Monthly Archive for November, 2007

Our power went out for the second time in a week. Old Dominion Power had one “wide-spread outage” on Monday, and another one today. I find out exactly when they happen because our alarm system text messages both of us when it loses power. Mr. TE also works at home, so it makes it difficult to do his work.

A slightly cranky Mr. TE text messaged me that it feels like we are living in a third-world country, with the power going out all of the time. I responded that we live in a first-world country with a third-world attitude to power generation. I mean, seriously, how many blackouts like the one in 2003 http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn5038.html do we have to experience before we update the way we generate, distribute, and use electricty? (There is at least one post about this, brewing in my head…)

In light of Mr. TE’s need for computing power, I suggested (via text message) that we should install a portable solar panel in the backyard for such occasions. Mr. TE responded that we should hook up a treadmill for our dog to run on – he’s got a lot of energy of his own. He further suggested that we use the cat as a carrot to keep the dog running. Of course, I immediately got this vision in my head of the dog running on a treadmill in the basement, with the cat suspended from the ceiling, in front of the treadmill. I’m such a bad mom!

I’m not a wine drinker, but I remember the days of boxed wine very well. It seemed like gallery openings in NYC in the late 80s were prime box wine venues. So here we are again, having come full circle.

Part of me thinks its a cool idea, and part of me thinks it’s completely practical (I imagine that the Parmalat-like containers would keep the wine “fresh” longer (through wine is not “fresh” by definition). Another part of me of me is horrified that wine boxes are back – juice boxes for adults? And what about the environmental impact?? I don’t think that packaging is recyclable! No way that’s a good idea.

So I ask you, dear readers: Wine in juice boxes: triumph or travesty?

A very long day with lots of friends and knitting, but not a lot of time for blogging. I’m about to crash, so this is my lame post for the day.

No, I don’t mean that Tippy is stinky (though he’s probably due for a bath soon). I was actually thinking about what it must be like to live by your nose.

I have a really sensitive nose, for a human. I often smell things that other people don’t, or I smell them way before anyone else does. The human sense of smell is strongly linked to memory. I’m not going to go into all of the science-y stuff about it, but there’s plenty of information out there about it. As I’m writing this, and drinking grape juice (and seltzer!) and remembering my grandmother. She had a grape arbor in the backyard and used to make me grape juice. But I don’t live by my nose.

As I was walking Tippy tonight, I was watching him snuffle through the grass and shrubs I was thinking about what it would be like to be a dog. A dog’s nose is something like a dog GPS unit… he can track where he’s been and where other dogs have been. He makes mental maps of smells. I wonder what it’s like to see the world and smell the world, and have the smell mean that I’ve been here and I’m supposed to go in the other direction – toward the other smell(s). My mind reels at what we might be able to do!