how the children behave

This seems to be the mode of play these days for my dog and cat. These are not my actual pets, but the cat looks alot like my kitty, and though my dog is not nearly that big, it does seem to be her life-dream to pin the kitty down for a good slobbery nibble fest. Their bizarre friendship, which frankly I worry is rife with dominance issues - but anyone who has a herding dog knows there's going to be "type A" personality, bossiness issues - blossoms daily. We suspect in a few months, the cat will be happy enough and secure enough in his relationship with the dog to eventually join us downstairs when we watch TV on the weekends. It'll be good when he does that, too, because then doggie-girl will leave us be and not insist on barking over Jon Stewart's punchlines because she wants us to play tug with her. I'm always amazed at how she knows when it's a critical moment in the story!

In the meantime, I'll be required to have my car with me at work in a few weeks. Until then, I'm trying to find a good public transport route which will allow me to avoid subterranean commuter train traffic. I'm not the person you want to be sitting next to on the subway when it unexpectedly stops in a tunnel, or lurches, or slows. I'm the person who has to hum, breathe deeply and go to her happy place. Or barring that, make instant best friends with whoever is sitting near me. And we all know how socially unacceptable friendly conversation is in a tight space!! However, I think it has to do as much with being stuck in a "crowded-as-hell-on-Nazi-appreciation-day" car during the height of rush hour. Much as I destest car traffic, I'd rather be stuck in my own car where I have at least the illusion of control over my own destiny than smushed with my face in some stranger's armpit in a non-moving train car 100 feet underground. Even a bus in traffic is better. At least then, you can crack a window, and can see outside - so I don't feel so clausterphobic.

Ahh. If only American subway systems were like the one in Hong Kong: seriously clean, cars which were open for people to move freely, constant air flow through the cars, swift moving trains and bilingual announcements which are very clearly ennunciated. (I sometimes wonder how foreign tourists cope with our system of public announcement mumbling.) Even when it was crowded to the gills - and it's Hong Kong, so that's like 75% of the time - you never felt like a sardine! Hong Kong, how I miss you!

At least my "avoid the train" agenda is getting me to walk a lot more. Molly needs to move her buns, these days. Perhaps this'll help burn off left over Christmas fat. Is that Noelle Gras?

What's on that's good ...

I don't watch much television. Mostly on weekends, I see what we've got on TiVo. TiVo, by the way, is the best thing to happen to TV ever. For people like me who might otherwise be TV addicted, it helps us sift the crap (mostly) and prioritize. It's nice not having to fumble with video tapes or having to be a slave to a TV schedule. Anyway ... TV is a vast wasteland, but there are some oases out there. Here are some that I enjoy, in no particular order. Probably predictable, but who cares?

The Boondocks. I've always loved the comic strip, and in some ways I think I still prefer the strip to the show. However, the show is just beautifully irreverent that it makes the perfect complement to the strip. It's like the subtext of the strip is finally spoken.

The Simpsons. It has not jumped the shark. And even if it has, screw it. I likes me some shark fin soup. It still has juice.

Battlestar Galactica. I froth at the mouth. Politics, religion, terrorism, human anhiliation, sexy mutha f*ckin' robots, badass women who rule the place, Edward James Olmos, and they didn't keep that stupid kid from the miniseries. What more do you want?

American Dad. Hilarious skewer for post-9/11 American Suburbia. Yes, yes, I know I'm supposed to worship at the altar of the Family Guy. But I never really got into the Family Guy. This one just does it more for me.

The Colbert Report. I didn't think he could top his point-counterpoint schtick on Daily Show, but he has. And many nights I think he eclipses he good friends at the Daily. Granted it's a different kind of satire, but thank God someone has taken on mocking the self-important. It helps me breathe.

The Daily Show. When I think back to my initial reluctance to think the show would survive the transition from Kilborn to Stewart, I hang my head in shame. The show has become so much better than it ever could be. It's kind of choppy right now with some staff changes, but it'll pull through. It has to: for me, for America, for 9-11!

Arrested Development. Okay. I know. It's gone, now. But since May isn't here yet, and that's technically the end of the TV season ... let's just pretend. Can we? Just for me?

The Office. I refused to watch it after the pilot was almost a verbatim ripoff of the British pilot. However, always the believer in redemption, I've given it another go. They've done a good job of letting it develop its own flesh on the British frame. It's genuinely laugh out loud funny.

It seems my taste in television runs towards the male-dominated, or at least toward a predominantly male audience. Either that, or there just isn't much good female-dominated programming. That's disheartening. I know you're saying, "Oh, but there's Desperate Housewives." Yeah, but I haven't been able to get into that. Perhaps that'll be my TV mission: find addictive female dominated shows ... that don't include that lisping nerve-grater Geena Davis.

I love my new job. I hate being a grown up. When did I start worrying about home ownership?

I just completed my first week at the new job, today. It's a ground floor job, but I feel like a necessary part of the project, which is a first for me. I feel like I'm learning about the field, and I'm already pretty confident that this will ultimately open more doors for me when this project ends. And the best part is, though the salary is low for the area, it's still slightly higher than what I've been offered for other similar positions I've intereviewed for at non-freelance, permanent staff places. It's also the same starting salary I had at my corporate "hate-my-life" job that I had for four years. Of course, I took that job 5 years ago, so ... any economists out there can tell me how I've not really improved yadda, yadda. But I like this one!

