Afternoons with The Fur Brothers

Me, awakening from my nap on the couch: Loki, did you just hear a thump?

Loki: Yes, mother dear, I did detect the sound of a thump. Perhaps you should investigate.


Laundry basket: Meerph.

Me: Thor?


Thor: I so totally meant to do this.

Me: I must get my camera.

Later.


Thor: I can't believe you closed it back up and left me there! I hate you!


Loki: There, there little brother. I'm here for you. I told her to save you.


Thor: Oh, thank you, big brother! I love you!

My Exciting Life as a Nursery Nurse

Sunday, December 31, 2006
Fake Champagne and Baby Bibs

Ah, the traditions of the New Year. I've purchased two bottles of sparkling white grape juice and one giant veggie platter with ranch and blue cheese dressing for dipping.

There is a 2007 First Baby baby bib stashed in the nursery. (The good stuff is locked away somewhere, I'm sure, awaiting more capable hands and TV cameras for presentation.)

There will be a list of lowcountry nursery phone numbers clipped to the charge nerd...I mean charge nurse...clipboard.

After the swilling of fake champagne and noshing on goodies, we will get back to work and the night will be spent in making and receiving calls.

"Anyone deliver yet?" will be the most frequently asked question of the night. We will watch laboring women like racehorses heading around the back stretch, everyone wanting to be first.

I've only been present for one "first in the county" delivery, so many years ago, I'm sure the baby is in elementary school by now.

It's fun. It adds a little something extra to a routine night.

Flash forward 365 days:

Monday, December 31, 2007

See above.


Thor sez: Borrrr-rrring!

A Christmas Story

You'll lick his eye out!

Sorry folks. That's what night shift does to your brain.

It's a Wonderful Life

If you're a cat.


Thor sez: Watch this.


Thor sez: Raaaaarrrrhhh!


Loki sez: What'd he just do?

Firsts of the Last Year

I think I stole this from Geoff last year.

First sentences from first of the month blog entries for 2007:

January
I hate New Year's resolutions.

February
For some time now, I've been losing my nouns.

March
For those of you waiting in suspense over the baby bird on the window box issue, I am happy to announce that this will be the kittens second birthday present.

April
1. He served Wife One with divorce papers while she was in the hospital being treated for cancer, while (allegedly) screwing Wife Two-to-be.

May
On days when the spring weather tilts closer to summer, I wander through the marsh at the back of my property, then sit at the edge of the creek.

June
I'm usually not a fan of the "in front of" picture.

July
Did you know that by 0300, three a.m. for you civvies, there is nothing on but infomercials, repeating news broadcasts and cartoons?

August
Why do cats RUN to the nearest (or best) rug or upholstered chair or sofa to throw up on?

September
No, not the math kind.

October
Well, really it was a Sunday Expedition to Caw Caw Interpretive Center, a county park up Highway 17 in Ravenel.

November
Will someone please tell me why so many people from around the world are searching for Eric Clapton's yacht?

December
I've decided on my new job.

Christmas morning kittens.

Petty Christmas

No, not that kind of petty. And not NASCAR kind of Petty either. The strong streak of Connecticut Yankee in our DNA prevents such foolishness. (Really, cars, spewing foul smelling poison into the air, going around and around in a circ..zzzz..drool..excuse me, we were saying?)

No, I am talking about Tom Petty. And the Heartbreakers. Jason got the four disc epic Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers Running Down a Dream. A two disc rockumentary by Peter Bogdanovich. We watched the first disc last night and it was fantastic. Tom Petty shot to fame during my high school, young adult years so it was quite a trip back through memory lane to watch.

Remember when MTV played music? Good music? What a concept.

Haven't seen Johnny Depp's performance in the video for "Into the Great Wide Open" yet, I didn't even know it was him, but way back then, who did know who Depp was?

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and got good presents and ate too much food and laughed a little too much with family and friends.


Thor sez: I'm ready for New Year's Eve! Let's party!

Yesterday

My next door neighbor died yesterday on the cold wet grass of his lawn. I’m sure he didn’t officially die until pronounced at the hospital. But I know that he died there on the lawn, his wife watching from the arms of our across-the-street neighbor and the old men from nearby grim and silent with looks of helplessness and fear on their faces that tore at my heart. The son of a neighbor was down on one knee and I’m sure there were prayers being said as the paramedics and fireman worked to save him.

