the stupidogs from getting through to visit another stupidog in heat). I noticed a leaky fork seal, so I need to get that fixed before too long, and I figure the tires might last until June. So beyond a need for a good cleaning (the bike, that is), I should be ready to rumble tomorrow morning.

My back is a bit stiff from the bending over. And I need to get in bed anyway.

Third time the charm?

In the Roundup post below, I mentioned that Lobster was supposed to cough up the rent but I figured he wouldn’t. This one was a little on the spectacular side.

So yesterday evening, Mrs. Fetched caught him and asked him if he had the rent money.

“No,” he said. “That’s not important. I don’t have to pay it anyway.”

“Then pack up and get out,” said Mrs. Fetched, starting to switch to Battle Mode.

“You can’t make me leave,” he said, “it’s against the law.” (Have I mentioned that Lobster has pretty much turned off his brain lately?)

I chimed in at this point, “Show me a lease, foo’.” He had a chance to sign an agreement, which could perhaps have been construed as a lease, but never did it.

Mrs. Fetched didn’t say too much, but I’ve seen her Axe Murderer look before. Charles Manson would have thought twice before messing with someone giving him that look. After disagreeing with our choice to drop off his stuff, Lobster suddenly realized he needed to be at work and left precipitously.

Next thing I knew, garbage bags were dropping down the stairs and landing in the hallway. I went up to help, and so did The Boy. We loaded up all his stuff, dropped it on his parents’ porch (after calling them), then went to get groceries. Since Lobster works across the highway from the supermarket, I popped into the KFC to let him know where his stuff was, not to come back to FAR Manor, and to let us know if anything was missing. Having heard nothing since then, I presume he has it all.

Never say never, but I don’t think he’s coming back. I guess he just finished wearing out his welcome. This (unfortunately) being a real-life soap opera, nobody is ever completely written out of the script — but everyone is glad to see him go. After talking to Mrs. Fetched the way he did, I guess he’s lucky he didn’t have to pick his teeth off the floor with broken fingers or something.

Roundup

I spent two of the last three weeks in Florida... unfortunately, it was the week in the middle I was at FAR Manor (two trips). As I’ve done in the past, I’m going to collect a bunch of short items into a single post. I might come back and update this tonight or tomorrow if I think of anything else.

The first week, you pretty much know about already.

Lobster is (as usual) late with the rent. He seems to think he can just blow us off and spend it on clothes or whatever. WRONG! I’m hoping he’ll just move out, personally — he’s pretty much worn out his welcome as far as I’m concerned. If he takes the money and runs, fine.

From the Wishful Thinking Department: At work, I got a purchase requisition signed off for a translation project. I’m hoping to come back to work Monday to find it’s well under way.

Driving to Florida on a Spring Break Friday is not something I would advise under any circumstances. Between the time it took just to get through Atlanta, the road construction on I-4, and the usual delays (including dropping off M.A.E.), we got to where we were staying at 3 a.m. (about four hours late).

Speaking of M.A.E., I joked with BJ a few weeks back that we might just drop M.A.E. off at her aunt’s and “forget” to pick her up on the way back. Bad move: it got back to her and she thought I was serious. While we were in Florida last week, she called us just about every day to make sure nothing had changed.

As usual, there was nothing available in Orlando this time of year so we stayed at a timeshare in Titusville. Getting there at 3 a.m., we didn’t realize that the unit we were staying in was actually on the street instead of the little lane where the office and five of the units are. It took us 15 minutes to figure that out, at a time when we really didn’t need that aggravation.

Mrs. Fetched and I agree: we like Titusville. That’s probably because it’s not primarily a tourist area; Kennedy Space Center is the primary economic engine and there isn’t a beach area nearby. Even though it’s on the water, there’s only one high-rise condo development and it’s under construction. The only hurricane damage that we saw was the demolished fishing pier. Another part of its charm is that it’s separated from the Orlando (aka Tollando) area by 17 miles of marshland — fat chance that will get developed any time soon! It has that scruffy but comfortable feeling of a favorite pair of shoes. I could see myself living there more than just about any other part of the state. Not that I ever expect to escape Planet Georgia, but you never know.

Toll booth operators hate it when you pay in pennies. Tough $#!+ — if you’re going to screw over the people that pretty much keep your economy afloat by charging them to get from Point A to Point B, you need to expect some pushback. Especially when people are down to their last few bucks.

We ended up spending a night over at Mom’s — we had invited them to visit us, but they started hitting problem after problem (sound familiar?) and gave up. We decided to check out a day early and go over there instead. Very nice!

