2020 Ironic Song Playlist

 It started early in the Covid-19 quarantine, with Petula Clark singing Downtown.

When you're alone and life is making you lonely
You can always go - downtown
When you've got worries, all the noise and the hurry
Seems to help, I know - downtown
Just listen to the music of the traffic in the city
Linger on the sidewalk where the neon signs are pretty
How can you lose?

The lights are much brighter there
You can forget all your troubles, forget all your cares

Lyrics 

That got sadder as stupid people really did start going back downtown without masks and making this whole thing worse.

This morning, talking about politics, my spouse quoted "an allegedly corrupt mayor" but couldn't remember the name. "Jimmy Walker?" I asked, and yes, that was it. 

I explained, "I know him from Fiorello. It was one of the albums of show tunes my mother used to play." I wondered at the disappearance of Fiorello, and remembered a Saturday Night skit when one of the characters sang a song from Fiorello - "I love a Cop". 

That goes on the 2020 Ironic Song Playlist. Though maybe only the title is ironic. The song is about falling in love with a cop who arrested you and being embarrassed to introduce him to your friends. Then again, that meet-cute scenario does seem entirely ironic in looking at the violence displayed by the cops against protesters. Don't these cops realize they're losing all hope of meeting cute? 

With two songs on the list I remembered there was a third: another ironic song I heard yesterday, but couldn't remember which. I've been letting SoundCloud play me music as I work from home. I looked through my SoundCloud history. The most likely is this one sung by Sammy Davis Jr.: 

I like the fun of reaching for a gun and going bang bang...
Cause no one,
I know,
Gets oh such a glow.
Out of bang bang!
Like me!

 Lyrics 

Triggered by an LDAP error at work, not even my problem

At what point do the complexities of technology become too much and you say, 'That's it. I'm going off to live in a yurt.'

iPhone vs Android charging

If you need to leave soon and want to charge up your Android before you go, you can turn it off and plug it in.

In contrast, as soon as you plug in an iPhone, it turns itself on. As soon as an iPhone reaches a certain level of charge, it turns off low-power mode. This is just one way the iPhone tries to out-think you.

But smartphones really aren't that smart yet.

Turn Silent Mode Off

I suppose that long-time users of iPhones are used to this by now, but to an iPhone neophyte, the idea that you turn the noise OFF by turning "Silent Mode" ON was counter-intuitive. It required parsing double negatives, and confused me at first. Several months in, I still find myself consciously parsing:
"Silent Mode On, OK, turn off the loud alert... Silent Mode Off, so I can get my on-call alert. That's right. Right? OK."

Apple always had an arrogant skewed sense of usability. From the start, the interfaces always looked simple, but they could give new users a quiet desperation sense that they must be stupid to not understand them right away.

Roccbox

How many pizzas would we have to make during a blackout to rationalize the $700?

https://www.gozney.com/us/products/home-pizza-ovens/roccbox/

Guillermo Andres Zeballos 1933-2019

Guillermo Andres Zeballos did what grandparents do best: spoil my kids rotten.

He indulged them, always--feeding them from his inexhaustible supply of Pepperidge Farm cookies, taking them out to Barnes and Noble for yet another book they didn't need. Even when Alzheimer's robbed most of his abilities, his face lit up when he saw his grandchildren, and they knew they were loved.

This, perhaps, is not unusual among grandparents. What was unusual about him was his incredible patience.

He came to visit us when Zoe was a toddler. He sat with her while she played. He walked with her among the dull grounds of our apartment complex. He waited while she examined every twig and weed and piece of gravel. He stayed by her side, faithfully, as she wandered in whatever direction she cared to go. He let her take her time--take his time--far past the point when I would have dragged her to play inside so mommy could do something less boring.

This was a true gift to an exploring mind.

My father-in-law was a scientist, a professor, a teacher. We all know that the best teachers teach through example. I'll never forget what he taught me in that walk he took with a tiny little girl: his simple demonstration of true devotion, and true love.

tuna fish sandwich transcendent

It's my longstanding policy not to buy potato chips. Too many calories per pleasure compared to, for example, chocolate. And too expensive per pound.

I do like dark, "Kettle Roasted" chips. And I love potato chips with tuna fish. I almost never have that pleasure, because I almost never buy chips. But last weekend, I had a potato chip craving, and bought a bag of Cape Cod Kettle Roasted chips. Market Basket even kindly had them On Sale.

This morning, my loving spouse made tuna fish with chopped celery. I slid some onto Tuscan Wheat bread (also On Sale.) There were still potato chips left, so I packed them too.

