From the The Universal Household Assistant or What Every One Should Know (1884):
Household Hints. — Do not deposit wood ashes in a wooden vessel or upon a wooden floor. Never use a light in examining a gas-meter. Never take a light into a closet. Never read in bed by candle or lamp light. Never put kindling wood on top of the stove to dry. Never leave clothes near a grate or fire-place to dry. Be careful in making fire with shavings, and never user any kind of oil to kindle a fire. Keep all lights as far from curtains as possible. Always fill and trim your lamps by daylight, and never near a fire. Good nice pie-crust can be made by always observing the following rule. One-quarter of a cup of shortening to every cup of flour used; to be mixed as dry as possible with cold water, and mixed only with a knife. Take sweet butter only for baking purposes, and never fail to thoroughly beat together your butter and sugar, if you would be sure of good results in cake baking. Have metal or earthen vessels for matches, and keep them out of reach of children. Wax matches are not safe. Ground mustard mixing with a little water is an excellent agent for cleansing the hands after handling odorous substances. Cut hot bread or cake with a hot knife, and it will not be clammy. Salt extracts the juices of meat in cooking. Steaks ought therefore not be salted until they have been broiled. In boiling dumplings of any kind, put them in the water one at a time. If they are put in together they will mix with each other. Do not cut lamp-wicks, but trim them by wiping off with a scrap of paper. Never boil vegetables with soup stock, for if you do it will certainly become sour in a short time. Boil your cream for coffee, and see if the coffee will not taste better, as well as keep hot longer. Pin-cushion covers made of cheese cloth embroidered and trimmed with lace, wear well and keep their looks. Some one says that leaves of parsley, eaten with a little vinegar, will destroy the odor of breath tainted by onions. Hot liquid lye is recommended for removing obstructions in waste pipes. Or let the potash dissolve over night in the pipes. To wipe dust from papered walls, take a clean, soft piece of flannel. Of course it must not be damp, but the dry flannel will remove the dust. Varnish the soles of your shoes, and it will render them impervious to dampness, and will also make them last longer. This is a good plan. Clean the mica in stove doors with vinegar. Take clinkers out of stoves by putting a few oyster shells into the grate, when they will become loosened, and may be removed without injuring the lining. Save the droppings from spermaceti candles, tie them in a cloth, and keep to smooth rough flat-irons. Never starch napkins. An old black bunting or cashmere dress may be made to serve a further period of usefulness by being made into a petticoat. Between two evils choose neither. Writing a will does not shorten life, and yet many men fear it will. Save old suspender rings, and sew them on the corners of kitchen holders to hang them by. It will be easy then to flip them on to a nail, and they will not be so likely to get lost. Powdered borax with a little sugar, blown into the cracks and crevices with a small bellows, will drive away house-ants. Have a high stool in the kitchen to sit on when tired, to continue your work if necessary. Perched on its top you can wash dishes or iron with ease. A low stool placed on a wooden chair forms a substitute, but a poor one. A soft sheep-skin mat is restful to stand upon. There is nothing better for cleaning brass or copper than coal ashes. They are also good to scour knives and forks with. For tin, whiting or fine sand is best. To cleanse jars or jugs or any earthen vessel slaked lime is good, or warmed lye. To keep a stove smooth, take a coarse and pretty large piece of flannel, roll it hard, and dip it in fine sand. Proceed to rub your stove whenever you are through cooking. Almost any stove will look better for being done the same way occasionally. Boiled starch is also very good to keep a stove looking well; put it on where it will not burn off — around the back and sides where it doesn't get very hot.
I was just at the Fox News website. One of the story teasers (second story, directly below Falwell's death) read:
Hard Time at Gitmo Detainee cries 'torture,' says he was forced to use unscented deodorant and read newsletter full of 'crap'
If one clicks the link and reads the article, it does mention that the source for the story, a transcript of Majid Khan's military hearing, was "redacted" (in other words, parts that would not be in the best interest of the United States military were deleted). Buried deep into the article we also find this:
Ali Shoukat Khan said his son [Majid Khan] was kidnapped in Pakistan and that there, Americans tortured his son "for eight hours at a time, tying him tightly in stressful positions in a small chair until his hands, feet and mind went numb. ... He was often hooded and had difficulty breathing. They also beat him repeatedly, slapping him in the face, and deprived him of sleep."
"Fair and balanced™" is a joke. And a bad one, at that.
Yesterday evening was a bit of an adventure. purpleglitter bought a huge club chair at the Salvation Army in Saugus on Saturday. There was no way this thing was going to fit in her car. Neither of us could find anyone with an appropriate vehicle to pick it up. Running out of options to get the thing back to Arlington, yesterday she gave in and rented a U-Haul.
However, purpleglitter was very nervous driving it, and I have my vertigo spells - so it seemed a good idea if neither of us drove the thing. We called around to various people who might be able to drive it, but none of them wanted to. Eventually I drove it to Saugus and purpleglitter drove it back. dalious was about to help move the chair into the house, and move it he did. He took it most of the way himself, only requiring assistance to maneuver it through the doorways.
To top off day, purpleglitter was named best employee at her company yesterday. She rocks. Sitting in her new throne with her certificate in hand, she knows she rocks.
In my last post I mentioned I've been grumpy and venomous towards others. However, for the most part I have not confronted them, it is more in the vein of complaining about at length. And while some of these people have done things I should be complaining about, the amount of complaining I'm doing and the amount of vitriol I'm doing it with often does not match the deeds done. Of course now I'm beating myself up over that. I'm bad. And to add to that I can barely type right now. I'm almost ready to fall off the seat. Everything is dizzy and twitch. I don'
“It's been another crazy day, as you've probably gathered. I got permission from a certain person ot give more details about some of the stuff that's gone on concerning this other person.
