My car broke its finger

A while back, as I climbed into my Toyota Camry,* I heard something snap.

I looked down and pieces of the light switch on the left side of the steering column had broken. I think I either hit it with the telephone book that I was holding (I had just pulled my mail from the box and was heading back up our long driveway) or it caught in my coat.

I called it a broken finger. Poor car!





In any event, this was a major problem because I could not turn on the headlights. That meant no driving on rainy days or in the dark.

The car was long out of warranty. I stood in the driveway wondering what I should do. It was about 2:30 p.m. on a Thursday and my husband was at work. He's the go-to guy for automotive repair.

I went home and called the automotive place we dealt with. Dave said to bring it right over and he'd take a look at it.

My hope was that perhaps he could tape the parts back together so that the headlights burned all the time, but he could not. In fact, trying to make the headlights turn on by replacing the switch resulted in lights flashing and an electric shock to the fingers. Yowza!

So Dave ordered a whole new light switch assembly.

Four days later, I dropped off the car. In about six hours, I picked it back up again.

My car had a new finger, and I was out about $400.

And I still don't know how I broke the darned switch.



* My Camry is not involved in recent recalls. It is too old.

Save Our Lands

Sustainability means self-supporting. It doesn't mean a Walmart on every corner.

What would a good community be like?

Sunday I thought I might find out. I slipped over to Troutville to watch a video called Save Our Towns, Save Our Land, by Tom Hylton. It originally appeared on PBS.

I have long had an interest in conservation issues. As far back as the early 1990s, I ghostwrote a column called "Rural by Design" for a conservation group. I advocated things like greenways, cluster designs in development, and sustainability long before it became the "in" thing to do. Back then, it seemed, no one listened.

Fast forward to today. The Town of Troutville has embarked on a study to find itself. What kind of town is it and what does it want to be? A steering committee has been holding meetings to see what the public thinks.

The video was a part of this process. Unfortunately, technical difficulties meant the video did not show.

Enter then the Conservation Steward for the Valley Conservation Council, Genevieve Goss. She stepped forward and gave an excellent presentation on the issues.

Essentially, a good town would be sustainable, she said. It would have affordable housing. It would have health care (like a doctor's office, not necessarily a hospital). It would have economic viability (stores, retail, maybe even a place that provided jobs). It would support and enhance communities that already exist. In other words, it wouldn't be a drag on the county by taking anything away from it, it would "add to." And it would be a neighborhood and a community, one in which folks waved and said "howdy" and looked after one another's kids.

An essential element is a "sense of place." That means that when you are in a community, you know it. The Town of Fincastle, for instance, is identifiable by the Courthouse and maybe the church steeples. It is steeped in history, Goss said. Buchanan has shops, retail and the river. Troutville has ... well, that is what they're working on. I know it has a nice little park, for one thing. It has some cool stuff, it just needs packaging.

Another essential is "built on a human scale," Goss said. This means that it is built for feet, not wheels. It's people-sized, not Hummer-sized.

Other components include diversity - old, young, middle-aged, white, black, male, female - people in all their forms. It offers trees. It has parking to the rear of buildings and buried utility lines. The architecture fits its surroundings (I hate to say it, but think "Taubman" art building in downtown Roanoke - does that crashed spaceship really belong there? Really?).

And last, but not least, is maintenance and safety. A community must stay spruced up and cleaned up. The buildings shouldn't be run down and the trash shouldn't overflow. Civic and community pride in appearance is a must.

Making these kinds of decisions takes courage and effort. Zoning laws must be reviewed. People who don't want change must have things explained to them until they are otherwise convinced. It is a long process. Troutville is to be commended for taking on this challenge.

The Culture of Life

Ellen Goodman retired from column writing at the first of the year. I greatly miss her work. She wrote eloquently on issues that have long concerned me.

In October 2005, she spoke at Hollins University. What follows is the column I wrote then for The Fincastle Herald concerning her remarks. I thought I'd share it today. As the budget ax rolls across the state, and things important to women - education, health care, food stamps - are removed from the public domain, creating an even more impoverished state for women, it seems relevant.

*****

It proved easier to kick in the door than to change what was on the other side.
Ellen Goodman, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist, used that analogy last week at a lecture at Hollins University when she said that the women’s movement is stuck. For 150 years, women’s rights moved forward, but true societal change has proved difficult.

In other words, women managed to obtain a form of equal responsibility, but not true equality. We did not effect social change.

Instead we have legions of stressed-out superwomen who try to live up to the mythology of bringing home the bacon, cooking it, and never letting the man forget he’s a man, as the old song goes.

Have it all, be it all, do it all, in other words.

Women have tried to keep the best of the traditional female roles while obtaining the best of the nontraditional, Goodman said. She called it an effort to change without upsetting society.

