Wow. I wrote, and nothing published.
I'm all atwitter because Mr. Manner's family is coming over on Friday. I'd planned to invite them over to the house this year but in like.....October....when I had more time to get the house gussied up. Not now. I'd really like to spend the whole week OFF working on it, or at least working at home and working on it. I've hinted as much but no fish are taking the bait. LOL.
Now I'm in a state of total panic. I refuse to be doing any cleaning on Friday. Whatever the state of the house is on Friday morning is what it is...I can't be my normal freaky self or I will never relax enough to enjoy anything.
I need help! I need a maid!
20080630
20080629
Filed under woe is me:
Friday found the air conditioner not working, much to our puzzlement. The usual suspects didn't pan out, so an emergency call was made to the technician.
Who appeared on Saturday, to be as befuddled as we were. Who called his electrician.
Who is returning tomorrow morning, to perform some expensive repairs. Do you know I have aluminum wiring? I was only getting 20 volts to my a/c, when I needed something like 180.
Later, when trying to make up for losing an entire day to repair folk, I was frantically raking out the front bed when I disturbed a swam of yellow jackets.
I have never run so fast in my life.
Once in the arm pit, once on the hand, once in the back of the leg.
Sigh.
Friday found the air conditioner not working, much to our puzzlement. The usual suspects didn't pan out, so an emergency call was made to the technician.
Who appeared on Saturday, to be as befuddled as we were. Who called his electrician.
Who is returning tomorrow morning, to perform some expensive repairs. Do you know I have aluminum wiring? I was only getting 20 volts to my a/c, when I needed something like 180.
Later, when trying to make up for losing an entire day to repair folk, I was frantically raking out the front bed when I disturbed a swam of yellow jackets.
I have never run so fast in my life.
Once in the arm pit, once on the hand, once in the back of the leg.
Sigh.
20080625
20080624
Read this small snippet:
"For example, Brenda Stanhouse, who bought the game for her 15-year-old son, said in a deposition that she did not know that a player in the game could “stomp to death innocent pedestrians.”
She also did not know that the game included prostitutes, that players could kill policemen or that “a player in the game can kill innocent pedestrians and steal money from them.”
“I’m aware that there is killing in the game,” Ms. Stanhouse said in the deposition. “I wasn’t aware of the stealing.”
Ms. Stanhouse was asked whether she would knowingly buy for her son a game that allowed him to kill police officers.
“Well, I think he does have games with violence,” Ms. Stanhouse said, adding that she would “possibly” buy such a game — though not one that contained sex scenes like those in San Andreas. "
Full text: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/25/technology/25settle.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Ok.
Check me here, please.
This woman will buy a game that features:
Death.
Violent death.
Stomping, maiming, killing, garroting, throttling, strangling, running over people with cars, blowing them up, punching them to death, shooting them, etc. etc.
But this lady has problems with the game, not because of the stunningly obvious level of violence, no, because it has sex in it.
Good grief.
"For example, Brenda Stanhouse, who bought the game for her 15-year-old son, said in a deposition that she did not know that a player in the game could “stomp to death innocent pedestrians.”
She also did not know that the game included prostitutes, that players could kill policemen or that “a player in the game can kill innocent pedestrians and steal money from them.”
“I’m aware that there is killing in the game,” Ms. Stanhouse said in the deposition. “I wasn’t aware of the stealing.”
Ms. Stanhouse was asked whether she would knowingly buy for her son a game that allowed him to kill police officers.
“Well, I think he does have games with violence,” Ms. Stanhouse said, adding that she would “possibly” buy such a game — though not one that contained sex scenes like those in San Andreas. "
Full text: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/25/technology/25settle.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Ok.
Check me here, please.
This woman will buy a game that features:
Death.
Violent death.
Stomping, maiming, killing, garroting, throttling, strangling, running over people with cars, blowing them up, punching them to death, shooting them, etc. etc.
But this lady has problems with the game, not because of the stunningly obvious level of violence, no, because it has sex in it.
Good grief.
We haven't played a good, old fashioned blog game in a while, right, LG?
Bucket List:
1. Walk the Great Wall.
2. Ride the Orient Express.
3. Get over fear of snorkeling.
4. Re-raft Ocoee without flipping and nearly drowning in Double Suck (get over fear of dying in river).
5. Venice, Florence, Pompeii
6. See a live volcano
7. I'm afraid swimming with dolphins is on my list as well.
8. Sail around the world.
9. Visit the concentration camps.
10. Cherry Blossom Festival.
Now, isn't that a random list? of course there are other things I'd like to do, like....ride on the space shuttle. Ride in an F-18. Go up in a helicopter (I really wanted to do the helicopter tour of the Hoover Dam and Grand Canyon but at $400 that is rather pricey). Swamp tour via canoe and camp. Watch the pony round up at Chincoteaque (never could spell). Actually spend more than a day and a half in Paris, and really try not to mangle French this time. Go and visit Anja. See what is left of the rainforest. See the pyramids in Egypt. Visit the Wailing Wall. Spend time touring the old Ottoman Empire. Greece!!!! I mean, there's so much to see and do in the world....but I imagine you'd all expire of boredom if forced to endure Eliza's World Tour of Little Known Historical Facts.....
Bucket List:
1. Walk the Great Wall.
2. Ride the Orient Express.
3. Get over fear of snorkeling.
4. Re-raft Ocoee without flipping and nearly drowning in Double Suck (get over fear of dying in river).
5. Venice, Florence, Pompeii
6. See a live volcano
7. I'm afraid swimming with dolphins is on my list as well.
8. Sail around the world.
9. Visit the concentration camps.
10. Cherry Blossom Festival.
Now, isn't that a random list? of course there are other things I'd like to do, like....ride on the space shuttle. Ride in an F-18. Go up in a helicopter (I really wanted to do the helicopter tour of the Hoover Dam and Grand Canyon but at $400 that is rather pricey). Swamp tour via canoe and camp. Watch the pony round up at Chincoteaque (never could spell). Actually spend more than a day and a half in Paris, and really try not to mangle French this time. Go and visit Anja. See what is left of the rainforest. See the pyramids in Egypt. Visit the Wailing Wall. Spend time touring the old Ottoman Empire. Greece!!!! I mean, there's so much to see and do in the world....but I imagine you'd all expire of boredom if forced to endure Eliza's World Tour of Little Known Historical Facts.....
20080623
I guess there are things in this life I'm not meant to understand.
There are days when I look at the people that surrond me, and I look at the gifts they have been handed throughout the course of their lives, and I honestly, people, really and truly, look at these guys and gals, and look at the mess they've made of their lives, and the opportunities they have missed, and the damage they have done to themselves, and to their relatives, and to their friends, and I really and truly have to wonder how on earth people who share the same physical structure, the same basic chemical makeup can turn out to be so diverse on emotional and cognitive levels.
Culturally speaking, there is an enormous amount of historical literature that exists about the pitfalls of "chasing the dragon" and of those famous and maligned opium dens (it's not as romantic as it sounds. They were in the slums. People smoked, got high, died. You could smoke next to a rotting corpse.). You might think it's something you can walk away from; most people do. I'm sure that the wife who is responsible for the loss of the the family farm because she discovered and became addicted to internet gambling (took out a mortgage on the farm without telling her husband, gambled and lost all the funds) thought the same thing. The alcoholic I wrote about (from Creative Loafing) a few weeks ago? He just knew he could walk away from alcohol whenever he wanted.
And maybe some folks can.
But not you.
And you never will be able to. This is an all or nothing situation for you, and the fact that you fail to recognize that means that you have no grasp of your own reality at all. What does it take? What's it like to be an adult and to call your parents from the pokey? What's it like to be an adult and to have to ask your friends and family time and time again to bail you out of trouble because you are too incompetent to take care of yourself? Wait, I forgot, it's not too incompetent, it's TOO HIGH.
You can't be fired from your family for failing to perform as a child. You can't be fired for failing to love, respect and honor your siblings, or to cherish and respect and value your parents. You can't be fired as a child for abusing the trust of your family, for lying to them, for misleading them about your whereabouts, your financial situation, what you do in your spare time; in short you can't be fired for being a bad child. You are still their child, and no matter how much you may try people's patience, you are still a member of the family and still have the family's love.
But you have to stop; life is not one gigantic therapy session where you sit on a comfy chair in the therapists office and lie your way into some great land of prescription shangri-la. You have a problem, and you need to deal with it. No one can make you love yourself, and god only knows no amount of medication, legal or otherwise, is ever going to dull the pain of that self hatred.
I'm afraid that some people slip beyond help. That no amount of love and affection and intervention will ever be enough to reach people because they don't want to be reached.
