Pawprints From Space

Due to upcoming global jaunts the kitties will have no Christmas tree to harass/destroy/play with this year. Seems silly to put up a tree only to take it down the day after the holiday. Leaving it up would only be asking for trouble. They do not seem too broken up about it. In fact, not a little bit of depression to be seen in the usual antics of zooming around, knocking things over and otherwise terrorizing each other. In fact, I don't think they have noticed what time of year it is. All they know is that suddenly it got too cold for mama to let them out on the porch for longer than a few minutes at a time.   If there was ever any doubt that cold December air is invigorating to some, all you have to do is let your normally inside cat out onto the enclosed porch or into the garage for oh about 10 minutes (older cats will want back inside at about 5 minutes). When they come back in they will zoom through the house at near super sonic speed. No furniture surfaces will be spared fro...

Before anyone gets all up in arms over the "Xmas" in the title of this post, here is a little background for you: The "X" comes from the Greek letter Chi, which is the first letter of the Greek word Χριστός, translated as "Christ" and the New Testament was originally written in Greek - the symb ol below is the labarum used since 312 A.D. (starting with the  Emperor  Constantine) to represent Christ ans uses the first two letters of His name in Greek Chi (X) and Rho (P) This symbol can also be found on the walls in the catacombs in Rome. The Vatican uses a version to this day wherein the X is the crossed keys to the kingdom of heaven as given to St. Peter and the Pope's "hat" (miter) sits atop where the Rho is here.  Okay, so that said Xmas is an abbreviation of Christmas that does NOT cross the Christ out of Christmas. Actually you aren't supposed to say "X - mas" you really should speak the word properly as Christmas. Eur...

Once again Discovery's mission has been put on hold ( click here ). As mentioned earlier, I find this worrisome. If we are not going to fund the space program properly the ext discoveries will go to other nations, or perhaps to the private sector. Is that what we want? We are already losing ground in so many other ways (e.g. manufacturing) and our children do not measure up in the sciences with the rest of the world. Will we be the next (last?) "great" power to fall? While not an "empire" on the scale of England, let alone China or Rome the United States has been an influential "empire" across the globe for quite some time which isn't bad for a relatively young nation but... is that time ending? Is the step back from human space exploration a symptom of a larger ailment?

Beginning to wonder if the shuttle Discovery should fly again.  So many delays, so many potentially awful problems found and (hopefully) fixed. The launch date is now December 3, 2010.  http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/main/index.html These remaining spacecraft are not aging gracefully. Due to budget cuts over the years new craft have not been funded and you can only repair the old vehicle so many times before it just isn't workable any longer. And with the dangers inherent in space flight are we really willing to risk lives for a few final missions? I'm not sure we should. And I am a huge supporter of the space program. I think it is a shame the program is dying. I think there is so much left to learn. And while I adore the rovers tooling around Mars I think the real value in knowledge gained is through human exploration. But I do not think that risking lives in an aging space craft is a good idea. With apologies to Princess Leia: "They went up in ...

If you are looking for something different to do with cranberries for Thanksgiving (or Christmas) try this: 1 tablespoon unsalted butter 2 tablespoons freshly grated ginger 16 ounces cranberries (fresh or frozen NO CANS!) 2/3 cup sugar 1 cup fresh orange  juice 1/2 cup apricot preserves In a saucepan, over medium heat, melt the butter. Add the ginger and cook, stirring for 2 minutes. Stir in the cranberries, sugar, orange juice and preserves. Cook, stirring occassionally  until  the cranberries burst and the sauce thickens, about 20 minutes. Transfer to bowl and serve warm. You can make this up to two days in advance without distorting the flavors

Another personal tragedy has brought up the question yet again: what the hell is wrong with humans? Back story : I have NEVER been 100% convinced that people are the best things on this planet. As a species we are cruel, petty, concerned with ourselves above all else and seemingly convinced that we are masters of all we survey. Which is complete, utter bullshit. People, humanity, kill each other without regard for the sanctity of life. Not just human life mind you, but all life. We devalue anything that is not "us" or "me". God (or whatever name you give the creative force) created all life on this planet (or allowed it to come into being if you will). All life is sacred. Not just human life. It is beyond arrogant to think otherwise in my opinion. God's creations include the smallest microbe on up to the most complex creatures. And that dear reader includes our companion animals. Dogs AND cats. Do no harm does not apply only to people. The Buddhists ha...