But society has to change if women are to have effective leadership roles. It is the values of women that society is presently lacking, after all.

Women’s values are those we traditionally think of as feminine – nurturing, caregiving, cooperative values. Values barely on the radar of the national dialogue.

I call it a culture of life. That culture would focus on issues like health care, education, child care, and poverty, to name a few. They are the values of society that make us care about one another.

Thirty years ago women moved into the work force hoping to bring these values into the workplace with them. There were visions of a corporate work environment that understood women, where CEOs nodded knowingly when a woman needed a year off to care for a child. Women, as the child bearers, would bring about radical change.

Instead, women moved into male roles and adopted male values. It’s all about power and success, not changing the way an organization and society surrounding it operates so that it values the contribution of the all of its members.

What we have today is a net loss of caregivers, Goodman said. We don’t have people attending to their communities and to society at large. We don’t have folks stepping up to do the right thing.

Locally, just take a look at the low volunteer rates in the rescue squads, for example. Emergency services are short of people and in Botetourt they now bill your insurance for something that once was free because there aren’t enough volunteers to man the vehicles during the day. That’s just one example; practically every volunteer group can say the same.

Welfare reform was a turning point for the women’s movement, Goodman said. Suddenly, everyone agreed that poor women ought to work. No free ride in these United States.

Goodman said we have a culture that has middle and upper class women going to college, earning degrees, finding fulfilling jobs, and then quitting those jobs when it comes time to raise a child, because no child care in the world is good enough for that woman’s child.

Lower class women have to work and stay at their job, because there is no childcare in the world bad enough for that woman’s child.

No child care is good enough for the CEO’s kid. No child care is bad enough for the welfare mom, Goodman said. What does that say about this society?

In a culture of life, children would be viewed equally, money notwithstanding. The age-old question of who will care for the kids would be answered in some way that was fair to everyone, because as a value just being alive would be among the highest and most revered. Each child – each life – would be valued for the soul glistening behind the young eyes. Souls don’t have color or checkbooks.

It just isn’t that way today. Women haven’t brought those feminine values into the workplace or into the political arena. We will never have it all, but are we even striving for it anymore?

We won’t move forward until there are childcare and health care programs that care for everyone regardless of the color of their money. A culture of life acknowledges the valuable reproductive role of women and allows for flex time and time off to raise the children without punishing a woman when she returns to the workforce.

The only way to effect change in these times is to vote your values. Not an issue, but your values. I really believe if the values of women move to the fore, the issues which divide us at times will become, if not moot, then less dominating. The screaming we hear is symptomatic of a much bigger problem.

This new millennium was to usher in a kinder, gentler, patriarchy. But as Goodman said, it’s still a traditional man’s world. I wonder if there will ever be a place in it for those feminine values.

A Creator

Becky over at Peevish Pen recently put a link to a personality color test. I love to take those kinds of things - you just never know when something will tell you that magic something that will send you off in a new direction - so I headed over there.

I wasn't surprised when I turned out to be a Creator just like Becky. We are, after all, in the same field (we're writers) and at least wave at one another from similar circles.

My second-best choice was different, though. Here's what the test said about me:

You're a CREATOR
Key Words: Nonconforming, Impulsive, Expressive, Romantic, Intuitive, Sensitive, and Emotional

These original types place a high value on aesthetic qualities and have a great need for self-expression. They enjoy working independently, being creative, using their imagination, and constantly learning something new. Fields of interest are art, drama, music, and writing or places where they can express, assemble, or implement creative ideas.

CREATOR OCCUPATIONS

Suggested careers are Advertising Executive, Architect, Web Designer, Creative Director, Public Relations, Fine or Commercial Artist, Interior Decorator, Lawyer, Librarian, Musician, Reporter, Art Teacher, Broadcaster, Technical Writer, English Teacher, Architect, Photographer, Medical Illustrator, Corporate Trainer, Author, Editor, Landscape Architect, Exhibit Builder, and Package Designer.

CREATOR WORKPLACES

Consider workplaces where you can create and improve beauty and aesthetic qualities. Unstructured, flexible organizations that allow self-expression work best with your free-spirited nature.

Suggested Creator workplaces are advertising, public relations, and interior decorating firms; artistic studios, theaters and concert halls; institutions that teach crafts, universities, music, and dance schools. Other workplaces to consider are art institutes, museums, libraries, and galleries.

2nd BEST OCCUPATIONAL CATEGORY

You're an ORGANIZER

Key Words: Self-Control, Practical, Self-Contained, Orderly, Systematic, Precise, and Accurate
These conservative appearing, plotting-types enjoy organizing, data systems, accounting, detail, and accuracy. They often enjoy mathematics and data management activities such as accounting and investment management. Persistence and patience allows them to do detailed paperwork, operate office machines, write business reports, and make charts and graphs.