There are days when I look at the people that surrond me, and I look at the gifts they have been handed throughout the course of their lives, and I honestly, people, really and truly, look at these guys and gals, and look at the mess they've made of their lives, and the opportunities they have missed, and the damage they have done to themselves, and to their relatives, and to their friends, and I really and truly have to wonder how on earth people who share the same physical structure, the same basic chemical makeup can turn out to be so diverse on emotional and cognitive levels.
Culturally speaking, there is an enormous amount of historical literature that exists about the pitfalls of "chasing the dragon" and of those famous and maligned opium dens (it's not as romantic as it sounds. They were in the slums. People smoked, got high, died. You could smoke next to a rotting corpse.). You might think it's something you can walk away from; most people do. I'm sure that the wife who is responsible for the loss of the the family farm because she discovered and became addicted to internet gambling (took out a mortgage on the farm without telling her husband, gambled and lost all the funds) thought the same thing. The alcoholic I wrote about (from Creative Loafing) a few weeks ago? He just knew he could walk away from alcohol whenever he wanted.
And maybe some folks can.
But not you.
And you never will be able to. This is an all or nothing situation for you, and the fact that you fail to recognize that means that you have no grasp of your own reality at all. What does it take? What's it like to be an adult and to call your parents from the pokey? What's it like to be an adult and to have to ask your friends and family time and time again to bail you out of trouble because you are too incompetent to take care of yourself? Wait, I forgot, it's not too incompetent, it's TOO HIGH.
You can't be fired from your family for failing to perform as a child. You can't be fired for failing to love, respect and honor your siblings, or to cherish and respect and value your parents. You can't be fired as a child for abusing the trust of your family, for lying to them, for misleading them about your whereabouts, your financial situation, what you do in your spare time; in short you can't be fired for being a bad child. You are still their child, and no matter how much you may try people's patience, you are still a member of the family and still have the family's love.
But you have to stop; life is not one gigantic therapy session where you sit on a comfy chair in the therapists office and lie your way into some great land of prescription shangri-la. You have a problem, and you need to deal with it. No one can make you love yourself, and god only knows no amount of medication, legal or otherwise, is ever going to dull the pain of that self hatred.
I'm afraid that some people slip beyond help. That no amount of love and affection and intervention will ever be enough to reach people because they don't want to be reached.
20080619
More completely revolting, sub human behavior:
There is case here in Atlanta that revolves around an Indian man hiring contract killers to execute his daughter in law. He didn't approve of his marriage to her son. Not only did he want her dead, he wanted his grand child dead too. He told people that his daughter in law was leading his son into a life of crime. According to all reports in the press and media, his daugher in law, the daughter of a local media announcer, worked with her husband and his father in the family business, and was a law abiding citizen intent on raising her family.
What was her crime?
She was black.
At least, that's what is being tried right now in a court of law. I wonder if that is being tried in Fulton County? If so...have fun, honey...good luck finding a jury of your peers in that county.
There is case here in Atlanta that revolves around an Indian man hiring contract killers to execute his daughter in law. He didn't approve of his marriage to her son. Not only did he want her dead, he wanted his grand child dead too. He told people that his daughter in law was leading his son into a life of crime. According to all reports in the press and media, his daugher in law, the daughter of a local media announcer, worked with her husband and his father in the family business, and was a law abiding citizen intent on raising her family.
What was her crime?
She was black.
At least, that's what is being tried right now in a court of law. I wonder if that is being tried in Fulton County? If so...have fun, honey...good luck finding a jury of your peers in that county.
Pass the popcorn, y'all, the show is just getting started!
I loved the site of those Bear Stearns managers being hauled off in cuffs by the FBI. LOVED IT.
Enjoy the perp walk, you greedy bastards.
You might as well work for Bin Laden - you did a better job destroying our economy than he ever envisioned.
I loved the site of those Bear Stearns managers being hauled off in cuffs by the FBI. LOVED IT.
Enjoy the perp walk, you greedy bastards.
You might as well work for Bin Laden - you did a better job destroying our economy than he ever envisioned.
People certainly are interesting creatures, aren't they? It's amazing how different we all can be, in terms of temperment, manners, and how we treat each other. On one hand, we think nothing of putting our own needs and desires ahead of others, but are horribly affronted when our own feelings are hurt. Understandable, certainly, it's human nature to gratify yourself first and others second. I struggle with this constantly, although I tend to put eveything I want to do for myself on the back burner (go to the store, to a movie, to the fair, etc, etc.) to do things for other people first. You rearrange your live to support people in need; it's just that simple.
I think we are disappointed and amazed when other people don't live up to our expectations. And astounded when we find that other people don't live and act like we do. Everyone lives differently, just like everyone loves differently.
You have to be tolerant of other people's differences. If you can't be tolerant, you have to learn to adjust.
And that's the bottom line.
And:
TGIF
wait
Better:
TMFGIF (almost)
I think we are disappointed and amazed when other people don't live up to our expectations. And astounded when we find that other people don't live and act like we do. Everyone lives differently, just like everyone loves differently.
You have to be tolerant of other people's differences. If you can't be tolerant, you have to learn to adjust.
And that's the bottom line.
And:
TGIF
wait
Better:
TMFGIF (almost)
All relationships have their own language, and their own rhythm. One person might express their love and affection by their partner by doing that high end job and keeping their loved one rolling in expensive goodies. Another person might express their love for their partner by keeping the home fires burning, and cooking great dinners every day. And yet still another person might show love by making sure that the house is always in tip top shape, or the car is always taken care of, or the lawn is always mowed, or by simply saying that he/she loves you.
The point is, love can be expressed in different ways.
But are you listening when your partner says it?
More importantly, are you telling your partner in a way they can hear?
The point is, love can be expressed in different ways.
But are you listening when your partner says it?
More importantly, are you telling your partner in a way they can hear?
20080618
I did forget to mention last week's free concert, didn't I?
Ah yes, the melodious strains of...wait for it....Dum Dum Dum..."Sweet Caroline" came wafting through the woods last week from the arena.
I really don't mind it. I really don't. Just no drum solos late at night on a school night.
I think our alcoholic pool man has is on a bender, or maybe someone made him go to rehab. The one time I actually saw him (he's like Loch Ness that way, actually, sort of shaky and gray like old Nessy) this year he wasn't looking like all that and a bag of chips. It's been some kids, whom I guessing are the owners sons...and they do such a great job. It's actually clean!
woohoo!
patio furniture coming soon to a pool near you...well, not a pool, a patio near you.
Ah yes, the melodious strains of...wait for it....Dum Dum Dum..."Sweet Caroline" came wafting through the woods last week from the arena.
I really don't mind it. I really don't. Just no drum solos late at night on a school night.
I think our alcoholic pool man has is on a bender, or maybe someone made him go to rehab. The one time I actually saw him (he's like Loch Ness that way, actually, sort of shaky and gray like old Nessy) this year he wasn't looking like all that and a bag of chips. It's been some kids, whom I guessing are the owners sons...and they do such a great job. It's actually clean!
woohoo!
patio furniture coming soon to a pool near you...well, not a pool, a patio near you.
20080617
20080616
The wedding was at a charming little place called The Hitching Post, in the middle of nowhere, North Carolina. It would have been a rather upper class farm house or plantation house (on the small side) at some point in it's history, but now serves as a special events facility. Yellow, front porch, house shaped in a t, stone basement, upper porch as well, original flooring (wood, of course), dutch doors throughout, and lovely gardening and landscaping all over the property. The ceremony (thankfully brief, given the heat) was held off to the side of the house. No one was filming, so I used the camera to record the (five minute) ceremony before we were whisked inside for lemonade and finger foods. Some dancing and small talk, more light summer foods, cake, a champagne toast, more talk, more hanging out, and then the folks with the longest drives (Virginia, Tennessee, Atlanta) started casually drifting towards the exits.
The bride and groom looked relieved that everyone was leaving. I've never seen someone look happier to get out of her dress and back into her regular clothes. And they looked so sweet everytime they'd smooch and whisper "I love you" to each other.
I was dead on with the gift, though: the two accidental themes for the gifts (no registry) were locally or handmade and pottery. I found a potter in Hickory, NC (one point) and gave a vase and a bowl (two points) in a nice basket stuffed with red paper with polka dots (did not know the color scheme, but it turned out to be red). Almost an accidental trifecta! And the hope chest dad made for Kim is possibly the best one he's made so far.
So it was lovely and went off without a hitch. And from what I hear, it looks like we'll be going to another one (Kim's big sis) next year, although this will be in Chattanooga; far shorter a trip!
I will post the video for my out of town family to download and watch.
The bride and groom looked relieved that everyone was leaving. I've never seen someone look happier to get out of her dress and back into her regular clothes. And they looked so sweet everytime they'd smooch and whisper "I love you" to each other.
I was dead on with the gift, though: the two accidental themes for the gifts (no registry) were locally or handmade and pottery. I found a potter in Hickory, NC (one point) and gave a vase and a bowl (two points) in a nice basket stuffed with red paper with polka dots (did not know the color scheme, but it turned out to be red). Almost an accidental trifecta! And the hope chest dad made for Kim is possibly the best one he's made so far.
