October 2005

google video

I'm discovering google videos. This video is awesome Naussau Rock Wall Dive 2005. So this is a test if it works. I'd like even more to embed the flash into this page but I don't think google sets up to allow that. It appears that they embed all content in a shockwave player that streams it from the server. I tried saving one. I guess video capture might work but at any rate it's great when TV sucks.

Northern housing problems

Northern Community gets new homes
I'm really happy to hear these folks are getting new homes and a shiny bright new town. I think it will do a lot of good in a lot of ways. Not onlyfor the residents but for indian relations in general as well. Here's the rant though. Why did these people not fix this problem? Why do we sit on our hands whining and waiting for the government? They lived with it for HOW long? Now it's going to be 10 years as refugees before said shiny bright new town exists. It would go a LOT faster if the residents built the town. Why are people so helpless? If I built a house on a farm, or inherited one, and the water was bad and I smashed the place up in drunken fits, or my no-good husband or uncle or cousin or whomever did. Do I go to the government and say "build me a new house and a new well" and criticize them for letting me live in such squalor? Why is the town so badly managed in the first place? Who's fucking fault is it that the town was plunked there and built there and not maintained? Mine? Because I'm white? I do NOT begrudge building these people good homes and I'd equally stand back and let the cash flow to build homes for other depressed nations but Goddamnit you fucking animals take care of this shit for a change. In that respect we ought to make them build it themselves. One of the things that keeps us from smashing up and neglecting our homes is knowing what it takes to get one. We scrimp and save, buy a crappy old dump (like the ones they're complaining about) and put our hard work and money into it till it's not a dump anymore. Or we build from scratch. We do it ourselves and we respect the trouble we did and we also know how to repair it when we do break it. When will we teach the indians that they're not nomads in tents anymore and they have to look after their houses? When will we teach them to build their own houses? Maybe home repair lessons are needed? something is. ~sigh~
I say give them all houses but make sure they all take basic home repair lessons from patching and painting walls to changing light switches, sockets and fixtures, and basic plumbing repair like how to snake a drain, swap out a toilet, change a washer or tap, etc. It's not that hard and if you have someone in every community that can do it, you get things fixed more quickly. I think it's time to write a politician with this idea.

been awhile eh?

Well I did it. I upped my dsl speed to the top end. It's supposed to take place tomorrow but I haven't a clue when tomorrow happens by phone company time so since it's past midnight I tried a speed test. Nope, not yet. It ought to be on when I get up later. I also got a package deal that includes free long distance in the continental US and Canada. Now that's mighty nice. I can call all my internet friends as well as family.
I've put my old website back up with the picture gallery and everything. I'll be enhancing it over the next few months. I've got a lot of extra new stuff archived and waiting. It's just that making all the links and modifying all the pages to set it up and organize it will take some time and energy.
I'm thinking of shaving my iroquois back. I've already shaved a couple inches above my ears and want to go the last 3 inches to make it a distinctive hairstyle like I'm used to having. I really got the urge badly after the kmfdm concert but it's never been far from my mind wanting to return to that hairstyle. Definitely my favorite of all. I worry about Dan's reaction. I feel bad about taking out hair that took nearly 10 years to grow as long as it is and finally is almost as long as the rest. Maybe after this I won't ever grow it out again. It's awfully hard to decide. and FYI, the picture of me as a clown is with my head shaved but the hair from the middle, the "iroquois" part combs down over and hides the shaved sides. I don't shave past my ears though so the back is full. Oh how I do itch to be shaved again but I am agonizing over cutting off the hair. Naturally I'll braid it tightly first and keep the braids.
I've heard petey speaking english in the breeder's voice. He's got a bit of variety and it's got good clarity. I had to "eavesdrop" by sleeping in the living room because if he knows I'm around he just won't do it. I don't yet know how to encourage him to vocalize around me. I can't reward behaviour that doesn't occur!

parrots and scissors

Petey did a bunch more yapping this morning as well as trying to rouse me with obnoxious shrieks. One of the phrases, I forget what he said, was so distinct and clear and I could hear the breeder's voice, that today I called her up. I'd just found her card. So I called her up to suggest she ought to come by and visit petey. We had a long and pleasant chat.
I found a scissor kit at the store for $18 which I couldn't resist. 18 scissors all doing a different fancy edge. Scalloped and toothed and toothed on scallops and scallops mixed with teeth, each one a different patterned edge. How does an old crafter like me resist? I know I haven't done any crafting for awhile but that doesnt mean I won't take it up at any moment again!
I'm thinking maybe make some christmas cards this year and do lots of borders of different colored paper with different edges. some parchment inside the card form, some watercolor painting on it. I'm sure I can figure something pretty out. I'd need one for the neighbors and one for dan's mom and after that maybe I'd make 'em for relatives who're always sending me cards. Hmmmmm I like it! Especially with so much time to prepare in advance.

lost a job I never had

So I went in to see the boss about the new job. He first off wanted to point out that I was being much too preemptive about it. In time it came out that there wasn't a job at all. At one point I explained how I came to have such an erroneous notion, directly quoting him back to him, he insisted that he hadn't and never would have said such a thing. I know he did. Lets face it, I didn't just plant this idea in my head. Well anyway, either way it's fantasy, however it came out. His words to the issue are that the position doesn't exist, hasn't been made or defined or outlined, and when the position or positions should finally be available to be filled, it would only be fair to offer them publicly like any other position.

IOW, fuck you and your eight years, you can't move with the theatre to the new building and a new life with a real job and real wage. You've invested 8 years of nearly volunteer work for nothing but a lower social status than you knew existed. I don't know what I'll do next.

I know I'm so angry I keep ranting and what I want to do is just quit post haste, maybe in a few weeks when it's so bitterly cold that nobody in their right minds would commit to a job they have to drive to, park 8 hours in deep overnight cold, then drive home, for one third of what welfare offers when not working at all. The only people who could benefit are people who can use it for supplemental income. Welfare takes it off the top so you're not making income there. It's too physically demanding for a retired person. It requires too much responsibility for a teen at home. It's only worth $300 a month wages yet you may put in up to 2x/day for 6 days, sometimes for what amounts to ten or fifteen minutes work for which you must get through all weather and cold, deep at night, in a crime ridden neighborhood. So if I quit in anger, I fantasize myself doing it right over christmas.

Would I do other things in anger? No, not really. The quality of my work will slack off now but not so much it garners complaints. After all, most of the work I do is done for the sake of the work itself. I love to see things gleam and sparkle and cleaning is pleasing to me in that way. But I'll dust less, when the dust is visible rather than weekly, for instance.

