Saturday 9: Fool on the Hill (1967)
Unfamiliar with today's song? We can't help you. The YouTube copyright police have removed the Beatles' version. (Bad copyright police!)
1) Friday was April Fool's Day. Did you pull any pranks? Did anyone put anything over on you?
A. I do not like April Fool's Day. No one pranked me, but I had one helluva bad day.
2) The practice of playing tricks on one another on April 1 dates back at least to the 14th century and Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales includes a mention of it. Geoffrey Chaucer has been called England's greatest poet. Quote a bit of poetry for us. (It doesn't have to be English, or great.)
A. Come live with me and be my love,
and we shall all the pleasures prove
that hills and valleys, dale and fields,
and all the craggy mountains yield.
- The Passionate Shepherd, by C. Marlowe
3) Beatle Paul is a huge Elvis fan and is happy to own the bass that was played on Elvis' 1954 recording of "That's All Right, Mama." Tell us about one of your prized possessions.
A. My wedding band is of plain white gold, small and thin.
4) In contrast to his easygoing persona, Sir Paul has been described by former band mate Ringo Starr as strong willed and "determined to get his own way." Do you consider yourself strong willed and determined? Or are you more easy going?
A. Apparently I am an uptight, anxiety-ridden bitch. I suppose that puts me in the "strong willed and determined" camp. Sort of.
5) The Beatles once bought a Greek island, planning to live and record there, but sold it after a few months because it started to seem like a bad, expensive idea. Tell us about a purchase that gave you buyer's remorse.
A. We bought a 1999 Ford Taurus that had more problems than a gnome with a stick stuck up his nose. We finally traded it in on another one, and lost money in the process on a "non-transferable" warranty we'd purchased with the car. Now I drive a Toyota.
6) Legend has it that the Beatles officially broke up in Disney World. John Lennon was staying at Disney's Polynesian Village Resort when he received and signed the court papers that dissolved the group. Have you ever conducted business while on vacation?
A. I'm a writer. I have written many a thing whilst on vacation, some of which ended up published, some not. So yes, I have conducted business while on vacation.
7) George Harrison loved puttering around in the garden and dedicated his autobiography to "gardeners everywhere." Do you have a green thumb?
A. I have a rose garden. When I was well, I kept it up very nicely; now it is lucky if the poor plants are fed once a year and the old roses cut back. Generally things I plant grow well, if I am well.
8) Ringo regrets not having saved more Beatles memorabilia, which he realizes now would be worth a fortune. Are you a pack rat?
A. A bit. I still have my high school annuals, a few things like that. Lots of books and a few old computers that I don't know what to do with. Maybe I should take the hard drives out of those and let my husband use them for target practice.
9) Random question: Which do you prefer, Girl Scout cookies or Boy Scout popcorn?
A. Neither one.
_____________
I encourage you to visit other
participants in Saturday
9 posts and leave a comment.
Because there are no rules, it is your choice. Saturday 9 players hate rules. We
love memes, however.
Saturday, April 02, 2016
Friday, April 01, 2016
No April Fool
I dislike April Fool's Day. I never liked it as a child and I certainly do not like it now, not when we as a nation have become a bunch of mean-spirited fruitcakes who don't mind upsetting or scaring other people, even the ones we love.
It ranks right up there with being pinched on St. Patrick's Day because I am not wearing green.
Sure, sometimes it is fun to pull an interesting prank. The Great Smokey Mountains site today put up a page that says they are bringing polar bears into the park. That is kind of funny and a unique hoax, but gullible people believe it; I've already seen folks get upset about it on Facebook.
One of our local radio stations always pulls a prank. Once they said the city was going to sell one of our local landmarks, and for hours I listened to irate people call in. Whether they were playing the "game" or actually believed the "news," I do not know.
I have a great sense of humor, people tell me. It is rather sardonic and can be sarcastic and sometimes you might need to pay attention to actually get what I'm saying. Witty is a word someone used to describe me not long ago. I love a good joke as much as anyone; I think Monty Python is hilarious, and Big Bang Theory makes me laugh every week.
My friends always find me amusing; I have been known to make good friends snort water during lunches (not intentionally, really).
But these days many people are mean. Someone posted a list of things *not* to do on Facebook today - here it is:
Really? We have to remind people not to do this stuff, ever, as a joke? It is one thing to tell someone their shoes are untied and make them look down (ha ha) but quite another to call your best friend and tell her you've decided to kill yourself. Good grief. That is not a joke. That's a formula for an immediate phone call to 911.
I do not find cruelty funny. I am not a fan of slap stick (I suppose the Three Stooges will never amuse me) because I don't find physical or mental pain "fun." I find the people who impose pain upon others to be sick human beings, actually, who probably need to be put away (and they certainly shouldn't own a gun).
So go ahead and make your jokes; tell me I have dirt on my pants, or my hair is standing straight up, I have a smudge on my cheek. But don't be mean and cruel. Don't hurt people's feelings.
Be kind, always.
Even on April Fool's Day.
It ranks right up there with being pinched on St. Patrick's Day because I am not wearing green.
Sure, sometimes it is fun to pull an interesting prank. The Great Smokey Mountains site today put up a page that says they are bringing polar bears into the park. That is kind of funny and a unique hoax, but gullible people believe it; I've already seen folks get upset about it on Facebook.
One of our local radio stations always pulls a prank. Once they said the city was going to sell one of our local landmarks, and for hours I listened to irate people call in. Whether they were playing the "game" or actually believed the "news," I do not know.
I have a great sense of humor, people tell me. It is rather sardonic and can be sarcastic and sometimes you might need to pay attention to actually get what I'm saying. Witty is a word someone used to describe me not long ago. I love a good joke as much as anyone; I think Monty Python is hilarious, and Big Bang Theory makes me laugh every week.
My friends always find me amusing; I have been known to make good friends snort water during lunches (not intentionally, really).
But these days many people are mean. Someone posted a list of things *not* to do on Facebook today - here it is:
I do not find cruelty funny. I am not a fan of slap stick (I suppose the Three Stooges will never amuse me) because I don't find physical or mental pain "fun." I find the people who impose pain upon others to be sick human beings, actually, who probably need to be put away (and they certainly shouldn't own a gun).
So go ahead and make your jokes; tell me I have dirt on my pants, or my hair is standing straight up, I have a smudge on my cheek. But don't be mean and cruel. Don't hurt people's feelings.
Be kind, always.
Even on April Fool's Day.
Thursday, March 31, 2016
Thursday Thirteen
Tomorrow is April Fool's Day, so here are some hoaxes (not to give anyone ideas) that have been remembered over time.
1. The Mad Gasser of Botetourt, VA (and Mattoon, IL). (As an aside, my great aunt remembered this incident, as one of the "gassing attacks" occurred in her neighbor's home). The unexplained "Mad Gasser" attacks began on December 22, 1933, in Botetourt when the home of Mrs. and Mrs. Cal Huffman, near Haymakertown, was attacked by a mysterious figure. All eight members of the Huffman family, along with Ashby Henderson, were affected by the gas.
According to reports, the gas caused the victims to become very nauseated, gave them a headache and caused the mouth and throat muscles to restrict. No one could determine what kind of gas was used or who could have sprayed it into the house. The only clue that police found at the scene was the print of a woman’s shoe beneath a window.
