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Take a walk on the mild side.
June 2009 - Posts
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I buy wine at the grocery store a few times a month. Most of the time the cashier rings up my purchases without saying anything about the alcohol. Once in a great while, the cashier will ask to see my ID. This happens about once every four months. I can tell they feel a little silly as I am obviously over 21, but I just assume it must be some kind of random testing they do. I was at the check-out counter today again with some wine. As I was digging through my purse to find my wallet, the cashier started to ask a question, "Can I see". I had started to look up as she was speaking. When she saw my face, her question abruptly cut off. Then I saw "Cashier Confirmed - Age Over 21" pop up on the register screen. For some reason, this made me feel worse than when they don't say anything at all.
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Can it get any hotter? I don't think the temperature reached below one hundred degrees in the last two weeks. I like to be warm, but this is ridiculous. When I go outside it only takes five seconds to start to sweat; it is most uncomfortable.
When my husband plays music we always go together and I handle the sound balance, volume, and other controls throughout the performance. This past weekend was probably the most uncomfortable that I can remember. The place was as hot inside as it was outside. The musicians were soaked with sweat as soon as they started to perform. It is a dangerous situation because the sweat ran onto their guitars and this can cause damage to the instruments. Each of them had to have a cloth handy to wipe the instruments dry after each song. The patrons were uncomfortable too and they were lackluster in their enthusiasm for the music. Needless to say, no one wanted to dance or move around very much because it was so hot.
The place had air conditioning but I don't think it was turned on, or maybe it was just ineffective. The owner had several fans to circulate the air (super hot air) but it didn't seem to do very much to improve the comfort level. No one stayed very long; it seemed that they just drank their beverages and left for cooler surroundings. Maybe it would be a better idea for the owner to crank up the air conditioning in order to keep the patrons in the place for a longer period of time. They would purchase more food and drink and the place would do better at the cash register. Because electricity is so expensive, my husband advanced the theory that the owner was trying to save money by using the fans. It might be a toss up as to which way the place would do better: spend money on the electricity in hopes that the patrons will come in to seek shelter from the heat, or save the money, use fans, and risk having the patrons leave because it is too hot. It is a tough call.
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My husband has decided once again to join the ranks of working musicians. In order to work, however, one must have a place to affect that work. We have decided that restaurants are the best places to find music work. The jobs (gigs) are early in the day (usually late afternoon to early evening), they feed the musicians, and the type of people who frequent restaurants are usually more refined than those who frequent bars. We have been, therefore, visiting quite a few restaurants in order to secure places for him to entertain.
We have located one very nice place in Panacea that is nestled in a little cove; the view of the water is very soothing and the décor is reminiscent of Jimmy Buffett's favorite hangout, the Keys. The name of the place is Hook Wreck Henry's. It has outdoor dining and some indoor tables too. The menu is what you would expect: burgers, sandwiches, seafood, and full dinners. There's a bar on the deck staffed by a friendly bartender (who is also the manger) and there are several really nice waitresses.
It is very interesting to find this neat eating establishment amongst several defunct restaurants. The whole area is depressed (what area isn't depressed these days?) so to find one little place surviving is kind of heartwarming. The Harbor House, a very fancy restaurant and lounge when it was open, lies only about a hundred feet away; its empty, dark shell surrounded by unattended weeds and overgrowth.
A couple weeks ago we went to Hook Wreck Henry's to check it out and to hear the entertainer who was supposed to be working there. We went in and ordered dinner and my husband asked the waitress to whom should he talk to secure a place on the entertainment roster. She answered that the owner would be told of his request and that he would seek us out when he had a spare minute. We had just started to sip our beverages when a very enthusiastic young man appeared and stuck out his hand in welcome. His first words were: "Did you bring your guitar?" It took my husband about thirty seconds to land a paid audition for the following week. The audition went fairly well and he was invited to come back on a weekly basis. The second week went even better than the first week; both employees and customers remarked on my husband's ability to entertain. We are looking forward to many more engagements at Hook Wreck Henry's.
