Subscribe to blog
We had a WBO at our house last night. Yes, that’s right a Weird Bug Occurrence.Every so often I sight a bug that makes me doubt all the parameters of my comfortable little world. Ya know? You think you are familiar with all of the objects in your territory; the cats, the grass, the occasional stray dog, rain, wind, sun, lady bugs, beetles and stinkbugs, curly bugs, aphids, moths and butterflies. But THIS was a reallyweird bug.
It happened like this: Brenda, the old cat was outside in the rain, and I wanted to go to bed. I thought I would worry about her being outside in the rain all night, so I opened the door and called to her, sitting at the edge of the lawn, to “come in out of the rain.” This she was loathe to do, and I was thinking about ruining my socks to step down and pick her up when a loud whirring object flew past my face. You guessed it. It was the bug. Brenda, stepped inside after him.
Johnny was home for a few days and had retired to his room, so I hastened to draw him from his bed to share in the excitement. When we got back to the entry way, the bug was surrounded by three very curious cats, one of whom I suppose was responsible for knocking the bug on his back. We righted him (with a corner of the dustpan) so we could satisfy our scientific curiousity. I know I am being presumptuous in assuming gender here, but his weirdness and aggressive nature inclined me towards the male of the species. He was a singularly odd chap; about 2 inches long with a green/gray/brown striped shell. Probably some kind of beetle I think. He had rather odd tufty “feelers”, and judging from his entrance into our home, wings. “Hmm,” said Johnny intelligently, “I think I am going to call him Pedro.” And so saying, he scooped Pedro into the dustpan, opened the door and set him on the step.
Of course, as soon as the door opened, Brenda ran back outdoors into the rain. I went to fetch her back, and Pedro flew back in! This time, the dustpan scooping elicited a highly audible response; Pedro hissed or clicked or something. Anyway it was LOUD. We somehow has the feeling that Pedro was upset, so Johnny sympathetically put on a glove, shoved him back into his mode de transport, and this time threwPedro back outdoors. Brenda was allowed to remain outside in the rain for eternity if that was her desire, and we never saw Pedro again. At least not yet.
Another time, when I had only just begun working at the bank, we had a WBO. This thing was so large that at first we thought it was a bat or small bird. When it became clear that she (we’ll say that this interesting, attractive behemoth was female) belonged to the insect world, Bernie, my coworker was so freaked out that she closed herself into the vault until such time as “Ophelia” (I just now made that name up; we didn’t name her at the time) was removed from the premises. That was a long time ago, but I think I caught her in a jar to take home to show my kids; I do know that we later learned that Ophelia was a hummingbird moth.
Well, I’ve only been home a short while and I’ve gotta get away from this computer and spend some time outside….......You don’t suppose that Pedro is still lurking about….........Maybe I’ll bring the dustpan.
UltraMom
I read something today in a book I was skimming through. Luci Swindoll said that when she couldn’t think of anything to write about that she just started writing about whatever; rambling even, and a germ of an idea might emerge. I thought I might give it a try, since writer’s block has been preventing me from blogging lately.
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about turning 50, which I will do in a couple of weeks. For most of the past year, I’ve been telling myself and others that I was almost 50. I thought that way I might just sort of glide gracefully into the next decade with a minimum of trauma and alarm. I don’t think its working. Hmm, 50. Half a century. More than half my life over. An age I considered ANCIENT when I was a child. Only 20 years to 70. But I don’t feel ancient. I don’t feel like someone in the backstretch of life. I’m just me; who I’ve always been. It’s easy to think about all the things I thought I might accomplish someday, but there was always time: get a college degree; do more writing; get really toned and fit with a flatstomach; get my house all cleaned up and organized; really read and study my Bible all the way through; really work on my personal relationship with God, keep in better touch with my kids and siblings, do something creative.
I do have a very good life. I’m not complaining, and I don’t have a “poor me” complex. I have a very sweet, caring and responsible husband. I have absolutely wonderful kids. I like my job for the most part; not all the time, and it doesn’t pay all that well, but I do get a lot of satisfaction when I feel like I’m helping make someone’s life a little easier or more pleasant. Peoples’ finances are very important to them…......A funny thing; I ran into a man in the valley who is a customer and he asked “how is my money?” I jokingly said, “I’m taking care of it for you. It’s all gone.” He said, “well that is what my exwife used to say. I’d ask her every so often about my money and she said the same thing, so that’s okay.” ...........Okay, let’s see; I love leading my WeightWatcher group, especially when they are experiencing success. I love where I live; my house, my town, etc. I love my cats, even when I have to clean litterboxes and vacuum up cat hair.
The bottom line I guess is that turning 50 is better than the alternative. Well, perhaps not better, because when the alternative does happen I will be with the Lord for eternity, but I’m not ready to do that just yet. And who knows; maybe I will yet accomplish some of the things on my list and add a few new ones before it does happen? For now I guess I’ll just keep muddling along and see what happens next.