Honey and I are going to try to purchase our house that we've been renting and living in for the last 2.5 years. What's sickening is that this house has appreciated in value by about 30 - 50% since we moved in. (And we don't even have a garge and the windows are the original energy leaking ones installed in 1965!) Even though the market has cooled in this area. I feel like we're kind of in a crap position:
1) We can easily afford a tiny "can't-accomodate-visitors, much less -raise-kids" condo in a high rise. (Have I ever mentioned we moved because I got clausterphobic in a high rise?) We'd have beaucoup disposable income to put into savings and travel, but we wouldn't be able to have children, like we want, because there would be NO ROOM for another person.
2) Or we could mostly afford a house in our zip code with 2 or 3 hobbit sized bedrooms which would feel like a cramped closet the instant we have a child (and we'd like to have up to 3). Our disposable income would go into savings, but not much else.
3) Or we could just skin of our teeth afford this house which could very easily accomodate 3 children into their adolescence. Savings would be a piggy bank in the attic, and our kids would have to just hear tales of their grandparents uncles, aunts and cousins, because we could never afford to travel to see them.

Scheme 1
Pros - we could save for another 3 - 5 years and have beaucoup money to crank out child number 1 with, and just delay childbearing like every other schmo on the east coast. The condo would fairly easily sell to the next yuppie scum like us who comes along. For the cost that we sell the condo for, we could buy a huge house in the Southwest and never have to move again!
Cons - I feel very suffocated after a year or so in a high rise. Honey can attest that I can get weird about it. Though we have no reason to think we couldn't get knocked up in another 3 to 5 years, now seems as good a time as any to go ahead and start trying for spawn. Plus, our parents' health being what it is, if we wait much longer, our children will only ever know invalid or dead grandparents.

Scheme 2
Pros - We can afford it. We can still save. It's not a high rise.
Cons - If we end up having to live in a cute shoebox for 30 years - let's say the economy turns and we can't afford to move anywhere - we will have to resort to eating our young. The only reason my parents didn't end up eating my brother and me when we lived in a very cramped "get-the-hell-out-of-my-face" house, is because we moved to a 2nd bathroom, separate laundry room, separate dining room joint by the time I was 14. Another inch of elbow room can really save one's mental health.

Scheme3
Pros - It's large enough to accomodate building a family, but not so large that if we nix the kids idea we'll feel like indulgent pigs living in an oversized McMansion a la DualIncomeNoKids like Nick and Jessica. It's in a corner of the neighborhood that always seems to make out well no matter what the market does.
Cons - We'll have to work constantly like hippos afford the place. We'll grey prematurely just from worry about if we can afford it.

I've been reading NubianTemptres43 lately, and though I'm not in exactly the same place as she is, I either have been or otherwise know what she means about all the scary crap and ambivalence that comes with being a grown up. I'm not currently feeling like I don't know what I'm doing with my life - which is strange as I've felt directionless for the last 3 years. But grownuphood is definitely not the platter of hope that was sold to me and my generation raised on "feel good; can do" edutainment of the 80s and 90s.

At least I love my job right now!

... ahh, wait! But there's more!

I've only been awake for about 30 minutes, so I may have heard fuzzily, but apparently Dubai Portsworld, the UAE owned company in question from the last post, will not be required by the US government to keep any company records in the US (which would make them subject to US gov't inspection) nor will they be required to have an employee liaison over here to make sure they're keeping good on our playing field.
Okay, NOW, I have to ask: "WTF?!" I have to go back to the premise that if none of this was required by the British company, it will be hard, and evidently hypocritical, to require this of Dubai Portsworld. Regardless of whether this kind of company local accessibility was required of the British company (or even just volunteered by them), the issue then is transparency of operation. I'm a firm believer in such transparency of ALL companies, but I think we have to require transparency of foreign investors, as well. We need to know that they're living up to our standards. If we ever chose to enforce and live up to our own. (Look at Skilling, Lay, Fastow, Ebbers, Koslowski, et al.) But of course the biggest fan of this purchase, the Bush WH, is a well known anti-fan of any informational or operational transparency. Whether it's about delaying and dodging news about something like a simple hunting accident, deciding legal and easily attained warrants to tap our conversations is beneath concern, or about silencing a simple critic by "leaking" that his wife is an undercover CIA agent instead of tackling his arguments and accusations head on, Shrub and Co. don't care for daylight, the best disinfectant in a democracy.
Dubai Portsworld has apparently delayed purchase of the 6 East Coast ports they were lined up to take. I suspect the deal will eventually go through. Regardless of whether the bipartisan brigade on the Hill legislates as they've threatened, or not. And again, I suspect one of the two hypothetical situations listed in the below post will occur.

