Luxury Brand to use DNA to fight counterfeiters
A company based in the state of New York will apply DNA markers to luxury goods in the hope of counterpunching the counterfeiters.
Applied DNA Sciences has not identified the brand with whom they’ve reached the agreement, however they did reveal that it was a luxury goods company headquartered in Europe and affiliated with several product lines.
They have signed a 5-year contract with the luxury brand and will apply genetic material to their goods for identification purposes. The benefits of using DNA, with its qualities of being distinct and unique to every living organism, seem obvious.
James Hayward, the president and chief executive of Applied DNA said: "Proof of authenticity is a central tenet of brand integrity, and there is no better proof than DNA."
The company will use botanic DNA, which cannot be copied. Essentially, the genetic material will be fused with various fabrics, dyes or glues, thereby creating a unique, verifiable label.
Applied DNA will attract revenue every time they verify the authenticity of an item and for every authentication mark purchased.
It appears science and luxury are in perfect synergy.
---
I don't even know what to say to this just yet... it's an interesting thought though and opens up a myriad of possibilities.
Showing posts with label every day life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label every day life. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
God Bless Montblanc
Rose scented Montblanc Ink.
Ruby-red, rose scented ink.
For real letter writing.
Like real people use to do once upon a time.
Typing on a computer for the last 14 years has turned my hand-writing into something that resembles One signing a prescription pad while being drunk.
It's not pretty.
And I don't like it.
So, now that has to change.
I need to make a mosaic, because I know I can.
I need to create something other than that book.
I need to learn how to write like they did back in the days when they use to seal letters in wax.
I'm almost positive that up in the attic one of the kids has a kit for that that I bought them years ago.
Ruby-red, rose scented ink.
For real letter writing.
Like real people use to do once upon a time.
Typing on a computer for the last 14 years has turned my hand-writing into something that resembles One signing a prescription pad while being drunk.
It's not pretty.
And I don't like it.
So, now that has to change.
I need to make a mosaic, because I know I can.
I need to create something other than that book.
I need to learn how to write like they did back in the days when they use to seal letters in wax.
I'm almost positive that up in the attic one of the kids has a kit for that that I bought them years ago.
Obsession
I had a discussion with Erin about a week ago over perfume. She loves her perfumes and has a really nice collection of them. The conversation got turned to me and she asked what I own.
I told her:
That's it.
That's my perfume.
That's all I wear.
That's all I've worn since 1986.
I have no intention of that changing.
I've gone through four perfumes in my lifetime:
When I was little:
It was time. Clearly, it was time - because as a general rule, I try to avoid the perfume counter people like the plague.
I sprayed it into the air and then walked into the mist and...
That.
Was.
That.
From the time I've been out of high school until this afternoon - THAT has been my perfume. That's it. It is, without question, my signature scent.
I'm also certain that if I change it, a whole LOT of people are going to get mad at me. It's associated. There are many times where I've received a phone call after someone coming into contact with this particular scent again and it reminded them. Could be years later. Yes, I've also been yelled at over it as well. When a scent is so ingrained into a persons memory and the memory doesn't match the reality in front of you - it will cause people to call you up and yell at you for not being the person they ran into wearing it.
24 years.
That was done for a reason.
Everything should be done with a reason.
It violates my sense of loyalty to even consider something else.
Don't try to fix what's not broken.
----
and welcome to: Carlow, Ireland - Warsaw, Poland - Pedreguer, Spain and Japan and Jack!
I told her:
That's it.
That's my perfume.
That's all I wear.
That's all I've worn since 1986.
I have no intention of that changing.
I've gone through four perfumes in my lifetime:
When I was little:
- Sweet honesty (Remember that? The days of Bonnibelle lipgloss...)
- Charlie (welcome to high school)
- Trouble (Welcome to 12th grade. I LOVED that perfume and then I think they stopped making it.)
It was time. Clearly, it was time - because as a general rule, I try to avoid the perfume counter people like the plague.
I sprayed it into the air and then walked into the mist and...
That.
Was.
That.
From the time I've been out of high school until this afternoon - THAT has been my perfume. That's it. It is, without question, my signature scent.
I'm also certain that if I change it, a whole LOT of people are going to get mad at me. It's associated. There are many times where I've received a phone call after someone coming into contact with this particular scent again and it reminded them. Could be years later. Yes, I've also been yelled at over it as well. When a scent is so ingrained into a persons memory and the memory doesn't match the reality in front of you - it will cause people to call you up and yell at you for not being the person they ran into wearing it.
24 years.
That was done for a reason.
Everything should be done with a reason.
It violates my sense of loyalty to even consider something else.
Don't try to fix what's not broken.
----
and welcome to: Carlow, Ireland - Warsaw, Poland - Pedreguer, Spain and Japan and Jack!
Sunday, January 10, 2010
finally...
I finally figured out what book I should write. It came to me a few days ago and I can't believe I didn't think of it before now. It's all so simple and right before my eyes. I know the characters; practically intimately.
Now I just need a plot.
Poptatari, I might need you to make some inspirational cookies so I can work this out. You'll be part of making history!
I need the motivational cookies, Poptatari!
is this working? hint, hint... plead... hint... erm...
I called up Erin and told her the idea and she immediately said it would make a great play.
Then I told my son and he laughed his ass off at some of the characters I came up with.
My daughter asked me if I fell off the wagon (because she's a smartass) until I explained it more thoroughly; then she started throwing out other personality traits they should have and my Florida room turning into a loud sounding board complete with comments like, "WHY ISN'T IT DONE ALREADY?!"
...because, you know, books write themselves over-night...
Erin did the same thing to me, "Are you done with the first chapter already?" - "I just thought of it 10 minutes ago and we're still on the phone, so, no..."
They're a subtle bunch.
If the whole idea falls apart though, blame it on the lack of inspiration cookies...
Yes, I'm willing to go THAT low!
laughs...
Special greetings to: Zuid-holland, Netherlands - Bratislava, Slovakia - London, United Kingdom - Catalonia, Spain - Ar Riyad, Saudi Arabia - Nova Scotia, Canada - Baden-wurttemberg, Germany and Nordrhein-westfalen, Germany!
Now I just need a plot.
Poptatari, I might need you to make some inspirational cookies so I can work this out. You'll be part of making history!
I need the motivational cookies, Poptatari!
is this working? hint, hint... plead... hint... erm...
I called up Erin and told her the idea and she immediately said it would make a great play.
Then I told my son and he laughed his ass off at some of the characters I came up with.
My daughter asked me if I fell off the wagon (because she's a smartass) until I explained it more thoroughly; then she started throwing out other personality traits they should have and my Florida room turning into a loud sounding board complete with comments like, "WHY ISN'T IT DONE ALREADY?!"
...because, you know, books write themselves over-night...
Erin did the same thing to me, "Are you done with the first chapter already?" - "I just thought of it 10 minutes ago and we're still on the phone, so, no..."
They're a subtle bunch.
If the whole idea falls apart though, blame it on the lack of inspiration cookies...
Yes, I'm willing to go THAT low!
laughs...
Special greetings to: Zuid-holland, Netherlands - Bratislava, Slovakia - London, United Kingdom - Catalonia, Spain - Ar Riyad, Saudi Arabia - Nova Scotia, Canada - Baden-wurttemberg, Germany and Nordrhein-westfalen, Germany!
Thursday, October 15, 2009
surprises
I dislike secrets.
Truly.
I don't handle them well either.
I hate surprises too.
I really do hate surprises unless they are REAL surprises. Like, blind-siding surprises. Ones that I have ZERO knowledge of. Because if there's any hint of anything and you're just not telling me, I'm going to think you're being a jerk - and I'm not going to like that.
It's not advisable to torture me.
I know how to torture people right back.
This scenario is usually how it goes when people want to surprise me with something:
Someone that doesn't know me well at all: "I have a surprise for you and I'm not telling you what it is either!"
fuck me... apparently saying this is MANDATORY to the script because it goes down like this 99 out of 100 times...
Me: "I don't like surprises"
Someone that doesn't know me well at all: "I know"
...silence...
Me: "So, tell me"
Someone that doesn't know me well at all: "Then it won't be a surprise"
...it's not a surprise now!...
Me: "Tell me!"
followed by me wearing said person down until they tell me...
I really hate that...
rethinking...
Even the real surprise comment comes with a few rules and regulations - DO NOT HORRIFY ME EITHER. I like being prepared for things. I function MUCH better that way. If it's going to be a total surprise, it's best that it's done privately.
Like those guys that think it's a good idea to propose to their girlfriend in front of 50,000 people at a NY Jet's football game... and she has no clue. And suddenly the cameras are zooming in on her. Waiting. The look on her face leaves you unsure if she'd say yes if the ENTIRE UNIVERSE wasn't focusing on her. Now she's stuck, cornered - the pressure is on!
Oh.
My.
God.
The camera would catch me uttering something about killing said guy when we got home. And really, how fucking good do you look going to a fucking football game. There's a good chance that you're freezing your ass off, your face is all blotchy from the cold, your eyes are sort of glazed over, you hate the people that are clearly too close to your inner personal space and you're wondering where the fuck your boyfriend ran off to leaving you with a bunch of unstable strangers half naked with the team's colors painted all over their faces.
And now you're on camera!
Up close and personal!
Oh My God!
Seriously, this is a free ticket to torture your future husband for a good five years - and every single time you think of it.
Or every time you see the clip on YouTube or fucking CNN as the high-lights of that week in sports.
hyperventilates...
Sort of like it's not okay to announce to some guy that you're pregnant when he's in the middle of a poker game with his friends. I'm just saying you might want to hold off for better timing.
A good compromise, since most people would like to share that sort of news with people that care about them, would be - telling him Christmas Eve by handing him the small square without a word that has the + sign on it. ALONE. If there's a good reaction, you can share with the group - if there's a bad reaction, at least you're the only two witnessing it. You can kill him later.
Same with her. If you ask while you're out in public somewhere or at some family gathering, and the reaction is good - by all means, it's your joy to share. If the reaction isn't good, no one loses face. And you can kill her later.
All men should get down on one knee to propose too.
That's tradition. I don't know who started it - and I don't really care. I like it. I've never had it done - and I've been proposed to a ridiculous amount of times and I'll be proposed to a few more times before I'm dead, I'm sure.
Knights kneel when being awarded honors from Kings and Queens. Offering or accepting a marriage proposal is just as much an honor as any medal or award. Even Kings and Queens kneel to genuflect when entering a church. Proposing on bended knee is a sign of respect and spiritualism.
That's how I see it. That is what's proper and that's what I like.
You can't do that when you're standing on a pitcher's mound and your other half is in a crowd of strangers 50 feet away with a bunch of men in spandex between you. Am I the only one that sees the logic here?
twitching...
Surprises are fundamentally... bad.
Be very, very careful.
Truly.
I don't handle them well either.
I hate surprises too.
I really do hate surprises unless they are REAL surprises. Like, blind-siding surprises. Ones that I have ZERO knowledge of. Because if there's any hint of anything and you're just not telling me, I'm going to think you're being a jerk - and I'm not going to like that.
It's not advisable to torture me.
I know how to torture people right back.
This scenario is usually how it goes when people want to surprise me with something:
Someone that doesn't know me well at all: "I have a surprise for you and I'm not telling you what it is either!"
fuck me... apparently saying this is MANDATORY to the script because it goes down like this 99 out of 100 times...
Me: "I don't like surprises"
Someone that doesn't know me well at all: "I know"
...silence...
Me: "So, tell me"
Someone that doesn't know me well at all: "Then it won't be a surprise"
...it's not a surprise now!...
Me: "Tell me!"
followed by me wearing said person down until they tell me...
I really hate that...
rethinking...
Even the real surprise comment comes with a few rules and regulations - DO NOT HORRIFY ME EITHER. I like being prepared for things. I function MUCH better that way. If it's going to be a total surprise, it's best that it's done privately.
Like those guys that think it's a good idea to propose to their girlfriend in front of 50,000 people at a NY Jet's football game... and she has no clue. And suddenly the cameras are zooming in on her. Waiting. The look on her face leaves you unsure if she'd say yes if the ENTIRE UNIVERSE wasn't focusing on her. Now she's stuck, cornered - the pressure is on!
Oh.
My.
God.
The camera would catch me uttering something about killing said guy when we got home. And really, how fucking good do you look going to a fucking football game. There's a good chance that you're freezing your ass off, your face is all blotchy from the cold, your eyes are sort of glazed over, you hate the people that are clearly too close to your inner personal space and you're wondering where the fuck your boyfriend ran off to leaving you with a bunch of unstable strangers half naked with the team's colors painted all over their faces.
And now you're on camera!
Up close and personal!
Oh My God!
Seriously, this is a free ticket to torture your future husband for a good five years - and every single time you think of it.
Or every time you see the clip on YouTube or fucking CNN as the high-lights of that week in sports.
hyperventilates...
Sort of like it's not okay to announce to some guy that you're pregnant when he's in the middle of a poker game with his friends. I'm just saying you might want to hold off for better timing.
A good compromise, since most people would like to share that sort of news with people that care about them, would be - telling him Christmas Eve by handing him the small square without a word that has the + sign on it. ALONE. If there's a good reaction, you can share with the group - if there's a bad reaction, at least you're the only two witnessing it. You can kill him later.
Same with her. If you ask while you're out in public somewhere or at some family gathering, and the reaction is good - by all means, it's your joy to share. If the reaction isn't good, no one loses face. And you can kill her later.
All men should get down on one knee to propose too.
That's tradition. I don't know who started it - and I don't really care. I like it. I've never had it done - and I've been proposed to a ridiculous amount of times and I'll be proposed to a few more times before I'm dead, I'm sure.
Knights kneel when being awarded honors from Kings and Queens. Offering or accepting a marriage proposal is just as much an honor as any medal or award. Even Kings and Queens kneel to genuflect when entering a church. Proposing on bended knee is a sign of respect and spiritualism.
That's how I see it. That is what's proper and that's what I like.
You can't do that when you're standing on a pitcher's mound and your other half is in a crowd of strangers 50 feet away with a bunch of men in spandex between you. Am I the only one that sees the logic here?
twitching...
Surprises are fundamentally... bad.
Be very, very careful.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
I always want to think I'd make a good hostage, but...
I know that's a long title.
You know how my biggest fear is being misunderstood though, so...
So, yeah.
I always want to think I'd make a good hostage, but...
...there are some doubts that keep creeping in.
Come on, it's not like you haven't thought about it before!
You've been in a bank!
I once lived two buildings away from a corner bank. It literally got robbed every day, for a WEEK before they finally put in bullet proof glass from floor to ceiling. It was like clock work.
Anyone remember Marine Midland Bank?
Broad daylight.
Lots of traffic.
Lots of people walking around.
Not a deterrent.
daily... alarms, alarms, alarms... hello, officer... again...