So it was lovely and went off without a hitch. And from what I hear, it looks like we'll be going to another one (Kim's big sis) next year, although this will be in Chattanooga; far shorter a trip!
I will post the video for my out of town family to download and watch.
It's funny that someone called me on it,
You are right. I should have made no other plans this weekend. I should have made sure all our transportation and clothing stuff was well done prior to our departure timeline, so that everything was well done in advance of Kim's shower, etc., etc.
But I didn't.
I am trying not to stress so much about every little aspect of my life. So what if the dishes stay in the sink overnight? No big deal. So what if the laundry piles up (hate it!!). It won't kill me if it doesn't get done. I was thinking about this while I was completely freaking out at the mall on Saturday. Everyone else seemed to be having a grand old time, and I was really incredibly pissed off. All my chores were done, and I expected to be out playing in the sunshine, not stuck in a mall with a bunch of grumpy people doing boring things like spending money! I wanted to go play frisbee and run around! :-)
You are right. I should have made no other plans this weekend. I should have made sure all our transportation and clothing stuff was well done prior to our departure timeline, so that everything was well done in advance of Kim's shower, etc., etc.
But I didn't.
I am trying not to stress so much about every little aspect of my life. So what if the dishes stay in the sink overnight? No big deal. So what if the laundry piles up (hate it!!). It won't kill me if it doesn't get done. I was thinking about this while I was completely freaking out at the mall on Saturday. Everyone else seemed to be having a grand old time, and I was really incredibly pissed off. All my chores were done, and I expected to be out playing in the sunshine, not stuck in a mall with a bunch of grumpy people doing boring things like spending money! I wanted to go play frisbee and run around! :-)
I've been meaning to point this out for a while:
Bad Banks.
Just because the fed is lowering prime doesn't automatically mean that banks are going to lower their rates on loan products as well.
In fact, banks are keeping their rates at a steady seven to eight percent on almost all consumer loan products unless you are a premier customer with stellar credit. The rest of us get screwed, and are paying for what the banks are calling "losses" - their greed in taking on customers that they knew were marginal and subprime....so...get used to being screwed. Banks have figured out how to party like the government now.
Bad Banks.
Just because the fed is lowering prime doesn't automatically mean that banks are going to lower their rates on loan products as well.
In fact, banks are keeping their rates at a steady seven to eight percent on almost all consumer loan products unless you are a premier customer with stellar credit. The rest of us get screwed, and are paying for what the banks are calling "losses" - their greed in taking on customers that they knew were marginal and subprime....so...get used to being screwed. Banks have figured out how to party like the government now.
20080615
I am just bitching, so skip if you are looking for something substantial or intellectually stimulating, because this isn't it.
I found myself saying two things quite frequently this weekend:
I need to learn to let things go, usually followed by, why do I bother to plan.
We'd make great plans for what was supposed to be a great get away weekend to NC for Kim's wedding. We were going to leisurely make our way up to NC on Friday in time for the bridal shower. Due to a transportation complication, we missed the entire shower, and arrived just in time to eat a cold hamburger and say goodnight to the bride's parents as they were leaving to drive to the wedding site an hour away.
Saturday was going to be spent having German food for lunch (which everyone adores, although I can't stand sausage, so I had a greek salad, making me the odd girl out - go ahead and laugh, everyone else does). Then we had two emergencies: lack of gifts, and lack of clothing. Mr. Manners and I had planned a trip to the water park - Charlotte has built a Class III and IV whitewater rafting park in a controlled environment, and I figured that would be a perfect way to get over my fear of what happened on the Ocoee with that asshole I used to be married to. But....that didn't happen. No, instead we spent two and a half hours at the mall, and I spent twenty minutes of that two hours on the phone, trying to figure out where various members of my family had utterly disappeared to. Grrrr. Get home....we have enough time to go for a walk in the park before it is time to get ready for our TWO HOUR DRIVE to the rehearsal dinner. We aren't in the wedding and somehow we are going to dinner. Anyway, that was nice...free meal, right? It wasn't even awkward...we were at the opposite end of the table from the folks we didn't know, so it was like having dinner with mom and dad.
MidSis and I had discussed having our hair put up in updo's. I had decided, in my sleep, I suppose, that it would be a waste of time and money to do that when I really needed to be doing school and not fussing with hair (which would just fall out when it hit the humidity anyway). So she came to get me up to go, I told her I would go with her but I wasn't getting it done, and she got all snippy, so I got snippy back...but got up, and got in the shower. She came in the bathroom and saw that my hair was wet and said "that's what I was afraid of". She left the house, essentially, saying nothing. Which upset me, and made me cry. Now I'm on the back deck underneath the awning, with the dogs, doing my schoolwork, sitting among the flowers, with the fountain going, and I'm still angry and my feelings are hurt but I am trying to let it go.
Oh, I just swallowed a bug. Gross. Porch living.
Lastly, let's talk about my weight. Every person has said something to be about it. Yeah, I am a bit too thin. No, I am not vomiting up my dinner. I'm not taking laxatives. I'm not starving myself. I eat. Ask Mr. Manners. The thing is - the Topamax does some weird stuff to you. Dr. Bosse warned me that the higher dose had some interesting side effects - like tingling in your extremeties. I was driving one day and my arms turned into long dangly rubber arms, kind of like Gumby. That wouldn't steer the car. On the highway. Odd and frightening. Your eyes see arms. Your brain says "rubber thingies". Hm. My toes tingle a lot, but then it will go away. I wake up feeling like my dogs must feel when they run in their sleep - my right calf has a permanent cramp. Topamax has killed my taste buds. Sometimes I eat, sometimes I don't. I'm at 110. Leave me be!
I'll let you know how the wedding goes.
I need to learn to let things go, usually followed by, why do I bother to plan.
We'd make great plans for what was supposed to be a great get away weekend to NC for Kim's wedding. We were going to leisurely make our way up to NC on Friday in time for the bridal shower. Due to a transportation complication, we missed the entire shower, and arrived just in time to eat a cold hamburger and say goodnight to the bride's parents as they were leaving to drive to the wedding site an hour away.
Saturday was going to be spent having German food for lunch (which everyone adores, although I can't stand sausage, so I had a greek salad, making me the odd girl out - go ahead and laugh, everyone else does). Then we had two emergencies: lack of gifts, and lack of clothing. Mr. Manners and I had planned a trip to the water park - Charlotte has built a Class III and IV whitewater rafting park in a controlled environment, and I figured that would be a perfect way to get over my fear of what happened on the Ocoee with that asshole I used to be married to. But....that didn't happen. No, instead we spent two and a half hours at the mall, and I spent twenty minutes of that two hours on the phone, trying to figure out where various members of my family had utterly disappeared to. Grrrr. Get home....we have enough time to go for a walk in the park before it is time to get ready for our TWO HOUR DRIVE to the rehearsal dinner. We aren't in the wedding and somehow we are going to dinner. Anyway, that was nice...free meal, right? It wasn't even awkward...we were at the opposite end of the table from the folks we didn't know, so it was like having dinner with mom and dad.
MidSis and I had discussed having our hair put up in updo's. I had decided, in my sleep, I suppose, that it would be a waste of time and money to do that when I really needed to be doing school and not fussing with hair (which would just fall out when it hit the humidity anyway). So she came to get me up to go, I told her I would go with her but I wasn't getting it done, and she got all snippy, so I got snippy back...but got up, and got in the shower. She came in the bathroom and saw that my hair was wet and said "that's what I was afraid of". She left the house, essentially, saying nothing. Which upset me, and made me cry. Now I'm on the back deck underneath the awning, with the dogs, doing my schoolwork, sitting among the flowers, with the fountain going, and I'm still angry and my feelings are hurt but I am trying to let it go.
Oh, I just swallowed a bug. Gross. Porch living.
Lastly, let's talk about my weight. Every person has said something to be about it. Yeah, I am a bit too thin. No, I am not vomiting up my dinner. I'm not taking laxatives. I'm not starving myself. I eat. Ask Mr. Manners. The thing is - the Topamax does some weird stuff to you. Dr. Bosse warned me that the higher dose had some interesting side effects - like tingling in your extremeties. I was driving one day and my arms turned into long dangly rubber arms, kind of like Gumby. That wouldn't steer the car. On the highway. Odd and frightening. Your eyes see arms. Your brain says "rubber thingies". Hm. My toes tingle a lot, but then it will go away. I wake up feeling like my dogs must feel when they run in their sleep - my right calf has a permanent cramp. Topamax has killed my taste buds. Sometimes I eat, sometimes I don't. I'm at 110. Leave me be!
I'll let you know how the wedding goes.
20080612
Someone tell me to let this go. I'm standing in my kitchen crying as I got this news. Everytime I read something about this story I start to cry.
