Sunday ramblings

I did have my Civil War book relaxation time. I learned that General Robert E. Lee had really tiny feet --- size 4-1/2. I learned that 100 percent of the soldiers had either fleas or lice and since they scratched with dirty fingers the bites would get infected. They wore the same uniform for a year and rarely bathed. I don't mean this to be funny (since it's not), but it makes me wonder how much can one body smell? How dirty can your hair get? Does it reach a point where the level of smell evens out?

I was struck by a section on Louisa May Alcott and it made me think about how women have been marginalized in history. When you think of her, and really, she was one of the only female authors I knew growing up, you imagine her in front of a cozy fireplace writing polite stories about young girls.

In fact, she went to DC during the war to be a nurse, worked grueling 12-hour shifts, developed typhoid fever, remarkably she recovered but the drugs they gave her made her teeth and hair fall out. She wrote a book called Hospital Sketches about her work -- and only wrote Little Women years later.

EMBARRASSING CONFESSION TIME: My helper Marilyn is coming tomorrow and I had gathered up some clothes for the thrift shop. I came upon this dress (yeah, another one) that I had been thinking about giving, but kept it for no particular reason other than to have a dress, but I knew I hadn't worn it for a while. It is in a dry cleaner plastic bag with the ticket still attached. I wasn't wearing my glasses so I couldn't read the ticket, but when I got my glasses on, the ticket said January 31, 2005.

Uh-huh. 2005. I have to say that surprised me. I don't know what I would have guessed, but not that long so out it goes tomorrow.

Saturday Ramblings

I got paid for my jury duty service this week. I received a check for $40 for one day's work. My attitude is it's 40 bucks I didn't have.

I have recently been involved with Twitter. I have Twittered myself, and also follow a wide range of celebrities... such as Alec Baldwin (who is very funny and very clever); Jane Fonda; Bill Maher, Albert Brooks, Dennis Leary (terribly cynical and he makes me laugh); and others. Like Craig Ferguson. If you are not familiar with Twitter, you can send 140-character messages so the challenge is to say something cogent in a short space. But you can also provide a link to a photo. Craig Ferguson just Tweeted:

One of my favorite views on this planet that doesn't involve cleavage or bacon.

and here's the photo, which I also agree is one of my favorite views on this planet that doesn't involve bacon. I'll skip the cleavage part.

This scene is even more beautiful when the leaves are really colored but you can see they are just beginning to change.

On other topics, I can't remember the name of the book, but there was this well-known self-empowerment book which instructed that we make "artist's dates" with ourselves to do something creative and relaxing -- to make an appointment with ourselves and make a plan. I did that for a while, and I have nice memories from the acitivities I did.

The question, of course, is why do we stop doing it? I just received a new book today -- a National Geographic coffee table book on the Civil War. I opened the package and put in on my coffee table and then observed it sitting there and thought that I am going to make an artist's date with myself and relax for an hour -- I want to say with a glass of wine, but I know that won't happen -- but with a glass of Diet Dr Pepper and actually enjoy this book. That's on the agenda for tomorrow.

And, courtesy of Amazon, here are two photos from the book:

And last, in these ramblings, I came across a web site about the old estates of Long Island -- some of you may know that I grew up on one of them, when it was converted from an estate to a school and my father was headmaster of the school and we lived on campus. Anyway, this web site has photos of the place from when it was an estate which were fascinating to see.

In the meantime, a grade school friend of mine who grew up on an estate that had been sub-divided for houses had some photos of the original estate which was torn down (so sad, but it was the fate of many of these estates). When I had dinner with her this past July, she later emailed me some photos she had. I emailed the man who does this website, asking him if he wanted to see these photos since he had also written about this estate on his site. The estate was called "Meudon."