Once upon a time... the Land of Social Media was nice and all the applications played well together. The Lady Blog spoke kindly to the Lord Facebook and he granted her access to the pages via the fey application Simplaris so that more friends and relatives could read her words with ease and without having to navigate the vast and confusing Web to find those words. But lo! Time passed and the Lord Facebook embraced greed and jealousy. Too many were using his pages to peer into realms he did not control. They bypassed his embedded aps, games and assorted tools of addiction and looked beyond to the sphere in which the Lady Blog and others like her dwelt. He could not allow this! It was not right! It challenged his authority as Lord and master of Social Media and besides, he was not getting a kick-back... this must be stopped! Were not his notes pages worthy of reading? Could not the friends and relatives find the words on his pages? Why did they need to seek the Lady Blog's words el...

Since our last adventure no real news resulting in answers has developed. There's been an echo cardiogram which has ruled out any heart related fluid retention issues. So that's again a good news/bad news item: good news your heart is fine... bad news we still have no clue what is wrong. Had a bit of keratosis "sliced" off my back that is being tested too. But after more than the required 10 days I called for the results only to find out that they don't have the results yet. Really? Funny... I have the EOB telling me what a ridiculous amount of money THAT is going to cost me. Cost? Let moi tell vous about cost. We have a high deductible HSA as I think I've mentioned before. Well TA DA I have hit the first $3,000 and the HRA is supposed to reimburse me the last $2,000 above that... uh-huh, problem is.... the EOB says they should owe me $608; the HRA people say no it's really $373 less than that because (get this) the EOB is wrong! Really? So when they...

It doesn't seem all THAT long ago that I moved to Ohio. But it has been nearly 17 years. I came here from Poughkeepsie NY leaving a very fun job with WaRP graphics (the publishers of ElfQuest) to get married and start a new life. When I arrived I kept up my comic connections and wrote reviews of independent artists/writers/publishers and their work for the now defunct  Indy Magazine (among other publications). I met some fabulous people along the way both via WaRP and Indy. Yes I am a girl AND a lapsed collector of comic books. Suddenly I feel awful for not having set foot in a comic shop in years. Does this mean being a lapsed comic book collector is akin to being a lapsed member of a religious group? Today I saw a post on Facebook from someone I met during my comic book publishing days, someone whose work I enjoyed a great deal. One of Terry Moore's characters from Strangers in Paradise (Darcy Parker) has made the list of the Top Seven Most Evilest Lesbian Exes (in...

Hard to believe that the summer is almost gone. School will be starting in a couple of weeks. All the school supplies are in the stores. SO tempting to buy a box of crayons - the big one with the sharpener in the back. I don't even know if they make that one any more, haven't checked. If I do I will come home with the crayons. Notebook paper, folders with cool pictures on them, pens and pencils... but the best was the smell of a new box of crayons. I miss school. There was so much potential at the beginning of the year. The possibilities, the things to learn and explore. New friends, new experiences, new textbooks - textbooks that I never sold back are still in boxes in the basement full of notes and yellow highlighter marks. Yearbooks and textbooks. College ruled notebook paper, not the wide lined paper - you can get more on the page that way. So exciting that first day of school. In grade school you are all fired up and there's so much potential. In high school al...

The results of the latest ultrasound are in and the answer is.... there is no answer! Are we any of us surprised? Probably not. What to do? What to do? I asked and the answer was annoying at best: track the symptoms in a calendar/log until the next regularly scheduled appointment... IN JANUARY!!! Asked if the last problem is to reoccur should I call? No, just track it. Apparently I am only to call if the symptoms worsen, there is pain, etc. I feel as though I am getting that classic response of "silly woman, it is all in your head". It's a wonder that they didn't try to give me a Valium or something to calm me down. Nothing has been solved here. Little has been ruled out. We are not amused. The leg swelling issue remains as well. If I stop taking the water pill for two days POOF! it comes back. I can skip one day but not two. I have one more refill left on the 'script and then I am going to have to (again) talk to a doctor who has no clue. As I had to ...

And here we go again. There will be yet another ultrasound on Tuesday to find out what is going on "in there". At this point I'm not sure I'd be all that upset if they started talking about a hysterectomy. Just so long as it fixed the problems. Oh who am I kidding of COURSE I'd be upset but considering what the blood work had to say about hormone levels and the functionality of that particular organ all it appears to be doing at the moment is taking up space and it isn't doing that all that well. Damn it. That'll be another $200+ bucks thank you. The bill isn't in yet for the massive blood work done in early May. I'm pretty sure that'll be an ugly one even with the preferred lab "discount". Soooo, at present I am less than $500 away from the first $3,000 of the deductible. You see, we cough up the first $3,000 via the HSA, the last $2,000 comes from an employer funded HRA. So really I am not out of pocket the full $5,000 but I hav...

