Not exactly a duck to water, but...

Okay, for our post-Halloween Friday silliness, here’s a swimming cat. And one who’s evidently not too happy about it.

Frankly, I kinda wonder how that cat came to be in a partially-filled bathtub, because the noise of water through the taps isn't generally music to their pointy little ears. But it's clearly happy. 

Almost Zen, in fact; except for that nervous tapping from its pal.

Scarier than a startup

I pointed out last year that here in the Valley they call Silicon, Halloween seems a pretty big deal. At least when it comes to decorating your yard. A couple of jack-o-lanterns and a construction-paper black cat slapped on the front window just do not cut it.

That one house I showed you last year is at it again—I think they must keep adding stuff every year.

This time around the two skeletons dining outside the gate have a dish of tiny skulls and bones shaped like spiders:

And the sleeping dog isn’t just lying, it’s covered in spiders and spiderwebs:

Then there’s this welcoming…ghoul, I guess:

This thing is so elaborate that they’ve been putting it together over many, many days. I took this about a week ago:

They were just getting started; note how the flying skeletons have been “fleshed” out:

And now there’s this:

I’m telling you—those spiders are working overtime to produce all this web stuff.

But, while really paying attention to detail, this particular household isn’t by any means alone in their enthusiasm. On my morning walks around the area, I’ve been finding all sorts of evidence of, um, skullduggery. And a lot of stuff hanging from trees. Like this:

And this:

And, from the same tree, this:

Over in Mountain View, I came across a tree witch:

(If you notice, there’s a light that could shine down on her; spooky.)

Nearby is one that wins the Best Use of Child’s Swing award:

If you notice the hand reaching up from the grass, that leads us to another theme—the From the Grave category. Lot of that going around.

Then there’s the splat witch:

She would hardly count, but there was also this:

Here’s another nightmare yard:

And another view:

(Notice the red light ready to cast a hellish glow. I’m telling you—Trick-or-Treaters are walking the gauntlet these days.)

One of the interesting things to me is that the people doing this stuff aren’t in…well, I was going to say they’re not in expensive houses. But that, of course, is relative. The houses are selling around the million mark (I pick up real estate flyers, too); but that’s pretty much low-range around here.

There’s one house on Sunnyvale Road, which looks like it’s maybe a two-bedroom-one-bath crackerbox. They went completely whole hog—well, whole zombie. Take a look:

This guy is almost stepping onto the sidewalk to go down the street to Target:

Obviously, he’s anxious about the sales:

His friend is so far behind him, she’s going to miss all the good stuff:

You can see her in the yard:

Where those (probably Bangladeshi) spiders have been hard at work covering the flamingo:

And, in the pink theme, here's the next generation of zombies:

Okay—not everyone is as inventive or as extravagant. This place in Mountain View is a sad attempt:

And this one isn’t even a nice try:

Happy Halloween!

Follower number six--my claim to fame

As you know, I find the Twitter-dot-com a great place for people watching. You can follow anyone there—from convicted felons to the Pope. I use my account to tap into all kinds of perspectives, including a few people who fall into the celebrity category.

No—not Kardashian-celebrity. But it turns out that William Shatner, for example, is pretty clever. And he really understands social media: he does a pretty good job of engaging with people; he does some promoting, but isn’t obnoxious about it; and he doesn’t get involved in flame-wars.

Well, I was Twitter-searching for Names I Know one day and came across Ray Stevenson. And I quite like some of his acting work, so I became follower number six (about which I tweeted). Even though I thought his presence there was kind of, well, bewildered. In a sweet, rather Titus Pullo way:

  

Since then he’s deleted a few tweets and added a couple, for a total in his queue of six tweets in five months.

Clearly he’s not quite grasping this whole thing, not even to the extent of hiring some tenth grader to toss out a few tweets every couple of weeks. He’s still collecting followers, though; and I live in hope.

But, you know, I'm not really following him for his social media skills; he has other assets.

One more perfect day

There’s been a whole lot of verbiage swirling around the Internet about Lou Reed since he died Sunday at age 71. I really only knew him from his Velvet Underground days—which had to have been named after his voice.

