Category: Burningbird

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Burningbird Just Shelley

Good-bye old blue

This week is going to be a busy one. I’m canceling my internet and cable a week from Monday, so I need to spend time this week getting addresses and locations and this and that to have on hand when it’s gone. Not to mention finishing up some tasks for which I was hired. This isn’t a heads up that I’m quitting the weblog or anything like that. I’ll probably have Burningbird until I die: an old, decrepit, and lecherous weblogger, poking A-List butt and snickering about the sag. However, I won’t be posting with the same regularity I do now.

Posting with the same regularity. This sounds more like one is taking a laxative than writing; feeding the weblog prunes rather than words. Perhaps it’s best that one doesn’t post with ‘any regularity’. Constipation increases the anticipation, makes the heart grow fonder, that sort of thing.

(Not that I’m saying those who don’t post frequently are constipated, and in need of a good enema. But you know, Tom Cruise has said that a good colonic now and again is all you need. Yes indeed, no problem is so severe that you can’t solve it with a bowel movement.)

Sad to say, I did not attend the Harry Potter opening at my local bookstore last night. I thought about it; thought about attending what has become an iconic symbol of our current culture; thought about it as an act of defiance against the rigidly religious. But then I remembered all those little kids…running around…screaming….running around…more screaming and standing in lines for an hour. I will pick up my copy in a sedate, old fuddy duddy manner today by driving down and queuing for a few minutes, paying over the dimes and pennies from my cookie jar, and taking home what probably is the 12,000,013 copy of the book sold.

(Yes I read the Harry Potter books. Of course I read the Harry Potter books. I also follow up to date information about the Loch Ness Monster, too. (This is a particularly good story on Nessie: full of teeth, ripped apart deer, hints of giant fanged eels, mysterious water agents, and so on. I love a good tale.))

Speaking of driving, I took my roommate’s van down to the auto place this week to estimate the damage from the accident we were in on the way to Pridefest earlier this month. The results were what I feared: it is totaled. Oh, it’s still drivable, but the cost to repair the vehicle is more than it’s worth. The insurance company gave Roomie two options: they’ll pay the blue book on the car and he turns it over to the salvage company; or he gets a salvage license and has the vehicle repaired–though they won’t cover the full cost of the repair.

It’s a shame, really. Roomie would rather have donated the vehicle to one of the organizations that fixes them and gives them to charitable organizations. However, state law is rather picky on what happens to vehicles deemed ‘totaled’. You can’t just drive around in them.

So Monday, Old Blue is going to the salvage yard, most likely to be chopped into pieces. And Roomie will now be sharing Golden Girl with me, driving her to and from work, while I reserve my country walks and hikes for after hours and weekends. He’ll then cover 2/3’s of the cost, which helps me, and without him having to plunk the money down on a new car right now, which helps him.

This is actually a very cost effective plan. If I want the car during the week, I’ll give him a lift to and from work and then have it during the day. Otherwise, I’ll take the bus or walk. During the weekend, he can ride his bike (or use the car if I’m not using it). We save on insurance and maintenance and various other costs, and no one really suffers any loss. Considering that I didn’t even have a driver’s license until five years, ago, not having a car 24×7 is not a particular hardship.

In fact, I’m starting a new regime myself this week: walking to the local Starbuck’s for a cup of coffee in the mornings. It’s 1.7 miles each way, which gives me a nice 3.4 mile walk. More importantly, it puts me into a schedule and a routine, and also gets me out of the house and into settings with people. I have started holding conversations with the rabbits, squirrels, and birds in our finch garden. The neighbors are starting to look at me most peculiarly. I really must get out with people more often.

The trip to the auto place was rather interesting. It was very busy and several people were working: all men except for one stunningly beautiful young woman. It was she who looked at my car, and did the estimates of the work. She was charming and helpful and very knowledgeable, as well as drop dead gorgeous. What was rather creepy is that the men in the place totally disregarded both of us. Even when she called out for one guy to check something else with her, he ignored her for the longest time, until finally sauntering over to glance at the back end of the car, mutter a few cryptic words, and then sauntering away again: not once looking at her, not once at me.