Attacks occurred in Cloverdale (about 10 miles away) on Christmas Eve; December 27 in Troutville (also nearby); January 10, again in Haymakertown and in Troutville; January 16 in Bonsack; January 19 in Cloverdale; January 21 (Cloverdale), and three more on January 22 in the Carvin's Cove area over a two-mile area. On January 23, an attack occurred in the Pleasant Dale Church area (Lee's Gap). Other attacks occurred in Nace and Lithia, but after about 20 more reports were reported in nearby Roanoke County, police decided that only the original few incidents were real and the rest hysteria. Newspapers reported the the unconvincing theory that faulty chimney flues and wild imaginations had caused the entire affair. Those who were attacked and police officers involved never accepted this explanation.
Similar attacks occured in Mattoon, IL, in 1944. Hoax, mass hysteria, or real? We may never know.
2. MIT students, in 1982, decided to include themselves in a Harvard-Yale football game when a weather balloon emblazoned with the letters “MIT” emerged from the ground near the 50-yard line. A few days before the game, MIT students had snuck into Harvard Stadium and wired a vacuum motor to blow air into the balloon until it exploded.
3. Back in the late 19th century, college teams took trains to get to road games. Auburn students ran grease along the train tracks before Georgia Tech games, making it impossible for the train to stop anywhere near the station. Year after year, the poor football team ended up lugging its gear a number of miles back to the station, giving the players more of a warm-up than they bargained for and tilting the games in Auburn’s favor.
4. In 1961, University of Washington students at the Great Rose Bowl Hoax of 1961 received altered placards that created a giant banner reading “Caltech” on live television. The math and science school, which sits just a few miles from the Rose Bowl, wasn’t even involved in the game.
5. In 1969, "Penelope Ashe," a bored New York housewife, wrote the trashy sensation Naked Came the Stranger. The author appeared on talk shows and made the bookstore rounds. But the author was fictional, the work of Mike McGrady, a Newsday columnist. McGrady was disgusted with the lurid state of the modern bestseller and decided to expose the problem by writing a book of zero redeeming social value and even less literary merit. To his dismay, the media was fascinated with the salacious daydreams of a “demure housewife” author. By the time McGrady revealed his hoax a few months later, the novel had sold 20,000 copies, and by the end of the year it had more than 100,000 copies in print, and the novel had spent 13 weeks on the New York Times’s bestseller list. As of 2012, the book had sold nearly 400,000 copies. (Why does this remind me of E. L. James and Fifty Shades of Gray?)
6. On April 1, 1957, the BBC news program Panorama told its radio audience about a Swiss town’s spaghetti crop, brought on by a warm spring and the disappearance of the spaghetti weevil. On April 2 the BBC was flooded with phone calls from people eager to grow their own spaghetti noodles, then a rare treat for British diners. The BBC instructed anyone interested in a pasta-bearing tree to “Place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best.”
7. In the 1970s, strange crop circles started popping up in English wheat fields, leading to UFO and extra terrestrial theories. In 1991, however, the two pranksters came forward and revealed how they had made the circles using nothing more than rope, planks, and wire. (As an aside, I've seen crop circles occur naturally in our hay fields, caused by winds during thunderstorms.)
8. Also in the 1970s, Manuel Elizalde, Prime Minister of the Philippines, claimed he had discovered a stone age tribe called the Tasaday on the island of Mindanao. However, he would not allow scientists or journalists on the island, claiming he had made it a safe haven. After the Prime Minister was deposed about 15 years later, journalists visited the island only to find the Tasaday walking around in blue jeans and speaking a modern dialect. They explained that they had moved into caves under pressure from the minister. The Prime Minister, long gone, fled the country with millions of dollars from an account set up to help protect the Tasaday people.
9. In 1835, the New York Sun published multiple articles stating that Sir John Herschel had made incredible discoveries using new telescopic methods. According to the article, the surface of the moon was covered with lilac colored pyramids, herds of bison, and blue unicorns.
10. In 1783, the London Magazine reported that in Indonesia thre was a tree so poisonous that it killed everything within 15 miles, leaving the Earth bare and dotted with the skeletons of people and animals. The truth is, however, that although the Upas tree really exists and it really does contain a powerful toxin, it isn't quite that poisonous and the story was blown way out of proportion.
11. In the early 1990s, a short film of a supposed alien autopsy was aired on the Fox Network. Other news outlets picked up the story. Fifteen years later, the producer came forward to admit that it was fake. He still maintains, however, that it was based on real footage.
12. In the mid 1800s, George Hull, a prominant atheist, placed a fake huge giant in his cousin's backyard as a way of playing a prank on some of his Methodist acquaintances. (The giant was reference to a biblical passage about giants once roaming the Earth.) Not long after buring the fake, Hull dug a well dug in the same spot. Upon discovery of the giant, so many people wanted to see it that several other replicas popped up around the country all claiming to be the real thing.
13. While this was not supposed to be a hoax, a radio show in 1938 caused widespread panic. The show, The War of the Worlds, voiced by Orson Welles, scared people into believing the world was really under attack by Martians, because the program was delivered in a series of fictional news bulletins. Many people panicked and thought it was true.
And here's an extra: I convinced my young brother that there was a bird called a "snipe" that he could catch one with a bag if he could sneak up on it. I had him snipe hunting for an entire afternoon. He also was convinced that Jackalopes were real during a long trip across the US wherein multiple stores sold the creation. Ah, youth.
_____________
Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here if you want to read other Thursday Thirteens and/or play along. I've been playing for a while and this is my 441st time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.
1. The Mad Gasser of Botetourt, VA (and Mattoon, IL). (As an aside, my great aunt remembered this incident, as one of the "gassing attacks" occurred in her neighbor's home). The unexplained "Mad Gasser" attacks began on December 22, 1933, in Botetourt when the home of Mrs. and Mrs. Cal Huffman, near Haymakertown, was attacked by a mysterious figure. All eight members of the Huffman family, along with Ashby Henderson, were affected by the gas.
According to reports, the gas caused the victims to become very nauseated, gave them a headache and caused the mouth and throat muscles to restrict. No one could determine what kind of gas was used or who could have sprayed it into the house. The only clue that police found at the scene was the print of a woman’s shoe beneath a window.
Attacks occurred in Cloverdale (about 10 miles away) on Christmas Eve; December 27 in Troutville (also nearby); January 10, again in Haymakertown and in Troutville; January 16 in Bonsack; January 19 in Cloverdale; January 21 (Cloverdale), and three more on January 22 in the Carvin's Cove area over a two-mile area. On January 23, an attack occurred in the Pleasant Dale Church area (Lee's Gap). Other attacks occurred in Nace and Lithia, but after about 20 more reports were reported in nearby Roanoke County, police decided that only the original few incidents were real and the rest hysteria. Newspapers reported the the unconvincing theory that faulty chimney flues and wild imaginations had caused the entire affair. Those who were attacked and police officers involved never accepted this explanation.
Similar attacks occured in Mattoon, IL, in 1944. Hoax, mass hysteria, or real? We may never know.