But it turns out that Reed was an exceptionally thoughtful, intelligent and aware human, as well as a solid songwriter and performer. He performed at benefit concerts for Tibetan causes, for Amnesty International and the ACLU. Two years ago he joined protestors at Occupy Wall Street.

You get a strong feel for his brain and his heart in this review he wrote of Kanye West’s Yeezus.

I’m sharing two videos with you. The first is a montage that distills Reed’s creative process and shows his adeptness at dealing with interviewers. He pretty well obliterates the one with his monosyllabic responses from behind those shades. But when he talks with Rose about his purpose in writing, and how he thinks of his music as being one-on-one—damn.

I think Reed would have despised the unavoidable 30-second advertisement attached to it.

And here’s his “Perfect Day”.

Gratitude Monday: not going viral

Here’s what I’m grateful for today: I got my flu shot last week. Even with the lousiest health insurance it’s possible to pay huge premiums for, they covered the shot 100%. Because even Anthem knows that it’s cheaper for them to pay for the shot than it is to pay for prescriptions and doctor visits—possibly even a stay in hospital—when you come down with this season’s viral strain.

I get a shot every year because, as a New Military historian focused on 20^th Century conflicts, from the moment I understood the nature of influenza, I’ve been grateful that in the absence of a cure, we at least have vaccines that mitigate its effects.

More people died in the 1918-19 global flu pandemic than had been killed in four years of total war. The death toll figures range from 50 to 100 million. Dead. (Combat-related deaths came to approximately 37 million.) Since that time, scientists still don’t know how to really treat it—aside from rest, fluids and analgesics for the aches. So we’re at risk just as people were 95 years ago.

And it’s a clever bugger, flu—every year the virus mutates so that having had a previous strain doesn’t immunize you against this year’s. You have to face every one as a new enemy.

At least in the US this is generally understood—you know that when stingy insurance companies foot the bill for the vaccine, they’ve done the cost-benefit analysis and decided that this is still the cheapest way of managing health care.

When I moved to the UK, I visited my (NHS) GP around September and mentioned that as flu season was approaching, I’d better get a shot. She sat back and informed me that, since I wasn’t in a risk group (very old, very young or suffering from respiratory ailments), it wasn’t available to me. The government only ensured the production of enough vaccine to serve those “at-risk” categories.

So, on my annual trip home, I got the shot from my US internist, and then was fascinated to follow continuous news stories from November through about February, about how NHS hospitals were bursting at the seams from admitting flu patients (as in gurneys-in-corridors full), and the appalling numbers of deaths from the virus.

There was no outcry, no outrage; I was amazed. Her Majesty’s Government could run the same risk-benefit analysis as Anthem (and do it every year) and decide that a few scores of thousands hospitalized (on the taxpayers’ pounds) and a few tens of thousands dead was a better outcome than buying enough vaccine and running an awareness campaign to prevent pandemics.

So, with my historian’s perspective, and my experience of how others approach it, I’m grateful that this year’s flu vaccine has been produced to different specs than in the UK, and that even my crappy insurance company will pay for it.

Parking patrol

It's Friday, and I'm thinking parking vigilantism. As you do if you live in any sort of urban environment. 

I came by this from one of my best sources of weird stuff, UK Cop Humour.

Honestly, I thought about this the other morning when I was trying to pull into a parking space at the Cupertino Target. Someone had parked her Mom-mobile overlapping the passenger side line by about two feet, and obviously was either oblivious to it or didn’t think the markings were more than a suggested guideline with respect to her personally.

I wished I had some chalk with me. But anyone too obtuse to correct crap parking wouldn’t notice any additions to the groundwork.

But, there is something that I’ve been thinking about for a while—which also came into my Twitter feed a while ago from those merry UK Cop Humour folks:

At the time, I thought: cop shops should have this thing printed professionally, with the [insert condom brand here; as a former Bruin, I always like the idea of Trojans, because at least they’d be useful for something] attached. (Hey—a sponsorship opportunity!) Then sell them for a fundraiser. Seriously—they’d clean up.

I know I'd buy half a ream of them, and probably run through it in two months.

Even Target Mom would notice that stuck on her windscreen. And if she didn’t, her neighbors would when she parked in the driveway.