Prickly bias pickle

I'm not sure what to make of this whole "sale of American stateside ports management to a United Arab Emirates based company" hub-ub. Part of me says, "wtf? Isn't that like the fox guarding the henhouse?" But then I take a deep breath and tell myself to stop being such a prejudiced, racist slimeball. But then I think that to be "okay" with the sale to a UAE company is to be on President Bush's side. And that's one prejudice I really don't feel like relenting. Just like if I stop travelling by air, "the terrorists win," if I don't object to the UAE company sale, "the purzident" wins. CRAP! It's such a conundrum! Which knee jerk prejudice do give in to? The one that fears that everyone south of Athens and east of Rio de Janeiro wants a sea of dead Americans? Or the the one that recoils at that a hazing-loving, science-fearing, subpar, lying leader may be in the right every now and then? ... I think I'll just have to eat crow on this one and at least superficially agree with the purzident.

It's my understanding that these ports were most recently owned and managed by a British company. I question at least the surface wisdom of selling any stateside transport management to any foreign country - probably because we live in a post-9/11 country. However, it seems that as long as there's that precedent, to deny sale to an economic and political ally just because a lot of people in your country associate another country as "one of them," is just wrong and caves into prejudices like mine or worse. Frist - or some other Republican lawmaker - was talking from the house or senate floor yesterday about how 3 of the 9/11 hijackers either came from or had ties to the UAE. He seemed to think this was enough for us to deny this sale. Well, if our fearless elected officials (or "defaulted by voter apathy" officials) truly worried about business with countries who gave us baddies, we'd've long ago ditched Saudi Arabia and we'd've been legally mandated to ride bikes or drive super-alt fuel cars. Or, of course, we would've gone to war. But ... y'know ... whatever.

If the UAE based company sale is completed, I figure one of many, but probably two, things could happen: A) Nothing. The ports go on as they always have and the Coast Guard does their job, protecting us as best they as they are able. B) An inevitable terrorist attack occurs in our porous ports. The UAE company has major egg on their face, just because they were the ones in ownership and virtually every non-Muslim American's fear has been confirmed. (Maybe even confirming the fears of some Muslim Americans.) Shrub and Co. start piling the shit as high as possible to divert attention from the fact that they haven't done a good job building up the safety of American ports, and they end up blaming the Coast Guard. ... That said, I think the UAE company is going to do all it can to make itself look good to the average American. I have no idea if or how theocratic the UAE is, but I suspect this company will do what it can to keep not only a very secular image in the US, but weed out any potential "right-wing" employees, so as to minimize the occurence of or appearance there could ever be an occurence of an "inside job." I actually have more confidence in the UAE company to monitor itself over here than I do in my own government's commitment to increasint and improving port security. But the UAE company has more to lose in public opinion if anything goes wrong.

I'm unhappy with the sale, but I can live with it a lot better than I think Capitol Hill or the media can.
In the meantime, I'm reading a cool book called Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking. It's by the dude who wrote Tipping Point, which is still on my to read list. I'm only like 50 pages into this one, thus far, but I love how he's getting into the whole "gut reaction" thing. I'm finishing up the piece on the Gottman Institute at UWashington which studies marital and similarly committed relationships. If you've ever heard the piece on This American Life about it (episode 261, "The Sanctity of Marriage" air date 3/26/04) you know the gist of this chapter. If not, you must listen to it. ... my honey is falling asleep, so I should probably turn out the light and catch my 40 winks, too.

I'm sure all 2 of my readers will have something to say to chasten my igorant ass, tomorrow.

Insipid Graphic of the Day Award goes to ...

CNN.com!

They always have such crappy graphics that are either so cluttered and ambiguous that by themselves you'd wonder what they're trying to communicate. Or with the story, just seem to do a really poor job of communicating the point. They look like a 7th grader built a collage that looked "cool." No extra points if you can guess what the basic issue of the article was that this graphic was associated with. I'm not even including a link to give you a hint.

In the meantime ...

I began my new job today. Woohoo! I was scared, but am more excited. Still kinda' scared, but getting more excited - especially since my new coworkers seem very nice and seem to have good senses of humor. I think most of my apprehension comes from just trying to get back into a routine where my time is not my own for 10 hours a day. It's been a while since that was true for me. But I'm psyched about this opportunity. And this overall project is really great!

Finally saw Brokeback Mountain this weekend during a girls' night out. I hope to write a review of it sometime this week; it'll take me a while to get back into the full-time groove. But long story short: my suppositions about Jake Gyllenhall's performance/miscasting were correct. Heath Ledger's cowboy was accurate for most cowboys I've known in my life. Michelle Williams' performance was better than I expected - way more honest than Anne Hathaway. I just couldn't buy that she was a small town girl; she seemed very much like a coastal bred woman portraying a stereotype. Like she went right for the charicature. I've known actual rodeo sweethearts, they're not that fussied up. And though overall interesting, not sure if the story was quite compelling enough for all the buzz it's been getting. If I have time this week, I'll elaborate. You know how long-winded I can get.

Battlestar, you beast!

