photo credit: ` TheDreamSky

Let’s play a game. Call it Utopia Now.

The Game

Let’s pretend we’re building a new country, because it seems to me that in America we need to, either now or some time soon. Instead of starting with who we want to elect, or what policies we want to favor, let’s start with the values upon which we want to base our new country. Those of you not living in America have your choice — you can play for the U.S. or for your own country.

These can be values upon which the country was supposed to be based in the first place but wasn’t or isn’t now, or they can be other values. While we may disagree on policies, we may actually agree on values. Or not.

1.  List the top two values you’d like to see in your fellow man and you’d like to live up to yourself.

In my case, my top two values are integrity and fairness. Integrity means I try not to lie to people and I try to present my authentic self as much as I’m able to. It also means that I cringe when I see this happen: A cashier gives a young lady too much change, and her reaction is to say, “Cool!”

Fairness means no discrimination, no animal cruelty, live and let live. Fairness also means trying to identify someone’s best motives for doing something — a practice I’m not very good at.

2.  List the top two values you’d like to see in your government.

In my case, those values would be integrity and fairness again.

Integrity would mean not accepting lobbyist money, not bowing to special interests, doing what’s right because it’s what’s right.

Fairness would mean a flat percentage income tax. It would mean no discrimination. It would mean equal access to government resources and equal opportunity to hold office.

Now it’s your turn. Please write your best values.

                          

photo credit: aroid

Yesterday was the first snow of the year for me. We had one earlier snow, but it didn’t last long enough for me to get home and see it.

Yesterday’s snow floated down as big, fluffy snowflakes. However, they were so warm that they liquefied as they landed, meaning that the effect on people and the ground was exactly the same as rain.

Out popped a whole bunch of umbrellas. This is a DC custom that I keep forgetting to adopt — umbrellas for snow.

Another odd DC accessories-for-weather situation comes up when it rains. The preferred DC items to wear on your feet in the rain? Flipflops. I asked a coworker what people do when they get to work — how do they wash the street grit off their feet? She said, “Puddles.”

Does your town or city have some unusual customs?

                          

photo credit: Patrick Hoesly

A few years ago, I bought a programmable alarm clock that allowed me to set a different alarm for every day of the week. Two days a week, I had to get up an hour earlier and I was tired of resetting my old clock.

The only problem with the new clock was, when the power went out (which happens fairly frequently around here), I had to reset all those alarms. I had a choice of a buzzer or the radio to wake up to. However, that clock eventually broke, and I could only wake up to music. The music put me back to sleep.

Then I bought a talking alarm clock that ran on batteries. I could wake up to a cuckoo, a cheeping bird, or a rooster. Man, I hated that rooster.

Soon this clock began to malfunction, sometimes not sounding an alarm at all because the switch was not quite on the right spot.

Next was a cheap alarm clock that simply sounded a tone. The tone sounded more and more frequently if I let it keep ringing. This clock, too, would occasionally fail to sound if the button wasn’t exactly on the right spot.

Finally, I bought a more expensive alarm clock. It actually sets the time itself and has two alarms. In case of a power failure, it will reset the time and the alarms for you. I tried it for the first time last night, and it kept waking me up with its ticking. Why on earth would an electronic alarm clock need to tick?

The best alarm clock I ever had was an analog wind-up alarm clock. You wound it every night. The alarm bells were a bit too loud. The clock used no power at all (except that of my hand) and never failed to ring, even when the power went out.

I wonder if they still sell those. THAT technology was powerful.

                          

photo credit: virginsuicide photography

We, the manufacturers of the world, hereby make the following resolutions for the New Year, 2012.

1. We will stop having our TV commercials follow the example of the late Billy Mays and scream everything at you.
2. We will stop making products that break the day after the warranty expires.
3. Instead of taking a perfectly good product and making it “New and Improved,” we will continue making that product and create a separate “New and Improved” product, so you can choose.


photo credit: Clean Wal-Mart

4. We will stop making our products needlessly complex.


photo credit: BrickArt!san

5. We will make sure our engineers see the products AFTER the designers, so the the products are practical, not just pretty.
6. We will test our products with real people, not just our own employees.
7. All printing on our products will be easily legible.
8. We software manufacturers will not add features and change commands just to be able to sell a new version.
9. We software manufacturers will not constantly issue updates and bug fixes. We will fix our bugs before selling you our products.
10. We will not outsource our customer support to people who either aren’t completely fluent in English, or don’t understand the problem, or both.

11. If our executives are part of the 99%, they will be required to donate 10% of their income to the poor.

photo credit: babasteve

                          

photo credit: kevin dooley

In no particular order –

1. My old hair color with no gray.
2. A flat stomach.
3. More hair on my head.
4. The ability to eat whatever I want.
5. A comfortable pension to retire on.
6. A kind, sexy man who finds me irresistible.
7. Several great friends who live close by.
8. 20-20 vision.
9. More chocolate.
10. Peace on earth.

 

                          

McPherson Square Structure (photo courtesy of Occupy Wall Street)

Today, December 10, 2011, is Human Rights Day. It is also the day that the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement has called for its supporters “to stand up for our rights together and to demand the rights we were promised in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, signed and approved by most of the world’s governments and the basis for many of our constitutions.”

Occupy Wall Street is an international movement with supporters in many nations. What else are they asking for? The group is quite heterogeneous, but their basic goal is to bring about a worldwide revolution through peaceful means, such as civil disobedience. The Occupy movement, according to its website, has no official list of demands, since no consensus has yet been reached.