2. MIT students, in 1982, decided to include themselves in a Harvard-Yale football game when a weather balloon emblazoned with the letters “MIT” emerged from the ground near the 50-yard line. A few days before the game, MIT students had snuck into Harvard Stadium and wired a vacuum motor to blow air into the balloon until it exploded.
3. Back in the late 19th century, college teams took trains to get to road games. Auburn students ran grease along the train tracks before Georgia Tech games, making it impossible for the train to stop anywhere near the station. Year after year, the poor football team ended up lugging its gear a number of miles back to the station, giving the players more of a warm-up than they bargained for and tilting the games in Auburn’s favor.
4. In 1961, University of Washington students at the Great Rose Bowl Hoax of 1961 received altered placards that created a giant banner reading “Caltech” on live television. The math and science school, which sits just a few miles from the Rose Bowl, wasn’t even involved in the game.
5. In 1969, "Penelope Ashe," a bored New York housewife, wrote the trashy sensation Naked Came the Stranger. The author appeared on talk shows and made the bookstore rounds. But the author was fictional, the work of Mike McGrady, a Newsday columnist. McGrady was disgusted with the lurid state of the modern bestseller and decided to expose the problem by writing a book of zero redeeming social value and even less literary merit. To his dismay, the media was fascinated with the salacious daydreams of a “demure housewife” author. By the time McGrady revealed his hoax a few months later, the novel had sold 20,000 copies, and by the end of the year it had more than 100,000 copies in print, and the novel had spent 13 weeks on the New York Times’s bestseller list. As of 2012, the book had sold nearly 400,000 copies. (Why does this remind me of E. L. James and Fifty Shades of Gray?)
6. On April 1, 1957, the BBC news program Panorama told its radio audience about a Swiss town’s spaghetti crop, brought on by a warm spring and the disappearance of the spaghetti weevil. On April 2 the BBC was flooded with phone calls from people eager to grow their own spaghetti noodles, then a rare treat for British diners. The BBC instructed anyone interested in a pasta-bearing tree to “Place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best.”
7. In the 1970s, strange crop circles started popping up in English wheat fields, leading to UFO and extra terrestrial theories. In 1991, however, the two pranksters came forward and revealed how they had made the circles using nothing more than rope, planks, and wire. (As an aside, I've seen crop circles occur naturally in our hay fields, caused by winds during thunderstorms.)
8. Also in the 1970s, Manuel Elizalde, Prime Minister of the Philippines, claimed he had discovered a stone age tribe called the Tasaday on the island of Mindanao. However, he would not allow scientists or journalists on the island, claiming he had made it a safe haven. After the Prime Minister was deposed about 15 years later, journalists visited the island only to find the Tasaday walking around in blue jeans and speaking a modern dialect. They explained that they had moved into caves under pressure from the minister. The Prime Minister, long gone, fled the country with millions of dollars from an account set up to help protect the Tasaday people.
9. In 1835, the New York Sun published multiple articles stating that Sir John Herschel had made incredible discoveries using new telescopic methods. According to the article, the surface of the moon was covered with lilac colored pyramids, herds of bison, and blue unicorns.
10. In 1783, the London Magazine reported that in Indonesia thre was a tree so poisonous that it killed everything within 15 miles, leaving the Earth bare and dotted with the skeletons of people and animals. The truth is, however, that although the Upas tree really exists and it really does contain a powerful toxin, it isn't quite that poisonous and the story was blown way out of proportion.
11. In the early 1990s, a short film of a supposed alien autopsy was aired on the Fox Network. Other news outlets picked up the story. Fifteen years later, the producer came forward to admit that it was fake. He still maintains, however, that it was based on real footage.
12. In the mid 1800s, George Hull, a prominant atheist, placed a fake huge giant in his cousin's backyard as a way of playing a prank on some of his Methodist acquaintances. (The giant was reference to a biblical passage about giants once roaming the Earth.) Not long after buring the fake, Hull dug a well dug in the same spot. Upon discovery of the giant, so many people wanted to see it that several other replicas popped up around the country all claiming to be the real thing.
13. While this was not supposed to be a hoax, a radio show in 1938 caused widespread panic. The show, The War of the Worlds, voiced by Orson Welles, scared people into believing the world was really under attack by Martians, because the program was delivered in a series of fictional news bulletins. Many people panicked and thought it was true.
And here's an extra: I convinced my young brother that there was a bird called a "snipe" that he could catch one with a bag if he could sneak up on it. I had him snipe hunting for an entire afternoon. He also was convinced that Jackalopes were real during a long trip across the US wherein multiple stores sold the creation. Ah, youth.
_____________
Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here if you want to read other Thursday Thirteens and/or play along. I've been playing for a while and this is my 441st time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.
Wednesday, March 30, 2016
Wandering, Not Lost
One of my favorite Tolkien quotes goes like this:
All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
The second line resonates with me, and I suspect many others, because we are wanderers of the world, seekers who are not content to be the best tradesman, musician, writer, or whatever. Instead we are those 'jack-of-all-trades' people who know a lot about many things, and are not experts on anything at all.
Being that type of person can leave one a bit groundless and rootless, however, because that person never really settles down. Even if the wanderer stays in one place, there is always a searching, a something in the soul that is constantly looking about, with eyes on the stars, the trees, the blades of grass - or in this day and age, reading endlessly on the Internet - because the mind never stops wandering even if the body is in stasis.
Elizabeth Gilbert called it a "curiosity driven life" and I think it is much the same thing as a wanderer. Being nomadic of mind means you never stop asking questions, you're always seeking something more - whether that's a sign that one has deep wells within the soul that need filling, I cannot say. I think for me it is - a sense that something is missing, as if my twin were ripped from me at birth. A sense of loss that gives one an intense need to continue searching, pilgrims of religions and politics, vagrants of the world who, while perhaps productive and self-sufficient, are still hobos in the heart.
Many people take sabbaticals and go on long self-exploration journeys, and they are admired for this because it appears they have reached some pinnacle of understanding, and moved on to be firmly planted, trees with deep roots. Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love and Cheryl Strayed's Wild come quickly to mind. And then there was Jesus himself, who took his body off to the desert to confront whatever demons might have been out there.
I don't know though, that those souls are settled. Gilbert claims to have a single passion - writing - but she's built quite a career out of public speaking and jetting about the world, all based on a single book. Strayed, I suspect, is still seeking. I did not find that personality to be one who would dig deep roots. Jesus is whomever one wants him to be - messiah, prophet, soldier. Certainly still wandering and not settled, his message corrupted and regurgitated time and again throughout millennia.
A long time ago I visited a shamaness who insisted I needed to be grounded. I had no roots, she said, (even though at the time I'd lived in the same house for about 20 years) and I should visualize myself every day growing roots into the ground, so that I might stay put. But this was really her vision for the perfect life, I think - one where a person is grounded, rooted, and satisfied. While this is sometimes something I greatly desire, I do not think it is a satisfaction I shall ever obtain. I am like Galadriel, with the One Ring handed to me, only to turn it away. Or maybe I am Sisyphus, pushing that rock every day, nonstop.
Roots such as those the shamaness wanted for me have nothing to do with physical place, but instead deal with the soul. Many people have told me I have an old soul, an earthy soul, even, but my soul is also clouded, dusty, and reeking with despair. There are days when I reel from thought to thought, my wanderings so many that even I cannot keep up. An hour in conversation with me can wear out both me and the person to whom I speak, if they can keep up, when those wanderings are racing through my brain.