This was also the building I lived in where I shared a roof with a crack house. I was clearly living with someone that didn't belong in the City too - ever in their life. He use to flip out and worry that our stuff was going to get stolen.
blahblahblah
One day after hearing the same speech for the thousandth time, I said, "Oh my God, stop worrying about it! If our stuff gets stolen, I'll just open the window, walk across the roof and steal it back!"
And I would.
And I told the crack dealers that.
And I never had a problem.
And they never had a problem from me.
BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT GOOD NEIGHBORS DO!
because really, if any of us had anything worth stealing at the time - we wouldn't be living in the City in the first place! Go rob people who actually have something worth robbing.
Good Lord, who cares - I can't even be moved to think about it for more than 5 seconds. Why? Because I already thought about it and came to a conclusion, so now unless some other factor gets introduced, I never need to think about that again.
See how that works?
Which is why I'm still working out the whole hostage thing - because I don't have a working conclusion on that issue yet...
So anyway...
Back to being a hostage.
enough about bank robberies and crack houses for now...
There are still a few delusional brain cells that keep telling me that, yes, I would indeed make a good hostage.
Let's brainstorm.
Where are you likely to be a potential hostage?
- Banks, clearly.
- Airlines.
- McDonald's.
- Possibly the Post Office.
- Train/Subway
I'm iffy on the Train/Subway possibility though. That would be poor planning on the hostage takers part, I think. It's not exactly a scenario where the hostage takers can go, "MAKE A LEFT UP THERE!" to avoid capture or anything.
Oh my God... okay, THERE I would not make a good hostage. There is no way I wouldn't be able to say something like, "You really didn't think this out very well, did you, amateur..."
You're more likely to be blown up on a train or subway anyway, I imagine. In which case, you're just fucked and who cares and it's not worth thinking about. The odds are not in your favor.
It's like if my plane is about to crash.
I assume that I'm just going to wind up dead.
I can't even be bothered to devote any time to calculate who I'm going to eat first. Don't care.
Oh, sure, I'll probably spent the last 20 seconds I have before we all plunge to our deaths to make some kind of rude comment, but in the end, we'll all just resemble a bunch of pancakes and that's that.
And even if I say something in my last 20 seconds left like, "I'M EATING YOU FIRST!" to you - ignore me, I don't mean it. I just want something to laugh about before my guts are raining down over the Atlantic Ocean.
As a side note: if I was on that plane with the soccer team over the Andes, I'd be among the first to die because I don't care about survival enough to eat anyone's thigh - or WORSE have to deal with living in snow for weeks on end with a bunch of strangers that I probably didn't even want to take the 15 hour plane ride with in the first place...
Really, your best case scenario is being involved in a bank robbery.
Fine, forget what I said earlier - we're infusing bank robbery back into the equation...
Would I make a good hostage.
Of course I would!
And why wouldn't I!
I'm fucking charming!
No, seriously, I am...laughs
I'm cute. No paper bag required.
I'm quick witted. I look fairly harmless.
I'm little!
little = you'd look like a big wuss to pick on someone much smaller than you and then you'd lose street cred and all the surviving hostages will make fun of you on TV for being such a coward motherfucker and killing the short girl...in which case, I STILL WIN...
Really.
Anyway.
Could I side up with the people who have the guns?
I think I could.
And I totally talk myself right into that theory!
If Patty Hearst can do it, why can't I?!
Then I think about all the stupid things that could be said to me that would set me off and make me indignant and this quickly degrades into:
Okay, fine - I'd at least make a half way decent hostage.
I'd just avoid eye contact and look bored.
Then I think about how mad I'd get that someone was wasting my fucking time and holding me up and annoying the fuck out of my day. This turns into:
Okay, fine - I'd at the very least not be THE FIRST ONE KILLED.
Because then it would be full on eye contact and I WOULD be bored and that's never good for anyone.
By the end of the debate in my head it's devolved into:
I'm the first one with a chalk outline being drawn around my half dead body while the paramedics are standing over me trying to sop up blood from the head wound I'm bound to receive while the hostage takers are still shooting at me even though they're all surrounded by the SWAT team - because I'm insulting their entire lineage.
I would be SO PISSED...
Well, at least everyone else would be safe.
but there's still a part of me that thinks I could make a good hostage!
I just haven't worked out the details yet...
And just for the record, this line of thinking, makes doing laundry less boring.
You know how my biggest fear is being misunderstood though, so...
So, yeah.
I always want to think I'd make a good hostage, but...
...there are some doubts that keep creeping in.
Come on, it's not like you haven't thought about it before!
You've been in a bank!
I once lived two buildings away from a corner bank. It literally got robbed every day, for a WEEK before they finally put in bullet proof glass from floor to ceiling. It was like clock work.
Anyone remember Marine Midland Bank?
Broad daylight.
Lots of traffic.
Lots of people walking around.
Not a deterrent.
daily... alarms, alarms, alarms... hello, officer... again...
This was also the building I lived in where I shared a roof with a crack house. I was clearly living with someone that didn't belong in the City too - ever in their life. He use to flip out and worry that our stuff was going to get stolen.
blahblahblah
One day after hearing the same speech for the thousandth time, I said, "Oh my God, stop worrying about it! If our stuff gets stolen, I'll just open the window, walk across the roof and steal it back!"
And I would.
And I told the crack dealers that.
And I never had a problem.
And they never had a problem from me.
BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT GOOD NEIGHBORS DO!
because really, if any of us had anything worth stealing at the time - we wouldn't be living in the City in the first place! Go rob people who actually have something worth robbing.
Good Lord, who cares - I can't even be moved to think about it for more than 5 seconds. Why? Because I already thought about it and came to a conclusion, so now unless some other factor gets introduced, I never need to think about that again.
See how that works?
Which is why I'm still working out the whole hostage thing - because I don't have a working conclusion on that issue yet...
So anyway...
Back to being a hostage.
enough about bank robberies and crack houses for now...
There are still a few delusional brain cells that keep telling me that, yes, I would indeed make a good hostage.
Let's brainstorm.
Where are you likely to be a potential hostage?
- Banks, clearly.
- Airlines.
- McDonald's.
- Possibly the Post Office.
- Train/Subway
I'm iffy on the Train/Subway possibility though. That would be poor planning on the hostage takers part, I think. It's not exactly a scenario where the hostage takers can go, "MAKE A LEFT UP THERE!" to avoid capture or anything.
Oh my God... okay, THERE I would not make a good hostage. There is no way I wouldn't be able to say something like, "You really didn't think this out very well, did you, amateur..."
You're more likely to be blown up on a train or subway anyway, I imagine. In which case, you're just fucked and who cares and it's not worth thinking about. The odds are not in your favor.
It's like if my plane is about to crash.
I assume that I'm just going to wind up dead.
I can't even be bothered to devote any time to calculate who I'm going to eat first. Don't care.
Oh, sure, I'll probably spent the last 20 seconds I have before we all plunge to our deaths to make some kind of rude comment, but in the end, we'll all just resemble a bunch of pancakes and that's that.
And even if I say something in my last 20 seconds left like, "I'M EATING YOU FIRST!" to you - ignore me, I don't mean it. I just want something to laugh about before my guts are raining down over the Atlantic Ocean.
As a side note: if I was on that plane with the soccer team over the Andes, I'd be among the first to die because I don't care about survival enough to eat anyone's thigh - or WORSE have to deal with living in snow for weeks on end with a bunch of strangers that I probably didn't even want to take the 15 hour plane ride with in the first place...
Really, your best case scenario is being involved in a bank robbery.
Fine, forget what I said earlier - we're infusing bank robbery back into the equation...
Would I make a good hostage.
Of course I would!
And why wouldn't I!
I'm fucking charming!
No, seriously, I am...laughs
I'm cute. No paper bag required.
I'm quick witted. I look fairly harmless.
I'm little!
little = you'd look like a big wuss to pick on someone much smaller than you and then you'd lose street cred and all the surviving hostages will make fun of you on TV for being such a coward motherfucker and killing the short girl...in which case, I STILL WIN...
Really.
Anyway.
Could I side up with the people who have the guns?
I think I could.
And I totally talk myself right into that theory!
If Patty Hearst can do it, why can't I?!
Then I think about all the stupid things that could be said to me that would set me off and make me indignant and this quickly degrades into:
Okay, fine - I'd at least make a half way decent hostage.
I'd just avoid eye contact and look bored.
Then I think about how mad I'd get that someone was wasting my fucking time and holding me up and annoying the fuck out of my day. This turns into:
Okay, fine - I'd at the very least not be THE FIRST ONE KILLED.
Because then it would be full on eye contact and I WOULD be bored and that's never good for anyone.
By the end of the debate in my head it's devolved into:
I'm the first one with a chalk outline being drawn around my half dead body while the paramedics are standing over me trying to sop up blood from the head wound I'm bound to receive while the hostage takers are still shooting at me even though they're all surrounded by the SWAT team - because I'm insulting their entire lineage.
I would be SO PISSED...
Well, at least everyone else would be safe.
but there's still a part of me that thinks I could make a good hostage!
I just haven't worked out the details yet...
And just for the record, this line of thinking, makes doing laundry less boring.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
if you love something...
"If you love something, set it free"
This was a passing comment between Grant and myself this morning in the Florida room.
I had to walk into the living room to collect myself. It offended most of my senses and now it's stuck in my head and I find it increasingly irritating. So, you know, the proper protocol is to inflict it on all of you...
This is right up there with the "is the glass half full or half empty" thing to me - which you all know I fucking hate.
And again, it's just simply HALF - no more, no less. It's MATH.
I came back out to the Florida room and said, "What the hell does that even mean?!" - because I don't get it.
He repeated the whole thing - which helped me understand it, not at all.
-Richard Bach
Earth sign alert! Earth sign alert!
Terra Firma!
Foundation! Roots!
Structure! Cultivating! Building!
Red alert! Red alert!
All senses fully offended!
If you love something, you don't set it free!
If you love something - you nurture it, you care for it, you love it, you make it feel safe and secure, you make sure it's at least content, you cherish it, you give it a wide range to grow, you protect it with everything you're worth, you don't sell it, you don't trade it, you don't give it away, you're loyal to it, you're devoted to it, you live for it, you're willing to die for it and you don't treat it cheaply.
Oh my God... and if you can set it free, you didn't love it enough in the first fucking place!
My head may explode.
I admit it, I called Richard Bach an idiot.
Sorry, Richard - I'm sure you're a lovely person, on the inside...
Now this quote...
- Joan Crawford
...I can at least understand.
Friday, September 11, 2009
not in a popularity contest, so...
Here are the two things I was talking about yesterday, since no one took me up on wanting to guess. To start:
Roe v. Wade, case decided in 1973 by the U.S. Supreme Court. Along with Doe v. Bolton, this decision legalized abortionin the first trimester of pregnancy. The decision, written by Justice Harry Blackmun and based on the residual right of privacy, struck down dozens of state antiabortion statutes. The decision was based on two cases, that of an unmarried woman from Texas, where abortion was illegal unless the mother's life was at risk, and that of a poor, married mother of three from Georgia, where state law required permission for an abortion from a panel of doctors and hospital officials. While establishing the right to an abortion, this decision gave states the right to intervene in the second and third trimesters of pregnancy to protect the woman and the "potential" life of the unborn child. Denounced by the National Council of Bishops, the decision gave rise to a vocal antiabortion movement that put pressure on the courts and created an anti-Roe litmus test for the judicial appointments of the Reagan and Bush administrations (1981–93). In a 1989 case, Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, the court, while not striking down Roe, limited its scope, permitting states greater latitude in regulating and restricting abortions. Then in 1992, in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the court reaffirmed the abortion rights granted in Roe v. Wade, while permitting further restrictions.---
--
Now, regardless of anyone's personal views on abortion, it is NOT against the law. The SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, a government agency, says it's LEGAL. The HEAD of the Federal Court SYSTEM says it's okay. It's been OKAY for the last 36 YEARS. WHY it's even still on the table for debate is beyond me, but that's a whole other issue.
For those that don't think it should be legal, ask yourselves this: Would you find it reasonable for it to be a felony and would you be willing to put any woman that went for an abortion under arrest and then throw her in prison over it?
No female ever makes this choice lightly and no female that makes this choice is exempt from living with it.
Overwhelmingly, the opposition to this issue seems to be solely moral...and if you've read me at all, you know that I don't think morals should have any part in the making of laws... laws should simply be about the betterment of society in my opinion.
So, explain to me WHY on earth, no Federal health insurance plan will cover abortion.
I want to know.
Because I don't get it.
Again, the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT deems it LEGAL.
THE HIGHEST POWER IN THE LAND WE LIVE IN deems it LEGAL.
Let me further say that... Planned Parenthood, you really piss me off when it comes to this issue.
It does not make sense to me.
I, without question, hold nothing against anyone that doesn't like the idea of abortion. Can I see how it's seen as unsavory? Yes. Would I absolutely support any friend of mine that made the decision to go forth with a pregnancy even under horrendous circumstances like rape? Yes, because that's my job as a friend.
That said, even financially - does the state see it better to pay a couple of hundred dollars for an abortion or possibly have to pay the next 18 years of health care, food stamps, welfare, etc, etc. Not that most abortions are even from lower class economics, but really - getting down to facts and figures, what makes more sense.
With the horrendous rate at which women are raped in this country, should they then have the added bonus of having to go into debt to pay for an abortion on top of it? God Bless the morning after pill (RU486 - which had to be fought for as well for some ridiculous freakin' reason) - but how many cases go unreported?
With the horrendous rate at which women are subjected to verbal, emotional and physical violence at the hands of their partner - only made WORSE and at a HIGHER RISK of DEATH when they become pregnant as seen here, here and here, where it lists that up to 25% of pregnant women are abused and sometimes killed...
Does it make sense to have someone in a domestic violence situation and then not afford them the means to sever the ties with their abuser because their insurance, that they pay thousands of dollars a year for, says no.
Two) Give citizenship to everyone already here. Just do it already for cryin' out loud! Wave your magic wand and make it happen.
If this health care option isn't going to cover undocumented people - make them documented. This country was built on IMMIGRANTS. It's the very fabric of our existence.
Costs are forcing hospitals to close all over the place, especially in Florida and California due to them not being able to handle the charges wracked up by people who can't afford to pay.
If you're going to make it a LAW that EVERY American citizen has to carry Health Insurance, just like you have to carry car insurance - that's fine with me. Got it. Understood. That doesn't answer for the costs incurred by those that are here illegally and are not required to carry health insurance.
You also can NOT have those people dying in the streets either or afraid to go to the hospital and then DIE AT HOME.
Estimated 11.9 million illegal immigrants - that's 11.9+ MILLION illegal immigrants that will what? Be required to stay healthy? Die? What?
Blanket statement!