Driving to work, I was looking forward to that ultimate lunch: tuna fish sandwich--with potato chips!
It's a long commute. I listened to my current library audiobook: "A Wrinkle in Time". Meg is in the kitchen. She is making a tuna fish sandwich. She gets sweet pickles out from the refrigerator.

Pickles! Damn it! We had pickles too! I could have put them in my sandwich.

Oh well.

I shall have to wait for another day for perfection.

Scotland

In my brain I want to go to Scotland. It would be a more affordable vacation than Hawaii, or going back to visit in-laws in Chile, especially during the eclipse. It would be less affordable than another New England camping trip--and we didn't even manage that last summer.

Scotland would have some similar scenery to Iceland without being quite as expensive or having the inconvenience of learning another language.

I like single malt Scotch.

I have a cousin living in Edinburgh, though she might be moving back to the States soon.

I went to nursery school in London. I listen to the BBC a lot. I watched a TV show and some movies that were set in Scotland. People in Scotland have a cool-sounding accent.

Are they called Scots?

They have pretty islands in Scotland. In fairness, there are some pretty islands off the Maine coast.

There are castles in Scotland.

Scotland would be a more fun reason to renew my passport than simply knowing we might want to drive to Canada someday.

On Instagram, my friends and relatives post photos of California and other various beautiful spots in the Americas, of Europe and Asia. I post photos taken when I'm stuck in traffic on Route 3 South. There are some pretty wetlands visible from the highway, and interesting shadows in the cement barriers and underpasses, and plucky weeds--some with purple flowers--sprouting up through the asphalt. Still, it would be nice to have, I don't know, actual scenery.

I have a kid about to go to college, next September. She'll need financial aid.
And another kid who'll go to college after that.
I'll probably have to wait 10 years to go to Scotland.
My cousin probably won't be living there then.

It is good to be frugal, and earn a decent salary, and not to have any serious worries about money.

Still. I wish I could travel.

To Paris, to see the Louvre: I may have been there when I was 3 years old, but I don't remember. I'd like to go back to Venice, to find out what that painting was that I saw in the 1990's and can't find on any Internet archive. Supposedly of Saint Rocco, but the cherub had a lewd knowing look in its eye--the scene had wisps of a fancy bordello. To Tuscany to eat another savory chickpea-flour pancake. To Africa--Botswana, or Camaroon, or Some Place--Some Place Very Different. To climb Mt Fuji and tour Kyoto. I want to see the Alps, if not the Himalayas.

But Scotland would be nice. Scotland would do. Could I rationalize it? Could it fit into my budget?

Why I'm not spending money on that

I have children and a house.
I have children and a house.
I have children and a house.

I love my children.

I like my house.

I hate poetry, except when I like a particular poem

Doggerel doesn't count--by definition.
Fun is fun.
Funny is fun.

The Robert Frost poems I memorized as a kid don't count, because I grew up with him.
He's, like, part of New England--and me too.
I even live in New Hampshire now.

Percy Bysshe Shelley got me through some rough times, so all his stuff's fine.

It was that Richard Holmes biography that got me to love Shelley. I'm glad to see it's back in print.

One morning in July

On my rational commute
in my sensible car
I see, in the left lane:

Red
Mustang
Convertible.

Envy--a light happy envy
consists of 

imagining the thrill

Knowing actual ownership

would involve
higher maintenance,

gas mileage,

sunburn

And even

stuff blowing off the seats

that I didn't want to lose.

suggested alternates to a crude term for excrement

or, Why have people stopped saying "stuff"?

Especially when "stuff" is perfectly good and exactly what is meant.

Alternate ways to end a sentence:

Collect your

1. stuff
2. things
3. junk

You're full of

1. baloney
2. nonsense
3. malarkey
4. hooeeey

That's a load of

1. baloney
2. garbage
3. nonsense
4. hogwash
5. manure  (if you must...)

I don't need this

1. nonsense
2. treatment
3. runaround
4. aggravation

He's losing his

1. temper
2. self-possession
3. tenuous connection to reality
4. marbles

Alternate expressions:

1. Get your act together. (This is how it used to be said. It still works.)
2. You're bluffing! (and this way you don't need to end with 'me')

Discworld Audiotherapy

Listening to Stephen Briggs perform Discworld audiobooks is my main therapy for spiritual survival.