I also am going to do zero discouraging of fairy mischief and even giggle along with them should they decide to play with people there. I derive a small comfort from this idea, whether said mischief should surface or not.

I feel so discouraged and disappointed and cast-off. I go through so many feelings. Did he lie to me to motivate me in order to get more effort without better wages? Did he really mean it then change his mind? Was he sincere but in error and now unable to admit it? Since he refuses to acknowledge saying it there's no way to know, only supposition and guesses. He said "I can't promise or unpromise it, it just isn't decided" and that in his opinion it's going to be many years before this all happens. I don't believe THAT either, didn't when it dropped from his mouth.

I am willing to state that by this time next year ground will have been broken and construction begun on the new building and by the following season they'll have moved. That's when I'm jobless again. I have so deeply counted on this idea that I was going to get a living wage and real job. A job where I could be employed and not seeking employment. I thought my 8 years of hard and loyal and honest work was resume enough they didn't need to look outside. I was offering to retrain by any means necessary and assured him I'm smart enough and motivated enough and handy enough.

Is it because he wants a man in the job? I just thought of that. Women in the technical side of the arts are rare, very rare, and usually pretty hard edged. I am not. I dunno. The cleaning lady is out, the janitor will be in, and if I'm up against the public, forget it. I learned that long ago, I have nothing about me that's better than anyone else. Stick some competition against me and I have nothing to offer that anyone wants. It doesn't matter why, I sure can't figure it out, but I haven't gotten this far in life without experiences and I know for a fact that I'm not an attractive prospect to other people.

So here's me, back to what? Well I have Dan, I guess, except I don't believe in him. I haven't told him about this, he may read it some day. Only if he proves me wrong though. I won't share it with him before being married, that is for sure. I don't think he'll make it here. I really don't. I keep waiting, hoping he'll prove me wrong, but, well. We've been going like this a long time and he's always assuring me that this spring or this autumn or next spring or next autumn he's going to move here. Season after fucking season.

What, am I stupid? I must look stupid. i sure am acting stupid. Well I'm not stupid. I have a pretty good idea what's going on. Why break up with him? I don't want a boyfriend anyway. I'm sure in hell not going to try and find someone else so might as well sit tight let it ride. H

e pays for the patience. He pays enough of my bills for that. I definitely think he's serious, but I don't think he's realistic about his abilities, or something. I don't know. maybe his motivation is slow. Well anyway, either he gets here or he doesnt.

As the years go by I'll get less enjoyable anyway because I'm gradually getting more bitter about my failed dreams. I can't even dream of a stupid fucking 18k/yr janitor job. How lost is that?

I used to dream of a lot of things, sometimes the dreams came so close I thought I could grasp them. In reaching out, they popped like soap bubbles and I was left ashamed and being pitied or ridiculed for thinking I had any chance at a normal life. That's how I'm feeling right now. Really fucking upset and confused and lost and kicked.

I'm not telling Dan about it. Mostly because he's not here to tell. Also because I suspect his long absences might relate to me not being cheerful enough. If I can't be cheerful he seems not to see a point in being at the computer. If he's not enjoying it, you know? Oh don't get me wrong, it matters plenty how I feel about it, I'm supposed to be happy when he talks to me. If I'm not, well he's wasting his time bothering me, isn't he?

I sure wonder how hard I'll kick myself when I'm married to him. Will I be able to navigate the shoals and reefs, or will it be a total trainwreck? I do see a potential for trainwreck, really I see it, I know what you're thinking about it just here, but you see, I'm already a derailed train. No, not derailled. I'm on a track and toodling along, just that the track goes nowhere whatsoever. Might as well risk a wreck. It's not like I can kill myself and leave these pets alone.

transportation

Boy oh boy that wilma brewed up suddenly. I really dont think she'll hurt as much as we fear, but if she lands in a bad spot she'll hurt all the same. I hope she hits an area not too badly wrecked as a tropical storm. They really can't take much more of this down there. I
've sent a janitor wish list to my boss regarding the new building. I'm meeting him tomorrow and sadly getting amped up over it.
Got my car on the road now. It only cost two grand and change.... Fuckin' hell man. Never gonna get out from under at this rate. The transmission had to be rebuilt. The mechanic tells me I got it just in time, that if I'd kept driving it would have been beyond repair and a replacement would be needed. He said I got every possible mile out of it. Well actually, he said I got the last mile, before telling me he could fix it. That floored me. I guess really "horrendous" isn't that far off for the sting of this bill in retrospect. However, the pleasure at having a warm, dry box in which to carry my stuff, my dog, a friend, etc. really is sublime. It was still full-on winter when I put it away and I had to cope with a record setting snow storm and deliver papers in it, at night, with a bike and trailer.
Speaking of winter biking I have no intention on giving it up but rather have been working to assemble a bike made for winter. It's not a lot different, lady's frame with 3 speed hub, fenders, nice fat seat and high handlebars (I still have to guage those and might have to change the head tube). There's no shocks or fancy crap on it but it will have large fat tires with knobby tread and replacement studded tires I will put on once the snow settles in. I wonder if I could make snow chains? Problem is the braking on this bike occurs on the rim and so anything you put on has to cling only to the rubber. So the bike fix-up is costing around $200. I expect it to save me that much in gas in the first winter by being worth taking out on the road. It'll be lighter, more robust, and grip the surfaces better, with studs it should even treat ice like ashphalt. I really look forward to trying that out! About the only surface that then gives you winter grief for slippage is metal things in the road. Around here they tend to be cold enough to pack on snow.

