- Half-awake this morning, the TV announced, "The Indiana Pacers basketball team has picked up a new player at the very last minute..." and my first thought was, They've signed Payton Manning? (Tam, later: "I'll bet that sounded funnier inside your head." Fine. Fiiiine.)
- So, in our modern, post-privacy age (a/k/a New Paternalism), I've gotta take a little physical at work today -- height, weight, pulse rate, blood pressure and oxygenation and some basic blood work (cho-les-ter-ol, blood sugar, et cetera. And maybe you don't want that nice poppyseed bagel, either?). Which means I'm fasting until that 1 p.m. appointment. Mmmmm, baby, enjoying a nice cup of "white tea;" or as you may know it, warm water. Delightful. No Vitamin I on an empty stomach, either -- just risked a couple aspirin and a sugar-free antacid.
- Fringe Benefits Dep't: On the subject of ADA compliance, let me just say, as a somewhat clumsy person, that I like curb cuts -- and they mean that every block, there are three squares of actual decent sidewalk, instead of tilted, battered slabs. (OTOH, around Roseholme Cottage, many of the curved curbs at the corners are large lengths of what appears to be cut stone! I'd miss them.) In Indianapolis, you've got to add, "...where there are sidewalks." Outside of Downtown, they're kind of optional.
- On the subject of sidewalks -- wot izzit with yuppies and hipsters not using them when they're available? I keep seeing the silly ghits ambling down even busy roads, innocent of the heavy, hurtling machines passing within inches. Evolution in action?
Isn't it funny that if you are healthy, your employer tries to find a way to prove that you aren't, and if you have an approved illness, they call it a handicap, they can't discriminate and must overlook it?
ReplyDeleteOverweight: not approved
Smoker: not approved
alcohol abuse: not approved
drug addict: approved, required treatment
Wheelchair: approved, require ramps
Drug abuse is a downcheck where I work -- drinking to excess, folks get one (1) chance to go through rehab.
ReplyDeletePerhaps even funnier wrt sidewalks, I was driving on Illinois Street on Wednesday evening, just north of Walnut, and what to my wondering eyes did appear, but a bicyclist -- RIDING ON THE SIDEWALK instead of in the ERIKA D. SMITH/FISHWARP-APPROVED BIKE LANE.
ReplyDeleteYou can lead 'em to expensive, annoying, taxpayer-provided bike lanes, but you can't make them get the heck off the sidewalk.
In Rochester NY sidewalks are just a suggestion, but I can see why. With the volume of snow we normally get (except for this season, which has been VERY light) and the fact that the streets are cleared better than the sidewalks, it's easier for the pedestrians to take a chance with traffic. Plus the uneven sidewalks make it hard for the homeless people to push their shopping carts around.
ReplyDeleteHave a big chocolate bar around mid-morning.
ReplyDeleteDrives 'em crazy in the lab.
Off the sidewalks as evo in action. Hmm, I prefer to see the yups as hothouse flowers - pretty to lookout but need to be kept in an artificial environment to survive.
ReplyDeleteNow if they could just get the drainage right in those curb cuts so that they don't fill with water every time it rains. They used to drain just fine until they made that low spot. :( But overall the're a great idea!
ReplyDeleteWe've got some pretty wonky sidewalks here in Houston. With the typical monsoons, rampant tree growth pushes roots up, making last year's new sidewalk into this year's motorcross track.
ReplyDeleteOur city fathers had a great solution... Pass an ordinance requiring that the sidewalk maintenance becomes the responsibility of the adjacent property owner.
So, get a complaint? Plan on forking out $10 or more per square foot.
Now, if you don't have a sidewalk, you're not required to build one. Once it's there, though, it's yours for all eternity.
We take whiz quizzes here. Drug use is frowned on. Since I neither do non prescription recreational drugs nor drink my tests are always the ones everyone lusts after. To the extent of offering to purchase my urine. I have of course not engaged in that sort of commerce.
ReplyDeleteI do know people in this office who, when asked for urine/blood/stool simply hand over the underwear they're wearing.
Dang, out loud again? Sorry. Gotta get that inner voice thing working better. Hope the inevitable non-eating headache is a mild one and disapears soon after you get some chow in you.
There really is such a thing as white tea. Apparently it's some sort of Chinese speciality--not as processed as black or green tea. Wikipedia knows more than I do, as usual, so refer there if interested.
ReplyDeleteWhat Nathan reported happens a lot down here, with bike lanes not three inches away. To balance that, there are the packs of would be Lance Armstrongs who take over the main streets on Sunday morning, apparently thinking that five or six bicycles are the same as two or three cars.
Yes, there is tea-based white tea, a kind of upscale thing -- but as someone (Steve Allen?) wrote, the hot water is free aboard passenger trains in Red China, and "white tea" was what the folks availing themselves thereof called it.
ReplyDelete