— Margery Harrison (@pargery) June 9, 2018

It is literally therapy. I can be listening to a different audiobook on the hour and a half drive to work. I park, turn off the engine, the audiobook playing through the Bluetooth connection is silent. I collect my things. To get the energy needed to open the car door, grab my stuff, and walk into the office to begin my workday, I turn on a Discworld audiobook.
Other people are talking or looking at their cellphones. I walk into the building listening to Stephen Briggs's narration. I need to always have one checked out of the library (via Overdrive or Hoopla) so that there will be an audiobook for me to play on my smartphone. 
If the day's going badly but the weather is nice outside, I can eat my lunch at the picnic table with Discworld playing, and feel better about going inside for the afternoon. Hearing Discworld gives me stability, a sense that something is right with humanity, a reassurance of the existence of humor and wisdom.

Rental Values

Once there was a poor man who was an immigrant to this country. He and his wife had seven children. They needed a place to live, but no one would rent to a family with so many kids.

So he told some of his children to hide. With only a few children, they were able to rent an apartment. Whenever the landlord came by, the “extra” children hid.

The man fixed whatever broke in the apartment. His wife cleaned the hallway of the building so that it sparkled.

One day all of the children were playing outside in the yard. The landlord came by. He asked each child, “Where do you live?” Each one answered, pointing, telling the truth.

The landlord knocked on the door. “How many are living here?” The father admitted, “Yes. They’re all mine. They all live here.”

The landlord sighed. He looked around at the sparkling clean hallway and into the well-maintained apartment. He listened to the children playing outside.

“It’s all right,” he said.

Years passed. Two of the children--two brothers--went into business together. They prospered, and even purchased their own apartment buildings.

Sometimes other landlords ask them: Why do you rent to the new immigrants–with their large families, and so many relatives crowding in with them?

Then each brother silently asks himself: Where would I be, had our father’s landlord kicked us out?

They tell the other landlords: “These are hard-working people. They deserve a place to live.”

The crime against nature that is pre-ripped jeans

Pre-ripped jeans are exceedingly silly.
Would you buy shoes with pre-worn-out soles?
New jeans should protect your skin from cruel brambles.
Old holes are earned trophies from rambling and fun.

Remember the miners with pockets all torn?
Jeans were invented to save sweaty gold.
If you make a garment whose purpose is strength,
But ravage its nature, defying its nascence,
You puncture integrity--
The jeans' and your own.

Fall in love with Leslie Howard

I just left this review for "Petrified Forest" on Alibris:

OK, I haven't seen it for a while, but I remember it as one of my favorites.

This is the movie that gave me a crush on Leslie Howard when I was 14 years old. Ditto for my aunt at similar age, when the film was released. Because of this crush, I cringed to see Leslie later in "Gone With The Wind", or actually, in color. He is still gorgeous in Black and White.

This is the movie that made Bogart a star.

Movie had originally been a play, and it still seems like a good play. Would not be expensive to produce.  I remembered it as desperado Bogart and intellectual Leslie Howard talking for most of it, as they sat in café with Bogart's gang holding everyone at gunpoint--but when I saw it more recently, it actually didn't take up as much of the movie as I had remembered.

Historically important line: "Tipping is un-American."

Its theme of people not living up to what they wanted to be in their lives is not restricted to the principal characters. This is a good historical movie with still-relevant situations and dialogue.

Annals of Serendipitous Parenting

Monday morning. Sleepy.

Driving out, a few blocks from home. Quiet rural roads.

Hungry. Where did I put that toast-and-jam? I look at the passenger seat.

The car swerves to the right.

I catch the goof, swerve left, I am back to driving straight.

I explain to the kid in the back seat what happened. "I guess it's dangerous to drive hungry," I quip.

She does not laugh.

I glance back, notice her scared wide eyes.

Hmm.

I believe I've motivated her to catch the school bus from now on.

24-June-2016 dream before alarm went off

In my dream the Ku Klux Klan had a rally in my town's center.

There was a counter-protest worship service nearby, outside a synagogue I'd never seen before.
(I wondered why we were members of a synagogue the next town over instead of this one, and concluded that this one must be Reform instead of Conservative.)

The rabbi had wheelie sneakers; she glided around the front of the congregation. There were empty chairs, but no extra prayer books. I tried to find a chair with a prayer-book so I could join in, but the service ended before I found one.

The synagogue was packed up into a tent to be driven away

So that's why I'd never seen it before: it was temporary and mobile.

Later, inside some building in town, I was with people I didn't know, but chatting in a friendly way. I quoted lines from a country music song--Miranda Lambert's one about being ready to shoot her abusive man when he got home. The old guy I quoted it to smiled. But there was something in his eyes that made me wonder if I shouldn't have quoted something so feminist.

