How about some cute Yorkie pics?

Puddin' and Lovey.

Lovey is in the jammies because she decided to take a walk on Sunday...into the pool! Apparently she has not yet grasped the concept of "transparency" as she still tries to walk through glass doors and on Sunday, tried to walk on the surface of the pool. Fortunately, Hubby was in the pool when it happened and fished her out, but even as he grabbed her, she had bobbed to the surface and was swimming for the edge! But even after I dried her off, she was shaking, so I dug out Puddin's outgrown flannel jammies and put them on Lovey, and in no time she was back to her pugnacious self!


Puddin' at the window: we have rented our cottage to a lady who has two young cats. They have just gotten up the courage to explore the back garden and they decided to investigate the potted plants on my patio...just outside this window. Puddin', who has very little experience with cats, was fascinated by them. Days later, she is still checking all the windows and doors that lead out to the patio, hoping they will come back!

Dilettantes need not apply

Ok, I need a contractor.

My brother-in-law owns a flat in a suburb not too far from my home and the property management company recently called him saying it needed some painting, the quote for which was outrageous. BIL asked Hubby and me to go have a look for him.

I don’t know what those people have been charging him for, but it sure wasn’t for the management of that flat! I have seen slum apartments in better condition! And, according to my husband, who has been in the flat many times before it went to rental, it was previously in good shape. This management company…supposedly the largest rental and property management company in the country…has done a shameful job and the flat quite literally needs to be gutted to the bare walls and floor. Even the kitchen stove needs to be replaced…assuming the massive infestation of cockroaches doesn’t carry it away first.

So, I’m looking for a contractor, a renovations specialist if I can find one, to strip this place to its bare nubbins and refurbish it from the ground up. It’s gonna put a pretty piece of coin into someone’s pocket…who would think that so few people are serious about the trade they have chosen for themselves?

We have a series of advertising magazines that are home delivered every second week. These magazines contain full colour ads from various companies that do every kind of imaginable home maintenance, repair, or addition you can think of, from doors and windows to roofs, pools, security systems, paving, and new kitchens. I’ve dug out three back issues of these mags and called every construction and maintenance company that advertises it does renovations…only one of the half dozen paying for full colour ads in this publication even answered the phone! One had a phone number that, according to the recording, did not exist, one was a wrong number (despite my having dialled correctly), and another one…well, I don’t know what the problem was, but the call didn’t go through at all—didn’t even connect to ring.

Next, I went to the web where I called three companies. One answered and I have an appointment with them to give me a quote on the flat. The other two? Can’t be bothered to pick up their phones.

How serious can you be about your business if you don’t answer your phone? If the number published in your ad doesn’t exist or it is a wrong number or it goes to a voice mail but you don’t return the call…just how serious are you about your business and why should I trust you with my project, assuming I can even get in touch with you? Why are you wasting your money…and my time…advertising when you obviously have no interest in communicating with new customers and taking on the new work your advertisement would lead me to believe you want?

I made nine phone calls and got only two answers...that’s just shameful! But somebody in Joburg is going to make a pot of money because they answered their phone…in addition to renovating my BIL’s flat, I have a second renovation project to do after this one. But I guarantee you, if you didn’t pick up your phone when I called you, if you don’t return my call the same day I left the message, one of your competitors not only will get my two projects, they’ll get all the follow-on work as well. I won’t deal with dilettantes like you.

An emailed comment

This comment was too large for the comment section so it was emailed to me. I am passing it on. The writer lives in Arizona.

Hi,

Good comments. Sarah Palin scares the shit out of me. As far as I'm concerned, she is very dangerous. And her choice of the term "blood libel" was very unfortunate. I realize that that expression doesn't mean what it used to, but many Jews still find it very offensive. How did she come up with that expression anyway? I don't know if she has some advisers who are just bad advisers or if she just doesn't listen to them.

At least Glen Beck and Rush Limbaugh who are also a BIG part of the problem seem to be much more intelligent than she. Unfortunately, they are so hell bent for leather to scare voters that they spout their vitriol, half truths and mis-information and so many people don't take the time to understand just how biased Beck and Limbaugh are. They just believe everything Beck and Limbaugh have to say. And to know that Palin has joined those two at Fox News - one of the most biased news organizations in the country is a very scary thought.

There was a study done with the results released recently that was poling people- the study was done by the University of Maryland’s Program on International Policy Attitudes. The study’s aim was to determine whether the Citizens United case before the Supreme Court, which allowed unlimited campaign contributions from corporations and unions, affected people’s perception of the truthfulness of the information being fed in the midterm elections.

The study wasn’t intended to be concerned with where people got their information, just how accurate it seemed. But the researchers noticed a peculiar thing: Although some Americans were misinformed, they generally became more informed if they consumed more news — with one major exception. The study found that the more people watched Fox News, the less informed they became.

