tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-54725442024-03-12T16:38:33.500-07:00The Mysterious Traveler Sets Outmaking visible what, without me, might perhaps be unseenThe Mysterious Travelerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13688661614993071938noreply@blogger.comBlogger1158125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5472544.post-6048050065423577392013-12-29T23:36:00.001-08:002013-12-29T23:40:22.461-08:002013 in Review2013. What an awful year.<br />
<br />
I don't know if we're feeling "survivor guilt" or merely survivor exhaustion, but 2013 was a bad year for people and animals around us.<br />
<br />
Our elderly adopted cat Quigley died of bladder cancer; our beloved cat Mabel was diagnosed with large-cell lymphoma at the beginning of the year and in September she was gone. Her passing left a huge hole in the household.<br />
<br />
Several friends have had a rough year. I'd like to write a big-picture piece about that (perhaps something publishable, though how I could be both truthful and protective of their privacy I can't imagine).<br />
<br />
Some vignettes, with identifying info blurred:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Last spring we drove to another part of the state to buy some "stuff" from a disabled and impoverished friend, only to discover that the day was her birthday and she has no living relatives or close friends with whom to celebrate. Of course, we took her out to dinner. </li>
<li>For the past year, we've been part of a group helping a friend with serious health problems (whose only two relatives have even more serious health problems) relocate, only to discover that he has enough possessions to fill two houses and can't face making decisions about getting rid of any of them.</li>
<li>Since late October, we've been worrying about a young friend whose experience with chronic pain from an "undiagnosable" condition drove him to attempt suicide. Doctors expected him to die, but two weeks later he walked out of the hospital. However, after hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent on him in intensive care, the only follow-up care he was offered was a referral to a heroin clinic because — since he had used over-the-counter drugs and whiskey to try to kill himself —"he must be a drug abuser." The clinic told him he didn't belong there.</li>
</ul>
<br />
These are three people I care deeply about. I could easily list a dozen other friends who are sliding into homelessness because of a sequence of either a physical illness or loss of job leading to mental instability which then prevents adequate handling of the physical illness and/or a return to employment. The healthcare, economy and social systems today are such that you have to sink so low to get help that by the time you get there, the help can't help you because you are irreparably damaged.<br />
<br />
Exactly <i>one</i> of all the people we know who has slipped into this situation has climbed back out. Though she pulled herself out on her own, I suspect it was because she knew that if she was faced with loss of her apartment, she could resort to retirement savings or ask a relative for a loan. Her complete recovery is something to celebrate, and we're trying.<br />
<br />
But, really, what kind of year can we have with all this going on around us?<br />
<br />
Tom and I are grateful every day that we enjoy doing the very basic things in life together, from going to the store, cooking, taking a walk, playing with our cats, volunteering, and working with our clients. We are grateful for our warm house, our safe neighborhood, and for the good health of my mother and his brothers. I'm very pleased that we are in frequent contact with my cousins from my late father's side of the family.<br />
<br />
While we've both been appalled by the instability of some of the businesses we work with as contractors, we've also had some great experiences and are continually reminding each other to do more for the good clients and "fire" the bad ones (even if turning away business can initially seem counterintuitive).<br />
<br />
One wish for the new year is good things for our friends in need. We just don't see how things can go on this way for another year.<br />
<br />
Our resolution is to make sure we spend time with friends who are fortunate (and strategic) enough to be doing well. To often we see them across the room, also helping someone with problems, and all we find time to do is wave and smile at each other. We realize that we need to spend more time with these folks, regrouping and regathering our strength.<br />
<br />
So, here's to 2014.The Mysterious Travelerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13688661614993071938noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5472544.post-91135113834056568452013-09-12T11:19:00.002-07:002013-09-12T11:25:05.483-07:00How to troubleshoot and fix a weak refrigerator door seal<i>Note: Despite the title, this is post is more about how to avoid replacing a refrigerator door seal. </i><br />
<br />
Very few refrigerators made currently will fit the odd-size space in our cabinetry where our 10-year-old Kenmore Elite refrigerator sits. Thus I'm highly motivated to keep the current refrigerator running.<br />
<br />
Last weekend, it dawned on us that the door to the main refrigerator section wasn't closing very firmly. One a few occasions, it had even drifted open.<br />
<br />
I began troubleshooting, and it was bad news.<br />
<br />
<b>The paper test:</b> Close the door with a piece of paper (or a dollar bill) inserted at least an inche into the closure. If the paper pulls out easily, the seal isn't tight enough. (Our freezer compartment passed; the main compartment seal failed.)<br />
<br />
<b>The temperature test: </b>I used an <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Taylor-Service-Classic-Freezer-Refrigerator-Thermometer/dp/B000BPE88E/" target="_blank">inexpensive refrigeration thermometer</a> (which I usually keep in the freezer compartment) to test the main compartment. It was running a bit too warm, so I used the controls to dial it back to nearly the maximum cold setting for the main compartment. It had already been set quite cold (5 out of 7) so I realized I'd need to take further action to keep the colder air in.<br />
<br />
It was time to study up on repairs.<br />
<br />
<b>Replacing the gasket/seal:</b> Hoping to get the seal repaired and this whole episode over with, I called two repair companies. But they said replacing the gasket would be more than $300, and they suggested that I simply get a new refrigerator since the existing one was more than 10 years old. But they also gave me some suggestions, which I'll cover later. (I also read some descriptions of <a href="http://www.wikihow.com/Replace-a-Refrigerator-Door-Seal" target="_blank">how to replace the seal yourself</a>, which I would never consider trying unless I were desperate for material for a humor column. Baby powder and hair dryers were involved.)<br />
<br />
My online research yielded an odd assortment of ideas, some of which I tried and which resulted in moderate success.<br />
<br />
<b>Level the refrigerator. </b>One fellow told the story of taking his refrigerator (with a weak door seal) to his brother's shop to have the gasket replaced, only to discovered that it closed firmly at the shop. IT turned out that the refrigerator had been tilting slightly forward at the original location. They took it home and used shims to adjust it so that it tilted very slightly back. I haven't tried adjusting the feet or shimming my refrigerator yet — but read on.<br />
<br />
<b>Remove everything from your refrigerator door and see if that improves the door closure.</b> Bingo! In our case, it did — dramatically. (Of course, this limits the usefulness of the refrigerator; we ended up putting lightweight items, such as breads, in the door and putting large, heavy bottles of liquids in the main shelves.)<br />
<br />
<b>Tighten the hinge screws. </b>One website suggested that if you want to improve the door's ability to deal with a heavy load, you might consult the manual for the refrigerator and try locating and tightening the door-hinge screws, which can loosen over time. I've put that on my "maybe" list. After reading <a href="http://homeguides.sfgate.com/fix-refrigerator-door-doesnt-shut-tightly-46011.html" target="_blank">the directions</a>, I'm not so sure I want to go there.<br />