So what's beein going on is that there's a person here who's bound to a wheelchair for various reasons and she's been blatantly mishandled by the staff many times. Saturday they threw her wheelchair across the hall like it was nothing, like a toy, with her in it. And that was the beginning, well maybe not the beginning but one of the earlier things. Like later on...on Saturday they had her near the quiet room because she was complaining. They were trying to put her in the quiet room and she fell on the floor, she got bruises, and they wouldn't help her up. Literally, they just left her on the floor. I went up to help her and they told me to go away, that I was interfering with her treatment. I just said "fuck you" and went up and I helped her back onto her chair, because I'm not going to leave her on the floor because she fell off her wheelchair. I'm sorry but that's where they left her. And I helped her back off the floor and I sat in there with her.
After Saturday night they put her on open areas and she was required to be...they made her sit in the hall Sunday....all day Sunday in this sort of lounge chair that was really hurting her back because she's got severe back problems, and she couldn't sit in her wheelchair 24/7, so she's got to sit in her recliner. Better to be in the bed, but at least this reclining seat is a little more comfortable, even if it's not an ideal thing for her to sit on. But while she was in her reclining seat, they decided they didn't want the wheelchair sitting next to her in the hallway, because somehow it was a danger because maybe a patient might throw it or something. I don't know cuz the patient would obviously not throw any of the other thousand chairs around the hall. But they took her wheelchair away and locked it up. I mean literally locked her wheelchair away from her, and they wouldn't let us move that chair around. I mean, we did a little, but they would yell at us for it.
So, after that, we... (sorry, there's someone right here, I got to take a pause). Ok, they left. I don't want to...I have to be cautious who I say things in front of, because there are people on my case still. She was stuck in that chair, we sat next to her. They stole her wheelchair for two hours last night. And we're all...like me and another person...are telling them it's not right what they're doing to her. And they made her sleep in the hall all night in that chair. That was not really good for her back. I mean, it's better than her wheelchair, but she needs to be in a bed.
And today, not only they first, they took the lounge chair away from her, first off. And they brought her into a meeting in the wheelchair, and while she was in there, they took the lounge chair and locked it up, because after the two hours, they gave the wheelchair back last night. So she wouldn't have the lounge chair cuz now they decided that wouldn't be in the hallway. So when she came back out, she needed to get out of the wheelchair, so she ended up just lying on the floor with a pillow. And just was very upset about this. And I was, and another person was too, and a couple other people actually, are all standing around.
So I found another lounge chair that was used for the guard to sit in the quiet room with, and I brought it to her, and we helped her into it. And I sat in the wheelchair, and they brought her in the wheelchair into another meeting. They were first saying that they were going to have to take that lounge chair away, too.
[[ Please keep reading in the comments - LJ said the post was too long, so I've posted the rest of it in the comments ]]”
“I recently saw a movie named Gigi. I think that's the name I might be a little off, but it has Al Pacino in it, and there was a line that Al Pacino said that really stuck with me, and I believe it's very true. You see there was a scene where (it was a mob movie) so there was a scene where him, who was one of the high up people in the mob and a couple of the henchmen were sitting around, and Al Pacino noticed that one of the guys had a gun...
[[ partial transcription - see comments for remainder ]]”
ropes are pulling my neck at an odd angle i feel my body as crooked i am now melting into the chair i hear many sounds the fans going the computers hum the refrigerators low groan my eye has a slight twitch to it the fan in the air conditioning unit is blowing in it does this count as being creative?
I have not been doing well: twitchy, falling down, shaking. My mind feels like it's going to explode. I spent alot of time on the kitchen floor here. I want to go home. The doc on call says she's going to push a recommendation that they let me go tomorrow. Because she believes that being in the hospital is making me regress. I'm suspicious she may be saying that just to shut me up. We'll see tomorrow. All I know right now is that I want to go home. Too much. This has all been too much for me. I'm going to go ahead and take my meds tonight. I've got some chairs to put my stuff on. Hopefully, I'll be out of here tomorrow.
i'm flying through the air in loops above the ground below stars flashing in my eyes i am flying it's quite high up here i'll remember no to look down for too long looking out is much nicer i sit on my chair my flying chair i swing down. gently touching the ground it bounces the ground is bouncy my chair bounces on the ground i move against the table bouncing off it holding on to it i need to hold on so i can keep typing i am wrapped up in words words all around me punctuation everywhere but not here no punctuation here
One of the women here peed her seat, and not seeing this, I sat in it. Yuck, needless to say, I washed up immediately, and am now washing my clothes. She's peed several seats here. I guess Ill have to look more carefully when I sit down.
But purpleglitter is here, and she brought a large bag of Glenny's barbecue soy chips. So I'm happy.
I wrote the following in my paper journal while at Pembroke Hospital on May 11th, two days after my suicide attempt.
Yesterday was a surreal whirlwind. I feel incredibly guilty that everyone is making such a big fuss about me. I am an awful person, why can't they see that?
Good news came yesterday. I'm going to be getting disability back from January 2001! That will definitely help our financial situation.
Lake read me the comments I got on my goodbye LiveJournal entry. 64 comments. It's weird how many people care about us. It's all very strange. I was overwhelmed with a strange mix of melancholy and happiness.
awake
hungry
mellow
![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
purpleglitter bought a huge club chair at the Salvation Army in Saugus on Saturday. There was no way this thing was going to fit in her car. Neither of us could find anyone with an appropriate vehicle to pick it up. Running out of options to get the thing back to Arlington, yesterday she gave in and rented a U-Haul.
frustrated
high
distressed
happy