*****

I am not sure how those two different personality aspects go together, and truthfully I do not consider myself that well organized as stated in the second best category. I am detail-oriented but I hate math. But if this is true, maybe this is why I have such difficulty in terms of career. I am two very different people!

If you want to see what you are, here's the link to the test.

Thursday Thirteen

Today, I give you 13 of my favorite online video games. Pick one and kill an hour today! If you have trouble with the links, you can type in the game name and find them on other sites than the ones to which I have linked. I'll give them stars, too, from 1 to 5, with 5 being something I really enjoy.

1. Bubble town. This is a shooter game. You match three and those three vanish; the goal is to get rid of all the little "bubble heads" before they get into the danger zone. This game has a story in that the little heads have names. I don't call them what the game does; for me, there is pretty purple lady, the dead head girl, the fuzz ball, the orange devil, the green thing from Pac Man, and others. I am weird that way sometimes. 5 stars

2. Peggle. In this game, you release a ball and it goes down and knocks out pegs. You have to knock all the pegs of a specific color. It's a lot like Plinko (I think that is the game) on the Price is Right, but, um, not. 3.5 stars

3. Bubble Spinner. This is another "shoot and match 3" game, but I find it very calming for some reason. Maybe it's the music? 5 stars

4. Scramble. I play this on Facebook. It is a Zynga game. I have the highest score among my friends but people beat me all the time when I play live. It leaves me humble. 5 stars

5. Bejeweled. Match three and watch things fall. Go for the high score! 4.5 stars

6. Filler 2. In this game, you take a square area and place circles in it. You only have so many tries to fill the game with circles. It is very addictive. 4 stars

7. Rise of Atlantis. Match three and move through the boards to find artifacts from the lost city. 3.5 stars

8. Ice Breakers. This is another match three (like Bejeweled & Rise of Atlantis) with a fast pace. The boards get harder and harder but you have to build the city before the penguin king gets there! 3.5 stars

9. Collapse. This is an old game but I like it. You have to match color tiles and click on them to make them disappear. 3.5 stars

10. Alchemy. This is also an old game that I enjoy. You have to match tiles and make the back board turn into gold. 3.5 stars

11. Jewel Quest (any version). Another match three. Move through the boards to get to the treasure! 3 stars

12. Cubis. A 3-D matching game. I am not any good at this one but I like the challenge of it. Apparently I don't see in "3-D". 3 stars

13. Word Challenge. This is another game I play on Facebook, and again I have the top score among my friends. But I am nowhere near the highest scores in the game lists. 4 stars


Here we go with my 127th Thursday Thirteen! You can read my other TT's here. Learn more and read other people's TT's here. Have fun!

No lights

This morning, as I lay snoozing, the power went out.

That meant that the air purifier, which we run at night to cleanse the air and to make a nice humming noise so things like the refrigerator turning on won't wake me, turned off.

I struggled awake.

My husband was in the shower. I learned this when I heard him curse. Groggily I reached beside me for the flashlight that I always keep on my bedside table. I flipped it on and hurried in to him. I placed the light on the counter so he could see to get the lather off and climb out of the tub.

I was still half asleep as I moved through darkness and went for the other flashlights in the living room.

I am not much of a morning person.

The minutes ticked by. I thought the power would return any moment, but after about five minutes I realized it would be out a while.

My husband dressed. He had to go to Lynchburg to a class today and needed to leave. His father uses an oxygen machine and so he hurried over there (they live across the street) to make sure that his dad could get the generator hooked up.

Then he came back and quickly started our generator. He showed me how to turn it off and on ("Come on, wake up!" he barked at me at one point as I tried to focus) and then he left.

With the generator running, I was able to plug in the electric tea kettle and boil water. We also could hook up the water pump so that we had cold water for drinking and flushing the toilets. What we didn't have was hot water for long showers or the ability to wash clothes or heat the house unless I built a fire in the fireplace.

Because we still had a little water in the hot water tank, I hurried through a lukewarm shower and dressed. I had my morning tea and then instead of my usual egg I had instant oatmeal for breakfast.

Then I realized that one of the toilets had stopped up. I unstopped that with a plunger and flushed a few times to make sure it would work.

I waited a few minutes for the water tank to fill back up. In the meantime, I managed to get the garage door up and back the car out (the garage door uses electricity and I wanted it free in case of an emergency with my in-laws). Then I flipped the switch on the generator to the "off" position to save gasoline.

The dead silence of a house without power was incredible. Total stillness. No furnace ran, no dishwasher hummed, no electrical outlets buzzed. The only sound I heard was the wind roaring around the corners of the house.

I put on a sweater, picked up the newspaper and began to read. And then just like that, the house roared back to life.

The power was out for about two hours. It's amazing how dependent upon electricity we all are.