<br />
<b>Apply Vaseline to the gasket</b>. I'm not sure exactly how or why this works, but the repair company I called suggested that after thoroughly cleaning the rubber gasket with soap and water, and drying it, I lightly coated the flat face of the gasket on the hinge side of the door with Vaseline. Some of the websites made <a href="http://blog.warnersstellian.com/2011/12/13/repair-your-refrigerator-seal-with-vaseline/">this same suggestion</a>. I tried it, and it certainly didn't hurt.<br />
<br />
The combination of applying Vaseline, decreasing the door's load, and adjusting the setting for the main compartment seems to have worked quite well. Meanwhile, I'm watching for an appliance sale at Sears.<br />
<br />
<br />The Mysterious Travelerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13688661614993071938noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5472544.post-70860093928634816772013-06-17T21:57:00.000-07:002013-09-12T10:28:19.549-07:00Mabel's last summer<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji1ORdzbUqueEikEktV5yqBrlxkB745In-1nbC6LgcuY6FPQn_JOXg6BwR9HVFGWyIFmTk4Or51WKfAoaSlYHkEE70EEfQPgvDZHD1utmqsfBplrMYHMRTdKAyBb92R_EZpzoThg/s1600/mabel_color.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji1ORdzbUqueEikEktV5yqBrlxkB745In-1nbC6LgcuY6FPQn_JOXg6BwR9HVFGWyIFmTk4Or51WKfAoaSlYHkEE70EEfQPgvDZHD1utmqsfBplrMYHMRTdKAyBb92R_EZpzoThg/s320/mabel_color.jpg" width="318" /></a></div>
<br />
<b>One Monday in early February</b> Mabel, our little black Bombay cat, collapsed. I thought she had an abscess, and asked Tom (who's a massage therapist) to feel for a lump. He didn't find anything serious, but we made a vet appointment for the next day.<br />
<br />
The vet wasn't very concerned. They did a quick blood panel, which came back normal. Tom asked the vet to check out what he thought was a small lump in her lower abdomen. The vet did a needle biopsy, but told us not to worry.<br />
<br />
We got a call the next day. They were very sorry, but Mabel had fatal large-cell lymphoma and would likely live only another two or three weeks. I asked about oncology, and they said I'd have to get her an appointment in the next two days. By this time, it was Wednesday. And the oncology clinic didn't have Friday hours.<br />
<br />
I managed to get us in at the oncologists the following Monday, where we were told we had three options for chemotherapy: A series of weekly treatments with one drug; a series of weekly treatments that alternated between two drugs, and a series of weekly treatments that cycled through four drugs. All three regimens are palliative, not curative, chemo. We picked the four-drug regimen, they started it on the spot, and within two days of starting it Mabel was seemingly back to normal. It was like magic.<br />
<br />
This was in mid-February.<br />
<br />
Mabel responds exceptionally well to chemo. She doesn't mind the treatments — even the series of subcutaneous injections (cats don't do well with IV drips) that we have to give her at home every few weeks. We rub prednisone cream on her ear every night, but that's the only other medication involved.<br />
<br />
After eight weeks of treatment, the vet tried putting Mabel onto every-other-week chemo. Ten days into it, she took a dramatic turn for the worst. One eye was shut, and she began twitching. We rushed her to the clinic, thinking it might be time to put her down. But they administered her next dose of chemo, and a hour or so later we had Mabel back to normal. We're back to weekly chemo, which we refer to as "renting the cat."<br />
<br />
Mabel has always been a hugely demonstrative and affectionate cat, and the cancer and chemo have made her even more interested in sitting on people. And it's much harder now to tell her to go away and let you work because you realize that your time with her is limited. It is very difficult to imagine life without Mabel.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />The Mysterious Travelerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13688661614993071938noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5472544.post-33614760932229320022012-08-02T16:50:00.005-07:002012-08-02T16:50:47.356-07:00Smokey loses a friend<i>An update on Smokey, who was my cat 10 years ago but has since chosen to live with a succession of elderly neighbors.</i><br />
<br />
I got an email today from the son of Emilia, Smokey's current owner. Emilia died yesterday. She had dementia, and her son had moved in to take care of her about a year and a half ago. Shortly after the son moved in, <a href="http://themysterioustraveler.blogspot.com/2010/11/thanksgiving-at-shady-rest.html" target="_blank">Smokey was allowed in</a> from the garden shed, where he'd lived for three or four years, to the house, which he enjoyed enormously.<br />
<br />
"Smokey lost his best buddy," the son wrote. "The two were great companions for one another."<br />
<br />
We last saw Emilia this spring, when we stopped by while out on a walk. I'm not sure she recognized us, but she appreciated our interest in the cat.<br />
<br />
"Smokey's a good cat," she liked to tell us. <br />
<br />
This is the second elderly companion Smokey has lost. In 2003, the cat had gradually moved in with our neighbor two doors down, a retired homicide detective who had a great resemblance to the cartoon character Crankshaft. After the detective moved to a nursing home in 2007, Smokey hiked seven blocks north to find Emilia, whose husband had just died. Emilia and I had a deal where she fed Smokey and I took care of the vet visits.<br />
<br />
During Smokey's first year with Emilia he'd walk seven blocks every night to sleep in the laundry room, but rush back up there at sunrise. Then he moved into Emilia's garden shed, where we eventually installed a barn heating pad for the winter months. We'd go up and check on Smokey every few weeks until Emilia's son moved in with her. Fortunately, he likes cats.<br />
<br />
I suspect that Smokey, who is 13 now, will probably stay with the son. Though there <i>is</i> an elderly man who lives next door...The Mysterious Travelerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13688661614993071938noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5472544.post-8380413357619665862012-06-14T22:22:00.001-07:002012-06-14T22:22:50.268-07:00Mysterious reactionOn the way home from a visit to a friend in Harborview Hospital today, I nearly collapsed. We had just stepped into the hospital elevator when I was overcome with exhaustion. I could barely walk to the car. Fortunately, Tom was driving. I was so sleepy I was having trouble understanding what he was saying. When we got home, the thought of anything resembling dinner made me want to gag. I had a glass of grapefruit juice and stumbled upstairs to go to bed. At 7 p.m.<br />
<br />
In the course of preparing for bed, I washed my hands. It was as if I'd knocked back a double espresso. I suddenly felt fine; not sleepy at all.<br />
<br />
And I got to thinking. One of the reasons I'd washed my hands was that I was bothered by the cloying scent of the Purell hand sanitizer I'd rubbed on my hands at the hospital — about 15 seconds before I stepped into the elevator and nearly collapsed.<br />
<br />
I Googled "Purell reactions" and discovered there are a few other people who have reported experiencing extreme drowsiness, lethargy, and lack of appetite as a result of using Purell. Who'd have imagined it? The motion-sensor machine dispensed a squirt of it, so it wasn't as though I'd used the wrong dosage by accident.<br />
<br />
Fortunately, I don't work in a healthcare environment, or a school, so I haven't had been required to have much experience with Purell hand sanitizer. I carry another alcohol-based hand sanitizer with me and, while it may not have as broad a spectrum of effectiveness against viruses as Purell, at least it doesn't put me to sleep.The Mysterious Travelerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13688661614993071938noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5472544.post-4967499948349692032012-05-29T21:45:00.002-07:002012-05-29T21:45:30.826-07:00D.C. Trip ReportThe fearsome heckler did not materialize at my workshop last week, but the Thursday-night switch to the far distant hotel triggered a chain of events that led to the destruction of my beloved Ricardo roll-aboard suitcase. I'm still not ready to talk about it.<br />