Add to all this and not that it would have changed anything, AZ just last year made it legal for any citizen to carry a concealed hand gun without a permit. And some people are stupid enough to think they could / would have responded to this jerk fast enough to have made a difference and not to have added to the problem - so more people are buying hand guns since the tragedy - I don't think so!!! At least in the past and in some states, if you want to carry a concealed weapon, you have to pass training every couple of years, be certified and verify that you need to carry. He passed the background check to buy a gun because he was never treated / hospitalized for his mental illness. So now we have a bunch of people running around who have no idea how to handle a hand gun, who don't practice by target shooting and who say having a gun makes them feel more safe. How dumb.

Sarah Palin is scheduled to be the keynote speaker at the Safari Club International convention in Reno next week. The group’s website says Palin will address the politics of hunting along with discussing her “past hunting experiences.” Somehow seems fitting. Glad I'm not living there right now.

Let's hope the rhetoric becomes more civil and less vitriolic. Yes, politics have always been contentious, but what people keep forgetting is that with the Internet and 24 hour "news" channels (most of whom are so biased it isn't funny) that anyone's comments start circling the world in a few moments rather than in days or weeks and that the things we say and do have a bigger impact and reach more people faster than in any time in history.

Too Little Too Late

I have long questioned the IQ of Tea Party darling, Sarah Palin, but with her response to the recent Tucson tragedy, I find myself questioning her EQ as well.

I cannot say if the woman is as intellectually challenged as she seems, serving up stupid quips for answers to serious questions and inventing her own words to compensate for an inadequate vocabulary, but common sense and human compassion seem to be in short supply in her heart, based on the tepid, insincere-sounding “condolences” she offered in the aftermath of the shooting of one of the members of Congress who were targeted in her ill-conceived crosshairs map.

“My sincere condolences are offered to the family of rep. Gabrielle Giffords and the other victims of today's tragic shooting in Arizona. On behalf of Todd and my family, we all pray for the victims and their families, and for peace and justice,” she said. My, how emotionally uncharged, in view of the deaths of a federal judge, a 9 year-old-child, and others, and the wounding of even more, including that member of Congress she so disingenuously targeted on her website. You have to wonder why the map, which was posted as part of the rhetoric of a long past election, was still up on her site…and why its disappearance did not happen until shortly after the shooting of one of the targeted members of Congress.

Oh, I know that “everybody” believes the shooter was not a Tea Party supporter and that his shooting of Rep. Giffords was more personal than political, but that does not alter the fact that Palin’s map, with rifle crosshairs marking the location of 20 members of Congress she and her Tea Party brethren sought to unseat, could easily be looked upon by the less mentally stable among us as a mandate. Coupled with Palin’s own command “Don’t retreat, reload!” and the Tea Party rhetoric “If ballots don’t work, bullets do!” there is no question that Palin is culpable in creating an atmosphere of political hostility that can easily go off the rails.

Her lukewarm passive-voice commentary…“my condolences are offered” instead of a more engaged, genuine-sounding “My heart goes out to” or “I offer my deepest condolences to…”…denotes insincerity and a lack of emotional connection to the tragedy or to the victims. It is saying the right thing (almost) with no indication of accompanying empathy.

Sarah and her ilk have missed a golden opportunity to step up to the ethics plate and repudiate (not “refudiate”), formally and publicly, any form of violence or illegal behaviour in the furthering of one’s political causes or ambitions. The illegal Watergate break-in caused the unprecedented resignation of a president…shouldn’t someone speak out against the similar break-in and vandalism of Rep. Giffords’ office? Or the untrue allegations by the GOP-funded “Swift Boat Veterans” who lied about John Kerry just days before that election? Or the wasting of millions upon millions of US taxpayer funds to embarrass a sitting president for a sexual liaison between two consenting adults? I find it absolutely appalling that Ms. Palin finds it acceptable to offer no more than a token message of condolence and make no comment whatsoever about the violent act that brought about its necessity. Is she tacitly consenting to such behaviour through her silence? Hers is supposed to be the “family values” party: when did dishonesty, cheating, law-breaking and assassination become acceptable family values?

Silence, after all, is consent.

1/1/11

Happy New Year, everybody. May the coming year bring you clarity, joy and prosperity.

Back in the day...

At one time in my life I lived in a 100-year-old tin-roofed adobe out in the Sonoran desert.

At some point in the house’s history someone had added a lean-to off the back of the house and furnished it with a sink, shower over tub, and a toilet. They even installed a septic tank out behind the house, next to the clothes lines, heaping the excavated dirt and clay over the top of the buried tank into a hillock of soil soft enough to entice a legion of rattlesnakes to make their burrows there.

Someone also thought to add electricity at some point. Very little electricity, I might add…perhaps one outlet per room plus an overhead light fixture. At night the kitchen fixture drew squadrons of desert insects, particularly a flying beetle we called a “June bug” that was rumoured to have a caustic coating on its carapace, so you didn’t want the little buggers to hit you in their mad flight to the light. The ancient screen door was missing its bottom panel, so the dizzy things would fly into the screen and drop to the door stoop, crawl through the opening into the kitchen and again take wing. It was a dangerous proposition to try to eat anything after the sun went down, as it would soon be littered with beetles that had flown too close to the light and subsequently plummeted to your plate.

