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July 30, 2008

Once More Into the Falls

Yeah, selling a house and moving takes a lot of time, but not so much time that if a friend flies into the area, you can't drop everything and head to a nearby natural wonder, particularly if it's something as awesome as Niagara Falls. Having already written about why I dig the falls, I'll simply post these awesome pictures of me and Saviour Onassis on our recent trip to them, without going through all that again.

SO shows you the view.

Here I am on the border.

I look sweaty and slightly uncomfortable here--I was--but I like this photo because I have a rainbow coming out of my head. Cool!

Here's a nice big rainbow to make you smile (because who doesn't love rainbows almost as much as they love pretty unicorns with flowing manes?).

And there's the rainbow's end.

Posted by Holly at 7:55 AM | Comments (3)

July 29, 2008

What Every Beacon of Liberty Needs

check out this cartoon by Ann Talnaes,

Posted by Holly at 11:12 AM | Comments (0)

July 25, 2008

Size Matters, But So Does Cleanliness

Yeah, the whole selling a house and moving thing takes time. First of all, there’s the time involved in getting it ready to sell: time to hire painters and get the hell out of the way when they arrive with their plastic drop sheets and big buckets of paint; time to find someone to replace the loose tiles in the shower-surround and speculate as to why the previous owner didn’t use a standard size for said bath-surround and to wonder where the hell you’ll find tiles in this odd size; time to PAINT THE BLEEDIN’ BASEMENT ALL BY YOURSELF, which is one of the worst jobs I’ve ever attempted and one that took me FOR FREAKIN’ EVER and almost made me decide to stay put. (Though I did really like the floor I ended up with: I hated letting the paint-and-chemical tainted water run down the drain after I cleaned brushes, so I splattered and dribbled the watery paint remnants on the basement floor and made this Jackson Pollock-esque design. It was cool.)

Then there was the time involved in showing it. I simply could not--I was constitutionally unable to--let complete strangers inspect my house unless it was unless it was absolutely as clean, tidy and pleasantly scented as I could make it. So every time there was a showing, I would scrub and vacuum and open windows and light candles and cut flowers and straighten pillows and furniture. I would get a little upset if people showed up early for an appointment and caught me still at home, A) because I was almost always still scrubbing away and B) the outfits in which I clean the litter box aren’t the most flattering in my closet.

The good news about being home when the realtor and potential buyers showed up is that I got to hear what they thought of the place. “You are an immaculate housekeeper,” one realtor told me, with genuine awe in her voice.

“I try,” I said. I really do, and not just when people are coming over. If there’s one thing I am, it’s tidy and clean--just one more reason I would have made a marvelous Mormon housewife, if only I could have tolerated the theology.

My realtor and I are convinced that my fastidiousness is one reason my house sold so fast--well, mine and that of the previous owner, a woman who had the house built with her husband as newlyweds in the 1940s, then lived in it til she died in 2003. That house was her pride and joy, and she never messed up important things: the original wooden staircase and baseboards and window frames and so forth throughout the house were all gorgeously untouched, having been well made and beautifully varnished to begin with; while the wiring and the plumbing and the furnace etc were not only new, but top of the line, thanks to Helen. (Who, by the way, I am convinced hung out in the house until she saw that I would do a decent job of maintaining her beloved home. I used to feel her wandering around the place. She never meant me harm; she just wanted to make sure I knew how to vacuum and wasn’t going to paint the place purple. Once she was sure of that, she left.)

All of these things are why the house sold so quickly, albeit for less than I would have liked, despite the fact that, in 1940s fashion, the rooms were small--hell, the bathroom was smaller than some wide-screen TVs, and had a slanting roof that made using the toilet a challenge for any really tall person. Which is why my realtor called me after a dozen showing and said, “The people love the house, but it’s just too small.” Eventually, however, someone decided it wasn’t too small, made an offer, and made me very happy. I hope the new owner there appreciates Helen’s care for the place as much as I did. I think she will, especially given that the housing inspector told me, “It’s rare to find a house this old this well maintained.”

