Toadfish Monastery

1. What was your favorite class in college? (If you haven't yet reached that, what do you look forward to?)

Numerical Analysis class. And my favourite activity was Fourier Analysis and Transforms but the Laplace transform was a close runner up in my popularity scale.

I once filled a whole notebook with a single Fourier transform = total happiness.

You have to marvel at something that includes stuff like the Heaviside_step_function.

Nowadays I haven't the faintest idea what most of the weird squigggly symbols are but I still retain a vague impression of what
∑ ⁿ a _k might be, mainly because MS Excel often reminds me one can add up whole columns.
^[k=1]

2. What type/which theme of calendar do you keep?

Augustin. Occasionally Hebrew. Hate ones where you have a picture on one page and the dates hanging underneath on the next page on the same plane. When my boys were still underage I used a simple wall chart. I don't do calenders now. There is only today. Although I do keep a diary in which I write basic events - like "spoke to psych. on phone at x hours" and "bad headache" and "supermarket" etc. but it's retrospective and is mainly maintained so that when the police come calling and ask where I was on the night of September 5th 1969 I will be able to answer.

3. Do you have Google Desktop?

No.

In fact I really don't have any desktop. All my desks are covered with so many useless objects, 5 feet high stacks of papers like old invoices, post-it notes hidden underneath other post-it notes, things to be mended, etc etc that it is virtually impossible to tell there is a desktop there at all.

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1. What would you do in the last four hours before the world ended (knowing it was going to end)?

2. How do you find a girl like Maria  (for non-brits, UK TV prompts me to wonder about this)

3. Where would you never ever in a million years consider having sex?

1. What would you do in the last four hours before the world ended (knowing it was going to end)?

In the first hour I would probably try to prepare for the possibility that we would survive. I would gather my husband and daughter. I would get water, medicine, food together. I would try to figure out alternatives as to where to run to if necessary. In the second hour I would try to contact people. This would probably turn out to be impossible, but I'd try. In the third hour I would go outside and gaze lovingly at all I'd loved about the world and try to photograph it with my heart. I would thank it for being and implore the Great Everything to preserve it, somehow. In the 4th hour I would begin hunkering down. I would probably get into a tight circle with my fam and sing every song we ever knew, just to try to keep from getting scared. I would do stupid things like duct-tape the vents and board the windows. I would fill the bathtub with water. I would insist that we would live. I wold do a lot of hugging.



2. How do you find a girl like Maria  (for non-brits, UK TV prompts me to wonder about this)

I don't know how to find her, but Broadway musicals have taught me  "Never stop saying Maria" (West Side Story) and "How do you solve a problem like Maria" (The Sound of Music).


3. Where would you never ever in a million years consider having sex?

Anywhere in the vicinity of my Mom! 





1) Would you put a Toadfish Monastery sticker (magnet or static cling) on you car?

2) How do you feel about predictions that the world will dramatically change in 2012?

3) What can you do to bring about positive change?

1) Would you put a Toadfish Monastery sticker (magnet or static cling) on you car?
provided you finance a good car for me

2) How do you feel about predictions that the world will dramatically change in 2012?
There have been dramatic changes in the world in my lifetime. Why especially bother about more?
>98% predictions of asteroid (> 3 km in diameter) hits may be an exception
Seriously, I expect the world going down the drain gradually, not in large jumps

3) What can you do to bring about positive change?
Discover that I am the supreme being and using the accompanying powers to bash the GOP and some other doers of unpleasantries?
Again seriously: Driving* less (I do), eating less meat (too addicted for that), being politically conscious (I try), act on that (I fail), thinking in the long term (never my strong side), waste less energy (I could do better)...

*including aeroplanes, excluding vehicles driven by your own muscles

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1. What are your predictions for the time before the US presidential elections (and the immediate aftermath)?

2. How should Iran be handled/treated?

3. Your opinion on "foreign" food (not meant as a question about local vs. imported food items)

Bonus: Seal clubbing or shark finning?

1. What are your predictions for the time before the US presidential elections (and the immediate aftermath)?

IF the Repubs try to bring in an "October surprise" that would include martial law and/or postponing the elections? Some very definitive actions, up to and including rioting in the streets of DC, unless the cops/troops keep their heads. If that happens, possibly the end of the US as it's known today.

If the Repubs DON'T try any dumb-ass moves and DON'T try to steal the elections by mechanical means, then there'll be a MAXIMUM 17% lunatic fringe die-hard Neo-Con right-wing panic, and the rest of the country will wait for the new administration to take effect, and the new Congress.

