Rural Dreams

Computing

Jes came over on Wednesday and helped me upgrade OSX on my mac so that it is usable (I had a very early, buggy version before) and I've been busy ever since downloading updates and finding my way around a new OS. I'm still not altogether yet, photoshop isn't working properly and something is eating tons of memory on my computer and I can't figure out what it is. Is there some kind of resource meter on the mac? I have under 400MB available on my 9g harddrive.

Roxy is still gone and there is no sign of her. It's so weird the way she disappeared. The humane society took a report and I put an ad in a free classified circular. I never had any affection for cats before her.

I remember from last year that when the spring came there were a lot of dead skunks on the road. Well, we've seen our first dead skunk this year and I'm taking it as a symbol of Spring.

There will be no more photos any time soon I'm afraid, Steve took the camera to work to photograph some unusual livestock next door to where he was working. He slipped on the ice and the camera went flying. When you turn it on: DRIVE ERROR. My mom had just sent me a bunch of accessories for it from her old camera (thanks Mom). I have my sights set on a camera like Jes has, it's digital video that takes still pics a zillion times better than my camera did, but we're not going to have the funds for that for at least a few months.

I leave you with this link to an auction for original Lynda Barry artwork. The description is hilarious and the pics are cool too.

Come Home Roxy

Roxy has been missing since Sunday, which was a warm day that turned really windy and cold at night. We're not sure when we last saw her, I noticed that she wasn't around Monday morning. In the warmer weather I wouldn't be surprised if she stayed out for a while, but she doesn't like the cold and has hardly gone out all winter. The low tonight is -4deg.

We are afraid of the worst: she got hit by a car, or eaten by another animal. There is no sign of her in the road and I can't help but think that if she had been hit, we'd find Wes chewing on her out back. I am going to call the humane society today (there's no pound here, all animals get taken to the humane society) and maybe make signs to hang up at the post office. The only pictures I have of her are on my blog and I don't think they will print well - my printer's not working anyway.

btw - I added what I'm reading to my sidebar because I always enjoy seeing what others are reading. Also because the book Killing Monsters is fantastic and eventually I will write a review of it so I can spread the gospel.

Mmmmmmm Brains

This deer head is hanging out outside our back door. There's no hiding death from a three year old here. Steve and I keep laughing at the strangeness of it and Aidan is having trouble understanding what is so funny.

We went to Crossgates Mall last night in Albany to see The Jungle Book 2. We could have seen it in Hudson, but we went with Jes and family and Jes is a Mac head and there is a Mac store in the mall there. I found all kinds of things there that I didn't know I couldn't live without. A color printer that makes great photo quality prints for under $200, Knock Out, a Photoshop upgrade so I can start using OSX, a case for my laptop (I carry it around in the most absurd things), a digital video camera. We are finally getting on the ball with setting up recording equipment that was given to Steve and now we are going to buy his brother's old G3 which has MOTU installed on it (for really cheap!). I definitely want to get Aidan his own computer. He loves to play with mine and he messes things up for me sometimes, but at the same time I am amazed at how good he is at getting around on it and remembering how to do things. He checked the e-mail on my laptop the other day and the trackpad on it is tricky.

So the really bloggable thing about the mall yesterday was that there was this video game section at the movie theatre and there was a game there that you dance on with a big crowd of people around it. There was a girl and a guy playing it and another older man (balding - 40s?) next to them dancing on the ground. I'm not exactly sure how it worked, but it seemed like symbols flashed on the screen to show the players where their feet should go and the players had to follow on these big colored discs. The result looked like a fast choreographed dance, with the two players and the guy on the ground in perfect sync. It was so strange, but amazing too. I wonder if people have seen these things in other places? Is it a phenomenon?

The Ice Storm that was a Rain Storm

I tried to show someone pictures of Aidan from my blog recently and I had to go all the way back to November. Shameful! So here's some.

Rural Radio

Steve is listening to this terrific local (not ClearChannel) radio station and just came over here to marvel over a live guest, Cathy Grier. A few minutes later he rushed over here where the phone is and called to win a free cd. He got through on the first try and won it. It was so funny to hear the dj talking about Steve a few minutes later. It's like there's no one out there except us, the dj and Cathy Grier.

I Smelled Spring Today

The temperature reached the 40s today and I found myself, as I was bringing in the last of our firewood, trying to figure out what that smell was. Mud and wet grass.

It's amazing how the snow that you would sink two feet into a couple of days ago can be walked on top of now. Aidan and Wes had a blast in the warm air snow. Wes would lay down right in the side of a snow drift, making a sort of a den for himself. His tracks all over the field are especially visible right now and it always makes me so happy to see them. I am not sure why, I guess I just imagine how much fun it is for him to run around like that. It's like a visual representation of freedom.

And tomorrow: an ice storm.