We were two women, alone; the Isle of Women, adrift in the Sea of Man. The land that Indy 500 built. And I thought I had it bad in tech.

I appreciated the kind, kind words about the photos in the last post. They meant a lot to me and gave me a boost when I needed it. I can truthfully say that I’ve worked through the anger mentioned in the post, though it wasn’t easy doing so, and I am still working through the cause and writing a post on same. I don’t mind writing angry, but I do mind writing incoherently. Well, more incoherently than usual. There is a difference between being passionate in one’s view, and spitting all over the screen. I’ll leave the latter for the politically inclined.

 

Categories
Just Shelley Photography

A quiet moment of rain

Hurricane Dennis turned to Tropical Storm Dennis and finally to Tropical Depression Dennis where it made its way, directly, to some of the most drought plagued areas in the country. The Missouri bootheel has received about 4 inches of rain, and we in St. Louis have received close to 2 inches. Not a heavy rain, either. A gentle misting rain–warm, but not too warm, and with just a gentle breeze. It was and still is, a thing of exquisite beauty.

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And now you know my deepest, darkest, secret: I love the mist. I love fog, and misty rain, and dew-kissed mornings. Oh, I can appreciate the sunshine, and thrill to a storm. But I love the mist.

I pulled jeans over my poor bug bitten legs and set off for the Botanical Gardens, taking along my camera in hopes the rain would remain light. When I arrived at the park, there were a few other souls walking about. They carried umbrellas, but I just had on my soft, gray t-shirt–a soft, bittersweet gray, like the day–and black jeans, camera in its waterproof carrying case.

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The water lilies are back. Gray mist and water lilies: can it get any better? Today was a day meant for poetry, and I found a lovely one titled The Water Nymph, by a man named Jerry Sarvas, who says of himself:

Jerry Sarvas, 49 lives on the fringe of society. A conscientious objector drafted during the Vietnam War, he enjoys being anonymous as much as possible and isn’t interested in being a part of any more armies …. be they military or spiritual.

I hesitated about repeating Sarvas’ poetry, because by doing so, I betray his desire for anonymity. But I know of no poet who doesn’t appreciate that another likes their work. Even Emily Dickinson–quiet, shy, and betrayed Emily Dickinson, sewed her poems into books rather than hold each over a flame once written.

The Water Nymph

Silhouette of pagan beauty
Drenched in moonlight’s soothing rays
Reflects upon the peaceful water
While pungent clouds of Shivranjani
Drift seductively around the pool.
Scented gardenias float on the surface
Captured in her dancing hair.
Moon rays shower her with beauty
Darkness drapes her through the night
Gentle splishing playful splashing
Starlight glistens from her body
Illuminating moon soaked breasts
Drenched in music, bathed in rapture
Blissfully floating undisturbed
A vision of contentment
Her gentle sway – her divine play.

Another poem that comes to mind is Sabrina Fair by Milton, but one poem is enough for today. Still, Sabrina Fair is a lovely poem. Print it out, and hold it for your own misty day.

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The weather and the joys of the garden were a wonderful distraction from the blisters on my legs, though now that I’m in a chair, they are making themselves known. Each bite goes through the same cycle: pencil eraser sized dark red spot, blister, and then an ugly red spreading out. With one, the redness has spread half across my shin. It doesn’t help to know that these will heal, all on their own. I do know that this is the last time into the Missouri woods this summer, even woods as domesticated as those of the Shaw Nature center. Either I’ll walk groomed gardens, or I’ll walk on rocky paths — no trees, no bushes. There is obviously something inimical to me in the Missouri Green.

No, not until Fall signals the all-clear sign.

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I had an amazing dream last night. The coloring was golden throughout–lighter than sepia, warmer than grays. All in gold, except for splashes of purple; bright splashes of purple here and there: glowing from a street light or reflected from a shiny lawn ornament.

In the dream, Michael Jackson was taking care of my Dad. Yes, that Michael Jackson: terror of tiny tots the world over. We’re in my Dad’s apartment, and Dad is sitting in a chair, with a white sheet wrapped around him like a toga. As I came in, he looked up and smiled at me, but didn’t say anything–just smiled. Michael enters the room, hair in his eyes and his movements are nervous. His hands are in his pockets, and he’s wearing a white dinner jacket and dark pants. He says something about my Dad, but I’m not happy with him, because my Dad does not look that well cared for. So here I am in the dream, lecturing the writer of Thriller on how to care for my father, all the while he’s responding in that soft, whiny voice of his.