He and I talked over the fence many times. He was a busy, hardworking 80 year old who kept his lawn and house in tip-top shape.

I watched from my porch, reluctant to intrude upon the crowd of neighbors who have known each other for over 30 years. I’m the youngster on the block. My first thought was for his wife, watching. My second thought for his grandson, whom he loved. He had a swing set in the backyard and a wading pool for the hot days of summer. He and his wife would play with the boy many a late summer evening.

I watched as a nurse, counting how many times they shocked him, how long they had the automatic chest compressor going. I watched the female paramedic get a line in, I watched another squeezing the bag, breathing for him. I counted down minutes in my head. I had a wild moment of hope when I clearly heard one of the paramedics say he had a pulse, but all too soon, the compressions began again.

And I kept remembering bits of conversation I had had with him over the few years I’ve been here. How he was angry at the insurance company for essentially blackmailing him into cutting down the ancient pine trees near his house. The time he told me that he was scaling back on his landscaping so that when he was gone, it wouldn’t be too much for his wife. The day he got the new rate property tax bill and he called the County Treasurer and told them that if that was what they thought his house was worth, they could cut him a check that day. The Confederate Roses he told me came from his mother-in-law’s yard, an heirloom.

I’ll always remember when they put him on the stretcher and moved him to the ambulance, there on the grass, a little way away from where he had fallen, was a gift wrapped box. A Christmas present he was probably bringing in from the car.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything as sad as that green and red wrapped box in the grass.

He was a nice man, a good neighbor, a loving grandfather and I’m pretty sure a good husband and father. I’m so sad for his family. And I’ll hug mine just a little tighter this holiday season.

I'm such a dweeb!

Okay, so I was at a Christmas party last night. At a really really really cool friend's house. I actually wore a skirt, panty hose and pointy toe shoes! (Never mind that I took the shoes off about two minutes upon arrival and roamed around barefoot - even on the front porch, it was a friend's house!) I usually only know a couple of people at her party because it is an eclectic group drawn from the many aspects of her life.

I try to be on my best behavior. But I am a shy person who tries not be shy so usually ends up saying something really stupid. Which I don't think I did last night. I hope I didn't.

And the gathering last night was no different. Lots and lots of muckety-mucks and important people who do really important and cool things. And me. The dweeb.

My hostess introduced me to a very nice lady and we chatted for a while about writing and books and The Charleston Women's Center and clothing sizes that shift as time marches on. And certain facts start to gel in my head and I'm coming to a conclusion about this lady. And suddenly I'm half tongue-tied and terrified I'll say something really idiotic when I glance across the room and my suspicions are confirmed when I see Jason talking to who I have now deduced is the lady's husband and a really really really really cool guy.

In a near panic that I am definitely going to blurt out something completely inappropriate and embarrassing, I excuse myself and dodge into the bathroom. Where I find the huge zit on the end of my nose.

Does high school ever end?


Loki sez: Only you.

Happy Winter Solstice!

I didn't get to my last minute shopping yesterday. The rain and the runny nose conspired against me. And a good thing too. I needed to find two lumps of coal for two very naughty men, because of whom I spent at least an hour on the phone consoling my crying 72 year old mother. Lumps of coal and a nasty note from Santa is what they are getting this year!

And while at the mall, I was reminded of this passage from my languishing-in-can't-get-an-agent-hell novel:

I did okay as long as I was working, but being home, alone, in that dingy little apartment so close to Christmas was depressing. I went to the mall sometimes, pretending to be shopping for presents. I’d sit and watch the crowds moving from store to store. Almost everyone looked grim, harried and unhappy. Didn’t they have people who loved them at home? Weren’t they buying real presents for real people? Why did they look so unhappy about it?

For real.

And I trimmed back on my traditional Winter Solstice celebration. My tradition was a reenactment of the old Germanic/Norse myths of people putting gifts of food on the trees of the forest for the animal spirits so the spirits would protect the living animals through the winter. Usually for me, this involves lots of fruit and nuts and berries and real tying of things to trees. This year, the woodland creatures and spirits got several berry suet cakes (the raccoons steal them) and a bag of the really good, expensive bird feed.

Remember, beginning tomorrow, the light will begin defeating the darkness.


Thor sez: And you think you aren't getting a lump of coal for this?