You're all now citizens!
Prove who you are, get your citizenship certificate.
Welcome to America.
Now go get some health insurance.
I say this for another reason too - I dislike the idea of American companies exploiting illegal immigrants. What the hell is that?! You don't get to do that. Stop it. Right now.
Anyone that you hire has the right to minimum wage - and trust me on this one, no one is getting rich off of minimum wage. I don't even know how most people can even live on minimum wage. That is, however, the LEAST anyone should expect and the least you can legally do. The ONLY people that get around that is the food industry where they STILL have a mandatory minimum.
The LEAST.
"I would pay you far less if I could legally get away with it!"..."Gee, thanks"...
COME ON!
It's a LAW.
Wow...look at that... another law... we don't ignore this one in a wide sweeping blanket though, do we? There is not one company that would come out and say, "Well, you can work here, but we don't like that law and we're going to IGNORE IT. We find it immoral."...or even better... "Fine, we'll allow you minimum wage, but because we find that law immoral, we're not going to offer you workman's comp over it if you work for the government."
Side note: Grant just came over to see what I was typing and said, "You don't really want to put that on your page, do you..."
OF COURSE I DO! When you see something that looks fundamentally wrong, you say something about it.
Grant: "Abortion is a hot topic..."
Me: "I know."
Grant: "Do you REALLY want to throw that out there on your page?"
Me: "YES!"
The day I have to start censoring myself, is the day I stop having a journal...
And really, it's NOT even about abortion. That's been ruled LEGAL. That's not up for debate. What IS, is it's legal. The ISSUE I'm debating is WHY then, isn't it covered by the very same system that MADE it LEGAL.
And that, is my rant, for today.
Roe v. Wade, case decided in 1973 by the U.S. Supreme Court. Along with Doe v. Bolton, this decision legalized abortionin the first trimester of pregnancy. The decision, written by Justice Harry Blackmun and based on the residual right of privacy, struck down dozens of state antiabortion statutes. The decision was based on two cases, that of an unmarried woman from Texas, where abortion was illegal unless the mother's life was at risk, and that of a poor, married mother of three from Georgia, where state law required permission for an abortion from a panel of doctors and hospital officials. While establishing the right to an abortion, this decision gave states the right to intervene in the second and third trimesters of pregnancy to protect the woman and the "potential" life of the unborn child. Denounced by the National Council of Bishops, the decision gave rise to a vocal antiabortion movement that put pressure on the courts and created an anti-Roe litmus test for the judicial appointments of the Reagan and Bush administrations (1981–93). In a 1989 case, Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, the court, while not striking down Roe, limited its scope, permitting states greater latitude in regulating and restricting abortions. Then in 1992, in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the court reaffirmed the abortion rights granted in Roe v. Wade, while permitting further restrictions.
See N. McCorvey with A. Meisler, I Am Roe (1994).
(1973) Decision of the Supreme Court of the United States that established a woman's right to have an abortion without undue interference from the government. A Texas law prohibiting abortions was challenged by an unmarried pregnant woman (pseudonymously named Jane Roe), and the court ruled in her favour, finding that the state had violated her right to privacy (see rights of privacy). Harry Blackmun, writing for the seven-member majority, argued that the state's legitimate concern for the protection of prenatal life increased as a pregnancy advanced. While allowing that the state might forbid abortions during a pregnancy's third trimester, he held that a woman was entitled to obtain an abortion freely, after medical consultation, during the first trimester and in an authorized clinic during the second trimester. The Roe decision, perhaps the most controversial in the Supreme Court's history, remains at the centre of the issue of abortion rights. Repeated challenges since 1973, such as Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, have narrowed the scope of Roe but have not overturned it.
Now, regardless of anyone's personal views on abortion, it is NOT against the law. The SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, a government agency, says it's LEGAL. The HEAD of the Federal Court SYSTEM says it's okay. It's been OKAY for the last 36 YEARS. WHY it's even still on the table for debate is beyond me, but that's a whole other issue.
For those that don't think it should be legal, ask yourselves this: Would you find it reasonable for it to be a felony and would you be willing to put any woman that went for an abortion under arrest and then throw her in prison over it?
No female ever makes this choice lightly and no female that makes this choice is exempt from living with it.
Overwhelmingly, the opposition to this issue seems to be solely moral...and if you've read me at all, you know that I don't think morals should have any part in the making of laws... laws should simply be about the betterment of society in my opinion.
So, explain to me WHY on earth, no Federal health insurance plan will cover abortion.
I want to know.
Because I don't get it.
Again, the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT deems it LEGAL.
THE HIGHEST POWER IN THE LAND WE LIVE IN deems it LEGAL.
Let me further say that... Planned Parenthood, you really piss me off when it comes to this issue.
It does not make sense to me.
I, without question, hold nothing against anyone that doesn't like the idea of abortion. Can I see how it's seen as unsavory? Yes. Would I absolutely support any friend of mine that made the decision to go forth with a pregnancy even under horrendous circumstances like rape? Yes, because that's my job as a friend.
That said, even financially - does the state see it better to pay a couple of hundred dollars for an abortion or possibly have to pay the next 18 years of health care, food stamps, welfare, etc, etc. Not that most abortions are even from lower class economics, but really - getting down to facts and figures, what makes more sense.
With the horrendous rate at which women are raped in this country, should they then have the added bonus of having to go into debt to pay for an abortion on top of it? God Bless the morning after pill (RU486 - which had to be fought for as well for some ridiculous freakin' reason) - but how many cases go unreported?
With the horrendous rate at which women are subjected to verbal, emotional and physical violence at the hands of their partner - only made WORSE and at a HIGHER RISK of DEATH when they become pregnant as seen here, here and here, where it lists that up to 25% of pregnant women are abused and sometimes killed...
Does it make sense to have someone in a domestic violence situation and then not afford them the means to sever the ties with their abuser because their insurance, that they pay thousands of dollars a year for, says no.
Two) Give citizenship to everyone already here. Just do it already for cryin' out loud! Wave your magic wand and make it happen.
If this health care option isn't going to cover undocumented people - make them documented. This country was built on IMMIGRANTS. It's the very fabric of our existence.
Costs are forcing hospitals to close all over the place, especially in Florida and California due to them not being able to handle the charges wracked up by people who can't afford to pay.
If you're going to make it a LAW that EVERY American citizen has to carry Health Insurance, just like you have to carry car insurance - that's fine with me. Got it. Understood. That doesn't answer for the costs incurred by those that are here illegally and are not required to carry health insurance.
You also can NOT have those people dying in the streets either or afraid to go to the hospital and then DIE AT HOME.
Estimated 11.9 million illegal immigrants - that's 11.9+ MILLION illegal immigrants that will what? Be required to stay healthy? Die? What?
Blanket statement!
You're all now citizens!
Prove who you are, get your citizenship certificate.
Welcome to America.
Now go get some health insurance.
I say this for another reason too - I dislike the idea of American companies exploiting illegal immigrants. What the hell is that?! You don't get to do that. Stop it. Right now.
Anyone that you hire has the right to minimum wage - and trust me on this one, no one is getting rich off of minimum wage. I don't even know how most people can even live on minimum wage. That is, however, the LEAST anyone should expect and the least you can legally do. The ONLY people that get around that is the food industry where they STILL have a mandatory minimum.
The LEAST.
"I would pay you far less if I could legally get away with it!"..."Gee, thanks"...
COME ON!
It's a LAW.
Wow...look at that... another law... we don't ignore this one in a wide sweeping blanket though, do we? There is not one company that would come out and say, "Well, you can work here, but we don't like that law and we're going to IGNORE IT. We find it immoral."...or even better... "Fine, we'll allow you minimum wage, but because we find that law immoral, we're not going to offer you workman's comp over it if you work for the government."
Side note: Grant just came over to see what I was typing and said, "You don't really want to put that on your page, do you..."
OF COURSE I DO! When you see something that looks fundamentally wrong, you say something about it.
Grant: "Abortion is a hot topic..."
Me: "I know."
Grant: "Do you REALLY want to throw that out there on your page?"
Me: "YES!"
The day I have to start censoring myself, is the day I stop having a journal...
And really, it's NOT even about abortion. That's been ruled LEGAL. That's not up for debate. What IS, is it's legal. The ISSUE I'm debating is WHY then, isn't it covered by the very same system that MADE it LEGAL.
And that, is my rant, for today.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
women's bathrooms
You can always tell the sign of a good restaurant/party house/hotel by the condition of their women's bathroom(s).
That's just a fun little fact.
If you want to know if you should plan any kind of event at a place, send some random female into their facilities and just observe the look on her face when she walks out.
If she comes out with a look of total disgust - don't even think about eating there.
It's as simple as that.
The look is unmistakable too. It's that clenched jaw, eyes half closed, every muscle in her body is tense and there is usually some subtle, if not full on, sneer on her face - stance.
For the male gender who may not yet be informed, let me explain.
We take our settings very seriously. We expect it to be clean. We expect to be able to see when we look in the mirror. We expect all the locks on the doors to work. We expect there to be plenty of supplies at our disposal.
We expect room to move. We expect there to be somewhere for us to put our purses and whatever other junk we happen to have with us.
We expect hooks on the backs of our doors - even if some of us aren't comfortable throwing our stuff up on said hook because we also know how easy it is for someone to just reach over and yank our stuff up and out.
NOT THE POINT!
We expect to not feel like we need to shower when we leave a public restroom.
Yes, I said it.
We expect this.
I always crinkle my nose whenever a bathroom is a) some one room thrown together with no thought enclosure or b) co-ed. Bite me. I don't want to share a bathroom with a male in my own house, let alone a bunch of strangers.
No offense. You men are wonderful. I just don't need to know *that* much about you. I see no real need to bond with you in that way. Stop peeing in front of me for crying out loud.
Now, a really well run place who cares about it's guest/clients/customers will build a real bathroom for women.
This will include up to three separate rooms. A foyer, a waiting area and the facilities themselves - which is large and has stalls on one wall and across from the stalls will be an entire wall side to side of mirrors and sinks.
The sink dispensers won't have the equivalent of Lava soap in them. It will be something fruity or flowery, usually some Yardley something or other that you wouldn't bother to spend the money on to put in your own house.
There will be lights - everywhere, so you can actually see what you're doing when you go to fix your make-up. There will be a large garbage can with a swinging lid on it so you don't have to actually see the garbage in it (if not two - one on either side of the room).
There will be a hand blow dryer AND a paper towel dispenser. Half of them have a folding changing table for babies attached to the wall that you can pull down and make your life easier. There is usually a machine that you can get tampons and pads from if you pay the quarter charge or whatever it is these days.
Each individual stall has a metal box for tampons and pads to dispose of and there is usually a huge roll of toilet paper (and another one behind it) and most of the time there will be a dispenser for those toilet seat covers which are more trouble than they're worth. It's nice to know it's available anyway.
There is at least one handicap, over-sized stall. This is not like a handicap parking space. The same rules do not apply. It's acceptable for anyone to use provided that no one is wheeling themselves in to the room before you go to use it.
Our sitting areas contain couches and nice chairs and mirrors with elegant frames on them. Some will have tables that contain baskets with items such as: bobby pins, safety pins, hair spray, spritzer, nylons, handiwipes, cotton balls, Q-Tips, pads, tampons and sewing kits in them. There is art on the wall, low lighting lamps on the table (designed to make our jewelry sparkle, no doubt) and either carpeting in these rooms or very nice tiles; usually carpet.
This is the norm.
Our bathrooms aren't just bathrooms.
They're conference rooms.
and yes, we *are* discussing *you*...
Now, let me set the scene now that you have all of that information floating around fresh in your head.
We were driving from Maryland back to New York. We found ourselves in the middle of East Nowhere, Pennsylvania when we decided to stop at a Citgo.
Seems normal enough, right?
Wrong.
My daughter and I go in search of the restroom. It is, of course, a one room hovel that we both squeezed into.
Fine.
We made our comments and then I looked up at the wall thinking that the dispenser was the usual tampon/pad dispenser.
Wrong, again!
I pointed to the dispenser silently until she looked up at it. When it registered what it actually was, she started laughing out loud.
Condoms!
In all my years, I've NEVER seen condoms sold in a women's bathroom.
But wait!
Not just condoms - adult novelty items too.
That was on the left side.
On the right side was - aspirin.
Seriously, aspirin.
All for the low, low price of $0.75 each.
We found the cracker jack mother of all dispensers!
You may get a condom or you may get an adult item - how lucky are you feeling tonight?! The right side was solely aspirin, but the left side - total guesswork!
She is, unmistakably my child. So we did what anyone would expect us to do left in a situation like this -- We wasted $4.50 on crap we wouldn't buy over the counter and laughed our asses off every time we dropped in three quarters and turned the knob. We had the added bonus of the bathroom wall being 5' from the outside cashier counter too and a full line in front of it.
We didn't care. It was too much for our senses as soon as this dropped out...
Tattoos.
The Ultimate in Fun & Fantasy.
Clearly, I have a lot to learn if tattoos are the ultimate in Fun & Fantasy. I've been doing it all wrong then. I'm going to have to rethink everything!
Grant must have given up on waiting for us because we found him outside at the car checking the oil. We maintained our silence on our newly purchased stash of Black Magic condoms, tattoos and massage oil.
That is, until we couldn't take it anymore and started laughing again.
Then he made the distinct mistake of finally asking us what took us so long.
My daughter and I exchanged a bonding smirk and then I casually said, "Oh, we were buying condoms..."
He rolled his eyes.
Like he didn't believe me.
Then he must have taken a second to think about it.
Because he knows that if whatever I say sounds really off - there is a 99.997% chance that it's 100% true...
Grant: "Did you really buy condoms?"
Me: "Yes."
silence...
Grant: "You did not."
Me: "Okay."
silence...
Grant: "Why in God's name would you be in there buying condoms?"
The two of us in stereo, all excited: "Because we've never seen a condom dispenser before in our bathrooms! It wasn't JUST a condom dispenser either!"
more silence.. at this point I can see why he's confused... I've had my tubes tied for the last 14 years and my daughter is waiting until after she graduates high school at least... this is SO NOT THE POINT!
We produced our bounty so he could bask in our excitement with us.
He still wasn't getting it.
Grant: "You know those are the kinds of condoms you get when you want to get someone pregnant or take your chances of getting an STD from the condom itself from a place like this..."
Me: "DON'T RAIN ON OUR PARADE!"
a whole lot of staring at our excited little faces while trying to figure out what in God's name to say to us to get us to stop...
Grant: "I'm not sure what the big deal is - that's standard in our bathrooms."
Me: "Yeah, we went into your bathroom too (WE HAD TO!). You had a two sided dispenser too. One side, regular condoms. Other side, ribbed condoms, "for her" - no aspirin..."
a whole fuckload of silence...