UltraYoungMom
Wish I could be there to help you celebrate. :(
Well, UltraDad has expanded his job search to Nevada, near where his sister lives, so I am alone for a few days. Of course I have work during the week, Bible Study on Monday evenings, WeightWatchers on Wednesday evenings, and Bookworm and other procrastination on the other evenings, so often we didn’t see each other all that much anyway, but I guess its just the knowledge that noone else is here. It’s kind of disquieting.
Dinner was a tuna sandwich and fruit. I took a bike ride and a walk and set a couple of sprinklers (one of UDad’s parting injuctions was to be sure to water the new lawn!). I fed the cats and played a “little” bookworm. I talked to my sister and watched the news.
Usually I really enjoy my alone time. It’s kind of nice to be able to watch or not watch TV, not worry about dinner (cause I can eat pretty much anything), etc. Most evenings I read or play computer while he watches TV anyway. But I did know he was around, and that was kind of nice.
I am really excited about some recent accomplishments by UDad and Johnny: we now have surround sound in our living room, and as of yesterday, all of the wires are off the floor. I like them MUCH better attached to the the walls. I have a fabulous new set of media shelves. Udad even went thru his stack of phone messages and pared them down. Nothing like an impending trip to prod you into getting things done, eh?
My old cat Brenda has become quite the “Copy Cat”. I had been trying to get her to lay on this nice pet cushion I had bought for her, so I put in on top of the stereo, her new favorite roost. She is really enjoying it up there, but her route to catnapping paradise goes from the computer keyboard to the top of the printer to the cushion. She invariable hits the “Scan” or “Copy” button on her way over. If I have left a photo in the scanner, I come home to find several nice color copies of it in the printer tray. Or a couple of new scans. Yeah, I could turn the printer off, and do remember to do that once in a while, but as long as I don’t have anything in the scanner, its kind of fun to see how often she does it. Right now, I have a stack of about 10 blank sheets that have run thru the printer. She sure looks comfortable sleeping up there all stretched out, but everytime I go towards the kitchen, she has to go too in case I’m going to get some food and drop it on the floor. (which happens rather oftener than you might imagine)
Okay, I promised myself a post tonight. Not my finest work, but at least you know I’m still around. All alone. But only for tonight. Thank goodness Johnny is coming home for the weekend. And I hope UltraDad has a nice visit with his sisters in Nevada and then….......finds a job closer to home!
UltraMom
ps. My computer acts like it is trying to move through molasses. I can hardly play bookworm it is so slow. Any ideas on what is bogging it down and how I can unbog it?
“Spyware” is a common cause of Windows slowdowns. Try downloading, installing and running AdAware. http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/
Good point! I forgot about that, but I definitely recommend Spybot Search & Destroy (http://www.safer-networking.org/) over Adaware. If Johnny hasn’t installed that for you yet please install it. If he has you should run it.
i gave her spybot that’s the only one she has, she just says it wrong
via SlashDot
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled today that a police officer may compell anyone to identify themselves even if they are not suspected of a crime. This just seems wrong to me. Why should I, if I have done nothing wrong, and am doing nothing suspicious be required to give my identification to a police officer whom I don’t know and don’t trust?
In practice this probably doesn’t make much difference except to make it more convenient for police officers to stop people without cause (they don’t have to think of a reason anymore). Still we are seeing a constant erosion of our individual liberties and privacy protections in the U.S., and it sickens me.
here is a pdf of the supreme court’s decision and here is a link to the defendants website about the case.
What do you think?
hmmm.... can’t really tell completely from the tape regarding why the police were asking for ID, but it doesn’t sound like he was just randomly selected. Someone called them becaue they were fighting. I can’t tell from the tape if “mimi” called or not, and i just read a bit of the PDF, but it says
“during an investigative stop involving a reported assault. Nevada’s “stop and identify” statute requires a person detained by an officer under suspicious circumstances to identify himself.”
It doesn’t say (as you have in your post)
“ if I have done nothing wrong, and am doing nothing suspicious be required to give my identification to a police officer ”
The PDF also says
“Here, the initial stop was based on reasonable suspicion”
And
“If he chooses either to state his name or communicate it to the officer by other means, the statute is satisfied and no violation occurs.”
He didn’t seem too cooperative there (of course the officer didn’t even *ask* him his name…
The Supreme Court also makes note of the fact that the person wasn’t just being arrested for some trivial matter because they couldn’t find anything else to arrest him for
“The request in this case was a commonsense inquiry, not an effort to obtain an arrest for failure to identify after a Terry stop yielded insufficient evidence.”