Just listen to it hum.

Boots

The day of our first snow, way back in December when it dumped about 20 inches here, I was out and about and arrived home just as the first flakes fell.

I went to find my snow boots but they were not where I thought they were in the garage. After much searching, I called my husband (who has managed to be at work during every snowfall this year) and asked him if he had seen my boots.

"I threw them away. They had dry-rotted," he told me.

Oops.

I went through that first snow with no boots. Tennis shoes are a poor substitute, I must say.

Five days after the first snow, when I could finally get the car out, I went in search of boots.

There were no boots to be had. The stores were sold out. Apparently everyone had needed boots.

For weeks I looked but still no boots. Finally, after Christmas, my husband took me to Southern States in Troutville.

There we found a pair of mud boots.



They slipped over my sneakers and at least gave me a little protection from the snow.



However, they are a pain to pull off and on over a shoe. I started to put an old pair of tennis shoes down in the mud boot, so I'd just have to pull my foot in and out, but then had a great idea. I used a pair of fake Crocs instead. They work great! I just leave them in the boot. Now I don't have to worry about my foot slipping out and I don't have to do anything but slip my foot into the boot and into the plastic shoe, shove my pants down inside it, and snap it shut.



I always knew these plastic shoes had to be good for something!

Ugly Snow

After the snow has been around a while, it starts looking pretty ugly.



A big pile of dirty snow by the driveway.



Piles of snow in the backyard. My husband scooped away some of it, pushing it into the yard, because we are expecting more snow and there is no where to put it.



Mounds of dirty snow and a driveway still slick with ice.



See how it is all piled up? It will be here until March!



Poor deer are having to find their grass where they can. They will be skinny in the spring and could have sickly fawns from lack of food this winter.

Snow babies

Mother Nature doesn't care if there is 16 inches of snow on the ground - and up to 5 feet in drifts in places.

When it is time for the babies to come, they come.

Our beef cows are older cows who have had many babies. They do not like barns and they stay outside. They are pasture fed and in the winter my husband takes them hay every day. When it is time to have their calf, they wander from the herd, find a comfy spot, and pop it out.

Because we never deal with heifers (young cows that have never had a calf before), we seldom have problems. But we still pay attention and watch the animals so that if something should go wrong, we can help.

Saturday, two cows had calves. Early in the day, the first cow had her baby on the far side of the farm under a cedar tree. Everything was fine, but then the baby strayed from momma and found himself hung up in a snow drift. My father-in-law spied the trouble from his front window and gave us a call.



Husband hopped on the big Ford tractor and used the snow plow to furrow his way to momma and baby, where he reunited them. He took momma cow hay, too, so she could eat and keep baby warm.

Meanwhile, as he cared for that momma and baby, another momma cow had a calf right in front of the house under a cedar tree! I saw it happening from the window and called him on the cell. "Don't put the tractor away yet!" I told him. "I think we need another bale of hay over here."



He used the snowplow to make a track to this side of the farm, too.



And here is mom and baby beneath the cedar, waiting on him to bring them hay.

Books: Through Wolf's Eyes

Through Wolf's Eyes
By Jane Linkskold
Copyright 2001
596 pages

Excerpts on the authors site are here.

Fantasy author Jane Linkskold takes on the myth of the feral child raised by wolves in this first book of a six-part series.

Firekeeper is a girl who thinks she is a wolf. Her family was killed in a fire when she was two, and the wolves, with the help of some mysterious speakers, take her in and raise her.

When she is 15, the land is visited by humans who are searching for a banished prince and his family. The old king is in need of an heir because his other two children have died.

The humans find the remains of the prince's encampment. They also find Firekeeper; or rather, Firekeeper and a wolf named Blind Seer and a peregrine falcon named Elation find them.

The men assume she is the prince's young daughter.

Derian, a red-haired youth of about 19, is given the task of civilizing the young girl for a short time before she is presented to the king as his granddaughter.

The book is filled with political intrigue as the many cousins who wander about the palace attempt to curry favor with the king in order to be named his heir. But the king has a nephew who was raised in a distant land, a child who was supposed to bring the two kingdoms together. He decides he should meet this relative before he makes up his mind.

Firekeeper, meanwhile, attempts to learn the ways of the courts and civilized society yet she continues to converse in her manner with the wolf. She roams the woods and will not wear shoes.

She does not learn to read and she has trouble with the language. Her dialogue throughout the book is stilted, though it gets better toward the end. Hopefully this will go away in the next book; I found it a bit aggravating at times though I understand why the author used dialogue in this manner.

This book is strong on character, a little short on magic, and full of webs of intrigue. The world has good backstory and supporting characters are interesting in their own right. I look forward to picking up the next books in the series.

Thursday Thirteen

I know it's Valentine's this weekend, but I have snow on my mind. There's so much of it out the window!