I am alone, as we all are, even with someone standing beside us, holding our hand. What these stories of wanderings and finding of selves tell us is that ultimately we are alone - and our journey is ours, and no one else's. These days we are so absorbed in being 'human doings' instead of 'human beings' that we forget sometimes to see the sunset, or see a cloud cross a full blue moon, or watch a blade of grass dance in the wind. So busy looking down that our wandering has ceased.
Sometimes I envy those who do not wander, the ones who appear to have found their lot in life. Those who set goals and work only to achieve them, eschewing all else until their passion has been captured and embraced. I am unable to do that - my mind is to quick to spot the dandelion and forget I need to mow the yard.
The people I love flit through my life, some leaving great, bloody gashes, and others leaving bandages and kisses. Some will be with me until my eyes close and my wandering ends. It is that way for all of us, I think, only we don't take time to stop and recognize that this great adventure, this life, is so very different and yet exactly the same for us all. We are all kindred spirits who long for soulmates and at the same time we are demonic devils who desire to do damage. That is what it is to be human, to be wandering.
Even you, dear reader - whom I may or may not know - have a role in my journey. Your eyes flitting along these paragraphs mean something, even if you leave no comment nor give this no thought. We pass here on this page, on the street, in the shadows of the dawn when we both are asleep and dreaming.
Wandering together, each of us, alone.
- From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
- A light from the shadows shall spring;
- Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
- The crownless again shall be king.[1]
The second line resonates with me, and I suspect many others, because we are wanderers of the world, seekers who are not content to be the best tradesman, musician, writer, or whatever. Instead we are those 'jack-of-all-trades' people who know a lot about many things, and are not experts on anything at all.
Being that type of person can leave one a bit groundless and rootless, however, because that person never really settles down. Even if the wanderer stays in one place, there is always a searching, a something in the soul that is constantly looking about, with eyes on the stars, the trees, the blades of grass - or in this day and age, reading endlessly on the Internet - because the mind never stops wandering even if the body is in stasis.
Elizabeth Gilbert called it a "curiosity driven life" and I think it is much the same thing as a wanderer. Being nomadic of mind means you never stop asking questions, you're always seeking something more - whether that's a sign that one has deep wells within the soul that need filling, I cannot say. I think for me it is - a sense that something is missing, as if my twin were ripped from me at birth. A sense of loss that gives one an intense need to continue searching, pilgrims of religions and politics, vagrants of the world who, while perhaps productive and self-sufficient, are still hobos in the heart.
Many people take sabbaticals and go on long self-exploration journeys, and they are admired for this because it appears they have reached some pinnacle of understanding, and moved on to be firmly planted, trees with deep roots. Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love and Cheryl Strayed's Wild come quickly to mind. And then there was Jesus himself, who took his body off to the desert to confront whatever demons might have been out there.
I don't know though, that those souls are settled. Gilbert claims to have a single passion - writing - but she's built quite a career out of public speaking and jetting about the world, all based on a single book. Strayed, I suspect, is still seeking. I did not find that personality to be one who would dig deep roots. Jesus is whomever one wants him to be - messiah, prophet, soldier. Certainly still wandering and not settled, his message corrupted and regurgitated time and again throughout millennia.
A long time ago I visited a shamaness who insisted I needed to be grounded. I had no roots, she said, (even though at the time I'd lived in the same house for about 20 years) and I should visualize myself every day growing roots into the ground, so that I might stay put. But this was really her vision for the perfect life, I think - one where a person is grounded, rooted, and satisfied. While this is sometimes something I greatly desire, I do not think it is a satisfaction I shall ever obtain. I am like Galadriel, with the One Ring handed to me, only to turn it away. Or maybe I am Sisyphus, pushing that rock every day, nonstop.
Roots such as those the shamaness wanted for me have nothing to do with physical place, but instead deal with the soul. Many people have told me I have an old soul, an earthy soul, even, but my soul is also clouded, dusty, and reeking with despair. There are days when I reel from thought to thought, my wanderings so many that even I cannot keep up. An hour in conversation with me can wear out both me and the person to whom I speak, if they can keep up, when those wanderings are racing through my brain.
I am alone, as we all are, even with someone standing beside us, holding our hand. What these stories of wanderings and finding of selves tell us is that ultimately we are alone - and our journey is ours, and no one else's. These days we are so absorbed in being 'human doings' instead of 'human beings' that we forget sometimes to see the sunset, or see a cloud cross a full blue moon, or watch a blade of grass dance in the wind. So busy looking down that our wandering has ceased.
Sometimes I envy those who do not wander, the ones who appear to have found their lot in life. Those who set goals and work only to achieve them, eschewing all else until their passion has been captured and embraced. I am unable to do that - my mind is to quick to spot the dandelion and forget I need to mow the yard.
The people I love flit through my life, some leaving great, bloody gashes, and others leaving bandages and kisses. Some will be with me until my eyes close and my wandering ends. It is that way for all of us, I think, only we don't take time to stop and recognize that this great adventure, this life, is so very different and yet exactly the same for us all. We are all kindred spirits who long for soulmates and at the same time we are demonic devils who desire to do damage. That is what it is to be human, to be wandering.
Even you, dear reader - whom I may or may not know - have a role in my journey. Your eyes flitting along these paragraphs mean something, even if you leave no comment nor give this no thought. We pass here on this page, on the street, in the shadows of the dawn when we both are asleep and dreaming.
Wandering together, each of us, alone.
Tuesday, March 29, 2016
The Wizard and the Peacock
Medium: Crayola Crayons
I had trouble with the peacock. The wizard does not look as nice in the photo as he does on the page.
Monday, March 28, 2016
Wrangling Windows 10
Late last June, my Dell with Windows 7 puked out on me. The hard drive died, much to my dismay. We were only weeks away from the release of Windows 10, but there I was caught between a new Windows 8.1 desktop or nothing at all.
I went to Best Buy and talked to a lad there who said, "Oh, Windows 10 won't be shipping on computers until the fall, at least," when I asked how long before Windows 10 would be on a new desktop. Hearing that, I bit the bullet and bought a Dell with Windows 8.1, knowing I would upgrade immediately.
Windows 8 is on my Surface was I didn't like it much. So I knew I would not like Windows 8.1, either.
Of course the dude at Best Buy lied to me, because Windows 10 was out on new computers nearly the day after Microsoft released its new OS to the public.
I downloaded Windows 10 about three days after it came out. During my initial upgrade, the electricity went out (thank you Appalachian Power). After much cursing, I managed to get the computer back up on Windows 8.1 and tried again.
The second time took. However, Windows 10 has been a nightmare. I know many people upgraded and have had little problem, but I am not one of them. Did the power outage do a warp thingy on me? I will never know.
The main issue I have is something called a "failed group policy client service" which occurs at sign-in, usually after Windows 10 has performed an update. When this happens, the computers thinks I am not its owner anymore, and I cannot perform administrative functions on the darned thing.
Recently, I started experiencing a failure to sign into Microsoft Solitaire (via its new Xbox configuration) and along with that goes the ability to access the Microsoft store.
