Home (not) alone

Cathy and I were supposed to go to Boston this weekend to visit Lisa, Alan and Alisa, and Sara, but she's suffering from asthma! Gobbling prednisone and inhaling with a nebulizer. You can tell she's sick because she stayed home four of the five days of this work week!

My recent tooth extraction seems to be healing very very nicely, but my lower lip feels like he dentist pounded on it with a hammer. I can feel the abrasions from my teeth on the inside of the lip and it's still somewhat swollen -- and tender. (Poor me!)

Nothing but the tooth

Had a tooth extracted today. First one in I don't know how many years! I remember one when I was in high school. The tooth broke and the dentist chippd it out with a hammer and chisel. So I was not looking forward to today.

And the instruments this guy had laid out looked uncomfortably like the ones I uncomfortably remembered from high school.

I asked for nitrous oxide and was disappointed that I didn't get any kind of buzz.

However the extraction went well and he removed a considerable amount of necrotic tissue, so I suppose that I will feel much better soon. Did I mention that a root canal had cracked causing the infection? Did I mention that it presented no symptoms?? So the office people were taken a bit aback when they asked if I didn't feel much better now and I said I felt no different.

The anesthesia has worn off and I have no pain (I took a couple of acetominephen with codeine, just in case) or swelling or bleeding. Tomorrow starts salt water rinses, etc. Should be OK to go to Boston Friday.

Red Sox, Yankees and Indians all lost today and remain tied! Even if the Sox make post-season play, their pitching just isn't good enough to carry them very far and some of their bats have been ominously quiet.

Cathy got me a bright red Red Sox fleece-lined jacket for my birthday (next month) so it will share time with my SCCA championship jacket when the weather gets a little cooler.

Opera over Firefox

A commenter asked why I went back to Opera. What I like in Opera (in random order) are:

(1) the "close window" X in each tab
(2) the way the password manager works
(3) the way the form filler works (this is a biggie)
(4) I can place a new bookmark more easily
(5) search on bookmarks shows where the result is found (I have quite a hierarchy of bookmarks :-))

BUT I'm going to try NS 8.x for a while (since it's based on FF) and see if it has overcome those deficiencies.

Really random things

I went back to Opera from Firefox. Just too many things I use that Opera does better than FF, but I will miss the extensions. :-) I might try Netscape 8.x as it is related to FF. Netscape!! Really!

Finally solved a procmail problem. Seems that the content-type for charset=windows-1251 is considered to be in the BODY of the email, not the HEADER! (Cathy gets a LOT of spam in Cyrillic -- why would you send messages that the recipients cannot read???)

Just read more on poverty. The poverty level in the USA for a family of four is around $19,100 or around $10.50 per hour!! And most of the poor I see at the soup kitchen do not have the skills for that kind of work. (The soup kitchen pays around that to its kitchen staff, I believe.) Many are employed full-time at lower wages and many are not employed at all -- no job skiils, no education, health and addiction problems, etc. So how on earth do we eliminate poverty in the US? It seems more impossible each year.

Ahhhhh...! :-)

The A/C guy just left. We have a new blower wheel and cool, dehumidified air is once again flowing. Under warranty (i.e., the wheel was free) , it was about $185 for 45 minutes work. Oh, I guess it included the 15 minutes he spent the last time he came out.

I simply don't remember what it was like growing up without A/C. I didn't have A/C in a car until 1985 (it was a $1200 option on a $15,000 car!) and didn't have "whole house" A/C until about 1989. Before that it was a room A/C in the bedroom (for the most part). How did I live that way? Spoiled, huh? :-)

What's going on here???

The A/C started making serious noises last night so we shut it off. Right now the "Real Feel" temp is 94. Ugh. They're supposed to come out tomorrow with the part so I'm holding my breath!

If you're a Garrison Keillor fan, you have to read this. They must be off their rockers!

HOORAY!! The Soup Kitchen hired a Program Director!! Whoopee! Now Cathy can go back to working just one job. I'm looking forward to some quality time with her after many many months of her job sucking up all her energy.

Put off getting my tooth pulled. :-(

Lisa finally got to Boston. Her trip journal reads like a whatever-can-go-wrong-will episode.

Marc and I did much better at the bridge tournament on Saturday. Seventh overall of 17 and 3rd in B -- pretty good considering we're "C" players.

Strange week

Cathy and I keep missing each other this week. She had an extra night of work -- Thursday was the send-off dinner for the riders and support teams for the Bike for Hunger ride, and I have a bridge tournament this weekend. We'll catch up Sunday.

