Alecto's Ophelia

100 Things

I am overdue with a couple of posts. I need to discuss the current chicken affairs (they crossed the street, hahahahah), I've been given an award by Spartacus and the nanny swap is complete. However, before I can do any of those I owe CG a list of things growing in my backyard that I can name off the top of my head. As usual, I kind of made up my own rules as I went along and I did this at my desk which means I really have to think about it (I can't see it).

To start with, I definitely divided flora and fauna and I have no idea if bugs and insects belong in fauna (I suspect not) but that's where I put them just like I listed my fungus with the flora even though it should have it's own category. 

I also included some things I planted but omitted many (as in most of what's inside my garden walls). I'm not sure exactly how I drew the line but a lot of it had to do with self sustainability. In other words, I dropped seeds for nasturtium, cosmos, zinnia and johnny jump ups but they will and have come back on their own. I established perennials which will also be back but I do want you to know that the Foxglove (digitalis) was found in the woods before I even added to the collection.

I also noticed that while I know the formal names for some things I know only the common names for most. In some cases I cheated and looked them up. In the case of the mushrooms I kind of had to look them up because common lawn mushroom numbers 1 and 2 would have been meaningless to anyone not from the Northeast. Probably. Also, nifty red things, only meaningful to me.

And lastly I noticed how much I don't know. For example, most of the forest behind our house is made up of new growth trees (in the last 70 - 100 years) and are of a variety that I simply don't know. It's not like I've never seen them I just haven't the foggiest idea what they are. All I know is they grow straight up, have green leaves and no branches good for building tree houses. Bah. Also, they fall over a lot in the swamp.

One last thing - I have no idea what kind of grass is planted in my front and back yard. Probably because I don't much care about it. It's there, it's green, we no longer reseed or fertilize it.

Flora

Blueberries
Wild raspberries
Wild strawberries
Alpine strawberries
Queen Ann's Lace
Poison Hemlock (there's a reason these two are close together)
Golden rod
Rag weed
dandelion
Purple sage
Clover
Oregano
Monkshood
Thyme
Honey suckle
Peppermint
Violets (just purple I think)
Johnny jump ups
Yarrow
Butter cups
Day lillies
Snap dragons
Peonies
Cosmos
Eccanacea
St. John's Wort
Orange poppies
Lupine
Cone flower
Zinnia
Yellow and Red climbing roses
Wisteria
Morning glory
Fox glove
Nasturtium
Portulaca (yes, this comes back again and again in the most bizarre places)
Bracken Ferns
Maiden Ferns
Blue Flag (swamp) Iris
Skunk cabbage
Purslane
Meadow foxtail
Northern bentgrass
Thicket sedge
Red fescue
Bulrush
Burdock
Wild lettuce (reseeding butter crunch)
Wild(ish) butternut squash (crawled from the compost bin)
Broom moss
Powder puff moss
Lichen (I know there are multiple varieties)
Crab grass
Whipfork moss
Reed grass
Cat tails
Witch hazel
Sweet flag
Woodbine (creeper)
Holly
Rhododendron
Burning bush
Azalea
Common dogwood
Mountain Laurel
Juniper
Maple
Pine
Blue Spruce
Common lawn mushroom # 1 - Macrolepiota Procera
Common lawn mushroom # 2 - Psathyrella Candolleana
Nifty red shrooms - Mutinus Elegans

Fauna

Lightening bugs
Japanese Beetles
Night crawlers
Cicadas
Grasshoppers
Crickets
Centipedes
Carpenter ants
Itty bitty black garden ants
Dragon flies
Common house flies
Horse flies
Mosquitoes
Potato bugs
Aphids
Boxelder bugs
Tree frogs
Swamp frogs
Garden toads
Canadian geese
Mallards
Tree sparrows
Goldfinch
Robin
Blue jays
Humming birds
Field mice
Owls
Wood peckers
Raccoons
Coyote
Wild turkeys
Rhode Island Reds (those be my ladies)
Chipmunks
Ground hogs
Deer
Rabbits
Gophers
Hawks (at least a pair, possibly more now)
Bats (at least half a dozen now)
Crows
Grey Squirrels

And..... (you thought I was done) I would also love to see lists from Kory, Kitt, Lisa, El, and Wendy.

Schroedinger's Goodwill. Maybe.