<br />
When we returned home, I ordered two High Sierra roll-aboard suitcases at deep discount from Sierra Trading Post. They arrived today and, while not quite as capacious as the Ricardo, they seem sturdy and well designed.<br />
<br />
I had the two new suitcases, one blue, one gray, standing side-by-side in the living room when Zoe, our big tabby, came yowling into the room with her puff toy. She dropped the toy, lay down, lowered her head, and glowered balefully at us. Zoe has an extremely expressive, almost clownish, face, but I had never seen her with such a glare.<br />
<br />
"It's the suitcases," Tom said. "She thinks we're leaving again."<br />
<br />
We rushed the suitcases upstairs and put them into the attic. Zoe raced upstairs and looked around to make sure they were gone.<br />
<br />
Fortunately, she does't know we're going to Minneapolis in June.<br />
<br />
<br />The Mysterious Travelerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13688661614993071938noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5472544.post-41466030316255120232012-05-16T23:59:00.000-07:002012-05-16T23:59:10.578-07:00Signposts on the way to conference hellLast fall I was invited to give a workshop on websites at a writers conference on the East Coast. I accepted because this would force me to marshall a lot of materials that I use in client presentations and shorter talks into workshop or ebook form.<br />
<br />
The more work I did preparing this seminar — including surveying the people who've signed up to take it — the more I became convinced that there's a tremendous market for the material. The workshop is an attempt to span the huge gap between what small business owners want to put in their websites and what web users want to find on those websites.<br />
<br />
Most web designers are forced to go along with what the small business owners want because the small business owners are paying them. People like me, who advocate for the website user, rarely get a chance to present our side of the picture to the website owners.<br />
<br />
In the process of designing my presentation, I looked at hundreds of websites that belong to award-winning writers. I didn't look at the people who write best sellers — I looked at the mid-list folks.<br />
<br />
I'll write on my public blog in the next week or so about the disasters I found at every turn — like the site with gorgeous graphic design that forgot to mention the writer's name anywhere on the homepage. And, yes, there are still sites out there that blast you with tinny MIDI music files.<br />
<br />
Suffice it to say that this has been a huge project.<br />
<br />
So...today I got a phone call from one of the conference organizers. The hotel is overbooked for the night before the conference begins, and they're asking attendees they know well to spend that "pre" night at another hotel. Which turns out to be miles away in Outer Slobovia.<br />
<br />
This is a huge stressor for me because we're landing at 10 p.m. tomorrow night (after 11 hours in planes and airports) and were planning to take the hotel shuttle, get settled in our rooms, and get as much rest as possible — we're involved in an 8:30 a.m. program Friday and I present the workshop in the afternoon. Instead, we'll be landing, finding a cab to Hotel Outer Limits, checking in there, getting up at the crack of dawn, repacking all our stuff, and taking an expensive cab trip to the conference hotel, where our luggage will have to be stored (so I can't get at any of my clothes or toiletries) until we can check in to a room in the late afternoon after the workshop.<br />
<br />
I was gritting my teeth in anticipation of this when the conference organizer mentioned that I should be on the lookout for a man who had registered for my workshop. She said that at last year's conference he had harassed the presenter of a similar website workshop, arguing with every point, querying the presenter about obscure and arcane web technology and protocols and, in the end, derailing the workshop for the attendees. He was specifically told he could not attend my session this year, but signed up anyway.<br />
<br />
"If he shows up and causes problems, just let us know," the organizer said.<br />
<br />
I've been mulling this over, and contacted a few people who know the man in question. They confirmed the guy's a horse's behind.<br />
<br />
I've decided to save all my deep annoyance about the hotel situation for him. One peep out of this dude, and I'm calling in the big guns. And on the plane ride tomorrow I'll be practicing my Zen stare.<br />
<br />
<br />The Mysterious Travelerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13688661614993071938noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5472544.post-51663343611273089422012-05-03T17:14:00.001-07:002012-05-03T17:14:08.507-07:00Getting a gripSpring in Seattle: Cool, wet, green, and conducive to migraines.<br />
<br />
I'm just now recovering from one. Since Excedrin Migraine is off the market for several months due to assembly line contamination (is that any way to run a business?) I concocted my own substitute using Medaglia d'Oro powdered expresso 65 mg caffeine, one 250 mg Tylenol, and one 250 mg aspirin. Took a bath, went to bed, and two hours later the "home brew" had worked. (For some reason, when I have a migraine I can take caffeine and sleep.)<br />
<br />The Mysterious Travelerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13688661614993071938noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5472544.post-56698616176437041672012-04-17T22:37:00.001-07:002012-04-17T22:37:11.434-07:00VacationEarly tomorrow morning I'm flying down to Dallas with The Scholarly Gentleman and our friend Edd. This is the first real vacation I've been on in a few years.<br />
<br />
There are no volunteer duties to be fulfilled, no auctions to be run, no difficult people to be cultivated, no relatives to please (or, at least, to not shock), no storage lockers to be inventoried, no moving vans to be rented, no presentations to give, no awkward reunions planned, and no schedules to be adhered to.<br />
<br />
Theoretically we're going to visit an enormous bookstore in a tiny town in East Texas. But, since we all have houses piled to the rafters with books, it's not exactly a shopping trip. My plan is to relax, enjoy a warmer climate and a slower pace, and avoid rattlesnakes.<br />
<br />
We are leaving in the cats in the capable hands of our house sitter, who spoils them rotten. Sheba is pretty much recovered from her nervous breakdown and is now living on the kitchen counter, purring. Mabel, back at the vet to have her nails clipped this week, has lost a few more ounces so she's scheduled for a more detailed round of thyroid tests when we get back.<br />
<br />
In other animal news, we've caught the dog that's pooping on our front yard. And the owner.<br />
<br />
It turned out to be the Scottie from down the street. We were headed out to do errands this afternoon when it came shimmering down the sidewalk (it lives four doors to the south) scampered right past us, and squatted down on the lawn. Meanwhile, the owner leaned out her front door and started calling for it. We kept the dog entertained, which had the effect of luring the owner out into the open, where we were able to inform her that her dog had, once again, pooped on our lawn. The woman seemed unfazed about anything except getting the dog to come home. But now I know where to deliver the piles of poop — either to the owner's lawn OR to the pristine lawn of the remodeled house they have up for sale, only two doors to the south of us!The Mysterious Travelerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13688661614993071938noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5472544.post-88360751073518004932012-04-09T23:14:00.000-07:002012-04-09T23:14:00.330-07:00Slowly, back to normalIt's taken nearly two weeks, but Sheba the deaf white cat is nearly back to normal. After our vet ran tests to make sure there was nothing wrong with her thyroid, blood sugar, liver, and kidneys, we put her on a low dose of Prozac. Each day she got slightly better, less agitated, and began spending more and more time on the main floor of the house with the other cats. Today she resumed demanding water from the tap in the bathroom, and slept on her usual towel on the counter under the Xenon lights. And she pulled the kitchen calendar off the wall.<br />
