ImPerceptibility

Archive for November, 2006

Have you ever seen an aura? I was just wondering. I’ve never seen one. I tried but no luck. I even went to a website and did some training. Still no luck. I sat on the couch and stared at my husband for a while. He finally asked me what was wrong. I told him I was trying to see his aura. He thinks I over did it with the pumpkin pie. I told him that he was so auratically weak that it was impossible to see. He asked me if I wanted a drink. I did.

So tell me, have you ever seen someone’s aura? Is it common in your culture to keep your aura covered before the eye of god? If I show you mine will you show me yours? Do you have to wear special underwear? I’m just wondering.

It was almost seven years ago to this day. I sat there at the kitchen table looking at the last envelope in the pile. I was sitting cross-legged in the kitchen chair leaning to one side with my cheek resting on my hand. The other hand held a photograph of my daughters. It was a beautiful picture of a newborn baby and a new big sister. They were dressed in velvet dresses and the big sister was pulling a sled with the new arrival. I was about to finish my last Christmas card and I didn’t want to put the picture in. I only send pictures to people I know well and this last card was confusing me. The last card was addressed to my fathers’ mother.

I would never call her my grandmother. She wasn’t. She was the woman that gave birth to my father. I never knew her. My grandmother was the woman that married my grandfather when I was very young. The wonderful loving woman that looked me straight in the eye and said ‘in this family we don’t have steps’. She meant it. I never worried about it again. Not even when she divorced my grandfather when I was a teenager. I knew she loved me. Titles and qualifiers weren’t necessary.

My dads’ mother was a different story. A sad, heartbreaking story of a very young woman with a drunken husband and two little boys that she didn’t take care of. Sometimes I feel sorry for her, sometimes I don’t. She made her choices and unfortunately they were almost all the wrong ones.

So, I was sitting there trying to decide if I should send her a picture of her great grandchildren. She didn’t deserve one. She wasn’t a grandmother. I thought about how she had neglected my father and uncle. I thought of all the Christmas cards she never sent me. All the stories about her that I wasn’t supposed to hear. I was angry. Then I stuffed the picture into the envelope and sealed it. There, now at least you can see what you are missing out on. Hate and spite in a Christmas card. How very Christmasey of me.

Three days later, I got a call. It was her. Thank you for sending me a picture of your little girls. You have such beautiful babies. Please bring them by to see me. I was repulsed. I was angry. How dare she call me and ask that. After all these years she thinks I would just stop by and see her. She was not my grandmother! She had no right to even consider it. I told her I would. She told me I was lying. I said I wasn’t. It was a half-hearted protest. I had no intentions of taking the girls to see her. She wasn’t my grandmother. She was a drug addicted selfish type of person that I had to keep my children away from.

Today, she is in a nursing home. My dad wanted me to come by her house and help move her stuff. I didn’t want to, but I wanted to help my dad. It had to be harder for him than me. So, I went. The house smelled of cat urine and stale cigarettes. It was full of all the things that were important to her. Empty pill bottles, ashtrays, hemorrhoid cream, and newspaper clipping of Jesus. In one room was a collection of photographs.

If she had been just a stranger I would have felt sorry for her. I just felt cold and empty. I felt no emotion as I cleaned out her cupboards. Nothing as I tossed out her cosmetics. And nothing when I boxed up her books and old clothes for goodwill. I’ll admit I was a little amused when I got to the sixth tube of Preparation H and angry when I found the loan for $300. She’d taken out at 45% interest. Besides that, there was nothing.

As I was finishing up, I looked at pictures of her father, her husbands, and her pets. I saw a picture of me when I was 5 and wanted to take it far away from there. I wondered why she had it there. In the back room with her dead husbands things. Stuck in the front of frame that had a pencil drawing of her when she was a young woman. I suppose I’ll never know. I was never her granddaughter. Unfortunately, that’s the way it’s going to stay. We all make out choices and I’ve made mine.