The last few houses I’ve lived in have been great, albeit in different ways, and I am afraid I’ve grown spoiled. I am not in a position to buy another house, so we’ll see what I find when I go to rent in my new location.

Posted by Holly at 1:09 PM | Comments (0)

July 16, 2008

The Sign Outside My House

Recently a sign appeared outside my house. It looks like this:

Of course this sign was preceded by an earlier sign, one that said "For Sale." The fact that the first sign was up for a mere month before the "Sold" sign was posted made me REALLY happy.

The fact that there has been this signage outside my house helps explain, I hope, why I haven't been as prolific a blogger recently as I've at other times in my life--OK, I've posted a lot of entries, but they've been short. Because, you see, there's been painting going on. And regrouting. And selling furniture. And lots and lots of cleaning. And getting the hell out of the house so complete strangers can walk through it and look at my stuff.

But that is all over, and I'm moving--soon. Which means posting may be even more sporadic until I get where I'm going and get settled.

Wish me luck!

Posted by Holly at 7:54 AM | Comments (7)

July 14, 2008

Ape Language

A few weeks ago, I took Dinah to the vet. While we waited in the aptly named waiting room, I looked at a book on photos of cats, and couldn't help cooing out loud in pleasure over photos like this one or this one of Koko the Gorilla and her various kittens. I came home and googled Koko, and learned that she asked repeatedly for a kitten and, when she got it, named it "All Ball" because it curled up.

I went looking for info on ape language after that, and found this fascinating video, which I hope you will enjoy.

Posted by Holly at 10:54 AM | Comments (0)

July 13, 2008

Verizon Stopped Working For Me

Tuesday afternoon we had an intense, dramatic, kickass thunderstorm. It pummeled my plants and knocked out electricity all over town--and, it seems, my phone service.

When I noticed the problem, I called the phone company from my cell phone, who said that the diagnostic tests they ran revealed that the line was fine, so it was probably a problem with my house, and I should unplug all my phones from the phone jack and the electricity, leave them unplugged for five minutes, and then plug them back in and see if they start working, which seemed like bullshit to me but I did it anyway.

That didn't help, so then they told me to test a plain old phone that I knew worked at the "gray box" outside. Turns out I don't have a gray box outside; I have a gray box inside my basement, and it took me forever to find it. But find it I did, and I plugged a regular old phone into the test jack, and heard nothing, which meant it was the phone company's problem, and they'd have to fix it.

I informed someone of this, and he said, "Well! We're very sorry. That's very odd. Everything should be working fine. But we'll send someone out to fix the problem--on Saturday."

Now, because I have a cell phone, I could live without a land line--people do it all the time--but my internet service is through my phone, so I was not connected to the world. I couldn't check my email. I couldn't blog. I couldn't google anything, damnit! I couldn't look at the weather forecast. It SUCKED.

It sucked all the more because I had originally planned to spend the week at home, completing a couple of big projects. I work from home a lot, and I need to check my email and google stuff--at home--for my work. But eventually I went to the public library, which has free wireless, so I could at least see if I'd received any important email and update my Netflix queue.

And then Saturday rolled around, and some guy named Tim showed up to restore my phone service. Because my gray box is inside, he had to come into the house, and when he first showed up, he was friendly and polite, and wanted to chat a little. That was fine. Several houses in the neighborhood were for sale; we talked about the real estate market, blah blah blah, after I showed him the box in the basement. I went upstairs to wash dishes and he went to work on diagnosing the problem, etc. He spent about five minutes downstairs--and then he came upstairs and asked me what I do for a living.

I told him I'm a writer and an English professor; he told me he never did well in English, he majored in engineering; he liked nonfiction. I said I liked nonfiction too, that it was the main thing I studied, and that I also liked history. He said he liked military history; I said I did too, etc etc. Then I had to hear all about his years in the army, as well as all sorts of details about his daughter the supply sergeant. He spent 20 minutes in my house, telling me about this crap. My patience started to wear thin. I started to hope he'd just get out of my house and fix my phone and go the hell away.