<br />
A few days ago we discovered what we think caused Sheba to flip out while I was in Florida. She goes outside for a brief period once or twice a day. When I returned from Florida, she was rushing outside at every opportunity, and then holing up in the cat tree on the front porch. Attempts to bring her in involve literally dragging her out of the cat tree while she held on with claws.<br />
<br />
Friday morning I spotted Sheba on the neighbor's porch, getting ready to attack an enormous black-and-white male cat. According to neighbors, that cat spends most of his time on a nearby porch, inciting that family's indoor cats to hysteria. I shooed the cat, and Sheba agreed to come indoors. However, I think she has since nailed him.<br />
<br />
We're keeping her on the Prozac for a while.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, I now have the electronic alarm system set up to catch the dog, which had left two more piles of crap on our lawn over the weekend.<br />
<br />
The system was not triggered last night, but there wasn't any evidence on the lawn. We'll be on alert again tonight (the indoor-alarm half of the system can be turned off during the day while the outdoor sensor remains in place).<br />
<br />
The worst case scenario is that the owner has spotted the sensor (camouflaged by a small shrub) — but even that's a win in terms of keeping our lawn clean.<br />
<br />
One final note about animals — this afternoon there was a large black cat in the backyard that was covered in dust and appeared to be trailing pieces of rope or a harness. Whatever he was "wearing" didn't in anyway impede his movement, and after giving me a startled look, he vanished through the "cat opening" in our back fence. This attracted the attention of Mabel, Kaylee and Zoe, who looked utterly incredulous. Sheba, fortunately, sleep through it all.<br />
<br />
<i>Tomorrow</i>: The semi-annual car check up at High Road. After I drop off the car in the early morning, I walk back along Ballard Avenue and see what new shops have appeared. Usually stop for breakfast at Vera's or at the Smoke Shop (which is pure time travel back to 1965).The Mysterious Travelerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13688661614993071938noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5472544.post-65648566067280021232012-03-30T17:40:00.002-07:002012-03-30T17:40:29.562-07:00Raining, cats, and dogsI returned from visiting my mother in Florida eight days ago to discover our deaf white cat, Sheba, had gone mad.<br />
<br />
This state was quite difference from her usual yowling on the kitchen counter and throwing food bowls on the floor.<br />
<br />
She wanted either to go out in the cold and sit in the enclosed carpeted cat tree on the front porch or to hide in the basement laundry room. (To her view, it wasn't hiding, but from my viewpoint, it's hard to spot a white cat asleep in a white chenille bedspread.)<br />
<br />
"She missed you," Tom said.<br />
<br />
But I think it was more than that. Because Sheba refused to stay upstairs with me, either clawing at the back door to be let out or running down to the basement to sit in her chenille spread. Finally I gave up and let her move into the laundry room, spreading a towel on the ironing board and putting her food and water there.<br />
<br />
It was so pathetic, because the laundry room is chilly.<br />
<br />
I brought down a heated cat bed and put that on the dryer. But Kaylee, the small tabby, went down and took over the heated cat bed, so it didn't help Sheba much. Though it did provide her some company.<br />
<br />
I went down to visit Sheba several times a day, bringing meals and treats (which she gobbled voraciously), and shivering. Sheba seemed perfectly fine and very energetic. I tried bringing her upstairs, but as soon as I did she got this wild, haunted look in her eyes.<br />
<br />
She was also over-grooming, so the house was carpeted in white cat fur. This encouraged me to encourage her to stay in the laundry room.<br />
<br />
Two days into this routine, I took Sheba to the vet, where they ran tests for diabetes, hyperthyroidism, bladder infections, and a few other things. Her weight was fine, and on Monday evening the vet called to say everything else was fine, too.<br />
<br />
"She's just upset," he said.<br />
<br />
We suspect that at some point during my absence Sheba had a run-in with Mabel, our Bombay. Mabel is a small, domineering cat with sharp claws and no sense of humor. She and Sheba usually ignore each other, but...who knows? And Zoe, the overbearing large tabby, tends to stalk other animals and annoy them.<br />
<br />
I began doing lots of laundry and ironing, to keep Sheba company. It's not easy to do laundry with cat beds, cat bowls, and cats everywhere, and it didn't help when Sheba slept in a basket of clean clothes and threw up on three pairs of clean pants.<br />
<br />
Today, after Sheba came upstairs and peed on the kitchen counter, I called the vet again.<br />
<br />
"Can we do something to cheer up this cat?" I asked.<br />
<br />
He recommended Prozac in fish oil — which I had on hand because we'd very briefly tried it on Mabel (who had been snapping at people). Mabel had reacted to her first dose of Prozac by refusing to eat anything for a week and glaring at food suspiciously for some time thereafter. The prescription was still valid, so tonight I gave Sheba a dose of it on her dinner. She gobbled it down and purred madly. There is hope.<br />
<br />
So much for cats. Now, for the dog.<br />
<br />
It's back.<br />
<br />
From the evidence, it is apparently the same mid-size dog that had been crapping on our tiny front lawn last summer. So I brought out my waterproof sign ("Anything your dog leaves on this lawn will be returned to your front steps") and put it back on the lawn, right on the spot where the dog craps in the wee hours of the morning.<br />
<br />
Either the dog or the owner can read, because the crapping immediately stopped — until Wednesday, when I was having people over for lunch, and <i>there was the pile of poop</i>.<br />
<br />
Tom removed the sign, and the crap, and as soon as the rain (!) lets up I'm installing the motion-detector and alarm system I'd purchased last summer. The plan is to catch the owner and dog in the act, rush downstairs in my robe, shovel up the dog poop, and follow them home with it.<br />
<br />
This plan would have been more fun in the summer, but they haven't given me much choice.<br />
<br />
Stay tuned.<br />
<br />
<br />The Mysterious Travelerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13688661614993071938noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5472544.post-30576797977061334502012-03-05T21:09:00.001-08:002012-03-05T21:09:22.547-08:00What on earth is <i>wrong</i> with Google?<br />
<br />
I've squawked about Google+ at length on the WriterWay blog, but now I'm realizing they've done things to Blogger that have made a once user-friendly piece of blogging software into a mysterious morass of strange icons. It looks like an Excel spreadsheet with one big cell.<br />
<br />
I used to love blogging with Blogger and now I can hardly wait to get back to WordPress (where my public blogs are).<br />
<br />
Perhaps I'm just grouchy because I woke up this morning with a migraine, took a lot of caffeine, bundled up and headed out in the rain, caught the overheated bus to an unparkable section of downtown (thank you, Mayor McGinn), discovered my interviewee had cancelled, stood in the rain for a bus back to Ballard, got home, got in the tub, got back in bed, and slept for the rest of the day. I now have something that's a cross between a mild flu, a mild cold, and a mild headache, and would be happy to spend the next 24 hours in bed.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, my email inbox has filled up with a wide range of messages, most of them having to do with all the travel I have planned for the next several months.<br />