I’m just getting ready for the holidays. Hope everyone in the USA has a great Thanksgiving.Here’s some information about Turkey. A little outdated as it’s from 1993.

And here is a site about eating turkey for the more gastronomically inclined.

Now, where did I put my Pumpkin Cheesecake recipe?

If someone says, “You have a really young wife”

I recommend that you never say ‘She’s not that young’

The ‘I didn’t want them to think I robbed the cradle excuse’ is not gonna work.

Anyone have a link to plans for an ark? This is my back yard. The kids are loving it. Luckily my basement isn’t flooded. Mainly due to the fact I don’t have a basement. It was amazing how much rain came out of the sky today. All within an hour or two. It looks like it’s over with now.

Can anyone tell me how much my property value increases now that I’m water front?

I’ve been a little curious about a company called Biz360 since I saw them listed on my feed subscriber list. Since the kids are happily playing next door with friends I decided to caste aside my cleaning supplies and check them out. Anything is better than housework huh?

Biz360 has a product called Market360 BlogView. Here’s a little bit of what it’s for:

BlogView is a measurement and market intelligence solution that enables you to keep track of what’s being said in the Blogosphere about your company, its products and competitors, and the trends that impact your business.

You can read the rest here

Sounds cool to me. If I had a company I would like to know what people think. A little bit of reliable information is good thing. I question the reliability of a blog post. But, it certainly wouldn’t hurt would it?

Well, unless it’s used to make important business decisions based on anonymous speculation. I guess it usually works out.

I have one main question. How accurate is it? Does the software used to index the posts know the difference between genuine sentiment and sarcasm? Many times, even humans have a hard time telling the difference.

For example, suppose I typed:

I stopped by Wal-Mart today and my daughter had to go potty. Don’t you just love how those Wal-Mart bathrooms smell? It was a pleasant experience. You know how much I love Wal-Mart.

Now, would that be counted as a +1 for WAL-MART? Would the WAL-MART people think I really like how their bathroom smells? My overactive brain can see commercials with happy people exiting the restrooms and big yellow dots bouncing around. Kinda scary isn’t it?
I think most people would realize that a reference to a public bathroom is usually negative, but does the software know that?

Ok, let’s try another:

The pricing on the Method cleaner is a little high, but that OK with me. I just have to clean less.

Would Method think that I really like it when they overprice a cleaner because I’m lazy and appreciate having a reason not to clean? Would they think I actually clean less because of the price? I clean less because I like my blog! And quite a few others.

I’m curious about this stuff. I’m curious about how human beings use their past experiences and social views to interpret writing. I am way more curious about how you can get a bunch of if-then statements and word associations to do it. I’m sure with a huge quantity of data you can make educated guesses but I don’t think you can really get in touch with a market this way. If the people at Biz360 can give me a little insight I would appreciate it. I would definitely give you a +1. Right now you are a neutral.

So how about it, do you think a computer can effectively analyze the content of a blog post and get a true reading on popular sentiment? Ok, that’s a little too nerdy. Feel free to answer anyway. I’m rather fond of nerds. How about, can you make a statement, dripping with sarcasm, which might confuse those bots indexing what we type? Come on, give it a try. Me likes well-written sarcasm. :)

I am a bad mommy. Very very bad. I threw yogurt. Not just any yogurt, the last yogurt. I was having a bad day. Apparently children do not care if you are having a bad day because they decided to fight about, well, about everything. By the time the afternoon came around they decided to fight over the last yogurt.

I tried to be rational. You would think they could split the yogurt in half. Nope. Crying fussing whining. I can’t stand whining. Wait until tomorrow when I go to the store possibly? Nope. Not willing to wait.

So, I calmly walked over and told them to give me the yogurt. They did. I walked over to the back door, opened it, walked out on the back deck, checked to make sure no children or small animals were below and chucked the damn thing right out into the yard.

It made the most satisfying splishing sound when the plastic container cracked open on the ground. I felt much better.

Now, no one gets yogurt. And I’m not buying any at the store tomorrow either. Deal with it. They both stood there and looked at me. I didn’t hear another word out of them.

