Category: Uncategorized

When Does Food Go Bad?

First, we must consider, what do we mean when we say Food has ‘gone bad’?

Short of Food killing other Food or leaping out of the refrigerator or cupboard with weapons in their hands or explosives strapped around its jar or box, it’s often difficult to determine when Food has gone bad. Some will consider Food bad much more quickly than others, refusing to eat it because it’s ‘gone bad’, while others, particularly bachelors, will dismiss claims Food has gone bad and eat him anyway. This is often true with Food like Pizza, but not Beer and Wine. When Beer goes bad, it becomes skunky, with a foul taste, or flat. Wine takes on a sour, bitter tone that reminds you of Bitter Ben.

Milk, on the other hand, doesn’t fake it when it goes bad. Beware of Milk that has gone bad. Milk that goes bad can become violent, even explosive, with lingering results.

Also watch out for Fish and Meat that has gone bad. You know what I mean.

Food can go bad for many reasons. Food sometimes goes bad as an acting out mechanism when he’s not getting the attention he thinks he needs or deserves. Sometimes Food isn’t happy with his home life, or he gets left out of activities, locked up and forgotten. He might go bad because of his environment. The temperature might be too low, permitting low life bacteria to affect Food. Or Food is shut up with undesirables who put out gases, pressuring Food to spoil.

But that is the nurturing aspect of Food going bad. Sometimes Food goes bad because he was born bad, co-existing with other materials that negatively affects Food, like when Food wasn’t washed properly after he was picked. Personal hygiene is very important to help keep Food from going bad.

When Food goes bad is like many problems throughout human existence, with multiple facets to consider for dealing with the situation. Constant monitoring and early detection is important to save Food. Sometimes bad Food can be saved by re-purposing it. Some Food can be frozen and used later when they go start going bad. The thing to remember is that every Food is unique, and what you learn about one Food may not apply to other Foods. If in doubt about whether Food has gone bad, ask a cat. If a cat walks away from it, the Food has probably gone bad.

Cats just don’t tolerate bad food. Just ask any cat person.

Note: no food was harmed while I wrote this post, but several cats were annoyed and disappointed. Now they want something else that isn’t ‘Food gone bad’.

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I gotta do something about

this manuscript

that backyard

these weeds

this belly

that cat

these gutters

this computer

that computer

these computers

this junk

that rattle

these books

this garage

that room

these bills

this worry

that concern

these problems

 

 

“I gotta do something about….”

It’s my life’s expression.

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“I’m hungry”

“I’m hungry”, I type, and click on the magnifying glass.

“I have found growing vegetables can help  if you’re hungry.”

“If you’re hungry, the problem might be that you haven’t had anything to eat. Check to see if you’ve had something to eat recently.”

“Hungry is a country in Europe.”

“Hunger can be caused by not eating a sufficient amount of food. To fix this, you can grow food, go hunting, or go shopping. Let me know how it turns out.”

“Sign this petition to urge President Obama to end hunger in America NOW.”

“Check listings to see when The Hunger Games are playing.”

“Click here to watch The Hunger on your computer right now!”

“Many people who are hungry have found this website and its diets to be helpful.”

“Get deals on hungry at Overstocked.com.”

Those are satire answers to a simple statement to illuminate how I feel while searching for help on the net. Companies have mostly abdicated responsibility, except where they’ve realized that they can charge you to help you and pad their profits. If you do not pay for help, you’re left to the forums, and the forums give advice, like above, satirized as a response to the input, “I’m hungry.” They don’t address the issues but smather suggestions that might or not relate to your query except in the basest or broadest manner.

Looking for why I’m having Windows 7 issues that result in an ever spinning hard drive that sucks responsiveness out of the system, I’m constantly urged to look for malware, update drivers, or turn off my security software. None of them actually provide intelligent tools for why the hard drive keeps running, especially after all of those issues have already been done and eliminated. Using the computer manufacturer’s tools and windows tool, I’ve confirmed that there’s no hardware issues. And it’s depressing, because I thought, if there is a hardware problem, at least  I’ll know what’s wrong. But I can’t find the cause. Don’t tell me to update because I already have.

And now I’m hungry. I can either, eat leftover kibble the cats didn’t finish, rummage through the kitchen pantry and refrigerator, or root around the front yard for bugs.

Or, like the cats, wait for someone else to take care of me and offer me a better solution.

