Late night, odd-word netsurfing

Start with a word, say Submariner. It gets 60,300 Google hits.
Now add a new word, perhaps Tarantula. Google has 53 referents to submariner tartantula.
I now know a new thing. There was a submarine named the USS Tarantula, it was decommissioned twice.

Still have energy to burn? Then modify your Google request. How about tarantula tentacles? 828 pages, not bad. Most of them talk about a giant jellyfish, the Portugese Man-O-War. So now I send to google jellyfish buttons. Yes, someone out there does make them. Weird. That led to a lot of SpongeBob pages, I should have known better.

26 sites of things to do with "button bottoms", none of them kinky.

When you run out of odd words to link together, try misspelling something, and see how many others goofed too.
87 people make reference to a "dressing grown" -that thing you wear over your pj's.
2300 people think small sparkly bits are gliter.
And I just had to share this one "We will consider whether data set selection is implemented via chemical
stimulation of the neurons, possibly in the hippycampus. ..."
Really? I don't think my body has a hippycampus... I never did acid.
'night all.

He he he! I feel like a teenager with her first job. My client paid me with a 20, two 5's and 30 one dollar bills. I wanted to come home and shower it all over my hubby, but then I'd have had to pick them all up. So instead I handed him a folded wad of bills, grinning from ear to ear. It feels so good to earn money. I have always felt like I've really accomplished something when I get a paycheck. Even when we were living in the hellhole of the Midwest (Carbondale Il.) I felt better on payday. There was the thrill of knowing I'd be able to buy diapers once the check was cashed, but the act of receiving pay for the work I do has always been a bigger thrill for me than the amount itself. Cash is a great validation.

WooHoo! I massaged a new client on Saturday, and they called today and want me to come back! Yippee! That's sixty whole dollars towards L's tuition! I'm so happy :) 10 massages a month would cover all my expenses and L's schooling. I'm 2/5ths of the way there if this client continues to want massage weekly.

The nifty thing about massage is that if I do it properly, I end up feeling better than when I started. It's a good workout for my body, the reflexology is a good workout for my mind, and I'm doing something I want to do... healing!

I've always been afraid of reaching out and making a difference in people, although I've been told I do it all the time without noticing. I'm really comfortable with that. If I'm not trying to change them, then I can pretend nobody sees it. I'm not sure what I'm afraid of more, trying and failing or trying and succeeding. I was raised Catholic, so there's a big mea culpa living inside me. I fear not being worthy of my gifts. I fear developing a messiah complex. I'm afraid I'll discover on my death bed that all the times I thought I was helping people, I was really doing them a disservice.

If you read my other blog, you'll know that hardship makes one stronger. I can see it clearly with my own son. He's not hungry, he has plenty of clothes and games. He has both parents, and we both lavish love on him. I get to stay home with him, so he's not a latch key kid... and he doesn't have the toughness that I developed in my own childhood. I see him going out of his way to create hardships for himself, because I somehow missed out on giving him that to grow on. I don't regret it, either! He is, in so many ways, a normal healthy middle class boy. I'm proud of him, and I wish he had more self-sufficeincy. (sigh) You can't have it both ways, of course. If I worked outside the home, he would have learned self-sufficeincy. Yet middle class children tend to do just fine too. They get their "I can take care of myself" as teens, I guess. Not that L is helpless or anything. He's just not as motivated as I was.

Oh, more on the school clothes rant. This morning, he comes out of his room wearing a dirty school shirt! I don't know where he found it, but there it was, in all it's wrinkled glory hanging on his body. I almost laughed out loud. I said, "Where did you find that shirt?" He replied, "I guess I should have grabbed one of the ones hanging up?"
So today, we go through his drawers and pull out anything that might possibly be less than freshly clean. Looks like I'll be doing laundry all week. ;)

