Self-Indulgent Ramblings

There is this freaking brilliant blog that just posts the ridiculous headlines from CNN.com.  You have got to go… and marvel at how important it is that we can have that kind of news coverage whenever we want it.  Journalistic integrity ROCKS!

Oh well.  Imagine what the FoxNews one would look like.  It would be ridiculous AND probably sycophantic and distructive at the same time.  {shrug}

Now I have to leave before Rupert Murdock reads that and sends his minions to break my kneecaps or something. 

Okay… I don’t know why I’m so blog happy today… except that I have a lot of work to do… so I must be procrastinating.

Anyway, it’s apparently big news in the advertising arena that the NFL is launching a new campaign to illustrate the softer side of the NFL as opposed to the thuggish, dog fighting, drug-addled side of the NFL.

I’m sure plenty of these players are decent guys who love their mothers and whatnot… but you make a living running and throwing and kicking and hitting… how fuzzy are you supposed to be?

And I hope they’re carefully vetting the people they’re using in the ads… because wouldn’t it suck to find out that one of the kinder gentler football spokesmen was running a kiddie porn meth lab out of his garage or something? 

Okay… it was ridiculous when the Christian Right was trying to claim March of the Penguins as a treatise on heterosexual monogamy… and it’s ridiculous now that a children’s book called And Tango Makes 3 about two male penguins who raised a baby penguin is 2006’s most contested book:

Paternal Penguins Pique Parents

An award-winning children’s book based on the true story of two male penguins who reared a baby penguin stands atop the American Library Association’s annual list of works that drew the most complaints from parents, library patrons and others, The Associated Press reported. Published in 2005, the book, “And Tango Makes Three,” by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell, with illustrations by Henry Cole (Simon & Schuster), was named one of that year’s best by the association. But some parents and educators complained that it advocated homosexuality. In all, the number of books challenged last year was 546, compared with 406 in 2005, but low in contrast to the figures recorded in the mid-1990s, when challenges exceeded 750 a year. The American Library Association defines a challenge as a “formal, written complaint filed with a library or school requesting that materials be removed because of content or appropriateness.” Other books on the 2006 list included the Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison’s “Bluest Eye” and her Pulitzer Prize-winning “Beloved,” both challenged for language and sexual content. Judith Krug, director of the association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, said 30 books were banned last year. (NY Times)

Okay, while I personally don’t see why it’s so tricky to just accept people as they are and grant human rights across the board, I understand that many people see gender relations as a volatile and tricky subject.  BUT THESE ARE PENGUINS, PEOPLE!  They’re not dictating our morality… they’re waddling.  They’re not setting a good or a heinous example… they’re pretty much still waddling.

Apparently we have nothing better to do than to blame penguins for all the ills of the world.  But, you know, if we’re going to take lessons from penguins, let’s take the lesson that they don’t seem to be paying attention to any of this.  Just keep waddling.

34 years ago today, the hot line between Washington DC and Moscow went into effect.  That’s right!  The red phone (that I assume is right next to the red button) has its birthday today.  Interesting little fun fact.  I wonder, over the years, whether they ever updated the red phone technology.  Did they get call waiting?  Or caller ID?  And if so… who else would be calling?  I mean, seriously…

Well… that’s my random thought for the day.

You like how I implied that I would only have one random thought today.

Ha! 

I LOVE Emerald Nuts commercials!!!

When I was a freshman in high school, my parents gave my brothers and me a kitty litter box, cat food dish and various cat care items for Christmas.  This seemed odd to us, since we didn’t have a cat.  We were perhaps a little slow on the uptake as we tried to look grateful for the odd gift.

After that, we figured things out and realized that we were going to get to go pick out a cat.  We went to the Dumb Friends’ League and picked out a brown tabby with thumbs and we named her Pepper.  Right away, she established her dominance over our black lab… and the rest of the house.  Most nights she spent curled up with me.  During the day, she frisked about the house chasing pencils or gummi worms and leaving marbles in our shoes.  She likes to look at things upside down.  She’s madly in love with my father - following him around the house, begging for his rough and tumble play, and occasionally sticking her whole head into his shoes.

Freshman year of college, our black lab passed away.  Not long after that, my parents got a golden retriever.  It didn’t take him long to fear the kitty.  Even as he grew to be a rather large dog, the fear never subsided.  As far as he’s concerned, we’re pretty sure he sees Pepper and all cats as about the size of elephants.

Through the last 14 years, Pepper has grown into a rather spirited and crotchety old lady.  She loves her people, but she’s not so fond of other animals.  For a few months, my much younger kitty invaded her space, living in my parents’ house.  Let’s just say that didn’t go over well.

