Posted By Kathleen David on March 2, 2019

When we got up this morning there was about two inches of snow on the ground. I grabbed a shovel and got the walkway and the driveway clear.  The village did their job and got the streets clean.

By the time we went out, it was just damp streets as long as you keep on the main paths.

This evening there is a freeze warning.

We watched “What We Do in Shadows”. This is Peter’s introduction to it since FX is going to do a series based on the film. It was my introduction Taiki Waititi who directed Thor: Ragnarok. It is an insane ‘documentary’ about vampires in the modern day.

We have more snow on the way. I am hoping it will be more of a miss than a hit. Peter has places to be.

I am grateful for family activities.

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Posted By Kathleen David on March 1, 2019

In the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, after the Earth is destroyed, Arthur spends a lot of time trying to get a decent cup of tea. One of the machines he tries is the Nutri-Matic Drink Dispenser, which had provided him with a plastic cup filled with a liquid that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea. After an argument with the Drink Dispenser he has an argument with the air system and the vibrating floor. He tries to explain why he wants a cup of tea to the machines that are just not getting it. They ask him, “Then why did you build all of us?”

We don’t have a digital assistant in our house. We cannot talk to our security system. Our fridge does not make us a shopping list or what the weather is outside or tell us our weight to seven decimal places. Our Amazon firestick does not have an audio component. I can’t tell my car to unlock or turn itself on.

I don’t need my house to be listening to me. Gathering data from my conversations with my husband. I know my iPhone and iPad is doing just fine in that department with the various apps that are aware of where I am when.

I know that using my Stop and Shop card to get a price gun so I can shop faster gives Stop and Shop permission to know what I bought. My reward is money off of gas and some really great coupons that are geared to what I buy. The same for my CVS rewards card along with any other reward card I have in my wallet or attached to my phone number.

I am willing to be a data point but I am not willing to give Carte blanch to be listened to 24/7. My concerns are not from the legal uses that one agrees to before one can use their new digital assistant, but from the illegal uses between the data breaches that have happened to just about every company to individual hacks to listen in on my life. I think I should write a murder mystery that happens because of someone listening in with the digital assistant. I expect to see this one of the many procedural shows any day now. Think about the lock door scenario when you have digital locks. Or a private investigator using the digital assistant to give proof of infidelity or grounds for divorce.

Your digital ‘fingerprint’ follows you through out your life. We have discovered that from all the things that people have put out on the Internet that have come back to haunt them.

I don’t need more data about me out there then there already is.

Also we are just starting to hear about the weird things that happen when you have something listening to you 24/7. Amazon made a joke out of it with the dog ordering food and Harrison Ford trying to cancel the order. But think about that for a moment. You say casually that you want to buy something but you were really just kidding only to find that your digital assistant was listening and ordered it for you. Then there was the evil laugh situation, which was just scary.

I rarely use Siri on my iPhone or iPad. Caroline and Peter are very comfortable with it. I did teach Caroline that she could get her phone to tell her what song was playing which she found fascinating.

I am fine right now with my digital footprint. I am fine with people digging into my past online because anything I have said here I would say in public. I am less fine in the thought of being listened to 24/7. I really don’t want to have to monitor my mouth/behavior that much.

I am grateful for my digital devices that aren’t listening to me.

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Posted By Kathleen David on February 28, 2019

Tomorrow it will be March 2019. 2 down and 10 to go.

The snow turned to freezing rain to rain during the night. I could see snow on the driveway and sidewalk but not the grass. It was a wee bit slippery to walk on. Now the temperature has risen and it has all melted except in a few spots.

Winter is here and the winds are cutting but it is much milder than last winter. It leaves me wondering what is down the road.

Not much else to say. Very broken night’s sleep leaves me with fuzzy eyes and brain that, even after coffee, is not firing on all cylinders. I wonder what the metaphor was before we had the combustion engine.

We did well in our bowling league yesterday. I shot three games within a stick of each other but not in order so it is not a stepladder. All three were over my average and I am happy about that.

One foot in front of the other and avoid tripping is my motto today.