<br />
Thanks to Google linking the identity I use for this blog to one of my Google+ accounts, I'm now not quite sure who reads this blog. I'm reluctant to reveal when and where I travel — not for security reasons but because people seem to want to argue me out of traveling to places that I want to go on the grounds that I should be either visiting them or traveling somewhere with them instead. Thus, I'll be vague...<br />
<br />
• Florida to visit my mom next week<br />
• a night at Norwescon (yes, probably more like a Marx Brothers films than you'd suspect) in early April<br />
• a book-browsing jaunt to one of the world's most amazing bookstores in mid-April (with two friends)<br />
• teaching a website-planning seminar at a convention in the D.C. area in mid-May (maybe see some high school friends?)<br />
• Fourth Street convention in Minneapolis in late June<br />
• Breitenbush in Oregon mid-July...maybe...<br />
• Foolscap in Redmond in late September<br />
<br />
Tom discovered last week that it's almost as cheap to fly to Venice to deliver a batch of prints than it is to ship them (given Italian customs and courier prices for large artwork). However, by the time you figure in airfare for both of us, and a hotel...well, we're still thinking about it!The Mysterious Travelerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13688661614993071938noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5472544.post-631880778998244412012-01-13T17:09:00.000-08:002012-01-13T17:09:59.595-08:00The Mysterious Traveler catches upBusy times.<br />
<br />
After a tough 2011 for my business (my major client cut back its social media program, and I had extensive time commitments as the president of a nonprofit board), 2012 is already looking much better.<br />
<br />
I'm drafting a specialized website for a state agency, writing an ebook for an agency client (which, as you might imagine, pays better than writing for a government entity), and rewriting a website for a high-level consultant in the product development field.<br />
<br />
I'm thinking this is the time to launch to my "social media audit" product for mid-size organizations. I sold a few audits last year, and thing I have a good sense for customer expectations and pricing. However, I'd like to develop some add-on services, including social media coaching and a website-redesign process, for people who want move ahead on social media after the audit.<br />
<br />
There is also a possibility for a longterm project working on a team studying social media in a healthcare setting. There are so many feeble attempts by start-ups to make money by "gamifying" healthy activities via social media that I'm a little wary. But this is a respected research organization, and if they can make it work it would be a model — and I'd sure like to be involved in that.<br />
<br />
Outside of work, I'm finding myself caught up in a lot more volunteer activities than I had anticipated. I like the people, and I'm fascinated with the fundraising and social media aspects of nonprofit work. Tom and I are involved with quite a few of the same groups, which is great fun.<br />
<br />
On the home front, I'm wondering how many wet, cold, bleak Seattle winters I can stand. A friend I expressed this to asked me "If global warming happened, and Seattle were 20 degrees warmer, would you want to move?"<br />
<br />
"Absolutely NOT," I said. So, there you have it. Love our house, our friends, my work, the neighborhood — really hate the wet, cold winters. Really.<br />
<br />
And I know when we move to Santa Cruz, I'll say "Why didn't we do this earlier?"<br />
<br />
The cats could go outdoors more, and I wouldn't have to deal with Mabel trying to dominate the household — including us. The vet put her on Prozac, but she made it very clear that she'd rather starve than eat anything that might have Prozac compounded with tuna oil in it. And as far as giving Mabel pills – if you've met Mabel, you wouldn't ask. We already have Feliway diffusers all over the house...who knows if they work?<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />The Mysterious Travelerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13688661614993071938noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5472544.post-82724220308531124722011-11-21T23:53:00.000-08:002011-11-21T23:54:24.370-08:00CatsI've lived with a lot of cats over the years, but I don't think I've ever known a cat as demanding as Mabel. Perhaps that's because most cats demand to go out, or to eat. What Mabel demands is to sit on you. And if you don't sit down and let her sit on you, she gets rather snippy. Literally snippy. We've learned to read the signals about a second before she swats or snaps and tell her "no." We also move out of reach.<br />
<br />
Tonight she became increasingly huffy as I sat through an hour-long video with Zoe, her arch rival, on my lap. When the video was over and I attempted to leave the room, Mabel, who'd been sitting, glaring, in the cat tree for the duration of the show, somehow herded me back to the couch and then sat on me.<br />
<br />
I find myself wondering: What is she thinking when she does this?The Mysterious Travelerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13688661614993071938noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5472544.post-46871206522400938862011-11-16T23:35:00.000-08:002011-11-16T23:35:50.938-08:00This is an odd fallAlmost Thanksgiving, but all the leaves are still on the wisteria, the climbing hydrangea, and one of my odd vines — although most of the maple trees are bare.<br />
<br />
There are still blueberries ripening on the blueberry bushes, and a few confused plants are flowering because they thought it was spring already.<br />
<br />
Tuesday was the first true cold.<br />
<br />
Even if the plants were confused, I was ready for it. I went out to a meeting wearing a long wool coat with a furry collar that buttons up around my ears. And gloves. And insulated boots. And it was STILL too cold.<br />
<br />
Every day, I check the temperatures in Santa Cruz — where it's inevitably 20 degrees warmer.<br />
<br />
Sigh.The Mysterious Travelerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13688661614993071938noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5472544.post-24276216002694308622011-10-25T19:40:00.000-07:002011-10-25T19:40:16.015-07:00FloridaI'm in Naples again, visiting my mother. She's lived here for 22 years. At first she was a snowbird, spending summers on Cape Cod or in the Seattle area, but three years ago she moved here full time.<br />
<br />
Her condo is much like every place else my parents have lived -- everything is painted off-white, is sparely furnished, uncluttered, and very, very clean. (We're talking off-white tile floors and off-white wall-to-wall carpeting.) Needless to say, there are no pets, just two sofa pillows in the shape of tabby cats.<br />
<br />
My mom's hobby is sewing, so she has a serger and sewing machine in the guest room. The living room has a flat-screen TV and a DVD player; the laundry room has a desk with her Powerbook. I've just downloaded the Steve Jobs biography on my iPad, and now she's 2/3 of the way through it. She keeps muttering "He didn't like to take showers!"<br />
<br />
I'm reading <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Falstaff-Vampire-Files-Lynne-Murray/dp/1597190381">The Falstaff Vampire Files</a> (by Lynne Murray) on my iPhone. Not elegantly written, but it has a clever plot, a great Bay Area setting, and is highly entertaining. I think you'd call it a vampire cozy. Perfect vacation reading.The Mysterious Travelerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13688661614993071938noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5472544.post-54437784131349708692011-09-29T14:33:00.000-07:002011-09-29T14:33:31.135-07:00Bad theater, broken dishwashers, and the mysterious cat<i>Context: Kind of stunned after wrapping up my year as a board president and getting back into my writing and digital content business full time.</i><br />
<br />
Last night Tom and I went to see Friedrich Schiller's Mary Stuart at ACT Theater. I was not eager.<br />