I used to be very good at computers - when they were DOS based. Yes, that was 25 years ago. Then I was a whiz and could write batch files and code, and take care of most anything. Then along came Windows and I was lost. I think I started out with Windows 3.1 At some point I realized that Windows is really DOS in disguise, and managed to figure out some nifty and necessary things like msconfig and a few other commands that could be helpful in times of need, but mostly I prayed the thing didn't fail me.
Windows 10 fails me constantly. I have performed a "system restore" on this computer more times than on all of the others I've owned put together (and that goes all the way back to a Commodore Vic 20, in about 1980).
It doesn't help that Microsoft's solution to any problem you ask about is "find a friend who is an expert." Like we all know computer whiz's who live down the block or something. Maybe you do, but I do not. Or at least, not any that I would bother. Their other solution is a community forum which may or may not offer you a dozen different things to try, or nothing at all.
During these long and frustrating months, I have discovered a few commands that are helpful. First one must be able to access the command prompt and be the administrator on the computer.
In Windows 10, The easiest way to access the command prompt (what used to be known as the "C" prompt in DOS), is to right click on the start button. You will see a list of items similar to classic Windows. Look for "Command Prompt" (Admin). That's the one you want.
Once that is up, you will see C:\Windows\system32>
To fix many problems, you can type in this after the system32>
dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth
This will run for a long time. It should come back and say "The operation completed successfully" at the end, whether it found a problem or not.
Check and see if the problem still exists. If it does, you're probably going to have do more googling to find your particular issue.
If you can get your system working with a system restore, then try that. I used system restore this morning to return the computer back to yesterday, and then, since I could now access the Windows store, I uninstalled Microsoft Solitaire and reinstalled it again. Hopefully this will solve that issue but I won't know for a few days - or until the next update, anyway.
You may also want to consider uninstalling whatever junk the seller placed on your computer. Dell, for example, had something called "supportassist" on mine that I recently deleted because it seemed to be at least one of the culprits on my PC. Whether or not I regret that move we will find out in time.
Microsoft, in my opinion, has released its worse OS since Windows ME and Windows 8, which tie for last place in MS operating systems. I don't know what they are thinking, releasing this. It has been, for me, anyway, the most unstable and error-filled OS I have ever used.
At any rate, I hope the above will help someone else out there who is about ready to toss their PC out the window.
I went to Best Buy and talked to a lad there who said, "Oh, Windows 10 won't be shipping on computers until the fall, at least," when I asked how long before Windows 10 would be on a new desktop. Hearing that, I bit the bullet and bought a Dell with Windows 8.1, knowing I would upgrade immediately.
Windows 8 is on my Surface was I didn't like it much. So I knew I would not like Windows 8.1, either.
Of course the dude at Best Buy lied to me, because Windows 10 was out on new computers nearly the day after Microsoft released its new OS to the public.
I downloaded Windows 10 about three days after it came out. During my initial upgrade, the electricity went out (thank you Appalachian Power). After much cursing, I managed to get the computer back up on Windows 8.1 and tried again.
The second time took. However, Windows 10 has been a nightmare. I know many people upgraded and have had little problem, but I am not one of them. Did the power outage do a warp thingy on me? I will never know.
The main issue I have is something called a "failed group policy client service" which occurs at sign-in, usually after Windows 10 has performed an update. When this happens, the computers thinks I am not its owner anymore, and I cannot perform administrative functions on the darned thing.
Recently, I started experiencing a failure to sign into Microsoft Solitaire (via its new Xbox configuration) and along with that goes the ability to access the Microsoft store.
I used to be very good at computers - when they were DOS based. Yes, that was 25 years ago. Then I was a whiz and could write batch files and code, and take care of most anything. Then along came Windows and I was lost. I think I started out with Windows 3.1 At some point I realized that Windows is really DOS in disguise, and managed to figure out some nifty and necessary things like msconfig and a few other commands that could be helpful in times of need, but mostly I prayed the thing didn't fail me.
Windows 10 fails me constantly. I have performed a "system restore" on this computer more times than on all of the others I've owned put together (and that goes all the way back to a Commodore Vic 20, in about 1980).
It doesn't help that Microsoft's solution to any problem you ask about is "find a friend who is an expert." Like we all know computer whiz's who live down the block or something. Maybe you do, but I do not. Or at least, not any that I would bother. Their other solution is a community forum which may or may not offer you a dozen different things to try, or nothing at all.
During these long and frustrating months, I have discovered a few commands that are helpful. First one must be able to access the command prompt and be the administrator on the computer.
In Windows 10, The easiest way to access the command prompt (what used to be known as the "C" prompt in DOS), is to right click on the start button. You will see a list of items similar to classic Windows. Look for "Command Prompt" (Admin). That's the one you want.
Once that is up, you will see C:\Windows\system32>
To fix many problems, you can type in this after the system32>
dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth
This will run for a long time. It should come back and say "The operation completed successfully" at the end, whether it found a problem or not.
Check and see if the problem still exists. If it does, you're probably going to have do more googling to find your particular issue.
If you can get your system working with a system restore, then try that. I used system restore this morning to return the computer back to yesterday, and then, since I could now access the Windows store, I uninstalled Microsoft Solitaire and reinstalled it again. Hopefully this will solve that issue but I won't know for a few days - or until the next update, anyway.
You may also want to consider uninstalling whatever junk the seller placed on your computer. Dell, for example, had something called "supportassist" on mine that I recently deleted because it seemed to be at least one of the culprits on my PC. Whether or not I regret that move we will find out in time.
Microsoft, in my opinion, has released its worse OS since Windows ME and Windows 8, which tie for last place in MS operating systems. I don't know what they are thinking, releasing this. It has been, for me, anyway, the most unstable and error-filled OS I have ever used.
At any rate, I hope the above will help someone else out there who is about ready to toss their PC out the window.
Sunday, March 27, 2016
Sunday Stealing: Easter
From Sunday Stealing
Easter Meme
Five things I have a passion for: My husband, writing, reading, eating (apparently), thoughtful debates, and correct grammar.
Five things I'd like to learn before I die: What happens after you die, how to cook without calories, how to not take things personally, and how to grow a good tomato.
Five things I say a lot: "That's interesting."/ "F&ck." / "Why did you do that?" / "You can't fix stupid." / "I love you."
Five books and/or magazines I have read lately: 2 a.m. at the Cat's Pajamas, Reader's Digest, O!, The Four Agreements, The Roanoke Times (which is a newspaper but I read it daily).
Five favorite movies: The Lord of the Rings trilogy (actually 3 movies); The Hobbit trilogy (actually 3 movies); Dirty Dancing; Under the Tuscan Sun; Steel Magnolias.
Five places I would like to travel to: Egypt (to see the pyramids); Ireland; Scotland; England; Italy.
Easter Meme
Five things I have a passion for: My husband, writing, reading, eating (apparently), thoughtful debates, and correct grammar.
Five things I'd like to learn before I die: What happens after you die, how to cook without calories, how to not take things personally, and how to grow a good tomato.
Five things I say a lot: "That's interesting."/ "F&ck." / "Why did you do that?" / "You can't fix stupid." / "I love you."