So we are treating symptoms but not finding solutions or the reasons for these issues in the first place. There's a water pill for the leg swelling which I can skip one day on but not two (experiment today proved that one, damn it) but there is only one more refill one those (only got two) and then God only knows what. No one has a clue about that one. Extensive blood testing showed very low Vitamin D so now I am taking 2000 IUs of Vitamin D3 a day. I was kind of hoping that was tied into the swelling since there are many things that impacts. No dice there. Also indicated was low iron saturation which my GP is blowing off because all the other iron indicators are good. Web browsing would beg to differ but who knows how accurate general info is on blog comments. Let's put it this way the preferred level for that is oh, one hell of a lot higher than the "7" I currently clock in with... something is wrong and no one is listening. In other areas... while the cycl...

It seems to have taken forever but at long last sunshine and warmth. We're running slightly ahead on rainfall for the month which explains the joy with which I greet the sun. It also explains the "lush" (i.e. gone crazy) plant life, most especially the weeds. Flowers not normally "popping" yet have done so, the roses for example look more like June than May. The peonies are fabulous. However the catmint is looking yellowed from too much water. I guess you can't have everything. The frogs in the park can be heard every night, louder than I've heard them in the 13 years on this street. Perhaps it is wet enough for some of them to have moved a little closer. No crickets yet but the frogs sure sound happy every night. Must be plenty of mosquitoes to snap up. A small possum and his mama live under my deck, she may have moved on as I haven't seen her in a few days but he's beyond cute and so little! Yet large enough to be out of the pouch and amb...

Despite not having gotten very far at all with the list of chores dinner time still managed to show up and demand to be dealt with immediately. Naturally with the kitchen full of food I had no idea what the heck to do. So I thawed out a salmon fillet, boiled an ear of corn, some whole wheat (omega 3 added) pasta, made an olive oil and rice vinegar (with Mrs Dash garlic and herb) dressing and some edamame. Have no idea how it is going to turn out since parts are still boiling but hey... if it IS good then I have lunch for a few days this week. Of course with enough white wine I won't much care how it turns out (ha ha). Opps! First buzzer has gone off... stay by Okay pasta DONE, fish DONE, corn DONE, edamame almost... fish needs to cool a bit so I can flake it. Oh yeah, there will be feta sprinkled over all of this. Rumba can't WAIT to get her paws on the salmon (as usual) although she did turn up her whiskers at a bit of the raw fish. And she calls herself a kitty! Second ...

So today was the follow-up appointment for the leg incident with the general practitioner. It is rather disconcerting when after you explain what happened to the doctor the comment you get is "well, that's bizarre". Bottom line? No one has ANY idea why my leg swelled up like that, if it is going to do it again and how to prevent it from doing it again. We've ruled out blood clots. We've hypothesized that it might be related the last knee surgery in 1982 - but the GP this morning thought that was rather unlikely or at the very least rather remote. He thinks it is more likely to be a hyper-allergic reaction to a bug bite/sting. Which might make sense if there was any evidence of such. No bump, itch, hole that I could find and true I didn't look all that closely, I was too busy freaking out. Adding insult to annoyance, I got a bill from the chiropractor today. Last month I paid the full invoice due of $295 and change. This month I get a bill for over $400. ...

So on Thursday evening I had the "pleasure" of traversing the local health care system. Upon arriving home around 9:30 p.m. I noticed that my right leg - and ONLY my right leg - was oddly swollen. It freaked me out as you might imagine. My leg all the way up from my foot was nearly twice its normal size. So I called the local 'Call A Nurse' phone line. After sitting on hold for more than 15 minutes the system hung up on me telling me they were busy and to leave my name and number and they'd get back to me "within the hour". So I did what anyone would do. I called my mommy. She told me to try the nurse line again and I did and this time got through. After playing 20,000 questions it was decided I needed to go to the ER and that I shouldn't drive myself. So Mom came over and off we went. I did get right back into the treatment area, got the whole temp and blood pressure thing and then off to a "room" a supposedly "fast track" ...

There is nothing quite so satisfying as planting flowers. Renewing the garden, watching for the first peek of the perennials up through the soil or out from under the leaves it brings a feeling of hope. Tonight I planted four hanging baskets worth of big purple pansies. Also put in two new floribunda rose bushes - crystal white ones - amid the lavender shrub roses. Really getting into roses lately (if lately is over the course of the last three years) but not the hybrid teas there are simply too many Japanese beetles for that to work out well as I refuse to spray chemicals all over my yard. Purchased the corner joints for taking the veggie plot up another level and ow have to get the lumber... followed by a whole lot of dirt. And the plants. The catnip survived the winter out there and is HUGE. The thyme also survived and needs to be trimmed back as it is creeping all over the plot. Somehow onion grass got in there and needs to be yanked out. But overall the veggie plot is ready to...

