Month: January 2010

Saw Robert today at Tech in his student chef uniform. He looked great, very professional.
Had lunch at The Cove, shared a table with some amiable people from Yarmouthport and Chatham.
Met with a heating specialist who suggested (duuuhhh) that I use the attic for STORAGE and the basement for a playroom;
picked up meds at Stop & Shop;
priced lumber at Botello’s;
had lunch and purchased some baked goods;
got updates on an adult ed class I’d like to take at Tech;
met up with a very sharp ex-principal at the Cape chapter of AAUW;
got prices and advice at an unfinished furniture store in W. Yarmouth;
picked up paint in Hyannis;
returned a sign to a company in Cotuit;
dropped off a borrowed container at a friend’s house in Mashpee.
Planning to sit in on a 2-hour webinar tonight on C# 4.0.
Projects: raise the louver bar in the kitchen, paint kitchen, paint bedroom wardrobe and nightstand, clear out basement, put items to be stored in the attic, make the basement a play area for James and friends.

I finished painting the bedrooms walls this past Saturday, which leaves a little trim and touch-up. Think I’ll do the kitchen next. We all really hate painting, it’s messy and easy to make mistakes.
Put up some new vertical vinyl louvers yesterday and after 8+ years, it finally dawned on me that the track is about 1/8 inch too low, duh. This means either raising the track, which is mounted in 3 places, or cutting 23 louvers.
Picked up a vertical blind repair kit and replaced the broken vane carrier clip.
I forgot to stick around when I dropped Robert off last night so that I could see his culinary uniform. I think he forgot, too. I promised him I’d have lunch at their restaurant some time this week.

Yesterday, the ground had softened enough that I could do a little raking, leaves and gravel that had been scattered by a snow blower. It felt more like early spring than mid-winter.
This morning, there’s heavy frost.
Makes you wonder what’s ahead.

Jon Stewart classic

Per Gail Wilensky, senior fellow at Project HOPE and former HFCA administrator, in today’s New York Times:
Republican Senators Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and Richard Burr of North Carolina introduced a bill in the Senate that was co-sponsored by Republican Representatives Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and Devin Nunes of California in the House in May of 2009. This is a substantial bill that bears some similarities to the proposal by Senator John McCain during the 2008 campaign. House Republicans introduced a smaller, more incremental bill in July. While neither of these efforts received any serious consideration, they do provide Republicans with a legitimate claim of alternative ways to approach health care reform, at least in the near term.

One of the best descriptions so far of Martha Coakley: authoritarian.
Her handling of both the notorious Tooky Amirault case and her comments about the lesser-known Jason R. Beatrice matter pretty much proves the point.
Jason Beatrice’s 4 year old son was molested by a 71 year old Guatemalan janitor in a public restroom in a Bristol County Market Basket.
Beatrice slugged the janitor and both were arrested.
Martha Coakley’s office wasn’t directly involved, since the case was handled by the Bristol County DA.
She did defend the father’s arrest, though, saying that her office didn’t approve of do-it-yourselfery: “We can’t have people taking the law into their own hands. The father should have waited for the police.”
And I suppose allowed the perp to continue to manhandle his son until the cops sauntered in?
The janitor was released on personal recognizance and subsequently skipped the country, returning to Guatemala. At that point, charges were dropped against Beatrice because there was no victim.
Read about it here.

Look up here Mashpee is Zone 7.
From Better Homes and Gardens
Front yard garden

English garden

Summer cottage garden

Side yard cottage garden

Blue-Theme Garden

Don’t know where this was taken, but I recognize some of the plants.



Nice cold frame in southern Maine, from Chrismartenson.com – Fall/Winter Gardening

It was in the forties yesterday, and predicted to be about the same today.
A small crew from the Fairgrounds has been cutting down trees and bushes around the perimeter, to make room for more cars. They claim their property line runs up to the embankment.
Yesterday, they cut down a stand of 12-year old trees at the edge of the yard. I find it hard to believe that it’s been 12 years since they cleared, but there you are.
I’d been thinking about hiring someone to take down a couple of felled trees on the far right side. The guys from the Fair agreed to cut up the biggest one, which certainly was good of them, and I took care of the smaller one, a relatively lightweight pine trunk. That was the last of the yard cleanup, and I’m very pleased to have it done.

Anger has been spilling out of me lately, and the flap over Brit Hume’s repeated suggestion that Tiger Woods convert to Christianity has helped me figure out why:
I’m waiting for karma, but on a Christian timescale.
I want justice, but in this lifetime. I want to see those who have injured me or my family or my friends “get theirs”, not by being reincarnated as terrified prey for the denizens of the deep, but here and now, so we and everyone else can see it.