a moment to spare

Here I am between doing stuff at home and getting dressed to head out. I have about 10 minutes with nothing to do. The system has been stable for over a week now, that is reassuring. I continue to backup every week, one week just files and data, the other week it's imaging the drive.
Petey's really cute. I stand there babbling at him as if he can understand because it's a good idea to talk to your pets. They may not know what you're telling them, but they know you're being friendly and sharing time with them and that's an honor to them. After all, it's not like people ever listen either. So he's sitting there blinking at me, looking at me from one side and the other, tilting his head and generally indicating that it's fascinating to be talked at. heh. There's some communication going on between us but it's pretty weak yet. He has so much anxiety to pass through all the time yet. I'm pretty sure that a large part of the blame for that is his clipped wings and I rejoice as they grow out and his flying ability gets better. I'm not supposed to let him launch himself and I try to prevent it but he still does sometimes loft off and these days he lands where he intends and without crashing, mostly.
The other day he bonked his nose a bit but today trying the self same flight he successfully went from the kitchen perch across the kitchen, turn through the doorway, turn again to the cage and land on top on the rope perch arch. Pretty impressive! He has a good 80% of flights grown out on the right and about 30% on the left. That's the wing he kept bashing this summer, breaking feathers, causing bleeding and I think he even strained something. It's still healing and he wrenched it more than once but I think it's going to be fine now so long as nothing happens to wrench it again. I continue to try and prevent long distance flights but I'm encouraging short hops and I'll enlarge them as he gets better. I do want a bird who can just fly on over because he feels like it and land just where he intends to. I realize he might be harder to discipline/manage but I think he's teachable enough to get around that. He can learn manners and deportment.
I slept in the living room and used the PDA for an alarm clock. It let me down and I overslept and couldn't get to the bike shop to finalize the winter bike setup. I'll have to try harder tomorrow and I will try using the computer as an alarm clock. I need to get another clock radio though, is what I really need. It's too late to find one now. I guess if it screws up I drop everything in the middle of breakfast for a moped run across town.
I wasn't willing today but tomorrow I have to make it, that's my day's grace. I'm getting worried about the bills. I should pop over to the credit card login and see how bad it is. I will have to pay around $100 on the bike, the car could reach $2000 and I don't know if I've enough credit to cover it! nevermind the dog still hasn't had her shots and checkup.
Lucky I'm blessed with healthy rabbits and all around healthy pets. Partly my excellent care but also luck because some critters come with built-in issues that healthy diet just won't fix. It's part of why I let benny die. He could have been kept going and possibly the problem would have corrected itself if I'd had him in for a tooth filing every 4-6 weeks for an indefinite time and I did do so about 5 or 6 times, racking a massive increase on the credit card at $100 or more each time! For a little shit of a rabbit that wouldn't give me the time of day at that. Most folks eat these creatures and there's me spending hundreds on a little wretch that hates me back. Blah. I'm not sure even if he'd been loved and loveable as well as irresistably cute that I'd have kept going. Instead I let him work it out with nature and nature said "buh bye bunny bye bye" So yeah, I'm lucky as much as anything that all these guys are fine. Well spare moment is over.

Man vs Earth, SHow DowN!

How are we supposed to pay for it all? 5 billion to pakistan's quake? 200 billion to beat up on saddam, 50 billion to rebuild new orleans. How much is the tsunami costing? And all from donations from you and me and our brothers, dear non-existant reader. Yes, we are expected to pay for it. We're supposed to donate enough to cover the cost. Can a whole world go bankrupt? What an interesting concept. So many disaster zones large and small from flooded rivers to flooded countries. Rubble and death and trash and suffering. What can we do? I don't think there's anyone on the planet can solve this one. The earth is shaking and shuddering. Can her crust be affected too by the overall increase in her temper? When the earth has a fever, does she twitch her skin more, more volcanoes and earthquakes, as well as sneezing and coughing and all the other wet cleansing things we are being pummeled with? Is this how the rhino virus feels when your body starts it's defence against infection? Well I don't really think it's got conciousness or feeling
so... But then maybe earth thinks that of us? No, she knows us. She knows us as deeply as we know ourselves at least. Why then can she be so callous with us? Do you love your home, your land? Do you love the skies that gleam above? when you think of your planet, that blue marble in space, do you love it? But are you not callous about the damage you're doing? When you run out of smokes and have to go to the corner store for a pack, or you get restless and want to "get out" for a bit, is it not callous how you fire up the car and drive it out there for your 4 block walk to the store, or just to go stand around doing nothing somewhere else instead of at home? Why do you think of bikes and walking as recreational only instead of good ways of getting where you need to go? Why is not dealing with lint on your window worth using up disposable paper towels? What's a little lint in the edge where you wiped it off the side?
Is that not callous of us? So easy, isn't it, when we all are just doing a bit. One little hurricane here or a tsunami there, it's nothing, there's plenty of humans, not like they'll go extinct if they lose a few. Think about it statistically for a moment, out of how many humans we've lost what percentage to natural disaster in the last 365 days? I wish to hell right now I was a mathematician and I'd tell you, if you were there, if anyone ever read, but I'm not. However, I'd love to see if I'm right when I presume we've lost less than 1% of our race to the earth's wrath. Is she really that callous then? I mean, from her point of view we're just another species of animal. A particularily clever and overwhelming species, but animals nonetheless. What matters in that scheme is not you nor I nor the guy on the corner, but rather the diversity of all the animals and plants, and there's one particular species that's mucking things up. I think I've got a reasonably good seat for the show, I'm going to be watching this battle with great interest and not a small amount of sorrow as a sauce.

new video card is fun

Now I'm really getting a kick out of the new vid card. It's been so long since I had a bad crash that it feels "safe" to play with things. I finally got the tv feed going. At first I could only get black and white and after a bit of research I decided the adapter I was using was likely not compatible with this video card. It had been made specifically for the old vid card.
I picked up a unit at the store that takes a bunch of video formats (excluding vga/svga) and converts them to coaxial. Not my #1 choice, I'd prefer rca for this, but it'll do. So right now i have a winamp visualization playing on the tv in time to the music. It's a terrible shame I couldn't run dream render on the tv monitor but for some reason it just can't do full screen 3d stuff on that one. Only in-app windows, even if the window is enlarged to the size of the screen. Media player though can fullscreen onto the tv and that's fun, I have bunches of videos that don't play on the dvd machine, only computer, so now I can watch them while on my pc, which is how I watch most of my tv and most of the time on the computer, as a reader of this blog would notice, is spent with the tv going.
I can also bring in a 15" svga monitor but the damn things are so bulky and heavy it seems like a dumb idea. Another lcd, sure, but hey, that's not very likely. At any rate I'm definitely getting a kick out of the tv out desktop sharing. I also put my satellite overview gif on the tv and it's max'ed to the tv so you basically can just peer over there to see what the weather is doing. except of course when I put another thing up like the winamp vis right now. I'm finding it pretty natural to slide the mouse over there. I can just see me watching tv broadcast and trying to slide the mouse over to hit a non-existant skip button past commercials.
NB: livejournal includes a “mood” button and a “current music/noise” feature.

