"There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats." ~Albert Schweitzer
Friday, April 18, 2014
Puma Photo
Here at last is a picture of Dad's "rented" cat, Puma. I have another of the two of them together, but Dad asked that I suppress it on the grounds that he looks too fat in it. Puma doesn't look too pleased about having her photo taken, either, but I didn't give her a vote.
"There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats." ~Albert Schweitzer
"There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats." ~Albert Schweitzer
Friday, March 14, 2014
Oven Demo
I've mentioned before that the couple I bought this house from had a tendency to cut corners when they purchased things for their home. The stove I inherited from them, for instance, has been a source of constant annoyance.
It's actually a pretty good stove. The oven works well, too, if you give it 15 more minutes to preheat after it thinks it's hit the temperature you want. My grievance is with the self-cleaning function.
This is one of those ovens that's supposed to incinerate all extraneous material during the cleaning cycle until nothing remains but a fine gray ash. Alas, it has a tendency instead to turn at least some of the residue into something more nearly resembling lava, which hardens after the cycle is over into little igneous rock formations. The most annoying of these end up between the layers of the glass oven window.
I am a little OCD, and every time I've looked at the stove for the last 2 1/2 years the gunk inside the oven window has irritated the heck out of me. I've gone so far as to consider buying a new stove, just to get rid of that dirty window. Today, however, a minor miracle occurred.
I decided a while ago that I needed cleaning help worse than I needed cable TV, so I turned in my DVR and hired a cleaning service to come once a month. They were here today, and one of the women offered to dismantle the oven door and clean the window. She was ultimately unable to take it completely apart, but at least she showed me the possibility.
I guess I'd been assuming the oven door was sealed, although reason should have told me that had that been the case, the gunk from inside the oven wouldn't have ended up inside the window. After the cleaners left, I carefully dismantled the oven door myself and cleaned both sides of all four layers of glass it contains. This entailed using almost every cleaning compound I own, but the window is now probably cleaner than it has been since the day it was installed.
Of course, putting the thing back together again was considerably trickier than dismantling it, but I managed. Now I'm trying to decide whether I should give up on the self-cleaning function, or just plan to take the window apart for cleaning once every year or so.
"We dream of having a clean house - but who dreams of actually doing the cleaning?" ~Marcus Buckingham
It's actually a pretty good stove. The oven works well, too, if you give it 15 more minutes to preheat after it thinks it's hit the temperature you want. My grievance is with the self-cleaning function.
This is one of those ovens that's supposed to incinerate all extraneous material during the cleaning cycle until nothing remains but a fine gray ash. Alas, it has a tendency instead to turn at least some of the residue into something more nearly resembling lava, which hardens after the cycle is over into little igneous rock formations. The most annoying of these end up between the layers of the glass oven window.
I am a little OCD, and every time I've looked at the stove for the last 2 1/2 years the gunk inside the oven window has irritated the heck out of me. I've gone so far as to consider buying a new stove, just to get rid of that dirty window. Today, however, a minor miracle occurred.
I decided a while ago that I needed cleaning help worse than I needed cable TV, so I turned in my DVR and hired a cleaning service to come once a month. They were here today, and one of the women offered to dismantle the oven door and clean the window. She was ultimately unable to take it completely apart, but at least she showed me the possibility.
I guess I'd been assuming the oven door was sealed, although reason should have told me that had that been the case, the gunk from inside the oven wouldn't have ended up inside the window. After the cleaners left, I carefully dismantled the oven door myself and cleaned both sides of all four layers of glass it contains. This entailed using almost every cleaning compound I own, but the window is now probably cleaner than it has been since the day it was installed.
Of course, putting the thing back together again was considerably trickier than dismantling it, but I managed. Now I'm trying to decide whether I should give up on the self-cleaning function, or just plan to take the window apart for cleaning once every year or so.
"We dream of having a clean house - but who dreams of actually doing the cleaning?" ~Marcus Buckingham
Monday, March 3, 2014
My 15 Minutes of Fame
I have a long history of discovering fabulous little restaurants about a month before they die. For a while I was beginning to think that my patronage was the kiss of death for any eating establishment. That's why when I looked around my favorite Thai place last year and realized that I was almost the only one there, I panicked; what if they were on the verge of going down the tubes? So, I decided to nominate it for Check, Please! Arizona.
For those of you who don't live in Arizona, Check, Please! is a show on our local PBS station, hosted by a professional chef. Every week they review three different local restaurants, and they have a bias toward small ethnic places. Viewers recommend their favorite spots; if your restaurant is chosen, you get to eat at your place and the restaurants recommended by two other people and then talk about them on the show. I went to their website and filled out the form to suggest Line Thai in Sun City.
Well, fast forward a year and my restaurant (and I!) made it on the show. With quite a bit of judicious editing, I even looked fairly articulate. I've lost track of how many people have told me they plan to visit Line Thai as a result, so mission accomplished. I hope the restaurant lives long and prospers.