Here I go uncovering my underbelly again. By that I mean I'm about to expose more of the warped, twisted mind of Alecto on the go. Where to start? Sometime in high school my mother gave me a book called Schroedinger's Cat. I can't even remember what the book was about, probably some piece of science fiction knowing my mother and the topic. In any event, because of the book I learned the rudimentary concepts surrounding the theory of Schroedinger's cat and later on learned a little bit more. Lets just say I know enough to be dangerous in some circles and sound extremely retarded in others.

The basic premise is this: The cat is in the box. You can't see in the box. Some poison gas may or may not have been leaked into the box. The cat may or may not be dead. As a matter of fact, there is a 50% chance going either way. Therefore... (drum roll or heady silence, take your pick) the cat is both dead  AND alive. In theory. See what I mean about being either dangerous or extremely retarded?

Now lets compare this with a particular accounting term called Goodwill. Actually, Goodwill is a real account on the Balance Sheet which is where I get in trouble in the first place. I'm OK with the P&L (Profit and Loss Statement) because it's pretty straight forward and follows a set of rules I subscribe to heartily whether you're measuring beans, money or how much cabbage the deer did NOT eat this season. It goes thusly: Revenue - Expense = Profit. Or: Revenue good, Expenses bad (which always reminds me of Four legs good, Two legs baaaaaaad and I just can't help myself). In other words, it's a very simple equation and as a programmer/analyst I absolutely get it.

And then there is the Balance Sheet. (noooooooooooooooooooo, not that, anything but that) Assets = Liabilities + Equity. I'm OK there. Right there. That's as far as I'm OK, after that it just becomes one big hairy string of plug accounts. What is a plug account, you ask? Oh, do let me tell you. Nothing we'd say to an auditor, that's for sure. A plug account is an account we use to put some numbers that we can't figure where else to put. them. 'scuse the grammar. Nothing to worry about, everybody does it. Right. And then we have Goodwill.

Goodwill bothered me a bit in college but since I figured I'd never have to look at another accounting text again nor come in contact with any such accounting type people (MARRIED ONE), I'd just be nice and let it go. After all, how, exactly, does one measure goodwill.  If I sell a shop is it the amount of business I expect to see given the nature of said established business? That would almost make sense, except it'd be fluffy as all get out and I don't much care for fluffy. I'd rather measure your receivables and a bunch of other things first. But I digress, that is not what Goodwill is for.

Goodwill is an offset. Goodwill is the difference, on the Balance Sheet (because all things must Balance, so sayeth NoMans the bean counter), between the price paid for a company (or thing) and the actual book value of the company (or thing). So, if my company purchases (which they do on a fairly frequent basis) a smaller company for ten dollars but the company is valued at 8 dollars then the offset is 2 dollars and that is PLUGGED to Goodwill.

Sigh. See what I mean? I know that we need to put that 2 dollars somewhere and I can even extrapolate, from the original definition of Goodwill, how we get there, but I just can't buy it in this day and age. It is no longer a truth and the fact that we still call it Goodwill often sends me into cataclysmic seizures (I TOLD you I was exposing my underbelly again).

I'm much, much, much happier with Schroedinger's cat being, at the very same time, in both states of dead and of alive. That part just tickles my tummy. The other part? Not so much.

Rage Against the Machine

Rage is not new.

I caused some extra carbon this weekend by driving to Vermont.  It was really beautiful.  Along the way I noticed the effects of Global Warming. Leaf season should have been over in Vermont. Instead it was at peak.  This is either a fluke or we've moved the season up two solid weeks. Just noticing.

It was a difficult weekend in that we didn't manage to stay where we usually stay, because we waited so long to make a decision because life is just like that sometimes, and neither of us deal well with a shift from the expected if we're stretched too far for too long.  And we have been.  It's been a difficult six months. We were out of sorts and not liking much the near asphyxiation from a gas fireplace that hadn't been serviced in, oh, I'm guessing three years, maybe four, since this inn changed hands as the inn-keepers looked genuinely stunned that there might be some maintenance involved.

Add that to the general decompression involved in removing oneself from the hotbed quite abruptly and you've got the ingredients for colossal meltdown given the right combination of stimuli. I almost wish the meltdown had occurred because then I might actually feel better and be able to think more clearly, as opposed to the bottled up container of thermal gas I'm currently choking myself on. That made sense, right?

