Last week a terrorist planted a couple homemade bombs in the Chelsea section of NY. They were made from a pressure cooker. Was anyone else sort of dying to google ‘pressure cooker bombs’ just because you want to know how they work? I mean, my mom had a pressure cooker and I get the whole steaming vegetables thing, but I don’t know what makes them a good bomb. And the scientist in me wants to know. But Googling any kind of bomb-making is a sure way to start meeting some Federal agents and get on some wrong lists. I actually hope some FBI search engine isn’t just cruising the web for the combination of bomb + making. I will have to ask somebody I suppose. But my circle of friends is pretty goody-goody, so maybe my engineer brother has some idea.
No…please…not your naked parts. I mean expose yourself to wild ideas, strange events, new sounds, different ways of thinking, stuff you don’t know anything about… Don’t tell me you don’t have time for that either. Driving to work? Listen to a different radio station – maybe a talk show you despise. Go to a hole in the wall restaurant for lunch; you have to eat anyway. Those Facebook posts that irritate you just with their picture? Go read one. Just be curious.
Last week a terrorist planted a couple homemade bombs in the Chelsea section of NY. They were made from a pressure cooker. Was anyone else sort of dying to google ‘pressure cooker bombs’ just because you want to know how they work? I mean, my mom had a pressure cooker and I get the whole steaming vegetables thing, but I don’t know what makes them a good bomb. And the scientist in me wants to know. But Googling any kind of bomb-making is a sure way to start meeting some Federal agents and get on some wrong lists. I actually hope some FBI search engine isn’t just cruising the web for the combination of bomb + making. I will have to ask somebody I suppose. But my circle of friends is pretty goody-goody, so maybe my engineer brother has some idea.
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I’m a hand-holder when I’m in a relationship. It’s not a public claim as much as it’s just a sign of affection. And it’s good for us. We feel an increase in pleasure and a decrease in anxiety when touching another person. Holding hands can even reduce pain according to a University of California study. When you visit a sick or dying person, you should take their hand. Some of your strong energy will flow into them. I don’t think I see as many people holding hands these days as I used to. Perhaps people are more self-conscious about public affection? I think it’s especially sweet to see older couples holding hands; I imagine they are long-married and still in romantic love. Or maybe they are just providing balance for one another.
![]() I worked from home today so I could be here for some work on my well. I needed new check valves (air in the water lines) and to do all that work, it was also time to replace my 14-year old pump that only lasts about 15 years. The two guys who did most of the work – Freddie and Mike – were like Click and Clack of PBS’ Car Talk fame. I swear they were laughing and cutting up the entire time – and these are guys who have worked together for 30 years. It was clear they like their work. They were super-friendly to me and answered my questions and when they knew I was interested in how my well works, they explained other things and said, “Come look down here” and then they interrupted what they were doing to shine a flashlight down the hole so I could see. It was a thing of beauty to watch the two of them; there is a rhythm to removing a well pipe and you could tell they’d worked together forever. I stayed with them the entire time because I was having such a good time laughing too. I have been very lucky with contractors. But it’s not entirely luck. I have a strategy for finding good contractors and I’m going to share my tips with you:
I’m sure it’s not foolproof, but it’s working for me. Another thing I’ve done is called a realtor I know. Realtors tend to know contractors too because they are around homeowners who need to get work done to sell their homes. Found my radon contractor that way. Let me close by circling back to my well work. Don’t envy people with wells because they have no water bill. We pay for water too, just all at once every 15 years. My new rigging cost $3,300. I actually did open a hole in the ground and poured my money into it! My friend Linda came for the weekend so I could help her make a T-shirt quilt for her daughter. We had worked all day long and towards the end of the day, the strangest thing happened. Most of our piecing work was done with a ¼” quilter’s foot on the machine. But to piece the longer border strips together, I changed the foot on the machine to the general purpose one and Linda went on her merry way stitching yards of borders together. Towards the conclusion of that, she discovered a mistake. I tore out the seam, re-pinned the two pieces correctly and sat down at the machine to stitch that one seam for her while she was busy with something else.
