http://greasy.com/tealstar/index.html tealstar's Blog en-us © 08:19:54 Greasy.com All rights reserved. Wed, Jul 08:19:54 9 GMT 30 http://greasy.com/tealstar/irritations_snippets.html My E mail seems to be in smaller type than of yore. I click on View and click on Text Size and click on Increase and have to do that twice to get a size that does not give me eyestrain. Also a new glitch: I click on a message and get a screen that says “your log-in has failed” and then it tells me what mailboxes I have access to. I then click on “In-Box” and get my mail as if nothing is wrong. And this will happen several times a session. I also have to increase text size when I go ... Sun, 6 Jul 2008 14:54:49 GMT http://greasy.com/tealstar/leadership_race.html Ralph Nadir, in an interview, opined as how Obama wasn’t being Black enough. Now that’s arrogance. Nadir started out tilting at the excesses of corporate America and should have stayed with that. He seems to have lost his smarts. The Clintons were very supportive on Black issues during Bill’s presidency. Obama should do as well. Politics is the art of the possible. There may be some hope on the part of Blacks that Obama is the answer to their dreams. Certainly he should do everything ... Thu, 26 Jun 2008 01:49:55 GMT http://greasy.com/tealstar/bush_gods_chosen.html From the L.A. Times (June 25) Promising lawyers and law students were rejected (from positions in the Justice Department) because of their political and ideological views, internal investigators say. By Richard B. Schmitt, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer June 25, 2008 WASHINGTON -- Scores of highly credentialed young lawyers and law students were denied interviews for coveted positions at the Justice Department because of an illegal screening process that took political and ideological view ... Thu, 26 Jun 2008 01:18:52 GMT http://greasy.com/tealstar/modest_flirtation.html I have an acquaintance I chat with when I go past his house during my walks in the morning. His name is Curt and he is the fellow who gave me a tomato plant recently and told me how to take care of it. Curt has a son, Curt, Jr., who is temporarily staying with him, along with his girlfriend. Monica. I noticed Curt re-doing the paint job on his mother's car, an absolutely beautiful effort -- he is a professional and the car looked like it just came off the assembly line. So I started chatti ... Thu, 26 Jun 2008 01:00:03 GMT http://greasy.com/tealstar/art_movies.html Last night Ed, as usual, had the remote. For me it was TV Hell. He lingered a while on “Alexander”, story of Alexander The Great. It begins with Al’s childhood. The actor playing him as a young boy looked like he belonged in “Leave It To Beaver”. The kid was about to tame a wild horse, a scene that momentarily captured my interest because there was an animal in it. Ed, who has ESP and knows when I am looking, clicked away. Even Leonard Maltin, who likes a lot of stupid movies, ga ... Sun, 22 Jun 2008 02:06:14 GMT http://greasy.com/tealstar/living_wisely_just_living.html Mary Hunt writes a couple of on-line newsletters that I have found useful, especially the free one (Everyday Cheapskate). Here is a list of her remarks that “prove” you are living frugally (in other words wisely). You know you’re a Cheapskate when .... … your spouse hides things in the house because he or she is afraid you’re going to sell them on eBay to raise money for your emergency fund. ... you plan meals like your 8th grade Home Economics teacher (if only she could see you ... Thu, 19 Jun 2008 23:11:19 GMT http://greasy.com/tealstar/life_2.html Here’s an intriguing excerpt from a story in today’s (June 18) Los Angeles Times (I get it on line). Eight years ago, Dave Dixon set himself some lofty goals, especially for an unemployed, twice-divorced middle-aged man with no savings. He wanted to live on the water in Newport Beach. (CA). He didn’t care to work too much. And he aspired to play golf and tennis several times a week. Today, Dixon, 60, is living his dream, albeit with some compromises. He lives aboard a weathered, beat ... Wed, 18 Jun 2008 12:04:45 GMT http://greasy.com/tealstar/remarkable_woman.html I have copied this obit from this morning's New York Times. I was so impressed. She is my new hero. Anne C. Martindell, Late Bloomer, Lawmaker and Diplomat, Is Dead at 93 Published: June 15, 2008 Anne C. Martindell, who entered politics in her 50s, found true love as ambassador to New Zealand in her 60s, earned a college degree in her 80s and published a memoir titled “Never Too Late” in her 90s, died on Wednesday in Princeton, N.J. She was 93. Skip to next paragraph Her death was anno ... Mon, 16 Jun 2008 11:38:12 GMT http://greasy.com/tealstar/book_review.html Last night I stayed up late, reading, so that I could satisfy my curiosity about the end of a book by Susan Hill entitled “The Pure in Heart”. It is beautifully written and it contains a mystery. Her characters are well thought out and have a great deal of depth. It is set in England. There is a detective, Simon, and his family, all doctors except for a profoundly retarded sister, Martha, who, at 26. lives in a nursing home with total care. Simon visits her often and is devoted to her ... Sun, 1 Jun 2008 11:47:04 GMT http://greasy.com/tealstar/evil_twin.html Ed came home from a volunteer ombudsman meeting in Orlando. At least he said it was a meeting for volunteers. I think he went for the rides at Disney World and I expected him to come home with Mickey Mouse ears. Mice figure largely in Ed’s mind and he owns notepaper in the shape of a mouse (that he won’t let me use because then he wouldn’t have it anymore). He was gone two nights. I would have gone along for a mini-adventure but it was