Living in the house, which was supposed to be furnished, was a study in survival mode living. There was no refrigeration, so once a week we drove 70 miles to the nearest town and bought a huge block of ice to put in the old, dead upright freezer in the kitchen. The motor didn’t work but the insulation and door seals did, so it kept milk and meat cold and sealed other foods…like cereal and pasta…pest free.

There was no kitchen stove, just a two burner hot plate that barely got hot enough to boil water. It was a challenge cooking on that thing but because there was no alternative…and no oven (and this was before microwave ovens were invented)…I had no choice but to adapt and to cope.

The house did have running water…out back a ways there was a huge cistern up on stilts and a pump that sucked hard, mineral-laced water from beneath the desert floor and deposited it in the cistern. From the cistern to the house, perhaps 200 yards, a black neoprene hose was buried beneath the clay soil. The house had no hot water heater, but by late afternoon the water in that black hose had become warm from the sun and provided enough tepid water for a quick shower. It was our only luxury.

The insect life there was varied. A crack in the thick adobe walls admitted red fire ants and we had to spray a moat of insecticide around the bed every night to keep them away. A centipede nearly a foot long was captured in the bathroom one night, and boots were routinely shaken vigorously before donning, lest a scorpion be snoozing inside. Worst, however, were the cockroaches, huge ugly things that infested the kitchen cupboards such that I stored all crockery and pots upside down and kept only canned or jarred goods in them. Everything else was safely behind the seals of the defunct freezer.

Half a mile down the road from our little adobe there was a gas station and tiny general store. Once a day, just before the worst of the heat arrived, I would jump into my lace-up boots and grab my cowboy hat and hike down to the store, buy myself an ice-cold Coke, and walk back to the adobe. Once it got hot, I would lay down on the cool cement floor in the centre room (it was surrounded by other rooms, so no sun penetrated) and try to nap. On my way back to the house one day I spotted a horned toad trying to camouflage himself in the roadside gravel and snatched him up. Within a couple of weeks he and two pals of his were running loose in my house, making serious dents in the cockroach population. I couldn’t tell them apart, so I just called them all “Henry.” They must have liked it there because they could easily have escaped out the bottom of that decrepit kitchen screen, but they stuck around.

Without a hot water heater, not only did we not have hot water for bathing, we didn’t have it for washing dishes, cleaning, or laundry. The feeble little hotplate did its best and was able to muster up something close to hot water for washing dishes, but laundry was a whole other problem.

There was, of course, no washing machine. Which meant I returned to the lessons of my grandmother for washing laundry by hand. I had a small washboard and because the water was so hard, I used dishwashing detergent. You haven’t lived until you’ve washed sheets and blue jeans by hand in a kitchen sink, then stood in a rattlesnake infested dirt yard to hang them out to dry. It’s a very good thing the desert was so hot because often times the clothes would still be dripping rinse water when they went up on the line…you can only wring so much water out with a single pair of hands.

The reason this little slice of paradise comes to mind today is that this evening I found myself heating water in the electric kettle in order to do the dishes…an act very reminiscent of my adventures in an old adobe sans hot water all those years ago. We have decided to tough it out and not replace the burst hot water heater (geyser) until after the first of the year because it would be a waste of money since we are installing solar in January. I just can’t see spending R8000+ (more than $1000 USD) for a hot water heater that will be retired in just a month.

But things are different in South Africa, so the lack of hot water in the main house will not be the kind of train smash it might be in America. Dishwashers and washing machines here draw only cold water and have heating elements inside to warm the water to the proper temperature. Electric kettles are ubiquitous…literally everybody has one…so heating water in the kitchen is quick and easy. Bathing? Well, we have a little flatlet attached to the house that has its own geyser, and it has a small but fully functional bathroom. We can shower and Hubby can shave there until the solar system is installed next month.

But for a moment this evening I was transported back to the olden days, the days of heating water on the stove and using the local lizard life for insect control…did I tell you I have skinks in the garden and geckos in my house?

Lovey

No pics yet, but this weekend we added a new member to our family, a Yorkie puppy we have named Pavlova Caramel (in keeping with the "sweet things" theme of our girls' names...Candy, Puddin', and now Pavlova) but we are calling her "Lovey" for short. When she wakes up from her nap I'll do a few pics and put them up.

Puddin' is not amused, at least not yet. She seems baffled and hurt at the same time, but has made no moves to hurt the baby. But she is softening already. The other night while I fixed dinner, Lovey was crying in the x-pen and Puddin' barked loudly until I came to see what was wrong. I think Princess Puddin' will be an awesome big sister once Lovey is big enough to play with her!

Pics later!