I have a LOT of fun going out on Fridays with the neighborhood gang, I really truly do. Tonight though I decided to stay home. After all, I have wine and jazz here too... just not the great food. Nearly 7:00 p.m. and I still have NO clue what to have for dinner. As I am sick of doing dishes in my quest to eat better (as in: fewer processed foods which means cooking everything) I will most likely say "screw it" and either go pick up a pizza (they don't take plastic at the door) or put something by Lean Cuisine in the microwave... or popcorn. Sometimes I just have to have a popcorn evening. As I had a floating holiday today I spent 90% of my time in the yard (cleaning the flower bed along the entire front of the house and hanging out laundry to dry - always smells so good). The other 10% was having the car looked at for its recall issue (window switch) and getting groceries - today at the store was bad enough, tomorrow will be insane. Besides I have to bake a pie tomorr...

Tonight is part of Holy Week. So tonight at Mass the choir sang and except for missing our entrance in the switch over from English to Latin for the Pange Lingua it didn't go too badly. So tonight we have the feast of the Lord's Supper. Tomorrow is Good Friday. Saturday the Easter Vigil and Easter Sunday of course to complete the Triduum. And of course the choir is singing at everything. I can't be there for tomorrow's Mass but I sang tonight and will again on both Saturday and Sunday. This is supposed to be a time of reflection. There's a sort of darkness that falls on Holy Thursday and then hope springs forth on Sunday with the light (of salvation). I've never seen darkness. I see the light of hope and life and joy all the way through. Now I must admit that I've always thought "Good Friday" was a misnomer. I mean really, have you read the Passion in the Gospels? It's heartbreaking stuff and if you've seen Mel Gibson's film The Pas...

Concluding the week with good friends, great wine and wonderful jazz is always good. The Wine & Jazz Fridays at the City Club are great. Most of the time the dinners following are even better when the conversation gets silly, raunchy at times and even political... but always enjoyable. It was a long month this week for no apparent reason. It just was. Not much to be done about that but there you are and it is finally done so moving on. Like basketball (only sport I ever did well at in gym) but not really following the NCAA tournament. Shame that OSU lost tonight nonetheless. Hopeful that Lima Central Catholic will win at the state championship tomorrow. Was invited to attend but already over booked and somehow need to make the desert for the dinner with friends tomorrow night. These chocolate/vanilla cream cheese pie things with raspberry sauce do not make themselves you know. Do enjoy the company of a certain gentleman even if he did go home first (early?) tonight but then...

Fifteen (15) years ago on March 11, 1995 I was in Fort Worth Texas feeling very agitated and not knowing why. I needed to go home, I needed to go home right away I just knew it. But my flight wasn't until the following morning. I kept calling home and got no answer, over and over. Finally in the evening I called my in-laws thinking he might have gone there for dinner, they hadn't seem him all day nor heard from him either. The news came several hours later from his little sister (she was gone too a short time afterwards) when she called to tell me he was gone and that his dad had gone to find him and did find him in the bathroom. He had fallen in the tub and drowned. Ironic because one of the few fights we had (repeatedly) was over the need to use a bath mat in the tub so a person would not slip and fall. I was for it, he thought it unnecessary. You see, martial artists don't need bath mats. Especially those in their mid-thirties and in great shape. Clearly he was wrong...

There are eighteen (18) days until the First Day of Spring on March 20th. I saw a robin over the weekend in my crabapple tree (Rumba saw it first and went nuts, so I had to check it out). The piles of snow are growing shorter and there is a circle devoid of snow around the base of the oak tree. The grass isn't exactly "green" but it isn't totally brown either. Squirrels are frolicking about and stealing food from the bird feeders again. The seed catalogs have been arriving in the mail almost non-stop which makes me dream of seedlings and sunshine. How to start seeds in a house with a high-energy kitten? There are gardens sleeping under the snow. Garden plots that need to be cleaned and re-arranged - plants needs thinning out, some need to be removed altogether and moved to areas where they might do better, the veggie bed needs to be raised another level (it wasn't deep enough last year the roots didn't developed as they should have)... so much to do. So ...

