Jenny and I have been married 6 months, today.
An anti-Kerry ad uses his position on same-sex marriage to portray him as "too liberal for America"-- equal rights for everyone is not "too liberal for America."
Vote for Kerry, so Jenny and I can make it legal.
I love our cats, and I especially love the story of how we adopted them.
Our boy cat: After settling into graduate school in Illinois, I decided I was ready to finally take care of my childhood cat, after leaving him at home while I spent 4 years in undergrad at Grinnell. At about the same time, the cat stopped eating, and so my Dad took him to the vet to certify that he could travel, and to see what was up. I bought him a plane ticket, and meanwhile, the vet pulled one of his teeth. The cat seemed fine, but then a few days after his tooth extraction, he got really sick, and wound up having a heart-attack on my Dad's lap, while the two of them sat at the vet's office, waiting for help. So, I wound up back in NY with an extra one-way plane ticket for a cat. In the two or three days I was in NYC, one of my high school friends heard meowing while walking down the street in Park Slope. Yes-- there are lots of stray cats in Park Slope, but this one followed her home and hopped into her arms, and she gave me a call, and Jenny and I adopted him, and he's been ours for the last five years. He sleeps curled up in our armpits, and is kneading a teddy-bear as I write.
Our girl cat: She's from the Humane Society in Champaign-Urbana. Immediately after we adopted the other one, we'd decided he needed at least 45 minutes of play-time attention from each of us, every single day. He's turned out to be an incredibly sweet, very affectionate cat who sleeps with us every single night, but we decided he also needed a playmate. So we went to the Humane Society and there was this 3-month old kitten who was extremely loud. People weren't even stopping to look at her because she was yowling her little head off. We thought she was really cute and despite all the noise we brought her into the visiting room where you can "try out" the pets and see if they're good personality matches. She was a little quieter in the room, but mostly only because she caught a bug and ate it and seemed a little happier. So we adopted her. We had to sit through a two-day waiting period, and then when Jenny went to pick her up, the cat cried the entire way back, until Bare Naked Ladies came on the radio, and finally she was calm. But then she cried again when they played different music. She's still really loud. We don't know why. Sometimes she just walks up to one of us and starts meowing as loud as she can, and we just meow back, because we have no idea what else to do. She still really likes all Bare Naked Ladies songs.
The whole point of this, is that pets are amzing little love-buckets, and I can't imagine my life without the ones I've got. And I was really sad when my first cat died, but then these two came along. And so, I'm not opposed to this or this, but I just don't get it. I mean, maybe for allergy-sufferers the metal dog makes some sense. But, if I had just cloned my childhood cat, I wouldn't have this history with my cats, now. I'd have some boring history, involving a really large monetary transaction, and a corporation, and maybe I'd even have nightmares about all the kittens that I could have saved from the pound.
Could you print me out a list
Hmm? A list of what?
You know, like, of all the books.
In the entire branch, or the system?
No. I mean, just in this section.
(The information desk is in the middle of the adult room, near all the adult and YA fiction and non-fiction) Which section, exactly?
You know, the list that used to be here?
We used to have a list of all the books?
Like, a list of books that might be interesting.
In a moment of inspiration I realize the patron might be asking for the Books for the Teenage guide, and when I hand it over, turns out that was it.
But I'm noticing a dangerous (for the environment) trend at my branch. People really want us to just print them lists of things all the time. I'm often asked for a printed list of all the Dave Pelzer books in the system, or people want lists of all the DVDs at my branch, or all the romance novels. They want paper to print out all the spam they receive, and kids want computer appointments so they can just print out pages from the online encyclopedia rather than taking notes from a book.
I'd rather they'd let me take the time to show them how to search the catalog themselves, so they can access the information anywhere they have Internet access. Though, I guess the digital divide is still enough of a problem that lots of people wouldn't have access to computers at home.
We need to change that. We need to not only teach people how to use computers, but also get them access to affordable or free ones-- Per Scholas is an NYPL partner (to Click on @ the library), and they're great. We need more organizations like this one. Also, if you've got old computer parts, donate them to Per Scholas instead of just leaving them on your corner to be landfill.
Boingboing.net posted about this fabu bookmarklet maker that lets you request the book you're looking for on Amazon from your local library. For the New York Public Library, use http://leopac.nypl.org for the URL and select the iPac radio button. It works best with hardcover books according to the Library Lookup tips.
I've never had a coffee addiction, but discovered I liked Teechino when Jenny got some, to help wean herself off coffee. For the last two weeks I've become ever more obsessed with the beverage. I started imagining teechino parties and trying to figure out whether we could get a new dinner table, so we could have a dinner party where we introduce all our friends to teechino.
I researched fancy coffee machines online (you brew teechino like regular coffee), and I thought about little espresso cups filled with the amazing drink. Then, I realized that my interest in teechino was unnatural, and I checked all the ingredients and read articles, and tried to figure out whether it was addictive.
It's none of that. I was unsuspectingly duped into a coffee addiction! That's right. Jenny was mixing coffee grinds into the teechino as she wasn't ready to stop drinking coffee cold-turkey. She spiked my drink! Coffee is maddeningly addictive.