From the Rant-o-rama Department: One of the more egregious pieces of happy horse$#!+ I heard (last week or ever): men consider the “ideal woman” to be totally subservient and totally uncritical. Talk about gritting one’s teeth to keep from making a scene. Personally, that would be boring after a short while. I’d settle for someone who thinks she is (and actually is) equal, rather than superior in every way, and isn’t compelled to point out every freeking mistake (in her mind) that I make, especially when she doesn’t want to do it herself — or worse, set me up to knock me down. For example, we got in about midnight last night. Mrs. Fetched decided that the four eggs in the refrigerator were probably bad — even though I’m totally strung out from driving the last 13 hours, I’m supposed to hear (and remember) not to use the eggs on one side of the tray. (I guess making an effort to throw them out was totally out of the question.) So she wants me to fix eggs for breakfast and gets them out. Naturally, I got the “wrong” eggs. Of course she had to tell me that she knew I would get the wrong ones; but again, actually making an effort to prevent me from doing that must have been beneath her — either that, or she wanted me to get the “bad” eggs so she’d have something to gripe about. It’s getting harder and harder to scream “F**K YOU” and leave when that crap happens. I’m starting to wonder if she’s trying to kill me with stress for the insurance money.

Going north on a Spring Break Friday isn’t much better than going south. The first 100 miles were stop-and-go, finally opening up around Gainesville FL. But the freeway was pretty much carrying its capacity all the way up to Atlanta. Breaking for a picnic lunch at a rest area is probably the best way to cope with it, although things won’t necessarily be better when you get back on the road.

Finally: road atlases definitely have a shelf life. They should probably be replaced every three years or so, especially if there’s a lot of construction in areas where you’re travelling.

Two in a row!

Daughter Dearest’s chorus brought home the Musicfest 1^st place trophy for class AA! They missed the Grand Champion trophy by one point — a show choir won it.

I’d do the happy dance, but the four guys who went to pick up the trophy did it for me. We got video, but people stood up and Mrs. Fetched couldn’t get the tripod up off the benches. I’ll extract it and post it in this entry a little later.

Adios, Sonny

Early yesterday evening, cancer finished the job it started on my uncle Sonny a couple of years ago. He was unresponsive by the time we got to his place (in Florida) yesterday morning — he pretty much started shutting down Sunday evening — but perhaps he could hear us. He was surrounded by his friends and relatives at the end, and went peacefully and probably painlessly.

So Mrs. Fetched and I are staying another couple of days; the service is on Saturday and we'll head home Sunday morning.

This is a choka rather than a haiku, so I'll post it here:

The cook was puzzled:
Why were his loved ones weeping?

What they cried over
Was naught but an empty shell —

While Sonny himself,
had not felt better in years.

Recent memories:
Nephews thanked him for his help;

His two sons, stricken,
Struggled to express their love.

His partner, Colleen,
Not as ready as she thought.

His sister told them,
"Finally, he is at peace."

Friends and relatives
Praying for a miracle.

He told them good-bye,
Knowing they could not hear him —

Looking at the light,
He let it pull him upward.

The light flooded him,
Both around him and through him.

He heard bells and song,
It was new but familiar.

Finally he stopped,
A gatekeeper greeted him.

"Have a beer, Sonny,"
A frosty can of nectar —

"I'm ready to work,"
Was the master cook's reply.

"Oh, you'll work, alright;
The kitchen is waiting now.

"But those gone before —
They want some time with you first.

"Time to cook later;
Now there's a celebration.

"You gave much on Earth;
It's time for you to receive.

"Riches uncounted
For the open-handed ones,

"Who give all away,
Without thinking of themselves.

"Now enjoy yourself!
You can start cooking later.

"When the party's done,
Start preparing a big feast

"For those left behind,
Who will join you when it's time."

So heaven rejoiced,
As Sonny walked through the gates,
Into the Eternal Joy.

Impromptu road trip

Actually, I knew this was coming, but was hoping to put it off for another week or two.

My uncle in Florida, mom’s brother and dad’s best buddy (even after the divorce), is rapidly losing his battle with lung/brain/etc cancer. We’re heading down in the morning to see him for a couple of days, probably for the last time.

The Boy wanted to come, but couldn’t get the time off work. As it turns out, my other bro is coming in & so there wouldn’t have been room anyway. Daughter Dearest is stuck with school; chorus is getting ready for the national competition next week. Just Mrs. Fetched & me, it looks like. I hate leaving DD in charge of the asylum, especially since she’s not been getting up for the school bus lately, but Mrs. Fetched’s mom and brother will be up checking on things at random intervals.

Meanwhile, I’ve loaded up the iPod with a handful of audio podcasts and a couple of video podcasts — Mrs. Fetched can watch a Photoshop show if she likes; I grabbed a couple of cooking shows (and all my audio subscriptions) for me.