On the way out of town we stopped in Brattleboro because that's what we always do. We're creatures of habit, he and I.  We parked where we always park in this lot at the top of the main street heading back toward 91. We parked next to an aging vehicle with brightly colored plastic letters glued all over the outside.  That vehicle said some very interesting things. The first thing I read was enough, the rest of it just wouldn't process. There on the drivers side of the car read: (and I paraphrase because I might have gotten this just slightly wrong)

'Maybe the planet would be better off if none of us were here'.

And inside the car, amid the clutter and trash, on the passenger seat within easy reach of the driver, was a hard pack of Marlborough Reds.

The top of my head blew off and I just about shouted the response,

Well all righty then!  We'll start with you! Although I see you're well on your way to doing that to self and others with a pack of smokes, ya bloody screamin' hypocrite! What's next, pipe bombs in the bakery?

I recognize this is inappropriate and unacceptable and not even remotely forwarding behavior. I recognize that my bloody done button has popped and I also recognize that very little of it stems from free radicals, that's just how it landed in the moment.

I'm starting to understand how people get to this place.

In the seventies we got all up in the face of conservation. We payed a great price economically by refusing to buy American Gas Guzzlers but we saved on fossil fuel and helped invent the global economy. We had little stickers that went on all the light switches that reminded people to turn out the lights! At my house we kept the thermostat first at 62 and then finally at 56.  I hate my father for that to this day. I lived in my coat. In the mean time we continued to exploit third world countries.  Does anybody honestly think this is a new development?

Then the eighties came, the recession lifted and returned and lifted again. Alan Greenspan held our heads as we vomited up the last of our supply side fears and consumed, consumed, consumed. We even managed to disgust ourselves. The Stay At Home Mom was reinvented as a SAHM. This makes me giggle to no end because we all know, lets face it folks, that the SAHM was invented during the industrial revolution. Now its a sanctimonious validation of personal lifestyle choices.  I say sanctimonious because that's what I hear.  I try real hard not to judge the SAHM but I rarely experience the same respect of personal choices.

Seems to me we've become a nation of ranters.  I need to defend my choices by making you wrong.  No matter what you do, as long as it's not exactly what I'm doing, I'm going to make you wrong because I just cannot live with the idea that my choices, radical as they may or may not be, might not be right! Or I might not like the prices I've paid. Or I might not be doing it right.  Or I might be waking up to find out I've raised a lunatic who can't or won't contribute to society even though I bloody well followed the dotted line. (this embarrassment of offspring began at the dawn of time, it's not just you)

Makes me wonder why the hell we bother?

I was sitting in the forty year old auditorium which is about to be made over by the Madams of Conspicuous Consumption to the tune of 1.8 million dollars (you read that right) of Weston high school listening to my daughter's choir make the most beautiful sounds and I was caught crying by the concert director.  I wanted to tell him, it's OK, I always cry at these events. I even get up and sing when asked too, even though I'm really embarrassed by it all.

There were two slide shows projecting through out the concert.  On the left were the current statistics on global warming. On the right was the program as we came to each piece.  This was to avoid printing programs because we've gone green, whatever the hell that means. At the end of each slide on the left was a list of things that could be done by each consumer to reduce the personal carbon foot print. They were small and little things.  Things so small and meaningless that we just shouldn't bother.  Things that would have the radicals tell us to just kill ourselves now we suck so bad.

And they were things that honest to God make a huge impact when they add up.

So I kind of wonder as the radicals scream at me from all angles that I suck beyond belief and ought to just take the hose already, if they're screaming to be right or if they're screaming because they want change?

It takes a lot to change the direction of a moving barge or battleship. It does not turn on a dime. So what I'm curious about is why would we expect it to? Or do we just want to yell a little bit more?

I can be pissed off about the Madams of Conspicuous Consumption or I can start by reducing my vehicle consumption by 15 miles per week, changing my light bulbs, putting those sticky things back on the switch plates, dropping the house temp to 66, insulating my windows and doors, growing my own veggies and buying local.

I won't be stop the new theater from being built but I might get their attention in other ways.

Maybe. 

And maybe this planet would be better off without any of us. But is that the point? Or does it just piss us all off like a bunch of over crowded rats that turn canibal?

Echo Off

Monday comes in fits and starts.

…

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…

Flick, flick, click, click, whirrrrrrrrr…

…

And the engine rumbles to life and we are off with a hitch and a jerk

Speeding up reaching some kind of velocity that allows us to pass

Effortlessly over the rough spots.