(we have oil now)

Oil Delivery

I noticed on Friday around 5 o'clock that it was about time to call for an oil delivery, but it was too late then so I called first thing Monday morning. Of course we had the mother of all snowstorms on Monday and I shovelled all day long so that if the oil truck came, it would be able to get into the driveway. Tuesday morning I shovelled some more, had the plow come by while I was doing it and shift a couple of feet of snow and ice across the previously clear entrance to my driveway, and then I shovelled some more. By Tuesday afternoon, the oil still hadn't come, so I called again and said I was afraid we were going to run out and when should I expect a delivery. The person who answers the phone had no idea, but said she would tell the drivers. About an hour later I had a knock at the door, it's the oil man, he says he can't get into the driveway. I couldn't believe it - I was sure that it was just as wide as it had always been and they had gotten in before. I called the oil company back and asked if I could get or pick up a small amount of oil to hold me over. She says that she will have to charge me $60 to do that. I asked if there is someplace I can pick some up and then and only then she revealed the secret of the universe to me: KEROSENE. You can go to the freakin' GAS STATION and buy kerosene to put into your oil tank. Why the hell didn't someone tell me this before so I could sleep at night? We've had two nights of kerosene heat. I even splurged and took a bath last night. We got a plow to widen the driveway yesterday afternoon and I called right away for another delivery. She said they'll probably get to us by Friday. Thank Maude for kerosene.

Aidan had been all over this oil saga. On Monday evening as we were getting ready to bed, "mom, the oyel man didn't come." Then, when the oyel man couldn't get into the driveway, it was the first thing he told everyone he saw, "the oyel man knocked on the door and his truck wouldn't fit in the driveway". He's definitely picked up on my anxiety about the whole thing.

I went to a wood stove showroom yesterday morning. I thought if I could get a wood stove for about the cost of a tank of oil ($350) it might be worth it to buy one and move it when we move. We have one working stove now but it is inefficient and has cracks that leak smoke. It never gets really hot like it should. The new stoves started at $1000, so I think that I am just going to hope that spring comes soon.

I can hardly imagine a more expensive place to spend a really harsh winter than a 4,000sq ft barn with leaky windows and doors. We had a pile of snow that came right under our front door on Monday.

Mama Board

Mamatron is back after a very long and unexplained hiatus and now you have to pay to be a member. I am shocked really, I never expected such a thing. I had suggested paid memberships for HipMama before the board disintegrated there and the idea was shot down quickly, but then again, so was the whole board.

I don't mind paying at all for a board that I value and trust. I actually had sent in a donation voluntarily when the board first started. I fully understand that these things cost money. But the way the board recently disapeared for months with absolutely no explanation doesn't make me eager to send money now. E-mails reporting on their status would have been appropriate and considerate. Also, the way these decisions were made without community input is not filling me with confidence. I think that if there is going to be a fee, there should also be a scholarship fund of sorts for people who can't possibly afford it.

They are making a two week trial period available for free, but I don't know if I want to jump in there. Am I just pouting? I don't know, but I'd love it if people wanted to talk about this in the comments or IM - I am ruraldreams. I'll be shovelling a lot of snow today, so I'll be in and out.

Post-Rally Report

I wonder how many people call their loved ones after a day of protesting and say that they are using their one phone call from jail. I wonder how many loved ones fall for it.

I was having a hard time imagining the logistics, but it turned out that 1st, 2nd, and 3rd avenues were closed off and filled with protesters for 20 blocks. I really thought that they were going to try to keep hundreds of thousands of people on the sidewalks, a prospect that was scaring me a bit. The police did a lot of herding people into confined areas, which was actually a lot better than it sounds. I was grateful that we weren't getting crushed forward. It would have been a lot easier and safer for everyone if they would have just allowed a march, but it was peaceful and successful in spite of the powers that be.

We had to walk uptown quite a bit to reach the back of the rally and even before we got there we were with thousands of other protesters trying to find their way. Once we got into the rally, we were basicly fenced into a city block on 2nd Ave many blocks away from the stage. There were speakers set up but they weren't on for some reason so the only way that people could hear the rally and be connected to it was with small radios scattered through the crowd tuned to WBAI. It was really pretty amazing. That radio broadcast held the rally together. We could hear Bishop Desmond Tutu over the radios, but not very well. They rebroadcast his speech while we were driving home and it was intense. That guy could be a freaking rock star.

Another interesting activist-technology story. When we were driving into the city they had an unconfirmed report of up to 400 arrests at a youth feeder march from Union Square. We started talking to someone at the rally who said he had started out at Union Square and I asked him about the arrests. He said that the march was being led around through a ridiculous maze of police barricades and at one point the marchers were gated up and a bunch of paddywagons pulled up. All the kids pulled out their cellphones and started calling the press! Apparently they didn't end up getting arrested, but the guy said he wouldn't be surprised if the police led the march to the Bronx instead of the UN.

