I'm home

I got back yesterday evening after spending four days in Cleveland. I've *finally* caught up with my friends list. It took me several hours and it looks like some more drama happened with Six Apart while I was gone. I don't feel like getting into it too much here, but I get the impression that both the fandom and Six Apart are being stupid. The fans are blowing things out of propotion and Six Apart should have given those people who were deleted written warning that their content was in violation of the Terms of Service like they said they were going to do back in May. Whatever.

Early Friday, doomsey, emygination, judygs, and bmtstandard drove to Cleveland. We also took jharter41's two kids, Rayna and Noah. The trip there was spent knitting, reading, and reading the new Harry Potter book aloud to Rayna.

On Saturday, bmtstandard and emygination took the kids to see Ratatouille and afterwards went to the pool. doomsey, judygs and I went to Latrobe, Pennslyvania to see doomsey's great aunt, who has been sick for quite a while. According to what she said, her cancer seems to have stopped growing, but she is having problems with her back and her hips. It sounded like she was having a good day on Saturday, but we left after about an hour and a half because she was starting to look tired and sore.

On Sunday, we went to visit another of doomsey's aunts in Wooster, Ohio. She served a wonderful dinner. We also got to meet their new Corgi, Dewey. Corgis are so cute!

When we got back to doomsey's grandmother's place, Rayna watched a show on emygination's computer. I'm mentioning it because I wanted to make fun of one of the quotes I heard while I was knitting and listening to the adults. "Saved by fashion!" Yeah...that's what we're teaching our kids...that fashion is more important than...oh say...education. The fake science of kids' programs is also funny. At one point, the characters said that they were using "The World Wide Web" in order to save themselves. emygination was looking at the screen and said that "The World Wide Web" was a big glowing ball. Yeah...uh huh. They don't write any intelligent tv shows for kids anymore, do they?

After everybody left for the hotel (doomsey and I were staying with his grandmother), I decided to measure the size of the blanket I was working on by putting it on one of the twin beds in the guest bedroom. I managed to give myself a nice bruise on my good knee when I ran into the wooden footboard on the bed, which stuck out quite a bit. Man...those things are dangerous! Anyhow, it hurt for the rest of the evening. And of course, I really needed to have both knees hurting like I needed a hole in my head. Needless to say, I spent Sunday evening walking like a cripple.

On Monday, we all headed back home. It was nice to sleep in my own bed and pet the kitty cats again. cosettemonster was very stressed out about having to spend the weekend at judygs and bmtstandard's house. When I went to pick her up and put her in the cage, she peed on me. Poor kitty. She was given more food and lots of snuggles when we got home. Also, doomsey was being paranoid that the house "wasn't going to be there" when we got back. This is the first time since we've moved that we've both been out of town for several days.

Books I've read so far this year...

I finished another one during the car ride to and from Cleveland...

( Previous books )

22. Dreams of My Father by Barack Obama -- As most of your already know, Obama has a white mother from Kansas and his father was a foreign student from Kenya. In this book, Barack Obama talks about growing up with his mother and maternal grandparents in Hawaii. Later, his mother remarries and relocates the family to Indonesia. In fifth grade, Obama comes back to the United States and is enrolled in a preparatory school. Later, he went to school in Los Angeles and New York. After college, he worked as a community organizer in Chicago where he tried to bring about changes in the Altgeld housing project and in the South Side in general. In the last section of his book, he describes his trip to Kenya before entering Harvard Law School. There, he learns more about the father he met one time (who, unfortunately, is deceased) and the extended family he never met. Throughout the book, Obama talks about his Kenyan father and his attempts to understand his racial identity.

On a personal note, I'm still leaning more towards Obama than Hillary for the primaries. Although he's a relative newcomer to Washington, he strikes me as being rational and very intelligent. Also, I think the fact that he lived overseas (Indonesia) as a child also counts in his favor and it probably gives him a better perspective on how the rest of the world lives...and it seems to me that this is something we desperately need in a leader right about now. It's still too early to make any final decisions, and I'm going to have to read more about where he stands on other issues...

Fun With Memes -- Part 121

Swiped from tastyfusionfare

( What is your Patronus? )

Fun With Memes -- Part 122

Swiped from bkwrrm_tx

Here's how this works. Go to this site and come up with about five quotes that best describe you....or in my case...that amuse you...

My answers:

"The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously." -- Hubert H. Humphrey (1911 - 1978)

"Household tasks are easier and quicker when they are done by somebody else." -- James Thorpe (1888 - 1953)

"What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on?" -- Henry David Thoreau (1817 - 1862)

"Against logic there is no armor like ignorance." -- Laurence J. Peter (1919 - 1988)

"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)

And because I have nothing better to do with my time, I decided to post some more:

"You must be the change you want to see in the world." -- Mahatma Gandhi (1869 - 1948)

"In a democracy dissent is an act of faith. Like medicine, the test of its value is not in its taste, but in its effects." -- J. William Fulbright (1905 - )

"Don't gain the world and lose your soul, wisdom is better than silver or gold." -- Bob Marley (1945 - 1981), From "Zion Train" lyrics

"Just the knowledge that a good book is awaiting one at the end of a long day makes that day happier." -- Kathleen Norris, Hands Full of Living, 1931

A bizarre problem

I have a really strange problem. I've been getting this buzzing / static-like feeling in the back of my head for about a week now. It's not a sound. It's just a weird feeling. At first, I thought I would try to ignore it to see if it went away, but it hasn't. I have no idea what could be causing this. It started either last Tuesday or last Wednesday in the afternoon. When I went to bed, it went away, but then showed up the next afternoon again.

I'm not having any other problems other than that weird feeling. Sometimes, I'll get a small headache in the afternoon or early evening from it, but it seems to go away when I go to sleep and then come back. doomsey seems to think that it could be some kind of bizarre migraine. judygs observed that I have been doing a lot of reading lately and thinks that it's because I need a new prescription for my glasses. It's been a little over three years since I've had my lenses replaced. I called my dad and he said that, since it's in the back of the head, that I shouldn't mess around with it and just go to the doctor.

I think I have to agree with my dad. Since it's my head after all, I thought I would go to the doctor first and, if she thinks I need to go to the eye doctor, then I can make an appointment there.

Weird. Has anybody else had a similar problem?

[Edit: I wonder if I just found a possible solution to my problem. This is apparently a side effect of Wellbutrin, which I've changed my dose of about a month ago or so. My doctor is trying to taper me off of it. Whatever it is, though, it's not in my ears, it's in my head].

Thoth in central park

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This is unconventional, but really cool. It looks like he was also on America's Got Talent...

[Edit: I just watched the America's Got Talent clip. The judges and the audience didn't like him very much. I don't see what's there to dislike. The guy can sing, dance, and play the violin at the same time. It looks unusual, but otherwise interesting].