He said yes, and I emailed them to him. He is, among other things, a historic preservationist, and here's part of his reply:

Opening up these emails was like getting a birthday present. I am a very big fan of CPH Gilbert, architect of 'Meudon', and of 'Meudon' itself. I have accumulated quite a number of images of the house but have never seen any of these before. They are absolutely incredible...they were taken from angles I have simply never seen, only had hoped to see. They are really amazing and I don't think I can thank you enough for sending them over.

So here are some of those. These photos really speak to a time gone by:

this is the back of the mansion

This is my favorite -- maybe because it's on a scale that I can appreciate. It's captioned the "Waterhouse" and I love the swans and the waterlillies. Here is where I should be looking at my Civil War book! Note there's a chimney so there was a fireplace inside.





Letting Off Steam -- Anonymously, unfortunately

It makes work so frustrating when people exhibit such heel-dragging rudeness. I have to interview this man for his own company's newsletter. I have now called him four times, starting last Thursday, left four voice mails, left my number, spoken slowly, with increasing pleading in my voice. My deadline is Friday.

I had to send 220 words to a company for them to approve on behalf of another client. Do you understand how few words this is? It's like three short paragraphs about the most innocuous topic. Emailed him on 10/7, heard from him on 10/10 asking when I needed it. I said ASAP. Realized today they never got back to me, and so now have emailed it again.

It is rare for me to not return a call. It is even rarer for me to drop the ball, especially with an approval. I always want that ball to be in the other person's court.

Then I HATE when the person finally calls and offers up the lame apology of "I've been busy" -- oh really, funny that, I've been sitting here doing nothing, sucking my damn thumb for the past two weeks. Sorry, but nobody is that busy. I've even resorted at times to saying I work out of my home so they can call during non-office hours if that's more convenient.

I think I'll contemplate a special punishment for these types.

UPDATE: Later that same day/an hour later: Just got an email from the approver guy saying he'll be back in his office tomorrow and will look into it. Really? Your physical body has to be in your physical office to do this? Let me check my calendar... is it 1987? No, we had voice mail back then... maybe it's 1972 when there were no cellphones, no voice mail, no email.

What I Learned Today

I knew this, but it was confirmed by a show I was watching, that handwashing remains the #1 way to avoid illness. I must say that last winter was the first time I was consciously washing my hands more frequently than normal and I did not get a cold or flu last year.

I also knew that you have to wash for 20-40 seconds, but what I didn't know, or hadn't been pointed out to me, is that a mistake people make is that we don't wash our thumbs. I observed myself washing my hands and realized I am guilty of this. So here's my happy, health hint:

WASH YOUR THUMBS!

This program demonstrated the technique below, which I also didn't do, which gets in the spaces between our fingers:

So here's to clean hands and a cold-free winter -- and especially to clean thumbs!



Ridiculously, Maddening Situation -- I surrender!

Yesterday I was checking something on my American Express bill on line and saw a charge from Dollar Rental Car for $25.40 and I couldn't imagine what it was for.

Not enough for car damage. Not enough for tickets. Too much for a toll -- or so I thought.

Last time I rented a car was in August so I was puzzled. Called Dollar this morning -- the woman was extremely nice, but when she told me what the charge was for, I thought (seriously) she was kidding. It was for a 40 cent toll that now had a $25 penalty. $25 plus 40 cents equals $25.40.

I only have the vaguest of memories of some exit somewhere that ONLY took EZ-pass, or whatever the local equivalent was. She asked me if I wanted to dispute it, and I said no. It really isn't worth the time, and I do believe you can't fight City Hall -- the $25 was NOT a Dollar charge which they might have waived for a customer, but it wasn't theirs.

So then, just to add insult to injury, I am enrolled in a rental car insurance program that American Express has for people who don't have cars and therefore have no primary car insurance. For years, I thought that the "automatic" rental car insurance I got by using a certain credit card covered me... but found out (fortunately NOT the hard way) that it didn't.