But then the dream shifted, and I’m riding along on a motorcycle, through an odd, surreal town made of cement blocks, on a barren plain with thick stormy clouds overhead. The only color, other than the gold that persisted throughout the dream, was that bright, vivid purple, flashing from the stoplights.

 

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Someone was riding with me, but I don’t know who. The same person was with me all throughout the dream…but I don’t know who it was. They were nothing more than a pants clad leg with boot out of the corner of my eye, arms wrapped around my waist as we rode, hand on my shoulder as we looked at my father.

We ride through a city of faceless people who are wandering about the neon lit streets, bamboo forming a ceiling over the road. We drove straight until we come to a large structure — a parking garage, with walls open to the air. We entered the building and traveled around and up, and through the open walls we could see out over the plains as the storm worsened. I received an impression that the person with me wanted to turn back, but I wanted to continue.

Suddenly, with a flash of purple lightning, a tornado began to form in front of us. It was glorious, and I stopped the motorcycle and we–the leg and I–looked up into the dark column, at the movement of the air as it tore across the plains and toward the cement city we were in.

But then I woke up.

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I laid there on the bed trying to relive the dream in my mind to preserve it as it passed from my fanciful self, my artistic self who has no speech into this, the aware and verbal me. But as happens, there are no anchors in a verbal world for such flights, and it began to fade and all I can remember is what I’ve told you.

What I want to know is: why purple?

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Categories
Just Shelley

Stuckness

Golden Girl has been slightly sluggish the last week, and I wondered if I had taken too long for the last oil change. It just turned 50,000, so I imagine that problems will happen but I’d hoped they wouldn’t happen just now. Tonight, however, when I was driving to the park to walk, the “Check Engine Light” came on. Well, a light in the dashboard came on, but since I had lost my owner manual over a year ago, I wasn’t sure what it meant.

I pulled over immediately and did like I’d seen countless men of my acquaintance do in the past: I opened the hood and stood there, hands on my hips, looking down at the engine and waiting for enlightenment. Sure enough, enlightenment came. I shut the hood, walked to the back of the car, opened the trunk, pulled back the trunk carpet, and there on top of the spare tire was the owner’s manual.

(Later when I was telling my roommate the story, he didn’t bat an eye when I told him the manual was under the carpet in the trunk, lying on top of the spare tire. When I asked him why, he replied, “Well, I was married to you for almost twenty years.”)

According to the manual, the “Check Engine Light” doesn’t necessarily mean a serious problem: it could be caused by water in the gas, poor gas quality, and even a gas cap not shut tightly enough. As long as the light isn’t blinking, there’s no harm in driving the car for a time and the manual recommended driving the car through three complete fuel cycles. If it’s still on, then take it into the mechanic.

When I got home, I searched for information related to a 2002 Ford Focus and the “Check Engine Light” and in most cases, poor quality fuel was the cause. A couple of people had problems with a “EGR valve”, which I guess is also called the “O2 sensor”. A couple of others had some problems with the fuel intake system, but I didn’t have any of the other symptoms to match the problems they experienced.

One person in a car forum suggested unplugging the battery and then plugging it back in. In response, another reader wrote:

Last year sometime I had the same thing happen with the engine light, except when I unplugged the battery and then hooked it back up it still stayed on. When I took it into the dealer they said that a vacuum hose had caught fire and melted.

I agreed with the third person who replied, well that’s not healthy.

I searched some more and found a paper that explained how the Exhaust Gas Recirculation (EGR) system works. The paper is for a Chrysler, but the architecture is consistent with most late model cars. I then found another site that discusses how to use diagnostic tools to determine the problem. Did you know that when a light is signaled in your dash, a code is recorded in software indicating the origin of the problem? When the mechanics hook up the gadgets, what they’re basically doing is downloading this code. (And we thought that mechanics would just listen to your car and know, magically, what the problem is.)