<br />
Because I have so many last minute meetings and weird client emergencies, I inevitably end up moving our tickets from date to date. And, even when it all gets settled, I usually wish we could just have a quiet evening at home. However, once I get to the theater, I enjoy the show and am glad we've gone.<br />
<br />
Last night may change all that!<br />
<br />
Have you ever been to a play where the ushers give you a warning as you enter? I hadn't, but last night they were warning everyone that the play was 2-1/2 hours long.<br />
<br />
What they didn't tell us was that it was 2-1/2 hours of two nearly indistinguishably shrill actresses, both in red wigs and elaborate period gowns, ranting and raving. If there had been any scenery to speak of, they'd have chewed on it. The high point of the first act was the scene where they finally meet and are shrieking (Mary Stuart) and snarling (Elizabeth I) at each other.<br />
<br />
During most of the scenes, male actors dressed in modern business suits stood by, looking about as involved as accountants, until called upon to speak their lines. Some of the Men in Gray turned out to be double agents.<br />
<br />
When the intermission arrived, audience members stood up, as if stunned, and drifted out into the lobby. Tom and I just sat there. It slowly dawned on us that we both wanted to be somewhere else, and we simply fled.<br />
<br />
On our way through the Convention Center to the parking garage, we came across a wonderful exhibition of prints, many of them by a local artist of Finnish heritage, Mirka Hokkanen. When we got home we looked her up on the internet and discovered that our favorite of her prints from the show, Peeping Tom Cat, was available for all of $20 on Etsy. (You can also <a href="http://www.mirkah.com/">see it on her homepage</a>, though the low-resolution version there hardly does it justice.) We bought it, and I'm sure will enjoy it long after all memory of the Mary Stuart performance has faded.<br />
<br />
* * *<br />
<br />
I've been putting off various repair work because of lack of time to deal with finding, scheduling, and supervising things, but am now starting to come to grips with things like the flooding storage locker, the mysteriously rattling dishwasher, and the front steps badly in need of weather-proofing.<br />
<br />
My favorite professional movers (Adam's Moving) are coming next week to help me move things from the flooding storage unit to a non-flooding one in the same building. I discovered that Sears, always so eager to get me to renew my dishwasher warranty, stopped being eager after the dishwasher turned 10. So it's now out of warranty. A diagnostic visit from Sears is exorbitant enough that I contemplated replacing the dishwasher — unfortunately, every mid-range dishwasher recommended by Consumer Reports gets low ratings from actual human beings, with nearly every reviewer saying that the new KitchenAid/Bosch/Kenmore dishwashers with all the nifty features and energy-saving ratings aren't nearly as sturdy or dependable as the old ones.<br />
<br />
Since the problem with my old Kenmore Elite is a minor mechanical issue with the whirling spray arm, I've decided to get it repaired by a local repair person (not, shudder, Sears).<br />
<br />
The ideal solution, apparently, would be to find a 10-year-old KitchenAid/Bosch/Kenmore dishwasher that has never been used and buy <i>that</i>.<br />
<br />
* * *<br />
<br />
And now, for the mysterious cat, Mr. Garibaldi. He turned up four years ago as a pathetic stray tomcat, absolutely terrified of people. He'd sit on the back porch with his nose against the glass door and stare. But when I opened the door to put out a dish of food, he'd flee and hide under the porch. Gradually, he got used to me and would allow me to pet him and sit next to him while he ate.<br />
<br />
My neighbor the cat rescuer, Joe, was also dealing with Mr. Garibaldi (he calls him "Sidewinder") and it was Joe who succeeded in capturing Garibaldi and getting him neutered. Garibaldi then moved into Joe's house, and would come by to visit me only on weekends when Joe was traveling. Occasionally I swing by Joe's yard and Garibaldi comes over to be petted.<br />
<br />
Garibaldi often vanishes during the summer, and returns in the fall. I was concerned because Mabel and Zoe ran him off one night last spring and he hadn't come by since. Every night when I go into the kitchen to turn off the lights and lock up, I look for him. And last night, there he was.<br />
<br />
I got out the food, put it in a dish, took it out to him, and sat on the steps while he ate. Just like old times. He looks great — fluffy and healthy. You'd never guess how battered he'd been four years ago. He ate most of the food, and then trotted down the steps and sat on the patio, staring up at me.<br />
<br />
I'm fascinated by Garibaldi. I interpret it as a good omen when he shows up, but it probably just means he's hungry.The Mysterious Travelerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13688661614993071938noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5472544.post-58085706199486130072011-09-05T13:29:00.000-07:002011-09-05T13:29:37.382-07:00Work weekendI love the ironic name of Labor Day Weekend. I know it's supposed to be a vacation, but I use it to complete the final work projects of the summer.<br />
<br />
I looked at the list of what didn't get done this summer and decided that "detail the car" and "polish the kitchen floor" were the two things that would work best in hot weather. We started with a basic vacuum and wash at Brown Bear, then I came home and got out the detailing sprays and crevice vacuum attachments and spent 45 minutes fine-tuning everything. That's it for a year...unless my mother decides to visit, in which case I'll rush the Fit off to a professional detailer plus figure out what to do about the spot of sky-blue paint on the door where a truck owner parked next to me at Home Depot opened his two-ton door into mine -- and then made a fast getaway.<br />
<br />
Polishing the kitchen floor is somewhat more complicated than it sounds. The floor is marmoleum, and it requires three to five coats of a thin glaze, which is applied with a damp towel, one layer at a time, with plenty of time in between for drying.<br />
<br />
It's a small floor, I don't mind crawling around on my hands and knees, but it's amazing how difficult it is to keep people and cats OFF the floor for two or more hours. My plan is to put most of the cats outside, and see if I can get Sheba to use the front door rather than the kitchen door. Finding cat hair in a layer of "set" glaze is disgusting.<br />
<br />
None of this means that Labor Day Weekend is all work and no play. We went to a games party Friday night, hung out at the Ballard Sunday Market yesterday, and have been watching DVDs in the evening. This morning, before launching into the car rehab project, we went out to breakfast at Georgina's on 85th in Greenwood. I had forgotten what wonderful food they have, particularly the pita bread with quince jam. Eating there is like eating in someone's kitchen.The Mysterious Travelerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13688661614993071938noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5472544.post-6481620820524679292011-08-14T21:40:00.000-07:002011-08-14T21:40:27.078-07:00Mysterious traveler is actually travelingI'm writing this in the back bedroom of a restored Craftsman bungalow in the historic district of Carson City, a block from the governor's mansion. Crickets are chirping in the back yard, and sprinklers are hissing. It's summer in a small town/city.<br />
<br />
We flew in to Reno yesterday afternoon, and then drove to Berkeley for an unexpected errand. It got complicated, so we needed to find a hotel -- at 11 p.m. I called the folks the Joie de Vivre chain, which has a lovely hotel I've stayed at in Sunnyvale, and they found is a room at their hotel at the Oakland marina.<br />
<br />
Didn't know Oakland had a marina? It's an interesting neighborhood, with trendy clubs, a vegan soul food restaurant, and a lot of urban renewal struggling to happen. The hotel was friendly, the room was clean and fresh, and the bed was comfortable. My one complaint was the bathroom, which had been designed by that notorious and apparently far-ranging Discworld architect, Bloody Stupid Johnson.<br />