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When doing an Internet search, Wikipedia.org is a site that frequently comes up. I'll start reading about one thing and often the words in the descriptions are links to related topics and I'll click on the ones that interest me. Eventually, I might wind up on a page very far from what I was originally researching. One of these times I wound up on an entry called " The Intelligence of Dogs". The Intelligence of Dogs is a booked written by Stanley Coren that explains his views on the relative intelligence of the different breeds of dog. I very strongly disagree with the title he chose for his book. He does NOT rate the dogs according to their intelligence; he is rating the dogs according to their obedience. The reason I am taking exception to his title is that the chow, one of the SMARTEST dogs I have ever owned, is rated 76 out of 79 on his "intelligence" scale! At least Wikipedia made it clear that his scale was "heavily weighted towards obedience" and properly called it a drawback. If Coren had only named his book "The Obedience of Dogs" I would not have become so outraged. The Wikipedia article does state that "some breeds may appear lower on the list due to their stubborn or independent nature", but I'm not happy with that sentence either. The chow would not rate low because of his stubborn or independent nature. The chow would realize how dumb his test was to begin with and would appropriately show the intelligence to not participate. Coren also has labrador retriever listed as #7. I've had many labs in my lifetime and they are as sweet as can be, very loving, great with other dogs and children, but certainly not in the top ten for intelligence. Clearly the man is rating obedience. I readily admit that our lab is by far more obedient than the chow. I'll ask the lab if she wants to go outside. The lab might say no that she doesn't want to go outside. I'll tell the lab to go outside anyway, and she does. If I ask the chow to go outside and he doesn't want to go, I can't make him go outside. He knows what he wants, and not doing something he doesn't want to do is not a sign of low intelligence.
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I am always looking for exciting things to do and to explore. I have always had an interest in astronomy, but I hadn't done anything with it since my college days. Recently I was able to spend some more time developing my interest in outer space. More specifically, our solar system of planets, moons, asteroids, and other orbiting materials that have always fascinated me. I have been researching material on the solar system anywhere that I can find it. So far I have gathered information on most of the major planets and several of the moons. I was surprised to find that other planets besides Saturn have rings as well.
I guess my interest was sparked recently by the information that the scientists have demoted Pluto from the rankings of “planets”. Imagine that Pluto has been known as a planet since 1930 up to only a few years ago. Why couldn’t they just have left poor Pluto alone? They found several other small “rocks” further away than Pluto and similar to Pluto so they demoted Pluto to a dwarf planet and added the new rocks to this new category.
The larger planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune are fascinating because they are mostly composed of gas. These are not the places to go to land a spaceship. Of the inner planets, only Earth is inhabitable by humans. Mars is too cold; Mercury and Venus are too hot. I found out that Venus is the hottest planet in spite of the fact that Mercury is closer to the Sun. The theory is that the heavy cloud cover on the planet creates a greenhouse effect that creates tremendous temperatures and traps the heat. Talk about global warming!
Sometimes I dream about going to another planet just to see what it is like but the information that I am gathering lately doesn’t encourage me to book passage on the next shuttle. For better or worse I guess we are all stuck right here on good old Earth, at least for the foreseeable future. I will just get comfortable with what I have got now – no need to pack yet.
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Ever since my husband decided to play music again there is a lot more activity in my life. I go with him on all of the jobs and I help adjust the equipment and sound controls. Of course I have met many new people on the jobs and several musicians that he works with in the bands. I see the same people frequently and I have come to know them as friends. One person is having a retirement party this weekend and it promises to be a very enjoyable time. She made it a point to invite me so that I would feel welcome. She knows that I am married to the drummer in the band but it was a nice gesture on her part to invite me. She is one of those very likeable people that you meet every now and then, the kind of person who gives you faith that there are good people.
I have come to view weekends as busy with music, people, and activity. Before, I used to look at weekends as relaxing times, off from work, chores if I chose, maybe a restaurant dinner. Now I am seeing what my husband used to do many years ago. His work time was evening and weekends. His daytime was sleeping and chores. For him it was one music job after the other, all weekend and most evenings during the week. When most people were preparing for bed, he was going to work. Then he would sleep until noon and he would have the daytime to enjoy. I wonder if his former lifestyle is a better idea than going to work in the day and then, when you are off from work, there is only darkness.
I am sure that this weekend will be fun because we will work two music jobs and I will enjoy the music and the people. Not every weekend is planned and predictable but a little spontaneity is nice once in a while.
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As most of you know, we have three dogs and two cats at the present time. They all eat every day; in fact, eating might be their most pleasant activity (next to being cuddled). We necessarily have to purchase large amounts of cat and dog food to keep everybody happy. My husband likes to purchase in large quantities because he can find discounts occasionally and because he hates to shop. If he could shop for food only twice a year instead of weekly, he would certainly do so. This morning he got the impetus to buy more pet food.
We went into our storage container to assess how much we needed to buy to balance out our stores. You see, we mix two different dry dog foods to keep our canine friends healthy. The foods come in different size containers so it is difficult to buy an even amount of each; there is always some left over in one container. Thus, we must buy more of one kind than the other depending upon what we can find in the supermarket. We found that we have a great amount of one brand and very little of the other. This trip we will need only the one kind to balance out what we have on hand.
For the felines the purchases will entail as many small cans of wet food that we can find (they store easily). When we had all nine kittens with us they used to eat several cans per day; now we only use two cans per day. The dry cat food is in good supply at present, so we need not buy right now. The cats, however, have a litter box and this means that we will purchase several containers of kitty litter. The litter containers, when empty, make great storage bins for all sorts of things. Sometimes I think my husband likes the containers more than the contents!
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