All right I feel compelled to jump in here on behalf of Mother Earth and say a few words about Global Warming. There are record snowfalls in the eastern part of the U.S.; heavy rains out west and generally odd weather in between... heck they are calling for snow in Mobile Alabama!! So naturally folks are jumping up and down and yelling that this is further proof that Global Warming is a hoax. So here's a look at some of the science (thanks to the Union of Concerned Scientists): "Over the last 25 years, Earth’s global average temperature has been increasing at more than twice the rate of the last century. In fact, nine of the warmest years on record have occurred in just the last 10 years! Scientists from NASA and other research institutions routinely collect temperature data from around the world and have records of the Earth’s average temperature going back to the 1880s, when temperatures were first recorded. The data shows that, globally, the last decade has been the war...

Okay, in a country where we have the highest unemployment we've seen in a long time, folks who can't get loans for their small businesses let alone their homes and workers who are lucky to get any kind of raise this year ... we have a financial sector completely disconnected from reality. The massive banks dubbed "too big to fail" by the Bush Administration and the fools in Congress who followed them and giving raises and bonuses of head-shaking proportions. Bank of America is increasing salaries and bonuses by 31% for 2009 (over 2008 numbers) that's an average income for employees of $235,193. JP Morgan has increase salaries and bonuses by 22% for 2009 (over 2008 numbers) an average income of $378,600. Goldman Sachs takes the cake though with average income for 2009 after increases and bonuses of $498,246!! Oh we're supposed to not pay attention to Goldman's payouts because they also managed to give $500 million to charity in 2009. Smoke and mir...

Well there goes the "super majority" for the Democrats in the Senate. Let this be a lesson to those seeking election or re-election in November. How to lose an election when you shouldn't have... 1. Be over-confident 2. Be extremely negative in your ads (there's a fine line on how to make this work) 3. Pay absolutely no attention to the techniques and tactics that allowed your predecessor to hold on to the seat for 40 years-ish 4. Get out there and talk to the people!! 5. If it is a state-wide election, you have to campaign state-wide and IN PERSON 6. Don't expect your party's leader to "fix it" for you at the last minute 7. Don't assume that since the seat has been in your party's hands for 40 odd years it'll stay that way "just because" 8. Do NOT insult your constituency's favorite sports team and/or anyone who plays for that team just because he/she is supporting your opponent - you are not campaigning a...

This week our town lost a great, classy eatery to fire. The cause remains unknown and possibly suspicious, persons of interest are being sought, no one knows what to do next. The neighborhood hung out there on Fridays - I didn't go very often but it was enjoyable to go. To hang out with what a co-worker calls "the beautiful people", eat some really great food and enjoy some wonderful wine. The Bistro was a symbol. A symbol of investment in the downtown of an old, tired city. It showed what one could do with an old building and some loving care. The exposed brick, the old glass, the 100+ year old bar... this was a place with character to spare. It was a gathering place, a place you brought out-of-town guests to, where you wined and dined prospective clients, where you stopped for some dessert and coffee after a show at the Civic Center or dinner before the symphony. It added class to Main Street. The people were warm and wonderful too, chatting with the folks beh...

Too much negative energy is exhausting. And Tuesday night it was all negativity all the time. I'm still tired. Holding grudges, being spiteful, engaging in the whole us vs. them game... and this is among a group of people who all belong to the same organization. Local political stupidity. The old you're with us or against us mentality and if you haven't been one of them your entire life woe be unto you! Idiots. If we fight among ourselves we accomplish nothing. There is a new chairperson (okay it has been a year-ish but new enough) who wants to introduce change slowly, carefully and thus there is ridicule from those who want things fixed right now. The reason given is they have spent years "kissing ass" and are fed up and the new guy is supposed to be able to fix everything immediately. There are parallels to the way people are reacting to Obama's lack of widespread, immediate sweeping change in less than a year although this isn't a national situation her...

Okay, I am concerned. Not about the "public option", that seems dead for now at least so we won't go on and on about that (although I could so don't get me started). I am concerned about this concept of a "Cadillac plan". As if the sheer cost of one's insurance coverage determines whether or not it is full of "bells and whistles". And who defines "Cadillac" anyway? Apparently the US Senate. The cost of an insurance plan is in part determined by the size and makeup of the group you're in. In the case of my employer we are a small group (less than 50) with several high-risk personnel on the plan. This drives up the cost of the plan. We have a decent plan but it is an HSA plan meaning it has a very high deductible. Example the individual deductible is $5,000.00. The plan's cost (so far as I know) puts it above the amount threshold that qualifies for "Cadillac" status. Trust me, this is NOT a Cadillac plan. It is pretty ...