I did hear them telling their friends about it though. They were all quite impressed. A whole group of them were standing around looking at the yogurt in the middle of the yard.

I guess I’m going to be known as the wild yogurt-throwing woman now. Oh well, I suppose there are worse things I could be called. There are…aren’t there?

I finally got the hats for my daughters done. I let them pick their own yarn. The ones on top are last years hats. The new ones are on the bottom. It surprises me how much their tastes change from year to year. Heck, sometimes from day to day.

My little one went from pastel rainbow striped to fuzzy blue and burgundy. The oldest went from wanting a batch of fall leaves on top of her head to a tasteful mauve with colorful speckles. The year before I made a red chenille brimmed hat for her. Her sister choose a fuzzy lavender. I wonder what they’ll want next year. I suppose time will tell :)

Now back to work for me. My niece wants a fuzzy purple hat. Happy knitting!

Every once in a while you find something that is just right. Something that you are sure was custom made for you. It might be a favorite pair of jeans, a garden spade that fits in the palm of your hand, or a bra that really does lift and separate – in all the right ways. It doesn’t really matter what it is. It’s just the fact that it works perfectly with your unique way of doing things. One of these things for me is my mug.

I purchased it to give as gift when I was in Scotland. It was a rainy morning but not too cold. We wondered through the topiary gardens and had a ball ducking under bushes and trying to figure out what everything was. The amount of work that goes into maintaining a topiary garden is astounding. It was worth every minute we spent there. As we were leaving, I decided to stop by the gift shop.

I found a few little odds and ends and was getting ready to pay for them when I saw a shelf of mugs. There were mugs with ladybugs, dogs, cats, flowers, and off to one side, a mug with sheep. I grabbed it and added it to my purchase. It was perfectly tacky and I loved it. I would decide whom I would give it too later. It was definitely a keeper.

It traveled with us all around Scotland, back to England, and then it flew home, in my carry on, back to the US. It sat on top of the microwave for a few weeks. I had no one to give it to. I couldn’t think of one person that would truly appreciate that mug. One day I decided to make some mint tea and that mug was going to be put to use. No use letting it sit there feeling useless.

After the tea had brewed it picked up the mug and started to drink. The mug fit in my hands perfectly. I don’t hold my mugs by the handle. I put my hands around the mug and use my thumbs under the handle to balance. It was a perfect fit. Basically, I drink from the rim just a little to the right of the handle. Well, not in public, but when I’m alone I do. The contour of the mug fit the natural contour of my hands perfectly. That mug was mine!

It has come in handy many times. I had a terrible wiffle ball accident that summer. Sprained my hand very badly. I would wake up with a stiff sore hand in the morning. A nice warm glass of tea in my sheep mug would make it feel better. It was a heat pack that fit my hand perfectly. It’s also great for cold fingers. They warm right up and I don’t even have to think about it. Just pick up my mug and drink.

I don’t know who designed the shape for that mug. I would like to meet them. I wonder if I shook their hand if it would be a perfect match to mine. That’s the kind of things I think about when I drink tea in the morning. I bet you are wondering what I think about when I drink tequila, at midnight, out of a hand blown glass goblet. Now that would make an interesting post…:)

I have had five calls in the last three days asking for my support of a candidate. Stop freakin’ calling me! I am not going to tell you whom I’m voting for. You will find out on Election Day, just like everyone else.

You want my support? I’ll tell you how to get my support. Stop spending your money on monkey brained shit throwing campaign ads and donate it to a worthy charity. It doesn’t even have to be a charity I support. Any legitimate non-political non-profit will suffice. Then take all your volunteers that spends hours upon hours calling mothers, trying to teach their children how to read and write, and let them do some real volunteer work. Go feed the hungry, clean up the park, or re-index the books at the library. Heck, you fix the potholes in down town Fredericksburg and you got my vote buddy! Imagine it, a world where people running for public office actually care about the needs of the people. Now that’s a campaign I can get behind.