Due to a couple of weeks that have been both emotionally crappy and socially hectic, we had fallen behind in our Battlestar. This week, we caught up to see what had been going on. I really like how in the first season, Starbuck was defined as the bombastic, overly confident fighter pilot. I fell in love with her. I love her still, but I've really been appreciating that in this season, we've been watching her battle some demons. AND I liked that in the episode, "Scar," she has to eat crow when her commadre (whose name I forget, but whose hair I like) is the one who takes him down. However - and judging by the few glances I've taken at other blogs, and from talking to my honey, I'm the only one who was surprised by this - I was totally surprised that the writers let Billy bite it in the following epsiode, "Sacrifice." Yes, roll your eyes now, folks; I still didn't think it would be him. On the one hand, I want to give props to the writers for offing a high profile character, something usually only reserved for folks who are around for just 1 -3 episodes. On the other, I LOVED BILLY! He was so sweet and smart. He reminded me of my own beloved. And stupid "what's-her-name" didn't know how good she had it. Though she was right to warn Billy not to reach for the terrorist's gun; he didn't have any military training was her rationale. And now President Roslin is completely without anything resembling family. I love that lady. Even in the episodes when I hate her. I wonder when we're going to see Sharon have her baby. That'll be a cool period. I can't wait for that. For the moment, I think she's really with the humans.

Man, I love this show. I love it mostly because as a non-sci-fi geek, they've reeled me in. Hell, I remember, as a child watching the original Battlestar and thinking not only was it over-blown tripe, it was clearly a very bad Star Wars knock-off. I could smell that when I was 5! And I didn't want to like it this time around, but damn! Knock me over with a feather. Normally, I really can't get into sci-fi shows or anything that heavily militaristic, but this is really a human and political drama. Last season they pretty clearly established the whole philosophical grey area of the human-cylon conflict. This season, I think it's mostly inter-human politics and strategizing, which is also interesting. But I hope we get back to the whole "who is our enemy" theme. To me, that's the juice.

... btw, Niamh, I realize that in England you guys can pretty much only get it via internet downloads, so I'm sorry if I spoiled anything for you.

Valentine to Cotswold Cheese; Saluto tutto to jobbo

I begin this Friday with a salute to Cotswold Cheese. We finally finished our hefty brick, yesterday, after having it for two beautiful weeks.
Darling, Cotswold. You are such a tease. Yes, you rarely visit our humble cocina, but when you do - ah! what joy you bring us. You look like a flawed cheddar, but we know better. When I lift you to my mouth and catch your aroma, I know you enjoy being consumed as much as I enjoy consuming you. You like it don't you? Don't lie. If you didn't want to be taken you wouldn't bedeck yourself with those spicy chives, you lucious coquette! Our Superbowl evening was grand, but your lingering prescence in our refrigerator was too much for us to handle. You were the first to be finished. Before the roquefort, before the wensleydale, before even the applewood smoked gouda! Darling, you know you're cherished when you're gone before the smoked gouda. I know not when we'll go on another cheese splurge. Perhaps in a few months for a Memorial Day get together, or perhaps not again until Thanksgiving. Until then, my love, I'll be dreaming of you. Yearning, salivating dreams.

In other news, today is my last day of work in my current job. On Tuesday, I begin my first full time job in over 16 months. Since I joined the ranks of the laid off, in late 2004, I have done a few freelance penny-scraping gigs, but mostly have either worked part time in a firm or have tended to ill loved ones. I really like my current workplace. I was doing admin stuff, which isn't really what I want to do with my life, but they paid me well, were flexible with my school schedule and flexible if life threw me stuff and as importantly as anything else, it was a friendly office to work in. After having worked for almost 4 years in an office where morale was in continual decline until it could only be described as funereal when I left, and after having been regarded there just slightly more important than wallpaper, it was nice to be in an office where the associates and principals would routinely ask me, "Okay, what do you really do? Because you're too smart for this!" Wow! It sucks to leave them, but the suckage is abated by two factors. 1) I really am looking forward to this new job. It's definitely more up my alley - in the enteratinment business; it's ground floor, but it'll be a good learning and growing opportunity and I think will produce more work for me in the near future.

... and 2) I've decided I seriously dislike one of the associates at the soon to be departed job. I'm a very easy going person. I forgive all sorts of personality issues and hang ups. People accuse me of being too nice. They're definitely right - I don't always defend myself like I should - but I'm also just seriously not that bothered by stuff that bothers other folks. But what I don't have any tolerance for is being patronized (or watching people patronize others) and general assholery. I'm happy to be helpful to the associates in my firm, but we're a small firm and each associate, junior, senior intern, etc is responsible for his or her own administrative upkeep. The only person in my office I secretary for is the principal. And even he is competent enough to do for himself most of his own business. As of Wednesday, one of the associates has tried to treat me like his personal secretary, even making "suggestions" as how to answer the phone. After talking with a couple of other people, I've found he does this to everyone, treating those of all rank in the office as his inferior. Yesterday he wanted me to maintain a contact list for him in my MS Outlook. I told him I didn't keep other people's information in my Outlook. He looked genuinely surprised and hurt. Tough buddy. The bigger fish in this office know how to use it for themselves, and maybe he should too.
... so he makes it easier to leave! The others however, I will genuinely miss.

