Blogsam and Jetsam

Flotsam is the part of the wreckage of a ship or its cargo found floating on the water. Jetsam is cargo or parts of a ship that are deliberately thrown overboard, as to lighten the ship in an emergency, and that subsequently either sinks or is washed ashore. This is my personal blog version of the above. Loot freely.

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Name:
Location: The Hinterlands, Upstate NY

I'm annoyed that the world is going crazier faster than it used to be. But it's interesting to watch.

Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Forty

...Is what I turned on Sunday. Note appropriate change to profile blurb.

Friday night I stayed up FAR too late reading the tangible part of my mother's gift, namely the new Stephen King novel Lisey's Story which I finished on Saturday while learning that sleep deprivation and killer PMS are not a good combination. A book review will be forthcoming (as soon as BFH* finishes it; don't want to color anyone's judgement.)

The swag was better than usual. Highlights: a malachite pendant and complete Sesame Street: the EARLY Years (yay!!!)from HBF along with the collector's set of The Mummy movies because Evie the Librarian reminds him of me... scissors from Eldest Duckling since she's always swiping mine...incredibly fun crafty goodness from HBS**...a touchingly thoughtful knitting book, etc from BFM***...a huge box of perfect-for-me goodies from BFH with an extra bonus of pass-along books...a gift certificate from BFJ****...not one, not two but three drawings from Youngest Duckling and a pair of pink pajamas from the MIL.

Chinese carry-out for dinner provided leftovers for lunch both yesterday AND today.

It doesn't feel different from thirty-nine but the life insurance premiums went up.

Not much knitting got done but I'm in the process of binding off the Holiday Vest which means steeking can't be far behind. Also my yarn for Wintergarden might come today.


*Best Friend from High School

**Honorary Big Sister

***Best Friend from Medical School

****Best Friend from Junior High School

Thursday, October 26, 2006

Just Knitting...

...so if that bores you, click away now. Otherwise....

They came they came THEY CAME! My new patterns, that is.


Last night I was knitting on my Holiday Sweater and had just decided that it really ought to be a Holiday VEST what with my new hotshot patterns coming and all when I realized "Hey, nobody's checked the mail yet today!" I went out to the mailbox and was vaguely disappointed to see no actual BOX but encouraged when I saw a big Priority Mail cardboard envelope addressed to me. Then the lightbulb clicked on: "Yo Doofus...'book' in the knitting world doesn't necessarily mean 'something with two hard covers'!" Sure enough, the Priority Mailer had the loot: Dale of Norway Kids "book" #136 was actually a magazine and the Wintergarden pattern was several sheets of paper* sitting on top. Of course I had my greedy paws and eyes all over them even before I'd finished walking back down the driveway.

The testimonial on the KidsKnit website about the Wintergarden pattern being easy to follow is true. I read over it murmuring "oh wow" and thinking "this is gonna be GREAT" even while realizing it was also going to be the most technically challenging thing I've knit to date. The pattern was printed on glossy paper and the charts were all of a decent size and full-color and the text was beautifully clear. Made me feel really good (and also like I wished I had already ordered my yarn.)

Then I turned to the Dale book. The cover picture was beautiful and the Norwegian was interesting (I figured out the word for "machine-washable" right away) but BOY was the pattern intimidating! It had been translated into English but the text was smaller, the design seemed not quite as well-explained and ohmigawd there was only ONE chart and it was in monochrome. All those little black symbols were definitely going to be challenging. They also instantly explained that part of the Yarn Harlot's book where she mentioned "what you thought were all large dots (dark blue) are actually interspersed with small dots (light blue.) This means you have entirely missed the light blue." Hmmm.

When the "Oh wow" turned to "Oh man..." HBF gave me the Inquiring Look.

"BOY am I glad I decided to do THIS one [gesture to Wintergarden] first since THIS one [gesture to the Dale book] is REALLY intimidating. These are going to be the hardest things I've ever knit!"

