Damn That Cable Company, Anyway.

I'm having intermittent problems with my cable internet reception, and no one at the cable company can figure out what the problem is.

Let's see if we can take a look and diagnose the trouble ourselves, shall we?


Oh. Dear. Yes. Well. That might be the problem, I suppose.

~C~

Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

Rick Astley? Really?



I can't bear it. I missed the parade, but I'd like to stop now and give thanks for YouTube for preserving this moment forever.

"I like Rickrolling!!!"

No. Stop. You're killin' me.

~C~

Getting Organized

In an attempt to break the oppressive malaise (or is it ennui?) that has kept me from writing creatively for the past several months, I have taken to cleaning and reorganizing my apartment. I am taking stuff to storage, rearranging where things are put, attempting to create clean, open spaces in a tiny single apartment, and making things work more efficiently and with less drama.

This has involved packing and scrubbing, calling the Sears repairman to come and fix my broken fridge, go shopping for a replacement for the sporadically working television, trying to redesign my living areas into more functional zones of operation. I used my Target gift cards (given me by the friends who know and love me best) to purchase several things that will help me organize my shelves and storage spaces.

Here is the beginning of organizing the bookshelves, which will store my photography and printing supplies, important papers and collections of writing.

And here are the two bins purchased to help organize the chest of drawers into socks and undies and bras.

And here is the cat bin. Hey. Wait. What?

Apparently, I have a cat bin. It wasn't purchased as a cat bin. It was purchased as a place to store all my notebooks for my writing and residency notes. It seems Inuyasha didn't get the memo. She's thinking it's the cat bin.

Hmmm... The question now is, how to convince her she's sadly mistaken. Unless of course, I'm the one who is sadly mistaken.

Another trip to the other Target is in order tomorrow for more bins and magazine boxes, so that I can rearrange my living area and make it a more reasonable space.

And to get more cat bins.

Oh, dear.

~C~

Where There's Life, There's Hope. And Vice Versa.

This book is information that EVERYONE needs to have in order to save their own life.



This is simple, it's easy, and it's the right way to live, whether you have cancer or not. Dr. Servan-Schreiber has lived for fourteen years after his diagnosis of brain cancer. There's no reason not to live this way every day.

The human brain and the human heart are the two biggest weapons in our fight against terminal disease. What a revelation!

~C~

A Non-Partison, Non-Political Story of Selflessness and Compassion.

Mitch Albom had a piece published on freep.com on my fiftieth birthday (Sunday, Nov. 2) about one Marilyn Mock, a 50-year-old Texas rock yard owner who committed what could be termed the Granddaddy of all Random Acts of Kindness in history. While attending a foreclosure auction with her son, who was buying a house, she met a young woman named Tracey Orr, who was most definitely not there to buy a house. Tracey was there to say good-bye to her own beloved house, which she lost after she'd lost her job and had fallen behind on the payments. The mortgage company foreclosed. Touched by Orr's story, Mock found herself bidding on the $80,000 home. She won the bidding at $30K. She and Orr have worked out payment arrangements. The long and the short of it was that Mock made it possible for Orr to get her beloved home back, to the tune of $30,000. For a woman Mock had never met. Just because her heart had been touched by Orr's story.

People, I've made no secret of my choice for president. But make no mistake. No matter who wins tomorrow, the road ahead is going to be long and bumpy, more for some of us than for others. The economic crisis we face are not going away tomorrow or next months or on January 21, 2009, when we inaugurate the man we select tomorrow.

We are going to need to be good to each other, and kind to each other. We are going to need to cut each other some slack and give each other a break. We are going to have to come together and create a grassroots support system for those among us who struggle the most.

Apparently, Marilyn Mock doesn't see the country as a "have/have not" affair, but rather a place where we share what we have with those that have not. I like Marilyn Mock's view of America, and frankly, I think we all need to think about buying into it. I think if we make that effort, we'll come through this mess okay.

~C~