Stuff and Nonsense

Stuff. People are in love with stuff. I'm a people too, so I gotta admit that I appreciate accumulating my share of stuff. I try not to love my stuff as much as some people do, but yeah ... mea culpa. (Just had to put that out there so you can see at the outset that I'm not being too holier than thou.)

But ... I was not one of the people thronging the sidewalk just outside my own door this morning.You see, our neighbourhood had its annual (sometimes semi-annual) garage sale today. Sheesh! You shoulda seen the crowd.

We live in townhouses, so there are lots of houses with stuff to pawn off. Even though half of the houses (like us) choose not to participate, half do, so garage-sale-devotees can still hit a lot of vendors in a short time. So ... yes ... they come by the busload (not really, but it sure seemed like it this morning).

When we slipped out in the early afternoon to run this errand and that, we found more garage sales all over town. A community sale here, a cancer marathon sale there, and many private sales here and there. Many.

All so people can get more stuff.

If I were to participate, I'd probably see stuff that I would like to have. So, I choose not to participate, 'cause I gots enough stuff, eh? Well, not really, but I try to be selective, and if I stay away from such events, I find that I can be. I mean to say, they don't sell my wants such as high tech stuff at garage sales anyway. I won't find my new camera there or a terrabyte hard drive or ... well, you get the idea. That's not really all that much stuff that I lust after though, so I think I'm sorta, kinda cool that way.

When the street sale ended at noon, I saw various neighbours putting their unsold stuff in the trunks of their cars (I wish we said boots like the clever Brits). After making whatever they could off sales, they would be taking the unwanted stuff to the local Goodwill (or equivalent) Dropoff. Cuppa and I prefer to do that first and just get the stuff out of the way and to heck with the garage sale pittance. It doesn't make us any better, but it does make us a bit different, I guess.

What is it about people and their stuff? We have more stuff than anybody at any time in history, but we keep wanting more. Why do we need and want so much stuff? Is it the only way many have of trying (in vain, no doubt) to fill ourselves up?

Stuff and nonsense, say I.

(Sincere apologies if you're a garage sale person. Some of my best friends ... etc. )

Photos From Laos

My niece and nephew are travelling in Asia for a number of months. They taught ESL in Korea for several years and are exploring Asia before returning home and going back to school. They recently trekked in Northern Laos and took some great pictures, which I'd like to share with you. I've embedded the Flickr slideshow below but recommend that you go to Flickr to view it larger. There are some great portraits. You can read the account here.



Recommended: Watch larger on Flickr

An Offer We Can Refuse

In the mail, an envelope from Good Housekeeping. Through the window in the top left corner we see that we have a credit adjustment of $33.91. Say what? We have nothing to do with Good Housekeeping (I mean the magazine because I think the house is kept in pretty good shape — well it's clean, even if not exactly up to big spread photos.) I considered that, Thesha gave Cuppa the O magazine for her birthday, so maybe she ordered and paid for another one, but they can't deliver for some reason and our sending us a nice little refund.

Hah!

Open the envelope. Just offering us $33.91 off the supposedly regular price of $53.88 for the magazine.

So, they want us to subscribe to Good Housekeeping for $53-33 - $33.91 = $19.97. Well, why didn't they just say so?

Just how dumb does Good Housekeeping think people are?

Pretty dumb, I guess.

But even the young readers of chickaDEE wouldn't be taken in by that offer.

It's certainly an offer that Cuppa and I can refuse.

The Curious Case of my Malfunctioning TV

The picture of a part of my den depicts two Christmas presents, separated by several years.



The first was the fridge with the logo of my favorite hockey team: the Montreal Canadiens (for those who don't know, Canadiens is the French version of Canadians). This is my pop fridge. We brought an old, big fridge with us when we moved, but it was too big to get into the basement, and everything froze in winter when we tried to keep it in the garage. The new, den-size pop fridge showed up that Christmas.

It's worked well, but the television, which came several years later, hasn't. It has a hockey connection too, however. Cuppa would fine me watching games in tiny windows on my computer screen and thought that a better solution was in order.

It was a great idea, even if it hasn't worked out very well — because it's a really weird little tv. You see, it goes through stagees where the picture won't show up properly. There are times when all it will give me is a dim, fuzzy — in otherwords totally useless and unwatchable — display.

I can usually and eventually cajole it into working but experienced no joy at all the other night when I couldn't get it to work for the whole game. So, I ended up watching it on the computer. Fortunately, I could at least embiggen this feed to fill the whole screen, so it wasn't too bad. Still ...

Sometimes, even when the tv is supposedly off, I see it flickering at me. Maybe that's when it works, but I don't know for sure. What I do know is that it's not flickering in the off state right now, and it won't properly turn on either.

Tonight is game 7 between the Canadiens and the Penguins, and I suppose that I will be watching on my computer. We do have other tvs, but I prefer to watch in my den. For one thing, the main, living room tv is often recording another program, and for another thing, I don't like to disturb Cuppa by using the bedroom tv as she is kind of an anti-fan.