I'm so psyched about my new job though. I really feel like it will open doors for me. I also hope it inspires me to activate the self-promotion gene that seems to have skipped me in favor for my brother. I need to learn to just push. People who know me know that I'm highly competent, I just need need to learn to advertise it better. But I'm movin' on up! Anyone want to cue "The Jefferson's" theme?

More on Dreams

I think I'm feeling homesick. Last night I dreamt that I was on or near the campus of my college alma mater. And we were playing the University of Tennessee and for some reason both the cheerleading squads of my school and of Tenn decided to hang out at my dormroom/apartment. (It kept morphing.) Now, I've never been a gal who's popular with the likes of cheerleaders. Their ilk were the ones who'd laugh loudest when human stains in high school would knock books out of my hands or otherwise harass me. But in my dream, I felt older and wiser and all these kids wanted to know was where to get good coffee or chinese food. And it had been such a long time since I'd spent time on campus, and in reality, so much has changed on that campus and the surrounding area that I really wouldn' t know. I gave them my suggestions anyway. And I teased the Tenn cheerleaders: "Congratulations on winning the Rose Bowl!" They rolled their eyes. "Oh! Yeah. Not you. Sorry!"

But the whole dream felt like that song from Avenue Q, "I wish I could go back to college." The line "these kids are so much younger than meeee," kept repeating in my head.

Then later in the dream, my honey and I were travelling to the center of the state for some reason. And we kept suspecting there was a German Fest going on somewhere that we really needed to get to. I've never been to a German Fest, but it seemed really important that we go. There was to be cake involved, apparently. But each time we were almost there, a morose sense washed over me.

Normally when I dream of places of my youth, I tend to focus on the small town in the middle of nowhere where I spent my adolescence. I've not been back in 10 years, and have spent maybe only a whole day there since I graduated more than 10 years ago. I mostly hated it when I lived there; so backasswards provincial, I thought. But now that I live in a buzzing, bustling, city on the Eastern Seaboard, all I've wanted to do for the last 3 or 4 years is just spend a week in that middle of nowhere provincial town. I think part of it is because unlike my Honey whose family still lives where he spent his youth, and virtually all of my friends, because my fam doesn't live there anymore, I can't really return and settle with the ghosts.

As for my alma mater. We return to the city every year or so. I feel like I kind of deal with those ghosts. But I'm just overall homesick.

My hair is still wet and I have to leave for work in 15 minutes. VA Gal, have fun in South Africa for me. Pet some cheetas!

Fun Dream Last Night

So I dreamt last night that I was in the house I lived in while I was an adolescent. There was something amiss about the carpet. Like it hadn't been laid properly, years earlier, so there was a huge lump in it. I think that stems from the episode of Mythbusters we watched last night, in which Adam and Jamie try to find the body of Jimmy Hoffa at Giants stadium. Anyway, so I leave my old house and I'm walking up the street, past a bakery, where I had to stop in and see if Keiffer Sutherland had been stuffed into a wicker basket. He had already escaped by then. (He IS Jack Bauer, you know.) So I walk on up to something resembling a high school cafeteria-meets the cosmetics section of a Whole Foods supermarket and gradually I find myself in a sketch out of Little Britain with Matt Lucas. (He's the chap on the right.) It's not a sketch I'd seen on Little Britain, but nonetheless ... I surmise that I'm supposed to purchase a sucker at a counter, but since this is England - and my dear, imaginary Niamh, I'm sure you can correct me on this - for some reason, it's really called a "sucky pop." And Matt Lucas' character is wearing a druid-style hood and has the personality of the hypnotist guy that he does in some of his sketches. He is supposed to haughtily deny me the sucky pop because I'm vaguely morally repellent or something. So we run the scene - which is completely improvised on my part, btw: remember, I didn't have a script going into the sketch, whereas Mr. Lucas did - and we depart. And as we leave, we pass a few people whom I actually do perform with on occassion and they're acting out some scene of American high school braggadaccios (sic), using finger gun shooting gestures. So then Mr. Lucas and I go into a conversation about violence in comedy and violence in America. At this point, my cat was making a lot of noise on our bed, knocking around a cellophane bow, so I woke up. It ticked me off; I really wanted to complete that conversation.

Chewy hits the mark; what Cupid Claus left me

First off, please let me direct you to Chewbacca's blog for the most hysterical response to Cheney's "hunting accident" I've seen or heard in the last 48 hours. In the meantime, I'm seriously considering joining the cult of the Wookie. Methinks the Ginormous Yorkie knows the whatfor.

I'm not a huge Valentine's day person. I like it, because I like anything in a culture that encourages candy that tastes like pepto bismol and anything that encourages chocolate. But I don't like it because I hate the month of February, for one, and having spent my adolescence as the girl who watched every other girl in school get roses from her paramour, sold by the student council, it seems like a guilt-fest "holiday". If you don't get a gifty, then you are a lonely hag; if you don't give a gifty, then you are a bitter beast. If you're not inspired to have hot sex, then you're not romantic. (Whatever! Who feels turned on in the drippy, freezing-ass, grey month of February? I like my sex on Texas Independence day, or on Cinco de Mayo, when the irises are blooming and the weather's at the cusp of exploding into heat. OR on Thanksgiving, because after you've stuffed the bird ... Well, now I'm just getting crass. I apologize to the legion children who read this.)

