What the Internet Is to Me

Last night I could not get to sleep, so I was thinking about things....everything from what color to paint the floor to why many of my relatives are so crappy. I then drifted to the "community" I have on the internet. I am mostly at G+ and breeze into FB to check things out. I shop online, bank, get my news and weather, socialize and more. So the internet is where I live.
I am new to this physical area and there is no real "life" in these small communities where everyone was born and grew up here. To me this is not a virtual world since I am not different online than in person. And all of those I socialize with are real people. I have not hidden here. I am open and honest with my views and I am willing to change my mind when I am wrong during debates and conversations. I do know not everyone is as I am.... open and honest, but I get a feeling that those I socialize with the most are more like me than hidden psychos/slashers-stalkers.
So the old life of going to work and to other social places to meet and visit with people is not an option and it really no longer exists here anymore. To be new to an area is not easy, but with the internet I can bring everyone and all the things I do with me. I can share the new adventure with those I feel like I know. I am not too close to blood relatives and there are no old friends looking me up on the net from my long ago past. SO here is the best I can do. And that is great! I am older yet still young feeling I am not ones mother(except cats) no one's grandma so I am still learning and doing new things at my advanced old age. I will grow old gracefully and on the net since this is where life is now.
This is a wonderful invention and a scary place to be but it is all there is now. And I am OK with that.

Death Comes to Us All

Death will come to all of us. Anything that exists will cease to be at some point in time. Humans and the non-human people of our planet will all die. As will plants and anything that lives. All Dies.
I am the keeper of the Elderly of my family at this time. The Old Ones include cats and an Aunt and myself although I am not yet in the elderly category.

This new century has seen many deaths.
Most of them were murders by governments desiring to kill others in make believe wars. These people like to kill others since they can not imagine that life is sacred.

I am writing about those loved ones who have died of old age or disease. Most I have known die too early and it is such a tragedy to see the young die. Then it is the elderly who must depart this world for parts unknown. I do not have any first hand knowledge of anything after this life. And I will leave that as is.
Now at this moment a very nice cat is leaving this world. K3. He is a champagne blond circle stripe cat. He came to live with us in 2005... already an old cat. He was a nice cat although hated taking medicine. He was born in Texas and will die in Maine. We all moved to Maine over a year ago. He has been happy, well fed, and has had a lap anytime he wanted one. He dies now.

K3 told me a few days ago he was planning to leave. He sat with me for a long time and then got up and wondered around the house sleeping in all his favorite places…. bathroom sink, shelf in the bathroom, in the bay window of the day room, under the sofa on the sofa, under the chair and stretched out on the floor in the sun. I looked for him this morning and he came out when I sat in my chair. I held him for about 45 minutes and then he wanted off to the floor. Death is not sudden for many.

Each of us will take what time we need to pass over the Rim of the Known to the Unknown. We have known cockroaches who have taken days for the life to leave their tiny bodies. Some people roll over and are gone before we realize they were going. Most are in between.

Some time ago we abandon the Vet Put Down when we realized the Vets we had were just looking for income not real care for our babies. We felt ashamed at using their euthanasia, their coldness towards our grief. Like human doctors many now go into the business for the big bucks they can make off the suffering of others. Our animal companions are treated like the Humans now….a cash making machine.

So that is why I care for the dying at home. I am there to comfort, their brothers and sisters can see them and understand why they do not get up. Too many times I had cats meow for the lost ones who died at the vets and never came home. Now they can say their goodbyes and know where they have gone.
I will dig a grave in my new grave yard already with two elderly babies who have left us since we arrived in Maine. I am planning proper landscaping for the area where Sherin and Scholar now lay. Where K3 will lay when he is ready.
Death comes to all of us and when our loved ones die they stay in our hearts and rip a piece out of our being. It is the Tapestry of a life becoming unraveled, the multi-lighted sign with the missing bulbs and soon the sign will give more dark than give light as we live longer. It is the coat of many colors with holes that can not be patched and soon will offer no warmth.

