Quick and Dirty

So I have been toying with this little Blogthings site. They have some fun and goofy quizzes. I wanted to see if the little graphics and so on will actually post on Blogger. I haven't had much luck with them showing properly in Bloglines.

Your IQ Is 100

Your Logical Intelligence is Average Your Verbal Intelligence is Genius Your Mathematical Intelligence is Above Average Your General Knowledge is Average

A Quick and Dirty IQ Test

Caricatures

The other night at work I called somebody in Louisiana for one of our National health studies. One of the goals of the study is to interview people between the ages of 35-89 and focus on minority populations. Therefore we call larger cities in the south. Technically the lady refused for the second time but I ended up making it ok to call back. Sometimes when calling people at random we run into some colorful and unique people, shall I say! I have a feeling the woman that I talked to from Louisiana fit our description. I can't remember precisely what this lady said but it was something to this affect. (LA Woman means Louisiana, not Los Angeles, by the way.)

Me: (Reciting the canned introduction to the research study verbatim)
LA woman: (very loudly) WHAT???
Me: (I try to talk louder as I repeat the introduction)
LA woman: (loudly) WAIT A MINUTE, HONEY, let me interject this, I gotta get my hearing aid, honey.
(There's a pause while I assume the woman puts in her hearing aid and comes back to the phone.)
LA woman: (loudly) They say if I put this thang in my ear I will be able to hear what you're saying better, now what were you saying, baby??
Me: (I begin to say something about the study)
LA woman (as soon as I begin to speak): OOOH HOLD ON, baby, my phone is beeping, hold on, baby!
(I assume that the woman clicks over to the other line and leaves me on hold for about a minute.)

Eventually I just hung up and called her back and reached her voice mail. I thought it was pretty funny. The lady talked about her hearing aid in such an exaggerated way that it seemed like a caricature of naivete in the deep south. When I worked for the relay center we took calls for people in Louisiana and Kentucky as well as Wisconsin. I don't think I ever ran into anybody on those calls that was as colorful as this lady was! I'm sure she was a nice lady, but it all seemed funny in a weird way.

Maybe she just wasn't used to wearing her hearing aid yet. Maybe she was like some of the older people who began using the relay after they lost most of their hearing. They weren't quite sure of what to do when making relay calls but they muddled through it. When I worked at the relay I wished I could have explained how to do the calls, but I wasn't allowed to. Anyway, the cynic in me thinks that the LA woman was faking it all so she could get me off the phone! Who knows really.

Homelessness

Truly I should thank God that I am not homeless. He was faithful to provide this place for me. On Monday night after I moved my stuff I took a city bus to the Subway store so that I could get some dinner. When I took the bus back home I ended up getting off at the wrong stop and having to walk about two blocks. I noticed three men lying on park benches. I saw that one was lying on a blanket on the ground and the other two were on the benches. It’s ironic that they sleep on park benches across the street from the Wisconsin state capitol building. It’s a stark contrast between the suited executive people with relatively cushy state jobs and houses or condos in the suburbs and the homeless who have to sleep on park benches. Heck, it’s a contrast between my going to Subway to eat dinner and them having to go to a shelter or church kitchen for dinner! One would hope that the state representatives would do something along with the city of Madison about the problem of homelessness. I doubt it though.

I saw a lady coming out of the elevator at the YWCA who always asks me for money when she sees me downtown. The problem is, I've given her money in the past so that's why. I think the next time I see her downtown, if she attempts to ask me for money I'm going to ask her if she lives in the YWCA...

Moving In

I recently moved out of my apartment with housemates. I ended up moving into the YWCA. It is inexpensive women’s housing in a 12-story building which used to be a hotel. I live in a room on the 9th floor with a tiny bathroom and share a shower/tub with one other woman in between our rooms. (I have just a toilet, sink, window and medicine cabinet.) I have a pretty nice view from my room of trees, houses and the lake in the distance. Everything is pretty small in this place. However, there is a lounge and spacious kitchen on the floor that I share with others. At this point my room is pretty chaotic. I have only opened one or two boxes to get out toiletries and a change of clothes. My friends from church helped me move in my boxes and furniture. The crazy guys stacked 6 or so boxes in my narrow closet. I need a ladder or step stool to get all the boxes off the top shelf! It took several days before I got confirmation that I was going to move here. It stressed me out. I think God was trying to stretch me to get me to trust Him more. I don’t like having to go through that stuff, but God’s wiser… Here's a picture of the place where I live!

My Blogger Logo

I made this logo for my other Bloglines blog. I found it through something called The Generator Blog. It is a compilation of a bunch of cute or funny software tools that make other things, like random content for blogs, or logos. This one resembles the Google logo with the primary colors and that particular font Google uses. So my Blogline's blog happens to have the same name as this one, The Reticent Squirrel. (I am so consistant!) I didn't know how to cut and paste the actual picture, so I am referring you to the site so you can see the logo.

Look here!