Zionista!

Joined The WELL, located a virulent Zionist who mined my blog for the most hurtful thing they could find in short order. Pissed me off. Didn't surprise, me, however. I$rael has a bizarre hold in US foreign policy, and even questioning why that is can just about get you lynched. Much less wondering about the allegiance of government workers. I$rael is a foreign country. But it seems to RUN this country. Asking why is like walking around with two golf clubs held over your head in a lightning storm.

Very unhappy that a discussion group turned into a personal attack. Oddly enough, the kind of underhanded attack Jews have a reputation for throughout history. The Khazars appear to have invented public relations. Enough of that.

Buried my blog, linked the former URL to Mossad's website.

Got today off to a bad start. Makes me want to pursue the matter. Why does I$rael have so much influence in the US? How is that possible?

The attack on me was to prevent discussion. To eliminate even thinking about what's going on. "The Jew cries out as he strikes you." Really pisses me off.

Angry.

Cassidy wanted to get the mail yesterday (after Flynn had asked to), so today I let her get it. She dragged her feet, Flynn and I are sitting there waiting and waiting. I asked her if she could get it done a bit faster. Then she said she wanted to run home, to which I said "No." I got more and more frustrated. I'm still furious. Compared to Flynn, she's been nothing but trouble since the day she was born. Obstinate, argumentative, unappreciative. Today was one of those days when it came to a head. I'm spending my life doing THIS..? I'm so fucking angry I can barely see.

Really angry and unhappy.

Filing

Labeled and semi-organized most of the files in the filing drawer. An accomplishment. Things are actually pretty much organized.

Made a backup today using one of the two backup drives. Edited a whole bunch of stuff earlier, all the text files, half the graphic files. Threw all the image files into iPhoto. Have a big folder of individual text files exported from StickyBrain, which was dead slow lately, a real stone. Using the Spotlight feature in OSX is faster.

Repotted the houseplants yesterday, got around to attacking the filing today. Impressive. Finally getting something done on wallpaper-type get-around-to-its. Go through the tool chest tomorrow and put photos aside, keep them in a box or album or something. Tired of scanning photographs into the computer. I have enough photographs. Unless they're really fucking something then I don't want to scan them in. I still have about five sketchbooks full of weird little bits and pieces to scan in someday. Or not.

It felt great to get rid of the videotapes and Dead cassettes earlier this year. You just don't need all that stuff weighing you down all the time, maybe you're never going to get around to it. So get rid of it.

Go through the tool chest and find manuals for stuff, file those. Set photos aside. Throw out clutter. It feels good to get rid of things and to get organized.

Didn't get much else done today. Grilled some chicken, which turned out very nicely. Chicken and rice and carrots and broccoli for dinner. Made fudgesicle ice cream.

Glad to have made a backup of the semi-groomed data. I feel somewhat organized. Glad to delete a bunch of old things. I'll be glad to get rid of more things.

Need to wrap Cassidy's birthday gifts. And arrange a cake and candles and cards for her.

It actually cooled off a bit this evening, I have the door and windows open. Very nice. I don't like the heat. And it hasn't been super-hot here yet.

So enjoy the cool evening while it lasts.

No word at all from Diane. No clue what she's up to now. Looking at some of the text files I deleted today I was surprised at how long ago I was unhappy with Diane. Long ten years.

Now I am raising the kids on my own. This is somewhat more than I bit off but so far, so good.

Go through tool chest tomorrow. Find anything and everything that important and file it. Set photos aside. Get the tool chest organized. It's the last bastion of clutter. Aside from a pile of clutter in the garage. And perhaps the kitchen junk drawer.

I would like to find time to go through all the holiday decorations and get them organized well ahead of time. And address the Christmas cards. And wrap the Christmas gifts. Get as many of the holiday chores done as far ahead of time as possible. Get the Christmas lights out and untangled and tested to put up the day after Thanksgiving. Make Christmas cookies ahead of time. Bake cinnamon swirl bread to freeze.