Finally he went outside to fix stuff; then he had to come back in and put my gray box back together. And when he came in, he was on the phone with his wife--why he couldn't stay outside until he was done talking to her is beyond me--and then he had to tell me about the conversation. And then he said, "You know how I was talking about how I like history? I wanted to show you a book that's the most important history book I've ever read. I wish I had discovered it years ago. It has helped me understand things I never got before."

And he opened this zippered bag and pulls out some book on Jesus.

So I handed him A History of God by Karen Armstrong, but he wasn't interested in that, because in addition to a cross, on the cover was the star of David and the moon of Islam.

And he stood there and told me how great this book was, on and on, and about all the other books on religion he has read, and the church he goes to, and I just wasn't going to go there. Finally he ran out of things to tell me about, so he went downstairs and repaired whatever he needed to repair.

And then he came back up and spent another 20 minutes telling me about his educational history and about his son's plans for college and about how people he finds that people tend to remember, for years, perhaps because he has "good people skills."

I kept thinking, "At what point do I tell this guy he has to leave? He's boring me out of my mind and I've got shit to do." But he clearly thought this was a very interesting conversation, and he was a good-natured guy so I didn't want to insult or embarrass him. But I did feel my hospitality had been abused. I'd engaged in some polite conversation with the guy when he first showed up just to be nice, just to be friendly, but that didn't mean I wanted to discuss my career with him, or hear about how much he admired Jesus.

Finally the technique of nodding and smiling when he said something but not adding anything to the conversation worked, in that it convinced him to move to the front door, where it still took another five minutes to actually get him out the door--he had to remind me again who wrote the book on Jesus, and tell me about his attitudes towards various social issues, and wish me luck for the future, etc.

I was very glad to have my phone service restored, but I want to say that the repair was not free; I paid very dearly for Tim's repair work. I have thought about calling Verizon to complain about Tim but I know it would astonish him and hurt him--he really thought it was nice conversation. I just hope I never see him again myself.

Posted by Holly at 8:25 AM | Comments (3)

July 5, 2008

Some Reflections on the Fifth

I love my country and I'm glad she exists--for all the ways we've fucked up lately, I still think the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and all that business was pretty amazing and very important, solidly positive developments in the story of humanity. Which is one reason I'm happy to celebrate her birthday. I just get really annoyed at some of the ways OTHER PEOPLE celebrate that birthday.

I'm talking firecrackers. I HATE firecrackers. Fireworks--you know, the big light shows costing lots of money and staged by professionals--are great, though I've seen enough in my life that they don't really fill me with excitement, and they certainly don't arouse the wonder and awe I feel for my favorite light show, the Milky Way.

But firecrackers, the little containers of explosives whose purpose is to make noise and leave a nasty smell, I just can't stand, and I can't stand people who go out in the street and set them off at all hours of the night. I am glad that I spent most of my life in states where the damn things are illegal, and look forward to leaving the one I currently live in, where they are legal. Which, if you ask me, is one more reason Pennsylvania is just back-ass-wards, along with its bizarro liquor laws and the fact that it elected Rick Santorum as its senator.

Posted by Holly at 8:44 AM | Comments (0)

July 4, 2008

Worth the Bother Green Beans

I'm not one of these people who loves to cook. I like it just fine, and I've reached a point where I'm able to please my own palate most of the time, which is good because the place where I currently live is something of a culinary wasteland. But for me, the real pleasure afforded by cooking occurs at the table after the fact, not at the stove while you're doing it.

I rarely cook something that requires a lot of planning or preparation. There are really only two situations in which I do: if I'm feeding guests, or if I am making huge batches of some elaborate meal or dish which I can then freeze in individual servings, so that later, I can just microwave it and have a meal ready. I don't want more than 20 minutes to elapse from the moment when I decide I'm hungry enough to make a meal, and the point at which I sit down to eat it. I also don't want to wash too many dishes afterwards.

By those standards, this recipe for green beans should be something I don't make--and truth be told, I rarely make it. It's not that it's hard; it just takes a lot of time to cut up all the beans, and it involves dirtying a lot of dishes. But it's so good that I go ahead and do it anyway from time to time.