Karma's Revenge

This is what I get for bragging about finishing up all my Christmas shopping early. Two unexpected gifts to buy, a rainy day and an immune system that thinks it is under attack.

Sorry, Jason, I read the recipe for Hungarian Butter Horns and it is way beyond my baking skills level.

Plus, tomorrow is the Winter Solstice and I haven't even begun to prepare for my celebration of that holiday. And I haven't had one person send me a Solstice present, card or greeting, so there is probably a "War on Winter Solstice" being waged that I don't know about.

So I suppose I ought to stop drinking coffee and reading blogs and actually get off my butt and do something today.


Loki sez: This is our plan for the day.

Mommie's Little Tax Deductions

We got a ton of them. Everyone getting induced for the holidays. Babies everywhere. People telling tall tales to get a bed. No room at the inn.

Here's our Christmas Carol:

Tis the season for pitocin
fa la la la la, la la la la
time to get the amnio-hook out
pop pop pop pop pop, pop pop pop pop
can't get labor started going so let's do a c-section
fa la la la la, la la la la.
Now we have a real sick baby, getting oxygen, IV's and meds.
Got to call the Neonatologist,
but they've got their tax deduction!
Fa la la la la, la la la la.

Yesterday, Baby Jesus was delivered. Not a real Baby Jesus, but the Baby Jesus that gets put in the Nativity scene at midnight on Christmas. (What I don't understand is, why do they have Mary and Joseph and the Wise Men and the animals all standing around staring at an empty manger all month, waiting for the Baby Jesus to appear? Surely, Mary and Joseph were doing something else - Lamaze or Bradley - the day before. And the Wise Men were cruising the desert on camels.) But I digress. Someone put Baby Jesus in a bassinet in a back room and one of the nurses went back there. When she came out, she said, "Dang, Baby Jesus needs a bilirubin, stat!"

Uh. Well, I thought it was funny. Bilirubin is what is elevated when a baby is jaundiced. Baby Jesus looks like his bilirubin is about 100. But he still has his pretty blond hair and blue eyes.

And then, I had one of our pregnant nurses look up Lotus Births. She printed it out and is going to take it home to her husband as a joke and tell him (he is a youth minister) that she's thought about it and it makes sense, if God wanted the umbilical cord and placenta separated at birth, He would have designed it to break off or fall off.

Then they made up a fake birth plan that made me laugh so hard I cried and had black streaks of mascara all down my face and they didn't tell me at all and I didn't know until I went to the bathroom like a half hour later then it made us laugh all over again.

Don't have a baby at this time of year. The nurses are all punch drunk.

Oh and here is the McDonald's commercial we looked at like a hundred times.

Thor sez: I wanna see Baby Jesus! They had an elf-kitten at the manger, really, they did!

Monday Kitten Blogging

I'm glad that when on a day like today and I can't even begin to attempt to be interesting, I have cats. But that's what y'all come here to see anyway, right?


Loki sez: Behold! The claws of Doom!


Thor sez: Behold! The face of Superiority!

Truly Scrumptious

In today's dark and cynical times, where the innocent is profaned for network ratings, a beautiful woman named Truly Scrumptious would be a porn queen. Or some desperate for fame wanna-be starring in her own reality show where she is promised true love as a prize.

But in my world, Truly is the beautiful angel of the best children's musical ever made: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

I don't remember when I first saw it - the original release date of 1968 would have put us in Japan at the time. My sketchy memory wants to say that my younger brother and I saw it at the base movie theater in El Paso, which would have been 1970. My brother confessed to me years later that the Child Catcher had terrified him and had plagued his dreams for long afterwards.

So I was very happy to find it airing this morning on The Family Channel. My few minutes of television viewing before naptime turned into two hours of movie watching, punctuated frequently (to the kitten's and Jason's distress) by sing-a-longs.

"It's Chitty Chitty Bang Bang," I told Jason. "See, that is Caratacus Potts, he's a crazy inventor who invented the flying car, but his father, crazy Grandpa Potts told someone that he had invented it so they kidnapped him to force him to make a flying car for the Baron of Vulgaria. So Caratacus and Truly Scrumptious and the kids have gone to rescue him, but children are against the law in Vulgaria and the kids are going to be snatched by the Child Catcher and they'll have to rescue everyone but Caratacus and Truly will fall in love at the end and live happily ever after."

He left the room.

And he missed the Baron's birthday party and gift (which was really a clever ruse to infiltrate the castle and take over, set all the children of the town free and save Caratacus's kids.

I love it every time I see it. So call me silly and old fashioned. I don't care.

Loki sez: I liked it too!

It Was Like That When We Got Here!

We swear!



Thor sez: Maybe Daddy did it, did you ask him? Huh?



Loki sez: It certainly wasn't I. All I ever do is sniff at the very tips of the branches of this most wonderful tree. Oh, mother dear, have I told you thank you for bringing us this beautiful fragrant tree?



Thor sez: Fine! Blame it on me! I always get the blame!

ZZZZzzzzzz

First night back to work.....zzzzzz....

The furbags know six words each: their own name, supper, breakfast, catnip and chase stick. I'm sure the rest sounds like so much Charlie Brown adult speak, "Blah blah blah supper blah blah."

Sciatic nerves suck. Then they blow.


Thor sez: I want some niiiiiippppp!

You Have Got to Be Kidding!

Seriously. You have got to be kidding me. What the hell is wrong with the people in this state? The people running this state?

(Edit 12/21: I think the link to the news story is out of date now. It was a story on the South Carolina House of Representatives bill on immigration reform that would make it a felony offense for a doctor, nurse or other public health official to give any medical care, outside a life or death emergency, to anyone who could not prove that they were a legal resident. I wrote to my state representative, Leon Stavrinakis, about this and he is opposed to what he called making health professionals into "de facto immigration police". If you are opposed to threatening health care providers with jail time, fines and loss of their licenses to practice in this state because they can't do the police's job for them, please write to your state representative and voice your concerns.)

They don't even have a basic understanding of the ethics involved in health care. They really think that if someone shows up in a doctor's office or hospital ER needing care, that the doctors and nurses are going to determine a persons immigration status and then examine the person to make sure that the condition/complaint is not life threatening, tell the person that they will not receive medical care, then call the police to report the person so a sick person in need of medical attention can go to jail.

Where they will then receive medical care because the state can't let some-one in their custody go without medical care.

Let me tell you something about the nurses that I know. We don't give a flying fig leaf about your immigration status. If a human being is standing before us in need of help, we will give help. I don't care if it is emergency treatment to save a life or a couple of stitches to close a cut or a dose of antibiotics to clear up an infection. That is part of what we swear to. That is what is required of us by law under the Nurse Practice Act.

We have laws we must follow in the care and treatment of patients and none of those rules say we may deny care to any person based on immigration status.

Health care workers are usually health care workers because they care about people. All people. Turning them into cops because the federal government can't get it's act together and do something about the illegal immigration problem is not the answer.

And threatening health care workers with arrest and felony charges? What the hell? Seriously? Are they aware of the major nursing shortage going on? Are they aware of doctors driven out of the profession by out of control malpractice insurance costs coupled with the demands of HMO's directing care? The health care professionals in this state are struggling to provide the type of care that all human beings deserve and this is what the State of South Carolina wants to add to the burden?

Felony charges for not doing the INS's job?

Who is the next group I will be required by the state to turn in to the police?

Homosexuals? Muslims?

Is that what you want your nurse doing?

Loki sez: Sieg heil South Carolina!

Reporting From the Front Line

Monday, I went to the new Publix up the other end of Bee's Ferry Road. I told the cashier and the guy who bagged my groceries to "Have a good Christmas." They both wished me a "Merry Christmas" also.

Yesterday I went to Target to look at some stuff. I said Merry Christmas to every employee I encountered. I was told "Merry Christmas" and "thank you, you too".

Today I went to WalMart for some stuff. I said Merry Christmas to every employee I encountered and they all said either "Merry Christmas" or "the same to you" back.

I bought my tree at a place on the side of the road with a big huge sign advertising their "Christmas trees".

I received two "Merry Christmas" cards.

Three of my neighbors have nativity scenes in their yards.

Last week, I asked people who go to church if they were going to church to celebrate Christmas this year. I received several invitations to Midnight Mass, to Nativity plays and other worship services.

There are dozens and dozens of sappy Christmas movies and old timey Christmas cartoons playing.

You'd hardly believe there is a war going on.


Loki sez: But righteous indignation just feels soooooo good. Gets our dander all up and the blood pumping!

Themes

"Class, I would like you to write a theme." - the teacher from "A Christmas Story".