I looked up Death Throes and this is not what K3 is doing. He is not suffering but letting the life leave him. He is close by and not alone. His life had value to his family and will be missed. And he will be remembered.
All life should have value, yet we human beings seem to take little interest in real life and relish taking life. We do not mind letting the living suffer, keeping people alive after they should have passed over. We use our science and technology not to make life better for all but to make it easier to kill many.
I watch my little kitty die before my eyes and will not look away from his last moments of being alive. I loved him all the way and I will be with him all the way. He has given me much from just living with me and I owe him my respect.
At 11:15am K3 departed to the next phase of life. He is buried.

An update of my life.

So it is Summer and the last day of July. My first July in Maine. I love it. I have been painting the porch. I also opened the front doors so I can use the small porch for the trash cans. They are closer to the street, fit the space and it is nice to get them off the Big porch so sitting there is a pleasure... like an outdoor cafe. Today the floor of the small porch gets painted and then as weather permits I can finish the details. I can not get a glass door for the double front Tombstone 112 year old door for a price I can afford. So I will get it weather stripped and make a Chinese door quilt for it. I still need to remove the old wooden storm doors. I just need the light and access. The old doors still let in the cold so it will not be a great loss. I love having the exit work and the windows in the dark hall.

The colors were carefully chosen to look warm and pretty in the cold and grey days. So far it has worked. Burgundy and Tea Rose. Girly colors? No! Happy warm colors for an old house. Every house is white except for 3 on this street. My house is white with black shutters. So the Burgundy and Rose are pretty with the ferns, not some puritan colorings of boring and stunted.
I have some easy ideas for decorating this place. The plaster walls do not like even the lightest weight pictures so some of my art needs to be put some where else for now. I live for anachronism so I will have an inside out house. I will have a Christmas tree this year and not worry about the cats! I will show you later on.
So on this the last day of July my life is still interesting. The Old One is fine and enjoying herself. I have Daisy and I love her( she was my daughter in a former life )The sun is out and the clouds are decorative. The breeze full of the ocean.

Now and Then

This new century has not been a good one for me. 13 years into it and I can't see much good has come out of it. I am OK, I own my homes and cars. However I can not find quality products in the stores or online. I am in a new climate and need some warmer clothes. When I can see through the winter weight tee shirts I just bought and then hold them up to my old regular tee shirts I have had since the 1990s then I know quality has plunged down like an avalanche. Sizes of clothes is no longer consistent, I have no idea what size I wear until I buy it and try it on. I have no stores to shop in so it is all catalog and online now. I have shopped these catalogs for decades and even that is not helpful. So sizes are all over the place. Quality has nothing to do with price or label. Even the name of the color is not helpful anymore. So buying clothes is a crap shoot. Buying one or 2 sizes larger than recommended by the instructions is best since 8 times out of 10 they will be too small or too big, But mostly not designed for a human figure but for the neck of Jabba the Hut, the boobs of Dolly Parton and the arms of Olive Oil. Slacks are another area of concern. No more length just about 6 inches too long so it will fit a basket ball player. I guess I could hem them but.....
So clothes are no longer easy to buy from season to season. Warm clothes do not come in sizes over size 14. So I layer layering needs several sizes so one will fit over the other.......

After clothes house hold items are the next on the list of next to useless no matter what the price. A brand name used to mean something but now everything is made in China and most likely by the same companies that are making everything there......

Computers once had a certain cache but now they are all alike except for price. My first new computer was the iMac bondi blue. Had it 10 years. Came with everything needed already on the computer, Easy to run, turn it on and it worked no funny business. Now even Apple is made in China and comes with not much pre-installed even though it is two or three or four times the price of other makes. Apple abandons its products and leaves their owners twisting in the wind (like my G5). Whatever mystique they had of being a fine product is just hype now, all made in China and too expensive for what you do not get now. There is no great easy to use computer out there....I thought there would be by now since all the world is run by computers. If I was not connected to the net and living in the middle of nowhere I would give up on computers however I shop 90% via the computer and have things delivered. From cat sand and food to coffee and flour....so I am hooked on this addictive drug. However even in the stores there is not much of a choice in quality price yes but not much difference from a cheap product and the middle product. I can not afford the high end stuff..that is for the 7% who have all the money.

