Sunday afternoon personal

Sitting over at Starbucks, using their WiFi, while Internet is down at home. AT&T said there's an outage in my area that began at 11-something this morning and could last 24 hours. Great!  :(

Saturday nite late

Been spending a lot of time on Facebook lately. Switched to the new Timeline version and have been learning how to use it. (I like it.)

Leaf chameleons found in Madagascar are among the world's smallest reptiles

NY Daily News story here.

Gay Colombian priests hired hitmen to kill themselves

Read the story from Mail Online here.

Tuesday night personal

Received this email from my doctor's office today:

Dear Patients,

As many of you may know, [my doctor's practice] was acquired by [a national healthcare foundation] on 09/01/2011. Since we are now working under the [foundation's] umbrella, our current insurance contracts will be changing from [my doctor's practice] to [the foundation]. This credentialing process can be a slow one. You might receive a letter from your insurance company stating that your doctor is no longer participating with your plan. We apologize for any misunderstanding or inconvenience this change may have caused.

Your care will not be interrupted, and you will still maintain access to your doctor. Please rest assured that this situation is simply due to contractual changes during this transition. Your providers ([my doctor and his associates]) will continue to provide you with the same high-quality medical care you have come to expect and appreciate.

We highly value our patients and welcome any questions you may have. Please feel free to contact our offices at _______________.

Sincerely,
_________________________
Practice Administrator

Yes, I received one of those letters a couple of weeks ago and called my doctor's office the following morning. I was in a state of shock.

Monday night personal

Wanted to get E. something for Valentine's Day, so I stopped off at Radio Shack on the way home (after getting off the bus at Home Depot to pay my kitchen remodel bill) and bought some speakers for his laptop (the last ones on the shelf) ($20), along with a card at the Walgreens in the same strip mall. The speakers appeared to have been returned, and it was the only box left on the shelf. Brought them home and tested them on the netbook and, unfortunately, they (or one of them) were defective. (There appeared to be short in the wiring or a faulty connection.)

I then got into the truck and drove back down to Radio Shack to get a refund and then head up to Target, telling the clerk there was something wrong with one of the speakers, but in a flash he whisked a brand-new box of the same speakers from the stock room, saying the box had not been opened. (Meanwhile I glanced back over at the shelf and it was empty.)

So they were trying to move the returned merchandise before putting out the fresh, which I can understand. I don't mind buying returned merchandise, but in this case there was definitely a defect.

Brought the new speakers home and tested them. Sounded great. Then I taped the Valentine's card onto the box and dropped it off at E.'s restaurant before heading out shopping. He was thrilled and called me back after he'd opened the card. Didn't get the message till I'd put my desktop back online, after doing a bunch of updates on the netbook (which had been sitting in a drawer for months).

The speakers are nothing spectacular but they sounded good to me (a helluva lot better than the tinny speakers built into the laptop - actually the worst criticism I'd read for this particular laptop) and don't take up a lot of room on his computer table. And they were simple to connect. And, I hope, will last longer than flowers or a box of chocolates. (Meanwhile I'm holding onto the receipt.)

Adele - 'Someone Like You'

Watch on YouTube here.

Sunday night personal

Last night, after I hadn't heard from E. by 11:00, I decided to drive up there to see if he was OK. (I guess I was freaking out a little over Whitney Houston's untimely death.) It was cold and I got my jeans on, etc., and packed a backpack. I then called at around 11:20 and he answered the phone. To make a long story short, I ended up spending the night there. (He'd even bought me some heavy socks with black soles to hide the dirt.) (He has a matching pair.) (And we were wearing them, since it was in the 40s outside.) (And no smoking inside.)

Drove back home early this a.m. and crashed.

Didn't do a thing all day except sleep and eat and cut my hair and shave for tomorrow.

Saturday night personal

Stayed up late last night, but not terribly late. Was off to bed after taking a sleeping pill prescribed by my doctor and got a lot of good sleep. Had set phone alarm to wake up at 2:00 p.m. to take some pills. Got up with earplugs and blindfold still on (pulled up so I could see), took pills, fed cats, and went back to bed for a few more hours. Got up after 5:00. Enough rest, I figured.

Was full of energy. Walked over to Starbucks to pick up a coffee and a Chicken Santa Fe panini. Then emptied and reloaded dishwasher and ran it. Scoured sink. Got a coffee refill but didn't drink it till I did some sewing with needle and thread. (Needed steady hands for that.) Had to turn on all the lights in here and also use a clamp light to see what I was doing. Mended the cuffs of my hoodie - they were coming apart at the seams - and also stitched up a small tear in my comforter. Now at least when these items get washed again, they won't keep unraveling as they have been. (I think I did a pretty good job.)