Right to Hike, Inc. has been created in honor, so to speak, of Meredith Emerson. It's a non profit organization with two goals: promotion of hiking safety and a memorial scholarship for study abroad.
They are having a fundraising event in Atlanta on June 25th with some local Applebee's; applications can be found here http://www.righttohikeinc.com/.
If you've been a reader here, you know how strongly I feel on this subject. And it really isn't just about Meredith, it's about everyone's right to enjoy their right to live. To breathe and walk around and not live in fear of being molested! Of having your life taken from you by some terrible thing that masquerades as a man but is really a monster? Ah, what evil walks among us.
Please visit the site, please visit the foundation. Also, the Humane Society has a fund set up in honor of Ella that takes care of foundling dogs....
Right to Hike, Inc. has been created in honor, so to speak, of Meredith Emerson. It's a non profit organization with two goals: promotion of hiking safety and a memorial scholarship for study abroad.
They are having a fundraising event in Atlanta on June 25th with some local Applebee's; applications can be found here http://www.righttohikeinc.com/.
If you've been a reader here, you know how strongly I feel on this subject. And it really isn't just about Meredith, it's about everyone's right to enjoy their right to live. To breathe and walk around and not live in fear of being molested! Of having your life taken from you by some terrible thing that masquerades as a man but is really a monster? Ah, what evil walks among us.
Please visit the site, please visit the foundation. Also, the Humane Society has a fund set up in honor of Ella that takes care of foundling dogs....
Do you ever wonder why some people keep every item they've ever gotten or received, while other people don't?
I used to keep every piece of junk ever. I had boxes of envelopes, diaries, tons of crap. Sticky notes. Notes to myself (I might add that my cursive is so bad that my handwriting is generally illegible even to me), books missing jackets, records that were scratched (no player), jewel cases with no disc, a broken drill, an antique iron bed frame for an irregular size bedframe where the iron is so fragile it can't be used or re-worked (still in the shed), costume jewelry, clothing, the entire Barbara Cartland collection, and the first 86 Star Trek original series books, sea shells, hats, pens, pictures of Nicole Kidman.
Serious junk.
I didn't go through some radical shift; I didn't wake up one day and, god forbid, turn into Tom Cruise and start jumping on couches and throwing all my shit out the window. No, slowly and over the course of the last ten years, I started purging.
It started with the boxes I used to keep all my memories in. Did I really need to keep every envelope that every piece of personal mail I'd ever gotten in my whole life in? No, I did not. So out they went. Hm. If I had gotten a card in fourth grade that someone had just signed, did I need that? No, and so into the trash that went. I've been doing this for years.
The hardest thing is realizing that I don't have to keep something because it was Grandmother Carol's. Just because someone died and left you something doesn't mean you have to keep it. She left me some jewelery and honestly? It was all junky costume jewelery, and appropriate to leave to a small child (which I was at the time, ten when she died), but when I grew older and outgrew it, I stopped holding on to it for sentimental reasons and gave it away. You don't have to keep something just because you inherited it. That was hard.
It's liberating. Why do we hang on to so much baggage in our lives? Someone said a word to me recently that stuck: simpler. I'm trying to make my life simpler. I don't need all that crap. I don't want to haul it around with me.
(I burnt my own eyeballs. I mentioned darling Nicole and Evil Tom in the same post. Bad Eliza)
I used to keep every piece of junk ever. I had boxes of envelopes, diaries, tons of crap. Sticky notes. Notes to myself (I might add that my cursive is so bad that my handwriting is generally illegible even to me), books missing jackets, records that were scratched (no player), jewel cases with no disc, a broken drill, an antique iron bed frame for an irregular size bedframe where the iron is so fragile it can't be used or re-worked (still in the shed), costume jewelry, clothing, the entire Barbara Cartland collection, and the first 86 Star Trek original series books, sea shells, hats, pens, pictures of Nicole Kidman.
Serious junk.
I didn't go through some radical shift; I didn't wake up one day and, god forbid, turn into Tom Cruise and start jumping on couches and throwing all my shit out the window. No, slowly and over the course of the last ten years, I started purging.
It started with the boxes I used to keep all my memories in. Did I really need to keep every envelope that every piece of personal mail I'd ever gotten in my whole life in? No, I did not. So out they went. Hm. If I had gotten a card in fourth grade that someone had just signed, did I need that? No, and so into the trash that went. I've been doing this for years.
The hardest thing is realizing that I don't have to keep something because it was Grandmother Carol's. Just because someone died and left you something doesn't mean you have to keep it. She left me some jewelery and honestly? It was all junky costume jewelery, and appropriate to leave to a small child (which I was at the time, ten when she died), but when I grew older and outgrew it, I stopped holding on to it for sentimental reasons and gave it away. You don't have to keep something just because you inherited it. That was hard.
It's liberating. Why do we hang on to so much baggage in our lives? Someone said a word to me recently that stuck: simpler. I'm trying to make my life simpler. I don't need all that crap. I don't want to haul it around with me.
(I burnt my own eyeballs. I mentioned darling Nicole and Evil Tom in the same post. Bad Eliza)
The Blackberry
The Blackberry has forced me to reconsider how I communicate with people. Normally, I tend to have very itchy "crackberry fingers". I'll read an email or an message, think about it for all of three seconds (admit it, you are equally as guilty) and then fire off a response without stopping to really think about what is being said.
At some point, I should have learned my lesson. I can't think of how many silly disagreements and misunderstandings I've had with folks over digital technology because you lack the ability to have any emotional nuance over, well, air. I can't see you, and you can't see me, so we just don't have that flow of energy that indicates happy, sad, or in the middle.
Admittedly, some things are pretty clear. Emails that say "ARE YOU GOING TO DO THIS OR DO I NEED TO FIND SOMEONE ELSE" for example, pretty clearly indicate that you are generally considered unresponsive, and that the sender is at their wit's end. Or my personal favorite, and frequently blogged about "Please excuse the incontinence" which indicates that the sender is from India. If, in emails, you use any acronyms (STFU, OMG!!!, IMHO, LOL, ROFL, LMAO, SNAFU, PITA, PITB, FO, AYFKM) you are either very familiar with your audience or you work in IT.
My, I am rambling, aren't I? I don't want to work. It's far too nice outside. I'd really rather be walking the dogs, listening to music, and enjoying the outside. Now I'm wishing I'd skipped lunch, didn't have three more conference calls....oh! random thought...I finally discovered the single joy of being a manager....being able to delegate to someone else....
I don't know where this is going. It had a point. I lost it.
Sorry! :-)
At some point, I should have learned my lesson. I can't think of how many silly disagreements and misunderstandings I've had with folks over digital technology because you lack the ability to have any emotional nuance over, well, air. I can't see you, and you can't see me, so we just don't have that flow of energy that indicates happy, sad, or in the middle.
Admittedly, some things are pretty clear. Emails that say "ARE YOU GOING TO DO THIS OR DO I NEED TO FIND SOMEONE ELSE" for example, pretty clearly indicate that you are generally considered unresponsive, and that the sender is at their wit's end. Or my personal favorite, and frequently blogged about "Please excuse the incontinence" which indicates that the sender is from India. If, in emails, you use any acronyms (STFU, OMG!!!, IMHO, LOL, ROFL, LMAO, SNAFU, PITA, PITB, FO, AYFKM) you are either very familiar with your audience or you work in IT.
My, I am rambling, aren't I? I don't want to work. It's far too nice outside. I'd really rather be walking the dogs, listening to music, and enjoying the outside. Now I'm wishing I'd skipped lunch, didn't have three more conference calls....oh! random thought...I finally discovered the single joy of being a manager....being able to delegate to someone else....
I don't know where this is going. It had a point. I lost it.
Sorry! :-)
Once, Mr. Manners and I ordered a pizza from Mellow Mushroom. We had settled on half pepperoni and half chicken and artichokes, I think (this was over a year ago, so the ole memory is dodgy), and phoned it in.
Ah, the smell of fresh pizza.
Got it into the truck and opened it up.
It wasn't artichoke.
It was...anchovy.
Trying to make the best of the situation, because it was late, I was tired, hungry, I said "let's just pick them off, it can't be that bad".
It can be that bad. It was worse. It was ass nasty.
Ah, the smell of fresh pizza.
Got it into the truck and opened it up.
It wasn't artichoke.
It was...anchovy.
Trying to make the best of the situation, because it was late, I was tired, hungry, I said "let's just pick them off, it can't be that bad".
It can be that bad. It was worse. It was ass nasty.
20080611
Strawberry Shortcake, little smelly iconic doll of my childhood, with her friend Raspberry Tart, are being redesigned into dolls are are far more modern and sophisticated.
They have phones.
They wear lip gloss.
They look like tarts.
What's wrong with holding a cat?
And wearing an apron?
And looking cute when you pose?