So here are folklore and quotes about snow. Some of them I heard growing up.

1. If it snows before 7, it quits after 11.

Or maybe it is the other way around.

2. If the snow lays around on the ground and doesn't go away quickly, it is waiting for more snow to join it.

3. If the snow blows out of the trees, it will snow again. If it melts out, that is the last snow.

4. If the deer are out eating during the day, snow is sure to fall.

5. From Japan: In ancient times, it was believed that a spirit called Snow Woman caused men traveling in snowstorms to sleep, ultimately causing their deaths.

6. From Finland: Snow is an ancient king who has three daughters: Thin Snow, Thick Snow, and Snow Storm.

7. From Germany: It was commonly believed in old times that Old Mother Frost caused snow by shaking the feathers from her bed. These feathers would then fall to Earth as snow. I have also heard that as Mother Nature instead of Mother Frost.

8. Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand -- and melting like a snowflake.
-Marie Beyon Ray

9. Courage is not the towering oak that sees storms come and go; it is the fragile blossom that opens in the snow. -Alice Mackenzie Swaim

10. One measure of how creative you are is how you respond to changes in your circumstances and environment. How flexible are you? Consider how water adapts to its environment: evaporation, condensation, snowflake, melting, flowing, goes around rocks, fills containers, etc. - Author Unknown

11. For many years I was a self-appointed inspector of snowstorms and rainstorms and did my duty faithfully, though I never received payment for it. -Henry David Thoreau

12. The future lies before you, like paths of pure white snow. Be careful how you tread it, for every step will show. - Author Unknown

13. Nature has no mercy at all. Nature says, I'm going to snow. If you have on a bikini and no snowshoes, that's tough. I am going to snow anyway. -Maya Angelou

Lots of people play Thursday Thirteen: find out more about it here. My other Thursday Thirteens are here. This is my 126th time I've done this!

Tongue in cheek

Over on Facebook, some of the locals (Republicans) have started a "cut my taxes, I want small government" type of group. This is a response to a comment that the chairman of the Board of Supervisors made about increasing the meals and lodging taxes, as well as the new real estate reassessment numbers, which for some folks (including myself) went up in spite of the national decline in housing values.

People cry, "don't raise my taxes" but they never say what they will do without. Statewide, you hear that with the gas tax, for instance. Fix the roads but don't raise taxes to do it. Do these people not realize it would be cheaper to pay the gas tax than to fix their shocks or their busted tires? Not to mention the time spent without a car while it is being fixed. So when I hit a pothole, I thank a Republican.

I have no children. I receive absolutely nothing from the school system, but they did educate me a very long time ago. This county has no trash pickup, they don't clear my sidewalk because I don't have one. I do use the libraries and I expect a sheriff's deputy to come with siren blasting should I have need to dial 911. Otherwise I don't really get much for my tax dollars. But frankly, I consider it a privilege to live here, and I don't mind paying my taxes and I don't mind paying so that others may have services, even if I don't use them. But apparently I am a rarity.

Anyway, locally, this county does not have serious government bloat. But let's just cut these taxes and services. I want to see what we will do without. I have been writing about the county budget for five years; I happen to have a copy of the county's budget (but not the school budget) right on my desk.

So let's talk numbers. The county spends about $90 million a year. The school system gets over half of that, about $53 million.

That $90 million comes from state, federal and local taxes. Local taxes - the ones the supervisors have any control over - make up about $41 million. That includes real estate, personal property, business taxes, machinery and tools - all of that stuff. The monies are all lumped together in the budget, so it is difficult to tell what state monies pay for and what local dollars purchase. But $41 million is less than half the budget.

So let's cut some stuff. I'm going to try to cut $41 million out of the local county budget. That means there would be little to no local tax! Yippee.

By the way, just for fun let's say that this $41 million works out to be about $2,700 annually for each tax-paying person in the county, if you figure 15,000 of us pay taxes (that's less than half of the population paying taxes, and I honestly don't know what the real figure is. I'm just guessing.) That really isn't what we pay because businesses pay big chunks in machinery and tools taxes and business license taxes, etc. But for my purposes, I am going to look at it like that.

Using this fantasy, each million the county spends costs each taxpayer about $66.

Numbers are so much fun to manipulate.

But here we go! I'm making cuts (this is all tongue-in-cheek, for those who can't recognize sarcasm when they read it).

1. Parks and recreation. We don't need all those little ball games for the kids, do we? I sure don't. We don't need those ball fields at the schools mowed (the county parks & rec folks do that) and we don't need that senior van that picks up the old folks and takes them to the doctor. We don't need the fishing thing, or the Easter Egg Hunt, or the bridge club for the older generation. We don't need the grounds mowed at Greenfield. Let's get rid of all of that. That's $1.1 million for parks & recreation staff, $77,000 for the senior van program. Oh yeah, let's close the Sports Complex, too. That's another $350,000 right there. We're up to $1.5 million gone. Here's your $99 a year back!