Five books and/or magazines I have read lately: 2 a.m. at the Cat's Pajamas, Reader's Digest, O!, The Four Agreements, The Roanoke Times (which is a newspaper but I read it daily).
Five favorite movies: The Lord of the Rings trilogy (actually 3 movies); The Hobbit trilogy (actually 3 movies); Dirty Dancing; Under the Tuscan Sun; Steel Magnolias.
Five places I would like to travel to: Egypt (to see the pyramids); Ireland; Scotland; England; Italy.
Saturday, March 26, 2016
Saturday 9: I Don't Know How
Saturday 9: I Don't Know How to Love Him (1971)
Unfamiliar with this week's tune? Hear it here.
1) This song is from Jesus Christ, Superstar. Though now a beloved classic, the play was controversial when it first premiered. Can you think of something else that originally made people uncomfortable, but went on to be accepted?
A. Women wearing pants.
2) Jesus Christ, Superstar was originally developed as a "concept album," a collection of songs written to sequentially tell the story of The Crucifixion and Resurrection. Do you remember the first album you bought? Did you download it, listen to it on a CD player, your cassette deck, or record player?
A. I think my first vinyl album was the Captain and Tennille. My first 8-track tape was The Monkees. My first cassette was Linda Rondstadt. My first CD was Melissa Etheridge's Yes I Am. My first download was The Lord of the Rings movie soundtrack.
3) When the album's songs were performed live in concert at the Pennsylvania Civic Arena, producers decided to stage it as a play and the rest, as they say, is history. Tell us about a really good idea you've had recently.
A. I came home Monday, looked at my empty living room, and called the furniture store and told them to bring me a chair to sit in. See The Sofa Saga here if you'd like further explanation.
4) Jesus Christ, Superstar is a truly international phenomenon. During a revival tour that began in 2011, it's been a hit with audiences in the United States, Canada, Britain, Ireland, Brazil, Hungary, India, New Zealand, Italy, France, Mexico, Chile, Bulgaria, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Iceland, Russia, Poland, Czech Republic, Greece, Australia, The Philippines, South Africa, Panama, Colombia, Croatia, Bolivia, The Netherlands and Portugal. Besides the United States, which of those countries have you visited?
A. France.
5) Peeps are big sellers every Easter. Would you rather have yellow chicks or pink bunnies?
A. I don't like Peeps.
6) Jelly beans are also popular this time of year. One theory says they were introduced in Boston during the 19th century. What else comes to mind when you think of Boston?
A. Baked beans.
7) We've been talking a lot about sweets this morning. The only holiday that generates more candy sales is Halloween. When do you eat more candy: Easter or Halloween?
A. I have no idea.
8) Easter lilies will adorn many churches this Sunday. What's your favorite flower?
A. Rose.
9) Easter is considered the season of rebirth. What makes you feel refreshed or rejuvenated?
A. A hot shower.
_____________
I encourage you to visit other participants in Saturday 9 posts and leave a comment. Because there are no rules, it is your choice. Saturday 9 players hate rules. We love memes, however. (This Saturday 9 #120 for me, or least, since I've been labeling them as such.)
Unfamiliar with this week's tune? Hear it here.
1) This song is from Jesus Christ, Superstar. Though now a beloved classic, the play was controversial when it first premiered. Can you think of something else that originally made people uncomfortable, but went on to be accepted?
A. Women wearing pants.
2) Jesus Christ, Superstar was originally developed as a "concept album," a collection of songs written to sequentially tell the story of The Crucifixion and Resurrection. Do you remember the first album you bought? Did you download it, listen to it on a CD player, your cassette deck, or record player?
A. I think my first vinyl album was the Captain and Tennille. My first 8-track tape was The Monkees. My first cassette was Linda Rondstadt. My first CD was Melissa Etheridge's Yes I Am. My first download was The Lord of the Rings movie soundtrack.
3) When the album's songs were performed live in concert at the Pennsylvania Civic Arena, producers decided to stage it as a play and the rest, as they say, is history. Tell us about a really good idea you've had recently.
A. I came home Monday, looked at my empty living room, and called the furniture store and told them to bring me a chair to sit in. See The Sofa Saga here if you'd like further explanation.
4) Jesus Christ, Superstar is a truly international phenomenon. During a revival tour that began in 2011, it's been a hit with audiences in the United States, Canada, Britain, Ireland, Brazil, Hungary, India, New Zealand, Italy, France, Mexico, Chile, Bulgaria, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Iceland, Russia, Poland, Czech Republic, Greece, Australia, The Philippines, South Africa, Panama, Colombia, Croatia, Bolivia, The Netherlands and Portugal. Besides the United States, which of those countries have you visited?
A. France.
5) Peeps are big sellers every Easter. Would you rather have yellow chicks or pink bunnies?
A. I don't like Peeps.
6) Jelly beans are also popular this time of year. One theory says they were introduced in Boston during the 19th century. What else comes to mind when you think of Boston?
A. Baked beans.
7) We've been talking a lot about sweets this morning. The only holiday that generates more candy sales is Halloween. When do you eat more candy: Easter or Halloween?
A. I have no idea.
8) Easter lilies will adorn many churches this Sunday. What's your favorite flower?
A. Rose.
9) Easter is considered the season of rebirth. What makes you feel refreshed or rejuvenated?
A. A hot shower.
_____________
I encourage you to visit other participants in Saturday 9 posts and leave a comment. Because there are no rules, it is your choice. Saturday 9 players hate rules. We love memes, however. (This Saturday 9 #120 for me, or least, since I've been labeling them as such.)
Friday, March 25, 2016
Thursday, March 24, 2016
Thursday 13 #440
Quotes from Friedrich Nietzche
Which is your favorite?
1. There is always some madness in love. But there is always some reason in madness.
2. Love is blind; friendship closes its eyes.
3. That which does not kill us makes us stronger.
4. Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.
5. To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.
6. Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings - always darker, emptier and simpler.
7. Without music, life would be a mistake.
8. You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.
9. One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.
10. There is an innocence in admiration; it is found in those to whom it has never yet occurred that they, too, might be admired some day.
11. All credibility, all good conscience, all evidence of truth come only from the senses.
12. All things are subject to interpretation whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.
13. When marrying, ask yourself this question: Do you believe that you will be able to converse well with this person into your old age? Everything else in marriage is transitory.
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900) was a German philosopher, cultural critic, poet, and Latin and Greek scholar whose work has exerted a profound influence on Western philosophy and modern intellectual history.
_____________
Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here if you want to read other Thursday Thirteens and/or play along. I've been playing for a while and this is my 440th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.
Which is your favorite?
1. There is always some madness in love. But there is always some reason in madness.
2. Love is blind; friendship closes its eyes.
3. That which does not kill us makes us stronger.
4. Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.
5. To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.
6. Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings - always darker, emptier and simpler.
7. Without music, life would be a mistake.
8. You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.
9. One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.
10. There is an innocence in admiration; it is found in those to whom it has never yet occurred that they, too, might be admired some day.
11. All credibility, all good conscience, all evidence of truth come only from the senses.
12. All things are subject to interpretation whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.
13. When marrying, ask yourself this question: Do you believe that you will be able to converse well with this person into your old age? Everything else in marriage is transitory.