…

What if life was launched each new day with a simple nine line bat file and there is no one at the wheel anymore.

…

Is that a scary or a reassuring thought?

Road Rage - How Justice Was Metted Out in the Route 7 Corridor

There is a science to driving in traffic; rules, regulations and social mores developed and clearly understood by the ever-widening organized aggregate called 'that wave of people I drive to work with every day'. Some examples of these rules might be

• don't come to a complete stop at that three-way on Cedar, just look right and go if you can, otherwise we get backed up to that last stop and then all hell breaks loose.
• look left at the three-way at the end of Cedar, if you can see cars, turn right and go around, this appears to meter the flow.
• stay in the right lane starting 3 lights back (or when you start to see congestion) if you are going to make the right turn to Super 7. we all hereby agree that we will not use the funnel method at the last light.
• if the line to get on 95 South is past the hospital, go to the next exit, turn right, turn right, go straight and get on one exit south.  This appears to meter things.
• if you do get in line to enter 95 South from Super 7 make sure you merge in the funnel method a the end.  Do not go driving up the shoulder or someone will chase your ass down and put you on time out.

Those are just a few, but they are the big ones and they are an amazing occurrence that helps us collectively manage the horrendous overflow that we are. Lately another rule has been developing but I'm not sure where it's going because it involves a somewhat dangerous and winding dirt road without a guard rail, above a river as a bypass to some significant backup caused by the overflow of Local 7 evacuees coming out of Redding, Ridgefield and Wilton.  We know this will stop once the construction moves from the intersection at Wilton High school to beyond the route 33 cutoff where 7 can be skirted alternatively. In the mean time, how many people will go around, causing another metering affect, and how many people will choose to spend an average of 7 minutes in line waiting to get past the new meter (which is finally developing a funnel approach to each detoured vehicle allowing the release of one hostage vehicle in line as if we have added our own stop sign.

In any event, these rules are developed out of necessity, over time and without anyone but a few collective spouses actually speaking a word of it. Think about this, the old brain kicks in the hive mentality and if we accept (without much thought I would imagine) that we are part of this large moving organism then we manage to make it a little better for everyone.  So what happens when somebody gets out of line?  I saw it this morning and still can't believe what I witnessed.

Before I launch the story of the VW Bug and the Pickup, let me say that there are always a few spoilers who won't get in line and wait their turn and for the most part we deal with them effectively by refusing to let them in until the last minute, causing multiple I'm going to be late for work because I'll have to go around heart attacks. By and large, in this part of Southern Connecticut, despite Nanny's opinion, the drivers are rational, well behaved and sane.

So this morning I'm in line waiting to get on Super 7 and the VW Bug in the left lane is getting ready to dive in front of the truck in front of me as soon as he opens up so much as an inch. Well he does open an inch.  He opens a good 2 or 3 feet and then steps on the gas to catch up.  She misses his quarter panel by a coon's hair. They are momentarily deadlocked.

He starts yelling at her, she is yelling back (this was her biggest mistake, if she'd just looked at him with that 'I'm a complete moron and I can't believe I just did that to you' look, he would probably have been diffused). I am sitting in my car giving NoMans the play by play because he is too far behind to see it. I realize at this point that he has his door open.  She guns her engine and dives in front of him as he's lost track of the line while yelling at her. I wonder if she did hit him? He chases her down the line and gets all up in her stuff. This cannot be comfortable and I am thinking I'm going to be late to work because he's going to run her into a telephone pole and then we'll all have to wait but part of me is glad for this display of public punishment because I notice not one car from the left lane made any attempt to cut over.  Suddenly they all had somewhere else to be.

At the turn she performs another faux pas and cuts up on the right, which does not make the final left onto Super 7 but continues back into the deeps of Wilton. I know what she's going to do and she doesn't let me down.  Like the terrified sneak that she is, she slips in front of a dump truck at the very last minute and makes the turn.  The Pickup truck is right behind her. I am right behind him (both of us in the correct lanes, just gunning it).  I am not about to miss any of this.

The VW Sneak leads us on a merry chase across the 3 mile connecting stretch of Super 7.  We are doing close to 90 mph before I come to my senses and let them go.  I am disappointed to have missed the rest of the show but I don't think I ought to be doing 90 in traffic, even if it is keeping up with me.  I get back in the right lane and behave myself.