 

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To Beer, or Not to Beer

Tonight is beer night, to be lowbrow. It’s actually our social club where we discuss politics, literature and science, but we do drink beer.

Don’t know if I’ll go or not. My wife scored a ticket to The Wiz and is going with a friend, leaving me to ponder what I’ll do this eve.

As Mrs Trump said, “Ask not what I can do for a beer, but what a beer can do for me.” She was also famous for saying, “I never met a beer I didn’t like.”

But other things are possible for the night. The baristas called me over as I was leaving the coffee shop yesterday. “Look what we made ourselves. Affogato.”

“Love it.” Envy turned my eyes green. “I go to the Growler Guys for mine. They make a mean one.”

“Bring in ice cream, and we’ll make you one,” Meghan said.

“But they already have ice cream at the Growler Guys, so…. Do you two drink beer?” They’re young and I’m not certain they’re old enough. Yes, both answered, so I continued, “Growler Guys make a delicious porter float, ice cream in a chocolate infused porter.”

“I don’t like porter or dark beers,” Shannon said, “I like IPAs, but I could probably do a porter float, if I let the ice cream melt and stir it all up together.”

“Which is the correct way to enjoy,” I answered. Customers arrived so I headed out, but now I’m thinking, maybe I’ll go by the Growler Guys tonight.

 

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There I Was

At midnight, looking out the window over the front lawn and toward the street.

It was the witching hour. I wanted to see witches.

I saw none.

Nor were there any walking dead or pokemon.

But a huge spotlight bathed the street with white light. Something was going on. Peering in each direction, I looked for police vehicles.

I saw nothing but a clear, bright moon above the trees and mountains, a few cats and several raccoons.

Disappointed, I closed the window against the cool night air, drew the blinds and returned to pouring a fresh glass of wine.

Nothing ever happens around here.

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Powering Up

Been running through laptop options to cope with sending the HP Envy back to have the hard drive failure addressed. Otherwise, I’ll be without a working machine for my writing for ten days.

We have an iPad mini 4, which will work for surfing the net and checking email, but they’re pretty limited in other applications, so I dragged old laptops into the light. The Dell had potential. It was a decent running machine that just ended up being replaced on a whim because it was five years old. I remembered the hard drive password but couldn’t recall the Windows password. That didn’t worry me. Using either brute force or a password recovery program, I figured I could pry the password out of the machine or reset it so I could access it.

I attempted the first and easiest way, seeing if I could access the tables through the Administrator. Nope. Then I tried getting around that via Safe Mode with Command Line. Nope. Apparently, if the Administrator has a password set, that path is closed.

Next, I addressed it through using a boot UBS with a password recovery/reset program. Nope. That didn’t work because now I was getting a kernel failure report.

Nuts.

I didn’t feel like using brute force for cracking at that point. I was sort of depressed. So I powered up the Dell’s replacement, the old Thinkpad. It had been displaying remarkably similar failings to the HP Envy, with intermittent connectivity issues, slow browsers, lots of fan running. Besides those, it had developed the dreaded Blue Screen of Death with an IRQL_NOT EQUAL_OR LESS message.

That needed to be fixed before anything could be addressed so I’ve spent about twelve hours in the last two days seeking the fix. I appeared to have found and resolved it today.

  1. Oddly, my Network Connections folder was empty. I found some suggestions for that issue. The first was a REGEDIT solution. It worked. After rebooting, the folder was once again properly populated. I clicked on Chrome. Boom. BSOD.
  2. I used the same REGEDIT solution, then went on to the other REGEDIT suggestions. The rest of my entries were correct. Yet, the problem remained, the folder would populate, I would open Chrome, and I would experience a BSOD, and the folder would be empty again.
  3. Next was deleting the network adapters through the Device Manager. Okay, I began going through them, only to find the WAN mini-port adapters could not be deleted. I found a work-around that called for a manual driver update coupled with using a MS MAC Bridge driver for them. That allowed me to delete them, add them back in, and update the drivers.
  4. I rebooted. All seemed to be working. The folder was correct, as were the registry entries. I opened Chrome. Boom, BSOD.
  5. Aha. The dmp error information was exactly the same. Chrome seemed to be doing something. Therefore, I tried Firefox. Firefox opened sluggishly but ran and the machine didn’t die. I uninstalled and removed Google Chrome, a process that consumed almost an hour, a lot longer than it should.