That's when I felt it was time to break open the marital aid package with the massage oil in it, you know, to break the silence. And what did I get for my efforts?
NOTHING!
That's what!
The freakin' box was EMPTY!
Empty, I say!
What the Hell kind of rip off bullshit is that?!
I looked at my daughter and said, "I think we should go back in and complain!" - being my offspring, she was all for the idea of witnessing that.
Grant: "Get in the car..."
Me: "Fine. I'll write them hate mail instead."
If any of you B&I employees are reading this:
Dear Barnett International Corporation,
You suck. We hate you.
Oh, and you owe me $0.75
Signed,
A Disgruntled & Disappointed Dispenser User
And that, is my condom story.
Oh, and by the way - the tattoo box contained a scorpion and a cartoon kitten playing with a green tennis ball...I don't even want to know who thinks that's the ultimate in Fun & Fantasy...
That's just a fun little fact.
If you want to know if you should plan any kind of event at a place, send some random female into their facilities and just observe the look on her face when she walks out.
If she comes out with a look of total disgust - don't even think about eating there.
It's as simple as that.
The look is unmistakable too. It's that clenched jaw, eyes half closed, every muscle in her body is tense and there is usually some subtle, if not full on, sneer on her face - stance.
For the male gender who may not yet be informed, let me explain.
We take our settings very seriously. We expect it to be clean. We expect to be able to see when we look in the mirror. We expect all the locks on the doors to work. We expect there to be plenty of supplies at our disposal.
We expect room to move. We expect there to be somewhere for us to put our purses and whatever other junk we happen to have with us.
We expect hooks on the backs of our doors - even if some of us aren't comfortable throwing our stuff up on said hook because we also know how easy it is for someone to just reach over and yank our stuff up and out.
NOT THE POINT!
We expect to not feel like we need to shower when we leave a public restroom.
Yes, I said it.
We expect this.
I always crinkle my nose whenever a bathroom is a) some one room thrown together with no thought enclosure or b) co-ed. Bite me. I don't want to share a bathroom with a male in my own house, let alone a bunch of strangers.
No offense. You men are wonderful. I just don't need to know *that* much about you. I see no real need to bond with you in that way. Stop peeing in front of me for crying out loud.
Now, a really well run place who cares about it's guest/clients/customers will build a real bathroom for women.
This will include up to three separate rooms. A foyer, a waiting area and the facilities themselves - which is large and has stalls on one wall and across from the stalls will be an entire wall side to side of mirrors and sinks.
The sink dispensers won't have the equivalent of Lava soap in them. It will be something fruity or flowery, usually some Yardley something or other that you wouldn't bother to spend the money on to put in your own house.
There will be lights - everywhere, so you can actually see what you're doing when you go to fix your make-up. There will be a large garbage can with a swinging lid on it so you don't have to actually see the garbage in it (if not two - one on either side of the room).
There will be a hand blow dryer AND a paper towel dispenser. Half of them have a folding changing table for babies attached to the wall that you can pull down and make your life easier. There is usually a machine that you can get tampons and pads from if you pay the quarter charge or whatever it is these days.
Each individual stall has a metal box for tampons and pads to dispose of and there is usually a huge roll of toilet paper (and another one behind it) and most of the time there will be a dispenser for those toilet seat covers which are more trouble than they're worth. It's nice to know it's available anyway.
There is at least one handicap, over-sized stall. This is not like a handicap parking space. The same rules do not apply. It's acceptable for anyone to use provided that no one is wheeling themselves in to the room before you go to use it.
Our sitting areas contain couches and nice chairs and mirrors with elegant frames on them. Some will have tables that contain baskets with items such as: bobby pins, safety pins, hair spray, spritzer, nylons, handiwipes, cotton balls, Q-Tips, pads, tampons and sewing kits in them. There is art on the wall, low lighting lamps on the table (designed to make our jewelry sparkle, no doubt) and either carpeting in these rooms or very nice tiles; usually carpet.
This is the norm.
Our bathrooms aren't just bathrooms.
They're conference rooms.
and yes, we *are* discussing *you*...
Now, let me set the scene now that you have all of that information floating around fresh in your head.
We were driving from Maryland back to New York. We found ourselves in the middle of East Nowhere, Pennsylvania when we decided to stop at a Citgo.
Seems normal enough, right?
Wrong.
My daughter and I go in search of the restroom. It is, of course, a one room hovel that we both squeezed into.
Fine.
We made our comments and then I looked up at the wall thinking that the dispenser was the usual tampon/pad dispenser.
Wrong, again!
I pointed to the dispenser silently until she looked up at it. When it registered what it actually was, she started laughing out loud.
Condoms!
In all my years, I've NEVER seen condoms sold in a women's bathroom.
But wait!
Not just condoms - adult novelty items too.
That was on the left side.
On the right side was - aspirin.
Seriously, aspirin.
All for the low, low price of $0.75 each.
We found the cracker jack mother of all dispensers!
You may get a condom or you may get an adult item - how lucky are you feeling tonight?! The right side was solely aspirin, but the left side - total guesswork!
She is, unmistakably my child. So we did what anyone would expect us to do left in a situation like this -- We wasted $4.50 on crap we wouldn't buy over the counter and laughed our asses off every time we dropped in three quarters and turned the knob. We had the added bonus of the bathroom wall being 5' from the outside cashier counter too and a full line in front of it.We didn't care. It was too much for our senses as soon as this dropped out...
Tattoos.The Ultimate in Fun & Fantasy.
Clearly, I have a lot to learn if tattoos are the ultimate in Fun & Fantasy. I've been doing it all wrong then. I'm going to have to rethink everything!
Grant must have given up on waiting for us because we found him outside at the car checking the oil. We maintained our silence on our newly purchased stash of Black Magic condoms, tattoos and massage oil.
That is, until we couldn't take it anymore and started laughing again.
Then he made the distinct mistake of finally asking us what took us so long.
My daughter and I exchanged a bonding smirk and then I casually said, "Oh, we were buying condoms..."
He rolled his eyes.
Like he didn't believe me.
Then he must have taken a second to think about it.
Because he knows that if whatever I say sounds really off - there is a 99.997% chance that it's 100% true...
Grant: "Did you really buy condoms?"
Me: "Yes."
silence...
Grant: "You did not."
Me: "Okay."
silence...
Grant: "Why in God's name would you be in there buying condoms?"
The two of us in stereo, all excited: "Because we've never seen a condom dispenser before in our bathrooms! It wasn't JUST a condom dispenser either!"
more silence.. at this point I can see why he's confused... I've had my tubes tied for the last 14 years and my daughter is waiting until after she graduates high school at least... this is SO NOT THE POINT!
We produced our bounty so he could bask in our excitement with us.
He still wasn't getting it.
Grant: "You know those are the kinds of condoms you get when you want to get someone pregnant or take your chances of getting an STD from the condom itself from a place like this..."
Me: "DON'T RAIN ON OUR PARADE!"
a whole lot of staring at our excited little faces while trying to figure out what in God's name to say to us to get us to stop...
Grant: "I'm not sure what the big deal is - that's standard in our bathrooms."
Me: "Yeah, we went into your bathroom too (WE HAD TO!). You had a two sided dispenser too. One side, regular condoms. Other side, ribbed condoms, "for her" - no aspirin..."
a whole fuckload of silence...
That's when I felt it was time to break open the marital aid package with the massage oil in it, you know, to break the silence. And what did I get for my efforts?
NOTHING!That's what!
The freakin' box was EMPTY!
Empty, I say!
What the Hell kind of rip off bullshit is that?!
I looked at my daughter and said, "I think we should go back in and complain!" - being my offspring, she was all for the idea of witnessing that.
Grant: "Get in the car..."
Me: "Fine. I'll write them hate mail instead."
If any of you B&I employees are reading this:
You suck. We hate you.
Oh, and you owe me $0.75
Signed,
A Disgruntled & Disappointed Dispenser User
And that, is my condom story.
Oh, and by the way - the tattoo box contained a scorpion and a cartoon kitten playing with a green tennis ball...I don't even want to know who thinks that's the ultimate in Fun & Fantasy...
Friday, August 21, 2009
Roadkill*/Jupiter/Pookie Bear
I'm not sure if she's brilliant - or a moron.
The cat is getting big.
She thinks she's still little - but she's NOT.
This is evident by the fact that her fat ass hangs off the window ledge behind me. It is also evident by the fact that she thinks I'm her personal lounge chair and that it's somehow my responsibility to keep her fat ass up on me when she falls asleep, moves, and proceeds to fall off of me.
You're on your own there, nutjob...
To further build on my empirical evidence - she hasn't been able to fit in my shirt for two months now. Not that she doesn't try, but it should be apparent to her that this is an impossibility when I pick her fat ass up and have to practically drape her over my shoulder.
She's not a cat, she's a moose.
She was picked up and held like a baby all the time as a kitten. She never fusses when you carry her around like that. I thought she'd hate it after awhile, but come to find out, she's a lazy slug and would rather be carted around by the human servants.
I can no longer sit down and have her lay on her back in my lap looking up at me when I do anything now - she's too long. When she tries to stretch out, she will fall off. And while that's funny, because she hasn't quite figured out that it's by her own doing - it does make me make a mental check in the moron column.
When she lays across my lap when I type, her legs are over one side of my chair and her head rests on the other arm of the chair - and she does have the nerve to look offended when her head slides off and winds up in between the arm of the chair and the chair's back.
I look at her like she's on the slow side.
She looks at me like, "HOW COULD YOU LET THAT HAPPEN?!"
She can catch practically anything in midair. Throw up two feathers that are half eaten and viciously ripped out of any number of her toys and she will catch them both before they hit the ground.
She's a ceremonious bug eater.
She likes to torture her food first.
She's a sadistic bastard.
She knows exactly what's expected of her when you go to give her people food. She sits. She's not very happy about it because she'd much rather stick her face in whatever food you've got and cut out the middle part - but she knows.
She knows that she'll get the look.
Yes, I will stare at the cat like she must have fallen down and hit her head or something to think it's going to go any other way.
She immediately sits down and waits while looking up at you with her whole, "I'm doing what you freakin' want me to do - pass me the ham already" look. This look is usually followed by, "if I was bigger, I'd eat you instead and then raid the fridge" look.
Yes, I enjoy assigning thoughts to animals... I may need a new hobby...
My newest thing is to teach her, "Bring it back!"
Why?
Because she fetches.
If you throw one of her squishy ball things across the room, she will take off after it like she's a bullet out of a .357 and bring it back. If she catches up to it while it's still in the air then she will jump up however high she has to, grab it with both paws and smash it to the ground to ensure that it's dead.
Don't start this game unless you have time enough to stand there for 35-50 rounds of this.
It's the equivalent of taking a two year old and tossing them into the air and them saying, "Do it again!" - you know how that game never ends until you think you're going to have an aneurysm.
After awhile, she'll bring it back - but she'll drop it about a foot away from you and then run up to you, minus the ball and stare at you like, "Well? I'm waiting. Throw the stupid thing again."
This means that you have to get up and get it.
I'm uncertain if this makes her a moron or brilliant. She's making me get up and work too now. I'm unclear as to if she's now trying to train me.
So, this has resulted in a race to see which one of us is lazier.
Welcome to the birth of the "Bring it back!" command.
I assure you that I'm lazier than she is.
I will win.
Or maybe she is just a moron. This is also a cat that likes to stick her head in Grant's shoe while hugging another one of his shoes and going to sleep.
She has a shoe fetish.
It's a little unnerving.
When he came home from his trip to Maryland he had two pairs of shoes lined up in the living room and she lost all sense of reality. She went insane. It was too over-whelming for her. She couldn't decide which shoe to stick her head in and which other shoe to hug to sleep.
It was like giving an A.D.D. child a TV remote and 1100 channels and saying, "pick one" after withholding their medication for two days.
She doesn't go after my shoes.
She must understand that they might as well have police tape around them and that she will end up living in the shed if she damages my shoes.
Animals instinctively must know when their way of life is in jeopardy.
Of course, I say that and then have to admit the following:
She's discovered the kitchen sink.
twitches
And there is nothing in her mind that says to her, "This is going to get my ass beaten..."
She actually has the nerve to look all proud of herself. It's like, "LOOK! NONO, LOOK! SEE WHAT I CAN DO NOW?! SEE WHAT I'VE DISCOVERED?! HEY, DID YOU KNOW THIS WAS HERE THE WHOLE TIME?! IT'S INCREDIBLE! THIS MAY BE THE COOLEST THING - EVER!"
wtf...
I walked into the kitchen this morning to find her sitting in one side of the double sink. Sitting IN it. Not walking around it. Not standing on the counters staring at it. SITTING IN IT.
I said the same thing to her that I do to my kids when they do something stupid in front of me, "I'M... RIGHT HERE!"
Good God.
"Get...the fuck... out of... the sink..."
blank look
"Get.... OUT... of the fucking SINK!"
moving closer because her dumbass isn't moving...
"WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?! GET OUT OF THE FUCKING SINK!"
I swear to God, she crouched down and gave me this, "Oh my GOD. I will SO NOT get out of the fucking sink! It's MINE. I found it fair and square and I'm not giving it up!"
I did the only thing I could think of without beating her ass.
I turned on the water and sprayed her with the sink hose.
Yes, I will flood my entire kitchen before I'll let her live in my sink.
I have zero issue with that.
I hate that room anyway.
This is the part in the story where we discover that she's really not all that moved by water.
Oh, sure. She jumped out of the sink - AND THEN SAT ON THE FLOOR IN FRONT OF ME WHILE I DOUSED HER.
All that leads to is her looking down at her fur and going, "huh... well, that's new..."
Again, brilliant for devaluing the effects of water - or moron for not getting that she's a cat and isn't suppose to like water.
This is where we also discover the true value of canned air. Point any bottle of canned air at the ceiling and hit the nozzle and she will run from a room like she's on fire.
I figure one or two more times of doing that when she even looks up at the sink and that little issue is taken care of.
She's been to the vet three times now and has all her necessary shots, been tested for leukemia and kitty HIV. She's clear for everything.
As for the cat carrier, it was probably a really good idea to take her on a road trip when she was only 8 weeks old or so because if you put it on the floor - she just walks right into it and lays down.
like Cleopatra sitting on her throne waiting for her loyal subjects to carry her off somewhere...
All in all, I still like her and she amuses me.
The cat is getting big.
She thinks she's still little - but she's NOT.
This is evident by the fact that her fat ass hangs off the window ledge behind me. It is also evident by the fact that she thinks I'm her personal lounge chair and that it's somehow my responsibility to keep her fat ass up on me when she falls asleep, moves, and proceeds to fall off of me.
You're on your own there, nutjob...
To further build on my empirical evidence - she hasn't been able to fit in my shirt for two months now. Not that she doesn't try, but it should be apparent to her that this is an impossibility when I pick her fat ass up and have to practically drape her over my shoulder.