I'd like to find the granola bar recipe from Good Eats and make those for the kids for snacks.

It's quarter past nine. If I want to watch a movie, I should pick one out and go and watch it before I fall asleep again...

These are the two new plant containers that I bought yesterday after the beach at the small nursery in Poway. They were expensive. This afternoon I finally got around to transplanting the houseplants from the 1980s. They were completely potbound, split them into quarters. Some are cuttings from the houseplants Julia had in San Clemente.

Glad to get that accomplished, that was overdue. I'd last transplanted them in 1997, I think.

Went to the fish store today. Donated the huge collection of bottom feeders that had bred in the big tank since I first noticed the first baby bottom feeder back in February. Prolific breeders, to say the least. Glad to get that taken care of.

Preseason game on last night, grilled a delicious steak, had a baked potato and some grilled asparagus. Delicious. Really good.

It was fun building a sandcastle the other day with the kids. The tide came in pretty quickly. It was a rear-guard action, at best.

I should bring the shovel next time. Build up a central mound of sand fast. Maybe the folding emergency shovel. Make a huge central mound fast and then repair and/or decorate that. When I helped make those sand sculptures they had buckets of water that I helped lugged and then mixed in molds and let them set THEN took off the molds and carved away whatever they didn't want in the sculpture.

What else? I want to get after the tomatoes and heavily trim/remove them. They're getting a little ragged. I did buy some cilantro to make salsa with. The serrano pepper plant has a lot of little chile peppers on it.

Time to think about making dinner. Tacos? Salad? Pizza? Nothing?

 

Another Tuesday.

Picked up Flynn's registration packet. That feels like some kind of accomplishment.

The morning glory and the moonflower vines have reached above the fence as of yesterday and today. They're doing well. Nice to see them growing so tall at last. Looking forward to their flowering.

Looked at google.com/maps to see if I can take Flynn to middle school via Pomerado Road and it looks like that would work out better than driving down Paseo Lucido and slogging through the high school/middle school traffic. Drop him off near the tennis courts. Then make my way home as best I can.

Another hot day ahead. And somewhat humid. No plans for the rest of the day, really. Get the kid's school paperwork in order. Sift through the filing drawer. Get everything organized.

Open one of the hard drives and back everything up. My CDs and DVDs are gone. I have no backup. Better to make one now than wish I had.

 

Monday. Cloudy out.

I'm sure it'll burn off later. Put the trash and recycling out. Including all of my backup CDs and DVDs. Time to break out one of the backup drives and write what I have on hand to it. Have SOME backup.

Sitting here at the computer, drinking coffee. Kids are still asleep. I'd like to take Flynn for a haircut this morning and mail a letter @ the Post Office. And get some more water.

Rearranged the rocks in the big tank on Saturday. Happy with the arrangement. The fish seem happy. The fish probably have a limited range of emotion. If you stop and think about it.

Pick up Flynn's registration information tomorrow morning.

The tides are perfect for sandcastle building (tide coming in) on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Haven't been to the beach all summer.

Hall of Fame game on tonight at five o'clock. Watched the American Bowl game on Saturday afternoon. Tape delay. Pretty good game. I watched a scrimmage between Green Bay and the Bears, I think, on Friday. Not an actual football game, but close enough.

Football season beginning is like arriving at your destination, the end of the year. Preseason is just beginning. Like tomatoes ripening or something. Preseason football, Cassidy's birthday, school begins, Labor Day... the regular season begins.

School, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, end of the year. That great week after Christmas with not a lot to do. New Year's Eve. Then the begin of the next year.

Made some roasted chicken in one of the terra cotta bakers for dinner yesterday afternoon. Made some biscuits and vegetables. Very nice little dinner. Played a game of Clue and a game of Operation with the kids.