"So they're definitely orange, not yellow?" (NB: This is a Worlds of Warcraft reference.)

"OH yes..." says I while wondering if I've bitten off more than I can che--I mean knit.

"Well then you'll get skill points for sure!" His vote of confidence was exactly what I needed. He had no doubts whatsoever in my ability to create those fabulous things pictured in front of us.

I had doubts and plenty of them. But then I remembered another great line from Yarn Harlot (or rather her subway companion) "So you just makin' loops in layers, den it's a sock!" and tried to focus on the fact that no matter how hard the thing looked, I was going to be "just makin' loops in layers" only with two colors instead of one.

Except for that steeking thing.

THAT still worries me deeply. Fortunately even though the Holiday Sweater is definitely going to be a Holiday Vest now it will still need its front cut open and some armholes cut in it--probably this weekend. Good: a chance to practice panicking. This whole cutting-up-the-knitting thing is angst-inspiring. Yes I know people do it all the time and have BEEN doing it all the time but that's what they said about sex and that was pretty intimidating the first time I tried it too. I'm hoping I'll like steeking as much.

I know what I definitely will like is the chance to follow a pattern that I know works. I've discovered over the past few months that although my knitting skills have increased tremendously over the past year or two, my designing skills leave quite a bit to be desired. Although I like just letting the yarn do its own thing I've had some pretty mixed results that range from "wow I need to do that again" to "you knit WHAT?!?" with the balance tipped toward the latter. Even before I fell in love with "Boo Bug's Sweater" and subsequently Wintergarden I had decided I needed to work exclusively from patterns for a while...now I can try working COMPLICATED patterns too.

After all, I do want those skill points!

My only regret is not having brought the patterns with me to the office so I could order yarn during business hours TODAY. Such a shame that I need to leave early because Eldest has sports tryouts....


*clipped together with a cool blue-and-white striped paperclip; I found it so much more charming than boring metal or a staple.

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

I Kicked Mom ASS Last Night...

...Lots of times you have no clue whether your Mom skills are anywhere up to par and lots of times you know they're NOT but sometimes you get it completely right:

Youngest Duckling has "share" day on Tuesday and we've been told a million times (with several years each of the older two kids' "share" days) that one canNOT share toys. So fine, we did favorite book, favorite transitional comfort object (yeah, I know--"toy" but everyone gets by with it early in the first-grade year) and the Kinder Ovo souvenirs ("Souvenirs" are fine but "toys" are not...it's a blurry line) and were coming up short on ideas.

Till last week. The kid's BIG Homework of the Week was to read a book with Mom or Dad then write down the title and author and three sentences about the book. Trust me, for a lefty first grader three whole sentences was TONS of work and we had to refocus several times. The book was the "Mom and Me" cookbook:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0756610060/ref=pd_rvi_gw_2/002-1928503-7251211?ie=UTF8

It's actually a really good kid-friendly cookbook and one of the things that intrigued both of us was the "Perfect Pasta" which is pasta tossed with shredded chicken breast meat, broccoli, corn, a few green onions and a soy-sesame-honey dressing...the kind of food that's good hot, cold or at room temperature (which is kid-friendly of itself: never met a kid yet who liked hot food.) The recipe interested us both enough to copy it. (On the color copier that was magic to Youngest who was worried the printer had cut out the pages of the book and was much relieved to see the book still intact.) One of our three sentences thus became "We copied the recipe for 'Perfect Pasta'."

So over the weekend I figured that we probably ought to actually MAKE the "Perfect Pasta" particularly since BabyDuck had been running about the house with the two pages of copied recipe. Looked for the ingredients at the store on Sunday morning and then had a brainflash: "Wouldn't THIS make a great 'share' story? Sure it would...so let's have it on MONday night instead of some other night." Bought some chicken breasts and dragged them home.