That said, though, I do give my honey Valentine's day cards. I do like giving cards. And this year, at Target, I came across a box of cheapo chocolates that must've beeen inspired by the card above that Lisa gave Ralphie in The Simpson's episode of long ago. I was trying to find a link to the chocolate box, but it's basically that. However, Target online apparently sells a "Strip Chocolate" game. Hmm. Sounds interesting and tasty. From my honey, this year I got a card and a small box of Lindt chocolate. I like that my man loves my humps enough to keep them real round and juicy! And this year - and he never does this - Cupid Claus left me a copy of Princess Mononoke and an anthology of short stories edited by David Sedaris! You do know the tradition, right? Leave a pair of thong undies in the living room of your house on Feb. 13 and every year, if you've archered just enough, Cupid Claus will leave you a gift, under your thong. Thank you, Cupid Claus! I'm so glad I kept up my cross-bow hunting this past year!

On another note, Honey and I concurred that we should name our first child - whenever we have it - KILAMANJARO. Imagine going through life with the name of a revered and feared mountain in Africa; the mountain that is, in fact, the centerpiece for all those inspiring shots of the Serenghetti. No matter what course that child pursues in his/her life, he/she will have the badass name to go with it. Vegan tree-dweller? Corporate Wall Street shark? UN Ambassador? Gigolo? Clergy? ESL Teacher? Ravenous Army General? The name works in all situations. The best part is the business card our child will carry in his/her adulthood, no matter what course of commerce the child chooses pursue: Kilamanjaro Malone. MOUNT THIS!

sshhh. ... let's not ruin it!

Since our neighborhood was without power for most of yesterday, my honey and I went to the movies for the first time since Christmas. We saw Woody Allen's Matchpoint. Molto excellente. I always enjoy Woody Allen movies and I seem to enjoy them more when he's behind the camera instead of in front of it. However, this was a really awesome whammy. I highly recommend it. I can totally see why it's nominated for best original screenplay this year. We also finally saw March of the Penguins Saturday night before we lost power. I'm a sucker for any kind of "let's follow this species for a year and see what they do" nature film, but the filmmakers did a good job of making the audience relate to the penguins. I was so sad when the egg cracked and froze, or when one of the chicks froze to death. I couldn't help but want to hug the parent penguins as they looked at their dead young in grief and bewilderment. We've rented Murderball from Netflix, so this might be one of those years where we actually see more than one nominated documentary.

In the meantime, my blog seems to be behaving itself. Perhaps replacing the template 10 times and republishing another 46,038 times actually worked. I'm not sure why it went bonkers or exactly what I did to fix it. All I know is that I don't want to jinx it. I'll keep it like it is for now, add my "favorite blogs" list when it seems the coast is clear, and none of us - not even you, dear Niamh - will ever speak of it again!

apparently deleting britney does no good

i tried deleting my Feb 10 post since that's when "the troubles" began. did no good. so, sans picture, here's the text again:

Here it is: Britney with baby son in lap.

She swears she did it to get her kid out of the way of the over-intrusive paparazzi. Ah, yes Britney. Yes, because a handful of creeps on foot with cameras are just as murderously dangerous as say, an enraged kodiak bear. So she HAD to act the way she did. I mean, why actually defend your child by placing your body in front of him when you can just endanger your child by driving off into busy traffic with him on your lap? Supposedly now she is rife with contrition. You can just feel that she knows the error of her ways, can't you? "It is what it is." Wow. So profound. Apparently the guy in passenger's seat is a bodyguard. Just an idea, Britney, but maybe he should be fired for incompetence. What is incompetence? It means you can't do the basics of your job: like show up for a concert on time, or lip synch accurately or choose a safe method of protecting your young.

In the meantime, I've discovered a blog - or rather one was brought to my attention - which I tried to add to my "favorite blogs" list, but as I have limited competency in the information technology world, I'm not sure it has shown up on the list. In the meantime, here's a link. If you don't laugh till you cry, you have no soul.

Let's see if this works

Pissed Off Pencil, I tried your suggestion of changing just the template stuff. (Thank you, by the way.) It seems to work on the "past" posts, but not on anything Feb. 10 and forward. Grr. So, I'm adding a new post, with the new template no less, to see if that jimmies anything into action. VirginiaGal, As for my man-lover being a digi-whiz: after spending half the weekend with no power - thank you, snowstorm! - he is happily back online battling virtual nazis, aliens, pirates or whatever the current menace to civilization is.

In the meantime, I'm sure you've all heard about this by now. Why do I have a feeling this was not so accidental? Pull MY funding will you! HA! Go fetch your quail, lackey!

AARRGGH!

If anyone knows how to contact Blogger so that I can get this code mayhem fixed so my blog doens't look like crap, let me know. I have no idea what happened! Niamh? Any clues? Any mates down at the pub know how to jimmy with computers?

I want Hot Chocolate!

