Suspicions confirmed

I work at night, in midtown Manhattan.  Consequently, engineer -- who works days in New Jersey & commutes by car, thus having more shopping options -- agreed to buy flashlights, batteries, & if possible a battery-operated lantern yesterday, since a massive hurricane is en route.  A nice manly sort of errand, I thought, & one I couldn't run, my office building having plenty of law firms but no hardware stores at all, let alone any open all night.

Why should I be surprised to find out that engineer failed to do so?  "I went to Home Depot.  They were sold out." Well, what about the hardware store?  The Army-Navy store?  "Oh.  No."  You went to one store?  "Yes.  And they were sold out."  So you didn't go anywhere else to get emergency lighting?  And then the wail, "But I triiiiiied ... ."

I recall hearing in some past life -- pre-engineer, anyhow, or I'd never have believed it -- that men by nature persist, they problem-solve, they act.  This proves what I've suspected for ages:  World of Warcrap & similar video fantasies make testicles atrophy.  (Yes, of course he had time & energy enough last night for a few hours of gaming.)

While I suppose I shall have to grow a pair (no wonder I had a horrid nightmare in which I looked down to find that I'd developed chest hair) & go in search of flashlights during the day (after working the equivalent of six days in four, with about 12 or 13 hours sleep total since Monday, I did have other plans), this household owns exactly one working flashlight, mine: the small LED miner's light that I use to read at night, or when the compact fluorescent crudbulbs don't provide enough light.  I laid in a stock of batteries for it a couple of months back, too.

So if the New Masculinity (the sort that causes engineers to believe women should get all moist & grateful because, you know, they triiiiiied) means mission not accomplished ... surely the New Femininity means I don't have to share.  How very tempting.

Festina lente

The poodle is sixteen.  She is fading out too fast now; every day something more disappears: hearing, strength, eyesight, awareness, & even her fur on her sides & lower back (due to Cushing's, which an idiot vet assured me two years ago that she didn't have -- surprise, another vet this year finally recognized it as an atypical type that the standard blood test didn't catch, & wasn't it too bad they hadn't treated it back then when she was stronger: yes, now tell your partner in the practice, not me).  She gets an array of pills every day, like any other old lady; & like any other old lady, half of them deal with the side effects of the others, & none of them can be stopped, & still they are not enough.

Real simplemindedness

From Real Simple's advice on at-home vacations:

"Make staying hydrated a beautiful thing.  Take a cue from Rancho La Puerta, in Tecate, Mexico: Fill your prettiest pitchers with ice water and slices of lemon, orange, or cucumber.  Place them (each with a glass) at various strategic points around the house and in a shady spot outside.  Then, as you go about your day, stop often to take a long, cool, flavorful pull."

Let's see how that plays out:

Click

The part of a relationship -- with a person, a city, a job, whatever -- that no one admits to longing for is the beginning of the end: the moment when the whole contraption shifts & re-forms itself into something that is mildly annoying, at best, & certainly no longer important.  Listen carefully & you can hear the pieces slide into their new places, & the clicking gets faster & more satisfying, like the end of a puzzle.

Of course some relationships never come to this.  I have never stopped loving any dog, for example, or a few human beings, or certain buildings, or the smell of kerosene.  The click comes with the bad ones, the ones that were a mistake to start with & have become parasitic.

All I was promised & more

Last night, a co-worker gave me three dried bhut jolokia (ghost) peppers, claimed to be the hottest in the world.

I cooked a karela (bitter melon) & tore the tip off one pepper (they are rather leathery) & added it to the pan.   The piece was about the size of my little fingernail; the pepper is hottest up toward the stem, so this should have been (relatively) mild.

That was an hour ago.  I ate the karela strips & the piece of pepper, too.  Delicious.  I've had to put the portable air conditioner on, of course, & if I turn the lights out the combination of internal glow & the hideous grin on my face should make for a sort of jack o' lantern effect.

One little matter, though: note the initials of the bhut jolokia.  Don't.  Not for hours, possibly days.  A kiss on the cheek might be safe after a few hours, but I wouldn't chance it.

Crossplay

On the top of the bookshelves in this room is a volume entitled "Jews in the Japanese Mind"; when I caught sight of it just now, however, I read it as "Jesus as a Japanese Maid."

That should boost church attendance nicely.

And then there's this

Today's Lio strip, which looks like a good idea: