(The Port) Deal or No Deal?

What upsets me about this port deal? Where to start. First let me admit my ignorance. I was not aware that any of our ports was being managed by a foreign country. When did that happen? And why in the world would we do it? Globalization is a fine thing when it means we share medical information, help the impoverished, and cooperate instead of compete against other countries, but when it means handing over jobs related to our national security? Then there's the matter of the country who'll be doing the managing. First cut the nonsense about being anti-Arab. It's a known fact that Dubai had links to terrorists, we are still occupying Iraq after starting a questionable war, and if you Google "national security alert" you can go to the Department of Homeland Security and discover we're still on yellow alert (as of March 3, 2006.)

Then there's the matter of a president who claims it's no big deal and it's perfectly safe. Funny, he's one of the few who thinks that. Is he listening to Congress? Our elected officials are a little peeved that they weren't in the loop on this one. I can't say I blame them. Has he noticed that the governors of New York and New Jersey are filing suit? Since I live smack in between Port Newark and Manhattan, I find that reassuring and admirable. Thanks, gentlemen!

Am I anti-Arab? No, I was and still am against the war in Iraq. I work at a job where I meet and serve many people from middle eastern countries, mostly women and children. I happen to like them a lot. But permitting our ports to be managed by people who may have a connection, no matter how tenuous, to terrorists is a foolish and dangerous thing to do.

Computer Conundrum

Would you believe I have two hard copies of a completed manuscript called the Christmas Eve Shop, but nothing on disk? Yep, I did it on a word processor before I got a computer and the disk wasn't compatible, so there it sits. Then I got a computer but no printer and wrote several chapters of Sparrow Hill on Corel's Word Perfect. Three months later my baby Dell got a virus and I lost everything. Ah, but I had most of it on disk. Only problem was my computer didn't like Corel (and neither did I) so we went back to Word 2000. Unfortunately, no one I knew had Corel. Then I wrote about fifty pages of The Home for Nanwrimo on Word 2000 and copied it to disk, but for some reason when I tried to print it out at work, the computers couldn't read my disk.

Are we seeing a pattern here?

I was finally able to print out the initial chapters for The Home and I'm now attempting to rewrite the two chapters I lost during the above named crash. As for Sparrow Hill, my coworker, Tracey, installed Corel's Word Perfect in one of the lab's computers at work and I was ecstatic to see my work after all this time! Then we discovered the machine didn't have a printer or Word 2000 in which to copy and paste. She loaded the program into another machine. That one refused to recognize Drive A so I couldn't open my floppy.

Bless her heart, Tracey offered to try a new machine for me.

Takin' any bets on this one?

Olympic Fever

Okay, I admit it, I have Olympic fever. I like the skating best, but I've looked at quite a few of the evening shows all the way through to midnight. For some peculiar reason, I can watch skiers sail off into space and be completely awed, but the skeleton thing, where they go down the luge run head first, gives me hives.
I used to ride my sled that way and it was great fun, so I guess it's the speed and closeness of the walls that scares me. One of the women was two months pregnant. That's a risk I'd never take.

Athletes amaze me by continuing to compete when they're injured or sick. Because of my disability, I hate to see that. I always think of the possibility of permanent injury. I admire their single mindedness, but personally, I prefer the variety life offers.

The Blizzard of 2006

At 10:30 A.M. the snow's finally tapering off. The blizzard is over; or is this just a lull? I'm trying to guess how much we got, at least a foot, I'd say. I can't open the front door, it's over two feet there, but that's from drifting. Mini drifts line the bottoms of all my screens, while above they're dotted with snow puffs resembling cotton balls.

People are out with snow blowers and shovels trying to remove at least a layer of the deep snow. The big problem is where to put it. Living in such a crowded area, our houses so close and yards so small, they'll soon be shovelling it over their heads.

I went off to do other things and left this as a a draft. Now at 3:00 P.M. it is still snowing--never stopped. I've been trying to feed the birds all day. For some reason my hanging feeder, that I can reach from inside, didn't seem to be working. Maybe the perches were icy, the seed came out when I poked the holes with a pen. Finally I just dumped it all under the tree and hoped it wouldn't sink in snow or be cover with more snow before the birds got it. Saw a cardinal in the back and swept off part of my back porch, but the seeds were soon buried and no birds came, ditto for the seed I placed on the kitchen window sills. A couple of boys came to shovel me out as well as they could. I threw seed on the top landing and finally my chippies were able to eat. Time to check and see if they need more.

It's Late

It's late. Too late to write a lengthy post; I'm tired from cleaning, contented after seeing a good movie, (The Devil's Advocate--with Al Pacino)and I have church in the morning. I'm even too tired to go to care2 to click on their charities. Tomorrow is another day.

I Don't Buy Books. Usually.

I don't buy books. Usually. However, a few months ago I purchased used copies of Time and Again by Jack Finney and A Pilgrim at Tinker's Creek by Annie Dillard on
e-Bay. Why these two?

Time and Again is a novel that encompasses a bit of a mystery, but although the plot holds my interest, it's the method of time travel that compels me to reread it, that and the exceptional feeling of living along side illustrator Simon Morley as he returns to New York City in the late 1800's. The time period from 1880 or so through the turn of the century and on, when so much was brand new and exciting: telephones, radio, automobiles, airplanes, even elevators, has always fascinated me and captured my imagination.

It was a simpler time, with less stress in many ways, but the romance dissolves and reality kicks in when Simon talks to a bus driver as his horse slips and slides in the snow and a bitter wind numbs both mind and body. He has to stand, the driver explains, because once a man returned to the station frozen to death in his seat. Then there's the description of entering a lobby full of spittoons. Finney switches again, to tell of a magical night when Manhattan was alive with young and old enjoying the new snow and crowding the streets in horse drawn sleighs. It's a wonderful book and one that I'm glad to own. And, it has a sequel, Time after Time, which was given to me as a gift.

I read less than half of Dillard's A Pilgrim at Tinker's Creek before I returned it to the library a few years ago, not out of boredom, but because it was just too full of possibilities for me to continue. Since I'm a nature lover and love to write, I found myself wanting to comment, or enlarge on her writing on each page. Almost every paragraph spun out at me like a writer's prompt, a call that hates to go unanswered. There was also the opposite feeling I get each time I'm face with awesome writing, "Pull the plug on the computer and bury the manuscript--you haven't a chance in hell of becoming a writer."

Perhaps.

But I intend to keep writing and to go back to Tinker's Creek with Annie Dillard and old New York with Jack Finney "Time and Again."