I approach the line to 95 South and determine that I am in alignment with the Norwalk Hospital rule and do not have to go around. I look up and see that I am about six vehicles behind the Pickup Truck.  How did this happen? Suddenly he makes as if to pull back into the middle lane and changes his mind.  He has done this because the VW was coming up on his left and he intended to scare the bejesus out of her.  How did she get behind me? One more time.  To drive the point home. After that I have no idea what happened.  All I know is I stayed with the Pickup truck all the way to exit 9 where he got off (I get off exit 8). My guess is she decided to meter herself one exit down.  Or just go home and call it a day.

Harnessing the Power Within

The brain is an amazingly powerful organ and I'm trying to teach Cletus Marie that she can actually exert some control. This is a tough and very necessary life lesson.

To bring you all up to speed, I left Cletus Marie's Dad, um, thirteen years ago. During those thirteen years both Cletus and her brother, we'll call him Lurch, shuffled back and forth while we tried to work out the best way to co-raise or co-parent our children.  To put it bluntly, we fouled it up royally.  The fact that we, and I use that term loosely, thought we were doing the right things is irrelevant.  We fouled it up.  This left me in the uncomfortable position of having to contact an attorney back in April when Cletus decided she wasn't going back to Dad's house, no way, no how, not happening. The details behind the reasons don't matter, all you have to do is assume they're her reasons and they're solid.

Well, none of us expected Cletus to flat out refuse to see her father, much less talk to him. We figured we'd all go to mediation and then work something out.  Except he wouldn't go to mediation and she wouldn't talk to him. OK, we thought maybe Cletus just needs a little time and then she'll talk to him. Cletus has been in therapy from about day one. When Cletus's therapist started using the words 'when and if' in reference to speaking to or seeing her father, my ears perked up.  Unfortunately that was all the information I was getting. Client therapist privilege and all that.

OK. So here we are five months later and Cletus is having one hell of a hard time. I'm 10k in the hole (and YES, that hurts!) with legal and coaching (read, unreimbursable therapy) fees and Cletus's Dad is having cows all over town. She won't even talk to him on the phone much less meet him for a soda or dinner. Now, keep in mind, Cletus has got her reasons even if I don't know exactly what they are.  Unfortunately Cletus's Dad is pretty clear this is my fault (it's always been my fault, no biggie).  The only problem with that theory is that apparently he's not listening to HER, which may be the point. They do communicate via email and I believe she's been rather forthcoming with him but he's not listening.  I know, it's hard to hear that shit. But still.

So Cletus got sick and had convulsions about two weeks ago and I left a panicked message on her Dad's cell phone which he sent right to voicemail and so had no idea she was in the hospital.  By the time NoMans got a hold of him Cletus was not interested in his presence (read:  violently opposed) and so NoMans told him there was no reason for him to come. She was stable.

He retained an attorney.  Her therapist called me. He emailed Cletus. Cletus emailed back. Flash forward to this morning as we're on the way to her every other week noon session. Cletus, from the back seat (as we're waiting for NoMans to come out of the post office) tells me she feels like she did when I had to call 911 from the car.

I said NO! Stop! Don't do it!  Roll the window down, stick your head out and BREATHE!  DO IT NOW!

She did.  We made it to the appointment and she melted down in the parking lot. After a few minutes of sniveling (no out right howling this time) she agreed to go inside. I spent the first fifteen minutes of her session with her curled up best she could get in my lap mumbling Mommy.... while her therapist asked what kind of blood work we'd had done.  Then whether or not she'd had glucose tests... yes yes no no this is not low blood sugar, she ate, she's on meds, everything is physiologically under control and I am desperately trying to get the shrink to get it already.

Sometimes when there is so much shit that we aren't dealing with that when we are faced with the prospect of having to look at it we can push our bodies right to the brink and sometimes over the edge.It is frightening and horrifying and often we want to look to the traditional medical world to fix it for us.  They cannot do this.

Oh yes, we can introduce drugs, psychotropic or otherwise (and we are SO. NOT. GOING. THERE.) but the truth and the fix lies within our own core.  And only there. You can add God if that works for you, but other than that, it is only within us to face the fire and walk into the light.

As a mother, it feels as if the lining of my stomach is being torn out to look at her like this. As a mother, it is time for me to push.