Happy Birthday, Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes was born today in 1902 in Joplin, Missouri.

Google has done a beautiful doodle for the day (good job on putting it ahead of The Big Game) and if you’d like to know more about his life, the Academy of American Poets has a good writeup.

I dream a world where man
No other man will scorn,
Where love will bless the earth
And peace its paths adorn
I dream a world where all
Will know sweet freedom’s way,
Where greed no longer saps the soul
Nor avarice blights our day.
A world I dream where black or white,
Whatever race you be,
Will share the bounties of the earth
And every man is free,
Where wretchedness will hang its head
And joy, like a pearl,
Attends the needs of all mankind-
Of such I dream, my world!
– Langston Hughes, I Dream A World

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Lord help me, I read the comments…

I know, I know – never read the comments on the internet.  Our local radio news station just posted an article on Facebook about someone who used to live here and is now wanted by the FBI on terrorism charges.  He used to be a taxi driver.  Even though the poster that goes with the article states that he is believed to have left the country 2 1/2 years ago, I understand why they would post it – perhaps someone in the area may know where he is.  I made the grievous error of reading the Facebook comments…  I feel I should make it clear – these are not my friends – these are just people who responded to WTOP’s post.

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I guess no one has told Robert that King Barry passed away last fall.
Oh, Sandy.  Such wit.
I don’t even know what Richard is talking about.
I wonder what Alan thinks of Ron White’s “Tater Salad” alias.
Mike is still trying to explain to his parents what an UBER brand ambassador does.
I’m guessing Joe also doesn’t understand why people protest, either.
David must be fun at parties.
I’m not sure if Doug means that taxi drivers are terrorists, or terrorists are taxi drivers.
Neither Jon nor Dominique seem to have caught the “left the country” part.
In 6 months, I think we’ll hear about Mark shooting himself in the foot while cleaning his gun.

God, my head hurts.

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Grace Hopper Documentary comes out today!

The Queen of Code.

If you’ve never heard of Grace Hopper, she was a brilliant programmer and a Commodore in the US Navy.  This documentary is long overdue.

I will never forget seeing an interview that 60 Minutes did with her in 1983 – I was 11 and I was just blown away to see this woman doing a job that I really had only seen men do in my short lifetime.  (Representation matters!)  She is the reason that I know how long a nanosecond is – it’s a weird takeaway, but I will never forget it.

It’s easy to think of women in programming being a relatively “new” thing – but it isn’t, and we need to remember that the ladies have been there for a long time.

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Finally did it – Patreon.com

You can check out my page at http://patreon.com/cafechatnoir

Wish me luck!

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Hurrah for kind neighbors with snowblowers!

We only ended up getting a couple inches of snow – not too hard to shovel, but lets face it, shoveling snow absolutely sucks.  Now, I was up way too late last night, because I had to keep looking at the snow, because I am also 12.

Woke up this morning, heard people moving around outside and realized I should probably get up and go be a good neighbor and clear my walks.  Nooooooooo.  Looked outside and saw my wonderful neighbor with his snowblower clearing my walks!!!

Slept a little more and then made gingerbread for my neighbors.  Sure, I hate shoveling and I will totally let someone else do it – but they will get baked goods in return.  I’m not a 100% lazy git.

But I am so happy and lucky that I have neighbors who are the nicest people on the planet, have a snowblower – and love using it. :)

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I am so glad I don’t live any farther north than I do.

Because it looks like y’all are about to get your butts handed to you by Mother Nature.

Right now we’ve just got rain that should be changing over to snow shortly, probably topping out at about 3 inches.  Which is nothing for NY, but you know it’s gonna completely screw things up here.

And I succumbed to panic shopping today…  But not milk, bread and toilet paper.  We already had those.  What we did not have was snack food.  Boy howdy do we have snack food now.

To my friends & followers up north – stay warm and safe.

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Please use the word “football”

I have SportsCenter on my daily TiVo schedule.  At other times, if there is nothing else on TV, I usually have ESPN on in the background.

That being said – I AM REALLY TIRED OF LISTENING TO BRADY AND BELICHICK TALKING ABOUT HOW THEY LIKE THIER BALLS.

Seriously, I keep vacillating between “Ewwwwh, TMI” and nearly snorting coffee up my nose.

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It’s been that kind of a day…

If I’d read my horoscope first thing this morning, I might have just gone back to bed.  The first line was: Instinctively you’re able to deal with any situation or crisis talks.  Honestly, I didn’t want to deal with any situations today…

But, there were things to be done.  Went to vet to get cat food.  Got overcharged for said cat food by accident.  Braved the market next door before a “winter weather event” for milk.  Got call from vet saying, “We overcharged you!  Are you still at the market?  Come back and we’ll fix it!”

Put groceries in car.  Discover flat tire.  Call AAA.  Get money back from vet.  Call brother to come pick up groceries.  Get tire swapped out.  (AAA was 10 minutes away.)  Give AAA guy big hug.  All while the sleet has started coming down in earnest.  Go to shop to drop off tire – discover it is flat due to bent rim, and being aluminum, the rim cannot simply be banged back into shape.  Whoever is in charge of hunting down replacement rims is not in until Monday.

But I am home, I am dry, and I have have coffee.  The interwebs show me a dizzying array of replacement rims that aren’t exorbitantly expensive, so I have faith that the shop can find one.  (Or tell me the exact specs to look for so I can find one myself.)  The cats have their food.  And I didn’t even have to put the groceries away.

But Universe – no situations tomorrow, OK?

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Snow Day!

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Well, at least I’m getting *something* right…

So, today we went off to the vet for the AwesomeDog’s annual checkup.  I was already feeling a bit fail-tastic because it should have been November/December, but I blinked and it was January.  And then I found a tick on his head last night and couldn’t get him to sit still long enough to get it off.  Yay, here is my two months late, tick-laden dog…

1.  The tick wasn’t a tick, but an benign eldery dog bump.  Don’t even have to have it removed – we can, but no reason to actually put him through the procedure since it isn’t causing problems.  (Yes, I did apologize to the dog, because obviously *he* knew he didn’t have a tick on his head, and that I shouldn’t try to pull it off.)
2.  He could stand to lose a pound to a pound and a half.  But, being a smaller dog, that “ideal zone” is pretty narrow – and the vet recognizes it’s a challenge.
3.  Somewhat diminished hearing and wee bit of eye clouding that are are normal for his age.
4.  His tail wagging is not in sync with his heart rate, which makes it extra challenging for the vet to check his heart rate when the tail is whacking the vet’s arm as he tries to do his job.  (I didn’t help, as I was holding the dog and watching his tail and watching the vet try to count and look at his watch and found it very hard not to laugh.)

The vet said, “You’d never know his age from looking at him.” and “Keep doing what you’re doing.”

I had to go look at his last vaccine cert for his age – he’s ~15 years old.  (In my mind, he’s always 5-8 years old.)  I think the cats are keeping him young.

I can’t remember the last time “Keep doing what you’re doing” actually applied to me.  And after Lily being sick year before last, and Carmen being sick last year – this is good.  :)

Here’s an older pic of him right after a rainstorm.  He doesn’t look much different now, except dry.  (I tried to get a pic tonight, but he sees the cell phone and goes, “No paparazzi!!” and turns away.)

A soggy AwesomeDog

A soggy AwesomeDog

 

Holiday Hairdo

Holiday Hairdo

The early days with the girls

When the cats were still kittens

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