earthquakes of course

I still love this song so many years later. It's gentle, deep, melodious and speaks to the wallflowers of which I was one in my highschool. This song hit the charts while I was only 14 so I grew up feeling with it. ( Janis Ian - At Seventeen)
Oh it's good to have a space of free time to write this. I've been struggling just to keep up with email these days! Errands to run and visiting to do and my job have really been keeping me hopping. I find myself unmoved over pakistan's issue although I rejoice at the effect it has on their attitude towards the rest of the world. Suddenly we're not great enemies but rescuers! I don't know if my lack of caring is due to "compassion fatigue" with all the other disasters or, more likely, a sense of disconnection. I have seen so many shots of earthquake things and the fact that this destruction is wider spread and more intense doesnt' really trigger with me.
I haven't really seen a lot, not like with new orleans where you can pour over maps of the flooding or in the tsunami when I had high bandwidth and downloaded all the raw news footage on reuters and stuff. A tidal wave is a hell of a force to witness, seeing video draws you in. Likewise a hurricane. Then while you're rubbernecking the force of nature is when you really connect with her victims and then the compassion flows. Pakistan though, it's remote, it's isolated and isolationist, it's a country that regularily insults everything about us and trains and harbours and ships out people to hurt us in terrorism. How do you get the same level of caring even to start out with? Then the quake, well all you see now is rubble, no shots of freeways before and after or graceful soaring buildings turned to shreds. It looks like every dusty muslim country around except messier and more miserable than usual.
I do hope canada lifts a lot of restrictions on family sponsorship for quake victims and also expedites applications but they better do full security checks on every one of them because a LOT of creeps come from there! I think bin laden is still living in that country hiding out.
I wish someone would figure out a magic speech or something that would better draw us together, spread out our wealth and technology and make those dusty arabian countries just look like other people instead of stone age people living in rubble. They deserve better. Everyone does.

unprepared

Once again a massive disaster has me thinking about personal disaster preparation. My heart sinks as I realize how powerless I would be and I start to feel the anxiety and fear and worry. Then I push it away from myself and ignore it. The stress of worrying and knowing how little I could do about it causes me to do even less than I might! Well oh well, I've prepared myself for the possibility of life as a hobo and continue to think in terms of being as resourceful in a mobile form as I can. It's why I am fascinated with small things. I would like to have my quality of life that I now enjoy with the mobility of a nomad. That's not to say I'd necessarily lift off, but to know I could and quickly, that is worthwhile.

politics and disaster

Disasters are changing the face of our political world.
First the tsunami, and now banda aceh freedom guerillas are giving up the battle and working together with java's government. The fact of being wiped off the earth more or less has had a dramatic effect on their priorities. Now the US has had a tremendous disaster. This has brought home more deeply than we can measure, just how real a disaster really is. Suddenly it's not alien people with alien cultures and fashion and lifestyles standing pathetically in the ruins, but rather familiar places and familiar faces. I don't know why it is but the poorer you are, the less everyone cares about you, generally speaking. Think about that. What is that about? Some sense of divine justice faith wherein we assume they deserve to suffer or they would be happy like us? So now we know that the images we see on our tvs of people digging in rubble with their bare hands, disheveled and worn and desperate for food, water, shelter, and to save whom they can, are just like us, only after a disaster. There but for luck of location go I.
Storms and earthquakes are bigger than man, they're like retribution from god. So now we have the pakistani earthquake. Pakistan was on a war mongering course, assembling nuclear weapons openly and in a posture of war against india. Now suddenly 30,000 people are dead and ten times that are homeless. large cities and rural mountain towns all demolished and flopped over. Now even their traditional enemy India, and also the US are stepping in with aid (so are we in canada). Pakistan is certainly a country in need of a lot. Their social customs oppress the people and hold back their progress. The country is poor and rural and pouring your men andmoney into war just isn't the way to get ahead! I wish countries would put that much energy into public works like building wind and solar generators, laying in fiber optic networks, sending satellites, encouraging industry, researching and ennabling better pollution control, etc. Really there's far more we could be doing with the money wasted on murdering each other over who gets to be in charge of what. So now dire and dramatic need has been visited upon wars and resulted in changes of heart. Maybe there's a god/dess in there somewhere. Y
ou know, I remember watching a cat 4 hurricane walk around jamaica. It hit near the middle of the island but about 10 mi off shore the eyewall walked sideways along the island. Her skirts swept the island hard but the violent wall of water moving at 185mph at least stayed offshore. I swear it hadda be voodoo magic. I think that's also why the eye of the storm didn't hit new orleans directly. I also think that the prayers of the continent steered rita into the rural swampy areas where her fury was dulled slightly instead of having her ram her way into houston and all the refugees there. T
here's a vision I had of a hurricane on undeveloped land. The sort of land this was up till about 250 or so years ago. Well there were folks building stone homes in inner florida and there were the adobe people out west but mostly the land was forested where there was enough water to keep trees growing. Hurricanes would build up in areas where the water was polluted. Perhaps a forest has caught a disease and died. The water from that gets plugged and sluggish with algae eating on the dead tree material. This warms up the water as it absorbs the sunlight. When it flows to the ocean it produces a warm stream. A storm may follow that track as it's food for a storm, so then it climbs ashore where the dead forest lies stinking and it scours the place and floods it out and washes it clean. It drenches the land upriver too following the shape of the continent in the river valley and this sends fresh seeds and material down to the dead land and replenishes it and cleans out the pollution. Unfortunately, that pollution these days is us and we don't much like being treated that way!

Lemons 'r' amazin'!