Damnit, leave my childhood memories alone. Nothing is sacred anymore.
What a crass world we live in. All anyone seems to care about is money. I find myself guilty of that from time to time. Why do we do that?
We're suffering from a ferocious rainstorm. I'm glad, it's been dry and record breaking hot. Damn, frog frying hot. If you've spent anytime down South, you know what I'm talking about.
But the one night I'd actually like to hear the amphitheater, I can't. Steely Dan.
I'm actually working tonight sitting here in the bedroom.
Ah, haven't done this in a while. Rather enjoyable.
We're suffering from a ferocious rainstorm. I'm glad, it's been dry and record breaking hot. Damn, frog frying hot. If you've spent anytime down South, you know what I'm talking about.
But the one night I'd actually like to hear the amphitheater, I can't. Steely Dan.
I'm actually working tonight sitting here in the bedroom.
Ah, haven't done this in a while. Rather enjoyable.
In a normal world, don't people get terminated for non performance?
If you make a series of bad business decisions, and your business units lose money, and you under perform, and your stock continues to drop, and drops below a point it hasn't seen in seven years, and you stubbornly refuse to listen to anyone's advice and hold onto a business unit that doesn't fit anywhere into the core model;
Isn't it time for you to step down?
If you make a series of bad business decisions, and your business units lose money, and you under perform, and your stock continues to drop, and drops below a point it hasn't seen in seven years, and you stubbornly refuse to listen to anyone's advice and hold onto a business unit that doesn't fit anywhere into the core model;
Isn't it time for you to step down?
There has been a recent spate of phone ringing at the household of Eliza and Mr. Manners.
An annoying spate of early morning phone ringing.
Now, everyone knows I have a love/hate relationship with the phone, at best. I hate to hear it ring. The phone is the tool of evil. It very rarely brings good news. It very rarely carries the voice of anyone I want to speak to. It often inspires me to be quite rude ("No, ma'am, I do not wish to donate any funds to the fireman's fund of south Fulton County. I live in Milton. Oh, you've never heard of that? I'm sorry.). If it rings very late, or very early, it is usually the harbinger of ill health or death, or both.
If the phone rings several times in quick succession, that is the normal symbol in the family for "danger, Will Robinson! Danger!".
It is not the symbol for some high asshole to leave messages on my voicemail that are incoherent and make no sense.
You know who you are. This is your final warning.
Stop. It. Right. Now.
An annoying spate of early morning phone ringing.
Now, everyone knows I have a love/hate relationship with the phone, at best. I hate to hear it ring. The phone is the tool of evil. It very rarely brings good news. It very rarely carries the voice of anyone I want to speak to. It often inspires me to be quite rude ("No, ma'am, I do not wish to donate any funds to the fireman's fund of south Fulton County. I live in Milton. Oh, you've never heard of that? I'm sorry.). If it rings very late, or very early, it is usually the harbinger of ill health or death, or both.
If the phone rings several times in quick succession, that is the normal symbol in the family for "danger, Will Robinson! Danger!".
It is not the symbol for some high asshole to leave messages on my voicemail that are incoherent and make no sense.
You know who you are. This is your final warning.
Stop. It. Right. Now.
20080610
I am struck by this quote, from an NY times article:
"I was afraid that my father would take me to a doctor and see whether I was still a virgin,” said the woman, 32, who owns a small business and lives on her own in Frankfurt. “He told me, ‘I will forgive everything but not if you have thrown dirt on my honor.’ I wasn’t afraid he would kill me, but I was sure he would have beaten me.”
I always thought that a woman needed both a room and a wallet of her own to be free, but this muddies the water a bit.
Honor and integrity are inner concepts. They are between you and your god. No one can measure those qualities, or judge you for them, or punish you for them. For a grown woman to expect a beating is disgusting.
If you go on to read the article, it talks about a case in France where a Muslim man asks for an annulment after finding out on the marriage bed that his bride is not a virgin, and French law agrees, citing breech of contract.
Ridiculous.
"I was afraid that my father would take me to a doctor and see whether I was still a virgin,” said the woman, 32, who owns a small business and lives on her own in Frankfurt. “He told me, ‘I will forgive everything but not if you have thrown dirt on my honor.’ I wasn’t afraid he would kill me, but I was sure he would have beaten me.”
I always thought that a woman needed both a room and a wallet of her own to be free, but this muddies the water a bit.
Honor and integrity are inner concepts. They are between you and your god. No one can measure those qualities, or judge you for them, or punish you for them. For a grown woman to expect a beating is disgusting.
If you go on to read the article, it talks about a case in France where a Muslim man asks for an annulment after finding out on the marriage bed that his bride is not a virgin, and French law agrees, citing breech of contract.
Ridiculous.
I have learned a horrible technique from Dilbert, a horrible, bad, terrible, Machiavellian strategy to deploy upon people that inspires fear into any situation.
Arrive late. Deploy bad news that is crippling to said situation. Sit back. Enjoy the mayhem.
I just did this to my classmates in the eleventh hour of our project. Long ago I identified someone as the weakest link and, as foretold, he has dropped from the fold. The project is due Saturday, minus and entire person’s contributions – oh my! Whatever shall we do??? Should we call them? Email again (for, I might add, what is only the eleventh time, as this has existed as a potential problem since the middle of the course, three weeks ago, when I first pointed out this potential risk).
One should, after all, have a mitigation strategy, however trivial it may seem at the time.
So in the eleventh hour I’ve had two plans in my back pocket all along: persuade my remaining team mates to take on our missing idiot’s sections equally (done) and email the professor in an appeal of some sort of charitable “please don’t make us have to do this” good natured “ha ha, we’re all adults here” sort of way that I’m sure won’t work (also done).
Everyone is panicked that this will somehow sink us. I asked what grades everyone received on the project at mid term – high nineties. What could sink us? The professor is not so unreasonable as to fail the entire team as punishment for the actions of an independent contributor; a grade that heinous would result in complaints to the dean. Especially if it meant someone failed; I wasn’t mocking anyone. I just thought that was an unreasonable concern.
After all – we had a plan. We just have to see how it turns out.
Dilbertian indeed.
Arrive late. Deploy bad news that is crippling to said situation. Sit back. Enjoy the mayhem.
I just did this to my classmates in the eleventh hour of our project. Long ago I identified someone as the weakest link and, as foretold, he has dropped from the fold. The project is due Saturday, minus and entire person’s contributions – oh my! Whatever shall we do??? Should we call them? Email again (for, I might add, what is only the eleventh time, as this has existed as a potential problem since the middle of the course, three weeks ago, when I first pointed out this potential risk).
One should, after all, have a mitigation strategy, however trivial it may seem at the time.
So in the eleventh hour I’ve had two plans in my back pocket all along: persuade my remaining team mates to take on our missing idiot’s sections equally (done) and email the professor in an appeal of some sort of charitable “please don’t make us have to do this” good natured “ha ha, we’re all adults here” sort of way that I’m sure won’t work (also done).
Everyone is panicked that this will somehow sink us. I asked what grades everyone received on the project at mid term – high nineties. What could sink us? The professor is not so unreasonable as to fail the entire team as punishment for the actions of an independent contributor; a grade that heinous would result in complaints to the dean. Especially if it meant someone failed; I wasn’t mocking anyone. I just thought that was an unreasonable concern.
After all – we had a plan. We just have to see how it turns out.
Dilbertian indeed.
True Love
Here is why I love Mr. Manners:
In dialing T Mobile:
"No, English is fine. This is America."
In dialing T Mobile:
"No, English is fine. This is America."
20080609
20080606
One Particular Harbor In the Shelter
You knew summer was upon you, and the annual beach trip was kicking off, when mom reached for the battered and much abused tape "Changes in Latitude, Changes in Attitude" (Nothing Remains Quite the Same). The famous B side? "Alice's Restaurant" with it's famous eponymous song, and that other well known ditty "I Don't Want A Pickle"...possibly, one of the only songs in the world with the word "pickle" in the title. And circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us.
I guess you had to be there.
Every summer of my childhood that we would head to Jekyll, MidSis, LilSis and I would be singing Buffet in the back seat of the car. We would hit the turn off from I-95, and just as you could start to smell the sulfur from the paper mill, insist on rolling down all the windows and turning off the air conditioner so we could smell the salt in the air. All of our hair would come down, and I swear if our parents would have let us we'd have hung our heads out of the car window like small dogs and panted into the wind.
As a family, we are that much in love with the ocean.
So when I hear things like "mother, mother ocean...after all the years I've found...my occupational hazard being....my occupations just not around"...it really resonates. If you listen to early Jimmy, when he and his life were an absolute mess, you can hear all his happiness and pain resonate in his lyrics. Lyrics are poetry...and the most valuable contribution that I think the written word leaves for anyone, regardless of form, is that you end up knowing that someone, somewhere, at some point in time felt the same way you do.