And that’s the problem. Everything is taking longer than it should, pointing toward hardware failure. I’d run chipset tests but I suspect it’s another hard drive failure. I’ll see what I can do to pin that down and mitigate it and update everything before sending the HP back for repairs.

Progress is being made. It’s tedious, time-consuming and frustrating stuff. Fortunately, it takes little brain engagement, so I can do other things while I’m dealing with it, watch TV, pet the cats, eat, play games on the other computers, read, do Soduko puzzles.

Then I’m going to go back and try to fix the other computer – if I can find the boot up CD – and recover that password. At this point, it’s an itch that I can’t scratch, and I want to scratch.

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Counting Waves

You know the words. You can write the cliches for me.

Talking about another, you note or say, “Oh, he/she is in one of those moods today.” Curl a little snark into your tone. We joke about women and their cycles, because that’s how many of us were socialized and conditioned. “Women’s cycles” are visible. They’re “emotional and irrational” when it’s “that time of month” or “they’re going through the change.”

Men’s cycles are more often ignored. But we talk about male bosses and spouses and how they seem angrier, more irritated, or conversely, they’re in a great mood. “Maybe now is the time to ask them for ____.” Fill in the blank of what’s been considered and rejected because of their mood, but now, it’s a possibility, because they’re cheerful today.

Or you notice it about yourself, but you don’t know why. You don’t know why you’re sad. You don’t know why you’re happy. You rationalize reasons, develop a logical explanation for why you must feel this way. We think we know ourselves best, but I know myself better. I have large, dark windows that I can’t see in. Monsters are back there….

Everything seems like it’s on a spectrum for me: energy, optimism, dreaming….

I dreamed many times and vividly last night.

I wrote with speed and intensity yesterday. And what I wrote? Honestly, I’m amazed that I’m so talented. What an imagination! I am fucking brilliant.

I’m optimistic, hopeful and cheerful. I look forward to visiting with friends. My body feels great.

I feel like I’m enjoying life more. Food and drinks taste better, and that sunlight, golden on those scattered soft gray and white clouds above the verdant tree filled mountains against an azure sky late yesterday afternoon, wasn’t that the most magnificent, inspiring sight? Did you see that soaring hawk?

But as I dreamed and awoke last night, considered the dreams and returned to sleep, I thought of how alike it was to being on beach at the ocean. Like waves, there’s a pattern to the dreams and the ocean’s movement, and there are high tides and low tides of dreaming. It’s not the first time I’ve thought this and written about it. Even now, it seems like deja vu. I dream; the dreams increase with strength, vividness, and impact as my cycle progresses through its spectrum. I wake up and write about it. Then the dreams peak and begin diminishing.

Ah, yes, you see that, how my mental acuity increases as well? I’m able to observe more clearly and understand myself better. I wonder, are Jeopardy contestants aware of this? Do their personal cycles affect their winning and losing? I really would like to study that, because, you see, I’m almost at the top.

During the rising mental, spiritual and physical energy cycles, I write, and the words come faster, clearer, more quickly and easily, and then I peak. I begin back down. Writing becomes a greater and greater challenge, until, down in the trough, it’s a slog to get to the coffee shop, sit in the chair and focus on the stories being told. My rituals and routines, and the tricks I’ve learned to encourage and engage my inner writer help them. But the stuff I write. Oh, God, help me, please. How could I ever believe I had any skills? I’m worthless, less than zero, with the creativity and talent of a gnat’s ass.

I know this week’s optimism and cheerfulness will crest. I will begin a slow descent into gloom. I will crave isolation. Small irritations are imagined to be major insults. I become a more aggressive driver, and a more bitter person. I’ll hunger for and reward myself with the junk foods, desserts and fried foods that I deny myself when I’m ‘up.’ Then I’ll bottom out, silent, weary, angry, self-loathing, and begin to arise back from the depths. I drink coffee but derive little energy from it. Even reading sucks. My needs and responses are wildest at the bottom. I’m more emotional, needier. I want to shop and buy new things, as a salve for how terribly I’m suffering, but I want to do it without others bothering me.

I know, too, how my cycles affect my world perceptions. When I’m rising, I’m more open. I post and comment more. More cheerful, I have greater self-confidence. When I’m in the pit, I disappear. I don’t check Facebook and don’t post, because it’s all the same jokes, I tell myself, the same crap, the same garbage from the same people, and the news? When I finally bottom out, I have a sense that the world is a terrible place of killing and brutality, our leaders are shits, and we, the common, the less than 1%, have no chance. I am resentful and hostile.