Now some weeks the whole project would've gone awry then and there. The chicken wouldn't have gotten cooked or some other thing would be happening Monday night or Uncle Wiggly would've stubbed his toe...but not this time. Those chicken breasts went straight from the grocery bag into a pot of water with some soy and garlic to poach and be "all nice and weady" as Yan says. My little girl was MOST excited so we set out the ingredients for the dressing on the kitchen counter right then and she matched them to the pictures on the recipe all by herself.

Last night I deliberately left glass waiting at the office so I could be home in time for Youngest not to get all time-stressed: she's got her share of obsessive-compulsive traits too (and whereintheheck could THOSE have come from I wonder?!?) Once home we started in on the recipe...but not till I had the additional brainflash to photodocument the event and use the color copier I love so much to print out visual aids to assist the "share" story. Even the Older Siblings thought that was pretty cool and gave their highest praise: "Way to go, Mom!"

Youngest Duckling was only too happy to do the one job of the whole process I would've HATED namely hand-shredding the damned chicken breast. She was amazed to learn that you have to salt and oil the pasta water but figured out all by herself that "two cups" DOUBLED was "four cups" which brought back memories of my own kitchen experiences teaching me fractions way ahead of time. The four cups of broccoli went in with the pasta "for the last three minutes of cooking time" which she again correctly deduced would be 5:30. She mixed the dressing (two parts honey, two parts rice wine vinegar, one part soy, one-half part sesame oil as I recall) and was totally into the photojournalistic aspect of the production: made me retake a shot because the original "doesn't show all of my face."

We combined all the ingredients in "The Big White Plastic Bowl" (doesn't every family have certain bowls that automatically get used for certain kinds of food?) and she tossed with far more control than I expected. Her brother and sister even had a go at it but were charming in their own way by NOT wanting to get in on all the action. They LET it be The Youngest's show which I thought was right decent of them. BabyDuck set the table and served her pasta and we all thought it was pretty good although a bit on the bland side.

While everyone else was finishing their dinner, I put the camera memory card in the printer and spit out three separate copies of the recipe and three separate sets of the seven pictures we took: one for Youngest Duckling to take to school and one for each of the two grandmothers. Big Bad First Grader pronounced them "great!" and put them in her backpack. This morning I confirmed that she did indeed have all the pictures in her homework folder where they belonged AND that she'd done her REAL homework, which was circling plural words on a worksheet.

So for once I truly kicked major Mom ass...at least till I get home tonight and learn that the Universe managed to make this pride of mine go before some new and different fall.

Knitting Update

And politics too, but I'll keep it depressingly brief:

The polls show that the Republicans have gained ten points in two weeks--howinthehell is THAT happening? No wonder Karl Rove doesn't look worried.

Joe Lieberman is ahead by 17 points despite his incredibly hawkish position. This concerns me because it implies that despite the big talk, local/personal issues are more important to voters than the war, at least in Connecticut.

It's the Bush administration which brought down the Empire but it's Bill Clinton who looks more like Emperor Palpatine by the day....what's up with that?

And now on to the knitting....


I know I'm late to the party but I'm only just now reading Yarn Harlot. (http://www.amazon.com/Yarn-Harlot-Secret-Life-Knitter/dp/0740750372/sr=8-1/qid=1161689941/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-5370447-4875164?ie=UTF8&s=books)

What a fantastic book!

I must admit that when it first came in the mail and I realized there were no photographs I was a tad concerned...how can you have a knitting book with no pictures?!?

I shouldn't have worried at all. Stephanie Pearl-McPhee WRITES about knitting in such an engaging way that one doesn't miss the pictures at all. If you're not a knitter you won't get it but if you HAVE been bitten by that particular bug then this book has it all. If, like me, you fancy yourself both a knitter and a writer you'll think you're in hog heaven.

