Catty goes to the Vet

Catty missed her vet appointment yesterday because she was freaked out about the lawn mowing and leaf blowing at the neighbors house. So she got to go today, with E and I. The good news is, she is not chipped, she does not have FIV or any other horrible cat disease, she is about 2 years old, has clear ears and great teeth. She now has her rabies vaccine and her FIV vaccine and something else.

The so-so news is she has a birth defect in her eye, the inner lid is fused to her retina causing her to be nearly blind in her right eye, so what I thought was infection, was actually what might have landed her out. It is not expensive to fix (relatively speaking) but it likely meant she was unsalable or less than perfect (hell aren't we all.)The Vet thinks a few snips and she will be fine and likely regain the sight in that eye. Not treating it is an option, but she would likely develop an infection or loose the eye altogether. She has some round worms, easy to treat or at least treatable and not a problem for the kids. She also likely is not spayed and there is a chance she might be newly preggers. So I am having her spayed tomorrow and I have no issues, that she might be with kitten. We are keeping her, because there are clearly too many kittens running around Central Ohio.

So I have dropped more money that I imagined I could but I think it will have a decent outcome. He said she likely will be with us for a long while. Strays who adopt a family, tend to stay and are loyal and happy to have a place. She has a pleasing personality and is well mannered.

They gave me some outdoor cat keeping tips and assured me that all would be well.

Spicy Turnip Green Soup

So, this is another creation from my gluten free, mostly dairy free kitchen...

bunch of spicy turnip greens
1 large potato
1 large leek, white and lite green parts
2 cans veggie or chicken stock
salt, pepper, basil, salt and fresh oregano
olive oil

Heat olive oil, in the pan. Add in diced potatoes and thin sliced leeks. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, dried basil and red pepper flakes, to taste. Cook for about 5 minutes, until softened. Then add the stock and cook for 10 minutes, until the potatoes are soft and mashable. Use either a potato masher or a hand held blender and puree/smoosh until chunky.

Add in the spicy and greens and cook over low until the greens are cooked thru and tender.

At this point you can serve, or stir in some sour cream or half and half or milk, to taste. (Unsweetened almond milk would work also.)

Enjoy. Not as good as the pasta, but yummy all the same.

It's a mandate...

well not exactly.

This is what I don't get. The unopposed people on the ballot. Why bother checking the box, they have no opposition. Why vote for them at all, it is a forgone conclusion that they are going to vote for themselves, so with no one opposing them, they will by default win.

It is a waste of ballot space and my time, to check that box.

I can hear the speeches now.

"The voters of (fill in the municipality) overwhelmingly elected me to (pick a job.) I collected 6325 votes out of 7250. I was clearly a winner."

In your own mind wind-bag. You had no one running against you. No one bothered to collect any signatures, no one else took the time to write speeches and blah, blah, blah.

Seriously is winning while running unopposed a real victory, I don't know. Maybe. I will raise my glass to you, you went to the board of elections and completed the required steps to get your name on the ballot. Good show, you can at the very least read and understand and follow directions. That puts you ahead of 99% of all Americans.

But is it a ringing endorsement of your platforms, your moral integrity, and your ability to actually perform the duties of the office you now hold. Who knows. Even running opposed and winning is no guarantee of that.

The fact remains, I refuse to mark the boxes, when you are running unopposed. It is stupid and I won't do it just because I think it is silly. If you have no opposition, why waste the BOE's time, adding you to the ballot, and my time reading the ballot and the paper it takes to record a vote, which is superfluous given you are the only one running anyway. You win. Duh! There is no contest. Even with a parking ticket, you can mark a box, mail in the loot and all is done. Why not with this insanity too. Let's just post a list on line, of people who qualify for the ballot, are running unopposed and therefore by default WIN!

If someone really had opposition to candidate A running and winning a seat, they should have gotten off their ass and jumped thru the hoops and run against them, and then I would have made a choice, between A and B. But sans there being something to choose from, exactly, I choose to abstain.

You should too!

Catty

We have been adopted. It happened on a sunny afternoon, whilst the little people were home from school sick. We had, on the doctor's advice, been taking some fresh air and had walked about the neighborhood. When out of nowhere, a tiger cat came up to me and was making nice. She is beautiful. Good disposition and very friendly.

We fed her and she seemed happy. We did not see her again for a bit, but left some cat food out (which I had borrowed from the neighbor) and it disappeared bit by bit.

Lo and behold a few days ago, she is back and has stayed. She likes to sit on the deck and H and I think she is living under the deck.

We had no more cat food, so I have been feeding her whatever I had, some tuna and rice, some chicken sausage, some shrimp and stale toast. Some milk. Unlimited water.

I have photographed her and posted her picture to various websites and have gotten some emails, but no one has come forward to claim her or want to take her in and provide her an inside home.

I went and obtained coat food, in various varieties yesterday. She is very hungry. I decided a mixture of dry and moist food, would be a good choice, she needs to bulk up a bit.

As I put food in her bowl this afternoon and talked to her, I decided it is very likely that she is now ours. I cannot see taking her to the Humane Society, only to have killed, for no reason other than someone turned her out, she got out by mistake or fate. She is very pleasing and very pretty. She is not mean. She seems to like the kids.

While we cannot have her in the house, given I and my mother are allergic, we can try and provide her a good home. We can give her shelter and feed her. She seems content to hang out on the deck. H is lukewarm on the idea of letting her sleep in the garage, but he is even less ok, with me spending money to let someone kill her.