Being in the depths is miserable. I feel lifeless, a sawdust man, without purpose, direction or hope. Down in the trough, it’s hard to see my way through an hour. Food tastes terrible, and taxes are way too high. Everything costs too much then, and it’s all junk.

I wonder, how many people kill one another or themselves because they’ve descended into their pit. How many cops are more fearful and frightened, more ready to kill because of their state? How many others are more willing to take up a knife or gun and seek vengeance and make others pay because of where they are in their cycles and spectrums?

Now, climbing toward the peak, I’m on top of the world. The view is magnificent, and I believe that we can work together, change the world, and solve all the problems.

We just need to hurry, before I start down again.

 

 

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Driving in my Car

I was alone. Driving in my car, a dark SUV, which is not my car, but I had procured it for a dream.

Attempting to park, I broke the driver’s mirror and scratched the passenger side. I tried leaving the car but couldn’t open the door sufficiently to get out. I was too close to the rest.

I backed up, trying to create another plan. A black child was in the back seat. I didn’t know them. Apologizing, I told them to get out but took them for a ride to help them reach their destination.

Parking elsewhere, I learned I had a temporary room at a temporary location. I was in the Philippines. I was supposed to be leaving. I entered the building, cement with several floors. Going to my room, a military style modern barracks room, I discovered a mess. I wasn’t ready to leave at all. Opened and unopened cans of Fancy Feast cat food was everywhere. Most were chicken flavor. I attempted to collect and sort them into bags, to dispose of them, while also attempting to pack my clothes. I also found half-pints of unopened milk containers around the room. I didn’t know what I was going to do with them. I had no refrigerator, didn’t have any need for them, and didn’t understand why I had them. I couldn’t remember buying milk or cat food.

I was running out of time but strangers kept interrupting, and distant relatives dropped in to visit. I was trying to understand, did I bring my car here? If so, how did I bring it? If it was my car, how was I going to get it back to where I came from? I had airline tickets. The car couldn’t fly with me, could it? I found a picture of myself from the previous year a relative had taken and left for me to see. My photo disgusted me.

Pro football players entered. One was Ben Roethlisberger, the Steelers quarterback. The others were famous players. They nodded greetings toward me but were talking among themselves. I don’t think they knew me.

I needed more information to help me decide what to do but there wasn’t anyone to give any. I raced around, in and out of my room and up and down flights of stairs through the cement complex with the cans, the milk, my clothing, dodging people, trying to comprehend what was happening with my car, trying to decide what to do with it, wondering if I could get more time to deal with it.

I awoke with nothing resolved, with the dream streaming through my mind, filling me with thoughts about potential meanings.

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The Tale of Two Cats

I have two cats, Tucker and Quinn. Each choose our house. Quinn came half a dozen years plus ago. I was out a cold winter December midnight, calling my cats, the late memorable Scheckter, and Lady. Quinn rushed over. He clearly belonged to someone. We put up posters, they came, claimed him, and took him home. He came back to us. Again, and again. The charade ended after a few months. We were his. They since moved away without him.

Tucker showed up sick and injured a few years ago. He’s black and white, and was dirty, with infections. I fed him, providing him water, shelter, a place to sleep, checking on him. Once trust was established, he entered the house. I searched for his people. He wasn’t chipped and nobody was looking for him. Posters brought no seekers. We took him to the vet and treated his issues. He was neutered, has gained weight and is now a handsome boy.

Cat number three…came to us last fall. I called him Stubby. A black beauty with a white chest triangle, he had no tail, just a stump. He’s clearly been abused by his reactions to feet and hands. My wife renamed him Boo Radley. I searched for Boo’s owners. No one hunted him but he was clearly a house cat, and expected us to serve him. We fed him, ensured he had water and a place to sleep. Then winter hit…. You’ve seen this movie. You know the plot.

Fourth is Meep. Meep is the Orange Prince, a little blade of a cat, and so sweet. Meep belongs to the people who live behind us. Here are the points about Meep.