Last night I only got two rounds of colorwork done because I was so enchanted by the book and I've brought it with me to the office today so I can finish the last bit over lunch. The essay "I Can Do That" struck a chord and I just LOVED the ending...but those of you who have read her book AND read yesterday's blog post will realize just how timely and appropriate the essay "Veni Vedi Steeki" is in my own knitting life--I laughed out loud in a couple different places!

(There is also heartbreak too: "What Her Hands Won't Do" brought tears to my eyes because it was so clearly real life and "One Little Sock" did too because it was such a well-crafted piece of writing, complete with proper foreshadowing.)

Last night was also when the family weighed in on the Wintergarden sweater color choices. The "grass" and "butter" combination was voted off the island so early that I wondered if it had been a hormonally-assisted thought in the first place. Eldest Duckling is strongly in favor of a red background. Youngest Duckling at first liked the orchid I was considering but after seeing the picture of Wintergarden itself she changed her mind to the violet...and her point is well-taken since the violet would give such fine contrast.

I've had one blogger opine for red (thanks JoVE!) and am waiting for other thoughts.

The point is most likely going to be moot though because there's no way I can ignore HBF's opinion, which went like this:
"I was drawn to the purple, actually."
"Which one--the lighter or darker one?"
"The one that would've gotten you arrested in Rome." you see why I keep this guy around.

Meanwhile I MUST mention that I've gotten nothing but exquisite customer service from Mary Ann at KidsKnits. Not only did she make sure to mention that I could contact her for pattern help (customer support from an online store!) but when she realized that I had ordered the Wintergarden pattern on the Monday morning she was going to ship my Dale book, she spontaneously combined the orders into one and refunded the second set of shipping charges.

Yes, it's a little thing but it's a decent little thing in a world with too little of that going around. Just as Marsha White at Needle Arts Book Shop has become my supplier for books (sheesh, that reminds me I've got a discount coupon that expires in a few months--Barbara Walker here I come!) Mary Ann has become my supplier for All Things Dale-Related. You can be certain I'll get the yarn for Boo-Bug's Sweater from her store...superwash variety.

Oh and speaking of that yarn, we decided that said sweater should go to Youngest Duckling--Eldest is still wearing my impressive cabled hoodie that needs clasps and Middle is a small-for-age fourth-grade boy who isn't interested in anything that could possibly be deemed childish so a fancypants sweater is Right Out (although I intend to eventually make him something in just plain black-and-white with a bunch of butch skull-and-crossbones all over it to take the curse off.)

Youngest was Quite Excited over being the lucky recipient of Mom's eventual handiwork (I know me; I'm gonna start Wintergarden first) but had an interesting idea for the color scheme: she wants it identical up to the point where the main design starts but then instead of red she wants purple....which I think will be pretty smashing, actually.

I want a whole weekend of uninterrupted knitting time, not that I think it will happen.



Monday, October 23, 2006

Ginormously Craptastic

Those are my two new favorite bogus words. I hadn't even SEEN "ginormous" before blogdom and "craptastic" just speaks for itself.

They sum up This War Mess pretty well too, don't they? This was the Sunday I completely lost it over THAT whole sorry state of affairs...started going on about "Sin of Pride" as badly as Al Pacino in that movie. Me, the atheist. Why? Because it's PRIDE that's keeping us Over There.

The current argument is that we can't pull out now because we'll leave civil war in our wake. Look around: there ALREADY IS civil war, people! The current argument is also that we can't pull out now because we will look weak or wishy-washy in the eyes of The Rest of the World. Look around: we ALREADY HAVE the hatred of huge parts of the planet! Do we really care if we might look a bit worse? This part of "we" sure doesn't.

We already broke the region. Smashed it into bits and made a mess even worse than the Brits did back in the days of Lawrence of Arabia when they divvied up the land in the first place. That's NOT going to change...and neither is the fact that we've managed to break our own empire in the process. Never more will the United States have hegemony; those days are as over for us as they've been for Britain (and for no good reason but I digress.)