She's not a cat, she's a moose.
She was picked up and held like a baby all the time as a kitten. She never fusses when you carry her around like that. I thought she'd hate it after awhile, but come to find out, she's a lazy slug and would rather be carted around by the human servants.
I can no longer sit down and have her lay on her back in my lap looking up at me when I do anything now - she's too long. When she tries to stretch out, she will fall off. And while that's funny, because she hasn't quite figured out that it's by her own doing - it does make me make a mental check in the moron column.
When she lays across my lap when I type, her legs are over one side of my chair and her head rests on the other arm of the chair - and she does have the nerve to look offended when her head slides off and winds up in between the arm of the chair and the chair's back.
I look at her like she's on the slow side.
She looks at me like, "HOW COULD YOU LET THAT HAPPEN?!"
She can catch practically anything in midair. Throw up two feathers that are half eaten and viciously ripped out of any number of her toys and she will catch them both before they hit the ground.
She's a ceremonious bug eater.
She likes to torture her food first.
She's a sadistic bastard.
She knows exactly what's expected of her when you go to give her people food. She sits. She's not very happy about it because she'd much rather stick her face in whatever food you've got and cut out the middle part - but she knows.
She knows that she'll get the look.
Yes, I will stare at the cat like she must have fallen down and hit her head or something to think it's going to go any other way.
She immediately sits down and waits while looking up at you with her whole, "I'm doing what you freakin' want me to do - pass me the ham already" look. This look is usually followed by, "if I was bigger, I'd eat you instead and then raid the fridge" look.
Yes, I enjoy assigning thoughts to animals... I may need a new hobby...
My newest thing is to teach her, "Bring it back!"
Why?
Because she fetches.
If you throw one of her squishy ball things across the room, she will take off after it like she's a bullet out of a .357 and bring it back. If she catches up to it while it's still in the air then she will jump up however high she has to, grab it with both paws and smash it to the ground to ensure that it's dead.
Don't start this game unless you have time enough to stand there for 35-50 rounds of this.
It's the equivalent of taking a two year old and tossing them into the air and them saying, "Do it again!" - you know how that game never ends until you think you're going to have an aneurysm.
After awhile, she'll bring it back - but she'll drop it about a foot away from you and then run up to you, minus the ball and stare at you like, "Well? I'm waiting. Throw the stupid thing again."
This means that you have to get up and get it.
I'm uncertain if this makes her a moron or brilliant. She's making me get up and work too now. I'm unclear as to if she's now trying to train me.
So, this has resulted in a race to see which one of us is lazier.
Welcome to the birth of the "Bring it back!" command.
I assure you that I'm lazier than she is.
I will win.
Or maybe she is just a moron. This is also a cat that likes to stick her head in Grant's shoe while hugging another one of his shoes and going to sleep.
She has a shoe fetish.
It's a little unnerving.
When he came home from his trip to Maryland he had two pairs of shoes lined up in the living room and she lost all sense of reality. She went insane. It was too over-whelming for her. She couldn't decide which shoe to stick her head in and which other shoe to hug to sleep.
It was like giving an A.D.D. child a TV remote and 1100 channels and saying, "pick one" after withholding their medication for two days.
She doesn't go after my shoes.
She must understand that they might as well have police tape around them and that she will end up living in the shed if she damages my shoes.
Animals instinctively must know when their way of life is in jeopardy.
Of course, I say that and then have to admit the following:
She's discovered the kitchen sink.
twitches
And there is nothing in her mind that says to her, "This is going to get my ass beaten..."
She actually has the nerve to look all proud of herself. It's like, "LOOK! NONO, LOOK! SEE WHAT I CAN DO NOW?! SEE WHAT I'VE DISCOVERED?! HEY, DID YOU KNOW THIS WAS HERE THE WHOLE TIME?! IT'S INCREDIBLE! THIS MAY BE THE COOLEST THING - EVER!"
wtf...
I walked into the kitchen this morning to find her sitting in one side of the double sink. Sitting IN it. Not walking around it. Not standing on the counters staring at it. SITTING IN IT.
I said the same thing to her that I do to my kids when they do something stupid in front of me, "I'M... RIGHT HERE!"
Good God.
"Get...the fuck... out of... the sink..."
blank look
"Get.... OUT... of the fucking SINK!"
moving closer because her dumbass isn't moving...
"WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?! GET OUT OF THE FUCKING SINK!"
I swear to God, she crouched down and gave me this, "Oh my GOD. I will SO NOT get out of the fucking sink! It's MINE. I found it fair and square and I'm not giving it up!"
I did the only thing I could think of without beating her ass.
I turned on the water and sprayed her with the sink hose.
Yes, I will flood my entire kitchen before I'll let her live in my sink.
I have zero issue with that.
I hate that room anyway.
This is the part in the story where we discover that she's really not all that moved by water.
Oh, sure. She jumped out of the sink - AND THEN SAT ON THE FLOOR IN FRONT OF ME WHILE I DOUSED HER.
All that leads to is her looking down at her fur and going, "huh... well, that's new..."
Again, brilliant for devaluing the effects of water - or moron for not getting that she's a cat and isn't suppose to like water.
This is where we also discover the true value of canned air. Point any bottle of canned air at the ceiling and hit the nozzle and she will run from a room like she's on fire.
I figure one or two more times of doing that when she even looks up at the sink and that little issue is taken care of.
She's been to the vet three times now and has all her necessary shots, been tested for leukemia and kitty HIV. She's clear for everything.
As for the cat carrier, it was probably a really good idea to take her on a road trip when she was only 8 weeks old or so because if you put it on the floor - she just walks right into it and lays down.
like Cleopatra sitting on her throne waiting for her loyal subjects to carry her off somewhere...
All in all, I still like her and she amuses me.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Man...
Ever have a week go by and every one of those days you stare at your keyboard and think, "I have a million things to write about and not one of them should ever be put into print, let alone be said out loud or in public!"
I can't even say that anything really out of the ordinary has happened either. The mind has just been in over-drive lately - maybe, rampaging is a better word for it.
Rampage is certainly a better word for it than, "certifiable" or "needs sedation"...I'm just saying...
I'm filled with social problems and their solutions, long term outcomes of social issues, screw ups in history, personal crossroads, reanalyzing theories, etc, etc.
As if that wasn't enough, this morning Grant and I had a lengthy discussion about quantum physics that easily could have resulted in a mental fist fight.
Grant called me over to watch this on his monitor:
Let me just say this...
Sometimes literal people shouldn't talk to outside of the box thinking people that love to deal with space and time and stuff you can't see or hold.
There is a natural tendency for those of us that are too literal for our own good, perhaps - to want to find some practical application to whatever bizarre shit you just came out with that you're taking as gospel.
Me: "If "A" is true, then it could conceivably be a factor in examples "B, C and D" this way (I'll spare you the details.)"
Grant: "No, you're not thinking big enough."
stare
Me: "Okay, then it matters... why?"
Grant: "You're not getting it..."
Me: "I understood everything you just said."
Grant: "Yeah, but you want to use it literally."
Me: "Yes, I do... of course, I do!"
Good Lord...
I don't see what the hell good a theory is if I can't apply it literally. We BOTH know this about me - why on earth would you ever expect anything different.
Did I become someone ELSE over-night when you weren't looking?
Don't get me wrong, I'm ALL for theories.
Give me your theory!
I'll listen!
I might not take it as Gospel, but who cares if I do or not. It's something else to think about and I'm good with that. I'll even throw out whatever practical application I can think of going on the basis that said theory could be etched in stone as fact.
I'm there!
The above, I'm okay with. Got it. My issue is, it goes on the assumption that there are some kind of holes/spaces/openings that exist in our dimension versus the possibility that all these particles are just trapped in a giant box like container.
That's all I was saying!
Grant: "Everything is made up of particles and this new revelation fucks E=mc2 and gravity."
Me: "Okay, that's great - except you can count on your particles plummeting out of a tree to the ground if you go up that ladder and then fall. You don't have to see the particles with the naked eye to know what the outcome is going to be - so I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss it."
Then this came up:
I said, "That could conceivably explain why twins can be raised separately and in other countries by other families and still have the same idiosyncrasies and know when something is happening to their siblings thousands of miles away" - which I thought was a valid point.
To further that line of thinking, it would explain why we still maintain a sense of tribal togetherness when a world wide crisis takes place.
Building on the surprise that I felt when people all over the world who live in far more horrendous conditions than Americans do, on a regular basis, felt such sorrow over 9/11... I've been trying to reason that out for ages...
Me: "Then you have to allow for figuring out if any of the particles have been diffused over time versus remaining the same or evolving to become stronger."
Grant: "You're not thinking big enough. You're contemplating the little things and not the universe as a whole."
I'm sure I visibly twitched...
Me: "Well, I can SEE people! I can SEE my surroundings! Of course, that's going to be my first thought... have we just MET? It's not like you haven't known me for the last 25 years! And you want me to IGNORE the fact that the universe is made up of ALL THESE TINY LITTLE PARTICLES IN FRONT OF ALL OF US because I'm not thinking BIG enough? There wouldn't even BE a BIGGER PICTURE without those little details."
This is what divides the big thinkers and the people that actually CARE about the details. He is one and I am clearly the other. It really doesn't have to be an argument. You need BOTH sides to figure stuff out.
Throw all the pieces of the puzzle on my desk in any order you want and I'll eventually make a picture out of it. While I'm working on that though, throwing another 6 sets of 10,000 puzzles pieces in the mix is only going to result in me having to sort out what pieces go to which set first.
Then this came up AGAIN. It's brilliant and the series is the easiest way to comprehend the concept. I own the book and I love it. The whole show is worth viewing if you have the time.
Okay!
Granted!
Then that's our handicap.
And quite frankly, there's no real reason why we can't create contact lenses that allow us to see better than 20/20 if we can make lens for microscopes that can amplify vision down to the kind of level that allows us to SEE tiny particles...please...
Me: "Just like monitors. You see images on the monitor in 72 dpi (dots per inch). We are capable of SEEING more colors than that, but the monitor can't handle it (which is more due to how big the image file would be for downloads too). That makes the handicap the monitor, not your eye-sight.
When you design something print-worthy, you'd use a 600-1200 dpi creation. If you print out something that's 72 dpi, on paper, it will look like a bunch of fully formed dots and a lot of space not filled in. If you print out something that's 1200 dpi, it might look the same as the 72 dpi image on the monitor - but when you print it on paper, it will look as smooth as a photograph (depending, of course, on the paper as well as the printer)."
I thought that was a good comparison!
Which leads back to our eye-sight being the flawed piece.
Grant: "Why do I talk to you..."
Me: "I have no conceivable idea."
We decided we were better off just moving on to a different subject.
laughs
That is, until we were standing in an aisle at the grocery store and he looked at me and said, "The only reason I'm here is because you see me."
That made me laugh.
I want credit for biting the inside of my cheek and not saying, "WTF?! I'D STILL BE HERE WHETHER YOU SAW ME OR NOT!"
I can't even say that anything really out of the ordinary has happened either. The mind has just been in over-drive lately - maybe, rampaging is a better word for it.
Rampage is certainly a better word for it than, "certifiable" or "needs sedation"...I'm just saying...
I'm filled with social problems and their solutions, long term outcomes of social issues, screw ups in history, personal crossroads, reanalyzing theories, etc, etc.
As if that wasn't enough, this morning Grant and I had a lengthy discussion about quantum physics that easily could have resulted in a mental fist fight.
Grant called me over to watch this on his monitor:
Let me just say this...
Sometimes literal people shouldn't talk to outside of the box thinking people that love to deal with space and time and stuff you can't see or hold.
There is a natural tendency for those of us that are too literal for our own good, perhaps - to want to find some practical application to whatever bizarre shit you just came out with that you're taking as gospel.
Me: "If "A" is true, then it could conceivably be a factor in examples "B, C and D" this way (I'll spare you the details.)"
Grant: "No, you're not thinking big enough."
stare
Me: "Okay, then it matters... why?"
Grant: "You're not getting it..."
Me: "I understood everything you just said."
Grant: "Yeah, but you want to use it literally."
Me: "Yes, I do... of course, I do!"
Good Lord...
I don't see what the hell good a theory is if I can't apply it literally. We BOTH know this about me - why on earth would you ever expect anything different.
Did I become someone ELSE over-night when you weren't looking?
Don't get me wrong, I'm ALL for theories.
Give me your theory!
I'll listen!
I might not take it as Gospel, but who cares if I do or not. It's something else to think about and I'm good with that. I'll even throw out whatever practical application I can think of going on the basis that said theory could be etched in stone as fact.
I'm there!
The above, I'm okay with. Got it. My issue is, it goes on the assumption that there are some kind of holes/spaces/openings that exist in our dimension versus the possibility that all these particles are just trapped in a giant box like container.
That's all I was saying!
Grant: "Everything is made up of particles and this new revelation fucks E=mc2 and gravity."
Me: "Okay, that's great - except you can count on your particles plummeting out of a tree to the ground if you go up that ladder and then fall. You don't have to see the particles with the naked eye to know what the outcome is going to be - so I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss it."
Then this came up:
I said, "That could conceivably explain why twins can be raised separately and in other countries by other families and still have the same idiosyncrasies and know when something is happening to their siblings thousands of miles away" - which I thought was a valid point.
To further that line of thinking, it would explain why we still maintain a sense of tribal togetherness when a world wide crisis takes place.
Building on the surprise that I felt when people all over the world who live in far more horrendous conditions than Americans do, on a regular basis, felt such sorrow over 9/11... I've been trying to reason that out for ages...
Me: "Then you have to allow for figuring out if any of the particles have been diffused over time versus remaining the same or evolving to become stronger."
Grant: "You're not thinking big enough. You're contemplating the little things and not the universe as a whole."
I'm sure I visibly twitched...
Me: "Well, I can SEE people! I can SEE my surroundings! Of course, that's going to be my first thought... have we just MET? It's not like you haven't known me for the last 25 years! And you want me to IGNORE the fact that the universe is made up of ALL THESE TINY LITTLE PARTICLES IN FRONT OF ALL OF US because I'm not thinking BIG enough? There wouldn't even BE a BIGGER PICTURE without those little details."
This is what divides the big thinkers and the people that actually CARE about the details. He is one and I am clearly the other. It really doesn't have to be an argument. You need BOTH sides to figure stuff out.
Throw all the pieces of the puzzle on my desk in any order you want and I'll eventually make a picture out of it. While I'm working on that though, throwing another 6 sets of 10,000 puzzles pieces in the mix is only going to result in me having to sort out what pieces go to which set first.
Then this came up AGAIN. It's brilliant and the series is the easiest way to comprehend the concept. I own the book and I love it. The whole show is worth viewing if you have the time.