Get back to attacking the file drawer and get that organized. Scan in old photos and drawings and get rid of the physical clutter. Sift through the clutter I have on the computer now. I just don't need it.

Old drawings? Recycle them, make them into one standard finished format. When did I last draw anything? That was once so special and important. Find a home for the old drawings. Finish them off. Maybe do more with them.

We have only ONE RSVP for Cassidy's birthday, her pal Natalie. Going to be a small party. I want to take Cassidy to the party store so she can pick out party supplies that she likes. Hopefully more than one of her little classmates will RSVP!

Remove some of the flowers from by the black gate and plant marigolds there. I still have half a flat of white vincas to plant out. I could stand to trim more of the tomatoes, too. The two vines in the smaller bed haven't done as well as the ones in the main bed. Not sure why that is. Different soil amendment? Did I amend the small bed the same way I did the bigger bed? Next year (or in the fall) the way to go would be BIG trellises. Trellii. The tomato cages were engulfed by the tomatoes in no time, I haven't seen them in months.

Something else that needs trimming is the bougainvillea. Not satisfied with that area under the pine tree by Cassidy's window. The lantana could stand trimming. The lantana smells bad when you brush against it. Not pleasant.

Might as well wake up the kids, it's 7:30. I'd rather do the errands while it's semi-cool.

Drag the kids to the pool or something. Weary of hanging around the house 24/7. Going to the market is the highlight of my week, I get out of the house.

Sunday morning

Awake again. Kids don't want to do anything or go anywhere. It's getting too late to go for a walk without significant heat.

What is there to do today? Stay inside again. Clean more. Something like that.

I guess there's not much going on. An understatement.

I'd like to go somewhere and do something. Staying at home all the time is boring. Go check the tire pressure on the Prius. Run a sprinkler on the lawn. Dig out the Christmas decorations and untangle the Christmas lights.

Trying to eat not very much and drink even less. Made some salmon last night which the kids turned their noses up at. I've had worse food at decent restaurants. They'd like to subsist off of chicken nuggets and cheeseburgers.

I've gotta lose some weight. So that means living on rabbit food. And maybe one medicinal glass of wine a day. Hoo boy, that sounds like a party. At least ice water doesn't have much in the way of calories.

Go through the filing drawer. Iron that out. Get things put away. Scan in old photos and sketchbooks, get rid of that clutter one piece at a time.

The Dodgers play in an hour, 1:30 on the east coast, 10:30 here.

Ten years since Jerry Garcia died coming up this Tuesday. That was bad news. Moved to this suburban inferno without a job and Jerry Garcia died a couple of weeks after hitting the beach, here. Not good. Isolation and child rearing. Work, work, work. No wonder I learned to drink after we moved to San Diego. Not much left to do.

That's true of a lot of life @ this stage, not much left to do. Tie up the loose ends. Launch the mice off on their own voyages. Enjoy the embers, wait to die. Feed the birds in the backyard. Wait for the morning glory and the moonflower vines to make it to the top of the fence. They're growing quickly.

Throw out more stuff. More clutter. I just don't need it. Just get rid of it. It feels good to get rid of things that I don't need and don't use. Clean up my mess prior to death so that no one has to go through my clutter and get rid of things.

I found a Dashboard application that lets me see sixteen webcams at once, and while I was finding sixteen webcams I wanted to see I found one of the Newport pier. I really like looking at it.

 

Thursday. Later.

The too-long, ugly couch was picked up this morning by a surly, lower-class Salvation Army worker. Glad to see it go. Thank God that thing is finally gone. Something especially unsavory about a worn-out couch.

New planter arrived today. I want to transplant the old houseplants soon, they've been in those containers for years. Want to find some larger ones.