2. How should Iran be handled/treated?

Carefully, and NOT, repeat NOT by the US.

3. Your opinion on "foreign" food (not meant as a question about local vs. imported food items)

What kind? Food? I'm all for it. Can I eat most of it? No, but I do enjoy trying new things, new tastes. (Unfortunately, my digestive system took giant leave of it's moorings years ago, and most new stuff is a problem, due to some spice or herb or SOME dang thing that keeps me from eating it.)

You can't say I don't have an adventurous palate. One late Saturday morning a few years back, my brother and I made burritos with knockwurst, kimchee and Swiss cheese. Hey, it was edible, it didn't require putting on clothes to go get anything else. (And it wasn't a baloney sammich...)

Bonus: Seal clubbing or shark finning?

I defer to Aggie. He's much more in the know.

People do need to realize that wildlife management is needed. (Finning sharks? Not so. Use the entire organism or don't kill it.)


1] Are you the most 'liberal' person in your immediate "group" (family or friends--or both)?

2]Would you consider live organ donation (ie: a kidney)? Only for family? For a friend? Or for a 'stranger'? (If eligible.)

3] Have you ever been matched for bone marrow donation? (Once again, if eligible?) Would you do it if matched?

Bonus: Why is there NEVER any rum??

1] Are you the most 'liberal' person in your immediate "group" (family or friends--or both)?

Family-wise, my mother, father, and I are all about as "liberal" as people get, so we're about equal. The extended family is all in Poland and Catholic, so I think it's pretty safe to say we're the most "liberal" branch. Among friends, yes. There's some question as to that since one of my friends is a communist, but he's moved away from that recently (and his girlfriend's economically conservative and actually knows a whole lot about economics), and I think I'm still more socially "liberal" than he is. There are also some other friends who vaguely seem to be about where I am, but they don't keep up with politics much, so it's difficult to get a definite reading.

2]Would you consider live organ donation (ie: a kidney)? Only for family? For a friend? Or for a 'stranger'? (If eligible.)

Hell yes, for anybody, especially while I'm still a teenager who thinks he's immortal.

3] Have you ever been matched for bone marrow donation? (Once again, if eligible?) Would you do it if matched?

Never been matched. If I was, I would willingly do it. I've heard it hurts a bunch, but hey, I still have that unfilled Vicodin prescription from my oral surgeon.

Bonus: Why is there NEVER any rum??
Because our Russian friends are big friends of Tequila, which they pronounce Ta-ki-la. (Two or three Saturdays ago, three of them polished off a bottle of Patron together over dinner, and then one of them drove home.)

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i) When packing to move, do you get sentimental when you dig up old objects?

ii) What's the worst vaccine you've ever had?

iii) Do you keep the boxes stuff was packed or sent in?

Bonus: Pi or e?

i) When packing to move, do you get sentimental when you dig up old objects?
In Stage I of the move, where I have time to thoughtfully gaze upon my possessions and consider the best and most elegant way of packing them. By Stage IV things get a one-second up-or-down vote and are treated accordingly.

*muses* Stage IV items are always the last to be un-packed as well. In extreme cases, not until packing commences for the next move...


ii) What's the worst vaccine you've ever had?
I'm sure one of those elementary-school shots must have hurt like the dickens more than the rest, but I can't remember. It's all faded along with the vaccination scars.


iii) Do you keep the boxes stuff was packed or sent in?
Yes and No.
- Expensive items with long-term lives and molded packing elements to protect them get repacked in the same cartons during a move.
- Packaging is kept for any object with appeal or commercial value likely to extend beyond my ownership, as that helps resale.
- Very cool boxes, or those which can be reused are kept.
- Everything else: flattened and sent to recycling.

Bonus: Pi or e?
Can I give a guess rephrased as pietry?

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I. Poetry: should it rhyme? Discuss.

II. Which would best express your personality:
sonnet, haiku, limerick or free-verse?

III. Which is a worse crime against humanity: very bad amateur poetry about sentimental topics, or very bad amateur paintings about sentimental topics?


bonus: What is your stance on biblioclasm and/or censorship, and does it apply to the works described in #III?

I. Poetry: should it rhyme? Discuss.
In order to be poetry it should at least have some sort of rhythm, and some may consider it rhyme. In the strict sense, no.