Had called E. at work when I got up. He wasn't there. Called him at home - he'd taken the day off. (He doesn't do that often and must have needed it.) Sounded like he was about to crash. Called after 10:00 and left message to call me when he woke up.

TGIF at last!!! (Personal)

Good news! Called my doctor's office this morning and they said the letter from the health insurance company had been sent out in error and to ignore it. They still have a contract with the company. (I wasn't the only patient who'd called about the letter.) The doctor's assistant I talked to said some patients had called in a real "tizzy" (I think is the word he used). (I wasn't in a tizzy but was sad I might lose my doctor.)

No gym tonight, but I did take a decent nap. It was raining when I got off work and the buses were running late and the traffic snarled. Got home at the time I would normally go take a nap, and I need some down time to feed cats, check email, change clothes, etc. when I get home. So no gym (but needed nap).

E. called me after he got off work. He'd been expecting me to come over there tonight. I don't recall his inviting me, but he said he did so last weekend when I went to his restaurant for dinner. He called me at work today and didn't say anything like "See you tonight" or whatever. (Nor had he mentioned the visit at any other time during the past week.) I also called him at work when I got home tonight, and he didn't call back (he said he'd been too busy). Lots of mixed signals. But what should I expect from someone coming out of a bad relationship. (I think he's still shell-shocked.) Meanwhile, I'm not pushing anything.

One reason I called him at the restaurant tonight was to ascertain what his plans were for later. I perhaps would have suggested coming over here, since he hasn't seen the cats in a while. But, again, I have no recollection of his account of the plan being for me to go to his place tonight.

Almost TGIF!

Since tonight is Bad TV Night, I got a lot done around here. Had to walk to the convenience store to get milk to make Stroganoff Hamburger Helper. Along with a bowl of citrus salad, I ate some of that for dinner. (Pretty good - I'd recently seen an ad for it on TV and thought I'd do something with ground beef other than make chili.) (Yesterday I made Zatarain's Dirty Rice and had that for lunch at work today.) (Really good.) I always make this stuff meatier than called for (including my chili, with I make with Chili-O, Rotel extra-hot tomatoes, tom sauce, Bush's red kidney beans, and a little vinegar and salt).

Went to truck for some stuff and stopped by the mailbox (on the same floor). Had a letter from my health insurance company saying that my doctor would no longer be associated with the company as of the end of April (and I have a doctor's appointment at the beginning of May). I'll have to call the doctor's office tomorrow about that and, I guess, get a referral to someone else. What a shame. I'd been going to this doctor for 10 years or so and loved him. What a sucky health care we have.

Watered the plants, also.

'Life amid the lemon trees'

 Read the Miami Herald story here.

"One of Miami’s oldest neighborhoods, Lemon City, was home to the county’s first school, library and major grocery store."

'Underground Miami: A voyage to the center of the port tunnel'

Read the Miami Herald story here.

(And be sure to watching the fascinating 7+ minute video.)

'The Caging of America'

Mass Incarceration and Criminal Justice in America : The New Yorker

'The scale and the brutality of our prisons are the moral scandal of American life. Every day, at least fifty thousand men—a full house at Yankee Stadium—wake in solitary confinement, often in “supermax” prisons or prison wings, in which men are locked in small cells, where they see no one, cannot freely read and write, and are allowed out just once a day for an hour’s solo “exercise.” (Lock yourself in your bathroom and then imagine you have to stay there for the next ten years, and you will have some sense of the experience.) Prison rape is so endemic—more than seventy thousand prisoners are raped each year—that it is routinely held out as a threat, part of the punishment to be expected. The subject is standard fodder for comedy, and an uncoöperative suspect being threatened with rape in prison is now represented, every night on television, as an ordinary and rather lovable bit of policing. The normalization of prison rape—like eighteenth-century japery about watching men struggle as they die on the gallows—will surely strike our descendants as chillingly sadistic, incomprehensible on the part of people who thought themselves civilized. Though we avoid looking directly at prisons, they seep obliquely into our fashions and manners. Wealthy white teen-agers in baggy jeans and laceless shoes and multiple tattoos show, unconsciously, the reality of incarceration that acts as a hidden foundation for the country. . . .'

'The Story of a [Gay] Suicide'

Tyler Clementi’s Suicide and Dharun Ravi’s Trial (from The New Yorker)

America's Most Miserable Cities

(Miami's #1!)

Read the Forbes article here.

Late Saturday night

Been watching SyFy tonight. First "Outlander," and now this. Lotsa wasted bullets in this show. But this guy is cute:

(Coby Bell)

Nightmare!