Basil seems to be drooping a bit after being transplanted yesterday. And trimmed back. It had doubled in size in a week. Loads of marigold seedlings up. I'm thinking about leaving those in the planter box and seeding the front area. Unsure where to put the large-ish flat of vincas I'd bought with Cassidy at Home Depot. Stuck some of them in the planter bed after I transplanted the basil. Found larger containers for the shrimp plants, two out of three survived thus far. They flowered one or two flowers apiece, but the effect @ this size wasn't all that shrimp-like. Pleased to finally have shrimp plants.

Cleaned part of the garage yesterday. There's one final pile of clutter I need to sort through and clean up.

Trimmed the lawn yesterday. Looks somewhat better. Didn't want to mow and cut it too short. Waiting to find the manual for the lawnmower. In the third or fourth drawer with other household-manual type clutter.

Ate the Greek salad I'd ordered last night from Borrelli's. Or Borrego's. Whatever the name of that place is.

The hard drives arrived today. Sort through that folder of clutter so that I have a complete data set ready to be backed up.

A lot of the iTunes songs needed to have their titles tweaked, stuff like that. Unsure that I'll ever get around to any of that, just copy the file of clutter, the iPhoto photos, the iTunes music and that ought to take care of it.

Thursday

Ordered two pairs of Levis and a pair of shoes for Flynn. See if they fit once they arrive. It's surprisingly difficult to find a pair of jeans that fit, the sizing information is all over the place. I'm ordering a pair of size 8 shoes figuring that if he's not already that size, he will be soon. I had him try on a pair of jeans that more or less fit and ordered the jeans based on that information. See if they fit or not...

Hot this morning. Talked the kids into going on a quick trip out to buy bagels, haven't had bagels in ages. It is hot this morning. Swept up the side walkway. Put laundry away.

Woke up about 3:30 this morning and was up for about half an hour. Slept until 8. Was up before the kids.

What else is new? Not much.

The first day of post-summer school summer vacation

Today is the first day of post-summer school summer vacation, so I just sat down from 3-4 hours of watering and gardening. My knees hurt. The sign of a good time having been had, you know, when you're sore all over and you've gotten something done. Trimmed a bunch of plants, transplanted some tiny seedlings, pulled a bunch of weeds. Watered a lot.

I seem to have some species of Africanized dandelion growing everywhere this year. They grow about three feet a second. You can blind them with a shot from a Baring pistol and then finish them off with a machete if you know what you're doing. The roots can crack a foundation. Anyway.

Time for a glass of water and to see what time I can waste on the computer. No appointments or deadlines today.

The kids asked for pancakes so I made some pancakes. Out of buttermilk. The buttermilk recipe tastes better. I asked them what they wanted to do today and they said in unison "Nothing!" They're Great Indoorsmen of the first order.

Set the thermostat higher again. The air conditioning came on at 75 and then again at 78... it seems comfortable in here, don't need the air on.

Gardened and watered. Cleaned up a bit.

The Salvation Army will collect the old ugly couch tomorrow. I'll be glad to see it go. Ordered a small couch for Cassidy's room from Ikea, no idea when that will be delivered.

Ate a turkey sandwich with a sliced tomato from the garden and a sliced red onion. How delicious.

Looking at a Canon camera on amazon.com yet again. I like my little pocket camera, but it would be nice to have a "real" camera again. Although I sure took a lot of BAD photos with the "real" film camera I bought for the Maui trip. I've never taken so many bad photos in my life. I ended up with one good picture of Bob. That's a LOT of bad pictures. The Fuji Film underwater cameras were fun and I had better luck with them. That would have been a fun trip if Diane had stayed home.

Tempted by the Canon camera. I wonder if it's realistic to expect Diane to repay the rent I paid for her? I'd rather have bought the camera instead of paying her rent.

Bank the money. For the kid's education, for future expenses. Take care of the kids. I certainly wish that I'd invested more than I did in Apple stock back when. Diane invested in Lucent. Mine was a better choice.

