Live Free with Pride!

There are times when I am disappointed with the political currents of New Hampshire. Today, I am just plain proud!

N.H. governor signs civil unions law

Amusing pictures from our recent vacation

We passed this shop in Provincetown. If you know anything about the demographics of resident and tourists to the place, it makes a kind of amusing sense.


In staid old Hyannis, we find the place where Wylie Coyote needs to go to register his complaints.



And, finally, also in staid old Hyannis, the place for Wylie to go when he cannot get satisfaction for all his complaining.

The plurality of pants

Have you ever noticed that any clothing meant to accommodate both legs is a plural noun? I thought about this today while running errands. (Fascinating what territory the mind will wander into when left to its own devices for any period of time, no?)

Here are some of the items I came up with during my reverie:

pants, trousers, slacks, tights, shorts, capris, overalls, bottoms, long johns, jeans, dungarees, corduroys, waders, pedal pushers, high waters, britches, drawers, panties, chinos, knickers, bloomers ...

Some would dispute my linguistic theory by pointing to "underwear". However, that term can be used to describe items of clothing not meant to cover the nether regions (bras, slips, girdles, etc. can be referred to as 'underwear').

The term 'panty hose' is plural. As a matter of fact, even 'hose' is plural alone. I don't think there is a singular form of the word.

(Assumption: Dresses and skirts do not actually accommodate the individual existence of both legs.)

Why do legs get special treatment in couture? Coverings for the top half of the boody that accommodate the existance of two arms are not plural. (blouse, shirt, top, etc.)

If you can think of a word for an item of clothing that is designed specifically to accommodate both legs simultaneously, but is not plural, PLEASE let me know. Inquiring minds want to know.

Yahoo and MusicMatch suck!

OK. I know that this will do no real good. However, I am so angry this morning that I have to vent a little before hitting the road for work.

For years I subscribed to MusicMatch, a program and service that used to be pretty good for managing music files and, eventually, for streaming and buying songs. Over the years the software became more and more bloated (nearly as bloated as Real.com's music software). A couple of years ago Yahoo bought them. At the time, I paid for my content access subscription annually.

This Christmas, my son and I decided to try out Yahoo Unlimited, since it allowed us to download songs to our MP3 players. My MusicMatch subscription wasn't due for renewal until late May. So, we figured we'd try the new service out for a while. If we liked the new service, I would cancel my MusicMatch subscription.

Well, the Yahoo Unlimited software is a lot less bloated than MusicMatch. Plus we really do like the ability to download to our MP3 players. So, a few weeks ago (at least 14 days before my annual subscription was due to bill me) I went online and canceled my MusicMatch annual subscription.

Imagine my surprise and outrage this morning when I checked my bank account and found that MusicMatch had billed me $71.88 for an annual subscription. This same subscription that was $59.88 last year.

I dug up a phone number to call MusicMatch subscription services. I'll post it to a comment after I've called them today (since I don't want to advertise it to the world until I've gotten my 'pound of flesh' from the idiots).

Sadly and most embarrassingly , and this is my own fault, I don't keep a lot of float in my checking account. So, I'm going to have to move some cash around today to deal with the unexpected $72 subtraction from my checking account. Even if I can get the boneheads to refund the money, it will probably take them at least a week to process.

What a way to start a long weekend!

No good deed goes unpunished

My husband and I are somewhat active in our church. Oddly enough, considering his initial reticence, he is the more active one. I have purposely avoided the more prominent committees, and staunchly avoided any committee that had to made reports to the Board of Directors.

My husband has whined about the Committee Chairs meetings he has had to attended. However, he really enjoys the work of keeping our church building in working order, and has made great strides into improving its overall condition.

Today, the BoD and the Committee Chairs hosted our memebership's annual meeting. Here, the more active volunteers (those involved in committees) go over the issues of the past year, present next year's budget, and make recommendations for the upcoming year.

Our congregation has been plagued by a number of issues this year. Since last summer, we have gone through three office administrators. The first one went back to school last summer. The second one was a complete disappointment. And the third one was left trying to pick up the pieces of her mess.

In addition, this was the year that our minister was slated to go on sabbatical for several months. Even though we knew it was coming, we did not prepare ourselves for her absence. Attendance and pledge achievement have both been down. Due to scheduling issues, one of our larger fund raisers, our service auction, was pushed back from February until May. We had far less attendance and a far smaller catalog of offerings subequently.

Last year. a movement rose to look into expanding our Sunday services from one to two. Our traditional 10 a.m. service is rarely full. However, some postulated that we would appeal to more people if we offered a second, later, service.

First off, we cannot seem to inspire the membership we have. Secondly, our minister and staff are already woefully underpaid, and now we expect them to double their efforts and commitment?

The UU Church really is my spiritual home. However, I avoided church for most of my life because I couldn't handle spiritual hypocrisy. Now I see another dark side of organized religion, which I knew was there. However, I thought since the UU's were different spiritually that they would be different regarding internal politics. Here I was more than wrong. From what I can gather, the UU's are actually worse. Since, while trying to be all inclusive and democratic, leadership takes a back seat to inclusiveness, lack of direction, and poor productivity.

I think I finally understand why so many leaders in our congregation have disappeared from active church life within a year of the end of the term of service.

May those who were subjected to today's debacle here my prayer. Namaste. Blessed be.