Lemons cut grease, bleach stains, disinfect and deodorize.  Did you know that?  They also cut the tarnish on silver and copper and maybe other metals, not sure. So I've always known that but it took durian fruit to make me add it all up and stick a lemon in my dishwater!
Today was a kitchen day.  I know I should have dug in the garden and worked the compost while the weather is nice but I also had to process my fruit from the store because some of it just won't keep, like the coconut, and some don't keep well, like the pineapples. 
Well I have never tried durian.  Someone on a list had a conversation about it but when I was in the store it didn't really click in for me.  Rather, I saw the food in someone's cart for the first time.  I hung nearby till she returned and asked her about it.  Her accent was very hard to understand but she was happy to encourage me to try it and reassured me it was sweet and you just open it up and eat.
So I went and got one of these odd things, it is a gnarly ugly brown football covered in squat spikes like a hedgehog.  It's almost leaf shaped too.  Very unique fruit.  Mine weighed a couple of pounds.  It was in a net bag to facilitate handling as the spikes are unpleasant to handle.
When I got home last night I researched the fruit and discovered that it was indeed the infamous stinking fruit described on that list.  As I read about it's pungent reek and wondered why mine wasn't stinking up my house yet I worried just how well I'd cope with mine.  I was determined not to waste it, having paid $5 for this oddball experience.  Over and over people wrote of how heavenly it tastes and how hellish it smells.  Or, you could say it stinks to high heaven and takes you there.
So finally this morning, having gotten a turkey in the oven (they're cheap food this time of year and it IS canadian thanksgiving AND I need to get the new range properly dirty[boy do i ever side track]) I turned my attention to said peculiar hedgehog football thing.  The thorns were delightfully easy to cut and I sliced here and there whiffing for the smell.  It started finally to rise, weak yet distinct.  Mostly I just recognized it as that slightly off yet foodish reek found in so many oriental shops.  My kitchen smelled more oriental than usual, even though I do use a fair bit of exotic oriental foods.
The durian didn't look good, it looked very off with blueish and greenish patches in the putrid yellow flesh.  The flesh was kind of slimy, yet firm and healthy textured.  It broke apart like turkey breast will do.  Mostly it was yellow colored and as I figured out the structure of the fruit separating the large misshapen seeds from the wrapping of meat got easier.  I guess mostly it looked like a rotting brain in there,heh.  Once you cut the meat out it wasn't so weird, mostly pale greyish yellow.  I imagine it was a bit less than prime but it wasn't off or actually rotting.  Just odd colored and misshapen and stinky.  I truly wonder how in the heck did anyone manage to figure out it was edible?
I tasted the meat, of course, and found it quite mild flavoured, a little sweet, no tang like citrus or berries, more smooth.  Yet it had an appealing edge to it.  I think it's appeal is the wealth of nutrition packed into it's flesh.  Darn stuff is like taking daily formula multivitamins.  I think that too is what keeps bringing people back.  It's like spinach to popeye and will even raise your metabolism some while you eat it, making you warm up.
So from reading the websites I decided to make a slightly cooked fruit salad with rice and coconut sauce.  I used coconut oil and almond oil, fresh young coconut, lychee juice and cardamon for the sauce base and fried up the rice then cooked up the fruit, pineapple, durian, coconut flesh, one banana, one pomegranate, some longan fruit and two lemons and several key limes.  Those last three were added after cooking and next time so shall the pomegranate.  In fact Imight cook the durian and rice alone and add the others fresh and cold.
Now the durian doesn't need cooking but I was trying to bring a little delight to the flavour, give it some zest.  It was so subtle to my palate. 
Well after I was all done cooking and eating I had to cleanup.  I had dishes filthed with durian stink.  Rather like a gym locker says my nose.  Boy's locker room stink.  So I decided one more from the magic lemon bag for cleanup.  I was only going to use half but when time came to wash the greasy turkey pan I needed to use a second round of water to clean everything.  So I squeezed the lemon into the water and then left the half rind in the water.  I also put a half rind that had been so sitting into the nuker for 2 mins to sweeten the nuker and loosen the splatters on the walls in there.  The nuker wiped clean easily. That lemon not only cut all that grease and wiped the smell of durian out of wooden spoons and cutting boards and plastic bowls, it also shined the steel sink and bleached out half the grey in the old dishrag!  I even used that water to clean my oven.  THAT needed a scrubber.  I don't think I really got it back to pure enamel and i'm sure eventually scrubbing alone won't be enough, but I'm going to try and keep the thing pretty since I don't roast splattery things very often.

Happy Thanksgiving!

It's thanksgiving day here in canada.  It's a day we're supposed to enjoy the harvest and the bounty of this miraculous land we share.  We cook up a feast and gather families together and it's as important for many canadian families as christmas or easter.  We appreciate, enjoy, and recognize the wealth that is our birthright, which we normally take for granted.  Full bellies and dry homes and spare clothes.  :-)
I'm cooking up a turkey and made a fruit salad based around a weird asian fruit called Durian.  Look it up online some time.  So I'm eating durian fruit salad while the bird sizzles in the oven.   I took some next door too.  Earlier she came over with some pumpkin pie as thanks for me leaving ginger in the mailbox 'cause she was out and called me last night while I was away.  With the pie came a can of diet pepsi and a 2 oz bottle of rum :-) 
I like my neighbors.
Eileen is a very large character, really very.  She laughs so loud, sudden and often, that everyone around has heard her cackle even if they've never met her.  It's a generous cackle though, it bursts forth unrepressed, no sign of meanness or ridicule.  She gets talking and her volume goes up and up till she's very loud and has to be reminded to tone it down.  Heh.  Very dominant but thoughtful and sensitive and non-judgemental.  We get along well.  She is respectful and honest and kind and generous with me and I try to do the same in kind.  I'm thankful to have these amazing people in the only house directly adjacent to mine (corner lot.)  I can't imagine being able to survive sharing a fence with hostile neighbors.

quiet blog

Being on the edge of crash and drive wipe has me reluctant to use the PC, livejournal included. I've started a file of applications and reinstall info for each. I'm going to take my time, keep backing up and restoring. When I get my preparations together it will speed up the process of reinstalling and I'm planning on using a file that my pda can read. Well, it's not like I've got people reading and wondering why I'm not writing, LOL. There's a kinda freedom in that.

meltdown day

Today was a hyper super meltdown kinda day. My autistic friends on email suggested it might be a buildup after so many months of difficulty. The computer continues to crash and wipe it's disk. I'm considering doing a backup nightly! Well not tonight 'cause there's no changes since the last backup on C drive. I've copied over email files to restore email if it gets wiped. ~sigh~ I sure don't appreciate this nuisance at all. I am going to do the reformat as my next project to fix the PC. That'll take me some time to work into though. Lots of settings to write down and export. ~sigh~