We can either leave now or stay with ineffectual attempts to clean up the mess we've made till we CAN'T stay any more....and I believe we will have exactly the same bad outcome either way. Therefore I think we should get the hell out NOW before we get any more of our young people KILLED (You South Park fans may here insert the voice of Mrs. Marsh as she was yelling at Shelia Broslowski in the movie) but that our pride is keeping us from doing so. We as a nation and the leaders who represent us should just -admit- this whole war thing was a terrible idea, suck it up and get our troops HOME.

I was a lot noisier yesterday morning.

-------------------------

Moving to more trivial and less important issues...

I'm letting my subscription to Details magazine expire. I subscribed back a year or so ago when I discovered Augusten Burroughs and fell so in love with his writing--he's the only writer I know who had a childhood even more fucked up than mine which (like mine) also involved no physical abuse. After discovering he had a monthly column there was no stopping my signing up...and I figured a magazine aimed at gay men would have plenty of agreeable eye candy too. Learning that Carrie Fisher was also a regular was like the icing on the cake--she's the one who led me to realize that what my autistic brother-in-law became when he was off ALL meds was MANIC thanks to her wonderful portrayal of same in The Best Awful.

For a while it was wonderful but like everything else in life, that too passed. Carrie became next to nonexistent, Augusten's column became more and more infrequent and I discovered that the fellows who make good Details eye candy don't do a thing for MY eyes...which I suppose isn't as illogical as I first thought. I brushed aside the family sarcasm "your gay men's magazine--SURE you get it for the articles!" but the thing I couldn't brush aside was Possible Side Effects . Great book but I found out the hard way I'd already read most of it in column form. Bummer...but I've fixed the problem. Next year or the year after I'll just wait for the book in the first place.

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This weekend was stressful in other ways too: my mother's birthday was Saturday as was a baby shower given by a former co-worker at which I was one of the very few non-family members. You're all intelligent readers; you can connect those dots with the ones in the above paragraphs yourselves. There was also conflict among the seven human members in House of Chaos...fancy that! One bit of good news: the house in the Burbs DID finally get some tenants.

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I swear, if it weren't for two-color knitting I'd be on a three-day psych hold right now. No seriously, it's true. I finally finished up all my "designated projects for others" knitting and rummaged through the stash to see what I might actually want to knit just for the sake of wanting to knit it...and found my Holiday Sweater which I put down at about this time last year. Right in the middle of a set of white Scandinavian stars on a maroon background.

Picked up needles, wrapped white yarn around one set of fingers and red yarn around the other set of fingers, started up...and the klaxons in my head subsided to a dull roar for the first time in a week. It was a wonderful feeling. Somehow keeping BOTH hands occupied is far more soothing, don't ask me why. Also as Gary Jenkins used to say on The Joy of Floral Painting, color is the big turn-on.

Speaking of turn-on I've been seduced by Dale of Norway. Oh yes, completely. I first noticed an amazing sweater in its larval form over at Den of Chaos (see sidebar) and the more it grew, the more obsessed I got...particularly with the amazing white-on-blue edging around the bottom. Okay not JUST the white-on-blue edging but also the incredible way the colors and designs went together in a way that my own designs just couldn't muster. Every day I looked at that sweater at least twice, sometimes three or four times, and I spent an entire afternoon clicking every googled "Dale of Norway" link on my screen seeking that pattern.

Finally I did what any sane knitter would've done ages ago and just asked....whereupon Mother of Chaos gave me the fix I so badly needed in the form of the words "Book 136" and a link (http://www.kidsknits.com/book136.html) From one obsessed knitter to another--thanks again! Funny thing is that I had been looking at that website for just AGES and it was indeed that very place which got me thinking "Hmm...if the yarn came from KnitPicks the pattern MUST have come from a book like this but there's no telling WHICH book...maybe I should just screw up my courage and ASK." Small world.

Anyhow the book is on its way even as I type but once I was at the website I found THIS:http://www.kidsknits.com/wintergarden.html

I have to knit it.

