to everyone for the prayers and thoughts and well wishes. My grandma passed away this morning, and we’ll be headed out of town in the morning. I’ll be away from internet until sometime this weekend, probably late Sunday.

Originally published at Chrystalline. You can comment here or there.

Family members on FB – if you haven’t heard yet, someone’s trying to reach you.

My grandmother is in ICU and has refused a respirator. Don’t know how much longer she has. (also not entirely sure if she’s truly born again) Grandpa’s not in great shape, either, but at least he’s not admitted to the hospital at the moment. (same uncertainties go for him) One of my uncles is with him to help out, but it doesn’t sound good.

Originally published at Chrystalline. You can comment here or there.

Wish I’d found this page links to ages ago! Got me in a tinkery mood, so I spent pretty much the whole morning downloading more plugins to play with. Like, uh, about fifty of ‘em. Yeah, several of them are supposed to do the same kind of thing – I want to figure out which one works best for me.

Think I fixed Wordbook; seems it needs to be completely reinitialized every time it’s reactivated, and since it has to be deactivated to avoid posting new pages and edits to old posts and pages, well, I may try this other FB plugin someone mentioned on Wordbook’s discussion page. Guess we’ll see.

Still can’t add new tags. Don’t know if that’s a Seamonkey incompatibility or a plugin problem.

Originally published at Chrystalline. You can comment here or there.

aaanndd suddenly I can’t add new tags to my posts. and apparently Wordbook isn’t updating to FB? Phooey.

Originally published at Chrystalline. You can comment here or there.

With a name like that, you already know what’s coming, don’t you?

When we were, oh, about five and seven, I think, my brother and I saw a table at the mall offering free goldfish and goldfish bowls if we opened a savings account at a local bank. Now, with a bank, you still get your money back afterward, so hey – free fish!

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Originally published at Chrystalline. You can comment here or there.

I should know better than to give myself deadlines; I only keep deadlines for other people. That said, I like to think I have a pretty good excuse. Last weekend got fairly busy, and when I was bringing in my groceries, I missed the last step going down for the last load, and fell.

I scraped both knees on the doormat (yes, an outdoor-type doormat on the inside of the door) and caught my hands on the horizontal bar on the door, which kept me from whacking my face, but it also bent me almost in half backwards, which was not good for my back. Nothing tore, I’m certain, but the small of my back was sore most of the week, and I’ve had kinks in it I can’t seem to work out to my satisfaction. When I related the story to my co-worker on Monday, I got to thinking about it; an awful lot of my mishaps involve stairs. Maybe I should stick to elevators!

Anyway, I have managed to write up accounts of a few of the weird pets we’ve had over the years, so I’ll be posting those now and again. Life is weird, you know that?

Originally published at Chrystalline. You can comment here or there.

So I’ve been pretty riled the last few posts, and I wanted to post something a little more upbeat or humorous.

Unfortunately, this isn’t it. I promise, sometime this weekend I’ll post something a little nicer, but today, I’m boggling at THIS:

S.773 appears to permit the president to seize temporary control of private-sector networks during a so-called cybersecurity emergency.

Someone who reacts to criticism of his pet project by calling it all “misinformation” and requesting that people forward “fishy” emails to the White House cannot be trusted with an Internet Kill Switch.

Also, FYI, Wal-Mart’s position on the whole health care thing:

http://walmartstores.com/FactsNews/NewsRoom/9238.aspx

Make of it what you will; I’m trying to figure out how to afford to quit shopping there.

Originally published at Chrystalline. You can comment here or there.

(For some reason my crossposter to LJ isn't working. Wordbook is fine, so FB friends are seeing the posts, but LJXP didn't work tonight. Don't know why. Not going to re-copy all the links for LJ here, sorry - they're linked on Chrystalline.com.)

One of the things I’ve been doing with my internet-free time lately has been to catch up on some of the TV shows and such I’ve managed to acquire. One of those shows is “Cupid” from however many years ago, with Jeremy Piven. There’s a remake, but I heard it was about to be canceled too. Hard to imagine the show without Piven; the first time he showed up on screen I was all, “Hey, it’s that guy…” (from Grosse Pointe Blank)

Last night I finished the last few episodes (it didn’t even run a whole season) and one of them really hit a nerve. The Children’s Hour was hilarious in that “I can see something of me in her *and* in the kids” kind of way (geeky guy with abominable aunt decides to be sensitive and persistent in wooing geeky, defensive girl with frighteningly intelligent twins), but it was Bachelorette Party that made me want to cry and hit things.

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So I called the apartment office to find out what’s going on, since new cable guy didn’t return my call and I’m not interested in chasing someone who doesn’t want to answer his phone. Apparently the new cable company is yanking them around; seems they insist they have to rewire all the buildings before they can switch. One would have expected this to come up before the originally arranged deadline, but hey, what do I know. Cable is one industry I haven’t worked in yet.

Am to the point of seriously considering telling cable-sales-guy-who-doesn’t-answer-his-phone to forget it. I’ll keep using public wifi and mom & dad’s house, and people can just get used to the fact that I can’t check my email every day anymore. Lease is up at the end of October anyway. Will I even stay there? Don’t know. On the one hand, I kinda feel like I just got settled in. On the other, while it is a safe place, it’s not fancy – it’s small and the floor creaks and the water runs lukewarm in the summer and the kitchen breaker trips if I try to run the can opener without unplugging the microwave and sound travels throughout the building almost without pause. (Someone was yelling the other night – not words, mind, just “Aaaaah!” – twice. If it had sounded actually distressed, I’d've called the cops. It was weird.)

I also have the sense that there’s someplace else I’m supposed to be. Well, that’s too vague. Actually, I have the impression that I should never have come back from LA, that I should have found a way to stick it out and stay out there. Still, what’s done is done, and I can’t afford to head back out there again – not yet anyway. So I guess we’ll see what happens.

Originally published at Chrystalline. You can comment here or there.

Still no internet. Checked the TV, and no, the transition hasn’t happened. New cable co guy hasn’t returned my call. Am very annoyed, but don’t know who’s to blame. Is the apartment being indecisive, or is the new company just incompetent? Only three months (okay, two and a half) left on my lease – is it worth messing with, or should I just plan to move somewhere else in November? And where would I go? Am too broke to go gallivanting across the country again any time soon. Working on that; planning to sell of a bunch of stuff as soon as I can get pictures together. I’ll post here when I’ve got them. GTG – still have work.

Originally published at Chrystalline. You can comment here or there.