During my search, I remembered that my last trip out I had to fill up my gas tank at a little no-name gas station in the back woods. And my car had been in for a tune-up not that long ago and other than two of my tires getting mighty worn, the car came through with flying colors. Ipso facto: bad gas.

Of course if after three fuel cycles the light doesn’t go away, I’ll take it in. Or park it until I can afford to take it in. Until then, there’s nothing I can do about the light so I’m not going to worry about it.

Problem. Enlightenment and the Search. Acceptance. I have become, in effect, a self-taught mechanic.

Let’s consider a reevaluation of the situation in which we assume that the stuckness now occurring, the zero of consciousness, isn’t the worst of all possible situations, but the best possible situation you could be in. After all, it’s exactly this stuckness that Zen Buddhists go to so much trouble to induce; through koans, deep breathing, sitting still and the like. Your mind is empty, you have a “hollow-flexible” attitude of “beginner’s mind.” You’re right at the front end of the train of knowledge, at the track of reality itself. Consider, for a change, that this is a moment to be not feared but cultivated. If your mind is truly, profoundly stuck, then you may be much better off than when it was loaded with ideas.
…
Stuckness shouldn’t be avoided. It’s the psychic predecessor of all real understanding. An egoless acceptance of stuckness is a key to an understanding of all Quality, in mechanical work as in other endeavors. It’s this understanding of Quality as revealed by stuckness which so often makes self-taught mechanics so superior to institute-trained men who have learned how to handle everything except a new situation.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig

Categories
Internet Just Shelley

Cornered

Tuesday I called Charter Communications to see if I can continue the high speed internet but cancel the basic television lineup. I was informed that I could, but it would cost 10.00 more a month. Since I’m already paying twice as much for Internet access as Charter advertises at the company site and on TV, I wasn’t interested in being further penalized and said that I’ll just cancel both, then.

Only to be informed that to get the ‘good deal’ I have with my current internet service, I supposedly signed a contract in November to carry both television channels and internet for a year; if I don’t, I’ll be penalized 150.00. I don’t remember being told about $150.00 penalty for canceling my account. I asked where it said I had agreed to these terms. The Charter person said that when I signed the work order, I signed the agreement.

Tonight, the roommate and I thought we’d take in the free music concert at the Botanical Gardens. When we got there, I was surprised to find several parking attendants–big, burly, unsmiling, sun-glassed, parking attendants. Not the friendly, khaki clothed Park volunteers. No, these guys all looked like the type of people you would expect to come out of the woods from the movie, “Deliverance”–except wearing blue shirts, tan shorts, and wraparounds. They all had mullet hair cuts. It was surreal.

Following the signals, we found ourselves down one row where we were faced with two attendants, one of whom signaled me to pull into a slot between two cars. I signaled back that I couldn’t park between the cars–one was a very large Cadillac that stuck out in the back, and straddeled the parking line and I knew I couldn’t swing my car around enough to pull in. I pointed to the spot on the other side of the furthest car. The guy just looked at me, shook his head, and pointed at that one spot.

Now, the parking lot was about 70% empty. Still I started to reverse my car to see if I could angle it into the spot. About that time, a family had gotten out of their car and started walking behind me. So there I was, stuck between a couple of cute little kids, and two big, burly, unsmiling, black-mullet-haired, sun-glassed parking attendants.

I put my car back in drive, and started moving forward, yelling at the attendant to get out of my way, I was leaving.

And that’s exactly what I’m telling Charter Communications.

Categories
Burningbird

How many emails?

If I’m part of the squids, at least I’m a Giant Squid if my email popularity has anything to do with it. I woke up this morning to find 56,770 emails in my general email account. It would seem a host of hackers used ‘burningbird.net’ to send both phishing and virus emails throughout the world. Most of the entries back were those misbegotten, stupid automated replies that say something like, “Your email has a virus and therefore you’re trashed with us, Bud. Have a nice day”.

It wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t in Japanese. And Korean. And Russian. French, too. And German…

Which is my way of saying, if you’ve expected a reply from me and haven’t received one, I would suggest sending the email to my gmail account, listed in the header bar.