Speaking of bridge, Marc and I got creamed last night! Didn't seem like we were doing that badly but we ended up 6th of 6. Perhaps we'll do better today.

My neurologist keeps sending me for blood tests and doesn't have a clue as to why my CPK level is high (288 - the "normal" high value is 235). And since I don't have any symptoms, he just scratches his head. Marc says I should ask him two questions: what are you looking for and what will you do if you find it? Must remember to do that! :-)

Email from Lisa said they were having trouble with the rental trailer and would not get to Boston today as planned. Shooting for Sunday.

I'm better, thanks.

I feel better today. As I said, we're going to help our friend who lived in Pass Christian, MS and donate what we can to the relief effort. More than that, we cannot do.

B&D's party last night was fun. Met a couple who are buying a house in a Four Seasons community about an hour from our Four Seasons community and it was fun answering their questions about what to expect. They took us to the house they are selling becaue B&D said "you absolutely have to see Rick and Dee's house!" It's very nice. They are both artistic types and the house shows it. They are also very tidy. I admire that! Their son is a famous artist and has a website that shows his particular artistry.

Today's perfect for a bike ride so when Cathy gets back from the plant store, that's what we'll do.

Hard to complain

Every time I want to complain about something, my brain replays some of the images of the people in the South and I am chagrined. So what if I have trepidations about reformating my HD! They have tredipations about when they will get food, water, medical attention, housing, a life!

And my little triumphs are that much smaller. Marc and I played bridge yesterday and I felt good because we , C-level players, came in tied for 2nd overall (out of 12). And then I thought about how insignificant that was, compared to people who brought, say, a bottle of water to a Katrina refugee.

I have to stop this before I get depressed. We have a friend who was visiting NJ when Katrina destroyed her apartment building in Pass Christian, MS and we're going to try to help her get re-established. It feels better when you can help someone you know, doesn't it?

Thanks heavens we live in the relative safety of New Jersey, 63 feet above sea level, and 35 miles from the Atlantic! Gee, 63 feet isn't much! Friends and family in NJ and nearby Pennsylvania are almost all over 100 feet. And my granddaughter is safe at 167 feet.

Hey, I'm babbling. Time to get ready for Bill and Drew's party!

Katrina Thoughts

Of course I'm horrified at the devastation caused by Katrina. I just cannot picture walking away with only the clothes on my back and the money in my pocket. Will their bank accounts and credit cards be OK? What about the banks that were destroyed?

I like stuff as much as the next guy but -- except for a computer to be able to pay bills online with Quicken -- I could lose all my things and start again as long as my accumulated "wealth" wasn't harmed.

What would I miss most? Hmmm....I guess I would replace my computer first. A notebook this time, so I could carry it when I was escaping a hurricane :-)

Incidentally, please note: "The McCormick Tribune Foundation Hurricane Katrina Relief Campaign has been established as an effort between McCormick Tribune Foundation and many of its Communities Program Partners to raise money for victims of Hurricane Katrina. The McCormick Tribune Foundation will match the first $1,000,000 contributed to the campaign at 50 cents on the dollar. All administrative costs will be paid by the foundation so that all funds can be distributed directly to disaster relief organizations that provide short and long-term aid to those affected by Hurricane Katrina." Click on that sentence to make a donation.

And now some thoughts as to the government's responsibility to rebuild. When parts of the Jersey shore were wiped out by a hurricane some years ago, I felt somewhat resentful that my tax dollars were going to rebuild homes of people -- rich people, mostly -- who built their houses in dangerous areas and did not (or possibly could not get) suitable insurance. Let's face it...if you try to insure something and an insurance company refuses to insure you, doesn't that ring a bell?

So I think someone should take a long hard look at the places that were wiped out and perhaps provide some seed money so that these folks can get started further inland (perhaps in Kansas?) but not to permit them to rebuild right on top of the ruins. Sure, Katrina was a once in 250 years event, but if you want to build a house (or buy a house) where that has happened, you're rolling the dice. Don't come to me for a handout if you roll snake eyes!

And then there are the poor, who really didn't choose to live where they live(d). And when they lose everything, it may not look like much to us middle-classers, but it's even worse for them if my experience with the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen has taught me anything. But the problem of the poor is not limited to victims of this storm. And there's no "easy" answer like, "We'll give them money to rebuild". Too philosophical for me this morning.