Groceries have caused the biggest secret hit to the standard of living. Every food and cleaning product has lost contents. There are no quarts or pints and it is not even in metric. We all watched coffee dwindle to 10 ounces to the pound some are 9 and 3/4. Now even a gallon of paint is not a full gallon. Ice cream is not longer a half gallon and few things are sold in pound packages anymore 12 ounces is the new pound. Since no one mentioned the peanut butter going to 15 ounces it was able to slide to 13 and 12 ounces. Cat food lost a full ounce per can and when one is feeding 17 cats that adds up to some one going hungry or more money needed to buy the same amount.
It is not easy to see until you start to read labels and by then it is too late. We are paying more for less. Business is reaping the profits. While we wonder why that was used up so fast or why the pain is not covering the wall.....how can you calculate gallons needed when the paint is no longer in gallons or even metric!
Life is getting weird. I notice these things since I pay attention. Nothing is as it seems anymore and nothing is really better. A new computer is the same price and is not any better when it needs to have more installed to have what it once had already there 17 years ago. The good old days are real and over.... way over... and now it is just a down hill slide. But no one sees this as a problem except me.

Spring Projects

It is nice weather and I need to continue fixing this house. I am on to a small major project. I am creating an office/play room for me and turning the current are used for the office space into a peaceful shrine area. The hall way to nowhere is now the office it is 37 inches wide and 10 feel long. Anyone who knows me knows it is a snug fit. It is DARK since there is a storm door over the front door and all manner of padded stuff to block the the wind since the storm door is a joke. Once I get a real glass door to go over the antique door then some light will get in there. I am painting the downstairs entry hall ( which is the same place BTW) A yellow color called Wildflowers. My BFF loves yellow and I always fell wonderful in her house so I love yellow too. Anything to add some warmth and humanity to that black space of doom. Since I have a whole house of Nellie furniture I need to use it where it fits. I have my mother's old desk which I will paint and make beautiful in the hall office/entry/stairwell place now. It fits at the end of the narrows.

Since the creep who had this house before me cheated and put fake phone jacks and fake electrical outlets all over; I need to get new jacks and outlets. So this "room" has the phone jack and the plug for fax, printer, computer and the like.

However the downstairs almost guest room has outlet and working jack. So I am moving the office into the guestroom. I need to keep the huge heavy ship bed in the room. good thing it is a twin. As soon as I can I paint that oak! I hate the look of OAK. But anyway I need to move the moveables from the hall/office/entry. Then paint the far wall and side walls wildflower. I will move a Chinese looking red and yellow chest of aunties there (it will fit with space); move the Chinese looking black chest of auntie's into the living room where the red chest is now and then the desk will fit in the little room that will be the office and play room. I need to paint that room, too.

It will have 2 wall deep reddish orange-ish and two wall in a color called Mother Earth. Mother Earth will also be in the living room and day room. The Day room also will have the same red on the bay window wall. I have the curtains already and it will look nice. The office will have the same curtains. A silk taupe/ brown/cream-gold plaid..... they are beautiful. The new playroom has sun all day from morning to night is the warmest room and 2 windows and a great view for each window.

I am also starting a new garden hobby indoors..... Terrariums! Auntie has these giant jars and we have cats who munch plants so terrariums are the perfect answer...plants under glass! All the first stuff is ordered and it will be fun.

So the new projects will begin today first cleaning the area out so I can get to the walls it will be an easy
(FLW?) painting job since it is a small area. The cat Buddha is on order, the picture of my saint( FDR) is ready to be hung and the incense is ready to go. As I find other dead people pictures they will go up on the ancestor wall and have their incense too. It will look good.

Kitchen Quest

I have always designed kitchens. I started as a teen when I became interested in interior design. I loved to cook and still do. However my quest has always been for a simple functional kitchen that is not a monument to monument materials and taking up so much space. Over the years I have kept notebooks with the details of what I loved, liked, and hated about every kitchen I saw or lived with. I have clipping from magazines since 1960s on of kitchens. I lived with a refugee kitchen for 5 years and now know what is important and what is useless for me to function in. I do not need a huge stove. I use at the very most two burners and only to boil pasta or the Aunty's eggs. I used to just use the tea kettle for hard cooked eggs, but soft cooked is another story. So all I need is 2 burners (really only one). I do need an oven since I rather bake my own bread. I could try the toaster oven to bake the bread but I have not as yet and have not baked in a few months. I would like an oven that has a side opening door and at a non back breaking height. Bending over to lift something from an oven is hard and dangerous with cats and easy to burn my knees. The racks pull best from the front and then I need to bend over the open door and reach in to pull the rack...NOT designed by anyone who cooks.