The car rental insurance from American Express is $24.95 per rental so it's a good deal if I rent for anything longer than a day or two, but I always get it because, once enrolled in the program, it's automatic. So when American Express's computers see a charge from Dollar Rental Car, it thought I was renting a car and charged me $24.95 for insurance.

Whew. I have to say what kept me from really tearing my hair out over this is that the woman I spoke to at Dollar and the man I spoke to at American Express (which is crediting my account) were so human, so funny, so pleasant that I was laughing about this with each of them.

Moral: Um... uh...try to pay your tolls?? I was thinking that one lesson might be to always have change  because I know many of the exits have no staffed toll booths so you have to pay in coinage.

Still Learning

I know other people face this, because I've talked to you about this in the past, but I have been procrastinating about preparing this certain invoice for weeks, literally. Weeks. Weeks!

Just now, I made it my "must do above all else" for today. I set a timer for 15 minutes as an encouragement to "just do it" and I did the invoice, emailed it and picked up the timer to see it still had 4 minutes and 49 seconds on it. Why? Why? Why do I do this to myself? Mea culpa. Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa.

I know I do 1000 things on time, but every so often, I let something like this wear me down and wear me out.

Moving on...

Ok, so on happier notes, last night I watched "The Conspirator" which is about the trial of the conspirators of the Lincoln assasination, centering on Mary Surratt, the mother of one of the conspirators, who ended up getting hanged. It's the first film from a new production company Robert Redford has created to make feature movies from American historical events. It's quite good, easy to get into, really captures the times, and a good story -- basically a court room drama.

I only recognized one of the actors in it so their characters come through, rather than thinking this is x movie star playing this character.

The man who defended Mary Surratt became so unpopular (similar to someone today defending Al Quaida) that at the end it said he left the law and became the first city editor of the newly-formed Washington Post.

That's my rambling about the movie... here's what Netflix says:

Robert Redford directs this gripping historical drama that follows the efforts of young lawyer Frederick Aiken (James McAvoy) as he defends Mary Surratt (Robin Wright Penn), a Confederate sympathizer accused of conspiring to assassinate Abraham Lincoln. Realizing that Surratt may in fact be innocent, Aiken defies public opinion and risks everything to get her acquitted. The stellar cast also includes Tom Wilkinson, Kevin Kline and Alexis Bledel.

Can't say I recognized any of these people except Tom Wilkinson, whom I really like. Realize that I know Robin Penn Warren from Forrest Gump, and still think of her as young... in this, she plays Mary Surratt who is older - -  funny how people age in 20 years!

Mary (and Fran's?) Outing

I just realized that "outing" has different meanings, but in this case I meant "outing" as an adventure. Mary sent me this photo from today's festivities at Peirce Mill Creek -- and before anyone says anything, in this case, anyway, it appears that I before E except after C does not apply here so Peirce is the correct spelling, at least according to the National Park Service which describes the place this way:

Peirce Mill was built in the 1820's, and operated commercially until 1897. The United States Government acquired the mill as part of Rock Creek Park in 1892. Currently the mill is not operating. It is being preserved and ultimately will be made operable again when sufficient funding for repairs is made available. Peirce Mill is on the National Register of Historic Places.

So, I guess enough "funding" was received as today, the mill was reopened as a working mill. I wonder if Mary bought flour and will make us all bread. Here's the photo she sent:

LATER UPDATE:

Mary writes: Here's the mill wheel. Fran took more picture (better ones). You've probably been by this - it's one of my favorite buildings. I was in it years ago before it closed. There were real millers in there telling us about the process for corn and wheat. The mill is right by a small man made waterfall in Rock Creek Park, not far from the zoo. They didn't have all the equipment operating yet, and they aren't sure when they will be able to sell flour again due to liability issues. It was a perfect day - sunny, cool, lovely breeze, simmery water, and a group of singers who sang Civil War era songs. Fran, Meredith and I went - Dave drove us and came and picked us up so we didn't have to worry about parking. I thoroughly enjoyed the whole visit.