Yesterday I brought a pair of new "worn-out," jeans to the tailor to be hemmed. He's been the tailor, in the same store-front for as long as I can remember, probably before I was born, as he still remembers my parents, and possibly my grandmother.
Would it be possible to hem these? I pinned up the cuff to the length I'd like
Sure
Notice how the hem is pre-frayed--
Yes-- it's worn out
After you sew the new hem, can you fray it so it looks like it does now?
That's ridiculous. It's worn out. I can fix it.
No, no. I bought it that way. It's new. Can you do that?
Well, I can try. But that's ridiculous.
And can you use that dark green thread for the hem?
That's also ridiculous, but I can try to find a match.
He looked as if he wanted to lecture me on matching the thread to the fabric, and on how I should patch up the holes in my jeans. He then charged me $12.50, which is more than double anything he's charged in the past.
Pup shoots man, saves litter mates
Go puppy!
I may be behind on this news, since I haven't been watching t.v. much lately, but I saw the subway billboard for ANTM 3 and just about dropped my umbrella. It premieres Wednesday,Sept. 22nd at 8pm EST. You can read about the new contestants here.
It's absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on Nov. 2, we make the right choice, because if we make the wrong choice then the danger is that we'll get hit again and we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States.
-- Cheney (http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Cheney.html)
Exactly. Cheney hits the nail on the head. Don't make the same mistake twice. Vote for Kerry.
I wish I could say that I don't go to Starbucks, but I do. Lately, I've been trying to wean myself off onto Teechino, a tasty coffee substitute that has no caffeine and is made of figs, chicory and nuts. However, if you still get your morning cup 'o joe from them, here are some interesting ways you can make your addiction work for the planet. Starbucks will give you their spent coffee grinds for use composting your garden. We don't have a garden, but I still think that's pretty neat. Whatever happened to the discount that used to come with bringing your own reuseable cup? When I was in SF in 2001, it seemed like reuseable cups were ubiquitous and the discount was second nature. I feel like I rarely see anyone with a reuseable cup (in a Starbucks in New York) besides me. Is it just because New Yorkers already schlep so much around with them? If you drink milk, Starbucks are supposed to have non-bovine growth horomone milk available, but I think you have to make a special request for it. This site has lots of good info on how to make Starbucks use more Fair Trade coffee. I heard somewhere that new espresso line from Dunkin' Donuts is fair trade and shade-grown, but I don't remember the source. If Dunkin' Donuts is your poison, you might want to read The Food Revolution by John Robbins, the Dunkin' Donuts/Baskin-Robbins heir.
Rebecca Blood recently posted about a new (scary) book about "hot saucing" your kids. I remember seeing a news report about a child that was removed from its parents because they were pouring bottles of hot sauce down its throat. I couldn't find any articles about the report I saw, and it wasn't the recommended drop on the tongue, but there must be better child-rearing techniques out there.
During our hiatus, Mario van Peebles visited the Schomburg library, where I work. I was trying to think of movies that he's been in so that I could share my sighting with Kate, but couldn't really think of anything that she would have seen. The best I could come up with was "Gunmen", a movie with Christopher Lambert that I own the soundtrack to, but have never seen, for some inexplicable reason. The other sighting was Amir Baraka the poet laureate (former poet laureate?), who seemed to be working on a new project.
I've heard so many cyclists talk about riding on 9W, up to Nyack, but Jenny and I only just tried it today, and it was amazing! I highly, highly recommend this ride. Crossing the George Washington Bridge was a little like crossing the Brooklyn Bridge-- beautiful views but a little slow-going from the other cyclists, pedestrians and somewhat small walkway. After the bridge there's a high-traffic intersection, and it's a little confusing to find your way to the path, but there were a bunch of other cyclists, and we pretty much just followed them. For that matter, there were so many other cyclists, that it almost felt like an organized ride.
Once on the path, there are virtually no cars, and it's absolutely beautiful, riding alongside the Hudson River. There are crazy big hills, including this one steep 2-mile climb that we probably could have skipped if we'd turned onto 9W sooner. I think there's a path that runs parallel to 9W that we took for half the ride, and then found 9W around exit 2. In Nyack there was a great deli for lunch with vegan cake and sandwiches and other snacks. The whole thing, from our apartment to Nyack was about 50 miles.
Free iPod?
I promise not to use the blog for get-iPods-quick schemes in the future, but just this one time. I've heard this is legit, you just have to endure tons of spam. And, actually, I just switched my spam filter to be a little bit higher, and now I don't get more spam than before. So, here's the deal-- you click the link above, and if five people sign-up for offers, I get a free ipod. If you get five people to sign-up for free offers by clicking on your link, you get a free ipod. Some of the free offers aren't really free, but some of them are just, like, trying a music store for a month or installing AOL. So... a blatant plea to help me get a new iPod... if anyone else out there really wants a free iPod, and is interested in signing up anyway, please use me as a referrer.
I love free web hosting, even when your database gets erased.