wanders badly

System has now gone over 24 hours without a crash so the card is accepted I guess. Now we have to wait and see if the original problem is gone. then I dunno what I should do with the old card. Probably give it away on freecycle with a warning. The play is finished it's run so tonight I get to hang at home and that's what I did. Had some dvd movies to watch, some nachos to eat, a pipe to smoke, and the hideabed yanked out. I'd bathed the dog so she was even pleasant to cuddle, smelling nice and being soft. It's amazing how much dirt hardens the hair even when you can't tell they're dirty.
Just for shits and giggles I dyed the dog's light areas with wine red. It's a bit too pink now when I wanted a more orangey result, but I haven't really gotten a good look at it in decent light yet. I know more tomorrow how it turned out. I just thought I'd have fun since I hate that color in my hair. It was the closest I could find to my color when I bought it and tried it.
I still haven't actually got MY color at all. It's been over a decade since I've found a pot of it. Manic Panic Flamingo Pink is the dye in question and it's damn hard to come by. I even tried online order and they refunded me because it was on 6-12mo back order!
Well it was nice, la vita dolce is I think the italian word for that sense of suspension of cares and being in great comfort.
I didn't have to install Dave's DSL because the room was too full of crap to let me get in and work AND he hasn't got a network card. I'll have to track him down one. I could give him one of mine probably but I don't feel like tracking down drivers and when you buy one it comes with drivers. I scolded him for being a slob. Heh. I usually just shutup and be a friend but every now and then I guess someone's gotta remind people they're unhygienic. With any luck he'll address the mess a bit and pull back the entropy.
Although it's been years since the conflagration next door damaged his house, he's still using it as an excuse for not having his shit put away and cleaned up. Heck, the little toilet off the basement that I use when there (his is deep in his unlit apt past the bed and in front of the laundry pile) and the sink has never been cleared of the ashy residue from the fire! It's grosser than camping and using an outhouse in some ways. His bathroom when I cleaned it after the fire was a horror second only to Mike's filth encrusted den of indecisive muttering. Ask me about mike's mess some time. FYI, these are friends.
I get along better with men and I don't sleep with filthy people. But I'm willing to be a friend to them.:-)

autumnal musings

So here it is autumn.  The jet stream moves south and bathes us in it's wild winds.  The wind stops and rips it's way through pushing around the dry dead dirt from sterile patches, dumping leaves and debris into it's place to enrich the soil.  It tears the leaves from the trees and collects them into windrows where they hold moisture for thirsty trees.  It drops them into ditches to compost richly and hold yet more water.  The world around us packs up it's summer and tucks it all away into the ground in roots and burrows, hunkering down, pulling blankets of leaves over it's head to take a long deep snooze in crisp quiet nights.
It is now that the veil between us and those passed away is thinnest.  While beasts are at their fattest and strongest, so also is it harvest for us and rutting for the ruminants.  Things being created while things are cut down and processed to food.  In the does deep in the forest tiny babies will quicken and grow through the winter.
Now is the time we traditionally take time out to honor ancestors.  We honor the war dead on Nov. 11th for instance.  We honor all dead on hallowe'en (or would if we weren't busy with masquerade parties and candy binges).
It is a time for dusting up and modernizing the household shrines for those who keep shrines to departed loved ones, the ancestors.  This too is our last chance to give our homes a good airing and cleaning before winter clamps down and the world outside makes work difficult.
This time of the year is associated with the West.  With sunsets, with age, with the body's fluids and healing, with the element of water.   Traditionally animals like dolphins, whales, sea lions, and other sea creatures but here in the prairies we would also look to animals like the Goose who flies through in his millions.  His bounty isn't just the beauty and thunder of goose wings and cries in the air overhead, but every one of them is meat to a starving man.  (not to advocate hunting so much as to point out that salient fact). We live in a land so vast and rich it defies quantification.
The dark side of magic is the removing side.  You can do work by building, or by taking away.  Building is healing, wishing for increase, creating changes or events.  The taking away is used in magics made to clear out things that don't work, eliminate problems like cancer or negative habits and attitudes, or to get influences out of your life.  It's this side also that people use when they work malicious magic.  I don't wish to touch on malicious magic other than to say I haven't ever seen a happy person who considers it useable.  For me, I stick with ways that the magic of autumn and winter can help me shed things in my life and my mind and my body to free and lighten me for rebirth in the spring.
this is the best season for dark moon working but the full moon too has great power in her baleful gold mirror.  Look into her to see the depth of existence and your own soul.  The harvest moon will show you the warmest and kindest parts of yourself.  the parts to be kept, like golden harvest grain.
Rake your leaves over your flower bed to enrich and protect them from winter.  Polish your windows and air out your linens and put away the garden hose.  Dig the compost and the root crops and sweep the walk clear for winter's snows.

ongoing technical difficulties

Within minutes of my leaving the computer to get my job done the computer froze. It still had a screen, frozen in that moment and telling me the time it went. When I rebooted I'd lost my C: drive again and had to return to backups from last tuesday. That sucks really but at least I could start fresh with the video card change. I didn't try to boot into normal but right into vga mode (use F8 in the startup right when it reads the drive) and in that mode was able to wipe out the nvidia drivers using a few different tools. I did a bunch of reboots in vga mode in the process of cleaning up the video drivers and re-running the via 4in1 chipset drivers yet again. I skipped the last one in the choices menu, I think it's the one that screws up. I really don't get why these guys products screw up like that. It keeps happening from one release to the next! Well oh well, anyway I installed the ati stuff and here I am waiting for another crash! I may just image this partition right away. May? Nay, shall is the word to use! see ya

resolution.

Oh I'm glad I can quit messing with video card stuff. I thought I'd have to run errands in conjunction with this thing and consider my tuesday shot. Now I can relax into worktime and when I get back from an admittedly short work time I'll be able to get some household chores done. I don't know yet when I'm going to dig the garden. There are some purple potatoes potentially hiding in the soil but I need to do it in the daytime. LOL. I won't have an unbooked afternoon till friday. I hope the weather will help me out and be decent and not drop to any serious freezes overnight. What I need to do can handle air frosts so long as I get in before the ground freezes. So I finally cleared out all traces of non-vga drivers from the system and then had to run the via 4in1 install yet again. I may yet discover fun things like usb issues but for this day anyway, I got the new drivers to load. They gave me the same "severe: zero display service error" but loaded anyway. I still need to research this zero display error but at least now I can use my mozilla and I can see things at proper resolution and color. Whew.

video card fun

It's all in the automatic install you know. Just click ok, sit back, enjoy the ride. We'll see you when the computer works again! So I bought a new vid card. It was a pretty affordable one though not the cheapest they had. It's an Excalibur Radeon 9550 with 256mb DDR. I sure wonder how it'll look. At the moment I'm in VGA mode 'cause I couldn't get the system booted after driver install. It would reboot when it should have fired up the graphics drivers. I am currently wasting time while downloading newer drivers. took me a while to figure out how to go into vga mode too. Damn. Turns out it's in the safemode boot menu on w2k. Not a driver selection like in w98. Sure is ugly and this livejournal client can only let me type 3 lines at a time, heh. It's been a quiet day. My fave vid rental is shutting down, selling off all the disks. I didn't see anything I wanted bad enough to buy for 1/2 price. I won't ever see a price scale like that again. On the upside, the place left for me to go is much nearer to my house. the store is worlds better too. The layout, the choices, the variety, and the munchie stop they put in is nicely loaded too. their best deal is 6 for $15 for a week. I can live with that.