A little boy from the hate group came in and spouted words meant to provoke one of us into fighting him. He gave me the impression he was used to beatings from his own group. I said, "Even murderers raise their children to be good and kind to everybody until they turn 14 or so & then they say it's time to kill people." I put my arms around him and gave him a hug.

Later, I walked over to another group of children at a table. They were reading comic books left by the hate group. I asked one of the children about it. He explained why Jews were bad. I attempted Socratic method to convince him otherwise, asking questions. He brought up circumcision. I defended how I had seen it practiced. "The baby gets a sip of wine before and then goes to his mother after. He is OK." The discussion escalated, I don't remember most of the words. I just remember my last words were a declaration that ended in "...Jews like me."

At those words, everyone in the room--children and adults--stood up and looked at me with hard hostile stares that told me to leave.

The clock radio went off.

It was 6am.
National Public Radio announced that Britain had voted to leave the European Union.

OMG

Pure Wow's 15-piece capsule wardrobe - no

According to a website called Pure Wow! Here listed are

The Only 15 Items You Need to Build the Perfect Wardrobe

(http://www.purewow.com/fashion/15-piece-capsule-wardrobe)
with my comments:

1. The perfect white tee
• No, nothing white, I always get it stained.
• A few neutral colored tee shirts that don't have anything written on them would work.
• Gray, Charcoal Gray, Tan, Heather Blue
2. A navy blazer that's not part of a Pantsuit
• OK, but preferably a loose cotton machine-washable one
• Linen is nice in the summer too
3. An A-Line Midi Skirt that highlights your shape
• Hah! No. No skirts. My shape is the problem
• Skirts are very sensitive to expansion and contraction of waistline
• A plain dress of some sort is acceptable.
• Although I avoid dresses because they create complications with shoes and socks
4. Dark wash flared jeans that elongate your legs
• OK, a pair of jeans. Two pairs. Black and blue. 
• Lightweight blue for summer.
5.  A white button-down that's not your boyfriends
• White again. Danger. Only if you need it for a job interview
• Otherwise, fine, some kind of blouse.
6. A classic trench coat that makes you feel elegant.
• Yes.
7.  Tailored black pants you can dress up or down
• OK
8. A silky black camisole you can layer or not.
• Not. Not with my fat arms. Substitute one of the neutral-colored t-shirt
9. A good ole denim jacket
• Maybe. But other cloth jackets are often better-looking
• Denim jackets can be styled rather weird and look outdated soon
10. A not-stuffy pencil skirt
• No skirts.
11. A striped shirt that makes you look French.
• Horizontal stripes. Hahaha. I learned that was a no-no in 9th grade. Only for the thin & fit.
12. White pants you can wear any time of the year.
• White. On pants. Just never sit down anywhere. Yeah, forget it.
13. A little black dress you'll wear forever.
• Sure. My eternal quest.
• There was once this perfect looking dress in a Victoria's Secret catalog. 
• Decades ago, perhaps. 
• I wish I'd bought it. 
• No. I wish I'd saved the photo.
14. A Showstopping dress for special occasions
• Wait for the occasion before buying the dress
15. A basic sweater to throw over anything
• I have a nice black cotton sweater from the long-defunct Tweeds Catalog.
• I miss getting clothes from the Tweeds Catalog
• I wish J.Crew would revive it, with decent clothes.
• I have that nice black cotton sweater, and a very nice embroidered? jackard? greyish button-down shirt that I wear over plain t-shirts in the summer. 
• Something happened to textiles between the 1980's and now. 
• Clothes purchased in the past 10 years or so will develop holes much sooner than they ought to. 
• Something is very wrong.

Crochet Hat May 1-8, Lion Homespun Lagoon

Soft acrylic nubby yarn. You have to be a Ravelry member to access project on Ravelry, so transposing description here:

homespun was $6/skein, but used 40% coupon.

Started with 8 or 9 mm largest crochet hook I had, since I got confused by hook number on skein package, but switched to 6mm once realized it was actually requesting number 9, which is 6.5mm. 
My set of hooks has 6 & 7, not 6.5.

Started with magic loop, otherwise I started by trying to follow http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/beanie-brim-cap. I didn’t understand the set of stitches, parentheses with no numbers to indicate repeated pattern and how it was all supposed to add up to the specified number of stitches for that row. 
So I just made circular rows with uneven occurrences of fpdc and dc, incrementing, then decrementing as it got ruffly. 
When near maximum width, did a circular row of simple dc, then all fdpc. 
Continued decrementing with fdpc until at head width. 
Then made some rows of regular hdc’s until nice margin to fold over. 
End.

There’s a bit of yarn left--perhaps enough for fingerless mitt or 2.