I used to feel really stupid at my writer's group. People would be talking all their English Literature degree having talk about omniscient vs first person present or some such stuff. They go on and on about Great American Writers and how this or that was reminiscent of this style or that style. And because this is The South, there was the required homage to Faulkner.

The only strong feeling I'd ever had about Faulkner was that he needed a lesson in where to place a period.

I am an intuitive writer. I can't tell you what a participle is or why I chose to use first person past tense. Hell, half my first practice novel wandered from point of view to point of view because I didn't know any better. But I do have well over 40 years of a book habit that would make most people cringe. I can tell you if something sounds right, but I can't tell you why it is right.

So one day, not long after watching a re-run of Saturday Night Fever, I caught a glimpse of the scene in Working Girls where what's-her-name (Melanie Griffith?) is having a fight with her back home boyfriend, it hit me. The theme of total separation from the familiar.

It also happens to be the theme of my novel. That sometimes, in order to achieve your goal, your dream, you have to completely separate yourself from family, friends, hometown, everything. You have to risk the alienation and scorn of those who you might need the most. You have to go out into the unknown alone, not knowing if you will succeed and also knowing that you might not be able to go back.

Jason can give you all the psycho-social aspects of the tendency of humans in a social circle to want to maintain uniformity and protect itself from change. I don't know all the theories and fancy words, I just know how it feels.

And it feels scary. And then I wonder if that is what keeps people trapped in the cycles of poverty and underemployment and illiteracy. How far up do you have to climb? How few skills are you embarking on this odyssey with? Do you know anyone on the other side who could guide you?

Can you imagine?


Thor sez: Can you imagine getting up out of that chair and feeding me?

Monday Morning Smack Down

I've found myself extremely irritable this morning. My tolerance for willful stupidity has always been low, but it just seems we are being overrun with it.

I went from reading about women being murdered - beheaded and tortured and dumped in garbage piles because they were wearing the 'wrong clothes' to Christians in America once again whining about this supposed 'war' on Christmas.

Oh my ceiling cats! Someone said 'Happy Holidays' instead of 'Merry Christmas' - proof positive that Christmas is under attack and about to be abolished nationwide at any moment and you are all going to be required to participate in pagan rituals such as decorating trees...hm. Never mind.

Stop making up shit so you can play victim. Please.

So I gave up on Internet news and went to see what Matt Lauer had to say, even though Meredith Viera makes my teeth itch and I can't even say why. Matt informed that we were just "days" away from counting the votes in this election. Um, really? I mean I know it is less than a YEAR away, but days? Really? What, like 350 of them?

Then I got subjected to grinning, laughing "survivors" of the shootings at the church in Colorado, everyone just so thrilled to be on television talking about how God saved them personally. Come on, people from your church were just shot down, murdered days (or should I do a Matt Lauer and say hours?) before your most holy of days and you are laughing and smiling for the cameras?

See, told you I was grumpy. Even the kittens are grumpy.


Thor sez: I was here first!
Loki sez: It's my spot! Mine!

Tree Inspection

Thor sez: It's good!


Loki sez: Umm, that light up there isn't working.

And even as we have our human Christmas treats, egg nog or fruit cake or whatever special delight that only comes once a year, so do the kittens: pine water! Yum yum, slurped straight from the tree holder.

Hysteria!

All this fuss about The Golden Compass! Oh my gosh and gollies! I have read the books and now I have seen the movie.

It was a very good movie. It rushed a bit through the story, but that is the way of it when a richly told story is transferred to the visual world of film.

But all those who were hysterically screaming about the movie being the end of Christianity in America are going to look a little foolish.

There is no "killing of God". The Magisterium is presented as the government, not a church. The use of the word "daemon" is clearly explained as that world's word for a human soul.

Now, to be fair, the books themselves are a little more blatant about being anti-corrupt organized religion.

But this movie is going to make those who see it in spite of - or even because of - the violent reaction of the Catholic League and other Christian spokesmen, it's going to make them scratch their heads and wonder what the hell all the fuss was about.

And people who have been screaming against it are going to look like hysterical fools.

Unless you want to be offended by its mere existence, there is nothing offensive against any religion in this movie.