decided the kitties needed me more. Brunswick ha ... Sat, 31 May 2008 13:10:15 GMT http://greasy.com/tealstar/fortsooth_yall.html I was talking to the master of the house this morning and he looked at me at one point and said I was the only person he knew who used words like vouchsafe. He said it struck a weird note. “Why do you do it?” he asked. I answered, “I picked it up reading as a child, I use it sort of in a teasing way.” I like to color my observations sometimes with arcane use. Odd words have become such an automatic part of my vocabulary that I don’t think about them anymore. So Ed is adding that ... Tue, 27 May 2008 03:31:40 GMT http://greasy.com/tealstar/truly_hilarious.html These are from a book called Disorder in the American Courts, and are things people actually said in court, word for word, taken down and now published by court reporters who were tormented by having to remain composed and quiet while these exchanges were actually taking place. Q: Are you sexually active? A: No, I just lie there. _________________________________ Q: What is your date of birth? A: July 15th. Q: What year? A: Every year. ______________________________________ Q: What gear we ... Wed, 21 May 2008 11:55:41 GMT http://greasy.com/tealstar/house_home.html I never had a house until six years ago when Ed and I moved to Florida. It just never occurred to me that I would ever own a house, expecting always that I would live in an apartment. At the most, perhaps, I thought I might, if I came into money, own a condo in a New York City building, preferably on the upper West Side. The Upper East Side is where the old money is, and that is fine if you can stand the people who have it. Through my business associations I met many of them. Mostly they a ... Tue, 20 May 2008 23:16:34 GMT http://greasy.com/tealstar/age_stuff.html My horoscope this morning said, among other nonsense, that I “love to ponder a question for which there is no answer” because it relaxes me. What??!! are you nuts? Years ago the New York Post carried a horoscope column (that was syndicated by the New York Times for which I worked at the time) by a fellow who,it seemed, had my number. I used to look under the bed at night to be sure he wasn’t there. Later I learned he and I were born on the exact same day, same year (eerie music here) ... Sat, 10 May 2008 12:51:11 GMT http://greasy.com/tealstar/ed_got.html It is late 1994. I have been widowed a year and am seeing Ed, whom I met in the bereavement group I had joined. He had lost his wife in 1990, and it took him a while (what, with being a guy and all) to join a group. He is at this point in his life, winding down the strenuous bachelor style of living and looking for a more permanent connection. His heart is only half in it because, after all, the bachelor life has its excitement, although no one is making dinner, or holding your head when i ... Wed, 7 May 2008 19:40:43 GMT http://greasy.com/tealstar/computer_ills_back_pain_today.html Laura (Troutbend) posted a Youtube video about engineers and cats. I was determined to see it. I started the download. An hour later, it was not finished. The way my computer handles a video is this: The download begins, a frame is shown, I hear three words, there is a pause ranging from 30 seconds to a minute or two, then the second frame, another three or four words, more wait time. The rest of the video unwinds the same way. When it is finished, I am sometimes able to press the “Play ... Tue, 6 May 2008 15:00:32 GMT http://greasy.com/tealstar/tempus_.html After Ed and I moved down to Florida in 2003, I made it a point go fly back every few months to see Sophie, venerable friend and piano teacher, who died at 99 last November. She was the catalyst for my going for obvious reasons and because the lessons I had with her were so very meaningful. As time wore on she lost ground and I finally lost her although I still hear her voice when I am practicing. I have a photo of her on my piano. She is sitting at her piano, with windows beyond her looki ... Fri, 2 May 2008 20:00:54 GMT http://greasy.com/tealstar/phish_aint_biting.html The following comes from “John Morgan” somewhere in the bowels of Africa. And I am so lucky he found me! He wants to give me $2.6 million. Oh, that is so sweet of him. The tears are rolling down my cheeks and my stomach hurts. And if I was this illiterate and turgid, I would lock myself in a closet and never come out. I’d love to reply with a few pithy comments, but it isn't smart to give these phishers any more access. xx, Teal From the desk of: Oceanic bank international plc Mr smi ... Fri, 2 May 2008 11:32:30 GMT http://greasy.com/tealstar/1209564122.html Marketing overkill is getting to me. My medical newsletters and other letters too, of course, use an approach that is a surefire way to turn me off. There are teaser lines that grab my attention. Here’s a classic, “What you are doing wrong (sic), to lose belly fat.” Oh, oh, oh. What, what what? You click on it and get 40 pages of what you shouldn’t believe, and testimonials from a horde of satisfied users of whatever it is that you won’t get to know till you have reached the end ... Wed, 30 Apr 2008 14:02:02 GMT http://greasy.com/tealstar/house_hearth.html Written Sunday Ed and I were watching one of those “house hunting” programs the other night. It’s always interesting to see different neighborhoods and house layouts and backyards on these programs. One couple looking for three bedrooms and at least two baths had bid on two other houses but the sales hadn’t gone through. Ed translated that to mean they didn’t have any money. The wife said at one point, she was so eager to have their own house so at last they could live their life ... Mon, 28 Apr 2008 17:52:55 GMT