Tonight I was in a towering, redhead-class rage.
L goes back to school tomorrow, so tonight we were packing his bookbag and setting out his school uniform. Guess what? There were NO school shorts hanging in his closet. There were NO belts hanging on the rack. I was pissed! I've spent the last month finding his school clothes under the bed or stuffed in a corner of his closet buried under his toys, and I've washed them all. There should have been 4 pair of shorts with belts hanging neatly where I had placed them. Not one frigging pair! Grrrrr.
I thought, maybe... perhaps I had somehow imagined hanging them up, so I checked all his drawers. Nope. Nada. Then I went to the laundry basket in our room. The one full of clean clothes because no one in this house but me knows how to put away laundry. I sat on the bed, running my fingers through my hair, trying to get a grip on my temper. There before me was 3 day old clean laundry, neatly matched socks on top, carefully folded shirts and shorts lovingly split in two piles. Patiently waiting, as only laundry can, for someone to put them in their place.
I wanted to fling the entire basket across the room, but I pulled my hair instead. Hubby came into the room and slid onto the bed next to me, trying to look charming, and I wanted to bite his face off. I gritted my teeth for a moment and calmly said, "Hon, would you do me a favor and open the sock drawer?" I was thinking this would get him off the bed and out of the danger zone. Nah, he slid on his belly toward the dresser and opened the wrong drawer. As he was stretched out, half hanging off the bed, I saw several good places to whack him with my elbow. I didn't, however. I love my hubby-man, I don't want to hurt him, and I know what happens when I let my temper run the show. He opened the proper drawer next, and I started flinging socks into it. Hubby-Man got up, all affronted, like I was acting childish and stalked off to the living room.
When I was younger, I would have burst out with, "Oh! Thank you so FUCKING much for helping me find those shorts! No no, that's fine! Why don't you call all your friends and tell them how I'm such a fucking bitch for throwing socks instead of breaking something?" And such like that. I gave up the classic redhead temper when L was born. You can't lovingly raise a child and have a temper. It just doesn't work.
I went through the whole pile of laundry (once I had taken care of the pesky socks) and found not a single pair of shorts. I then went into my son's room and masterfully did NOT destroy his closet. I did find one, singular, pair of school shorts. They had gotten pulled off the hangar and buried under some board games. I also found 5 belts, underwear, a pair of shorts he doesn't like anymore and a (very) dirty gym shirt.

I don't have the foggiest idea where any of this stuff came from. 6 weeks ago we thoroughly cleaned his room. Everything was pulled out of the closet so I could vaccuum it. Everything was then neatly put back in the closet. Grrr! !!! How the hell does a gym shirt from last spring wind up stuffed in a toybox in the closet?
No wonder he never plays with those toys, the smell... ok, I'm not even going there. Anyone with a 12 year old boy understands, and the rest don't need me to share.
Anyway, tonight I almost let myself lose my temper. I'm glad I didn't because it would have scared the ones I love. I really would have appreciated some support in the search, though. Thanks for nothing, guys.

Politics Abnormal

I'm on the St. Louis Pagan Discussion list. It started as a way for STL pagans to get to know one another and discuss pagany topics. I think it should be renamed to "STL Pagans and Politics".
I've been reading an ongoing thread about recalling Bush and how unfair the whole political arena is. Someone said their piece then said, "Sigh, politics as usual."

They had chatted themselves into a state of acceptance of the voting abnormalities and problems in many states, including mine. I still say NO! It is not OK, and I will never accept changing the rules after a Democrat (or Republican) has been voted into office. We already have procedures to remove these people, and those procedures should be used instead of ignored. The bullshit in California right now is just one example.
-more on this later-

And I thought America had strange customs

Can you imagine having the tradition of sleeping with the villiage sex cleanser after your husband dies? Not here in America, where the predominantly Christian mores treat sex like a sin.

Speaking of Christian ideals, Chief Justice Roy Moore is still fighting to keep his monument of the 10 commandments on display in the rotunda of his courthouse. I watched his supporters pray intently outside the courthouse, and I listened to a reporter's voice-over about how they were praying for their god to intervene.

I have always thought of the idea of seeing the ten commandments outside a courthouse as being rather appropriate. Perhaps they can modify the existing monument to cover some of the major laws of our country, without imposing their religious beliefs...
THOU SHALL NOT STEAL
THOU SHALL NOT RAPE
THOU SHALL NOT LIE IN COURT
THOU SHALL NOT KILL
Gee, that covers the basics. They can stick
HONOR THY MOTHER AND FATHER
over at the Juvenile Courthouse; and while they're at it, Divorce court should get
TREASURE THY CHILDREN ABOVE ALL WORLDLY POSESSIONS
and
THOU SHALL NOT BICKER

I live in South St. Louis by choice. I'm very happy here. There are a few things I wish were different, and that's my rant du jour.

Tonight I went shopping at the nearest major grocery chain. Being no more than a quarter of a mile away, it's convenience rocks! As a bonus I get to do some neato people watching. Tonight I observed a woman in bike shorts and a baggy white t-shirt, and realized I need to update my wardrobe a bit. It was unflattering on her, so it's probably unflattering on me too. That's a shame, because I like my baggy clothes. I also saw a goofy couple learning how to shop together. They didn't have the foggiest idea what they were supposed to buy for their household. It seemed like every aisle I went down, there they were -discussing the mathematics of food. It was amusing, and brought back memories of my first dozen shopping expeditions as a married woman. "I will eat X amount of this... B will eat X amount... is 2X greater or less than Y amount posted on the box?" The figuring then gets into the ratio of leftovers divided quality of taste, subtracting time as an exponential factor.