Just woke up from a long, horrible nightmare in which both E. and I were fired from our jobs. (Phone alarm was also ringing - time to take some pills.)

I was working at a place somewhere on the grounds of an Episcopal church and day school. What my job was, I don't know, but I had volunteered to conduct a children's play featuring French songs and apparently they weren't happy with the job I was doing (among other things perhaps). They had reached the conclusion that my French language skills weren't good enough for me to have taken on this project, contrary to what I had led them to believe (I didn't even like working on the project; it was vapid and boring, and in reality - the reality of the dream, i.e. - I had bona fide credentials to undertake it). It appears they mistook my lack of enthusiasm for some kind of fraud on my part. (Or I thought maybe they were just using that as an excuse to fire me for some other reason - like I was costing them too much on their health insurance plan.) [Only in the USA!]

They didn't say I was fired; they just blocked me from coming in to work and had removed my personal possessions from my workspace. I think they even helped load them into my truck (in reality, I don't drive to work) and drove the truck off the premises, across a bridge. I asked them if they were firing me and, if so, why. They said they didn't have to offer any explanations and that if I didn't hear back from them within a month or so, I could assume I had lost my job. Meanwhile, E. was also on the premises (and I think was helping me load the truck) and said things weren't working out at his job either (doing what, I don't know) and he assumed he was "on [his] way out." Meanwhile I was being shunned by my supervisor and others. At one point, I was standing outside in a daze as all the WASPy-looking Episcopal children were frolicking around me.

It was very vivid (and long and complicated). So glad to wake up from that (and take my pills)!

Friday nite late

Used rest of flex time today, getting off work before 4:00 (after arriving late, as planned).

I'm not used to getting home so early, but used the time to properly import all the posts from the old blog and fine-tune the new blog's appearance. (I'd tried to import the old posts last night but kind of botched it.) (Not something I do frequently, and it's a little tricky.) Today I ended up going with a template similar to the last, so there are fewer problems with the old layouts' being imported.

TGIF!

See here.

On the banks of these rivers are the same kind of land as I have already described, and upon one of them a remarkable natural curiosity, being a bridge of solid rock forming a more regular arch than you can well conceive where it is certain no human hand has ever given it assistance. The width of the arch at the surface of the water is 25 ft, the perpendicular height from the water four feet, and the rock itself in the center 6 ft. The breadth of the bridge is 33 ft covered with trees and makes a most romantic appearance. I passed under it in the four oar’d boat only by holding my head down. The water being about 7 ft deep this bridge is about a mile and a half in a direct line from the mouth of the river, but by the winding about three miles upon some of these rivers may be seen the remains of old Indian fields which I suppose must have been the Yamasees [it was the Tequestas, actually]. . . .

Welcome

Arch Creek, in North Miami-Dade County, flows beneath a natural bridge

From Wikipedia here.

In 1957, the first of many threats against the future of the natural bridge materialized. The bridge was endangered by a plan to drain low lying areas as part of a flood prevention program. The Army Corps of Engineers wanted to blow up the bridge, or re-route the creek. A 1957 newspaper article announced that "the bridge must be sacrificed for better drainage of the area." Protests from members of the local Audubon Society, the Historical Association of Southern Florida and the Dade Conservation Council prevented any of this destructive action.

Things remained quiet until the 1970s, when Arch Creek became the property of the Chrysler Corporation. Their plans called for the construction of an automobile showroom, and a new and used car agency. In 1972, Chrysler requested a zoning change from the City of North Miami, which would have allowed them to pave the area and build a garage on the property. Vigorous opposition came from the Tropical Audubon Society, the Miami-West India Archaeological Society, the Keystone Point Homeowners' Association, and the members of the Arch Creek Trust. After almost a year, of intense lobbying the State of Florida agreed to purchase the land for a state park. The State's Land Acquisition Trust allocated $822,000 to buy 7.9 acres (32,000 m2) of property east of the Creek.

A group of local citizens, who later formed the organization Arch Creek Trust, went to Tallahassee in February 1973, to finalize the agreement. On the night they returned, the natural bridge collapsed and fell into the creek. Rumors of sabotage ran through the community, and the Metro-Dade Police Bomb Squad was called out. Nothing was discovered, and experts generally agreed later that the fall was probably due to constant vibrations from passing trains, or erosion, or just old age and decay. In the years that followed, there were various efforts to restore the bridge, clear the property of trash and save additional land in the area. . . .

(The bridge has been totally restored, by the way.)

Thursday night personal

E. just called (kind of late). (He usually calls at around 11:30.) (Good I'm taking flex time tomorrow a.m. and can stay up a little later tonight.) He'd been out to Flanigan's with co-workers after work. (What I'd thought.) Time to shut down.