I'll tell you a story. Many years ago, my alcoholic (now ex-)husband got into a fundamentalist church big time as a way to cure his alcoholism (trading booze for Jesus is how they put it in AA). One day I came home from work to find him feverishly going through all my books and throwing the ones he deemed "Satanic" away. Mostly this consisted of my Stephen King collection. But one book he threw away was a little children's book I'd picked up at yard sale when I was a young teen. The title of the book was "The Witch". So it was the first to go. I asked him if he had looked at the content of the book. "No," he replied, the word 'witch' was enough to condemn the book in the eyes of God.

The story of The Witch was of a young orphan girl, living alone with a relative on a small island off the coast of Scotland. The townspeople and children called her a witch because her parentage was questionable and the relative she lived with was aloof and mysterious. The children of the town would throw rocks at her and wouldn't play with her. Then a family came to visit the island and the outcast girl made friends with the children of the family and ending up risking her life to save the life of one of the children. The townspeople and the children of the town were made to see that she was just a little girl, and they were wrong to shun her for no reasons except rumor and gossip.

But the word 'witch' was in the title, so it was automatically condemned as an evil, anti-God book.


Loki sez: Well we all know that cats are the form the devil takes as a familiar to women, so why should anyone listen to you?

Random Friday

Thor sez: Don't wanna be elf!

Hot topics at my house:

Does the Post and Courier purposely print the stupidest letters they receive?

Independent Internet journalists - are they really working under the same principles as print journalists who must be able to verify sources and facts to an editor?

What is up with all the feline butt sniffing? It's not like we have random strange cats wandering through the house.

Does Thor understand English?

Why did the note that the Charleston Water System put on my front door about smoke testing in my neighborhood instruct me to run water in all my taps to lessen the possibility of getting smoke smell in my house, then give me an 8 day range of when the test will take place? Am I supposed to run water for 8 days? Sounds like a scheme to run up my water bill.

Comic books. Why I don't read them. (Print is too small)

Living in the age of the sound bite, the media image and the commercialization of every aspect of American life.

How long I plan to leave the painter's tape around the kitchen walls if I have no real plans to continue painting ceilings.


Loki sez: Marshmallow: fruit, veggie or meat?

The Media Needs to Take a Good Long Look at Themselves

This is unacceptable.

Scumbag kills eight people.

Scumbag leaves a note saying, "Now, I'll be famous."

Media completely complies and fills the airwaves, the Internet and print media with his face, his name, his motives, his life history.

Victims?

There were eight of them.

I'm waiting on the day when the headline is: Scumbag kills Eight.

The story: about the innocent lives lost.

I'm waiting for the day when we remember the names of the victims, not the killers.

Next mass killing spree, anyone involved in the news production in this country will be just a little bit complicit.


Thor sez: I don't understand humans, you say you value life, but glorify killers!

(Edited now that I'm not so disgusted and can realize that a$$holes serve a useful purpose, unlike the scumbag who wanted to be famous.)

In Defense of Skirt!

As if they need my defense, but these are my thoughts.

In the interest of full disclosure, I must point out that I was once profiled in Skirt! and Kelly Love Johnson once picked my old butt off the floor of a roller rink where I was indulging in some fantasy that I wasn't too old for such shenanigans.

That said, when I read Conservative Amazon's post, on the surface I agreed. I have said much the same things about advertising in magazines for women.

But.

All magazines that cater to women contain ads for beauty products, treatments, clothes, surgical solutions, etc. It is a business and making a profit is the main priority of a business if it wishes to remain in print.

Where the difference lies and what makes Skirt! superior, in my humble opinion, is in the editorial content. Most "women's magazines" have articles that support the idea that women need to change themselves: How to Lose 10 pounds in a Week. How to Drive Him Crazy in Bed. How to find the Perfect Pair of Jeans.

Skirt!'s articles are simply essays written by women about their experiences in life. Sharing their thoughts, hopes, dreams, disappointments, embarrassments.

That is what makes it different. That is what makes it a better magazine than any other I've seen so far. I skim right by the ads and get right down to listening to what real women are saying.

Dinner Time!

Okay, semi-major pet peeve rant. (Major pet peeve rant postponed until I've slept).

TV commercial. Perky white suburban mom checking off her list of stuff to do. Perky white suburban dad and perfect boy/girl children arrive with some fast food crap to eat for dinner. Mom gets even perkier and looks at her to-do list. "Dinner together, check!"