I sit here today in a neighborhood bakery having just finished a blueberry bagel and a half pint of milk. Mmm, good. There is a preschool here this morning touring the facilities to learn how bakeries work and what bakers do. It's adorable. The kids are made to wear little plastic gloves while they're back in the baking area. But it's to no real avail. They still stick their fingers in their mouths and pick their noses. So much for a germ free environment! It's so precious, I almost want to cry.

A moment ago, they got to take turns using the PA system calling out orders. "Bagel!" "Lemonade!" and my favorite, "Tart!" which of course sounds more like "taut." I'm listening to one of the bakery reps telling the children that the bakers come in very very early in the morning to bake. "They sleep while you're at school," she tells them. They must think bakers are a whole other species; like bats!

... so I did some more reading about the tempest in a teapot that is the global Muslim reaction to the tasteless Danish cartoons. This article doesn't really go that deeply into it, but apparently the whole thing began with a children's book author. He had written a book for children about Islam, and couldn't find any illustrators for his book. The ones he had contacted all refused because they were afraid if they drew an image of Muhammad, they'd meet the same fate as Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh. I have no idea if the children's book was meant as a mockery or like so many children's Bible and Torah storybooks I've seen in my life. The Danish paper Jyllands-Posten printed the story about the author's dilemma and then offered the challenge to 25 illustrators to draw Muhammad as they saw him. Apparently, when the Danes didn't appologize to the a Danish Muslim group, they took their issue to Middle East counterparts. And so, four months after the original printings, we've got burned embassies, dead protestors and enough charred effigies of Denmark's leader to fill an Ash Wednesday urn.

Yesterday, I viewed the twelve. I would say 7 or 8 of them are tasteless and about 6 flat out offensive. Of the other four, however, some of them are mere depictions: a man leading a donkey in the desert, could'a been any shepherd; a crescent and star with the face of a turbanned man in it. With most of them, if you didn't know you were supposed to be looking at Muhammad, you probably wouldn't know. That probably stems from the fact that unlike Christianity which after 2,000 years of popular art kind of has a standard "this is what Jesus looks like" image, Islam has no standard, so looking at the images you just think: oh, uh, dude with a turban and a beard. One, which I thought was kind of funny, had a line up of scraggly looking guys with beards, some of them turbanned, others not, and the person viewing the line up says something to the effect of, "I really don't know which one he is." That seems to be a comment on the image ban - how would you know? One didn't included any image of Muhammad, but rather a guy at a chalk board complaining about the image ban. Another showed an artist drawing an image of the Prophet, furtively, in the dark, so as not to be "caught." One showed a duo of scimitared angry men charging, only to be stayed by Muhammad's hand: "Don't bother with them," he tells them, "They are just ignorant unbeliever Danes." I'm sure that can be seen as offensive, but the fact that Muhammad stops them, seems to me to give the Prophet a credit toward tolerance that the Western world seems to ignore. On the whole, I thought the exercise was iffy. On the one hand, I kind of thought the invitation for images kind of set up an environment of "Hey, let's be an asshole." On the other, I thought it produced some interesting pieces, which, as good political cartoons should, add to the dialogue. But it doesn't sound like satire is a concept many Islamic republics and monarchies.

Many of the cartoons were indeed offensive and out-right meanspirited. But others were good: if not just plain depictions, then reflections of how western artists feel stymied in discussing Islam in public. I know there are many people who find The Davinci Code and the Last Temptation of Christ as offensive to Christianity and their personal relationship with God as Muslims find any depiction (whether positive or negative) of Muhammad. But to my knowledge, none of the DaVinci code protestors have burned the house of Dan Brown or Ron Howard or Kazantzakis or Scorsese. If these images are that offensive, is violence the only proper response? Protest - yes. Boycott - why not? But kidnapping, burning embassies, firing guns into the air, carrying signs that call for the 9/11 of London? What the hell does that do? Just reinforce the fearful, ugly stereotype that the West has of Muslims. And who does that help? Not Muslims. And not the West. Jyllands-Posten was intolerably tasteless to instigate, but it seems the Middle East response just plays into their prejuecies, and is in and of itself intolerable.

Whom I feel sorriest for is the children's author and the children who will now be denied a book about Islam. I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt and assuming he was writing a book for children about Islam so that little non-Muslim Danish children could learn about their Muslim friends. Or so that Muslim parents could better teach their own children. But it looks like that won't happen anytime soon.

I hope this all blows over. I want to laugh again.

Baby "baby daddy" goes missing; big stink over a little ink.

In high school, I saw plenty of teenage girls get knocked up by their boyfriends. The inequities in social status and treatment between the teen fathers and the girls gave me a low regard of teenage boys and sex, and of course of teenage boys and pregnancy. But of course, the operative word here is "inequity."

Lisa Clark, 37, of Georgia, is about to crank out a kid she made with the 15 year old friend of her son. The two have since married, but there are apparently a lot of legal issues with that. I.e., she shouldn't have banged a minor, yadda, yadda ... so her husband is in a juvenille home and she's legally not supposed to contact him. Now teen hubby has run away. The kid's grandmother thinks Ms. Clark has helped him escape, a charge she of course denies. But I think I believe Clark. I have to say, this is one teenage father whom I totally support in his child abandonment. A 37 year old woman knows how to use birth control. Besides. He's not even legal working age, yet. She'll have to support both of them and their baby. Why not just cover the baby and let this manipulated kid start over?