(If you would like to see the show, visit the Channel Eight website at http://www.azpbs.org/checkplease/cp_player_1.php?vidId=6537)
"There is no sincerer love than the love of food." ~George Bernard Shaw
For those of you who don't live in Arizona, Check, Please! is a show on our local PBS station, hosted by a professional chef. Every week they review three different local restaurants, and they have a bias toward small ethnic places. Viewers recommend their favorite spots; if your restaurant is chosen, you get to eat at your place and the restaurants recommended by two other people and then talk about them on the show. I went to their website and filled out the form to suggest Line Thai in Sun City.
Well, fast forward a year and my restaurant (and I!) made it on the show. With quite a bit of judicious editing, I even looked fairly articulate. I've lost track of how many people have told me they plan to visit Line Thai as a result, so mission accomplished. I hope the restaurant lives long and prospers.
(If you would like to see the show, visit the Channel Eight website at http://www.azpbs.org/checkplease/cp_player_1.php?vidId=6537)
"There is no sincerer love than the love of food." ~George Bernard Shaw
There is no sincerer love than the love of food.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/topics/topic_food.html#Uxgq6A0MZujx9F9v.99
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/topics/topic_food.html#Uxgq6A0MZujx9F9v.99
There is no sincerer love than the love of food.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/topics/topic_food.html#Uxgq6A0MZujx9F9v.99
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/topics/topic_food.html#Uxgq6A0MZujx9F9v.99
Saturday, February 22, 2014
Leasing a Puma
The last six weeks have been pretty harrowing. Dad and I had to take Mom to the emergency room with what turned out to be diverticulitis and a C. diff. infection. While we were there he felt ill so I had to take him home; he woke up the next day with a bad head cold, the stomach flu, and back spasms, so he couldn't go near the hospital for a couple of weeks after that. I ended up spending 8-10 hours a day at the hospital in a gown and gloves, trying to work with my laptop and a wireless network that wouldn't send outgoing emails, because my mother wouldn't talk to the staff when she needed anything and answered questions about her medical history with amazingly inventive fiction.
For a while it looked as if the facility where my parents live wouldn't take her back and we would have to move her elsewhere. At the last minute they relented and she went from rehab into their 24-hour nursing facility, which is probably a permanent move due to her increasing physical frailty and confusion. In the meantime, my sister Sue and I also moved Dad to a smaller independent living apartment in the same place. Not surprisingly, once he was settled with all his stuff and without the responsibility of taking care of Mom, his back spasms subsided. Although it's great he no longer has to be on high alert 24/7, Sue and I worried that he would be lonely without our mother. He is almost 88 and has really never lived by himself before.
Dad's beloved cat Mushroom passed on to the great cat condo in the sky about 3 years ago, and he was heartbroken. He started talking about getting another cat shortly after that, but Mom was firmly against the idea. Dad joked that if Mom died, he would stop at the animal shelter on the way home from the funeral. Well, she hasn't died, but she's no longer in any condition to object to his owning a cat. This set Sue into motion. As I've mentioned before, Sue is a volunteer adoption worker at the Humane Society and a dedicated cat pusher. She thinks everyone should have cats. Plural.
One of the local shelters, Four Paws, has a "Seniors Fostering Seniors" program. Senior citizens can "adopt" an elderly cat for a small fee; Four Paws actually retains ownership, and will take care of all the cat's medical needs. When either the cat or its person becomes too infirm for the relationship to continue, the shelter takes the cat back. Think of it as renting a cat.
So, last weekend Sue and I checked out the senior cats available and found the perfect friend for Dad. Her name is Puma; she's a big 12-year old cat with plushy black fur and a loud purr, declawed in the front. She and Dad have already bonded and are spending a lot of time in his recliner watching TV together. He's a little testy about her tendency to take more than her share of the bed at night, but on the whole both of them appear more than satisfied with the new arrangement.
Puma is in excellent condition for her age - she even still has good teeth - so I hope she will be Dad's roommate for a long time to come. If not, we may have to find another Four Paws cat for him to lease.
"Almost every pet owner out there will tell you that their animal companion enriches their life in more ways than they can count, but it turns out that pets actually help prolong their lives, too. Numerous studies have shown that having pets helps lower our stress levels, decrease blood pressure, benefit our cholesterol, improve our mood, and boost our immunity – in other words, lengthen our life span!" ~Mao Shing Ni, L.Ac., D.O.M., PhD
For a while it looked as if the facility where my parents live wouldn't take her back and we would have to move her elsewhere. At the last minute they relented and she went from rehab into their 24-hour nursing facility, which is probably a permanent move due to her increasing physical frailty and confusion. In the meantime, my sister Sue and I also moved Dad to a smaller independent living apartment in the same place. Not surprisingly, once he was settled with all his stuff and without the responsibility of taking care of Mom, his back spasms subsided. Although it's great he no longer has to be on high alert 24/7, Sue and I worried that he would be lonely without our mother. He is almost 88 and has really never lived by himself before.