Of course—it’s already too late for her. But still.

The heart of the story

I’ve referred my readers before to Story Corps, the oral history project that sends recording booths out to various locations across the country and permits people, usually in pairs, to tell their own stories, as though they were in the kitchen having a cup of coffee. Some of the vignettes are broadcast on Morning Edition on Friday mornings. They always, always grab me by the heart and the throat.

There was the exchange between long-time friends Peter Obetz and Jeff Jarrett on the ever-changing landscape of their lives. “Our friendship is really the only thing that’s constant,” is a statement that applies to more than one person in my life.

Or the Valentine’s Day broadcast of North Carolina National Guardsman Tracy Johnson, whose wife, Staff Sergeant Donna Johnson was killed by a suicide bomber in Khost, Afhghanistan. Tracy spoke with her mother-in-law about receiving the notification of Donna’s death, and pushing to escort her home from Dover AFB.

Or the Veterans Day inauguration of the Military Voices Initiative, where Vietnam vet Harvey Hilbert recalled the sight and sound of a comrade who was killed more than 45 years ago; and Justin Cliburn spoke of coming to know two little boys when he was deployed to Iraq in 2005.

Story Corps is celebrating its tenth anniversary this year. Yesterday, there was the conversation between Will Smith and his daughter Olivia, about how he felt being a 27-year-old single father, raising an infant daughter, at Bowdoin College in Maine. Their initial exchange was recorded last year, just after he was diagnosed with colon cancer. The update recording between father and daughter goes into how Olivia helped Will through his treatment.

You should listen to it. Not just read the story; listen to their voices. Listen to all the voices—Justin Cliburn, Harvey Hilbert, Tracy Johnson, Peter Obetz and Jeff Jarrett.

These are extraordinary stories, and all are—at the heart—about love. We could all use some of that.

Good citizenship

Sorry, folks, but I’m at my wits’ end—I have to revamp my LinkedIn profile, because evidently I’m driving away potential hiring companies in droves; and I also have to prepare a one-page “summary” of myself for a brainstorming session. So I really don’t have much left over to share with you today.

Here’s the deal: I’d rather swallow a family of live hedgehogs (PETA: this is a metaphor) than talk about myself. Ergo the apparently coma-inducing profile. (The brainstorming session is to help out a friend, who’s running an “Uncover Your Calling” workshop. I’m a special guest calling-uncoverer, to give the participants an example of how you go about giving the class an idea of what you're looking for so they can brainstorm on your behalf. This will be my third time brainstorming for Marcia's workshops. Either I'm good or no one else will come back.)

But it’s got to be done.

So I’ll leave you with this heartening photo.

 

It’s nice to know that there are good people out there.

I just wish they could rewrite my profile for me.

Psychic bankruptcy

Death, taxes and change are the only inevitabilities in this life.

This includes storefronts on El Camino Real.

I was driving through Mountain View a while ago and realized that the paranormal part of my iconic “psychic cleaners” had gone. It’s been replaced on the sign by a post box shop (which in actuality is part of the drycleaners). The actual shop space is vacant.

I wonder if the psychic saw it coming?

Gratitude Monday: Not the Library of Alexandria, but...

For Gratitude Monday today, I’m grateful that the Sunnyvale Public library finally transferred the Santa Clara County Library book that I accidentally turned into them back to SCCL.

I admit full culpability—I thought I checked that it was a SPL book before I took it in, but obviously I didn’t check carefully enough. I’m also not sure why their computerized system accepted it—in the past, it’s rejected books from other systems. This time it took it, but just receipted it with a barcode, not the title.

Then, when I got the “you’ve got books coming due” notice from SCCL, I realized what I’d done. I went to SPL to see if they’d shelved it—if they had, surely their system wouldn’t have let anyone check it out, right?

Well—not on the shelves and not in their collection of “books from other library systems”. The person at the information desk said they’d send it off to SCCL, but “it takes time.”

“Time” is apparently nine days.

I renewed it electronically, and kept checking SCCL online every day for its return. And finally—O bliss—it was off my “checked-out” list.

I’m really grateful I didn’t have to pay for it. It wasn’t that good a book.