II. Which would best express your personality:
sonnet, haiku, limerick or free-verse?
Free-verse. I tend to hate poetry unless is witty/clever which may not be consider true poetry by some, therefore as a serious attempt a free-verse tend to have more chances of working for me.

III. Which is a worse crime against humanity: very bad amateur poetry about sentimental topics, or very bad amateur paintings about sentimental topics?
Bad poetry, a bad painting is less offensive to me.

bonus: What is your stance on biblioclasm and/or censorship, and does it apply to the works described in #III?
Biblioclasm is a sin, a crime against humanity, intelligence and all that I hold dear. Even books filled with lies should be preserved, heck, even bad poetry should be preserved. I'm reading a book about Alexandria and my view of early Christianity has been lowered precisely because of that. I can go as far as to say, burn the author but keep the book. 

1. The authoritarian cynical view of the world is that incarceration, torture, murder and genocide are tolerable because we are still barbarians and it happens much less nowadays, anyway. What would you do (or not) with those who spouse such ideas?

2. What are you capable of while very angry?

3. Is it possible to torture someone with kindness?

Bonus: why am I asking this?

1. The authoritarian cynical view of the world is that incarceration, torture, murder and genocide are tolerable because we are still barbarians and it happens much less nowadays, anyway. What would you do (or not) with those who spouse such ideas?

Lock them up, torture them, kill them and everyone like them. 

I believe that people who espouse such ideas have totally given up and are the saddest creatures on Earth. They are also incredibly lazy to not show any will of their own and tremendously ignorant for spreading such severely-depressed, irresponsible ovine excrement.

I guess that all I could do with them would be to talk to them and try to show them that SOME of us are evolving into the next thing necessary to preserve life on this planet. Will we be simpler or more complex beings? I don't know. But change we will, whether or not we all change at the same rate.



2. What are you capable of while very angry?

I have demonstrated a terrible temper during this life, and have broken things and hurt myself physically and others emotionally. I am extremely unproud of this fact and have been trying to heal myself, but it is a slow process and I have to be constantly aware that whatever little white-hot flame of anger has reared its ugly head before can do it again if I am not very careful.

3. Is it possible to torture someone with kindness?

Only if they have soul enough to be embarrassed by it.

Bonus: why am I asking this?

My guess is that you have recently been angered. If I'm right can I have some frogurt? Pleeeze?


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1) If the Toadfish had a real, physical monastery, would you come for a visit?

2) Have you felt utterly peaceful and connected to the rest of the world? When? Where? How?

3) How do you feel about this statement: "We are all special"?

1) If the Toadfish had a real, physical monastery, would you come for a visit?
Absolutely!  If the country in question would let me in (and out) that is... If it's very far away it might be a once in a lifetime journey and I would try to stay a month or so if it's closer (Europe) I'll could probably make a trip every other year and plan my visits so I could meet as many of the other Siblings as possible.   

2) Have you felt utterly peaceful and connected to the rest of the world? When? Where? How?

Around midnight a day in late July some 8 or 9 years ago, on the outermost rim of Sweden's Baltic sea archipelago, floating in the 24°C mirror surfaced water, feeling the water carrying me unaided,  watching a full moon and a few stars and the lights from faraway ships and lighthouses on a otherwise free horizon.

3) How do you feel about this statement: "We are all special"?
Much better than I feel about the statement "Don't think you're special"!
I do think that we all are special in on way or another, special doesn't mean better or worse than somebody else, just not the same and it sounds better than different, I should know I've been different all my life... And what is it Chatty says now and then "normal is a setting in the washing machine"


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1)Where do you think a Toadfish Monastery should be located?

2) Sea, mountains, forests, or desert in what type on nature do you feel most at home?

3) Are you a norm breaker? In what way?

1)Where do you think a Toadfish Monastery should be located?
I very much think it should be somewhere foresty. The mountains or at least foothills would be nice. And I personally think it should either be located in/around Sequoia National Park (far prettier than Yosemite), Zional National Park, the Colorado Rockies, on the Rio de Chama, or in the Hill Country of Texas. Oooh, or in Lincoln county, New Mexico.
All places that I've personally felt peace in.
Though I would certainly be happy if it was on Maryland's East Shore, since that place is fabulous.
(Although admittedly, since I've never left the country I have no idea where else it should be located.)