Then there is this:
“The man appeared to be intoxicated”
I would agree, though I can’t trust my own impression because maybe that’s just how people in Nebraska talk and act. If the police thought he was drunk, I’m glad they stopped him from diving off again.
If they were there because someone reported an assault, what should they have done? Just got in their car and left because the guy didn’T cooperate? What if he was assaulting “Mimi”? Or, less likely, maybe Mimi was assaulting him, and after the police left they just went on assulting each other… what if someone is injured or killed (it’s been known to happen)? Then the police get balmed for not stopping it earlier when they were called the first time. Either way, they were called there to check it out, and from what I see on the video, he was not cooperative in the least.
The Supreme Court did not exaclty “ruled today that a police officer may compell anyone to identify themselves even if they are not suspected of a crime” as you say. They ruled that in this case, the policeman had ample cause to ask for the man to Identify himself, and that none of the man’s constitutional rights were violated given the circumstances.
Now, compare that to when I was stopped by the police a while back for being a suspected terrorist. (that’s the reason the policeman gave me… “we have stepped up anti-terrorism efforts) I had just walked out of the station and was unlocking my bike. I didn’t talk to anyone, didn’t make eye-contact with anyone, didn’t bump anyone (so I know noone went to the police to compain about me) and he just came over and asked for my ID. I gave it to him without resisting of course, but I also gave them #### for stopping me with no reason. Then another guy I don’t know came by and started yelling at the policeman about how stupid it was and he is embarrased to be Japanese. Then the policemans boss came out, told him to give me my ID back, and that was about it… Now that was an un-called for stop if I ever saw one.
I haven’t read the case, but from what your first commenter wrote it sounds to me like this was a cut and dry Terry stop. Under the precedent setting Supreme Court case of Terry v. Ohio and a police officer can ask an individual to produce identification, and even perform a brief pat-down search strictly for weapons when he has reasonable suspicion to believe that the person has been involved in the commission of a crime. The officer may also briefly detain the individual in question. What exactly gives an officer “reasonable suspicion” is quite a ticklish question and to my knowledge the court has never given a cut-and-dry definition of this. So although this may seem to be, and may in fact be an erosion of privacy, this isn’t a new development unless this case expands upon the previous scope of the terry stop. Hope this helps. For more info try and search for Terry v. Ohio on http://www.findlaw.com
-John
Oh what a glorious day! A day like today makes me wish for more and more days off. The things I could get accomplished if I only didn’t have to go to that stupid job…............Yeah, I know…......more like “the bookworm games I could play, the books I could read, and lots of other ways to waste my time.” But it is a good thought.
Johnny came home for the weekend, and that always brings a little color and delight into my life, even if I do have to feed him! He brought his dad home a birthday present; Surround Sound. Its a very basic one with speakers to set around the room. He and his dad also were able to figure out how to put Johnny’s nicer-than-ours TV in our living room; we hadn’t been sure it would fit. That all led to displacing things from shelves and counters, so today Johnny lit a fire under his dad. They have spent the afternoon cutting lumber into boards on UDad’s WoodMizer Sawmill and are now planing the boards to make them nice and smooth. Tomorrow, they will make them into media shelves to hold our abundance of CD’s, DVD’s and VHS vidoes. Which is going to mean more more displacing of stuff, but it will be terrific. WHat did I do? Well, I played a little bookworm, went for a walk and am making a terrific dinner.
UltraMom
I witnessed something interesting yesterday in the animal kingdom. I was involved in one of my favorite activities; one that I indulge in way too seldom: reading and dozing outdoors in my hammock. I lay there in twilight slumber having just lain my novel aside and threads of book-plot were winding through nascent dreams. ( Wow, what a cool sentence!) Anyway, I was suddenly brought wide awake by the loud, insistent howling of a cat. We have about 15-20 outdoor cats (including all the kittens), but there was no mistaking that yowl; it was Tree Cat.
Tree Cat is a very strange feline; he is a gray&white, short, stocky tomcat with only half a tail and a very wide head. When he first arrived about 5 years ago, he was afraid of everything and took up residence in one of the trees in our yard and refused to come down. We even put a platform up there with food and water for him. He did EVERYTHING from that tree, as Jim found out to his dismay when he happened to walk under it when Tree Cat was…......um…......shall we say “taking a leak”? Several times a day, Sparky and/or Toby, neutered house tomcats, would climb the tree to intimidate and beat up on the scaredy-cat. Sometimes we had to spray them with the hose to stop the fights.
Well, I don’t know what did it, but about 2 years ago, we realized that Tree Cat was more and more coming “out”. Of the tree, that is. When he spotted us, he would quickly climb up again and meow pitifully as if to say “I’m scared. Feed me up here.” But we wouldn’t fall for that old trick more than 50 times or so, so he is now an ordinary all terrain cat. The name, however, stuck.