I am grateful for finally getting a plastic ball to roll spares with. It has really helped my average.

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Posted By Kathleen David on February 27, 2019

Recently they have been using the ‘classic’ ads from Geico and asking people to vote on their favorite. They have also put a smattering of new commercials with popular characters like the caveman and Maxwell the pig. I had forgotten how annoying hump day could be but it is stuck in my head every Wednesday now.

Recycling this week is paper and I had a lot of it since we had rain or we were not around for about a month of paper collection. I broke down the boxes and consolidated paper to a very compact but heavy larger box. Next week is plastics. I liked it better when it was all in one and we could get rid of glass.

Mewlan has taken to falling asleep on black material and vanishing. I walked right by her this morning looking for her and only saw her when she opened her eyes. Our running gag is that she actually goes into a pocket dimension to sleep.

I have things to do today. I changed my priorities after I knocked over a second glass of water due to hand spasms and dropped my iPad. Thank goodness for the protective cover and the couch it bounced on. So not a good hand day. Breakable objects are a no-no even if I am being very carefully. It’s OK I needed to do laundry.

We are expecting snow tonight but less than an inch. I have everything ready.

Which is harder to do than one would think when they are redoing the Stop and Shop I shop at so they are tight on space until they get the floor redone. My concern about the new floor is that I have slipped on it twice. If there is liquid on it, the floor is going to be a hazard. I told the manager I know there about my concerns, which she shared as well. However this is not the final ‘treatment’ for the floor so no one knows what the final product is going to be.

The lack of an Oxford comma in legal paperwork can cost a company quite a bit. In this case it cost a food distributer about 10 million dollars. We may not have to use it in common writing but it is very important in legal documents.

I am grateful for pocket dimensions. 

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Posted By Kathleen David on February 26, 2019

Plus ca change plus c’est la meme chose-Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr

 

There are changes coming to a number of art shows that I have shown at in the past. For some it is new directors and for others it is new rules about what will and will not be allowed.

 

I think in the end that things will shake back to just about where they are now.

 

I am not happy with 3-M and their redesigned Foam adhesive which I have to relearn how long I have to wait before putting the foam parts of the puppet together. Also the amount of time I have between the glue tacking up and the glue no longer sticking is much shorter than it has ever been. My sweet spot has gone from about 5 minutes to at most 2 and a half before I have to start all over again.  Also humidity and temperature are more of a factor then they had been.

 

Also the fleece I have been using for years has changed recently. It may be a new mill making it or a new combination of thread or a new chemical mix for the dying process. Whatever it is, the fabric feels ‘wrong’ and I have had to change my seams slightly to accomidate the fabric.

 

I have gotten to the point on some of this that I don’t even used pins anymore. I know how it goes together but there are points that I use pins to get it just so consistently. Caroline asked how long she would have to sew to be able to do that. I told her many years of practice. But with my hands not cooperating the way that they did, I am finding that I am using pins more to stabilize what I am working on.

 

Some things have gotten easier. I use to have to construct any lights I wanted to use with a puppet. Now there are all kinds of lights for various things that run on very small battery packs making it even easier to use them on and in puppets. I am still having an issue of getting the color to do what I want. EL wire is an entire other world of possibilites and then there are the fabrics you can use with electricity which are coming down in price.

 

I like that it is getting easier for people who want to make their own costumes especially based on Anime characters. Patterns that had to be drafted by hand are for sale in one’s local fabric store. I will say that I am not thrilled with the instruction sheets I have seen. More than one has had the sewing equivilent of “and then the magic happens” and you have to go online to sort out what they are talking about. Maybe if there was a glossary for new seamtresses along with how to do various techniques or a book or something. Also can we stop renaming some of the basics techniques?

 

The print on demand fabrics has made life easier but it is pricey. I enjoy the thrill of the hunt of the fabric that I need to make something to look just so. My skills to create the fabric I need for the puppets has improved over the years thanks to a lot of practice and new materials I can use to create my textile. Also trims and ribbons have gotten much more complex over the years but others that made my life easier have vanished.

 

I am grateful for materials I can count on.

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