2) Sea, mountains, forests, or desert in what type on nature do you feel most at home?
Mountains/forest. I've always lived near a big range of them (the Colorado Rockies, the Sierra Nevadas) and they've always been a refuge and, for a small city girl, a place of wonder.

3) Are you a norm breaker? In what way?
I suppose. Never conformed to what was expected of me--bitchy, wore whatever I wanted (that was the kicker, for some reason), did what I wanted regardless of the perception most people had of it (debate, forensics, etc.). Also, probably the only atheist in my family and probably the only left-wing libertarian in the whole lot of us, too.
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1. How long has it been since you forgot an appointment?

2. If the Monastery was located near you, would you move in (under the pretense of being the caretaker, of course)?

3. What was the last thing you wrote?

1. How long has it been since you forgot an appointment?
Past Friday my son had an orthodontist appointment and despite having a reminder the night before I completely forgot. They called and we arrived late. 

2. If the Monastery was located near you, would you move in (under the pretense of being the caretaker, of course)?
If I'm allowed, sure I would!

3. What was the last thing you wrote?
The stuff in the 'All kinds of Art' folder. I currently have an idea for a pseudo scifi novel, but I don't know if I have the time and will to write it (much less anyone reading it  ).

1. Would you buy a beautiful frame even if it is more expensive than the painting itself?

2. How cluttered is your desk right now?

3. Voodoo dolls or porcelain figures?

1. Would you buy a beautiful frame even if it is more expensive than the painting itself?
Yes.

I should disclose:  I used to be a framer, and it is my understanding that even those crazy Medicis and Pope guys spent more on frames -- the work of skilled cabinetmakers  -- than on paintings -- which was just, you know, art.


2. How cluttered is your desk right now?
Currently I am sans-desk, so I'm happy with my condition, clutter-wise. 


3. Voodoo dolls or porcelain figures?
Porcelain figures make me nervous; I'm afraid they will break and someone's heirloom Hummel or Precious Moments Collection will be left incomplete. Also, I didn't grow upwith that kind of thing. I only saw crappy knockoffs in the local discount store (not to mention the above-mentioned Hummels and Precious Moments) and tend to think it's all junk.

Voodoo dolls, now... That's art.  (fetching examples below -- heh heh heh) 


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Pretend that you are fantastically busy...

1. Would you rather have a driver or a butler? Why?

2. Would you rather have a secretary or a gardener? Why?

3. Would you rather have a personal chef or a personal shopper? Why?

Pretend that you are fantastically busy...

1. Would you rather have a driver or a butler? Why?

Even though I enjoy driving, I think a driver would be more useful if I was fantastically busy, because travel time is a lot of time during which I could be accomplishing significant things. A butler would be a great convenience, but the things he would do are probably not as time-consuming for me to do myself.

2. Would you rather have a secretary or a gardener? Why?

Secretary would be the reasonable choice, but I have to say gardener, because I would be peering over the secretary's shoulder the whole time, micromanaging everything. I can trust someone else with the garden, though.

3. Would you rather have a personal chef or a personal shopper? Why?

Chef. Good food is very valuable to me, and rather time-consuming for me to prepare. (I know there are fast dishes, but I haven't learned 'em yet.) My shopping, however, is very focused, hunt-and-retrieve shopping, and is again the sort of thing I would rather be doing myself, because I tend to research the significant purchases obsessively, and again, I want it done just right.

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1. What's your screensaver?

2. How do you organize/file things?

3. What's the most paranoid thing you regularly do?

1. What's your screensaver?

I think it's a Monty Python thing, from about 10 years ago. Or else it's the flying Windows. If I'm at my desk, no screensaver ever shows, when I'm not, then it goes to dark. (If I'm vertical, I'm at my computer.)

2. How do you organize/file things?

A pile for everything, everything in its pile.

OR

Obsessively, cross-referenced and in Pendaflex folders with subfolders, with a file reference sheet that's up-to-the-minute.

3. What's the most paranoid thing you regularly do?

Double-check to make sure that a person that's not even eligible for parole until 2020 is still in prison. I WANT to be dead when that SOB gets out, because it'll deny him the ability to make good on his threats.




One:  Have you ever testified in court?

Two: Does your driver's license photo look like you, or did they photograph some alien being?

Three: Based on your behavior in the last 48 hours, would your Grandmother be ashamed if she knew what you'd been doing? (Assuming that Dear Granny is/was still amongst us...)

Po'9, the last tree dolls are they elemental representations?

Sorry for interrupting, I just had to ask.