<br />
It had a feature I've encountered only once before at a hotel, but which stuck in my memory: A glass shower door that when opened more than 1/3 of the way slammed, glass first, into the toilet.<br />
<br />
This hotel's version of the slamming shower also had the highest nozzle I've ever seen, a feature which made it impossible to adjust or redirect the light drizzle. There was, as you may gather from this, no bathtub, which is an annoyance to me under normal travel circumstances and, after 10 hours on the road -- I was slightly berserk but made do with a shower.<br />
<br />
This morning we got the errand done, drove up to Grass Valley for lunch with relatives who have a beautiful farmhouse, then drove winding roads down to Placerville (a charming old town) and drove from there over to South Lake Tahoe and up to Carson City.<br />
<br />
I'll explain tomorrow why we're in Carson City. We wandered around the somewhat forlorn downtown (government buildings, casinos, and little restaurants) and ended up getting salads at a nice place called Sassafras. They call their food eclectic, and they're not kidding. I say it's unusual, somewhat overly exuberant cooking by someone who uses high quality, fresh ingredients. Dessert was a house specialty — homemade popsicles. We had peach-ginger, no sweeteners added, and it was superb. Back to the B&B, where we are going to watch an episode of...what else?...Deadwood.The Mysterious Travelerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13688661614993071938noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5472544.post-16404540699331083092011-07-31T23:58:00.000-07:002011-07-31T23:58:47.002-07:00The garage is doneWe haven't had much summer, but my goal for it has been met:<br />
<br />
I cleaned the garage.<br />
<br />
Most of what I threw out (for the Happy Hauler to pick up on Tuesday) was left over from the previous owners' remodeling 10 years ago. I realized I was never going to need a box of bolts the size of Havana cigars or large sheets of drywall the cats had peed on. The 8-foot lengths of extra molding required their own shelving system. I realized I could rip down the shelving system, chop the molding to 7 feet, 6 inches, and store it upright in a Rubbermaid wastebasket in the corner, regaining access to the entire wall.<br />
<br />
I also discovered I had three orbital sanders, two skil saws, and 35 slot-style screwdrivers (but only 5 Phillips head drivers, which makes me crazy since they're what I'm always looking for). And my beloved circular law seems to be missing.<br />
<br />
Hank came over and tested all the electric tools and told me which ones to toss or give away and which ones to keep. He told me one of the orbital sanders just looks like an orbital. It is really a polishing sander.<br />
<br />
The duplication was due in part to all of my dad's tools, which I got when my mom moved to Florida last year.<br />
<br />
After clearing out all sorts of crummy scraps of drywall and lumber, I had enough wall space that we were able to put up an additional pegboard, and some gigantic wall hooks. Then a lot of the stuff that was hidden in drawers and piled on shelves got hung up, including my dad's Oreck mini shop vac and heap of extension cords in orange, yellow, and green.<br />
<br />
The sorting process involved hauling much of the stuff out to the driveway, including the mini-freezer, which desperately needed defrosting. Once the garage was relatively clear, I swept and washed the concrete floor. That was pretty disgusting.<br />
<br />
This took all day Friday, Saturday morning, and Sunday afternoon — and Tom ran all the errands to Home Depot while I kept at the organizing. At 8 p.m. tonight I was still affixing labels (in yellow electric tape) to plastic storage boxes and shelves.<br />
<br />
It's rather astonishing how much room there now is in the garage. I still need to organize the shelf with the drills and drill bits.The Mysterious Travelerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13688661614993071938noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5472544.post-38377663867913457962011-07-19T23:14:00.000-07:002011-07-19T23:14:59.389-07:00The dog in the night and the jerk who owns itWe have a neighbor who walks his or her dog in the dead of night and lets it poop on my lawn. Unfortunately, we don't know who it is.<br />
<br />
After piles of poop started turning up on a daily basis, I did some research on surveillance cameras. They aren't cheap, so I decided to make a sign first.<br />
<br />
It read "Anything your dog leaves on this lawn will be returned to your front porch." I placed it right where the dog had been pooping.<br />
<br />
And it worked! The dog's owner was apparently embarrassed enough to keep the hound off my lawn.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, they weren't embarrassed enough to pick up after the dog. Four days after my sign went up, my next door neighbor came storming over to report that now <i>she</i> had four piles of crap on <i>her</i> front lawn. Her little daughter had just stepped in the poop, and she was furious.<br />
<br />
She asked if she could borrow my sign. I said yes. Now I'm wondering if that will result in the dog returning to my lawn, or if the lazy owner will simply move the dog one more yard south, to the lawn of a newly remodeled house that is on the market — and has no one living in it who might open the door and catch the dog walker.<br />
<br />
If the weather would just warm up, I'd be willing to get up at 4 a.m. and hide out on my enclosed porch so I could catch them in the act and follow the dog owner through the dark to his or her house — with the shit on a shovel.The Mysterious Travelerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13688661614993071938noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5472544.post-45298479184814945792011-07-13T11:42:00.000-07:002011-07-13T11:42:25.990-07:00What's really going on• I got an invitation to Google+ (thank you!), signed on, and am sort of waiting to see what happens now. It's a cross between Facebook for grownups and LinkedIn without the recruiters.<br />
<br />
• Mabel, the long-clawed black cat, nailed me yesterday morning. I washed the tiny puncture with alcohol, but for the first time I got an infection from a cat scratch. It came on very rapidly while I was at a reading at the U Bookstore last night. I left the store, called the consulting nurse (who reacted as though I were about to collapse in the street), reluctantly skipped dinner, grabbed a bubble tea, and drove off to spend a long, long evening at urgent care. They gave me a tetanus shot and the opportunity to read nearly an entire novel (Kelley Eskridge's intriguing Solitaire) on my iPhone before I finally got the paperwork and directions to the basement late-night pharmacy to get some antibiotics. By 11:30 p.m. I was at Dick's on Broadway, where I finished the book in the car while drinking a delicious strawberry milkshake.<br />
<br />
• The Clarion West Write-a-thon is halfway through. I've written one and a half of my three pledged short stories and yesterday ended up using a picture of Sheba to shill for sponsors. I love <a href="http://writerway.com/2011/07/12/the-writers-cat-and-the-dish-of-strawberries/">this picture</a> of Sheba. The Write-a-thon is going very well (for the organization, as well as for the writers).<br />
<br />
• I have three big Folklife projects yet to deal with as I wind up my year as board president (target date: September 27).<br />
<br />
• There will be vacation of sorts. In July, I'm going to a weekend writers workshop at a remote location on the Washington coast. The conference center burned down, but we still have hotel rooms and apparently are going to wing the rest of it. In August, Tom and I are going to Worldcon in Reno, with a side trip to Lake Tahoe and Carson City. I've never see that part of the country. Against my better judgment, I signed up for a five-day volunteer assignment at the convention that is going to be major fun but demanding. At Worldcon, as at the Folklife festival, volunteering is the heart of the experience.<br />