We'll skip right on by the whole fast food is not really food, certainly not dinner.

I'll just say this once. If you have to write down "have dinner with family" on a to-do list, then you are a poor parent.

I don't care if each of your darlings is just in soooooo many activities that there just isn't time for a family meal!

What is more important? Family or activities?

You cannot parent from the front seat of an SUV. You cannot parent over a tray of grease and sodium.

That's all.

Next: video games aimed at 3 and 4 year old children to "teach them to read". No it doesn't, it teaches them to entertain themselves with video games so when they are 8, 10, 15, 18, that is all they want to do. I taught my son to read with building blocks that had letters of the alphabet on them and his baby books.

Oh, yeah, and I sat down with him and taught him myself instead of plopping a game in his hand or turning on the television set. And I was working full time and I had a slack ass husband at the time. And I had no college degree at the time.

End rant.

Thor sez: What's she going on about now?
Loki sez: I dunno, just look hungry, I think we're getting an extra supper.

I Just Love the Smell of Irony in the Morning

From my buddy, Pat Robertson:

"It seems to me that if some-one is sure that the God they worship is the true God, then they won't get bent out of shape if some-one says a disparaging word. They have an inferiority complex or something."

Heard with my own two ears this morning on The 700 Club. Might not be completely word-for-word as I was quite busy picking my jaw up off the the floor.

Of all the things on this planet, agreeing with Pat on something is about the last thing I'd expect. I would of thought monkeys flying out of my butt more likely.

Course, he was talking about Muslims and I'm talking about everyone who claims a god, but we won't split that hair. Kthnx.

Imagine Little Patty - spewer of Jesus inspired tidbits such as we should just assassinate another country's leader, the preacher of the word of Christ who told us that God gave the Israeli Prime Minister a massive stroke and that God sent the planes into the World Towers because of gays and feminists (or was that his twin Falwell?) - he and I in agreement.

Just about brings a tear to my eye.


Loki sez: Should I email The Catholic League?


Thor sez: Or Philip Pullman?

New Career

I've decided on my new job. I want to be an actress in those commercials for veggie choppers and knives and hand held irons.

You know the ones. Scene one is usually filmed in dingy, dreary black and white tones, poor woman huffing and puffing and dramatically wiping the sweat from her brow as she struggles and struggles to just chop a potato so she can feed her poor starving children! But it is so hard, so difficult and the potato wobbles every where and she ends up with just a tiny little cube because it's just TOO HARD!!

Second scene is in bright happy color, sunlight flooding the room, smiling happy faces as mom effortlessly chops billions of potatoes in just 0.002 seconds!

And speaking of commercials, has anyone seen that McDonald's commercial - I saw it twice yesterday while watching Harry Potter movies on Family Channel - the one where the little boy dressed in a yellow track suit comes to the table carrying a huge boom box and his family is just staring at him, aghast, as he bops in his chair, eating his apple slices and at the end, dad starts getting a little funky with it?

Funniest commercial I've seen in years!

And now I'm off to face the worst possible trauma and stress that a woman can face: A new hair stylist!

I love the woman who has been cutting my hair, but it takes months to get an appointment with her and I am seriously shaggy. Carol Brady shaggy! So I'm giving the lady who waxes my eyebrows a chance.

Gulp.

Loki sez: That does sound scary!

Loki's Day!

I've really been favoring Thor lately, so here is a dose of Loki.



Loki sez: I can quit anytime I want. I just don't want right now.

Thor's Day!

One batch of cookies down, and no Heather, thank you, but I do not need cookies. Since I am the only one with an over-active sweet-tooth in this house, guess who ends up eating all the candy and cookies and pastries?

I'm not big on the whole baking thing and over the years, baking chocolate chip cookies at Christmas became one of our traditions. So, I am preparing some for the mini-Christmas package.

I actually mixed up the dough last night. And while I was doing so, Jason came wandering in with Thor.

"Thor wants to help." I was told. Thor collaborated this with a longing glance at the ingredients strewn across the counter.

"Really?" I replied, "He wants to help? Like Man-Child used to help me with this every year?"

"Yes, exactly."

"So, he is going to help soften the butter, measure the ingredients, try one practice stir, disappear, return for the first warm cookie out of the oven, then disappear until the entire batch is finished?"

"No, he just wants to sniff everything, leave a few cat hairs in the dough, then disappear."


