More Old (2010) Guilt - May

(Two old log entries.)  5/15/10

I did a burn today in the back yard.  E tells me they’re illegal, and he may be right.  This burn burns guilt, though, so it's happening.  The back yard has been unusable for years.  Neither K nor I keep up with the dogs.  And the last time the kids went through the stuff stored in the garage, they made a big pile of boxes of discardable stuff.  It’s been here, in the middle of the back yard, weathering and decomposing for more than a year. 

I feel that I should have put my foot down about that.  Also I’m discovering some of my stuff in the boxes as they spill their weakening guts onto the oak leaf and twig litter and the decaying tarps that were spread out to form a sorting area many moons ago.  (Note from November 2011 - the tarps went, too.)

The bible that Great Aunt Ella gave me was mildewed enough to be essentially one thick page.  I burned it.  I don’t feel as guilty about that as about the rubbermaid leftover containers that have recently been exposed. 

And I ought to be angry.  K keeps saying that she can’t work in the yard “because it’s hopeless”.  The oak trees constantly drop leaves and twigs.  Big fucking deal.  That’s like complaining that the grass keeps growing or, in this yard's case, the weeds and foxtails.  The yard was weeds when I bought the house and I’ve never managed to get it seeded in actual grass, although I did buy seed at one point. 

The sprinkler system does not work.  Eric is pushing for concreting over the back.  I’m not really happy with that. 

5/16/10

I could feel guilty about not reading through this list before adding to it – but I’m going to give that a miss.

I went through the closet and brought out some old ¾ inch video masters to be guilty about getting rid of.  And I found some half inch VHS tapes of two Windy Meads Shire Pas d’Armes.  One of them was the memorial to Lance.  I’m trying to decide who to turn those over to and/or who to announce them to.  (I think they went to AJ)

The ¾ tapes are of a Steiff (possibly misspelled) display from the Design Department at UCD years ago.  I don’t have access to any equipment that could edit them, even if I did have the time to edit them and the access to play the results. 

They’re going to go.  Two tapes full of cute stuffed bears and other animals.  Bye bye. 

More Old (2010) Guilt - March 6, 2010

(Looking at this log, I suspect that the entries will start to be longer and longer apart.)

Should I feel guilty that it’s been so long since I wrote here?  I think I’ll skip that.  Although I haven’t mentioned getting the Platinum Family Tree Maker with the six months of Ancestry dot com.  That makes me feel less guilty, even though I’ve only spent two days with it so far, and that is another opportunity for guilt.  Not taking that one, yet, though.

Found  the following quote on Emory’s website.  “Fear operates all the time in the financial markets, Gregory Berns, director of the Emory Center for Neuropolicy, told PBS Nightly Business Report. The herd mentality, or the idea that other people know more than you do, is “extremely potent, extremely hard to resist,” he says..”

I could do something with that. Dad was always railing about people being sheep.  This is a different way of looking at the same thing.  Without the bitter reproach. 

I may keep the silver serving spoons written about above.  (Last post.) Just because extra serving spoons can be handy.  I’ll use them for pot lucks and places where I don’t care if they get hurt or come back.

Oooo.  Guilt over Dad’s Ranting.  Here’s some videos regarding the quote above.  The relate rather well to his “People are Sheep” rant.  (Extended Interview with Dr. Gregory Berns of Fear and Finances.)

6/14/2016

The link above no longer works.  Who Dr. Gregory Berns is can be found here:  .

This is a transcript of a very short interview with him.  And here is a speech he gave that's on YouTube.  One of those links will probably last for at least a few years.

February 15, 2010 Monday

(Still from the old log)

I am seeking comments from E and K on “the silverware”.  This is not Mom’s silverware, which is a complete set in a nice box.  This is five pieces of unmatched silver-plate that Aunt D was storing, all wrapped up in a drawer.  I have no idea if any of it ever belonged to anyone.  If it used to be Grandma L’s, then Uncle L would have taken it up to Aunt D to look after.  I’m going to have to decide whether to use any of it or to keep any of it. 

They are the following (with markings):

A scalloped large serving spoon with scrolling where the bowl attaches to the stem, and raised dots along the outside of the stem. (Rockford S.P.C 0.5  then a star – small enough that I had to get E to read it – and he had to take off his glasses).  The silver plate has worn off of the ridges in the scallops and gouges in the bowl.

A scratched and stained butter knife (Tudor plate Oneida Community).

A slotted, scalloped, scrolled small spoon (sugar spoon?) National double tested Silverplate.  

A matching spoon and fork serving set, with no decoration except on the stem ((eagle?) Wm Rogers (star), with an I S separately).  They are scratched, stained and may have worn through the plate in places. 

Eric just shakes his head and has no comment.  He says he doesn’t care about it. 

Katie says that I should clean them before I make any decisions.  Her Mom has a bang-up method of cleaning them without scrubbing.  (Looking back from November 2011, I suspect that they got put in the basement for storage.)

Happy Valentine’s Day 2010

(Again, this is from an old log.)  (It's being posted in November 2011.)

I’m feeling guilty about not reading this document before adding to it.  That will probably make the prose choppy.  I’m willing to forgive myself for it, though, because rereading would waste time and may distract me from making the next entry.  And I’m feeling guilty enough about the length of time between now and the last entry. 

Not that I haven’t thrown anything out since then, I just haven’t thrown away anything significant – anything old.  It’s been more of an empty the trash kind of thing.  Although I did go through all of the newspapers yesterday and the day before.  I clipped out the crosswords, because they’re the main reason I get the paper.  That and giving the kid taking subscriptions a break.  I used to deliver papers at one point.  Maybe I’ll write about that later.  Not today, though. 