  1. Boo is out to dominate Meep. Meep doesn’t want to be dominated. Fights ensure.
  2. Tucker is a fierce fighter. One mighty fur and fury battle arose one night. Tucker intimidates Boo, who watches him carefully and makes great warning noises. Meep becomes the orange bolt when he sees Tucker. He’s off and gone, trailing Roadrunner smoke. Meep, Boo and Tucker are kept separated from one another. It’s like a chess game on my part as I move and segregate cats, loving on them and feeding them. (Fortunately, Quinn is accepted by all three of them.)
  3. But Meep likes our house.
  4. He’s not permitted in his people’s house, apparently not under any conditions. So he’s always at our house. I bring Meep into the house to feed him twice a day (after locking up Boo and Tucker in separate rooms), and provide him sanctuary against fireworks, storms and cold temps, putting him in the guest room with food, water and a litter box. He scratches on the door when he wants out.

Meep has mites. He has terrible mites. Glances into his ears confirmed it, and they gave him huge issues. Raw scratches around and behind the ears ensued. Naturally, we had to clean his ears and start him on miticide. Our treatment of his situation changed his treatment of us. He used to bound into our house, tail up, raging with purrs and meows. Now he became wary. Cautious.

He even avoided coming into the house.

Despite losing his trust, we persevered. It wasn’t fun, becoming a perceived threat, but it was better for him that it be done. We cleaned his ears and treated him for three days, and then stopped to assess, continuing to clean, when we could get him to let us. That became tougher as he kept his distance.

Last evening, as always, he was sleeping in an unused grow box in our back yard. It was time for his feeding so I opened the back door and called. He arose, crossed the patio and stopped. Sitting down ten feet away, he watched me with sad golden eyes.

I lowered myself onto the ground at the door and put out a hand. I usually call him by the name we’ve given him, Meep, but last night, I blinked my eyes at him and called, “Here, kitty, kitty. Here, kitty, kitty.” Softly, softly, again, and again, and again.

He rose. Stretched. Looked around. Raised his tail. Sauntered over. Paused on the threshold. Looked around again. Stepped in. Pressed himself against my arms and sides. Released a squeaky purr. I closed the door. He escorted me to his guest room, and I fed him.

He returned this morning, came in and ate, and promptly came in this evening. We resumed his treatment this evening. This time, he accepted it with little complaint and didn’t race away. His tail was straight up until it curved into a question at the end.

We feel he’s recognized that whatever we were doing made him feel better, and so he’s forgiven us, and trust us once again. I appreciate that he trusts us, since he’s not our cat.

Tucker and Quinn were on the desk asleep beside me as I typed this. Then Meep and Boo got into it in the back yard. T & Q rose up to investigate and I went out to separate and placate.

Cats have always liked me. My wife calls me the cat whisperer. Cats love to visit me, quickly making themselves comfortable on my desk, my lap, my chairs, my patio. There was Grace, Alexander, Scratchy and Blur. All belonged to neighbors but could be readily found at my house all hours of the day and night.

I could tell you about Pepper, who sleeps on our porch and cries for food (which I give her), but she’s not our cat, belonging to the person next store. I could mention Buddy, the small black who visits me when I check the mail or do yard work. He lives across the street. Sketch, a gray and white neighborhood newcomer, could be mentioned, as his people have discovered that he likes it around my yard. I try not to get too friendly or familiar with Pepper, Sketch and Buddy.

I have two cats.

I don’t need more.

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Writing’s Adrenalin

Lethargy rolls a slow fog over my mind . Do I hafta write today, a plaintive voice demands. I don’t wanna. 

Last night’s sleep won’t go into the book of the best. Mimosas with friends this morning contributes something to the singular sense that I don’t want to write, and put it off, playing games, reading a book, reading blogs. Timing is off, energy off.

Oh, push, damn it, push. Push. Just think of a word that you want to write, the beginning of a chapter, a scene, a sentence. With explosive suddenness, words pour into me from three scenes, two books. Hurry, hurry, my laggard mind is suddenly urging. Write like crazy and get it down now. Okay, okay, okay, let’s get these things down. Which to start with…? Pick one.

One is picked, pursued. Words are collected, ordered, re-arranged, deleted, added, ordered again. More scene arrives. Moments expand, expand, expand.

Writing’s adrenalin kicks in. I can’t write fast enough, head down, fingers dancing with ballerina lightness, going until I’m drained. The quad shot mocha remains, waiting to be drunk, now iced with a fine skim from being cold.

I drink, suddenly weary again, but satisfied. Started with nothing. Found a word and managed twenty-eight hundred. Feels good but I feel tired.

I’d really like

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