The perils of kicking it up a notch

A few days ago I boosted my player level to "Intermediate." I figured after 20 years, it was time.
I just had myself WHOMPED in multiple consecutive games of Reversi.
"There wasn't no way."
My opponent knew something I do not know and I failed to learn from his or her unerring mastery of the game.
WHAT does that person know that I don't???!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I wish so much that I knew something about my opponents.
Who was that?!!!
What would they trade for the knowledge they have?
You should have seen it. Incredibly artful. Deliciously painful. Chagrin, chagrin, chagrin.
Ouch!
If would be so fabulous to be able to know who I was playing.
There's no way to know anything about them except what language there computer is set for and if they are impatient or not.
But male, female, young, old... there's no telling. And you cannot communicate beyond the limited choices of some preset comments. Neither cajole nor torment.
Now there is another trick I have to learn, another secret to unlock. How many more years 'til I figure this one out???!!!
Ohhh. GRRRRRR. The game is so aggravating. I love it!

fuel economy

At 10 years old, my car is averaging between 28.6 and 30.9 miles to the gallon, depending on how I drive, how much cargo I have, tire inflation, how recently I've had service.

This year, car makers are bragging about fabulous fuel economies of 17 to 27 mpg.
Naw, I don't think so. That's so ten years ago.

The Zap! SmartCar (electric) gets 40 mpg. (Zap stands for "Zero Air Pollution.")
The Toyota Prius gets about 45, and more if you drive the speed limit everywhere you go.

All I want to say is that our automakers are capable of producing vehicles with greater fuel economy right now. They just aren't.

You don't have to take my word for it. Check out www dot fueleconomy dot gov to see what sucky gas mileage our cars are getting. It's a shame and it's a sham.

There's no excuse for every car in America to not be getting a minimum of 30 mpg.

We have the technology to get 60, even 80 miles to the gallon.
But we steadfastly refuse to employ it. Drive by our local Ford dealership, witness the plethora of big, honking trucks and ask yourself how they can be so blind to the price of gas and all the sinister Bushian skullduggery of the past two-plus decades.

You'd think we'd be wising up.

'fraid not.

Why not?

fair and/or equal

People close to me sent their two children to a "special" school because one of them had learning difficulties.
The other child was quite bright but was sent along to the same school because it wouldn't be "fair" otherwise.

Now, one of their grandchildren has some problems and the child's sibling also attends a "special" school in the name of fairness.

I don't believe it's fair to keep a child from having access to that which can help her or him reach their full potential just because their sibling may not have the same abilities.

Holding one back so as not to hurt the other... Who knew? Sometimes equality is not fair.

The nearness of spring

I can't believe it's happening so fast.
Joey's grandmother, the woman I made sure I slipped the right card onto the discard deck for, is taking her leave. My unvanquished Canasta foe.
I want to tell her it's okay; I'll take care of Joey now.

Mmmmm!

One day last week I was outside of the building I work in, walking back from the CVS across the parking lot when I caught the sunset.
The blazing orange of the sunset was mellowed by such a luscious purple which also wove pinks and blues and and red and yellow and white I could almost taste it.
It was so gorgeous I would have to say it was uncaptureable, but I would have to say the only comparison I can make is that it was rather like the color of a bruise. We don't tend to think of bruises as beautiful, though.

The next night, I sat at the kitchen counter at Joey's parents' house and something so delightful and rich was gently fragrancing the kitchen but I had no idea what it was. It smelled like that deep, rich sunset color.

Then Joey's mother took a glass dish full of plaintains out of the oven. Oh! It's unearthly!

I did not know...

... that if you post a link in the "Link:" field under the "Title": field that it makes your title bar into a link to the thing you're linking to.
How'd I miss that?

(Don't know what I mean? Go to the entry entitled "accepted" and click on the title. Wizard!)

accepted

I came out to my father 15 years before he ever said that he accepted me.

I had kissed a girl who came to freshman weekend at my college. Afterward we wrote back and forth and her father found a letter and called my father.
Hell, I hadn't thought to ask the age of the gal who followed me to my room one evening because she was attracted to my "energy." She landed the first kiss.

So my father and I sat down and he said that if I was gay, he'd be disappointed but he would still love me.

Flash forward to a bad relationship with a lying, stalker-type gal I'd met online. She was the first lesbian I had met since I left school to care for my mother about nine years earlier. After I broke up with her, it turned nasty, with her calling me at 1,2,3,4 a.m. I unplugged my phone at night in order to get some sleep.

One evening, shortly afterward, my father called me, "Are you okay?, he asked.
"Sure Dad, I'm fine."

He called back a few minutes later and asked again.
"Why do you ask, Dad? What's going on?" He told me that the woman had called my Dad's house and left a very explicit message about our sexual relationship on his answering machine.
He said, "Is she trying to blackmail you? She can't. You told me years ago and I love you. No one can hurt you."

Wow. It took that long for him to say anything more about it. That crazy woman was a nightmare but what her behavior led to was every child's dream; a parent's expression of love, acceptance and protection.

It really is a shame that she turned out to be a bad egg, because she was fabulous....