product theft

Well the stove makes excellent nachos. Heh. That's important! I've been hampered by the toaster oven which takes forever and only does half batches. Unfortunately I'm now making far too much in a batch because I haven't got the hang of it yet.
My job is taking far less work than I expected in spite of trying to amp up the standards. Turns out I'm not really amping them up, just had to get caught up after having been so sick last year and the year before! i'm getting a lot more in the same amount of time too because I've got energy again.
I figured out who the thief is at work. He gets hired on contracts. He's the guy who does the lighting, and he gets hired to paint things in summer. So the fill-in was that the thefts had occurred during summer and again during the show run, but not steadily since. Also that the product was iced tea cans specifically. That was when it fell in for me because he's always got lots of those cans empty in his booth. He also was hired to paint and often working alone or with one other guy the summer when the liquor cupboard was broken open, the locks pulled off. Clearly someone operating with relaxed ethics! So I told Hans because he's got a tight mouth and it won't turn into gossip but I can't tell anyone else. It's not enough to do that on. The guy could be completely honest and buying his drinks legit. A victim of coincidence. You don't go to the company on it. Besides I like him. He gets me high. Oh, and up till this year he's always smoked tobacco and dope in the booth DURING the shows. So he clearly has no respect for rules and a strong sense of invincibility. He'd been told over and over and still was doing it.
Another thing I did tonight was grab one of the nasty memos from the mailbox of someone I am dead sure hasn't anything to do with this (wardrobe mistress) and took it up to the lighting booth and laid it on the counter in there with one of the ice tea empties on it as paperweight. If he IS the thief, he'll know instantly that someone's on to him. See he doesn't get memos so he would not know about all this and there's a strong chance he'd continue and every day it continues I'm a step closer to getting the blame because of my hours and access. He's gotta stop! Oh, and also, not one other office turns up lots of iced tea pop cans, so that wipes out just about everyone else off the map since it's being done at the same rate someone would be consuming it, not cases and six packs walking off at once.
Here's the memo:

It appears that the theatre has been the victim of theft. In summer we started noticing missing cans of pop from our storage. Again during the run of [current play] cans have gone missing. I do not take this lightly and nor should the perpetrator. If in fact the individual is a member of our staff, that individiual's position will be terminated immediately upon confirmation. While the dollar value of items missing is not large the fact is that individuals with access to the storage are in positions of trust within the organization and as such are expected to conduct themselves in an ethical manner. I truly hope that this is not the case and that all staff will keep their eyes open for any unusual behaviour that might lead to ending this situation.

Clearly the memo requests me to tell my suspicions to the boss (who signed it) but I really don't think that should be necessary, although I do think this person was also the one who busted into the liquor. I think it's possible he's just a thief and he'll cause more grief, but it's also possible he won't and if he doesn't, I would like to see it all over.
I used to tattle on him over smoking in the booth and one night at an opening night after party (I usually show up before they all leave and spend some time hanging out before I start work) he cornered me on it and told me just not to do that anymore and that it bothered him. I decided the excellent weed he always shared was far more important than whether he was being a jerk with theatre rules. Now please understand this rule about smoking isn't only about whether the smell will leak out and reach patrons but what if the guy managed to set his booth on fire during a show? It's right in the theatre proper, not hung out from a second story or anything but part of the upper tiers of seats. It's right up under the wooden cathedral roof. I did figure though that it was likely others could smell it too when he left the booth so I dropped it and sure enough he's been yanked in over that one.
I still wonder if we're so desperate for lighting engineers that the theatre would actually hire him back year after year as they've done for so long. I also wrote the boss an email explaining about the poor lock on the door and pointed out that it was rather harsh to doubt the trust of people granted access when access is so easily obtained as it currently is. I found out after that in fact a deadbolt is going to be installed shortly. I requested a key after the door is fixed, pointing out that I've "broken in" every time I've used that space in the 8 years. I use it to store the recycleable bottles and cans and such and go in there pretty much every time I'm in to clean. I just yank out a sharp knife and push the bolt back with the point of the knife and the door opens. Takes less than a second and looks perfectly natural.
I'm going to look into replacing my video card as I suspect it's responsible for the random crashing I'm still suffering. Over the last year I've tried every software troubleshooting solution I could and even replaced the hard drive and I'm pretty sure now the vid card is implicated. I can't reproduce the problem, typical of hardware issues. I need to remember to do that tomorrow.
So nice to look towards a day off and the show ending on wednesday means a run of days off soon. wheeeeeee!
My blind friend Dave wants me to install his new high speed DSL package. goddamn that sucks. LOL Well he pays me. I think he shoulda got the phone company to send someone over but I guess I'm cheaper. Hell yeah, he only pays $10 an hour, I gave him a 50% discount on account of being blind.
Of course, ironically, he's far richer than I am. However, he hasn't got any kind of massive income. He's got a house that his parents left him in which he grew up. It's paid off and he rents the main and upper floors out to 2 tenants and lives in a small dive in the basement. He hasn't any idea just how gross the space is because he's not only blind but a complete slob LOL. so his housing is paid by the rent from the tenants with probably some profit leftover for living on. He lives pretty frugally, doesn't have any expensive habits or hobbies nor does he wear expensive clothes. The most expensive thing he does is hire people to do things for him.
He also got some kind of estate funds when his parents passed away that he's invested I believe. He says that so long as he lives the way he always does, he will have money enough for life. I can't see him suddenly having to spend a lot, not even for a woman in his life. He's cheap, he's extremely socialist, and a quaker with deep spiritual threads in his heart. I would love to see a woman arrive in his life though. However she's going to have to be someone who loves and is loved, deeply, for good. this is a man who will only love one woman I think. Of course I don't know his history with women. I haven't ever known him to have a sweetheart though. I've known him nearly 20 years too.

teaching or training?