2. Libraries. I guess these go next, even though I do love my library. But we don't need free books, DVDs, books on tapes, right? We don't need access to the Internet, free WiFi. We don't need a place to take the kids for children's program. We don't need those meeting rooms, either (because we're going to nail these buildings shut and maybe sell them). Nevermind that enough stuff is checked out to represent frequent visits by all 32,000 county residents. Let's close these suckers, all of them. That will save $1.1 million. Here's another $70 a year back to you! Will you buy books and DVDs with it?

3. Emergency Services. I hate to see these guys go, but we used to be all-volunteer so we'll go back to that. I mean, so what if when my mother was dying of cancer we had to wait for an hour and 20 minutes for an ambulance to come from Eagle Rock? So what if she was in so much pain we couldn't touch her and all we could do was watch her writhe in agony while we waited for help? We have to keep those tax dollars down! So let's lose this $850,000 in staffing costs plus the $1.5 million the county gives to the volunteers who still run calls. Whew! That's a big cut, with $2.4 million gone. Here's $150 a year back to you! I personally hope it burns a big hole in your damn pocket. May you never need these services, you A-hole.

4. Animal control. Here's a quick way to lose a half-million from the budget! Besides, we don't need the dog catcher coming to get the strays, do we? We don't need him to come and shoot the wounded deer on the side of the road, or get the skunk out of the basement, or any of those other things that animal control people do. Here's $33 back to you!

Gosh, all of these services gone and we're only up to $5.5 million dollars. I've only saved each taxpayer $360! Who knew that those dollars could do so much? Well, let's keep cutting!

5. I want to cut out the school buses. Unfortunately, I don't have a copy of the school budget, just the county one, and yes, they are different. So I am going to make this number up. Let's say it costs $2 million to bus the kids. It might only cost $1 million or it may cost $3 million I don't know, but I consider busing a waste, just like you maybe consider libraries a waste. I don't care if you have to quit your job to get your kid to and from school. That isn't my problem. You can go work the night shift. I want my $120 a year back, not spent on hauling your kid so she can get an education.

6. Teachers. Again, I don't have numbers for this, but I think 20-25 students per classroom is too few. Let's double those class sizes. Surely it doesn't matter if your kid needs a little individual attention, right? Let's give her a Popsicle and stick her in the back of the room. This has to save at least $2 million, too, wouldn't you think, if we get rid of half of the teachers? I like these big numbers and getting my money back! Whoo! That's another $120 a year in my pocket!

7. School athletics. I don't care about this one at all. We don't need the football teams, wrestling, baseball, any of that crap. Again, I don't have these numbers but I'm going to say $2 million (because it's an easy figure) and do away with this stuff, too. Because that's another $120 a year in my pocket! Whoo! I can go buy myself a football with that if I want.

8. Okay, back to the county's real budget. Oh, here's refuse disposal. That's $600,000. That's more than $33 annually out of my pocket to get rid of trash. Let's go back to dumping stuff in sinkholes and contaminating the water supply. And I like having the trash along the side of the road, too, don't you? Isn't it colorful?

9. Here's a line item that confuses every one. It's "comprehensive services" which I think is actually foster care. This is $1.4 million dollars. Let's do away with foster care because, well, I don't have kids so I certainly don't need it. What do I care if some child is abused and neglected and left to die in the street? Surely someone will take her in, right? And if not, well ... that's what the pauper's cemetery is for.

10. Let's see. Planning and zoning uses up $377,000 of the county's budget. Let's do away with that. Now, when the house next door to you goes into foreclosure and a pig farmer buys it to make a hog mansion, don't squeal! Because you've saved about $10 annually by not having a planning and zoning department.

11. Community organizations. The county supports a number of nonprofits, like TAP and the Free Clinics and things like that. They give $282,700 in that, which is less than $10 a year out of your pocket. Let's do away with that, too.

Let's see. How much have I cut so far? Gosh, just $14.2 million. I've only saved Joe Taxpayer about $950 annually. I'd better cut some more stuff!

12. How about we cut the voter registrar? Let's not even have that at all. Because we don't care if we vote, and you know it's all rigged anyway. That's $209,000 saved.

13. The sheriff has a big budget of $4.1 million. Let's cut that in half and get rid of $2 million from the sheriff's budget. That means we have half the deputies and detectives on the road. Your stuff get stolen from your back yard? Tough. Hope you have insurance.

14. There is also a $3.5 million budget for the jail. Let's get rid of $3 million of that. When the murders and rapists escape and come after your wife and daughter, I guess that's just your bad luck.