Tonight, we had to put Pepper to sleep.  Her breathing got very strange tonight, and she’s had a lot of other health issues over the last year, so my mom and I took her to the emergency animal hospital where some very sweet techs and a vet with a very strange but well meaning bedside manner took care of her and us as we waited for tests and made the decision.  While they were diagnosing her, my mom and I sat in the lobby watching a ridiculous reality show about truck drivers until one of the techs told us how to change the channel.  Once it became clear that things were not going to go well, I called my brother and he joined us there.  We talked about it for a while.  Then they brought her in to see us.  We sat with her for a while.  She started to get squirmy… that was difficult - her being active again.  But I stroked the bridge of her nose and that soothed her for a while.  When it came time, my mom and my little brother sat with her during the procedure.  I couldn’t.  I didn’t want to see her not breathing. We got home around 12:30 and then just sort of sat up.  We’re still sitting up.

I’ve had pets pass away before, but I’ve never been this close to the experience.  It was really awful.  And I just miss my kitty.

Sorry about the sad post.  But hey… what’re you gonna do. 

Well, I just returned from my 10 year high school reunion.  Interesting experience.  My first reactions:

• I haven’t driven in Denver in about 6 years.  It’s a lot bigger than Greenville.
• For a class of 721, I think we had a pretty small turnout.
• Apparently, $86 a ticket for a CASH BAR is an extremely cheap reunion.
• I apparently don’t recognize anyone I went to high school with.
• Some people will always look exactly the same.
• Some people will swell.
• Some people actually did get thinner, and graduate from law school, and have cute boyfriends… and it’s not necessarily the people who would piss you off that they’re thin lawyers with cute boyfriends.
• There are people I never knew, which makes perfect sense in a class as big as mine.
• There are people I never had a conversation with… even though we were in honor choir together.  Which makes less sense.
• No one else ordered a class picture, so we didn’t take one.  Come on, people!
• Sometimes, connecting with just two people who you didn’t realize you really missed - that’s worth the price of admission.

Well, I’m back in Denver, preparing for the inevitable high school reunion this evening.  Seriously… I think I dread it more with every passing moment.

Of course, because I’m jet-lagged, I’m awake at 5:30 in the morning - that’s 7:30 my time.  So I’m up and wandering around my parents’ house.  My first thought… I should check my email.  So I opened my computer and found that I could no longer find their wireless network.  UGH!  So I’m here on my dad’s computer, checking my email. 

Of course, before I settled for my dad’s computer, I thought I’d just take a shower, get that out of the way.  So I went into the bathroom I used to use… which has clearly not been used since my last visit 8 months ago.  The shower was in pretty bad shape.  So, I decided to use my brother’s bathroom downstairs.  I went in, turned on the light… and the lightbulb blew.  ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?!!?

So now I’m sitting here with dirty hair and a slow connection, checking my email and blogging and waiting for my parents to wake up so I can use their shower.

And on top of this… we still haven’t decided what "party casual attire" means.

With the reunion tonight, I sure hope today gets better.

I can not take any more assholes.  You know?  I am so so so so so tired of them.  Whether they’re using a conversation with me to take a jab at someone else or condescending to me as if I were some mentally incapacitated ferret or just all around treating people around them like crap.  I just can not take one more asshole.  You know?

How does that happen?  How is it that some of us have that switch in our brain that says, "This is not an appropriate way to behave" and some of us don’t?  

I don’t envy the person who’s in my way when my switch finally malfunctions. 

Okay, today had a particularly amusing set of things for me to watch while I was working out (I’m really sore, by the way).  First of all, the TVs were tuned to the trifecta of ridiculous culture: MTV, Saved by the Bell and The Soap Network.  Good golly.  Actually, two of the TVs were tuned to MTV… which was just weird.  What was also weird is that they played the same video twice within about 20 minutes.  I’m not sure why.  But hey, at least they were playing videos at all.  I wasn’t sure that still happened.  The Soap Network was pretty great as I looked over to see tearful woman with baby having a heartfelt conversation with serious man with eye patch… who became emotional crying/smiling man with eye patch.  I’m sorry… but unless he’s a pirate, I really can’t take serious man with eye patch seriously.  Later, I glanced up to see man with eye patch and baby… the scene - much to my delight - ended with a family photo of woman with baby and man with eyepatch.  It was friggin’ nuts.

Then I saw a commercial for the soap my mom and I used to watch when I was sick… and it’s bizarre.  Some of the exact same people - people who have got to be at least 107 by now - and plenty of new people.  I recognized one girl as the prettier skinnier actress who replaced the daughter character after it turned out that she hadn’t grown up as pretty and skinny as they had hoped she would when they hired the three-year-old child actor. 

Then, of course, there was "watch myself in the mirror while I jump rope" guy and "wearing workout pants that are just the right color and tightness to make me look naked" chick.  Ah… the gym offers a seemingly endless source of entertainment.