I will say that these beans are really good left over and chilled--if you can make enough to have them left over. When I make them for guests, there are never any leftovers--and when I make them for myself, well, I still manage to eat a lot of them.

A mess of green beans
1 or 2 tablespoons olive oil (you know, enough to coat the pan but not so much things get oily)
two cloves garlic, minced
fresh lemon
salt
fresh cracked pepper
Parmesan cheese

Wash the green beans and cut them into bite-sized pieces. (That's my least favorite part. I don't know why I find it so annoying to cut up scores of green beans, but I do.) Put them in a steamer and steam long enough that they're hot but not so long that they get tender--they should still be crisp. (In other words, three or four minutes after water begins to boil--certainly not more than five.) Heat one tablespoon olive oil in a heavy skillet over medium high heat. When oil is hot, add minced garlic and fry for about 30 seconds--just until oil becomes fragrant. Dump in green beans and saute until coated with the garlicky oil. Turn off heat and squeeze a tablespoon or so of fresh lemon onto the beans. Then season with salt and pepper, and, as a final step, add a liberal dose of grated parmesan--do this last when pan is still very hot but no longer on an active flame, so the cheese doesn't get gummy.

I've tried cooking the beans entirely in the skillet, but they get too oily. I've tried just adding a little garlic infused olive oil after steaming them and not sauteing them, but the flavor isn't the same, and the cheese doesn't melt as well if you don't stir it into a hot pan.

So I do it the way I've discovered works well, and deal with the fact that I have all these pots and pans to wash just for one vegetable dish, because as I said, the real pleasure afforded by cooking occurs at the table, and for that, you have to sacrifice from time to time.

Posted by Holly at 7:58 AM | Comments (3)

July 2, 2008

Believe Him, It's Torture

Well, if Christopher Hitchens, who has been an ardent supporter of the Iraq war, can admit that waterboarding is not "extreme interrogation" but instead is "outright torture," the rest of us should find it easier to accept that, especially after watching this video of what he underwent, the controlled nature of his experience with the technique.

Posted by Holly at 7:54 AM | Comments (1)

July 1, 2008

Sexism, Subtle and Overt

I was going to post a recipe for green beans today, but my inbox was too full of links to depressing stories about sexism, so the beans will have to wait. (They're worth waiting for, and I really will post the recipe, I promise.)

First of all, the sort-of good news: a graduate student named Sezgin Cihangir cares enough about sexism to study it and its effects. His doctoral dissertation concludes that "Women suffer more as a result of subtle sexism than as a result of blatant gender discrimination. The subtle forms of discrimination affect one's self-image, which lowers performance. Victims can come to think that they have been justifiably rejected." The findings aren't good news, but the fact that he has documented this phenomenon IS good news.

Now on to the bad news: Katha Pollitt writes about the Backlack Spectacular against women and feminism that she is seeing in the US, citing evidence including the fact that Washington University has given Phyllis Schlafly an honorary degree, that the supreme court denied women the right to sue over unequal pay, and women's shelters are closing left and right for lack of funding.

Kira Cochrane writes about the backlash in the UK, citing the unbelievable statistic that "the rape conviction rate in Britain has plummeted from 33% in the 70s to just 5.7% today, and that the 14,000 rapes reported each year are thought to be the tip of the iceberg - Solicitor General, Vera Baird, suggested that only 10%-20% of all cases are brought to the attention of the authorities." She also writes that

In interviews earlier this year, Alan Sugar, Amstrad founder, Apprentice star and government business adviser, repeatedly challenged a law instituted more than three decades ago. This law was one of the big wins of the 1970s feminist movement, making it illegal for women to be asked at interview whether they plan to have children, on the grounds that it is clearly discriminatory: a chance for employers to weed out any woman who wants to combine a family with work. "You're not allowed to ask, so it's easy," said Sugar, "just don't employ them."

Yeah. I have to go iron someone else's shirt now.

Posted by Holly at 9:35 AM | Comments (0)