Dad's beloved cat Mushroom passed on to the great cat condo in the sky about 3 years ago, and he was heartbroken. He started talking about getting another cat shortly after that, but Mom was firmly against the idea. Dad joked that if Mom died, he would stop at the animal shelter on the way home from the funeral. Well, she hasn't died, but she's no longer in any condition to object to his owning a cat. This set Sue into motion. As I've mentioned before, Sue is a volunteer adoption worker at the Humane Society and a dedicated cat pusher. She thinks everyone should have cats. Plural.
One of the local shelters, Four Paws, has a "Seniors Fostering Seniors" program. Senior citizens can "adopt" an elderly cat for a small fee; Four Paws actually retains ownership, and will take care of all the cat's medical needs. When either the cat or its person becomes too infirm for the relationship to continue, the shelter takes the cat back. Think of it as renting a cat.
So, last weekend Sue and I checked out the senior cats available and found the perfect friend for Dad. Her name is Puma; she's a big 12-year old cat with plushy black fur and a loud purr, declawed in the front. She and Dad have already bonded and are spending a lot of time in his recliner watching TV together. He's a little testy about her tendency to take more than her share of the bed at night, but on the whole both of them appear more than satisfied with the new arrangement.
Puma is in excellent condition for her age - she even still has good teeth - so I hope she will be Dad's roommate for a long time to come. If not, we may have to find another Four Paws cat for him to lease.
"Almost every pet owner out there will tell you that their animal companion enriches their life in more ways than they can count, but it turns out that pets actually help prolong their lives, too. Numerous studies have shown that having pets helps lower our stress levels, decrease blood pressure, benefit our cholesterol, improve our mood, and boost our immunity – in other words, lengthen our life span!" ~Mao Shing Ni, L.Ac., D.O.M., PhD
Sunday, January 5, 2014
"It's Not My Fault"
Today is the last day of the winter break for the school where I teach online classes, but it hasn't been much of a break for me. This particular group of students includes several "not-my-faulters." I usually get one or two per class, but this session is rife with them, and they haven't left me alone during the holidays.
The course syllabus and policies clearly spell out their general responsibilities and the specifics of each assignment, but the "not-my-faulters" are always shocked and amazed that I enforce the written policies and grade according to the printed rubrics. Submitted a blank paper or the wrong assignment? Left out half the assigned work? Copied code from the Internet without citing the source? "Yes, but it wasn't my fault!" Oh, the homework brownies did it for you? Give me a break. "If you just call me, I can explain." No, you can't. Your power/Internet connection went down, your mother/brother/hamster died, you had a heart attack/went into early labor - that's terrible and I'm sorry for you, but it doesn't mean you should get full credit for missing, incomplete, or plagiarized work. And BTW, repeatedly whining to me will not change that. Nor will complaining to the University; they always back me up. PLEASE complain - I double-dog dare you. You'll be sorry.
I wouldn't be ranting like this except I am supposed to be preparing these students for life in the workplace, and employers don't accept much short of an incapacitating stroke for missing or substandard work. I know - as a manager, I was the one who had to write performance improvement plans or fire employees who didn't get that message. How did these people get to college without learning to take responsibility for their own actions? What were their parents thinking???
Stuff happens. We all forget, procrastinate, get sick, get distracted, suffer personal tragedies, screw up. But when we do, we owe it to ourselves as well as those around us to say, "I'm sorry. It WAS my fault. I'll suffer the penalties and try very hard never to do it again."
[UPDATE: Right after I posted this I received a note from one of my other students who had just suffered a devastating loss. She told me she was withdrawing from class because she knew that she would be unable to focus for the next few weeks, but would re-enroll in the near future and finish up her degree. No whining, pleading, or excuses - just pulling up her socks and getting on with things. She and the others like her are the students who keep me teaching.]
"You must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself. That is something you have charge of." ~Jim Rohn
The course syllabus and policies clearly spell out their general responsibilities and the specifics of each assignment, but the "not-my-faulters" are always shocked and amazed that I enforce the written policies and grade according to the printed rubrics. Submitted a blank paper or the wrong assignment? Left out half the assigned work? Copied code from the Internet without citing the source? "Yes, but it wasn't my fault!" Oh, the homework brownies did it for you? Give me a break. "If you just call me, I can explain." No, you can't. Your power/Internet connection went down, your mother/brother/hamster died, you had a heart attack/went into early labor - that's terrible and I'm sorry for you, but it doesn't mean you should get full credit for missing, incomplete, or plagiarized work. And BTW, repeatedly whining to me will not change that. Nor will complaining to the University; they always back me up. PLEASE complain - I double-dog dare you. You'll be sorry.
Stuff happens. We all forget, procrastinate, get sick, get distracted, suffer personal tragedies, screw up. But when we do, we owe it to ourselves as well as those around us to say, "I'm sorry. It WAS my fault. I'll suffer the penalties and try very hard never to do it again."
[UPDATE: Right after I posted this I received a note from one of my other students who had just suffered a devastating loss. She told me she was withdrawing from class because she knew that she would be unable to focus for the next few weeks, but would re-enroll in the near future and finish up her degree. No whining, pleading, or excuses - just pulling up her socks and getting on with things. She and the others like her are the students who keep me teaching.]
"You must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself. That is something you have charge of." ~Jim Rohn
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