That's probably why I get a headache when I go to the grocery store.

My friends are nice people, so they all say it's because I'm empathic.

The Schnucks store in my neighborhood carries a lot of junk food. They also have organic milk, sweetener free juice from concentrate and organic chocolate pudding. The reason behind the miniscule selection is the neighborhood. Some market analyst decided that working class families in South St. Louis don't want healthy things to eat. I think they're wrong.
I used to make a point of asking for organic milk every time I went to the store. They finally either got a clue, or gave in to my demands and started stocking organic milk. I have learned to buy it whenever I see it on the shelves, because they sell out of their entire stock within a week and a half. I asked about it tonight because once again, the section that usually holds Horizon Organic Milk was empty. They have 7 different kinds of soy milk that take up space and expire, yet they can't figure out how to order enough organic milk. I found out they get a shipment of 32 half gallons of Horizon every month. I buy 3 of those. Someone else in my neighborhood is buying the other 29. This looks like a demand to me.
They recently started carryng quarts of goats milk. I've noticed they sit on the shelf until the Horizon is gone, then they move like crazy. I brought home goats milk tonight, and B looked at me like I had grown a second head. I can't even imagine what he would have said if I told him how much it cost. heh.
I hope it's tasty.

They don't carry a single piece of organic fruit. I drive all the way to Sappington Farmer's Market for that. It means I have to sit through the stoplight from hell, but I suppose it's worth it. Sappington offers organic produce, dairy, meat and boxed food in addition to the regular all-American crap. Their organic stuff is pretty affordable too. Most of it is less than twice the price of non-organic. You can visit their website to view photos, get recipies, print coupons and read the extensive list of organic goodies they offer. You also get to enjoy seeing a carrot and bananna dancing to the tune of "Celebration". It's freaky.

I got a lead on their site for a job. Wish me luck!

Right. So I'm looking all over the web for a very specific, rather rare gemstone. I won't even go into my difficulties in finding this particular gem. It's reasonably rare, hard to cut and somewhat fragile. My regular supplier of this stone is involved in the blackout on the east coast, so lords know when he'll get my message. Anyway, my rant is about spelling.

Riddle me this, Batman. How does a lapidary sell a misspelled stone? Answer -They don't! At least not to me! I understand that some countries spell certain cuts differently. Cabochon and Cabachon both mean flat on the bottom, domed on the top. What the hell is a cabation? It makes me think of a tool cab drivers use when their customers won't pay their fare or something. There is a lovely blue/violet stone out there named Iolite. It was very popular about 6 years ago. It's also called the water sapphire because you can dig it out of riverbeds rather than risk death in a mine tunnel. How can any self respecting business person put the tag "Ilote" next to this lovely gem? This was an american gem cutter! It just goes to show you don't have to spell in order to cut stones. (sigh)

There are enough oddly named gems out there already without these fools making up their own names for them. At thaigem.com I came across mangnovesuvianite (and I probably misspelled it here). It's a real gem. So is fluorapatite. See? The names are strange enough as they stand.

I'm entering a new story about walking everywhere on Random Redhead. I just typed in this phrase, "As mom's pay scale rose, so did the distances we'd travel. Finally, we could afford to shop at K-Mart."

Then I busted out laughing. It's a pretty damn sad state of affairs when you treat K-Mart as a step up! Somehow, this is tremendously funny to me right now. Not rolling on the floor laughing funny, but that kind of painful funny where you laugh because it hurts. I really never looked at us as poor when I was a kid. We had limited resources, but so did everyone else. We weren't "poor" we were "struggling". We had shoes and coats and changes of clothing. We had a roof over our heads and enough food to grow on, if not enough to fill our bellies. We usually had gas and electricity, too. Although we did keep the heater at 65 degrees in the winter time, so that helped.

"afford to shop at K-Mart". (sigh) That's just sad.

I love that Comfrey is disease resistant, insect resistant and weed resistant. I've personally noted that mosquitoes like to hide in my comfrey foliage in the evening. Fortunately, spiders have noticed too! My biggest challenge when harvesting comfrey is to give the spiders advance notice that I'll be removing parts of their hunting grounds. My second biggest challenge is not squishing the caterpillars that like to nibble the early spring leaves of my comfrey. It's never a BIG problem, just some of the leaves get munched on. Comfrey is self-healing, so it will re-grow the nibbled bits.

I love comfrey because I have arthritis. An ounce or two of leaves, ground by mortar and pestle and put in a carrier oil for a few days means instant relief from my arthritis at it's worst. It reduces the swelling and the pain is gone for up to 8 hours. It doesn't numb the area, nor does it create a sensation of heat or cold. It just has my knees feel like they did before I developed arthritis. That lack of pain without any side effects is well worth a bit of oil on the skin.