Thor sez: My hairs are clean!

Now I'm Pretty Much Done

Oh, great marvelous revelations from the muse! I set out this morning for my mother's favorite store, hoping to spot something when from out of the blue skies the muse revealed the most perfect gift. So perfect that I can probably do Chia Head gifts for the next few years and get away with it!

No, no, it shall not be revealed here as there might be spies about!

It is that perfect.

So now all I really have left is to make up some chocolate chip cookies, package up the man-child's "out-to-sea" Christmas, holding off on his real gift buying until Christmas in Spring time. Obtain and decorate a tree. I even stocked up on wrapping paper, bows, gift tags and tape at the Wally World this morning!

Oh, and Shadow of Diogenes? Was that you in the cat food aisle? I don't know why I ever would have thought I'd recognize you, but was it?

Oh, and Marcheline? I got the scratch about half way faded before my poor arthritic fingers said WTF? Jason is out there now taking his turn. You rock!


Thor sez: Moooooooom! Pleeeeeeeezeeeee stop!

I Suppose it Was Inevitable

I just wish I'd gotten at least 2,000 miles on it before I scratched the hell out of it. And I feel completely stupid about it because it was all my fault. See, my driveway, when backing out, the view on the right is obscured by my neighbor's holly hedge. And the drainage culvert is right there too, so I tend to watch the right side as I back out, then stop and check traffic to the left. If I'd looked to the left, I might have seen that the trashcan had been left in the driveway. I might have noticed it before I scraped a lovely three foot scratch in the side of the car.



I think it is shallow enough that it will buff out and I won't have to have the whole side repainted. I hope.

In better news, I've almost finished my Christmas shopping! Just need to figure out something for my mother - who is notoriously difficult to shop for - and put together a small care package for the man-child who is floating around the Persian Gulf via the Mediterranean Sea for the next six months.


Thor sez: I wonder what Santa will bring us this year!

Crap Sandwiches

Having many brothers has led to having a pretty colorful vocabulary. My favorite variation on the "don't pee on my leg" saying is "Don't hand me a crap sandwich and tell me it's roast beef."

Okay, Mr. Darabont?

Yesterday afternoon, Jason and I went to see The Mist. Actually went to a theater and paid full ticket price because we both were looking forward to seeing this adaptation of Stephen King's short story, done by the writer/director who also directed The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile.

The movie was great. Awesome. The characters were lovable/hatable, which ever they were supposed to be. Special effects were great. It was scary without being too gory. Loved it.

Right up to the end.

I won't reveal the final scene in case anyone out there has plans to see the movie.

I don't care that Mr. Darabont changed the ending. I do care that the ending did not make sense. I felt like I'd been handed my crap sandwich.

I understand the shock value he was going for and if I contort my mind around it long enough, I can sort of, kind of, maybe see what he was maybe, sort of, kind of implying.

But it didn't fit the scene as it was played out. I felt cheated. Not only as a viewer, but as a writer. As Jason said, "It was a cheap trick to play on your audience."

Happy ending, sad ending, indifferent or vague ending, I don't care how you want to end your story, but it has to make sense. It has to fit with the scene. That's all I'm saying.

Thor sez: I smell something rotten in The Mist!

Antidote for Previous Post

Pay No Attention to That Woman Over There!

She's just a woman.

Friends don't let friends oppress and torture.

Oh, wait. Yes they do.

Our allies (read: people who have made the Bush family rich) have this charming little...oh wait, it isn't a democracy....aren't our troops being killed and maimed to spread democracy...well...never mind......LOOK! It's Bin Laden! Hehhehheh.

Saudi Arabian women: cannot drive, cannot work, cannot VOTE, cannot leave their homes without a male escort - this is why this 19 year old gang rape victim has been sentenced to jail time and 200 lashes with a whip. Two hundred. Lashes. With a whip. Because she went outside.

Saudi Arabian women cannot see a doctor unless a male family member gives permission. Cannot open a bank account without the permission of a male family member. Cannot have custody of their children.

I get so confused sometimes.

Oppression and torture are good, the inherent right of the government of Saudi Arabia to control..oops govern its citizens.

Oppression and torture in Iraq is morally wrong and evil and we must sacrifice the lives of our soldiers and go 10 trillion dollars in debt to end it.

Okay, I think I get it. Torture and oppression are in the eye of the money-holder.