Gosh. There are 14 cuts and I've only chopped out $19.4 million. What else should go, do you think? How about the courts? Commonwealth's attorney? After all, with fewer deputies, we won't be prosecuting as many criminals. Maybe we could get rid of the probation officers? Really, don't you think more of these cuts need to come from schools? Maybe we could close a few schools. Do you volunteer your school for a closure?

Anyway, see, I've halved your local tax dollars by half. Look at all the things you no longer have to pay for.

Is it really worth it? I don't think so. I like having libraries, and I like having the parks mowed. I think kids learn better with smaller classes and I want the youth of today to grow up to be productive and vibrant citizens tomorrow. Even if they aren't mine.

I want foster care, social services, mental health care. As a citizen, it is part of my responsibility to ensure that folks who can't care for themselves are taken care of. Handing out $66 a year to ensure that an abused child is cared for is absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things.

I wish people would stop and think. Because it is obvious to me that they really don't know what they're saying. They don't really know what they're asking for. They don't realize, or maybe they just don't care, that their $66 out of pocket goes a very long way when combined with everyone else's.

All they want to do is cry, "lower my taxes."

For Want of a Sled

Except for one day, I have been stuck at home since January 29. The January 30 snow trapped me, and I did not make it off the hill until Thursday, February 4. The snow the following day left a mess.

The driveway looks like this:



It's very steep. And quite long--almost a quarter of a mile.



I drive a Toyota Camry with a 4 cylinder engine and front wheel drive. The car does fine most of the time but getting it up the ice-and-snow covered driveway is another story.

I could park it and walk it, but the snow is slippery. I am a bit of a klutz. The two together spell "broken arm" or "twisted ankle" or some such. It is not a good plan.

My husband in past snows has actually shoveled out that hill, not with the tractor and blade, which is what you see above. No, he's used his back muscles and sweat to get all the way to the gravel. This time, I have suggested he forgo that. He's pulled something in his shoulder and I don't see any reason to aggravate it.

I cleared the deck myself, for the most part, pulling on boots about every hour and heading out with a squeegee and broom to keep it clear. I have a wounded wrist and I'm not really able to shovel the driveway, too.

With more snow expected, I expect to be home again for most of the week. My husband drives a big pickup truck with four wheel drive and all; he comes and goes at his leisure. If I need to go out, I wait until he can take me.

It is one of the great advantages of working at home.

Dogs

Lately, I have wanted a dog.

Folks who know me will be surprised. Not because I dislike animals, but because I am highly allergic. I am go-to-bed-for-a-month allergic, not just watery-eyes-and-sneezing allergic. When I am around cats and dogs, I choke up, my asthma goes nuts, I lose my voice, my head stuffs up and feels like a big hot air balloon, I have vertigo and I can't stand up. I am quite sick and it lasts for weeks, not days.

So I don't have inside animals.

But I used to.

Growing up, we had lots of dogs. I am not sure I can recall all of them. There was Prince and Princess, two Dalmatians. I think one of them was run over by a milk truck (this was when I was very small and we lived in Salem for a while). There was a German Shepherd whose name I can't remember. Lady? Maybe. And there was a dog named Jinx in there somewhere. Seems like there was a parade of dogs before I was six years old.

We had a dark poodle named Heidi for a very long time; she had puppies, and one of those was Major. We had him for a long time, too. He was white. He died in my brother's arms one day; he had been chasing me in my car as I left for one of my first solo drives. I was 16.

Schooner was a collie or maybe a collie-German shepherd mix. He was around for a very long time, too. He died after I married and left home, I think.

Trixie was my mother's dog; she was a black mixed mutt, rather small. There was another at my parents house about this time whose name escapes me as well. These two dogs came about the time I was leaving home.

My dog, the one that was mine alone, was Ginger, and I purchased her at a flea market in 1984. James and I hadn't been married but a year. I was home alone much of the time and I thought a dog might help.

Ginger was part Eskimo Spitz and part something else, maybe terrier. She never was very big, and unfortunately about this time my allergies worsened (or maybe I finally figured out their cause) and we had to keep her outside on all but the coldest nights. She had her own little house and a blanket, though. I kept the house filled with cedar shavings and I bathed her and combed her, but I did all of that outside. And I had to wear a mask.

She moved with us up the hill from the little house we'd rented from my husband's grandmother, but she didn't like her new home. For a long time I had to drive down the hill and gather her up because she kept going back to the old house. We finally had to pen her up, which I hated, but it was better than letting her wander to the road where the cement trucks raced.

Every day when I came home from work or school, she jumped up and down and greeted me like I'd been gone for weeks. When I began working at home, and we could let her out of her pen because I was there to watch her, I would rise from my desk periodically and tap on the window glass to draw her attention. She would wag her tail and bark at me and sometimes she would put her two front paws on the house and stand on her hind legs, her tail wagging, while she looked in at me. Often I went to the door and bent down and petted her. Then I washed my hands. Damn allergies.