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900) was a German philosopher, cultural critic, poet, and Latin and Greek scholar whose work has exerted a profound influence on Western philosophy and modern intellectual history.
_____________
Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here if you want to read other Thursday Thirteens and/or play along. I've been playing for a while and this is my 440th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.
Wednesday, March 23, 2016
Tuesday, March 22, 2016
The Sofa Saga
It started back in the spring of 2015, when the Ashley sectional sofa we had purchased in 2005 began showing signs of wear.
As in, bolts on one side of the recliner broke, tossing my husband into the floor. We replaced them, but after a few weeks they would shear off again.
It was a lovely sofa, and we spent many hours watching TV in the recliner/loveseat. The other part had a sleep-sofa on it. It did not sleep well but we did not use it much. The nephews slept on it a few times and found it so lumpy that they gave us an air bed for Christmas so they'd have something else to use.
I was expecting to get 20 years out the Ashley. Apparently, that is laughable in this day of replacement furniture. The recliners were not power, but required us to use a little force and exertion. After my surgery, I had difficulty getting in and out of the sofa and did not sit on it unless my husband was home.
So in July 2015, we went sofa shopping. We had been looking for a while. Ashley had a similar sectional but also there were literally over a thousand complaints against the company online, and we became a bit skittish about purchasing another sofa from them. Brands can drop in quality over the years and from what we were reading, Ashley seemed to be having issues.
Finally, at Grand Valley View, we ran across a brand of sofas called Southern Motion. It sat well and they had what we wanted - a love seat without the cup holder in the middle. We like to sit without something between us and hold hands while we watch TV. Maybe not the most important feature in a piece of furniture, but it mattered to us.
We didn't look the brand up online and made an impulse purchase, more or less, even though we'd been looking a while. We bought two of the love seats to replace the sectional. We don't entertain much and figured we could make the love seats last a while if we swapped them out once a year.
Two months after a late August delivery, the spring came through the back of one of the love seats.
We called the furniture store and they sent out a repairman. I was not happy with having to have the entire backing of the furniture removed so soon after purchase, but I agreed to the repair. We then sat in the other sofa, the one that hadn't broken.
It broke after two months of use, too, right after the new year. Obviously the furniture style itself was defective. We called Grand, had a chat with the general manager (a very nice man), and he agreed to replace the furniture.
The new furniture finally arrived on March 1.
It stank.
I mean, it smelled like burned rubber tires. Even my husband could smell it and was put off by it, and he can barely smell anything. I was already ill with a cold and whatever was off-gassing from the furniture made me even more ill. My husband could tell my breathing was better every time we went out of the house. I couldn't sit on the furniture and for a week I was trapped in the back part of the house, avoiding the smell, because we have a great room with the kitchen and living room connected. We put out baking soda, activated charcoal, and bowls of white vinegar, and ran two air purifiers in the room. We opened the windows when feasible with the weather.
Finally, my husband brought home a friend and they moved the furniture into the garage.
With the garage door open, I was able to finally inspect the furniture.
I found flaws in the leather in the cushions. It doesn't show up well in the photo, but the leather was thin in two places, and looked as if it would split open about the third time we sat down.
I also noticed that the dye coloring on the leather was uneven. I could have lived with that. But I couldn't live with the thin leather in the cushion and the smell, not for what we paid for this furniture.
So back it went to Grand. I will give Grand much credit, for they have worked with us very well to try to resolve our issues.
Now we had no furniture. We went back to Grand but this time to the Tanglewood store, first, to see if they had anything different on the floor. We knew we would not purchase the same brand.
At Tanglewood, they had this very nice power recliner, but no love seat and sofa. The other store did have the love seat and sofa on the floor where we could see it.
So back to Valley View.
We liked the sofa and the love seat, but they were not power. I could not get the manual recliners to work at all, since I no longer have any abdominal muscles to speak of thanks to my multiple surgeries.
We ordered power furniture. Delivery is 10 to 12 weeks.
That's a long time to sit on the floor, so yesterday I decided to have the power recliner delivered, because they had that in stock. We hadn't planned on buying it but three months of trying to live without furniture when I'm already in pain did not seem like a good idea. I was afraid I'd be a pretzel by the time the love seat and sofa arrived.
One of the morals of the story? Most everything out there that you can purchase today is junk. Expensive junk. If you have your grandmother's sofa, you are better off to refurbish it and have it restuffed or refinished or whatever, if you can find someone to do that and you like the piece. It will last forever but the furniture you buy today will not. I am hoping to get 10 years out of this new furniture, and the sales people told me upfront that would be pushing it. But I have no children jumping around on things, or animals, and no one smokes to put holes in the leather, so maybe we can get the 10 years we want.
Another moral? Do your homework. Southern Motion does not have many complaints listed against it, but there are some. I think that is because it is a fairly new company. Most telling, I think, is the fact that their website doesn't have any contact information listed. They don't even say what state they are in (they're supposed to be a USA company). They have a Facebook page but do not respond to things there (or at least ignored my inquiry). If a company doesn't have a mailing address or other contact information on their Internet information, I think in the future that is not a company with which I will do business, especially for a major purchase.
The other moral? Deal with a reputable, long-standing company. I cannot commend Grand Home Furnishings enough for their customer service. They have been excellent to work with. Of course, I have an empty living room but they have dealt fairly with us as we try to resolve our issues. I feel confident that this time we will get furniture that will hold up and take care of our needs.
And I also feel confident that if for some reason it does not, then Grand will work with us yet again. But I sure hope it doesn't come to that.
I am too old to watch TV from the floor.
As in, bolts on one side of the recliner broke, tossing my husband into the floor. We replaced them, but after a few weeks they would shear off again.
 |
| The Ashley Sectional Sofa |
I was expecting to get 20 years out the Ashley. Apparently, that is laughable in this day of replacement furniture. The recliners were not power, but required us to use a little force and exertion. After my surgery, I had difficulty getting in and out of the sofa and did not sit on it unless my husband was home.
So in July 2015, we went sofa shopping. We had been looking for a while. Ashley had a similar sectional but also there were literally over a thousand complaints against the company online, and we became a bit skittish about purchasing another sofa from them. Brands can drop in quality over the years and from what we were reading, Ashley seemed to be having issues.
Finally, at Grand Valley View, we ran across a brand of sofas called Southern Motion. It sat well and they had what we wanted - a love seat without the cup holder in the middle. We like to sit without something between us and hold hands while we watch TV. Maybe not the most important feature in a piece of furniture, but it mattered to us.
We didn't look the brand up online and made an impulse purchase, more or less, even though we'd been looking a while. We bought two of the love seats to replace the sectional. We don't entertain much and figured we could make the love seats last a while if we swapped them out once a year.
Two months after a late August delivery, the spring came through the back of one of the love seats.
 |
| Oops. |
It broke after two months of use, too, right after the new year. Obviously the furniture style itself was defective. We called Grand, had a chat with the general manager (a very nice man), and he agreed to replace the furniture.
The new furniture finally arrived on March 1.
It stank.