I just cannot let her starve either. That is just fundamentally wrong. I know most people, as evidenced by my neighbor, who had her on her deck first and did nothing, can just turn a blind eye to another creature's suffering, I cannot. She is not a wild cat, she has been someone's pet, someone who thoughtlessly and cruelly shoved her out or she is a victim of circumstance. She escaped or wandered too far, or there was a traumatic event in the home she was in. Just as friends of our, had their cat go missing, for a few weeks, after their house fire.

So later this week, she and I will go to the vet, I will get her a collar and she will, I suppose, unless someone comes forward, be in effect ours, for as long as she will have us. My neighbor has a largely outdoor cat and she says the cat will be ok in the garage, even when it is very cold, I can always give her a warm blanket and so forth. I have to think a family to love her and care for the best they can, is better than being killed, even if it is humanely. I understand that there is an explosion of unwanted cats, but I just cannot be part of cats death march. With us, she has a chance at a happy life.

E has named her "Catty."

She has named us, "family."

Spicy Turnip Greens & Goat Cheese Pasta

Wow, I am so proud of my creation, I am sharing it with you. I used, naturally, gluten free pasta, but regular pasta would work also. I used spiral pasta, but honestly I think anything would work just fine. i bought the greens from Wayward Seed farms at the farmers market today. So super fresh!


1/2 bunch big leafy turnip greens
4 oz goat cheese crumbs
2 cups chicken stock (you will not use it all)
1/2 small onion thinly sliced
red pepper flakes to taste
black pepper to taste
salt to taste

Boil pasta following package directions.

Meanwhile, pour 1/2 c stock in large pan, toss in onions cook 2 minutes, then add the chopped greens. Cover and stir until greens are wilted and bright green, they are not cooked, but cooking at this point. Add salt and pepper and pepper flakes. Stir and cook uncovered, adding stock as needed. You must keep a bit of stock in the pan, so that the bitterness of the greens has somewhere to go. Let rest a few minutes and serve. Yumm-o!

When the pasta is almost done, add a ladle or two of the pasta water to the greens mixture, drain the pasta and toss it into the greens, tossing to coat. Then toss is the goat cheese and stir until melted.
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In my Operations Management class, I have been studying my writing habits as a process, which I would like to see improved. Week 1, I drew up a process/flow chart and then I studied, how I am doing with my process. The reality is there is too little time in some days. Maybe I should get up at 5 am and write for a solid 2 hours. But I can't. Why? I cannot function with any brain capacity at 5 am. So I am left to work with the day light hours. I did think, however that this paper, which needed a MUCH higher word limited frankly, is very much about hoe writing, for a commercial purpose, is manufacturing in a way and I am not sure that is the kind of writer I ulimately want to be. My stories are important to me. If I am not feeling it, it shows.

******

Time or Creative Resources, which is the limited resource

A bottleneck is any point in the process, which slows the process, derails the process or adds costs unnecessarily to the process. “A potential exists to manage the resources better by allowing a cost structure where the resources are shared among a group of customers…, it is still a valid argument that a customer paying for the resource mismanagement of a company will have a negative impact on the business. Following this logical argument, activity based costing does not suggest assigning the cost of under-utilized resources to the customers. Therefore, the cost of resource under-utilization does not get its due attention. ..resource under-utilization cost to be an important consideration in order to identify potential bottlenecks in the manufacturing systems for a better resource management… provides an activity based costing model to identify resource under-utilization assuming normally distributed demands. The main justification for picking the ABC methodology to identify potential bottlenecks lies in the fact that we need activities in order to manufacture a product. These activities in turn need resources.” (Gill, 2008, pg. 165)

The process being study is my ability to carve out 4 hours per week for focused creative writing; there are two main sources of bottlenecks in this process, time and creativity. Sometimes those two resources feed one another and sometimes they can be identified in distinct ways. Most writers would not view their writing process as manufacturing, but in fact that is in essences what the writing process is, manufacturing a document, a creative work, a work product, the summation of hours of labor.

An expert opinion on the matter of creativity in this writing process holds, “Given that a lot of good writing is achieved through this day-after-day, draft-after-draft, down-to-earth manner, calling what we do the "creative" process is a bit of a misnomer, and a dangerous one at that. The term leads us to believe that we actually need to be feeling creative in order to write successfully. As such, we wait for inspiration to get started… and there goes another month or year with no pages to show for it.”(Cole, 2009, p. 26)

In a careful review of the data collected, the study reveals no lack of creativity on my part; I have notes and notes, drafts of poems, partial poems, made carefully on the days I simply could not be at my computer. The true bottleneck in this process is too little time. Some days it may be lack of careful discipline on my part, some days it is being too tired, given the demands of the day and over the period of the study, issues have cropped up, which have eaten into the carefully created weekly process plan. Could these issues have been mitigated, in part no, some are well and truly outside of my control, such as ill children and my mother needing additional supportive care. Going forward, I may need to revise my planning process or accept that for as long as I am attending the University of Phoenix, my expected creative writing time, may well need to be pared back. There truly are only so many hours in the day.

References

Cole, J. (2009). The (not so) creative process. Writers, 122(10), 26. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.apollolibrary.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f5h&AN=44140881&site=ehost-live

Gill, A. (2008). Identifying potential bottlenecks through activity under-utilization cost. Manuscript submitted for publication. Retrieved October 16, 2009, from https://ecampus.phoenix.edu/classroom/ic/library.aspx

He's such a guy...

E: What are you doing?

Me: Christmas shopping?

E: For what?

Me: For presents.

E: For me?

Me: I do not know what you want, how can I get you presents if I do not know what you want.

E: You can just buy me what I want.

Me: You have to tell me what you want.

E: You can just buy me what you want me to want, or have, or want to have.

Down the hall he marches, dragging a rope and a pillow.