New York was crawling with police, and the tension was the highest of any protest that I have ever been to, but under the circumstances I was grateful that the police in general were allright. The fear caused by these latest terror alerts is a recipe for trouble. Things went very smoothly.

They did make me remove the thin wooden dowel from my FEAR sign. I might have caused trouble with it. I suddenly understood why everyone else's sign was held up with cardboard tubes - like the kind from wrapping paper. They didn't, however, take away my brother in law's cane. He wacks people with that thing all the time. Go figure.

I hear there were 750,000 protesting in the UK today. You Brits kick ass. There were a lot of pro- France and Germany signs. And a couple of duct tape ones too - in fact I started talking to a woman next to me and realized that she had a duct tape sign that said "Don't be afraid of Peace". She seemed to have gotten the e-mail about the cardboard poles. I get a dozen protest related e-mails every freaking day and somehow I missed that one.

Some other signs:
Viva La France
Tony Blair Yankee Poodle
Drunken Frat Boy Steals Country and Drives it Into Ditch
American Foreign Policy (drawing of Lady Liberty holding a gun to her head)
My bush would make a better president
real men know when to pull out

We Stocked Up On Duct Tape

We are going to NY to demonstrate tomorrow and just whipped up this baby. I don't usually bring a sign because of the boy, but he's going to be with Grandma so I'll have a free hand. I'm a little nervous about this one as it is a rally without a march. There was a rally back in October in Central Park, but this is in the middle of the city - I don't know how they're going to manage so many people without a march and no place really to go, so I suspect it's going to be a bit zooey. I'll let you know.

Baseball Through the Palladian Window

Steve and I were downstairs at the computer trying to figure out why The Wild Thornberrys isn't showing in Hudson today, but it was yesterday when we realized Aidan had been trying, for a couple of minutes, to tell us something from the stairs. I went over to him and in he tells me something that sounds like the baseball went through the window and broke it and now we have to fix it. I was flabbergasted - I hadn't heard any breaking glass and he looked so happy. Thrilled really. Not in the least bit ashamed. I repeat to him what I think I've heard and he nods excitedly, happy that he's finally got my attention and really just happy about the whole thing. I still couldn't believe it, but when I got to the top of the stairs and turned around, there was a classic baseball hole in one of the bottom panes of the window. He ran over to it to show me and excitedly told me that now we have to fix it. I couldn't get mad at him, he was so terribly happy. I explained that we couldn't fix something like that and we'd have to call someone to come and fix it. Enthusiastically he said, "let's call someone!". It turns out Steve thinks that he can fix it himself, which will only confirm for Aidan that Steve has the power to fix anything (except the car). Can we fix it? Yes we can! Even if mama initially thinks that we can't.

Reading

I'm reading the NYTimes online this morning and there is this nice essay about the winter. Even the political bloggers are writing about the weather.

All around us on this small farm we have the makings of a glacier. Every step we take compresses the snow a little more, and the pressure slowly turns the powder that fell a few days ago into ice, just the way it does in a real glacier. When spring comes, the last thing to melt will be the ski tracks along the fence line. When I walk across the pasture with my dog Badger, I can feel the history of this winter underfoot. Sometimes the snow-crust from the Christmas storm bears me up, so that I'm walking only calf-deep through the January snow, and sometimes I break all the way through to November.

There is also an article about a famous study in eugenics - where bad science was used to justify discrimination against the poor (also interesting because I just read some horrifying articles about North Carolina's forced sterilization program). The funny thing about the article was that it revealed some of the actual family names of the "criminals and mental defectives" that were traced in the studies. The name given to all of them was "Jukes" for the sake of confidentiality and the convenient bonus of making it impossible to verify the findings of the study. Now we know that the families listed in this study included "Sloughter, Plough, Miller, DuBois, Clearwater, Bank and Bush. " I am finding this terribly amusing this morning.

Steve's Hair

A couple of weeks ago I lopped off my husband's ponytail. He's had long hair since I met him six years ago. The first few years that we were together I could have never done such a thing. I loved his hair. It is really gorgeous; thick and wavy. But we've both been saying that it just seemed like time to do it lately. The circumstance of doing construction and not having a shower had something to do with it. It was just too difficult and unpleasant to wash it regularly in the bathtub. It is also a way of trying to manifest change, a strange way perhaps, but probably not uncommon. So one night he took a bath and cleaned it, brushed it out and put it in a ponytail. I cut it in what would be the bathroom if we had walls while Aidan slept. We put it in a plastic bag and I've been holding onto it to take a picture before we send it to Locks of Love. I just pulled it out and smelled it and was instantly transported to the days when we first met and were wracked with love. I am tempted to keep it so I can pull it out when I am an old lady and bask in that visceral memory.