Ginger lived for 17 years, or 119 years in doggy years, which was a very long time for a small dog. I like to think we took good care of her even if we did make her stay outside. She became very feeble and arthritic and when she seemed to be in so much pain that it made us cry to watch her, we put her to sleep. That was in 2001; a double whammy because my mother had passed away about seven months prior.

We did not get another dog. For months I would go to the window and look out, expecting to see her waiting for me. I looked for her every time I drove home. Finally, I stopped hoping.

These days, I have the deer, the rabbits, and the cows, but they are not the same. Some days you want to be licked. You want to feel fur. You want to feel a cold nose under your arm. (Ginger used to poke her nose under my arm, asking me to rub her.) You want to see someone waiting for you. You want that unconditional love.

I know I won't get another dog; my allergies are too bad now. They are worse than they ever were. I can't even visit the homes of friends who have pets, I don't care how much they dust and vacuum. I couldn't love on a dog, couldn't have it inside. I couldn't properly care for a dog and that would be unfair to the animal.

But some days, I want a dog.

Still More Snow, Feb. 5-6, 2010

More Snow Feb. 5-6, 2010

Snow of February 5-6, 2010

Thursday Thirteen: Sites for Writers

Today, I bring you 13 useful websites for writers.

1. Character Building Workshop. If you're interested in creating a character and are stuck, this is a good place to start. If you're interested in taking courses or just being involved in a community, then you might like the Writer's Village home site. They also offer a free 7-week class, which I have taken and found helpful.

2. Writer's Market "Paid Services." This is a listing of stuff writers might like to pay for, like conferences, contests and self-publishing. This is a new site and I haven't fully explored it but it looks like a nice reference.

3. 50 awesome resources for writers. This site has software, most of it open source and free, that writers might find useful.

4. Funds for Writers. C. Hope Clark offers up a listing of grants and contests. She has three different newsletters, two of which are free, and her paid listings are worth the small price she charges.

5. Absolute Write. This site used to be one of my favorites but I find it a little difficult to navigate these days. Even so, there is an awful lot of information there and it is worth checking out.

6. Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Even if this is not your genre, there is a lot of information on this site. The "Writer Beware" site in particular is invaluable. There are a lot of people out there who just want your money.

7. MediaBistro. This site is for writing of all kinds, and it offers classes, information, etc. Some of it is free.

8. The Chicago Manual of Style. This is where you go when you need to know where the commas fall, whether to write out numbers or use numerals, that kind of thing. The "questions and answers" section that comes out once a month is a hoot.

9. U. S. Copyright Office. One of the first places you should check out. Understanding and knowing what you're giving away before you sign a contract is incredibly important.

10. Writer's Weekly. This offers up-t0-date information on the industry. Very informative.

11. Behind the Name. If you're interested in naming characters, this is a wonderful site. If you just want to know what your name means, it's a good site, too!

12. National Writers Union. More industry information from a different perspective.

13. American Society of Journalists and Authors. This organization has a strict membership requirement but they offer free information that anyone who writes should find valuable. They send out a public portion of their newsletter each month which offers up interesting articles.

Lots of people play Thursday Thirteen: find out more about it here. My other Thursday Thirteens are here. This is my 125th time I've done this!

Ice photo

Passion Potion #5

Sometimes I do the free things at tarot.com. They are, well, free, for one thing. Occasionally interesting.

The most recent free one was a numerology thing. This is what the sample report gave me. I wonder what folks who know me would say to this?

***********

Your Hidden Passion Number is 5

You love travel, change, and new challenges. You are highly adaptable and versatile. You have a talent for languages, and are generally good with words. Writing, promotion, and public relations work suit you perfectly.

You are sensual and a bit impulsive. You love to satisfy your senses, which can get you into trouble. Overindulgence in food, drink, sex, and drugs are common among people with too many 5s -- six or more.

You are resourceful and original. You have a good sense of humor and a quick tongue.

Your desire for freedom is extremely strong and it will take effort and discipline to stick with whatever it is you started. There is a tendency to give up a project or situation prematurely.

You may be interested in too many things, which can make it hard for you to apply yourself to one area successfully.

You are very unconventional.

Commitment in relationships and your work is fundamental to your happiness. You may have a tendency to wander from person to person, job to job, making depth of relationship or deep expertise difficult.

*************

I would argue that being married for 26 years makes that last part, at least with regards to person to person, a little, um, wrong. It takes a lot of work to stay married that long.

Also, I have been freelancing since 1994, which is a long time. But, freelancing is kind of a "jack of all trades and master of none" type of job, so I think there is a bit of truth there.

As for the rest of it... well, I can't argue with much of it.