Bonus babies, aka new toys

They passed out bonuses at work on Wednesday — a little earlier than I was prepared for, because I’d like a new MacBook but want to wait on the next hardware revision. So to assuage the technolust, I settled for getting an iPod and all the stuff I’ll need to go with it. Seeing my iBook is fairly old, it took nearly four hours to copy all my music and photos over a USB 1.1 port... just an incentive to get that newer laptop, I guess. We also picked up a 250GB hard drive for Mrs. Fetched’s video editing system — that G4 dualie has churned along for nearly four years now with no hardware upgrades, and it seems like 80GB drives aren’t as big as they used to be — and a set of noise-cancelling headphones.

I’d like to say one thing about the headphones: They. Are. FANTASTIC.

It seems to be an axiom that whatever the absolute worst cube in the office is, it will be assigned to me. The dwelling place I’ve been stuck with for the last couple of years is certainly a candidate if not the runaway winner — as far away from the windows as possible, along a main traffic route, and directly across from a training room with at least one of everything we make. Many of those products have fans, and they run all day. The only thing that drowns it out is the blare of the trainer, whose voice carries through most of that part of the building — he “can’t” shut the door because it would get too hot. The new headphones don’t do much for the chatter, but they easily knock out 80% of the fan noise emanating from the training room. Switching off the noise canceller produced a roar that I thought at first was blood rushing through my ears (like you might hear with a seriously good headset with no sound coming in), but was actually the training room.

I was impressed enough to risk official opprobrium by wearing them on the drive home, playing my iPod into the ’phones instead of through the FM transmitter thingie. Like wearing earplugs on the motorcycle, I think I hear better with the headphones: all the wind noise and road noise and climate control fan noise simply fades away; leaving only the hum of the engine, a little residual background stuff, and the music... which I can play at a much lower volume.

The only drawback is that they're the kind that hook over your ears, with the connecting band going around the back of your head. For whatever reason, they irritate my ears after a few hours.

I would pay some serious money for a “cone of silence” headset — something that would cut out both white noise and external chatter.

Status quo

Things are rapidly getting back to what the problem children call “normal” — staying out waaayy past 10:30p.m. curfew and the like. Mrs. Fetched is again making noises about clearing them out. I’ll believe it when I see it.

Emotional constipation

Have you ever felt like something wasn’t right, but you can’t articulate it? That’s how I’m feeling tonight.

Or maybe it’s just an excuse to hit the rum a lot harder than I really should be. BWI, Blogging While Intoxicated, that’s me tonight. I guess I should go back to my card game.

Signs of spring

The last two weekends have involved yard work. It’s amazing how a simple thing like mowing down some border plants (they grow better when they’ve been zapped) leads to all sorts of other stuff. First you see all the fronds in the yard, so you rake ’em up. There’s a big bunch of grass raked up with the fronds. Next thing you know, you’ve got the generator out of mothballs, a blower plugged in, and then there’s an enormous pile of leaves and clippings burning. And what passes for a front lawn at FAR Manor is a little longer than the house and no more than 15 feet deep. Mrs. Fetched saw what I was doing and started in on the other side of the driveway (which parallels the front of the house). Thus does a 15 minute job run all afternoon.

The back yard is a bit bigger, and has been neglected for quite a while. I finally got tired of looking out the bathroom window at a bunch of sticks and twigs on the ground, got out the rakes & blower again, pulled up a zillion little pine trees (Dad helped with that quite a bit) and made a border with some logs that I will probably never get around to splitting. This side will be the yard, that side is the woods. The leaves I threw in the dog run area, also known as the moonscape.

There’s not a lot of lawn out back, which has a lot to do with the trees that nearly took over. Since some of them were leaning toward the house, we had some people come out to cut them down. Others we had a lumber company pay us to take away (they wanted the pines, which had pine beetles in them anyway). But I digress.

Warm days have brought the potted herbs outside until tomorrow afternoon (it’s supposed to get chilly again tomorrow night). I’m hearing the frogs (a spring kigo for haiku writers) peeping in nearby ponds or creeks. I can’t seem to get grass to grow right (hey, less mowing that way), but lots of other stuff just comes up on its own.

Wild onions in the yard. I added some (domestic) chives to my potted herbs, so I haven’t need to harvest them. Besides, with the dogs running around loose... yuck.


Daffodils on the roadside. They’re hardy little boogers; they grow alongside most of the roads around here and you can see them down in the woods. A cheerful reminder that winter is almost over.


The pansies are also hardy; Mrs. Fetched keeps some out through the winter and they’re still hanging around. I’ll remember to get pictures. Maybe.