Okay!
Granted!
Then that's our handicap.
And quite frankly, there's no real reason why we can't create contact lenses that allow us to see better than 20/20 if we can make lens for microscopes that can amplify vision down to the kind of level that allows us to SEE tiny particles...please...
Me: "Just like monitors. You see images on the monitor in 72 dpi (dots per inch). We are capable of SEEING more colors than that, but the monitor can't handle it (which is more due to how big the image file would be for downloads too). That makes the handicap the monitor, not your eye-sight.
When you design something print-worthy, you'd use a 600-1200 dpi creation. If you print out something that's 72 dpi, on paper, it will look like a bunch of fully formed dots and a lot of space not filled in. If you print out something that's 1200 dpi, it might look the same as the 72 dpi image on the monitor - but when you print it on paper, it will look as smooth as a photograph (depending, of course, on the paper as well as the printer)."
I thought that was a good comparison!
Which leads back to our eye-sight being the flawed piece.
Grant: "Why do I talk to you..."
Me: "I have no conceivable idea."
We decided we were better off just moving on to a different subject.
laughs
That is, until we were standing in an aisle at the grocery store and he looked at me and said, "The only reason I'm here is because you see me."
That made me laugh.
I want credit for biting the inside of my cheek and not saying, "WTF?! I'D STILL BE HERE WHETHER YOU SAW ME OR NOT!"
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Tornado
Sunday night we had four tornadoes touch down in Western New York. It was 100 yards wide and traveling at 100 miles per hour - doing four miles worth of damage.
One of the four. It ended up washing over where I live with very little damage, thankfully. I can't say the same for 18 miles from my home.
One of the few cases where I would use the word, "awesome" as a description. I don't mean that in the slang sense either. It inspires awe. I respect Mother Nature and try my best to stay the hell out of her way.
Sorry, if I see this over my head - I'm going inside...
One of the four. It ended up washing over where I live with very little damage, thankfully. I can't say the same for 18 miles from my home.
One of the few cases where I would use the word, "awesome" as a description. I don't mean that in the slang sense either. It inspires awe. I respect Mother Nature and try my best to stay the hell out of her way.
Sorry, if I see this over my head - I'm going inside...
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
inspired
Since I got out my frustration over the stupid half question in my last post, I was laying in bed trying to sleep (to no avail, obviously) and one thought lead to another in my mind and next thing I know - I was up to another example of calling things exactly how they are, and how that's a GOOD thing.
That may very well be the longest, most convoluted sentence ever written. Read it a few times if it didn't make sense the first time around, because I assure you that it will eventually.
You were forced to do sentence breakdowns with charts and lines in school.
I know you were!
You can do it!
I have faith!
Here's a Cliff Note example of how my mind works:
"Man, I feel so much better after writing that bitch about that stupid, moronic, half full/half empty question on my journal. I've been meaning to say that to the general public for a long ass time.
I should tell Brian that when he comes over tomorrow too; he'd appreciate my little theory on that. He's all about calling things out for what they really are. I suppose that's why he was a kick ass Cop.
Being a Cop would be a pretty cool job. They have to see things in terms that are very black and white. Their job is to take the law and arrest someone that breaks it and then turn it all over to the D.A., Judge and/or Jury for them to interpret the law as they see fit.
If I could take orders, I would have loved to be a Cop!
Wait a minute, who in the hell am I kidding - I could NEVER be a Cop. I've made that declaration a few dozen times. I know it's true. I'd make it on the streets for about 5.5 hours before I took the law into my own hands and shot some jackass who was doing something so fundamentally wrong that it violated my senses.
I could never do that job. I know my limits. Oh, you want to be a rapist - well, it just so happens that I have a few bullets in this gun - and look at that! One of them has your name on it! Today is your lucky day! Sort of...
"Okay, motherfucker!
Time to die!
Make your peace with God while you can!"
Speaking of which, I should watch that movie, "Black and White" again with Gina Gershon. I love that movie. My favorite part is when she's got the guy in her target and she just SNAPS and she's all like, "Go ahead! You shoot him, I'll shoot you - it'll be FUN!"
Erm... and that's the basics of why I could never do that job, because I would be JUST LIKE HER in that scenario.
Yeah, I could see it now - Internal Affairs would have my number and the number of an Arraignment Judge on speed dial. Then I'd have to figure out how to convince a jury of my peers that the guy actually fell on the bullets six times because he's a klutz.
"How is that MY fault, your Honor?!"
Even I'm not sure I could sell that one. Wow though, if I could - what kind of freakin' win would THAT be. Come to think of it, I bet I might be able to sell that story! If someone can actually get away with a "Twinkies" defense... oh my God, what the hell am I going on about... sheesh... next...
I think one of the best compliments I've ever gotten from Brian is him saying that if we were in the Army together and in War, he would trust me to have his back. That's a huge compliment.
Not that I could ever be in the military either - with my whole lack of, taking orders, thing. It was still a good thing to say.
He's right though, oh my God, if someone took a shot at him I'd go insane and that person would have to pay. I told him that I'm the only one allowed to kill him. NO ONE GETS TO TAKE THAT AWAY FROM ME!
I'd give that guy part of my liver if he needed it.
I'm never going to get any sleep this way. I should just get up and get some coffee and write or read or plot. Whatever. Something.
...it goes on and on and on like that.
That's not even scratching the surface, but it should be enough of an example to give you a little insight.
Anyway, in the midst of my silent tirade in my head while laying there, things somehow worked its way around to measuring people with their own measuring sticks.
Not mine.
Theirs.
I'm fairly cool with a large, large number of things. You want to be a polygamist, more power to you. You want to marry your own sex, knock yourself out. You want to tell me flat out that you're a womanizing asshole - okay.
I could, and ironically, have had the following conversation:
Womanizing Dickhead: "I think it would be good to tell you that I'm a bottom of the barrel, womanizing dickhead - all in the name of fair play. Oh, and by the way, I'm 100% against animal cruelty. People that hurt animals should be shot and then subsequently dragged behind a bus doing 45 down a dirt road."
Me: "Okay. Noted. Thanks!"
I'm actually happy for you that you know yourself well enough to understand that about yourself and your sense of honesty made you say that to me. We're cool. I will NOT be surprised when I see you doing your thing. I won't get all moral on you. I won't lecture you. Good for you for doing some soul searching and coming to some kind of conclusion about yourself.
I don't really care.
I've been warned.
Fair enough.
Granted, I won't be dating you. I won't introduce you to any female that I even remotely know and if you look sideways at my sister - I may gouge your eyes out with a fork.
In the vein of keeping even, I feel that that's necessary to say to you so we're both on the same page.
Noted as well?
Good.
We're cool then.
I value direct honesty and I have a huge fear of being misunderstood and there's no point in mincing words.
This in no way precludes us from being friends.
I'm sure you must have some good qualities too.
Even if you don't, you still get credit for being honest with me.
Really, we're cool.
Now, you can try to lay every female with a pulse around me and I'll ignore you and you're totally safe as long as you don't try to involve me. Have at it. I'll even try very hard not to laugh and roll my eyes. It effects us, not at all. Don't worry your pretty little head over it for one second.
If you try to involve me or get me to vouch for you being a good, caring, one-woman man sort - I will totally blow you in in no uncertain terms and then go back to whatever it was that I was doing. So, you know, you probably don't want to involve me.
But we're OKAY!
You be the best bottom of the barrel, scumbag, dickhead womanizer you can be, honey!
You can tell me all about it later when you're done doing what you're doing.
We'll have coffee or something.
This is where the problem comes in...
If I see the same guy outside kicking a dog - that's a BIG NO!
From that point on, you will forever be known as the jackass dog kicker and I don't even want to know your name now. You have violated your own honesty and now you're nothing but a real asshole that I want nothing to do with.
Me: Hey, you - LYING lowlife animal kicker, there's a bus outside waiting for your ass! I hear he's taking the back roads to his next stop! He's got a gun in his glove compartment too. Hurry!"
You broke your OWN rule.
I have no use for you.
No one else put that rule on you, that's something you came up with on your own. If you didn't want to be held to it, you never should have said it to me!
No sympathy.
None.
If you were a dog kicker, you could have just said, "Oh, yeah - and in my spare time, I like to kick animals."
Sure, I would sit there and stare at you to see if you were serious or not. I'll probably suggest a new hobby, like, watching paint dry or sniffing glue - but I'll take you at your word.
I won't be shocked if I see you do it then either. I'll stare again, and possibly throw a rock at you - but I will be forced to say to myself, "well, he DID tell me... I can hardly say I wasn't warned..."
I don't personally know any dog kickers, but my point remains the same...
Say what you mean, mean what you say - and expect that I'll hold you to it.
Otherwise, really, what's the fucking point.
That may very well be the longest, most convoluted sentence ever written. Read it a few times if it didn't make sense the first time around, because I assure you that it will eventually.
You were forced to do sentence breakdowns with charts and lines in school.
I know you were!
You can do it!
I have faith!
Here's a Cliff Note example of how my mind works:
"Man, I feel so much better after writing that bitch about that stupid, moronic, half full/half empty question on my journal. I've been meaning to say that to the general public for a long ass time.
I should tell Brian that when he comes over tomorrow too; he'd appreciate my little theory on that. He's all about calling things out for what they really are. I suppose that's why he was a kick ass Cop.
Being a Cop would be a pretty cool job. They have to see things in terms that are very black and white. Their job is to take the law and arrest someone that breaks it and then turn it all over to the D.A., Judge and/or Jury for them to interpret the law as they see fit.
If I could take orders, I would have loved to be a Cop!
Wait a minute, who in the hell am I kidding - I could NEVER be a Cop. I've made that declaration a few dozen times. I know it's true. I'd make it on the streets for about 5.5 hours before I took the law into my own hands and shot some jackass who was doing something so fundamentally wrong that it violated my senses.
I could never do that job. I know my limits. Oh, you want to be a rapist - well, it just so happens that I have a few bullets in this gun - and look at that! One of them has your name on it! Today is your lucky day! Sort of...
"Okay, motherfucker!
Time to die!
Make your peace with God while you can!"
Speaking of which, I should watch that movie, "Black and White" again with Gina Gershon. I love that movie. My favorite part is when she's got the guy in her target and she just SNAPS and she's all like, "Go ahead! You shoot him, I'll shoot you - it'll be FUN!"
Erm... and that's the basics of why I could never do that job, because I would be JUST LIKE HER in that scenario.
Yeah, I could see it now - Internal Affairs would have my number and the number of an Arraignment Judge on speed dial. Then I'd have to figure out how to convince a jury of my peers that the guy actually fell on the bullets six times because he's a klutz.
"How is that MY fault, your Honor?!"
Even I'm not sure I could sell that one. Wow though, if I could - what kind of freakin' win would THAT be. Come to think of it, I bet I might be able to sell that story! If someone can actually get away with a "Twinkies" defense... oh my God, what the hell am I going on about... sheesh... next...
I think one of the best compliments I've ever gotten from Brian is him saying that if we were in the Army together and in War, he would trust me to have his back. That's a huge compliment.
Not that I could ever be in the military either - with my whole lack of, taking orders, thing. It was still a good thing to say.
He's right though, oh my God, if someone took a shot at him I'd go insane and that person would have to pay. I told him that I'm the only one allowed to kill him. NO ONE GETS TO TAKE THAT AWAY FROM ME!
I'd give that guy part of my liver if he needed it.
I'm never going to get any sleep this way. I should just get up and get some coffee and write or read or plot. Whatever. Something.
...it goes on and on and on like that.
That's not even scratching the surface, but it should be enough of an example to give you a little insight.
Anyway, in the midst of my silent tirade in my head while laying there, things somehow worked its way around to measuring people with their own measuring sticks.
Not mine.
Theirs.
I'm fairly cool with a large, large number of things. You want to be a polygamist, more power to you. You want to marry your own sex, knock yourself out. You want to tell me flat out that you're a womanizing asshole - okay.
I could, and ironically, have had the following conversation:
Womanizing Dickhead: "I think it would be good to tell you that I'm a bottom of the barrel, womanizing dickhead - all in the name of fair play. Oh, and by the way, I'm 100% against animal cruelty. People that hurt animals should be shot and then subsequently dragged behind a bus doing 45 down a dirt road."
Me: "Okay. Noted. Thanks!"
I'm actually happy for you that you know yourself well enough to understand that about yourself and your sense of honesty made you say that to me. We're cool. I will NOT be surprised when I see you doing your thing. I won't get all moral on you. I won't lecture you. Good for you for doing some soul searching and coming to some kind of conclusion about yourself.
I don't really care.
I've been warned.
Fair enough.
Granted, I won't be dating you. I won't introduce you to any female that I even remotely know and if you look sideways at my sister - I may gouge your eyes out with a fork.
In the vein of keeping even, I feel that that's necessary to say to you so we're both on the same page.
Noted as well?
Good.
We're cool then.
I value direct honesty and I have a huge fear of being misunderstood and there's no point in mincing words.
This in no way precludes us from being friends.
I'm sure you must have some good qualities too.
Even if you don't, you still get credit for being honest with me.
Really, we're cool.
Now, you can try to lay every female with a pulse around me and I'll ignore you and you're totally safe as long as you don't try to involve me. Have at it. I'll even try very hard not to laugh and roll my eyes. It effects us, not at all. Don't worry your pretty little head over it for one second.
If you try to involve me or get me to vouch for you being a good, caring, one-woman man sort - I will totally blow you in in no uncertain terms and then go back to whatever it was that I was doing. So, you know, you probably don't want to involve me.
But we're OKAY!
You be the best bottom of the barrel, scumbag, dickhead womanizer you can be, honey!
You can tell me all about it later when you're done doing what you're doing.
We'll have coffee or something.
This is where the problem comes in...
If I see the same guy outside kicking a dog - that's a BIG NO!
From that point on, you will forever be known as the jackass dog kicker and I don't even want to know your name now. You have violated your own honesty and now you're nothing but a real asshole that I want nothing to do with.
Me: Hey, you - LYING lowlife animal kicker, there's a bus outside waiting for your ass! I hear he's taking the back roads to his next stop! He's got a gun in his glove compartment too. Hurry!"
You broke your OWN rule.
I have no use for you.
No one else put that rule on you, that's something you came up with on your own. If you didn't want to be held to it, you never should have said it to me!
No sympathy.
None.
If you were a dog kicker, you could have just said, "Oh, yeah - and in my spare time, I like to kick animals."
Sure, I would sit there and stare at you to see if you were serious or not. I'll probably suggest a new hobby, like, watching paint dry or sniffing glue - but I'll take you at your word.
I won't be shocked if I see you do it then either. I'll stare again, and possibly throw a rock at you - but I will be forced to say to myself, "well, he DID tell me... I can hardly say I wasn't warned..."