... in the meantime, I'm not sure what to make over the whole Muslim anger at the cartoon issue. I know that it is against Islam to show depictions of Allah and the Prophet, so I can understand that offense, if I cannot empathize with it. Frankly, I'm more disconcerted about the depiction of Muhammad with the bomb-turban. That just seems to be asking for trouble and offensive even to me. But I'm just confounded by the "Muslim worldd" reaction.

I totally agree that the cartoons were in poor taste, if for no other reason that the depictions were anti-Islamic. But then again, art and satire are made all the blasted time that either mock Christ, Christianity, or highly regarded Christian icons (some so highly regarded by some that they would argue for the same sacredness as the Muslim regard for images of Allah and Muhammad), as well I'm sure as other world religions; I just happen to live in a country where Christianity is the most spoofed, for good or ill. As for widely argued mockery, Piss Christ and that piece in NYC with a madonna made of elephant dung come to mind immediately. And for as hypersensitive as the "Concerned" Women of America and the 700 Club style minions are, I have yet to see them mask their faces, grab automatic weapons and storm a museum to take patrons hostage for defiling the sanctity of Christianity. What? Some bigotted Dane depicted Muhammad? I know! Let's take a German hostage for a couple of hours to make a point! Yeah! Islam is peace, you Eurotrash infidels! And because you don't believe Islam is the peace of God, I will hurt you!

And then there's the whole idea that Denmark and much of Europe is somehow more tolerant than the US. For as troubled as I am for the state of our country under the current reactionary, sour presidency (that masks greed as compassion in the name of God , no less; talk about infidel) I at least am happy that we still cherish religious freedom enough here to let people wear what they want to wear and to do at least do our best to accomodate them. Frankly, I am concerned about how a fully ubayaed woman in the airport might get through security without showing her whole face and a pat down; it makes me nervous, I won't lie. But I am so glad for organizations like the ACLU who'll at least challenge rules and impositions so that she may express her religious faith as she sees fit. France on the other hand is so afraid of anything other than a diluted "only do it until your grandmother dies, so she'll stop bugging you" version of faith, that they outlaw headscarves in schools. Quick! Make that 13 year old girl show her hair, fast! Liberte, Egalite and especially fraternite (if you know what I mean - wink, nudge) demand it! No wonder Muslims there feel disenfranchised!

Earlier this week, on NPR, I learned that the Netherlands (or was it Denmark?) is considering completely outlawing the burkah. And they think it will pass legislation! Here's the kicker, among the Muslim community in the Netherland, only some ridiculously low number, like 50, nationwide, actually wear a full burkah. "It oppresses women," is the rationale. Really? I personally agree in philosophy that disallowing a woman to show her face in public is sincerely oppressive, but forcing a stranger not to wear a masking garment in public because you disagree with it morally, is just as oppressive as forcing someone to wear something so obscuring in public because of a moral basis. Just like I wouldn't want to wear an ubaya if I visited Saudi Arabia, neither would I want to stop a Saudi woman from wearing one here. The rub though is that in Saudi, you may not express any religious views other than those imposed on you. In Europe, it's supposedly the opposite. I thought Europe was over sumptuary laws. I guess I was wrong.

If the riots in France last fall taught us anything, it's that the US isn't the only country that has problems communicating across a cultural divide. It shows that just because you make a good decision about one war doesn't mean you're somehow more sympathetic to the Muslim minority within your own borders.

Getting back to the original cartoon conundrum, I think my take on it is this. Everyone needs to take a step back and re-evaluate everything. And the chill way the hell out.

Europe: Do not be so frackin' naive as to think publishing these cartoons wouldn't have some major fall out. The rest of the world is not nearly as agnostic as you are and so will take offense at some satires, that's just how it goes. And, if you're going to spoof a religion that outlaws depictions of God and his prophet, and whose most revered clergy issue fatwahs daily about every little criticism of the religion, expect a fully hostile fall out. In fact, expect gunfire in the street and chants for your death. Expect hostage-taking. Because that seems to be the party standard in a lot of these places.

Islamic Fundamentalists: Get over it. Those European editors come from a different tradition than you do and don't have the empathy for anti-icon philosoph that you do. They just don't get it. And it is totally not worth creating a jihad over. Wanna really be effective with the west? Pressure your governments to ISSUE AN OIL EMBARGO! Are your local leaders making your lives any happier than western imperialism? Plus, I have a distinct feeling that for every one of you guys in front of an EU embassy shooting off his gun and for every one of you calling for a hostile reaction in the mosques, there are at least a thousand who are appropriately offended (or not at all) and just want to go to work and feed their kids without having to worry that an errant bullet from some pissed off protestor is going to fall on their head and leave their wife and kids without a breadwinner. It is so not worth all the flag burning and infidel cursing.

Though I must say, it is kind of refreshing to read that they are now chanting, "Death to Denmark" in the streets. It's like Europe is finally getting invited into the hatefest that was solely our party for two decades!