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Dear Diary: October 6
Oct. 6th, 2011 05:31 pmSeems like a long time since I posted, but it's only been two days.
I think it feels like a long time because I've been preoccupied with the Occupation protests, having foolishly friended OccupyPhiladelphia on Facebook. The person(s) who runs that feels obligated to dump a dozen or so postings there every morning, portentious self-important twaddle such as "This is our Madison moment, our Tahrir Square Moment." OccupyPhiladelphia started at our local anarchist collective bookshop and has been adopted by a lefty-progressive coalition and a boat-load of unions. My blue friends on FB have been thoughtfully circulating interviews with the likes of Michael Moore. I've finally found a sensible outlet for my Inner Bitch, by creating a friends group there that I call "red dots" -- the half dozen or so folks I've found in or near Philly who share my unpopular views -- and confining my snarkiest observations to them.
I know my LJ friends are mostly blue, too, but you've got to admit that "Our Tahrir Square moment" is way over the top.
I've also been following that silly business with the Wisconsin professor's Firefly poster -- the one that got him threatened with criminal prosecution. Having one of the founders of FIRE on my FB f-list tends to bring stuff like this to my attention.
These wounds to my attention span are entirely self-inflicted, of course, and I deserve no sympathy for spending too much time on Teh Internets.
I don't believe I posted on the Shiloh Elm, the beautiful century-old American Elm in the church yard across the street. It was recently diagnosed with Dutch Elm disease and the church was advised by the arborist to take it down sooner rather than later. This is a hefty expense for a small congregation so we opened our checkbook to help out as generously as we dared.
The tree came down, one small piece at a time because someone left a car parked just outside the church yard and they needed to be cautious. Here is a photo of the last of the trunk coming down, which it did September 24:
And here's the posed "afterwards" shot, which gives a sense of the size of that trunk:
Meanwhile, I've been following up on a productive PACSCL board meeting and beating myself up about not feeling like going for long bike rides in this beautiful Indian summer weather. I did manage a five-mile ride today to go stand in line at the Post Office and to return some clothes to Roaman's because the smaller sizes! of some favorite bigshirts I ordered last month were still too big! I could have covered a nine months pregnancy with them. And I could invite a room-mate to live in the ones I'm replacing, but I guess I'll wear them until the new ones get here. Meanwhile, a few of the clothes that I set aside a loooong time ago now fit, other than the reference jeans.
But if I don't spend more time on the bike, and if I don't get back on track with my eating, all this good work will be for nothing. I had a serious snack attack yesterday that has caused massive guilt and self-doubt. I think it's seriously get-back-on-program time.
The world is talking about Steve Jobs right now. He popped into my head early yesterday and I thought to myself, "Any day now we'll be hearing that he died." Roy read it on his iPhone while we were watching LOTR (again) last night and was really shocked. I think it's been just about two years since we lost our good friend Joanna to pancreatic cancer.
I need to go see my sister again. I think I'll take along the Benjamin Bagby Beowulf.
On the windowsills: I have too many hippeastrum trader joe x gervase. I think I'll do a little triage. I'm cutting my coleus back to four varieties -- tired of overwintering heaps of the stuff. I'll just keep the two with serious provenance and the two I like the very best. I have one very small cutting of Nopalxochia that I soaked in a bleach solution before rooting. I think it may have escaped the spotting that plagued the big plant. Also, the big plant, which I pruned back to absolutely nothing, is putting out a lot of new shoots. The Schlumbergera seedlings look like they may be beginning to put out some real leaves at last. I potted up a piece of variegated basil that looks like it's maybe not going to make it and three piece of syngonium that I think will thrive. I've missed my window for re-potting a number of Schlumbergera.
I don't seem to care very much about my plants right now but I'm going through the motions so they'll still be there when I come out of my plant funk.
I think it feels like a long time because I've been preoccupied with the Occupation protests, having foolishly friended OccupyPhiladelphia on Facebook. The person(s) who runs that feels obligated to dump a dozen or so postings there every morning, portentious self-important twaddle such as "This is our Madison moment, our Tahrir Square Moment." OccupyPhiladelphia started at our local anarchist collective bookshop and has been adopted by a lefty-progressive coalition and a boat-load of unions. My blue friends on FB have been thoughtfully circulating interviews with the likes of Michael Moore. I've finally found a sensible outlet for my Inner Bitch, by creating a friends group there that I call "red dots" -- the half dozen or so folks I've found in or near Philly who share my unpopular views -- and confining my snarkiest observations to them.
I know my LJ friends are mostly blue, too, but you've got to admit that "Our Tahrir Square moment" is way over the top.
I've also been following that silly business with the Wisconsin professor's Firefly poster -- the one that got him threatened with criminal prosecution. Having one of the founders of FIRE on my FB f-list tends to bring stuff like this to my attention.
These wounds to my attention span are entirely self-inflicted, of course, and I deserve no sympathy for spending too much time on Teh Internets.
I don't believe I posted on the Shiloh Elm, the beautiful century-old American Elm in the church yard across the street. It was recently diagnosed with Dutch Elm disease and the church was advised by the arborist to take it down sooner rather than later. This is a hefty expense for a small congregation so we opened our checkbook to help out as generously as we dared.
The tree came down, one small piece at a time because someone left a car parked just outside the church yard and they needed to be cautious. Here is a photo of the last of the trunk coming down, which it did September 24:
And here's the posed "afterwards" shot, which gives a sense of the size of that trunk:
Meanwhile, I've been following up on a productive PACSCL board meeting and beating myself up about not feeling like going for long bike rides in this beautiful Indian summer weather. I did manage a five-mile ride today to go stand in line at the Post Office and to return some clothes to Roaman's because the smaller sizes! of some favorite bigshirts I ordered last month were still too big! I could have covered a nine months pregnancy with them. And I could invite a room-mate to live in the ones I'm replacing, but I guess I'll wear them until the new ones get here. Meanwhile, a few of the clothes that I set aside a loooong time ago now fit, other than the reference jeans.
But if I don't spend more time on the bike, and if I don't get back on track with my eating, all this good work will be for nothing. I had a serious snack attack yesterday that has caused massive guilt and self-doubt. I think it's seriously get-back-on-program time.
The world is talking about Steve Jobs right now. He popped into my head early yesterday and I thought to myself, "Any day now we'll be hearing that he died." Roy read it on his iPhone while we were watching LOTR (again) last night and was really shocked. I think it's been just about two years since we lost our good friend Joanna to pancreatic cancer.
I need to go see my sister again. I think I'll take along the Benjamin Bagby Beowulf.
On the windowsills: I have too many hippeastrum trader joe x gervase. I think I'll do a little triage. I'm cutting my coleus back to four varieties -- tired of overwintering heaps of the stuff. I'll just keep the two with serious provenance and the two I like the very best. I have one very small cutting of Nopalxochia that I soaked in a bleach solution before rooting. I think it may have escaped the spotting that plagued the big plant. Also, the big plant, which I pruned back to absolutely nothing, is putting out a lot of new shoots. The Schlumbergera seedlings look like they may be beginning to put out some real leaves at last. I potted up a piece of variegated basil that looks like it's maybe not going to make it and three piece of syngonium that I think will thrive. I've missed my window for re-potting a number of Schlumbergera.
I don't seem to care very much about my plants right now but I'm going through the motions so they'll still be there when I come out of my plant funk.