I have a list of publicly-traded firms in the death industry. Boomers will begin to croak sooner or later and need death industry services. I don't see how it can miss. If they don't want to be planted, they'll want to be burned to ashes. There's money to be made disposing of the corpses of baby boomers, they'll be dying off in recording numbers. Get in front of that. So INVEST in those companies NOW!!!! Get around to it.

The camera is still very tempting, photos are the only thing I'm keeping as I weed out all of my possessions. And kitchen tools. I need to edit my photos I've taken. I ordered a couple of hard drives to back my data up to. Send one to Mom to keep and one to Kelly and Bob or Toni and Scott to keep offsite, just in case. Make incremental backups of new photos and music. Try not to acquire or save anything else. Buying the hard drives seemed economical and more practical than backing up to DVDs. Back it all up. Go through that folder of clutter I have. Drawings can go in iPhoto. So I'll have iPhoto data and iTunes data. And that's about all. My web pages (such as they are) are a convenient place to stick things, like this blog. Better than having dozens of little text files scattered throughout my backup disks. All of which are in the garage, btw, waiting for the hard drives to arrive and be filled. Goodbye, backup disks.

Looking at a wardrobe to keep my stuff in instead of the closet, which is crowded. Might get around to that. Order that from Ikea and wait for them to deliver it. The Prius isn't up to the job, and I don't want to rent a truck to pick furniture up.

I'd also like to get some lumber delivered from Dixieline and build another planter or two. Very pleased with the planter that's there now. Looks great to see bright flowers right outside the laundry room door.

I'm thinking about clearing out the front garden area by the black gate and planting marigold seeds there. They seem to grow without any problems. I'd also ordered three "Bee Balm" plants from Burpee which ought to arrive eventually. I had those in mind for that area, near the fence.

The lawn could stand to be mowed, but I don't want to cut it too short again in the heat. I really like the lawn. I even like the giant monster crabgrass I find growing in the lawn.

What else is new? Not much. Sift through the remaining, final stuff in the tool chest. Scan in photos that I don't have in digital format. Scan in photos and negatives. Get rid of clutter one piece at a time until it's all gone at last.

Tuesday -- summer school is out at last for good

Gail from MDM called last night, she's not coming to visit Tim or whoever that guy is that took up with a girl half his age. The girl ought to know better, and Tim ought to be ashamed of himself. Fucking outside your generation is just not suave. Anything over about a three-year difference in ages is just too much of a difference.

Took the kids to Nickel City for about an hour. My head starts to throb after being in all that noise. They seemed to have a good time. Something to mark the end of summer school at last.

I'd like to assemble the beach gear and mount an expedition to the beach tomorrow. Pack some sandwiches and ice down some soda pop and make a day of it, at least as much of a day as the traffic will allow. Check the tides.

...

Not great until the end of next week. On the 10th high tide is about about one o'clock. The 11th 1:30 and the 12th 1:45. It's the most fun to build a sand castle with the tide coming in.

It would still be fun to go to the beach. Maybe drive to Encinitas and look around there. I've heard it's a nice place. Well, I heard that from a guy I talked with on the train to San Diego back in 1978... I'd never heard of Encinitas.

What else? Moved the old couch out of the house after it became apparent that there was no graceful way to move it into Cassidy's room. I ordered her a couch from Ikea that will be delivered at some point. Rearrange her room again.

Grilled some chicken last night, very tasty. Made some rice and vegetables for dinner along with the chicken. Baked a chocolate cake for dessert.

Going to do something with the leftover chicken tonight for dinner.

Stopped at the market with Cassidy this morning and bought milk and water and bread. She got a doughnut. I bought some vanilla yogurt and some more frozen blueberries. Making yogurt cheese and having a scoop or two of that with frozen blueberries is a delicious breakfast. Not too heavy.

What else? I'm pleased and excited that it's OFFICIALLY summer vacation now. For three weeks. I hope that Flynn is sufficiently motivated to do better in school and not be invited back to summer vacation. Wait and see.