Anyway, the show was great. Jimmy is an entertaining performer. It's been almost a decade since I've seen him last; he hasn't changed but the audience sure has. Or maybe I have? Now the audience is full of teenagers and people much older. Parking was entertaining. We parked at a lot run by (no shit, the sign said this) "Fat Man's Parking", and that was no exaggeration on his part. He was enormous. And charged twenty bucks! But we parked in his front yard, and walked about three blocks to the show. I won't talk about the cost of everything else....but the one beer I did have was twelve bucks. For a Bud.
The sky was clear, the stars were out, everyone sang, and even the really intoxicated people were in a good mood, and if they passed out, they just rolled over into a corner somewhere and went to sleep.
And I sang every damn song at the top of my lungs and danced like a fool. And beer makes me cry, even when I'm happy (another reason not to drink it).
So for your weekend, I leave you with this parting thought:
"Where it all ends I can't fathom my friends,
If I knew, I might toss out my anchor.
So I'll cruise along always searchin' for songs,
Not a lawyer, a thief or a banker.
But a son of a son, son of a son, son of a son of a sailor.
Son of a gun, load the last ton
One step ahead of the jailer
I'm just a son of a son, son of a son, son of a son of a sailor.
The sea's in my veins, my tradition remains.
I'm just glad I don't live in a trailer."
I guess you had to be there.
Every summer of my childhood that we would head to Jekyll, MidSis, LilSis and I would be singing Buffet in the back seat of the car. We would hit the turn off from I-95, and just as you could start to smell the sulfur from the paper mill, insist on rolling down all the windows and turning off the air conditioner so we could smell the salt in the air. All of our hair would come down, and I swear if our parents would have let us we'd have hung our heads out of the car window like small dogs and panted into the wind.
As a family, we are that much in love with the ocean.
So when I hear things like "mother, mother ocean...after all the years I've found...my occupational hazard being....my occupations just not around"...it really resonates. If you listen to early Jimmy, when he and his life were an absolute mess, you can hear all his happiness and pain resonate in his lyrics. Lyrics are poetry...and the most valuable contribution that I think the written word leaves for anyone, regardless of form, is that you end up knowing that someone, somewhere, at some point in time felt the same way you do.
Anyway, the show was great. Jimmy is an entertaining performer. It's been almost a decade since I've seen him last; he hasn't changed but the audience sure has. Or maybe I have? Now the audience is full of teenagers and people much older. Parking was entertaining. We parked at a lot run by (no shit, the sign said this) "Fat Man's Parking", and that was no exaggeration on his part. He was enormous. And charged twenty bucks! But we parked in his front yard, and walked about three blocks to the show. I won't talk about the cost of everything else....but the one beer I did have was twelve bucks. For a Bud.
The sky was clear, the stars were out, everyone sang, and even the really intoxicated people were in a good mood, and if they passed out, they just rolled over into a corner somewhere and went to sleep.
And I sang every damn song at the top of my lungs and danced like a fool. And beer makes me cry, even when I'm happy (another reason not to drink it).
So for your weekend, I leave you with this parting thought:
"Where it all ends I can't fathom my friends,
If I knew, I might toss out my anchor.
So I'll cruise along always searchin' for songs,
Not a lawyer, a thief or a banker.
But a son of a son, son of a son, son of a son of a sailor.
Son of a gun, load the last ton
One step ahead of the jailer
I'm just a son of a son, son of a son, son of a son of a sailor.
The sea's in my veins, my tradition remains.
I'm just glad I don't live in a trailer."
20080605
Pandora had some interesting comments on Sex in the City.
I've never watched it myself, nor do I watch reality programming other than to periodically watch "Intervention" (I must be Roman; other people's utter misery fascinates me) or "First 48" because homicide investigations are darn fascinating. I've never seen "Survivor" or any of those silly hook up shows.
I can't stand SITC because I can't think of a show less relevant to my life. I have friends, certainly, but we don't sit around discussing our sex lives and moaning about two thousand dollar high heels and twenty thousand dollar wardrobes. It fails to connect with me, and therefore I don't watch. I am friends with people who like dogs and, as a rule, dog women do not own expensive shoes (there is a law of puppy-hood that decrees that any shoe costing more than $150 must be completely destroyed in the first year of a puppy's life). We also do not have large, expensive designer wardrobes. If you have dogs, what would pass for a clothing allowance is spent financing your vetrinarian's second and third homes.
I know the show is about friendships. I don't connect with my friends in the same way those characters do. My best girl friend? She and I can sit in a room and not speak. We can not talk to each other for a year, and pick up right where we left off. We can brush each other's hair for a solid hour and talk about...nothing...and it's entirely comfortable. She really is like a sister to me, except that she lacks that eighteen years of family history (fighting about who cleans the kitchen, who does the laundry, who is touching whom in the back seat).
And maybe that show, and others like it, serves a valuable social role. Maybe it serves to illustrate and publicize the private lives of women. So little light has been shed on the lives that we lead outside of the obvious - motherhood and wifedom. There's more to life as a woman than those two roles...at least in the U.S.
It's nice to see that explored. Even if I don't like the show.
I've never watched it myself, nor do I watch reality programming other than to periodically watch "Intervention" (I must be Roman; other people's utter misery fascinates me) or "First 48" because homicide investigations are darn fascinating. I've never seen "Survivor" or any of those silly hook up shows.
I can't stand SITC because I can't think of a show less relevant to my life. I have friends, certainly, but we don't sit around discussing our sex lives and moaning about two thousand dollar high heels and twenty thousand dollar wardrobes. It fails to connect with me, and therefore I don't watch. I am friends with people who like dogs and, as a rule, dog women do not own expensive shoes (there is a law of puppy-hood that decrees that any shoe costing more than $150 must be completely destroyed in the first year of a puppy's life). We also do not have large, expensive designer wardrobes. If you have dogs, what would pass for a clothing allowance is spent financing your vetrinarian's second and third homes.
I know the show is about friendships. I don't connect with my friends in the same way those characters do. My best girl friend? She and I can sit in a room and not speak. We can not talk to each other for a year, and pick up right where we left off. We can brush each other's hair for a solid hour and talk about...nothing...and it's entirely comfortable. She really is like a sister to me, except that she lacks that eighteen years of family history (fighting about who cleans the kitchen, who does the laundry, who is touching whom in the back seat).
And maybe that show, and others like it, serves a valuable social role. Maybe it serves to illustrate and publicize the private lives of women. So little light has been shed on the lives that we lead outside of the obvious - motherhood and wifedom. There's more to life as a woman than those two roles...at least in the U.S.
It's nice to see that explored. Even if I don't like the show.
Deep breath.
Grandmom is in the hospital. No, nothing terribly serious, just a low sodium level, but she sounds so terribly frail that once again I'm reminded of two things:
1. Long term partners don't usually live too long after the other one dies.
2. She's 83.
Oh.
No bad thoughts. I know that death is part of the natural cycle.
Logically.
But as we all know cognition and emotion might as well be an apple and a nail.
Grandmom is in the hospital. No, nothing terribly serious, just a low sodium level, but she sounds so terribly frail that once again I'm reminded of two things:
1. Long term partners don't usually live too long after the other one dies.
2. She's 83.
Oh.
No bad thoughts. I know that death is part of the natural cycle.
Logically.
But as we all know cognition and emotion might as well be an apple and a nail.
The unicorn looks around the forest and notices the silence.
She looks at her reflection in the pond and she sees that her coat has become dull with age, and that which shone with beauty and youth has become dull.
Her haunches which would once ripple powerfully as she ran through the glade have withered.
Her mane has become brittle. Her eyes once bright are now dim. Her memories, once so strong, now seem so distant.
She looks around the forest, and she calls for her brothers. She looks around the forest and she calls for her mate. There is no answer.
She calls for her children, and they answer, but the answer is faint on the wind, almost like an echo of her own voice.
She calls for her friends, and then she remembers they are long gone.
There are no more unicorns in the world.
She looks at her reflection in the pond and she sees that her coat has become dull with age, and that which shone with beauty and youth has become dull.
Her haunches which would once ripple powerfully as she ran through the glade have withered.
Her mane has become brittle. Her eyes once bright are now dim. Her memories, once so strong, now seem so distant.
She looks around the forest, and she calls for her brothers. She looks around the forest and she calls for her mate. There is no answer.
She calls for her children, and they answer, but the answer is faint on the wind, almost like an echo of her own voice.
She calls for her friends, and then she remembers they are long gone.
There are no more unicorns in the world.
20080604
20080603
So I was reading an article in Wired about biopiracy. Brazil arrested some Danish or Norweigan scientist who was taking (accidentally or on purpose...who knows, except the scientist, and he is rather....vague on the subject) plants and animals back to some land purchased on his behalf by his government. The flora and fauna that proved ultimately to be of value mysteriously made it's way back to Denmark, and some objects later were made into drugs or other products from which the company this man founded managed to somehow profit.