I just figured out what bothers me about the dominant training method on the new list. I joined a list for training birds to come when they're called no matter where they are, the wild included, and to stay close on command and stuff. Well so the method about which I'm talking is food with holding, and/or weight management. They keep the birds hungry and feed them bits of their breakfast when the bird comes to them. Cleverly effective I'm quite sure, but it bothers me.
I won't use food rewards that way except a bit with my dog but mostly I feel that rewards and treats are just something you share around to sweeten up life and training should be done purely for praise. If the animal wants to be your friend and understands what you want, he will do it for you. You just have to practice him patiently through the steps to train his memory and his body so he remembers what you want and has the confidence to give it. If he doesn't love you enough to do this purely for fun, then, well, it's not how I want to operate! These guys are my friends and my wards, not my toys to be commanded and the necessities of life denied else. It's just so disrespectful to withhold all their food and make them hungry so they are forced to comply!
I'm sure the relationship they have with their trainer has plenty enough affection, but for me, I can't regard my petey that way. I am going to teach him things. Not train him. Teach him things to keep him, me, and the house intact and healthy. No chewing on the walls, petey, petey come on over and play, etc. It's a lot slower my way and not as reliable, but I think it's healthier somehow.
Anyway, it's not entirely the food reward issue. Sure I'm ok with having a special treat you hold back for training. No problem sweetening the victory that way and I will do that sometimes too. I also give out that treat as a treat when there's nothing going on though. It's holding back his meals that is bothering me. birds munch most of the time to some degree. I don't think they go 12 hrs between meals as these folk recommend.
I haven't seen how they decide how much or if it's withdrawn after a short time even if unfinished. It's just that birds diving starving into a bowl of food seems so demeaning. Never mind that they always get enough to keep healthy. these are creatures quite smart enough to learn to do things for love anyway!
Grump. It bothers me. I can't say a thing on the list 'cause I'm brand new and i'd be challenging the list gods. I either stay and learn what I can while ranting off over here, or I leave the list and get the heck out. for now as you see, I'm choosing option A.

long dark nights

>Oh man, sometimes the world scares the shit out of me.
I could feel it in the air tonight, you know that quality of sound or air or something that says "gonna be a rough night on the streets." Maybe you subliminally notice more sirens or more sounds of revelery.
Well it is the first friday of the month, everyone has money and the weather is quite fine for an autumn night. So I was having a lot of anxiety as I came home. I passed some youths who looked like the very sort who do unpleasant things to middle aged white folks. I got to my place and more of them were hanging around the house on the corner which has become a source of unpleasant eruptions of loud drunks. So these girls out front yelled something at me and I made my way as fast as I could inside the gate with the moped. I'd only just got the door closed and locked when a girl piped up from the other side. Well it's not my way to be so rude as to ignore that. I opened the door nervously (glad I had a helmet so nobody could whack me over the head) and she asked me to call a cab. I said I would after I'd gotten in and I closed and locked the door.
I got myself into the house and got the phone and dialled a cab company and while it rang endlessly I walked outside to speak to the girl asking for a cab. I didn't think the cab company would send it anyway to just a street corner. I was still waiting on the ringing and the girls were nowhere to be seen but I could hear young girls in the distance laughing and screaming and shouting like drunks. As it turns out, there is a party across the alley and a couple houses over.
So then I went back inside and dialled the police and asked them to bring a patrol around. While doing this a 911 call took the operator away and put me on hold. I folded laundry while I waited and then the dog went nuts and there was noise out front. I headed out with my phone still on hold to the cops.
The girls were there and I told them it was the cab company I was on hold with and that it was a busy night. I hung up the phone seeing there was only 3 drunk chicks and nobody else was around. I told them the cab company wasn't going to send to just a corner, can't they go back to whereever they were from to call? That was when they explained that the house they were at, a friend of one of them, had a sexual harasser in it, an older guy who was all over them and they couldn't take it, plus there was a crowd of young folks out roaming and spoiling for trouble. That would be the bunch who threatened me on the way home plus the extra handful standing across the fence when I first got home.
The ones who had me so nervous. I warmed up to these 3 young women enough to realize a little kindness was called for. So I called another cab company and this time got through. Again, the place was busy but they'd send one sure enough. The soberest girl had shown she had money. So I invited them to sit on my deck. I wasn't going so far as to bring them in the house, though it was chilly and they were chilled. I still didn't know if they were just good cons and you don't bring 3 strange young drunk women into your home at 3:30 am. Not if you can help it! Besides once I invite someone over the threshold the domestic shield has no power on them. It's weak a lot of the time as it is.
So while I sat there I felt the spruce trees start to curl in around us to protect us as we chatted about the scary folks who were out on the street and I apologized for treating them like scarier people than they deserved just because they were indian. They were really nice about it, they're used to it and they knew they'd be scared if they were me.
It sure didn't feel like a welcome aspect of the relationship but it really is one. I generally try to refer to people without too much racial tagging unless it's relevant to the topic, but it's hard for my brain not to eventually register a common appearance when it appears commonly with a certain type of behaviour. Tough row to hoe.
At one point I came up with a great line. I make up these aphorisms all the time. I oughtta record this one on my snips page on the website too. "Courage doesn't count if you're not scared."
So we sat around, I shared the pipe with them and they got stoned on top of being drunk. I called the cab again and they said we were in the line up. Just when I couldn't stand to watch them shiver and went for a blanket their cab arrived. So that was that.
There was still yelling and nonsense across the alley too. ~sigh~ The neighborhood is being badly strained by these rental homes.
Where the hell do we put the unsocialized people? The one who make stupid choices and decisions and engage in antisocial behaviour? Put the ugly cheap rental houses there. Nobody wants them in their own neighborhood including the people who move in. I used to think maybe you could make housing available scattered throughout the city loosely in all the neighborhoods. I thought maybe the surrounding neighborhood might be able to exert force of control or aid or support or incentive or something to minimize the damage. Now I realize that such houses really are like an infection. They're usually crowded with visitors and spilling out all the edges with weeds, litter, noise, and crime.
We have a rate of about one per block here and it's a terrible strain on the neighborhood. These kinds of homes don't just produce violence and vandalism and theft, but small untended children as well who quickly grow into foul mouthed little bullies. I've watched over the ten years I've lived here.
You know an abuse house by the neglect of the building. Screens are all gone, ragged cheap curtains blow out open or broken windows, the door hangs open. Toys and children spill from it periodically and the yard is a blown-out packed dust arena. The age variation that regularily traverses that door can easily span 3 yrs -50 years and well spread out in between. If young adults are involved is when it gets noisy and scary.
Well I think I'm starting to calm down anyway. I'll probably be jumpy till it gets icey out. These are long dark nights and people can get a little nutty.