Today I have on my desk an old globe that’s been sitting on my desk for a couple of weeks and that’s been sitting in my closet, in plastic, for years.  It’s one that Mom and Dad used to have.  It was part of their educate the children program.  The may have gotten it from an older relative.  (Yes, this is the globe that I claimed to have thrown out in the last post.  Give me a break, here.)

I haven’t found a date on it.  But it has French West Africa on it.  Germany looks like it’s all one country, which wasn’t the case when I was small.  The USSR is there.  So is a place called Tannu-tuva, between Mongolia and the USSR.  There’s also a place called Sinkiang near that.  Iran is called Persia.  Saluchistan is at the top of India, which has not yet calved off Pakistan.  Thailand is still Siam.  Burma is there.  I don’t remember if Burma is still Burma, but I’m guessing not.  Viet Nam is French Indo-china, and Laos and Cambodia are nowhere to be seen.  So I’m guessing there is no more Burma.  

Is there still a Borneo?  Was that what became Taiwan?  I’ll have to google these.  Line islands? 

The globe says:  “12 inch Standard Globe made by Replogle Globes, Inc Chicago, Ill.  Clear, Accurate, Up-to-date.  Up-to-date is a stupid thing to put on a globe.  Maybe on the packaging, or on a removable sticker, but unless the globe is frozen in time, it’s not going to stay up-to-date.

Nepal, now.  Is there still a Nepal? 

Time to toss the globe. 

Gone.  I have a corner of my desk back.  (See.  It had gotten as far as my desk, with the intent of throwing it out.  If it took another month and another entry to actually toss it, I'm cool with that.)

From Google: “On August 14, 1921 the Bolsheviks (supported by Russia) established a Tuvan People's Republic, popularly called Tannu-Tuva. In 1926, the capital (Belotsarsk; Khem-Beldyr since 1918) was renamed Kyzyl, meaning "Red"). Tuva was de jure an independent state between the World Wars.”

I think there was a Kyzyl there.  Should I go pull it out and check?  No, it didn’t.  That means the globe was published between 1921 and 1926.  Or that they left the capital off. 

Also, according to Google: “French West Africa (French: Afrique occidentale française, AOF) was a federation of eight French colonial territories in Africa: Mauritania, Senegal, French Sudan (now Mali), French Guinea (now Guinea), Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso), Dahomey (now Benin) and Niger.”

As regards Sinkiang, it looks like it was a province of China, in several forms: “In 1912, the Qing Dynasty was replaced by the Republic of China. Yuan Dahua, the last Qing governor of Xinjiang, fled. One of his subordinates Yang Zengxin (杨增新), took control of the province and acceded in name to the Republic of China in March of the same year. Through Machiavellian politics and clever balancing of mixed ethnic constituencies, Yang maintained control over Xinjiang until his assassination in 1928.^[26]”

So the globe shouldn’t have listed it separately from China.  We’ll see if Saluchistan is a similar case.  Nope.  It looks like it got split up into bits of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran.  During British Rule it was split into three governing areas. 

Burma is officially the Union of Myanmar since 1989.  And Borneo is still the third largest island in the world.  So the Kinky Friedman song is still accurate, and the globe may or may not be accurate for that island. 

(OK, it took slightly more than another simple entry to get me to let go of the globe.  And, yes, I do get distracted that easily.  In fact, for me, that spate of Googling was remarkably on point.)

More Old (2010) Guilt - 1/24/10

(Just in case I didn't make it clear at the beginning, this is from an old log I kept of things that I was guilty about. It was meant, among other things, to list things that I was throwing out that I felt guilty about not keeping. The idea was that memorializing them was giving them enough respect that I didn't need to actually keep them any more.)

 

It’s been awhile since I wrote here. I feel guilty about that, of course. I’m about to throw out some more stuff. One is something I’d kind of like to keep, but it’s torn. So I’ll just describe it. It’s a dozen or so cardboard strips held together with a metal gasket at the top. They can rotate around the gasket. 

 

The front strip is thicker cardboard and printed with the Foremost logo. It used to be longest, as well as the thickest, but that part has ripped off. The thinner strips say things like SL 1 quart So-Lo extra and O 1 quart Orange Juice extra. It was a little ordering device from back when milk was delivered to the doorstep by milk men in milk trucks. You’d flip out your change in order and leave it in the mouth of one of the quart milk bottles that you had set out for return. There were also a couple of leave 2 strips and a No Service strip. 

It’s a cute little device. If you gave it to someone under forty and asked them what it was, they would likely have no idea. But it’s torn. It’s going out. Soon it will only exist here and if this document is lost, it’s gone. I feel a little guilty for not taking good enough care of it. If it hadn't been torn, I could have sold it on ebay.

 

Also, I picked up a few bookends from Grandma L’s house after she died. They were plaster, bought from a hobby shop and meant to be painted to suit one’s preferences. She had painted two and left one or more undone. I say or more, because I vaguely remember breaking one at one point. But they’re heavy and hard to dust. I personally get along better with bookshelves and thin metal bookends. So they’re going. They’ve been in my closet for more than a year.

 

Another thing going is an old globe. Too many borders have moved for it to be useful. And, like encyclopedias, it’s been supplanted by the internet. A few years ago I threw out the World Book encyclopedias. That was painful. Mom and Dad bought those from Mrs. Kearney, my second and fourth grade teacher. That took a lot of thought and cash on their part.

 

They already had the Encyclopedia Americana. But it targeted an older audience. The World Books were to help us kids with school reports. And they did. Still, ditching them felt like facing down my parents with: "You thought you were making a big family investment but you were wrong." (In late 2011, I'm not feeling that so much. That's a good thing to have let go of.)