HAVE. To. Knit. It.

For ME, too... me-me-me-me-ME and not anyone else. Toldja I was completely under the spell. I ordered the pattern first thing this morning. I've already determined that I want it out of cotton, not wool, so I can wear it more/better/longer.
(Perhaps it will make up for my most recent "You Knit WHAT?!?" disaster of a top-down stash sweater too...)

The cotton I want is the sportweight Shine Cotton from KnitPicks after which I've been lusting for no short while (love to work with wool; do not love to wear it so much) but my new love affair has reached its first hurdle and I need help to get past it: I know I want "cream" for the motif but WHICH background color should I use??

http://www.knitpicks.com/yarns/itemid_5420122/yarn_display


I'm torn between Cherry, Orchid, Crocus and Violet. Violet is the closest to the Dale of Norway "aubergine" which was my second favorite after the "dark plum" and would provide excellent contrast...but I think I just plain LIKE the orchid better...and EVERYone is always telling me how good I look in red and how I should wear more of it. I've also toyed with the idea of "grass" and "butter" together.

What do YOU all think?

(Yes, I can even handle "...that it's a ginormously craptastic idea, that's what!")

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Property Rights...

...Don't exist when you're a Mom. Your kids are all little communists, like it or not.

Case in point:
Had a note from Eldest Duckling's orthodontist that I wanted attached to my handwritten note to send in with her to school today. Now I know I don't have any paperclips in this house (like anyone could keep THOSE around The Children) but I should have had two rolls of scotch tape on the shelf to the left of the sink and a roll of clear plastic packaging tape in the kitchen mom-drawer.

Did I have ANY tape in ANY of those locations? NO of course not!!!

Did any of my children have any freaking IDEA where any of the adhesive plastic might be? NO of course not!!!

Not only that but the Most Likely Culprit (Eldest) gave me attitude for accusing her to a greater extent than her siblings.

Did any of my tape show up? NO of course not!!! Eldest finally found a stapler gawdknowswhere and I used that.

During the cursory search for the tape I also discovered that BOTH my Mom-Screwdrivers (the ones with the gaudy floral handles from the checkout line at Ace Hardware) were missing too. Youngest Duckling kindly found one before the bus left but the other is still MIA.


ALSO...

If I see another smartmouthed kid on TV promoting the use of coal I'm going to start throwing things at the set. I'm talking about those gawdAWFUL ads produced by the new "Learn about Coal Campaign" sponsored by Americans for Balanced Energy Choices (ABEC).

No I WON'T put a link on this page; the ads piss me off too much.

The one I hate most starts with a brunette saying "Let's face it...kids are just better at technology than their parents." She then does a complete non-sequitur to tell us how by the time she graduates college coal will be a much cleaner energy source. Permission to barf, sir?!? Her initial statement is not only confrontational and wrong but not supported in ANY way and it has NOTHING TO DO WITH her second statement (and the entire point of the ad.)


If it weren't for Olbermann I swear I'd trash my set. Here's the link to the Oct 5 show I mentioned previously; his monologue at the very end is what I so loved:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15156514/

Sunday, October 08, 2006

Could Someone Please Explain...

1) When did we decide to start Advent on Oct 1?

Admittedly I'm not a religious person so I could easily have missed the Diet or the Synod making it ecumenical law to start putting out the holiday goodies en masse. Presumably the liturgical vestments are now no longer that lovely dark purple but are now red, green, orange and black to better reflect the season.

2) If North Korea has Weapons of Mass Destruction and Iraq most emphatically did NOT then why are the troops in the Mideast?

3) Why are we NOT calling that mess in Iraq a "Civil War"?

4) Is it really just coincidence that gas prices continue to fall the closer we get to election day?