That’s when I discovered the quilter’s foot was back on the machine. Now, I knew I had not switched the foot again, but I also knew Linda didn’t even know how to. Puzzled, I looked at her and asked about the general purpose foot – and she denied even touching it because as I knew, she didn’t know how to make the swap – and had no reason to. Start the creepy Twilight Zone music! She knew I was no-where near the machine the whole time. I knew I didn’t do it. I knew she didn’t know how to change the foot and she knew she didn’t do it. There was no-one else in the house. So how did this happen?! We both agreed it was my long deceased mother having a little fun. I do believe that spirits can move things on us – for their amusement and maybe to let us know they are near. My mother’s birthday is this week, along with mine (same day actually) and she taught me to sew. So I think she was quite tickled I had this huge sewing project going on and I was teaching a friend. Yes, it was a little creepy, maybe more so to Linda. We kept going over it again and again, and there simply was no other explanation than a little harmless visitation by a spook. Mind you, we are both really educated women with [almost] no other weird ideas. I decided it was a very cool moment and I chose to believe my mom was close. I don’t drink coffee so I’ve never had a Pumpkin Spice Latte, the fall food trend. Starbucks has offered this latte for more than 10 years, but somehow – perhaps on the heels of Starbucks’ large marketing budget, other food manufacturers have jumped on the trend. In the grocery store this morning I couldn’t believe the array of PSL flavored foods. These food trends, much like trends in fashion, are designed to get people in the door and impulse-buying. It’s all a bit insane. These are just some of the choices I had this morning: I do like pumpkin pies, but legally you’re only allowed to make them for Thanksgiving. And I like pumpkin cookies, but I lost my recipe for them and haven’t tried to find a new one. You might think that pumpkin sales have correspondingly gone through the roof, but they actually haven’t. So, did I buy anything pumpkin spice flavored? Nope. I’m a traditionalist. Apple stuff is my fall food of choice. I’ve made two German Apfelkuchens (apple cakes) so far. Before the weekend is over I’ll make a French apple pie to take to work. Hope you have your own autumn traditions!
How did I ever go partying on Friday nights? Is real world work that much more demanding than school work? I came home last night and puttered for about 20 minutes before deciding I needed a nap – so that I could get some energy to make the evening a little more productive. Sheesh. I suppose it’s somewhat due to the cold I’ve been fighting. (Finally saw a doctor at work about that – touch of bronchitis.)
Friday nights in college we went to The Branch (the ‘cool’ college hangout) or Rybak’s (the local townie bar that I actually preferred). I might be old, but at least I got to drink when the drinking age was still 18! I didn’t care for beer a whole lot so I drank gin and tonics or screwdrivers. Neither one of those interests me in the least anymore! At the Branch, you inhaled a ton of cigarette smoke and yelled at one another to be heard, even though you packed in shoulder-to-shoulder in what surely would have been a disaster had there ever been a fire. At Rybaks, we easily grabbed a table and told geeky science jokes amidst a much lighter nicotine haze. Today’s young college kids can’t buy a drink and they can’t smoke in the bar either. Ahh, the good old days. I re-lived them last night with a Landshark and a streamed movie from my sofa. Perfect. I’ve been back to work for four days after a two-week vacation and in reflection, I’ve spent most of my hours being a relief valve for the stress on my team. I am very worried about my team. My three leaders each manage separate teams and all three of these teams are in either high phases of sudden change (unexpected, urgent work requested by the department head) or facing important deadlines of their ‘normal’ work. As a leader, there are a number of ways I try to deal with this. 1.Listen and empathize. Sometimes people just need to vent. I try to create a ‘safe zone’ for a little bit of bitching, but I don’t let that be endless either lest it become unproductive. 2.Get out of their way. Empower them to do what they need to do – to make their own decisions. Temper judgment on their approach. Accept the risks they might mess up, but cover their back if they do. 3.Help them sort out priorities. Sometimes you have to give them permission to dump/delay other things. Reassure them it’s not going to affect their end-of-year performance because you’re jointly making the decision to reprioritize. 4.Propose other solutions. The person not under duress might actually see solutions the stressed person doesn’t. This includes re-allocating other resources under me if I can or having the courage to push back to the department leader for relief. 5.Express gratitude. People will work very hard for you if they believe they are appreciated. Reassure them that even though this is a very frustrating period, you don’t know anyone else better for the challenge and you’re relieved they are on your team! This is very easy to do if you place yourself in their shoes for a minute!! 6.Laugh. We really are all in this together and finding the silly moments (think Dilbert cartoons) helps people cope. You have to release the tension. There are no slouches on my team. They are all high performers with the best interests of the company and the department in mind. I can’t protect them from decisions above me that have to be implemented but I can try to keep everyone at peak performance. And yes, all the stress on my team translates to my own stress too. I go out for lunch every day regardless of what’s going on; I draw Dilbert cartoons in my head; and I remind myself that it’s just a job and I still choose to be here rather than anywhere else because it’s still mostly fun. I’ve been a gym regular for probably 30 years and I only feel a little guilty when I skip a day or two. I’ve learned that weight doesn’t pile on in a day or two and sometimes sleep or other activities are more important. If you’re not a super-athlete (or even if you are) you need rest and recovery time, even if it’s only mental. I think a lot of people fear if they take one day off they’ve put a foot on the slippery slope and it will feel so good they won’t get back to the gym for a month. Well yes, it does feel that good to take a day off, but exercising for so many years kinda embeds it in your wiring.