I mean, it smelled like burned rubber tires. Even my husband could smell it and was put off by it, and he can barely smell anything. I was already ill with a cold and whatever was off-gassing from the furniture made me even more ill. My husband could tell my breathing was better every time we went out of the house. I couldn't sit on the furniture and for a week I was trapped in the back part of the house, avoiding the smell, because we have a great room with the kitchen and living room connected. We put out baking soda, activated charcoal, and bowls of white vinegar, and ran two air purifiers in the room. We opened the windows when feasible with the weather.
Finally, my husband brought home a friend and they moved the furniture into the garage.
With the garage door open, I was able to finally inspect the furniture.
I found flaws in the leather in the cushions. It doesn't show up well in the photo, but the leather was thin in two places, and looked as if it would split open about the third time we sat down.
I also noticed that the dye coloring on the leather was uneven. I could have lived with that. But I couldn't live with the thin leather in the cushion and the smell, not for what we paid for this furniture.
So back it went to Grand. I will give Grand much credit, for they have worked with us very well to try to resolve our issues.
Now we had no furniture. We went back to Grand but this time to the Tanglewood store, first, to see if they had anything different on the floor. We knew we would not purchase the same brand.
At Tanglewood, they had this very nice power recliner, but no love seat and sofa. The other store did have the love seat and sofa on the floor where we could see it.
So back to Valley View.
We liked the sofa and the love seat, but they were not power. I could not get the manual recliners to work at all, since I no longer have any abdominal muscles to speak of thanks to my multiple surgeries.
We ordered power furniture. Delivery is 10 to 12 weeks.
That's a long time to sit on the floor, so yesterday I decided to have the power recliner delivered, because they had that in stock. We hadn't planned on buying it but three months of trying to live without furniture when I'm already in pain did not seem like a good idea. I was afraid I'd be a pretzel by the time the love seat and sofa arrived.
One of the morals of the story? Most everything out there that you can purchase today is junk. Expensive junk. If you have your grandmother's sofa, you are better off to refurbish it and have it restuffed or refinished or whatever, if you can find someone to do that and you like the piece. It will last forever but the furniture you buy today will not. I am hoping to get 10 years out of this new furniture, and the sales people told me upfront that would be pushing it. But I have no children jumping around on things, or animals, and no one smokes to put holes in the leather, so maybe we can get the 10 years we want.
Another moral? Do your homework. Southern Motion does not have many complaints listed against it, but there are some. I think that is because it is a fairly new company. Most telling, I think, is the fact that their website doesn't have any contact information listed. They don't even say what state they are in (they're supposed to be a USA company). They have a Facebook page but do not respond to things there (or at least ignored my inquiry). If a company doesn't have a mailing address or other contact information on their Internet information, I think in the future that is not a company with which I will do business, especially for a major purchase.
The other moral? Deal with a reputable, long-standing company. I cannot commend Grand Home Furnishings enough for their customer service. They have been excellent to work with. Of course, I have an empty living room but they have dealt fairly with us as we try to resolve our issues. I feel confident that this time we will get furniture that will hold up and take care of our needs.
And I also feel confident that if for some reason it does not, then Grand will work with us yet again. But I sure hope it doesn't come to that.
I am too old to watch TV from the floor.
Monday, March 21, 2016
Using Photos with Picasa in Blogger (Now that Google no longer supports Picasa)
Google no longer supports Picasa, which I know many of us PC blogger users use to crop, enhance, and post photos.
You can find your old photos on Google photos, supposedly. (However, few of mine are there.)
If you have Picasa already, you can still use the Picasa program to edit and crop your photos, though the program itself will no longer update or have new features. This is how to use the program to upload your photos without going directly through Picasa, but instead saving the photos on your computer and then uploading. There may be other ways to do this, but this is how I do it.
One Way to Use Photos with Blogger in Picasa (now that Google no longer supports Picasa)
1. Open Picasa
2. Find your photo
3. Make whatever artistic/functional changes you need to the photo (straighten, crop, retouch, text, etc.)
4. Go to File (top left)
5. Go to "Export Picture to Folder"
6. Click on "Export Picture to Folder"
7. Choose your "export location" by browsing (I put my in a folder called Blog Pictures, but you can use whatever name you like)
8. Chose the name of the exported folder (by default, it is the date of the photo)
9. Check the image size. You can "use original size" but your pictures will take longer to load. I use "resize to" and in the box I put 640 by sliding the little blue slider to the right in the box. This size allows for decent-sized photos without losing quality, generally.
10. Imagine quality: I leave that on automatic
11. Add a watermark if you so desire.
12. Hit "Export"
13. A window will come up showing you the location of the file folder in your chosen location in #7.
14. Close Picasa.
15. Open your blog.
16. Go to " New Post"
17. In your menu list across the top of the post area, find the little icon for photo (it is right beside the word "link")
18. Click on the photo icon.
19. A box comes up that says "Add Images"
20. Go to "Choose files"
21. Another box comes up. Go to Pictures/[whatever folder you are using] and find your exported photo.
22. Highlight the photo with your mouse (you can do more than one at a time if you wish).
23. The photos will load in the "Add Images" screen.
24. Highlight the images you want by clicking on them. They will have a blue line around them.
25. Hit "add selected"
26. Your photos will be in your blog post.
27. Click on the photo to add a caption or to make them small, large, or original size.
29. Your photos can now be used on your blog.
I hope you find this helpful. If anything is confusing, let me know and I will try to clear it up.
You can find your old photos on Google photos, supposedly. (However, few of mine are there.)
If you have Picasa already, you can still use the Picasa program to edit and crop your photos, though the program itself will no longer update or have new features. This is how to use the program to upload your photos without going directly through Picasa, but instead saving the photos on your computer and then uploading. There may be other ways to do this, but this is how I do it.
One Way to Use Photos with Blogger in Picasa (now that Google no longer supports Picasa)
1. Open Picasa
2. Find your photo
3. Make whatever artistic/functional changes you need to the photo (straighten, crop, retouch, text, etc.)
4. Go to File (top left)
5. Go to "Export Picture to Folder"
6. Click on "Export Picture to Folder"
7. Choose your "export location" by browsing (I put my in a folder called Blog Pictures, but you can use whatever name you like)
8. Chose the name of the exported folder (by default, it is the date of the photo)
9. Check the image size. You can "use original size" but your pictures will take longer to load. I use "resize to" and in the box I put 640 by sliding the little blue slider to the right in the box. This size allows for decent-sized photos without losing quality, generally.
10. Imagine quality: I leave that on automatic
11. Add a watermark if you so desire.
12. Hit "Export"
13. A window will come up showing you the location of the file folder in your chosen location in #7.
14. Close Picasa.
15. Open your blog.
16. Go to " New Post"
17. In your menu list across the top of the post area, find the little icon for photo (it is right beside the word "link")
18. Click on the photo icon.
19. A box comes up that says "Add Images"
20. Go to "Choose files"
21. Another box comes up. Go to Pictures/[whatever folder you are using] and find your exported photo.
22. Highlight the photo with your mouse (you can do more than one at a time if you wish).
23. The photos will load in the "Add Images" screen.
24. Highlight the images you want by clicking on them. They will have a blue line around them.
25. Hit "add selected"
26. Your photos will be in your blog post.
27. Click on the photo to add a caption or to make them small, large, or original size.
29. Your photos can now be used on your blog.
I hope you find this helpful. If anything is confusing, let me know and I will try to clear it up.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)