I understand that Eli Lilly and a few other drug companies do this sort of thing all the time. They don't get arrested, like this guy did, they get sued.
This guy got arrested and tossed into a Brazilian prison. He was charged with the relatively new crime of bio piracy - stealing biological material for profit.
The article pointed out the example of the rubber tree: seeds bought by an Englishman in the mid 1800's were transported and later raised in India, allowing Britian via India to later dominate the rubber market, and drive the indigenous markets out of business because they could not compete (also, geographically they were so much further away from their consumers....surely that contributed as well).
Local governments hold that whether or not they know they have a plant, or an animal, vegetable or mineral that holds a property or has an application that can be utlized by humans in some capacity - the rights to that belong to that land and to no one else. Under this philosophy, it is illegal for you to...hm...see a willow tree, pick off a piece of bark, boil it, drink the tea made therefrom, and use it to cure your headache (aspirin). Silly example, but it gives you a general idea of what the debate is about.
I'm torn. I understand you own the land. How can you claim to own something or desire to profit from it if you don't understand what you have? You want someone else who has put the research and education and effort into understanding the science and medicine to tell you what you have and then walk off? As if.
I understand that Eli Lilly and a few other drug companies do this sort of thing all the time. They don't get arrested, like this guy did, they get sued.
This guy got arrested and tossed into a Brazilian prison. He was charged with the relatively new crime of bio piracy - stealing biological material for profit.
The article pointed out the example of the rubber tree: seeds bought by an Englishman in the mid 1800's were transported and later raised in India, allowing Britian via India to later dominate the rubber market, and drive the indigenous markets out of business because they could not compete (also, geographically they were so much further away from their consumers....surely that contributed as well).
Local governments hold that whether or not they know they have a plant, or an animal, vegetable or mineral that holds a property or has an application that can be utlized by humans in some capacity - the rights to that belong to that land and to no one else. Under this philosophy, it is illegal for you to...hm...see a willow tree, pick off a piece of bark, boil it, drink the tea made therefrom, and use it to cure your headache (aspirin). Silly example, but it gives you a general idea of what the debate is about.
I'm torn. I understand you own the land. How can you claim to own something or desire to profit from it if you don't understand what you have? You want someone else who has put the research and education and effort into understanding the science and medicine to tell you what you have and then walk off? As if.
Also:
Gates called the actions of the Myanmar criminal.
He is right.
By not allowing in foreign aid, even that of such White Devils like ourselves, their people are being exposed to disease and starvation.
We can't just invade, and the U.N. can't invoke their own rights without provoking an international incident.
That would be bad.
Myanmar is allied with China, who is hosting the Olympics. The only reason we are hearing and seeing so much about the Quake is because they are under enormous scrutiny now as the hosts of this year's summer Olympics. Nepal, Tianammen Square, and all those dissenters they would otherwise lock up, and all those North Koreans sneaking over the border to avoid starvation are being turned, however reluctantly, into PR events to make China look better.
If we piss off one, we piss off the other. If we piss off the Big Panda, we piss off the Angry White Potato aka Russia. I mean, President...oops, Prime Minister Putin isn't someone I would really want as my enemy. He gasses people to death. And not just his enemies. The children of his allies. His own people.
So you see, really easily you could force the issue and start a global incident over a tiny little country with a huge laundry list of human rights violations. Would you really want to start a global incident over a teensy tiny thing like that?
I mean, there isn't even any OIL over there!
Gates called the actions of the Myanmar criminal.
He is right.
By not allowing in foreign aid, even that of such White Devils like ourselves, their people are being exposed to disease and starvation.
We can't just invade, and the U.N. can't invoke their own rights without provoking an international incident.
That would be bad.
Myanmar is allied with China, who is hosting the Olympics. The only reason we are hearing and seeing so much about the Quake is because they are under enormous scrutiny now as the hosts of this year's summer Olympics. Nepal, Tianammen Square, and all those dissenters they would otherwise lock up, and all those North Koreans sneaking over the border to avoid starvation are being turned, however reluctantly, into PR events to make China look better.
If we piss off one, we piss off the other. If we piss off the Big Panda, we piss off the Angry White Potato aka Russia. I mean, President...oops, Prime Minister Putin isn't someone I would really want as my enemy. He gasses people to death. And not just his enemies. The children of his allies. His own people.
So you see, really easily you could force the issue and start a global incident over a tiny little country with a huge laundry list of human rights violations. Would you really want to start a global incident over a teensy tiny thing like that?
I mean, there isn't even any OIL over there!
Just a few notes:
Food is expensive globally. We are wasting lots of corn, and driving up prices, trying to produce ethanol. Y'all know it takes lots and lots o'corn to make ethanol. It's not like we have excess corn sitting around; farmers are raising it and selling it to make ethanol. Ask yourself how moral a people we are that we raise and sell food for fuel rather than sell it to countries and peoples that are starving. Think about that when you are complaining about filling up your tank (thanks, Mr. Bush, for my $71 fill up) because we are all part of this problem together.
There is a wheat blight, folks, so wheat is also suffering. This means that the price of bread is higher. Check it out. Watch week over week bread prices and tell me they don't go up.
Also, rice production is down because the major rice producing countries in the world have either suffered major disasters recently or have suffered a weather or financing crisis.
So formerly easy and cheap staples of the global diet are now no longer available.
Keep your bread in the fridge, if you don't already. Keep your flour in a rubbermaid container, or some other sealed container, if you don't already, and in a cool place so that it keeps longer. Ditto for rice.
Doing your part, one small thing at a time.
Food is expensive globally. We are wasting lots of corn, and driving up prices, trying to produce ethanol. Y'all know it takes lots and lots o'corn to make ethanol. It's not like we have excess corn sitting around; farmers are raising it and selling it to make ethanol. Ask yourself how moral a people we are that we raise and sell food for fuel rather than sell it to countries and peoples that are starving. Think about that when you are complaining about filling up your tank (thanks, Mr. Bush, for my $71 fill up) because we are all part of this problem together.
There is a wheat blight, folks, so wheat is also suffering. This means that the price of bread is higher. Check it out. Watch week over week bread prices and tell me they don't go up.
Also, rice production is down because the major rice producing countries in the world have either suffered major disasters recently or have suffered a weather or financing crisis.
So formerly easy and cheap staples of the global diet are now no longer available.
Keep your bread in the fridge, if you don't already. Keep your flour in a rubbermaid container, or some other sealed container, if you don't already, and in a cool place so that it keeps longer. Ditto for rice.
Doing your part, one small thing at a time.
It seems Senator Kennedy's surgery was unsuccessful.
Surgeon's were unable to locate the famed Senator's moral compass.
"His brain was such a mess" doctors were reported as saying "with all those years of alcohol consumption and philandering.....there's no way we could have found it in there. What is it...the size of a pea?"
Surgeon's were unable to locate the famed Senator's moral compass.
"His brain was such a mess" doctors were reported as saying "with all those years of alcohol consumption and philandering.....there's no way we could have found it in there. What is it...the size of a pea?"
"Repairing the Damage, Before Roe "
By WALDO L. FIELDING, M.D.
Published: June 3, 2008
With the Supreme Court becoming more conservative, many people who support women’s right to choose an abortion fear that Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that gave them that right, is in danger of being swept aside.
When such fears arise, we often hear about the pre-Roe “bad old days.” Yet there are few physicians today who can relate to them from personal experience. I can.
I am a retired gynecologist, in my mid-80s. My early formal training in my specialty was spent in New York City, from 1948 to 1953, in two of the city’s large municipal hospitals.
There I saw and treated almost every complication of illegal abortion that one could conjure, done either by the patient herself or by an abortionist — often unknowing, unskilled and probably uncaring. Yet the patient never told us who did the work, or where and under what conditions it was performed. She was in dire need of our help to complete the process or, as frequently was the case, to correct what damage might have been done.
The patient also did not explain why she had attempted the abortion, and we did not ask. This was a decision she made for herself, and the reasons were hers alone. Yet this much was clear:
The woman had put herself at total risk, and literally did not know whether she would live or die.
This, too, was clear: Her desperate need to terminate a pregnancy was the driving force behind the selection of any method available.
The familiar symbol of illegal abortion is the infamous “coat hanger” — which may be the symbol, but is in no way a myth. In my years in New York, several women arrived with a hanger still in place. Whoever put it in — perhaps the patient herself — found it trapped in the cervix and could not remove it.
We did not have ultrasound, CT scans or any of the now accepted radiology techniques. The woman was placed under anesthesia, and as we removed the metal piece we held our breath, because we could not tell whether the hanger had gone through the uterus into the abdominal cavity. Fortunately, in the cases I saw, it had not.
However, not simply coat hangers were used.
