Author: Claire
I’m about as non-musical as a person can be. I can’t tell Beyonce from a bass fiddle or a minor chord from a high c. I listen to very little music and like even less of it. My efforts to change that have, dare I say, fallen flat, allegrissimo. But I’ve always had a soft spot for opera. Maybe that’s how I found myself reading Sing for Your Life, the beautifully written and unlikely story of Ryan Speedo Green, the rising young bass-baritone who has sung with the Metropolitan Opera and the Vienna State Opera. Reading Sing for Your Life…
From Commentariat member AE comes this warning that as of January 1 the FDA is banning certain over-the-counter veterinary antibiotics. Since preppers have long relied on feed-store meds to get around both the screamingly high prices and absurd regulations around human-grade prescription meds, this could be a big deal. Or not. First important thing to know: It doesn’t affect all veterinary antibiotics. In theory you should still be able to buy that injectable penicillin that’s been the mainstay of so many medical kits. Primarily at stake are feed-grade antibiotics, whose casual use has become so notorious in milk and meat.…
Yesterday evening as darkness fell, I went to close the blinds and discovered the planet Venus beaming in my face. Then there was tiny red Mars above and to the left. This time of year it’s rare to see anything in the sky except clouds and occasionally the obscured light of the moon. So behind am I on my astronomy that I had to doublecheck that it was Venus, not Jupiter, that bright and that high above the horizon. The website I consulted even said Mercury should have been somewhere in view, but there were hills in the way. I…
Old Blue (aka 1993 Geo Prizm LSi, aka Toyota Corolla disguised as a Chevy) is mechanically about the best $700 car anybody could want. It starts on the first crank every time, all the time, and gets me where I need to go as long as that doesn’t involve freeway speeds. But beyond its solid gold engine performance, it’s … well, more than a bit funky. I long ago gave up trying to keep the radio tuned in to any actual station (a pebble in the road can bump me from NPR to Mexican tubas to metal to country twang).…
We had our first snow last night. Didn’t amount to much. Barely stuck and was soon washed away by 35-degree rain. Only reason I mention it is because it’s the first lowland snow we’ve had in more than two years. It’s normal for us to get snow anywhere from one to five times a winter, but the last two winters have been too warm (not global warming but a big warm “blob” offshore). Very wet, but warm. Well, as winters go, anyhow. More snow expected in the next few days. Me, I’d chose warm and dry, were it an option.…