I don't personally know any dog kickers, but my point remains the same...
Say what you mean, mean what you say - and expect that I'll hold you to it.
Otherwise, really, what's the fucking point.
Monday, July 27, 2009
À tout seigneur tout honneur
In order to go to the store by my house, I have to walk past the middle school my kids went to. Tonight a story from my daughter's last year there made me laugh to myself, so I thought I'd share it. Fortunately, I wrote about it the day after it happened (three years ago) so I had notes to refer to.
-----------------------
I got a letter in the mail from my daughter's school telling me she had an award ceremony to attend. When I asked the girl what she was getting an award for, do you think she had a clue why? No, of course not.
Me: "Any idea?"
Her: "None."
Me: "Way to stay informed.."
In sitting wayyyyy the hell in the back of the auditorium (see the "go to hell" post if that needs to be explained), my daughter and I rediscovered two things:
1) We really should sit as far away from other people as humanly possible so they don't hear us.
2) We have a lot of fun together.
Since we had no clue what kind of award she was going to get - every time they would announce something like, "this student is always a pleasure to have in class" or some other such kiss ass speech... we'd look at each other and one of us would go, "Well, that's obviously not going to you"...
We tried to keep our comments VERY low and limited to whispering into each others ear while everyone else was clapping for something or other.
We joke.
It's what we do.
She and I are NEVER bored together.
Of course, when it got to be closing in on the end of the second hour of this ceremony, we would have made fun of ANYTHING. It really did drag on.
This is how bad it got...
We made jokes about the Perfect Attendance awards - and how we were certain one of them wasn't going to be there to receive it and somehow that was one of the funniest visions. Perfect attendance, except to receive your Perfect Attendance Award!
.......and it DID happen!
We laughed our asses off in the parking lot walking to the car over that at the end of the night.
Then I leaned over and whispered to her...
Me: "Those are a prime example of kids who are hated by their parents..... What? You have Ebola? I DON'T CARE! GET YOUR ASS UP, YOU'RE GOING TO SCHOOL!"
Of course this is not true (er, most likely not true anyway), but it kept us from setting anything on fire. So...
Speaker: "This student always has a sunny disposition"..
Me: "Ah... so, you're not winning that award either, huh?"
We never got bored of this.
Me: "GYM! I bet your award is for GYM!"
My daughter hates gym.
She looked at me like I just sprouted a second head.
It was hilarious.
I was rummaging through her purse for some lip gloss and opened one of the compartments where I discovered 26 PAT certificates for chorus. She's in an All Girls Chorus that consists of a hundred and fifty 6-8th graders. They give out PAT certificates when you do something good in class.
Me: "Uh... think MAYBE you're getting the award in Chorus?"
Her: "I hope not!"
We thought it might have been in art because a pot she made was featured in an Art Magazine and on the local network access channel back in December of that year. No dice. Which worked out fine since she was hoping it wasn't going to be in Art either.
It turned out to be an award for Academic Diligence in French.
So, I have one kid that speaks Spanish.
I can fake my way through a conversation with him.
Normally his report cards garnish him a C in ENGLISH...all the while getting A's in Spanish.........
/stare...
The other kid speaks French.
I can't fake my way through anything with her.
There are times she will say something and I'll go, "DID YOU JUST SWEAR AT ME LITTLE GIRL?!"
Yet another child that does better in a foreign language than ENGLISH...
The only thing I really picked up from her is, "J'ai soif"...(which means I'm thirsty, fyi).
In any event...
My little french speaking lunatic and I had a great time.
She did a good job.
À tout seigneur tout honneur - Honor to whom honor is due.
À coeur vaillant rien d'impossible - Nothing is impossible for a willing heart.
I got a letter in the mail from my daughter's school telling me she had an award ceremony to attend. When I asked the girl what she was getting an award for, do you think she had a clue why? No, of course not.
Me: "Any idea?"
Her: "None."
Me: "Way to stay informed.."
In sitting wayyyyy the hell in the back of the auditorium (see the "go to hell" post if that needs to be explained), my daughter and I rediscovered two things:
1) We really should sit as far away from other people as humanly possible so they don't hear us.
2) We have a lot of fun together.
Since we had no clue what kind of award she was going to get - every time they would announce something like, "this student is always a pleasure to have in class" or some other such kiss ass speech... we'd look at each other and one of us would go, "Well, that's obviously not going to you"...
We tried to keep our comments VERY low and limited to whispering into each others ear while everyone else was clapping for something or other.
We joke.
It's what we do.
She and I are NEVER bored together.
Of course, when it got to be closing in on the end of the second hour of this ceremony, we would have made fun of ANYTHING. It really did drag on.
This is how bad it got...
We made jokes about the Perfect Attendance awards - and how we were certain one of them wasn't going to be there to receive it and somehow that was one of the funniest visions. Perfect attendance, except to receive your Perfect Attendance Award!
.......and it DID happen!
We laughed our asses off in the parking lot walking to the car over that at the end of the night.
Then I leaned over and whispered to her...
Me: "Those are a prime example of kids who are hated by their parents..... What? You have Ebola? I DON'T CARE! GET YOUR ASS UP, YOU'RE GOING TO SCHOOL!"
Of course this is not true (er, most likely not true anyway), but it kept us from setting anything on fire. So...
Speaker: "This student always has a sunny disposition"..
Me: "Ah... so, you're not winning that award either, huh?"
We never got bored of this.
Me: "GYM! I bet your award is for GYM!"
My daughter hates gym.
She looked at me like I just sprouted a second head.
It was hilarious.
I was rummaging through her purse for some lip gloss and opened one of the compartments where I discovered 26 PAT certificates for chorus. She's in an All Girls Chorus that consists of a hundred and fifty 6-8th graders. They give out PAT certificates when you do something good in class.
Me: "Uh... think MAYBE you're getting the award in Chorus?"
Her: "I hope not!"
We thought it might have been in art because a pot she made was featured in an Art Magazine and on the local network access channel back in December of that year. No dice. Which worked out fine since she was hoping it wasn't going to be in Art either.
It turned out to be an award for Academic Diligence in French.
So, I have one kid that speaks Spanish.
I can fake my way through a conversation with him.
Normally his report cards garnish him a C in ENGLISH...all the while getting A's in Spanish.........
/stare...
The other kid speaks French.
I can't fake my way through anything with her.
There are times she will say something and I'll go, "DID YOU JUST SWEAR AT ME LITTLE GIRL?!"
Yet another child that does better in a foreign language than ENGLISH...
The only thing I really picked up from her is, "J'ai soif"...(which means I'm thirsty, fyi).
In any event...
My little french speaking lunatic and I had a great time.
She did a good job.
À tout seigneur tout honneur - Honor to whom honor is due.
À coeur vaillant rien d'impossible - Nothing is impossible for a willing heart.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
yes...
I should be writing. Grant has been out of town since last Wednesday and won't be home until Tuesday or Wednesday of this week. So I've been spending my time rearranging and cleaning and sorting through old stuff. I'll be back to writing soon. It's just been uneventful around here for the most part.
Monday, July 20, 2009
kidney stone
So, the girl child was in pain Tuesday night for reasons we couldn't figure out. Then she started throwing up over the pain and being diabetic, that is a really bad scenario for her.
To the hospital we went.
I had flashbacks of labor because that's exactly what it looked like and she was sick the entire ride there.
They were phenomenal at the hospital. We were already getting seen before they had anything other than her full name and birthday.
The instant panic from the ER room was that she had an ovarian cyst or that something was twisted and blood flow was inhibited. Ultrasound proved differently. Then it was on to a CT and that seemed to indicate that she had passed a kidney stone at some point during her hospital stay.
Her right kidney and tubing were inflamed.
Which makes sense since the two doses of morphine didn't touch the pain for her at all.
They released her within 7 hours.
The second the pain eased up, she told a sick joke that even I wouldn't repeat. It was literally the first thing out of her mouth. Then she couldn't stop laughing while I continued to ask her what was the matter with her - like I always do when she says something no one on the face of the planet should utter.
Keep in mind that this is the same child who put on one of those huge over-sized, built for an amazon, ugly gowns for an exam at one endocrinology appointment...climbed up on the table and hugged her knees to her chest and started to slowly rock back and forth like a crazy person just to fuck with me because I was the only one in the room... I love that kid...
Since being home, she's only taken one ibuprofen and it's like she's good as new.
To the hospital we went.
I had flashbacks of labor because that's exactly what it looked like and she was sick the entire ride there.
They were phenomenal at the hospital. We were already getting seen before they had anything other than her full name and birthday.
The instant panic from the ER room was that she had an ovarian cyst or that something was twisted and blood flow was inhibited. Ultrasound proved differently. Then it was on to a CT and that seemed to indicate that she had passed a kidney stone at some point during her hospital stay.
Her right kidney and tubing were inflamed.
Which makes sense since the two doses of morphine didn't touch the pain for her at all.
They released her within 7 hours.
The second the pain eased up, she told a sick joke that even I wouldn't repeat. It was literally the first thing out of her mouth. Then she couldn't stop laughing while I continued to ask her what was the matter with her - like I always do when she says something no one on the face of the planet should utter.
Keep in mind that this is the same child who put on one of those huge over-sized, built for an amazon, ugly gowns for an exam at one endocrinology appointment...climbed up on the table and hugged her knees to her chest and started to slowly rock back and forth like a crazy person just to fuck with me because I was the only one in the room... I love that kid...
Since being home, she's only taken one ibuprofen and it's like she's good as new.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
fibrin is your friend
It's science day!
Here are some fun little facts:
You have between 7 and 11 pints of blood pumping thru your system at high pressure.
What happens if you develop a tear?
That can't be good, right?
A-ha!
You've already got a process in place to take care of that. You've got platelets and proteins that act as clotting factors.
Platelets and proteins are two of the 14 players that make up the clotting team.
Fibrin.
Fibrin is a tough, filament like molecule that forms the framework of a clot. It's a little like chicken wire.
Platelets.
Platelets are tiny membrane enclosed packets of cytoplasm. Cytoplasma is the gel-like substance inside a cell. They are shaped like flattened disks. There is approximately one platelet for every 15 red blood cells you own.
Alright, now say your blood vessel wall becomes damaged and a tear developed. MILLIONS of platelets come together to form a platelet plug.
This process is triggered when a tear in the blood vessel wall exposes the collagen fibers inside it. Then your body pretty much goes, "wtf is going on over there?! Someone go check!..."
Receptors on the surface of passing platelets bind to the exposed collagen fibers. The platelets become crinkly (let's call that a technical term... crinkly) to increase their surface area and stickiness. At the same time, they release signaling chemicals that attract other platelets and trigger substances called clotting factors.
The clotting factors activate each other in a series which results in the production of fibrin.
Platelets and strands of fibrin combine into a clump that plugs the gap in the blood vessel wall. The platelets in the plug contain protein filaments like those found in muscles.
To recap:
- You have a tear
- Your body is like, "wtf..."
- This mesh is formed over the tear and platelets get all flat and sticky and yell out to all their little friends in the area to come hold hands. Eventually there are so many of them mobbing the area that the dam is in place!
a little like decoupage from the inside out for all you crafty people out there.
This is the cool part.
You know how when you get a cut, you can see the skin pulled in towards the center of the cut. How it tightens?
That's because after this process is done - the platelets in the plug SHRINK!
The filaments contract, shrinking the plug and pulling the sides closer together.
It is...GENIUS.
Then your immune system cells move in under the clot to play bouncer and clear away any invading pathogens.
So, fibrin is truly your friend. Pretty much anything that prevents you from bleeding to death is your friend.
There are about 2 trillion platelets in the blood plus another trillion in reserve in the spleen. A platelet lives for 10 days, so every day you lose and replace more than 200 billion of those little suckers.
Here are some fun little facts:
You have between 7 and 11 pints of blood pumping thru your system at high pressure.
What happens if you develop a tear?
That can't be good, right?
A-ha!
You've already got a process in place to take care of that. You've got platelets and proteins that act as clotting factors.
Platelets and proteins are two of the 14 players that make up the clotting team.
Fibrin.
Fibrin is a tough, filament like molecule that forms the framework of a clot. It's a little like chicken wire.
Platelets.
Platelets are tiny membrane enclosed packets of cytoplasm. Cytoplasma is the gel-like substance inside a cell. They are shaped like flattened disks. There is approximately one platelet for every 15 red blood cells you own.
Alright, now say your blood vessel wall becomes damaged and a tear developed. MILLIONS of platelets come together to form a platelet plug.
This process is triggered when a tear in the blood vessel wall exposes the collagen fibers inside it. Then your body pretty much goes, "wtf is going on over there?! Someone go check!..."
Receptors on the surface of passing platelets bind to the exposed collagen fibers. The platelets become crinkly (let's call that a technical term... crinkly) to increase their surface area and stickiness. At the same time, they release signaling chemicals that attract other platelets and trigger substances called clotting factors.
The clotting factors activate each other in a series which results in the production of fibrin.
Platelets and strands of fibrin combine into a clump that plugs the gap in the blood vessel wall. The platelets in the plug contain protein filaments like those found in muscles.
To recap:
- You have a tear
- Your body is like, "wtf..."
- This mesh is formed over the tear and platelets get all flat and sticky and yell out to all their little friends in the area to come hold hands. Eventually there are so many of them mobbing the area that the dam is in place!
a little like decoupage from the inside out for all you crafty people out there.
This is the cool part.
You know how when you get a cut, you can see the skin pulled in towards the center of the cut. How it tightens?
That's because after this process is done - the platelets in the plug SHRINK!
The filaments contract, shrinking the plug and pulling the sides closer together.
It is...GENIUS.
Then your immune system cells move in under the clot to play bouncer and clear away any invading pathogens.
So, fibrin is truly your friend. Pretty much anything that prevents you from bleeding to death is your friend.
There are about 2 trillion platelets in the blood plus another trillion in reserve in the spleen. A platelet lives for 10 days, so every day you lose and replace more than 200 billion of those little suckers.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
1-2-3
I've been brainwashing my kids for a long time now. They are *not* living in my basement at 40. Forget it. That's just not going to be happening.
So these are the rules:
You *will* graduate from high school.
Period.
After that, you have three choices:
College - if you're in college, you will be going to the one my ex-husband works at. It's one of the Top 10 colleges in America. Your tuition is free because he's staff. They have a phenomenal program in place - they're connected with close to 160 other colleges that they'll cover tuition for after you get a couple of years of schooling under your belt.
The stipulation from the college is that you have to be a dependent. You will still be a tax deduction. Therefore, I still own you. The rules of the house still apply. How lenient they become depends on your GPA - just like elementary, middle and high school. You should have the hang of it by this point.
If you don't wish to go to any of these schools, you better get some full scholarships because I'm not paying for any other school. Hell, at 40-50K per year, I couldn't afford to pay for this school if my ex-husband didn't work there. The books at this college alone are going to kill us. You are allowed to live on campus and leave all your crap here. This is still your home.