Almost any implement you can imagine had been and was used to start an abortion — darning needles, crochet hooks, cut-glass salt shakers, soda bottles, sometimes intact, sometimes with the top broken off.
Another method that I did not encounter, but heard about from colleagues in other hospitals, was a soap solution forced through the cervical canal with a syringe. This could cause almost immediate death if a bubble in the solution entered a blood vessel and was transported to the heart.
The worst case I saw, and one I hope no one else will ever have to face, was that of a nurse who was admitted with what looked like a partly delivered umbilical cord. Yet as soon as we examined her, we realized that what we thought was the cord was in fact part of her intestine, which had been hooked and torn by whatever implement had been used in the abortion. It took six hours of surgery to remove the infected uterus and ovaries and repair the part of the bowel that was still functional.
It is important to remember that Roe v. Wade did not mean that abortions could be performed.
They have always been done, dating from ancient Greek days.
What Roe said was that ending a pregnancy could be carried out by medical personnel, in a medically accepted setting, thus conferring on women, finally, the full rights of first-class citizens — and freeing their doctors to treat them as such.
Waldo L. Fielding was an obstetrician and gynecologist in Boston for 38 years. He is the author of “Pregnancy: The Best State of the Union” (Thomas Y. Crowell, 1971)."
This is from today's NY Times.
And Dr. Fielding is quite correct. Regardless of what the law allows medical doctors to legally do, abortions will continue to happen. They just won't happen in the safety and sterility of a medical facility. They may not even happen, for the financially mobile, in this country. But they will continue to happen. As prohibition and the war on drugs will attest, making something illegal does nothing to stop the demand.
You want to stop people from having abortions? Make birth control free, and available for anyone who asks. Make Plan B, the emergency contraceptive, free and available to anyone who asks. Blaming abortions on teenagers - and in case you were curious, the CDC and Planned Parenthood both agree that teenagers are having LESS sex now than other generations did - is irresponsible and political pandering. Adult women who are capable of making their own decisions are having abortions. Universal access to birth control, either free or at a reduced cost, should be something every woman in this country can obtain without fear of judgment. It is also not helpful to shot about overturning Roe with one breath because it is so wrong and in another scream that single mothers are bad too. You can't have your cake and eat it to. One must simply assume that if you overturn Roe, you are going to see a corresponding increase in single mothers. There are going to be men out there who are not going to step up to the parenthood plate. And I imagine you will also see a rise in adoptions, and you will also see a rise in accidental deaths from at home jobs gone awry.
The bottom line is still this: the politics of the bedroom are between the two people who share it, and aren't meant to be the talking points for our national debate on morality. We are all different. We all believe in different things. Some of us pray to different Gods. Our diversity is one of the things that we celebrate as a country. Why change it? Stop talking about abortion on tv, in the news, and in the press and keep this discussion where it belongs:
In the home.
By WALDO L. FIELDING, M.D.
Published: June 3, 2008
With the Supreme Court becoming more conservative, many people who support women’s right to choose an abortion fear that Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that gave them that right, is in danger of being swept aside.
When such fears arise, we often hear about the pre-Roe “bad old days.” Yet there are few physicians today who can relate to them from personal experience. I can.
I am a retired gynecologist, in my mid-80s. My early formal training in my specialty was spent in New York City, from 1948 to 1953, in two of the city’s large municipal hospitals.
There I saw and treated almost every complication of illegal abortion that one could conjure, done either by the patient herself or by an abortionist — often unknowing, unskilled and probably uncaring. Yet the patient never told us who did the work, or where and under what conditions it was performed. She was in dire need of our help to complete the process or, as frequently was the case, to correct what damage might have been done.
The patient also did not explain why she had attempted the abortion, and we did not ask. This was a decision she made for herself, and the reasons were hers alone. Yet this much was clear:
The woman had put herself at total risk, and literally did not know whether she would live or die.
This, too, was clear: Her desperate need to terminate a pregnancy was the driving force behind the selection of any method available.
The familiar symbol of illegal abortion is the infamous “coat hanger” — which may be the symbol, but is in no way a myth. In my years in New York, several women arrived with a hanger still in place. Whoever put it in — perhaps the patient herself — found it trapped in the cervix and could not remove it.
We did not have ultrasound, CT scans or any of the now accepted radiology techniques. The woman was placed under anesthesia, and as we removed the metal piece we held our breath, because we could not tell whether the hanger had gone through the uterus into the abdominal cavity. Fortunately, in the cases I saw, it had not.
However, not simply coat hangers were used.
Almost any implement you can imagine had been and was used to start an abortion — darning needles, crochet hooks, cut-glass salt shakers, soda bottles, sometimes intact, sometimes with the top broken off.
Another method that I did not encounter, but heard about from colleagues in other hospitals, was a soap solution forced through the cervical canal with a syringe. This could cause almost immediate death if a bubble in the solution entered a blood vessel and was transported to the heart.
The worst case I saw, and one I hope no one else will ever have to face, was that of a nurse who was admitted with what looked like a partly delivered umbilical cord. Yet as soon as we examined her, we realized that what we thought was the cord was in fact part of her intestine, which had been hooked and torn by whatever implement had been used in the abortion. It took six hours of surgery to remove the infected uterus and ovaries and repair the part of the bowel that was still functional.
It is important to remember that Roe v. Wade did not mean that abortions could be performed.
They have always been done, dating from ancient Greek days.
What Roe said was that ending a pregnancy could be carried out by medical personnel, in a medically accepted setting, thus conferring on women, finally, the full rights of first-class citizens — and freeing their doctors to treat them as such.
Waldo L. Fielding was an obstetrician and gynecologist in Boston for 38 years. He is the author of “Pregnancy: The Best State of the Union” (Thomas Y. Crowell, 1971)."
This is from today's NY Times.
And Dr. Fielding is quite correct. Regardless of what the law allows medical doctors to legally do, abortions will continue to happen. They just won't happen in the safety and sterility of a medical facility. They may not even happen, for the financially mobile, in this country. But they will continue to happen. As prohibition and the war on drugs will attest, making something illegal does nothing to stop the demand.
You want to stop people from having abortions? Make birth control free, and available for anyone who asks. Make Plan B, the emergency contraceptive, free and available to anyone who asks. Blaming abortions on teenagers - and in case you were curious, the CDC and Planned Parenthood both agree that teenagers are having LESS sex now than other generations did - is irresponsible and political pandering. Adult women who are capable of making their own decisions are having abortions. Universal access to birth control, either free or at a reduced cost, should be something every woman in this country can obtain without fear of judgment. It is also not helpful to shot about overturning Roe with one breath because it is so wrong and in another scream that single mothers are bad too. You can't have your cake and eat it to. One must simply assume that if you overturn Roe, you are going to see a corresponding increase in single mothers. There are going to be men out there who are not going to step up to the parenthood plate. And I imagine you will also see a rise in adoptions, and you will also see a rise in accidental deaths from at home jobs gone awry.
The bottom line is still this: the politics of the bedroom are between the two people who share it, and aren't meant to be the talking points for our national debate on morality. We are all different. We all believe in different things. Some of us pray to different Gods. Our diversity is one of the things that we celebrate as a country. Why change it? Stop talking about abortion on tv, in the news, and in the press and keep this discussion where it belongs:
In the home.
20080602
Oh, I know what I was going to say.
Saturday night found Mr. Manners and I dining at Greenwoods. 1/2 a fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, black eyed peas (mine). Shrimp and grits with cheese gravy, texas toast, and collard greens (Mr. Manners). Lemon pie (much later). Yummy.
Overheard:
"Have you been to Ikea? I went down there and bought one of those Dutch ovens...they had them half off."
Filed under the WTF department.
Later Mr. Manners remarked something to the effect that Ikea must have had a sale on both Dutch ovens and Cleveland Steamers.
So wrong.
On so many levels.
Now that you've gotten the milk out of your nose, enjoy your Monday.
And if you had to Google any of that, well....
Saturday night found Mr. Manners and I dining at Greenwoods. 1/2 a fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, black eyed peas (mine). Shrimp and grits with cheese gravy, texas toast, and collard greens (Mr. Manners). Lemon pie (much later). Yummy.
Overheard:
"Have you been to Ikea? I went down there and bought one of those Dutch ovens...they had them half off."
Filed under the WTF department.
Later Mr. Manners remarked something to the effect that Ikea must have had a sale on both Dutch ovens and Cleveland Steamers.
So wrong.
On so many levels.
Now that you've gotten the milk out of your nose, enjoy your Monday.
And if you had to Google any of that, well....
20080601
Surronding states and states across the nation have taken steps to shore up consumer protections as the mortgage industry crisis continues to deepen.
Except Georgia.
Why is that, I wonder?
Could it be because a significant number of our fair legislators have significant ties to the banking and finance industies themselves?
Except Georgia.
Why is that, I wonder?
Could it be because a significant number of our fair legislators have significant ties to the banking and finance industies themselves?
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