Gemini Rising

Eclectic thoughts & a nice mini rant

Well, I worked all night so I pretty much slept the day away and woke up at 2 pm. I did the dishes but mind you, it takes 3 hours and 35 minutes to clean my dishes. I think it's a give and take situation.

Kinda mini nice rant because it's the holidays....

California mandates certain "clean energy" standards on your appliances and they're probably one of the toughest states in the US. That said, if I wash my dishes in my dishwater on normal which takes 2 hours and 25 minutes I'm taking my chances. I've opened up the dishwasher to find that my dishes still have a food stain or two and I really try to rinse off my dishes but I've got my husband and Andy loading dishes so you never know. BUT if I put the dishes on heavy duty then the dishes get Clean. So I have to ask - how much energy am I really saving having you to use the Heavy duty all the time?

Then there is the washer and dryer. I have to use the washer on heavy duty and only load the washer 1/2 to 3/4 full because if I use normal and load it all the way up, some stains might not get out and they still kinda smell. The dryer maxes out at 80 minutes and I have to set it on Hvy and and do 1 round of 80 mins and a 2nd round at 30 mins. Sigh... so I am really saving energy? I don't get it.

Thank goodness tomorrow is payday. I need some last minute stuff. I gotta get Hubby something for his stocking other than coal. It never fails. Oh, there are still Christmas boxes in the living room. The boys have yet to put them away. As for outdoor lights - that never happened. I think next year I'm going to have to hire a holiday light crew.

Hubby just told me he needs a cochlear implant. Thankfully the surgery doesn't sound as invasive as it sounds. He'll call after the holidays to get that ball rolling.

Did I ever tell you the story behind in the coal in the Christmas stocking? Back between 91-93 and I'll lean toward 91, when the Berlin Wall fell and a lot of Eastern countries opened up, we were stationed in Bad Hersfeld, just 10 kilometers from the East/West border. We would venture into "east" Germany and explore. One day we found ourselves in Buchenwald. We took of the concentration camp. It was a very sobering experience. Buchanwald was near the city of Erfurt in Germany. I remember we left Buchanwald and drove though a small town on the way back to the west and our observations were stunning.

Mind you, I can't remember the name of this city. I'm pretty sure we were driving down the main street. We saw Soviet soliders dressed in uniform walking down the street. There were two types of buildings - building older than the 1950's - classic maybe a mix of gothic or romanesque. They were covered in soot and you could still bullet holes in these buildings. My husband and I were surprised and our guesses were they were left there from world war II. Then there were the apartment buildings - newer, with drab colors and reflective windows that looked the same. I dunno, it's hard to explain. As we drove by, a truck was making coal deposits in front of apartment buildings.

Real coal. We'd never seen anything like it. I think I have a picture. I'll see if I can dig it up. We stopped the car and grabbed a piece of coal as a souvenir. Kinda sounds stupid now, but back then we were 20 somethings and that was something we'd never experienced before.

Nowadays the coal has found it's way into the Christmas stockings. Usually I'm pretty slick and Brent ends up with the coal in his stocking but there's been a year or two when he's snuck into mine. Right now I put it in my son's Joey stocking. I haven't decided if it will take up permanent residence there or not.