The refrigerator is another problem. I hate the one I am forced to use. I can not reach to the back of the 2 top shelves. The pull out bottom freezer is not as handy as I once thought a bottom freezer would be. The french door is a nightmare and I hate the refrigerator over all. Not a handy or useful feature I would keep from it. I do not need a big refrigerator and this one is best for a large family, not me and an Old lady or just the sweetie and me.
so it needs to go.

The sink is a double sink with no useable space larger than a saucer at the bottom. The faucet/tap does not stick out far enough to fill a kettle, nor is the section in the middle useful or appreciated. One sink with a tap that can service a kettle or large pot is desired.

I find I rather use an electric skillet to cook in rather than the open flame of the stove. The open gas flame is a nuisance and I hate the idea of setting the pot holder or cat on fire.

Counter space is just another word for a place to junk up and cats to lay on. The ones I have here looks generous but were installed by a moron and they tilt forward just enough so things can roll off. Plus they are too high. I decent work table will let me do all manner of cooking, bakin, and crafting when the mood strikes me.

So what I want and need is a work counter to plug in the various electric things I want and have....skillet, rice cooker. food processor, crock pot, toaster oven, microwave, coffee pot, tea kettle. However I do not want them all in the same place. I want a coffee/tea area with toaster oven, and microwave to warm my milk for my coffee( Maine is cold and I like warmed milk) maybe a small fridge for the milk butter jam bread.
Then I need an area to wash up the dishes, plug in the skillet, crock pot food processor waffle iron (whatever is needed for the meal in question). A work table can be the eating at table. And a pantry to hold the food, appliances, and dishes. Some drawers for the towels and flatware. One junk drawer and I an set.
Everything thing is big and bigger and biggest.

My room to accommodate all this is also the main entrance to the house so this room must look nice all the time. I have many ideas and am radical enough to do it my way~

Good Enough

I live in my own world of good enough. I am painting my bedroom a deep shade of chocolate brown- over the 112 year old white plaster walls that if I had any real money should be redone. There are a lot of places that are good enough painted since the drapes cover the area up, or a piece of big furniture. The plaster is not smooth but has little dips that are hard and maddening to get the paint into, tiny, tiny little dips; but step 2 feet away and those white spots are gone. So good enough. For the other rooms a different roller head will be used, more nappy, for the texture that can't be seen. If I was like my Mom nothing would ever be done since I do not follow all the steps. I do not do all the prep work and will paint over some dust. I barge right in a do it and it looks good enough for my lifetime.

I really do not care what others think when they buy this house. They will not like the color anyway. The person who had this house before me was not even up to my level of good enough. He was a beef-witted person who had no sense of aesthetics. The rumors about him may be true.

I use the good stuff, wear the fancy stuff and do not save anything anymore for special occasions.....everyday I am alive is a special occasion. I will let the dishes go if I am tired and just go to bed. I will not vacuum now if the weather is rare and the porch is calling me. I do watch the stars and moon and sunrises and sun sets. I even watch the wood rats come and eat at the feeder. If I let the chipmunk and squirrels eat why not the wood rats? I feed the pigeons & starlings along with the more showy birds. They are all my cousins on this earth. I share what I have.

It is Easter tomorrow and even though I am over the religion bit, I like the idea of the Spring festival of flowers, decorated eggs, bunnies, and even the Jesus story is nice. I watched my favorite Jesus story yesterday and may watch it again( Jesus Christ Super Star). I will not dye eggs this year since I need to still get this house up to good enough, but next Spring? I will try. And the eggs I buy are already a nice brown color. The cats( inkee, sherin, & sidney) like a scrambled egg in the morning and I oblige them.

So what else is good enough? Ah that is still yet to be done to that level. But soon this house house will be good enough and look nice. And if a person is welcomed and served something nice and the chat is good is than not Good Enough?