Slightly Off Kilter

The weather was rainy and cool.

We had a couple of nice rain storms. I went to bed with the door to the screen porch open so I could listen as I fell asleep.

Then rain turned to chill. There was SNOW in parts of the Bay Area (but not where we live), frost in others. A co-worker had ice on his car in the morning.

I bought my sister a giraffe scarf from Squishable.com for Christmas.

• Cloudy grey day. Foggy this morning, now high overcast. Dismal. I want to be home with my kitties, not in an office building 40 miles away. 3:20 PM Dec 1st

• RT @ariherzog: How Twitter Can Simplify Book Reviews: http://tinyurl.com/5fc5w2 (How to condense 670 words to 20 w/o losing the message.) 8:11 AM Dec 3rd

• At Work. Foggy again. Snail sliding slowly across the nearest windowpane. I could watch the snail for an hour but, sadly, I must log in now. 8:13 AM Dec 3rd

• December 3 is the Expression error: unrecognised punctuation character "{"th day of the year. (Oops :-) www.answers.com/topic/decem... 9:58 AM Dec 3rd

• The Company has declared "The Christmas Season" to be upon us. Greenery, a decorated tree, and poinsettias in every lobby. I miss November. 4:36 PM Dec 3rd

• Ugh. Catered meeting down the hall had a poorly set-up chafing dish over a sterno flame. No water under the food. Burnt to a crisp. Smoky. 1:40 PM Dec 4th

• Just discovered from @caltrain that my usual afternoon train was delayed today (I took earlier train). Morning SNAFU also missed. Lucky me! 8:26 PM Dec 4th

These are my Treasures for the past fortnight.

• Primary-colored star-shaped candies, spilled down the steps at the Train station. Pretty.

• The crescent moon, with Jupiter and Venus just below and to the side.

• Listening to murrmurring kitty dreams

• A fuschia sedan (seen on the freeway)

• My Squishable Allidile Crocagator scarf

The weather was gray, blue, warmish, chilly, and rainy. Mostly in that order.

December dawned gray and foggy. Ugh. If there had been any cars on the road without headlights the morning of Dec. 1st, I would never have known it. It was grey all the way to work. The fog got higher and higher so by 4pm it was "merely" overcast. But still dismally grey.

I enjoyed viewing the Jupiter, Venus, moon conjunction. It was nice to know what I was looking at.

Harry Homeowner Does 'Lectric

We have a rather decrepit electric stovetop (four spiral burners, circa early-60's) with one small red "signal" lamp to let us know that a burner is on. Unfortunately, said lamp isn't all that noticeable.

It's dim, small, and hidden by a ridge of metal that surrounds the controls, protecting them from spills, etc. So, under the best of circumstances, it's only visible to someone standing immediately in front of the stovetop.

If something gets put on top of the lamp and/or the cook is rushed or distracted, the dim glow may not be noticed until MUCH later. As a result, we've left burners on (albeit at very low settings) for hours after we were done cooking. This is not good; it's dangerous, wastes power, etc.

We knew that we really needed to solve this problem, so we discussed some possible solutions. First, Rich and I would brainstorm. Then Rich would talk the idea through with assorted friends and relatives who (conveniently enough) are electrical engineers. Rinse, repeat...

Read my commentary... here and here.

• November comes in with a splash. Gray and drippy. It's been raining since midnight. California's Wet season has begun. 10:18 AM Nov 1st

• Bought a cat flap today to install in the sliding door between bedroom and screenporch. It's too chilly at night now to leave the door open. 1:31 PM Nov 1st

• @RhodesTer - But of course, cats are telepathic. No need to type to tweet! Just beam your thoughts at the nearest hooman, and back to sleep. 3:50 PM Nov 1st

• Just commented on MacWorld's article "8 Ways to Use Twitter". Confused readers repeating "I just don't get it". http://tinyurl.com/6amnq6 7:56 PM Nov 1st