I often work out through sore muscles and colds, but I pay attention to how I’m feeling and modify what I’m doing. I have a cold right now and I worked out yesterday. I wasn’t feeling that good on the elliptical so I took down the resistance and cut short the time considerably. Today, I was feeling better from the cold, but tired because of long days, evening events and an early morning meeting, so I skipped the gym. Sleep was more valuable. Most days exercise energizes me. Today the extra sleep energized me. No guilt. Guilt is anger directed at yourself. I’m not angry at me. I love me. I love me so much I took the day off. ![]() Last night, in my capacity as President of the Musconetcong Watershed Association, I attended a NJ Dept of Environmental Protection hearing on Lake Hopatcong’s Water Level Management Plan. Lake Hopatcong is man-made from damming the Musconetcong River – first for a forge and mill in the early 1700’s. Today it is a recreational lake, about four square miles, with over 30 miles of mostly-residential shoreline, but with a State park and some businesses like marinas and restaurants. The majority of docks are built on pilings; they do not float. So when the water level is low, recreational activities suffer or stop altogether. Fish die from lack of oxygen and the lake smells. The lake depends on rainfall to maintain capacity; it is not spring fed. NJ has been in drought conditions for several years now and residents are not happy. In fact, they mostly blame “the River People” for their misfortune. The dam releases water to the river to maintain a certain flow which is necessary for downstream ecology, river recreation like kayaking and fishing, and proper dilution of water treatment plant discharge. A lot of “Lake People” think in a dry summer, the NJDEP should release no water to the river. Quite simply, they could care less about the River People. More than one stood up and decried the high taxes they pay to have a lakefront property. My taxes are high too, but OK. The DEP’s proposal was pretty simple. They want to not lower the lake as much this winter (to prevent ice damage) so less recovery rain is needed in spring. The MWA has no reason to object to that. In fact, the only thing we asked for was for the installation of flow monitoring gage at the sewage plant. But somehow, in the emotional and heated hearing (every resident wound up the next one in line, with great cheering for themselves), every issue with Lake management was blamed on “YOU RIVER PEOPLE!” One got up and accused us of wanting to take down the dam (eliminating the lake) – leaving us bewildered because no-one said anything about that. It was quite amusing in some respects. Facts become irrelevant when people become emotional. One shoreline resident said, “You River People wouldn’t even have a river if it weren’t for us!!” I don’t think she understands dams or feeder tributaries. I have some empathy for the residents – in fact, I once lived in a Lake Hopatcong community and belonged to a beach club. This is the future of water management – Who gets the water? Who has the rights? Just because you are upstream doesn’t mean you get all the rights. I could go on and on. Suffice it to say, it was a fascinating hearing and the DEP has to ultimately balance all of the ecologic and economic values of the lake and river. It’s not an easy task and it’s only going to get harder if we don’t start getting more rain! I was with a friend recently as she was trying to help her mother – over the phone – place an Amazon order. It was quite comical from my perspective; I could have ordered it for her 30 times during the length of the conversation -- about 30 minutes. To her credit, my friend was very patient. My Dad “learned” how to do email in his 70’s and seemed to enjoy reaching out to his friends in Germany this way. But every once in a while he would get stumped and downright perturbed because he’d spent a thoughtful 40 minutes carefully hunting and pecking the keyboard to express what he wanted, only to have it “disappear” somehow before it got sent.
Having grown up with this particular technology, I watch on with a mix of amusement but caution. What, I wonder, will be that new technology that I – as a senior citizen – will struggle mightily to understand or learn? It sort of seems inevitable that when you get old (which I intend to do), you can no longer learn. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks. It’s in our collective belief system. I see this in the workplace sometimes. After a certain number of years, some people seem to think they are ‘entitled’ to stop learning…that they’ve ‘earned’ the right to coast to the finish line of a long career. Maybe they occasionally update their knowledge in their field, but not with a real learning commitment. I even knew someone who told me that she was “just too old to learn something new.“ But she didn’t retire for another 15 years. People just find work was less interesting and set their sights only on retirement? I don’t want to be that senior citizen on the phone with a young person trying to sort something out for their amusement and laughter with friends later. I don’t accept that it’s necessarily inevitable. All the old people I know who are sharp and energetic are always reading and learning new things. When I grow up I want to be like my mother’s best friend, now in her 80’s, who bought herself an Amazon Echo and who knows how to tap its full potential. I was so impressed she even knew what the Echo was/did. I don’t even have one! |
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July 2017
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