Friday, October 06, 2006

Blogsam and Jetsam: Sam's Rules of Life

Blogsam and Jetsam: Sam's Rules of Life

Another Friday

...And I couldn't be more glad for it. I'd just better not even get started on work or home; this post would go into next week.


I'll do some current events instead:

This morning I was home later than usual and saw the first video of soldiers in the field I'd seen in weeks. Underneath all that (infernally hot, no doubt) protective gear those faces were so very YOUNG--what is That Man In Power thinking?!? I had to get out of there fast before I watered up...and now all those parental feelings have shifted to rage and anger at the administration that put our sons and daughters at risk for no good reason.

Keith Olbermann is my new hero for his closing monologue last night (Thursday Oct 5, 2006.)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3719710/

The transcript isn't posted as of this typing (09:35 edt) but PLEASE read it when it gets there. He was so eloquent on All That Is Currently Wrong that I find myself somewhat worried about his having an "accident" in the future...although that's likely just stress making me paranoid.

Oh sheesh, Foley....(am I the only one who thinks it's funny that's also the name of the catheter?)

Because it's sex and therefore of more prurient interest than the war, every damned news channel is covering Foley and I'm already sick of it. He's proof of the first half of my Life Rule #8: Never trust a cleric or a politician; they neither one earn an honest living.

I'm not offended that Foley happens to like nubile young men but I am HUGELY offended by his hypocrisy!! I'm also pissed that the stupid fuck forgot that the term "jailbait" exists for a reason. He shouldn't face criminal charges if the young men were all of legal age of consent in their respective districts but I must say that if he'd stuck to the baby-faced eighteen-year-olds he would be on much firmer legal ground right now. Professionally of course he's toast either way.

I am also HUGELY offended that the media were trying to make this "pedophilia." Trust me, I know about pedophilia and that's not Foley. Pedophiles by definition like PRE-pubescent children, people! Thirteen-t0-eighteen-year-olds of both genders may be in a very gray area legally but they are NOT "children" in the pedophilic sense of the word...and if you don't trust my opinion then go to a bar mitzvah sometime.

Finally I am DAMNED sick of people like the local morning radio jock who had the attitude that it would've been better if it were sixteen-year-old GIRLs. No...that just shows that people are still fucked in the head with homophobia. It makes no difference whether he was soliciting a boy or a girl but of course there's a huge segment of the population who thinks it does....and I think they ought to all just curl up and GO somewhere.

I would also VERY much like to see what skeletons come out of the Democrats' closets. I don't for one second think they're any bit different from or better than Foley et al. Anyone who WANTS to run for political office should be immediately suspect. In an ideal world we would have to entice and cajole qualified people to run the show.


My new favorite political slogan: The Rapture is NOT an Exit Strategy.


The school shootings are tragic and my heart and grief go out to the poor parents and family...but ARMS in the schools are NOT the answer!! If my school district suddenly proposed to arm the teachers or even just have armed guards patrolling the halls I would yank my kids out faster than you can say "home schooled."

It also seems like the Crazies are coming out of the woodwork even more than usual...I'm thinking That Fucking War has caused the orange goo to come bubbling up from underground just like Ghostbusters 2--but I'd best get off cosmic balance in the Universe lest I start sounding like a crackpot.

On a far lighter note entirely: Three cheers for the new seasons of South Park and Drawn Together! As a bigtime Worlds of Warcraft player* I especially enjoyed South Park and the fact that Cartman got to be the smart one for a change. His mother though.....*sigh*

Back to the serious before closing: I heard last night that Secretary Rice had to circle for something like half an hour before landing because the Baghdad airport couldn't be secured--that is not reassuring for our long-term success in that region! It's also disquieting on a personal note because our family's serviceperson (every family has at least one) is an Air Force Lieutenant with a couple of kids younger than mine who is normally a flyboy but was assigned to a ground post at that airport for security. His mother must be beside herself.

Keep thinking good thoughts...and have a happy weekend.

* Nathrezim realm; Koyaanisqatsi guild