<br />
• The garden is different this year. The peas are disappointing but the beans are going gangbusters (especially my faves, the scarlet runner beans). We have very large, though green, tomatoes. It's the grapes where I've really got my hopes up. They have taken to the new arbor system and there are tiny clusters of grapes everywhere. Now, all we need is hot, sunny weather through August.The Mysterious Travelerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13688661614993071938noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5472544.post-22636291884886922752011-06-29T22:55:00.000-07:002011-06-29T22:55:59.742-07:00What I'm writingWhat I write for a living:<br />
<div><ul><li>Blog posts and brochures about automated external defibrillators — from stories of rescues to updates on legislation mandating AEDs in schools, gyms, and public places.</li>
<li>Profiles of formerly homeless individuals, most of them long-time "street people" suffering from mental illness and substance abuse who now live in subsidized apartments. I interviewed two of the 10 men who had been costing the city and county as much as $1 million a year in police, hospital, and social services. Once they were in "housing first" communities, the local goverments saved hundreds of thousands of dollars.</li>
<li>Articles about business strategy, on behalf of a local CEO.</li>
<li>Humor columns about home, family, and community.</li>
<li>Websites for government agencies and large non-profits. Many of these are written in government-mandated "plain talk" — a style of communication so effective that one government agency tripled the rate of accurate responses to their letters to businesses and taxpayers.</li>
<li>ebooks and blog posts about the iPhone. </li>
<li>The WriterWay blog for my business.</li>
<li>PowerPoint and Keynote presentations — most of these are "social media audits" or short courses in matching social media tools to an organization's audiences and resources.</li>
</ul></div><div>What I write for community agencies (on a volunteer basis):</div><div><ul><li>Fundraising appeals</li>
<li>Web pages</li>
<li>Thank-you letters to donors</li>
<li>Marketing materials, press releases, and ads</li>
</ul></div><div>What I write for myself:</div><div><ul><li>This blog</li>
<li>My new hobby blog at <a href="http://fitnessfoodandfashion.wordpress.com/">http://fitnessfoodandfashion.wordpress.com</a></li>
<li>Science fiction short stories</li>
</ul><div>Sadly, the science fiction writing is at the end of the list, even though it's the writing I often enjoy the most. I've started a novella, part of which will be critiqued at the upcoming Cascade Writers Workshop next month. And, as a part of the Clarion West Write-a-thon, I'll be writing three short stories during July, using the "How to write a short story in 90 minutes" techniques taught by author Mary Robinette Kowal.<br />
<br />
I'm one of 149 writers who've signed up for the <a href="http://www.clarionwest.org/events/writeathon/2010">Write-a-thon</a> to raise money for the Clarion West Writers Workshop. Clarion West has come to be the gold standard for speculative fiction writing courses — it's a six-week program taught by the field's top authors, editors, and publishers. The majority of the 18 students selected for the program require scholarship assistance, and the Write-a-thon is one of the primary sources of funding for the scholarships and other program costs.<br />
<br />
Please consider <a href="http://www.clarionwest.org/events/writeathon/KarenGAnderson">supporting me</a>, or one of the other 148 participants (some of them quite famous!) as we write our way through the summer.</div></div><div></div><div></div>The Mysterious Travelerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13688661614993071938noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5472544.post-20191696661289058822011-06-28T11:22:00.000-07:002011-06-28T11:22:07.563-07:00The Mystery MenuDoug asked for the menu for the easy-to-make summer dinner that fits most dietary requirements. The philosophy behind it is that these are three healthy, hearty dishes and most diets will allow two of them.<br />
<br />
<b>1. Grilled meat or fish</b><br />
<br />
The first time, we did steak rubbed with olive oil, garlic, and herbs. The second time, it was salmon cooked in a non-stick fish basket. I think we're going to stay away from chicken because it's fussier on the grill, marinades and basting sauces are a pain, and skinless chicken comes out too dry for company<br />
<br />
<b>2. Grilled green vegetables sprinkled with oil and herbs</b> (A large amount — it's amazing how people eat more grilled vegetables than boiled/steamed.)<br />
<br />
We grill them in a "dish" of aluminum foil (though you could also use a grilling basket). Thus far, we've grilled green beans, asparagus, and thick-sliced zucchini (this last one sprinkled with oregano, basil, and parsley). If you've got adventurous guests, try cooking the green beans with anchovies, garlic, halved cherry tomatoes, and black olives (a Naked Chef recipe).<br />
<br />
You can also do nice things to the veggies after grilling them, like sprinkling chopped marinated sun-dried tomatoes over the zucchini or a little lemon zest over the asparagus.<br />
<br />
<b>3. Steamed baby potatoes (the little white, red, and purple ones)</b><br />
<br />
We cut these in half, steam them, and dress them in a vinaigrette. They're pretty! You can serve this dish hot or cold. Depending on the dietary interests of your guests, and how much time you have, you can go with a vegan vinaigrette, a creamy dressing, or a hot honey-mustard dressing with or without bacon. Chopped fresh parsley dresses this up nicely.<br />
<br />
While working on these "company" dishes, I made an interesting discovery. I always get frustrated when I cook some cool dish and then discover the only serving dish it fits in is ugly. In this case, I put the vegetables, and the potatoes, into large, attractive serving dishes <i>before</i> I cooked them, and then cooked the amount of food that would fit into the dish.<br />
<br />
Bon appetit!The Mysterious Travelerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13688661614993071938noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5472544.post-6100926914244617792011-06-23T16:20:00.000-07:002011-06-23T16:29:59.730-07:00OverbookedLast week I was trying to write a humor column about summer in Seattle. The deadline arrived, and all I had were a lot of disjointed anecdotes about trying to cram a whole summer's worth of activities into the nine weeks of actual summer weather between July 4 and Labor Day.<br />
<br />
I called the editor and wheedled a 24-hour extension, hoping that somehow inspiration would strike. It did, about five minutes later, when I got an email saying that the conference center where I had been scheduled to attend a workshop next month had burned to the ground.<br />
<br />
"Fanastic!" my column-writing alter ego exclaimed as she crossed the workshop off the calendar. "Er, sorry, I hope nobody got hurt."<br />
<br />
In real life, the workshop is probably going to take place anyway, at a backup location. But that incident was the perfect illustration of how out-of-hand a summer calendar can get.<br />
<br />
Ours was pretty much filled by last week — but this week 8 or 9 new barbecue invitations arrived, plus some neighborhood cat-sitting assignments.<br />
<br />
[Make than 10. No joke: Less than 60 seconds after I hit "publish" on this post, T. forwarded to me an invitation to a barbecue for -- tomorrow night.] <br />
<br />
One ray of hope for the summer social schedule:<br />
<br />
Last week we had friends over to dinner and I served a three-dish menu that worked perfectly. It was fun to cook (two of the dishes are done on the outdoor grill), tasty, and, if you considered the dishes in pairs, the menu works with meat-eaters, vegetarians, low-carbohydrate dieters, or people who prefer a Mediterranean diet with carbs and vegetables.<br />
<br />
This solves my perennial summer problem of what to cook for guests. This menu will be repeated throughout the summer with slight variations.The Mysterious Travelerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13688661614993071938noreply@blogger.com1