Oh well, my computer screen is actually larger than the tv screen anyway.

Friendliness Reciprocated

Little Miss Friendly encouraged me to do our grocery shopping at Wal Mart this week because there's a McDonalds in there, and she had a yen (which is Japanese for craving fries). There was another little girl, smaller but older than Nikki Dee sitting with her parents at the adjacent table. Before I knew it, Nikki Dee was over there hugging the other girl who must have been impressed because when they were ready to leave she seemed totally smitten and was grabbing Little Miss Friendly's hand. I think, she was trying to take Nikki Dee home with her.

What a kid! She greets everyone, and everyone is her friend. It would be great if more of us could be like that. Sadly, most of us aren't. Especially me. Maybe it's not too late for me to learn from this kid. But it probably is.

Whenever Pam is out with her dogs, Little Miss Friendly wants to visit. She likes both Pam and the dogs although she keeps an arm's distance from the pooches. So, when Pam saw us out weeding, she offered to take her around the back of her place to pick lilacs for mom.

And so we did.

Here we are diligently weeding just before Pam came over.

And here is one of the lilac bushes.

Pam and Nikki Dee.

Flowers have been picked and Buppa is happy to pose with the kid.

A nice diversion and a beautiful bouquet for Mom, all because Little Miss Friendly is who she is. Methinks the planet needs more Nikki Dees.

Found: Stop Fretting

A personal message to y'all about me finding hankies. Except that I mistakenly call them kleenexes in the vid. What can I say, I was so excited about the project. :)

Before you view, if you do, turn the volume down as I had my mic set too high. That was because it wasn't cooperating at all at first, and, to my chagrin, I had recorded a few silent clips. So, I over-compensated. But despite the sound and calling them kleenexes, I didn't want to do it again. After all, we're just talking about kleenexes here ... er ... I mean, hankies.



Watch on YouTube

The Crying Game

I am here to report that I have certain issues with the forebears who are most responsible for my sometimes unfortunate genetic heritage.

Not only do I have a hearing loss (for which I blame my dad and his) as reported here recently, but there are a host of other issues that I don't exactly appreciate. Now, I assure you that my purpose today is not to chronicle every single one of said issues, for the simple reason that I must work within the constraints of a not-too-lengthy blog post as opposed to a ten volume serial on The Life and Times of AC and His Many Bodily Issues. However, I do wish to share with you my latest affliction.

For the past ten years, perhaps a few more, I have enjoyed (as if) a relationship with Blepharitis, more commonly referred to as Dry Eye (for which I blame my Mom and hers). Essentially, this condition causes one to produce tears because normal mechanisms don't keep the eye sufficiently moist. I know it sounds odd to produce an excessive amount of moisture because you are not producing enough moisture, but that's essentially what it seems to come down to. Well, that's my unscientific analysis and explanation anyway.

Fortunately, I have been able to keep the tearing under control by applying eye drops in the morning. After waking up with dry and crusty eyes, a few drops are all that I need to get things working more or less as they should. Until about two months ago, that is.

At that time, behold mine eyes dideth commence to watering copiously, and nothing could seem to stem the flow of tears coursing down my face. My doctor sent me to my optometrist who possesses the necessary type of instruments for a up close and personal look at what is going on. In the event, my optometrist has passed my file onto a plastic surgeon ophthalmologist. Let me clarify: she has referred me to such an ophthalmologist, and informs me that with luck I might hear back from him and have a consult with said fine doctor before my earthly days have run their course: or not. Apparently, you see, there are so many needy eyes and so few available specialists that one could possibly expire before being granted an appointment, for as reported in this space recently, I only have until August 2028 to get this done.

My difficulty, as my optometrist explains it, is that my tear ducts have shifted so that they can longer do what we all take for granted: drain the moisture from my eyes. Without that accommodation the moisture builds up until it is forced to simply spill over and run down my face in the form of tears. (For this condition, I blame my bachelor uncle in Singapore and his maiden aunt in Beijing.) Hence, I have taken to carrying a crying rag with me everywhere I go — or so I attempt to do, but I am prone to continually misplacing the thing.) They are rags too: just pieces of soft cloth from discarded clothing, but better than tissues that become ratty and linty in no time flat. If I ever track down real hankies (is there such a thing anymore?), I may purchase some, but these crying rags will have to do until then.



The picture shows what I am now forced to do every few minutes — if I am lucky, because keeping track on that dad-blasted crying rag is easier said than done.

Some people are bestowed with Cadillac bodies, but my progenitors have conspired to gift me with all of their worst parts to the point where my body is more the equivalent of a rusty 1970s Ford. Sigh.

Excuse me. I must dab my drippy eyes.

Oh for crying out loud, where did I put that %&^$ rag?!