However, the website displays a proposed list that was posted by an OWS supporter in one of its forums. The llist has made its way into the news media, and contains some common liberal issues, such as much greater funding for environmental protection, election reform, a guaranteed living wage, healthcare reform, racial and gender equality, and the right for all to unionize.

The list also contains some odd things that sound unworkable, unreasonable or perhaps even self-serving, such as free college education, “[i]mmediate across the board debt forgiveness for all,” open borders for all nations, and outlawing credit reporting agencies.

In Washington, D.C., OWS supporters built a wooden structure at Freedom Plaza to shelter them from the weather. Theh police eventually tore it down. On Wednesday, December 7, they built a similar “People’s Pavilion” at McPherson Square (see photo above). This structure, they said, is intended to symbolize all the people who have lost their homes “stolen by banks and corporate greed….” Thus far, it remains standing.

While we might find OWS’s goal of global revolution to be too radical and unnecessary, we can hope that some of its protests will help pressure world governments and corporations to move towards greater democracy and human rights.

                          

photo credit: diskychick

As we enter the holiday season in the U.S., one of the most stressful times of the year, I give you five videos of kids and adults laughing and giggling.

The first 2/3 is bad puns (no, that’s an oxymoron). The giggles are worth the wait.

Psst – This is the best one!

There. Now don’t you feel better?

Redesign: After disliking the minimalist look ever since it became popular with bloggers, I have finally fallen for it. I promised you, Dear Readers, that I wouldn’t change the theme on this blog for a year. It’s almost two years, and now I’m enjoying one of the best things about blogging for me — designing — in hopes it will encourage me to write.

                          

photo credit: Señor Codo

I didn’t realize I still wanted something from him until he died. My biological father and I have had no contact,  by my choice,  since 1977. He died this week at age 90.

From what I can remember,  as a child I loved him. I also think my love of miniatures comes from looking at the tiny mock-up of a room design that he brought home from work,  and his model train set in the basement that I wasn’t allowed to touch.

I don’t remember ever sitting on his lap or being hugged or lifted up or held by him. There are no photos of me with him. I also don’t remember the time he dislocated my mother’s jaw with a punch,  though my sister tells me I was there.

When I was 6 and she was 4,  he left and never returned. He didn’t want to pay alimony or child support,  and I was told he tried to take our house away. All this he blamed on my mother’s being impossible to deal with. After he left us,  my father bounced around,  running into frequent job troubles because of his temper.

photo credit: joanneQEscober (tacit requiem)

Later in life,  he had some kind of epiphany and became very religious. I visited him once. He said he cried many nights over me and my sister. He told me that I was a disappointment to him,  but it wasn’t my fault because he hadn’t been there to guide me.

That’s when I realized it was better that he had left. He contacted me again a few years ago. Nothing had changed.

So now I grieve for what should have been. I grieve for that little girl who had to grow up in fear,  who had to learn how to be her own father.

What I wanted from my father was both little and big. The big part was that I wanted to have had a good,  devoted,  loving father,  to have been a loved and cherished little girl.

The little part,  which I didn’t realize I was still waiting for,  was that I wanted him to acknowledge and apologize for what he’d done and all the damage it did.

He never did.

photo credit: VinothChandar

                          

photo credit: faungg

Finally,  all is calm here in the City of Hot Air,  as I prefer to call Washington,  D.C. No earthquakes (although there was an aftershock in Mineral,  Virginia,  a couple of days ago),  no hurricanes (although some people suffered quite a lot of damage from Hurricane Irene,  and the spires of the National Cathedral are in for some serious repairs),  and no terrorist attacks (thank God).

photo credit: Robbie Howell

As for me,  I can sleep again! Fibromyalgia disrupts your sleep,  and I had been quite happy on Ambien,  which put me soundly to sleep and let me wake up alert.

However,  some time around January,  it stopped working. My doctor and I ran through all the non-narcotic sedatives available,  and none of them made me sleepy.

It turns out,  though,  that Valium makes me sleep,  so I feel more like a human being again,  instead of a zombie. And it only took a mere eight months to find that out! During that time,  I missed one to three days of work every single week,  using up all my sick and vacation leave. I’m now well into leave without pay. Ouch.

My chronic illnesses are covered by the federal Family and Medical Leave Act,  which means my job can’t be taken away for absences related to those illnesses,  but my allotment of days for the year is running out. After that,  it’s not clear what actions could legally be taken,  but I don’t want to find out.

Meanwhile,  I’ve been trying to change my (awful) diet,  because the more carbs I eat,  the more I’m prone to tendinitis,  which has been a serious problem lately in many of my joints. However,  changing my diet has never been something I’ve been able to do for more than a minute.

photo credit: y.caradec

In addition,  my autoimmune disease has flared up due to a variety of stresses,  the main one being a week of pain after a root canal. This is the same illness,  Sjogren’s Syndrome,  that recently caused Venus Williams to drop out of the U.S. Open Tennis Championship.

Okay,  that’s the end of my litany of disasters,  both personal and regional. I’m back blogging,  although I still find it easier to write a couple of sentences on Facebook and move on. However,  I suspect I’ll always have something to talk about.

P.S. – For those of you who followed my series on the Snowpocalype,  the blizzard of 2009,  that holly tree that was bent to the ground by the snow and only rose halfway up afterwards,  has now fully recovered and standing tall.