When he got his courage, he also became…...um…...more assertive with the “ladies.” I know that many of these kittens call him “Dad”. And so he came strolling into the yard, emitting that distinctive plaintive yowl. Immediately, one of the little mother cats, left her babies and ran to meet him. She had to follow him for a while as he scurried aimlessly about, but finally he settled on the steps next to the house, and she rubbed heads with him and proceeded to lick his head. He gave her a few licks back, but seemed to mostly take it as his due. One of the kittens followed its mom, and curiously sniffed Tree Cat, and got his little ears boxed by his (most likely) grouchy Dad. The mother cat totally ignored her little offspring. She seemed totally aborbed in ministering to ugly, whiny TreeCat.
It’s always a temptation to indulge in a little anthropomorphism, but it looked for all the world to me like a potentate calling for his “harem” and telling the annoying kid to get lost. And she seemed like the downtrodden woman who falls for the guys who are “no good”. You know, like that song from Showboat “Can’t help Loving That Man of Mine…Tell me he’s lazy, tell me’s slow, tell me I’m crazy maybe I know”.....Hmm….........wonder if that will be part of my dream tonight?
UltraMom
I know why tree cat became more brave, it was in fact because of being more assertive with the ladies. Ever since me and Jim saw him and his lady friend “communing” in the horse pasture he has been a whole new man/cat
Best Post Ever!
It looks like a cold, rainy day today; quite a contrast to the warm, fair day of yesterday. Of course we will expect the obligatory wind, and hopefully the rain will fall instead of just looking immanent all day.
Today is UltraDad’s birthday, so lets all wish him birthday felicitations and many happy returns, etc. My genius son (yes Ultra, I’m talking about you) wished ME a happy birthday. Seems he can’t remember in his 27 years of life that Dad’s birthday is in June and mine in July. I’m offended and huffy. May forgive if the gift he has been tantilizing me with arrives in the next few months…..........
UltraDad has always remained uncomprehendingly (to me) unaware and unconcerned with his special day. One the other hand, I start reminding people a couple of months early. No need to have someone feel badly cause they forget my birthday, eh? When I met him he was 25 years old and had a hard time coming up with the exact date of his birth when pressed. Since then, his wife and children have often “surprised” him with a small family birthday party. It was always so gratifying to see the disbelief on his face when, after lunch we would haul out a cake and gifts and lustily sing the “Birthday Song.” We would have to lead him to the Howe PTO (school parent teacher organization) calendar where all the community birthdays are listed just to prove that we weren’t making it up. In later years, he started making an effort to remember, sometimes spoiling our surprise, but that was okay too.
I could have totally pulled it off again this year however. I didn’t realize that he had dropped back into the birthday twilight zone, so casually mentioned it last night and saw that familiar “are you sure?” look about his face. Of course he has been preoccupied lately. He has been job hunting (not a fun thing at all) and not being as yet successful. It wouldn’t have been that much fun anyway with only me to celebrate with. He really doesn’t care, but I will make it a point to celebrate in some fashion. Maybe rent a movie to watch tonight? Try to think of something special for dinner? I already have the cake in the oven.
Well, I’ve gotta go get ready for work; I’ve got the day to think about how to make the evening special. Hey, it would be kind of cool if you all sent Birthday wishes. He never reads the website, but he will make an exception if I lead him to it. How about it, UltraReaders?
Happy Birthday, UltraSweetheart.
UltraMom
New weightwatcher recipe that is surprisingly good: Mix one cake mix with one can of diet soda, put in cake pan (greased and floured) and bake per directions. Top with fat free cool whip.Happy Birthday UltraDad!
Hmmm, I sent a trackback, but it doesn’t seem to be showing up here. I wrote a Happy Birthday message too.
Great post, Ultra. I printed it off for Dad, along with my birthday post, and I think it really made his day. Johnny also read both and proclaimed yours the winner. I especially enjoyed your retelling of the “Rocky” Window breaking incident;;; I remember how amazed I was that you had the idea of punching a pillow braced against a window. I guess I just don’t understand the effects of Rocky-induced endorphins.
Love,
UltraMom
Johnny’s a clever little dickens sometimes, however I have to give you credit. Ophelia is the perfect name for a hummingbird moth. In fact according to the 2003 insect census it turns out that Ophelia is by far the most popular name for pupae of the hummingbird moth species, both male and female.
And here I thought I was being so original! I’m getting better at editing posts. At first I wrote that Johnny had named the bug Jose, but when I talked to him last night, he said “Do you mean “Pedro”? in that rather annoyingly superior tone of his. So I went in with a “find-replace” and voila! All the Joses were changed to Pedros!
Honestly, I don’t know sometimes which is worst; my memory or the “I can’t believe you don’t remember that” attitude of some people’s children.