As long I stay married to my ex-husband (for this journal's purposes, I refer to him as my ex-husband since we haven't been together for the last two years and he lives somewhere else - however, we are still married because of the kids), you can go to college for free. The college extends this until the age of 30. You could conceivably walk out of school with a couple of Ph.D.'s worth close to a half a million dollars, if you apply yourself. I know you don't understand exactly what kind of tremendous opportunity he has ensured for you. You're going to have to trust me on this one.
I'm not entirely sure I like the idea of a career student. Pick a direction and work towards it. I'm all for bettering yourself, but you have to have some focus. You've got a year and a summer to get a grip on what that direction might be. Choose...something. You're not living here for 30 years, nor will you want to. Believe me.
Though, I go back and forth on this one...If you find you're exceptional at something and really want to go to school for years on end so you can specialize in it, we'll see about trying to buy a rental home by the campus where you can live and still benefit. I'll have to see if it's allowed. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. It better be something worth-while though, no basket weaving specialist or anything like that.
Military - if you don't realize the opportunity in front of you as far as college goes and you want to join the Military - that's fine. The Military automatically emancipates you in the eyes of the law (just like marriage).
You can get your mail here, leave your stuff here and come home whenever you get leave. This is still your home. Subject to change should you decide to make the Military your career. You're not living here for the next 20 years.
Full time job - if you've decided to wave either of the above options, you've got one month after you graduate from high school to get a full-time job. This is what my Mom did with me. I'm passing it along to you. Congratulations.
You will not even entertain the idea of getting a job that doesn't offer medical insurance. You won't believe this is important, but I'm not playing with you. I will sit down with you before you go on your interviews and discuss the things you should be looking for. I don't expect you to just know.
You will pay rent. The rent you pay, I will let you believe is gone after you give it to me. What will actually happen is that I'll put it into an account for you. At some point you're going to want to buy a house and it'll be a nice portion towards the down payment.
You can do this for approximately a year. At which point, I expect you to be bright enough to think to yourself, "I'm paying rent and still have rules - why in the hell don't I pay rent on my own and not have rules?". I have faith in you.
Regardless of which option you choose, I expect you to do the best you can to think over the choices of your life. You will be picking your own branch of the Military (if you fail to make a choice, I will sign you up to the Army). You will be choosing your own classes and major. You will be finding your own job. Do your research.
I always said that you would each get a used car for your high school graduation present. Something checked by our mechanic and that I trust won't break down on you. I'm not asking your opinion on color or type. You get what you get. Be happy you're not riding the bus and you don't have payments to make on it.
You will be responsible for taking care of the maintenance on your car and your car insurance. We will pay for AAA. You will be less likely to be a jackass driving if you're paying for it.
You will be allowed one credit card that's solely in your name and you will take it out from your own bank. There will only be a $250-300 credit limit on it. We'll see how long it takes for you to fully understand, 'only use in case of an emergency' - you will screw it up, undoubtedly.
You will have your own savings and checking accounts. You should know how to manage your money by now, however, for the first few months, I'll sit down with you and help you with your bills/schedules so you don't do what nearly everyone else does and fuck your credit the first year you get it - which you probably will anyway.
If you are overseas, I will handle your car and finances for you until you get back to the United States. I'll also give you all the details about everything I did for you to double check to make sure there isn't something else you owe that you forgot to tell me about.
Do not ask me for a cellphone. I am not putting you on our plan. Neither of you can be trusted with a phone. My suggestion for you is to get a pre-paid deal until you can learn the value of minutes. There's a reason why I don't let you touch mine.
If you lose your mind and plan on getting married at an early age, you better make sure you have a home set up. If you can't handle things on your own - you should take this as an indication that you have no business getting married yet.
If you are really sick, have been in some sort of accident or are pregnant (being diabetic) - you are more than welcome home. I will take care of you.
You can always turn to me for anything. This does not mean that you'll get exactly what you want though. My job is not to become an enabler. My job is to guide you into becoming a decent, responsible and productive human being - one that I'll want to have dinner with out in public. I'm your Mother. I'll always help you in some way. It just might not be in a way you expect though. That's all I'm saying.
I recognize that you have to make your own mistakes. Trust me, you will. It's inevitable. I'll let you, too. Oh, I'll make a few remarks here and there to try to prevent you from doing whatever stupid thing you're about to do, but don't expect me to prevent you. Some things you just need to experience to get. This is a waste of time, but you'll do it anyway because you're young.
That said, if I don't see you correcting the problem and instead find you digging a deeper hole - I will be likely to step in and verbally smack you in the back of the head until you see what you're doing.
If you continue on with said stupid thing after I point it out to you - you're on your own. I will have done my part as your Mother. You can come tell me I was right later in life.
Welcome to adulthood.
Fun, isn't it? one down, one to go...
So these are the rules:
You *will* graduate from high school.
Period.
After that, you have three choices:
The stipulation from the college is that you have to be a dependent. You will still be a tax deduction. Therefore, I still own you. The rules of the house still apply. How lenient they become depends on your GPA - just like elementary, middle and high school. You should have the hang of it by this point.
If you don't wish to go to any of these schools, you better get some full scholarships because I'm not paying for any other school. Hell, at 40-50K per year, I couldn't afford to pay for this school if my ex-husband didn't work there. The books at this college alone are going to kill us. You are allowed to live on campus and leave all your crap here. This is still your home.
As long I stay married to my ex-husband (for this journal's purposes, I refer to him as my ex-husband since we haven't been together for the last two years and he lives somewhere else - however, we are still married because of the kids), you can go to college for free. The college extends this until the age of 30. You could conceivably walk out of school with a couple of Ph.D.'s worth close to a half a million dollars, if you apply yourself. I know you don't understand exactly what kind of tremendous opportunity he has ensured for you. You're going to have to trust me on this one.
I'm not entirely sure I like the idea of a career student. Pick a direction and work towards it. I'm all for bettering yourself, but you have to have some focus. You've got a year and a summer to get a grip on what that direction might be. Choose...something. You're not living here for 30 years, nor will you want to. Believe me.
Though, I go back and forth on this one...If you find you're exceptional at something and really want to go to school for years on end so you can specialize in it, we'll see about trying to buy a rental home by the campus where you can live and still benefit. I'll have to see if it's allowed. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. It better be something worth-while though, no basket weaving specialist or anything like that.
You can get your mail here, leave your stuff here and come home whenever you get leave. This is still your home. Subject to change should you decide to make the Military your career. You're not living here for the next 20 years.
You will not even entertain the idea of getting a job that doesn't offer medical insurance. You won't believe this is important, but I'm not playing with you. I will sit down with you before you go on your interviews and discuss the things you should be looking for. I don't expect you to just know.
You will pay rent. The rent you pay, I will let you believe is gone after you give it to me. What will actually happen is that I'll put it into an account for you. At some point you're going to want to buy a house and it'll be a nice portion towards the down payment.
You can do this for approximately a year. At which point, I expect you to be bright enough to think to yourself, "I'm paying rent and still have rules - why in the hell don't I pay rent on my own and not have rules?". I have faith in you.
Regardless of which option you choose, I expect you to do the best you can to think over the choices of your life. You will be picking your own branch of the Military (if you fail to make a choice, I will sign you up to the Army). You will be choosing your own classes and major. You will be finding your own job. Do your research.
I always said that you would each get a used car for your high school graduation present. Something checked by our mechanic and that I trust won't break down on you. I'm not asking your opinion on color or type. You get what you get. Be happy you're not riding the bus and you don't have payments to make on it.
You will be responsible for taking care of the maintenance on your car and your car insurance. We will pay for AAA. You will be less likely to be a jackass driving if you're paying for it.
You will be allowed one credit card that's solely in your name and you will take it out from your own bank. There will only be a $250-300 credit limit on it. We'll see how long it takes for you to fully understand, 'only use in case of an emergency' - you will screw it up, undoubtedly.
You will have your own savings and checking accounts. You should know how to manage your money by now, however, for the first few months, I'll sit down with you and help you with your bills/schedules so you don't do what nearly everyone else does and fuck your credit the first year you get it - which you probably will anyway.
If you are overseas, I will handle your car and finances for you until you get back to the United States. I'll also give you all the details about everything I did for you to double check to make sure there isn't something else you owe that you forgot to tell me about.
Do not ask me for a cellphone. I am not putting you on our plan. Neither of you can be trusted with a phone. My suggestion for you is to get a pre-paid deal until you can learn the value of minutes. There's a reason why I don't let you touch mine.
If you lose your mind and plan on getting married at an early age, you better make sure you have a home set up. If you can't handle things on your own - you should take this as an indication that you have no business getting married yet.
If you are really sick, have been in some sort of accident or are pregnant (being diabetic) - you are more than welcome home. I will take care of you.
You can always turn to me for anything. This does not mean that you'll get exactly what you want though. My job is not to become an enabler. My job is to guide you into becoming a decent, responsible and productive human being - one that I'll want to have dinner with out in public. I'm your Mother. I'll always help you in some way. It just might not be in a way you expect though. That's all I'm saying.
I recognize that you have to make your own mistakes. Trust me, you will. It's inevitable. I'll let you, too. Oh, I'll make a few remarks here and there to try to prevent you from doing whatever stupid thing you're about to do, but don't expect me to prevent you. Some things you just need to experience to get. This is a waste of time, but you'll do it anyway because you're young.
That said, if I don't see you correcting the problem and instead find you digging a deeper hole - I will be likely to step in and verbally smack you in the back of the head until you see what you're doing.
If you continue on with said stupid thing after I point it out to you - you're on your own. I will have done my part as your Mother. You can come tell me I was right later in life.
Welcome to adulthood.
Fun, isn't it?
Thursday, July 16, 2009
bang
My washer and dryer is located on the first floor, off the living room. The room has a sink, toilet, shower stall and a spot next to the shower stall of equal width and depth for an up and down washer and dryer. On the opposite side of the shower stall is a cubby hole where I have some shelving and a big ass window with frosted glass on the bottom pane.
I'm not going to go into the fact that we don't have a medicine cabinet there. There USE to be one, but the previous owner decided to take it with them and did a half-assed job of plastering up the wall. You can see the outline of chicken wire.
twitch
I still find that incredibly rude and I'm pretty sure they weren't allowed to take it with them, but whatever. Between the two ugly white globed lights that showcase where the medicine cabinet SHOULD be, there is a big flat mirror to cover up the crappy plastering job. One day I'll figure out what I want to do with the room and take it from there.
Anyway...
We don't have an up and down washer/dryer set and since I just bought our current washer and dryer less than four years ago - we decided to cram it into the space it wasn't built for.
My former husband and I sorted some laundry to do and turned the washing machine on and sat down on the couch to try to decide what movie we were going to watch. We finally got all comfortable and that's when we heard it...
BANG BANG BANG
what in the hell...
This is the lovely sound that the washing machine was making assaulting the dryer.
Then it got louder...
BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG
BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG
BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG
BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG
BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG
I was waiting for it to greet us in the living room.
My ex looked at me.
I whispered, "How much longer could it possibly go on for?"
This is when it decided to kick into turbo charge...
BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG
BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG
BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG
BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG
BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG
Good Lord.
We sat there staring at each other waiting for it to just stop.
It didn't.
He got up to go check on it as I yelled, "WHO THE HELL LET US OWN A HOUSE?! WE CAN'T EVEN OPERATE A WASHING MACHINE!"
Right as he opened the door to the room it became quiet and shut itself off. His response back to me was, "It's fine now".
I said, "BECAUSE IT'S BROKEN!"
it isn't, but it was perfect timing...
Okay...
Maybe you had to be there....
I'm not going to go into the fact that we don't have a medicine cabinet there. There USE to be one, but the previous owner decided to take it with them and did a half-assed job of plastering up the wall. You can see the outline of chicken wire.
twitch
I still find that incredibly rude and I'm pretty sure they weren't allowed to take it with them, but whatever. Between the two ugly white globed lights that showcase where the medicine cabinet SHOULD be, there is a big flat mirror to cover up the crappy plastering job. One day I'll figure out what I want to do with the room and take it from there.
Anyway...
We don't have an up and down washer/dryer set and since I just bought our current washer and dryer less than four years ago - we decided to cram it into the space it wasn't built for.
My former husband and I sorted some laundry to do and turned the washing machine on and sat down on the couch to try to decide what movie we were going to watch. We finally got all comfortable and that's when we heard it...
BANG BANG BANG
what in the hell...
This is the lovely sound that the washing machine was making assaulting the dryer.
Then it got louder...
BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG
BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG
BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG
BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG
BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG
I was waiting for it to greet us in the living room.
My ex looked at me.
I whispered, "How much longer could it possibly go on for?"
This is when it decided to kick into turbo charge...
BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG
BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG
BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG
BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG
BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG
Good Lord.
We sat there staring at each other waiting for it to just stop.
It didn't.
He got up to go check on it as I yelled, "WHO THE HELL LET US OWN A HOUSE?! WE CAN'T EVEN OPERATE A WASHING MACHINE!"
Right as he opened the door to the room it became quiet and shut itself off. His response back to me was, "It's fine now".
I said, "BECAUSE IT'S BROKEN!"
it isn't, but it was perfect timing...
Okay...
Maybe you had to be there....
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
the big 5
Thanks to Laoch of Chicago, I took the Big Five test that was posted on his page. I'm a O53-C92-E64-A27-N4 - not that I really needed a test to tell me any of that, I know me.
I must share this with you too because every line is funny.
Choosing your doctor is important.
The Big Five.
The only thing that may be misleading is the 'well-organized' part. My mind is well-organized. Ridiculously organized. You would never associate the two if you looked at my desk though.
My theory is a well-organized mind will eventually lead to a well-organized hiring of a maid.
I do remain calm in a crisis.
That's probably where I'm best suited.
I'm not moved by much.
A couple of times Grant has said that I run at such a high level that in a crisis, I'm just fine. But that's why the every day little mundane things irritate me the most.
Oh my God, like today.
I nearly came out of my own skin when Grant decided to set an old wobbly ladder on uneven ground and go 30 feet up in the air - to paint. I saw him dying a horrid, mutilating death and being splattered all over my driveway.
Me: "GET DOWN FROM THERE!"
Grant: "It's fine"
Me: "It is NOT fine! You're going to die! GET DOWN!"
Grant who is laughing his ass off at this point half way up the ladder: "You do love me..."
Me who is not seeing the humor in the situation: "SHUT UP AND GET DOWN! Oh my God..."
Grant: "It's fine."
Me: "How the hell is this FINE?! I can SEE the right side of the ladder OFF THE GROUND!"
really, it was like trying to reason with a 15 year old boy... you are NOT immortal... you CAN die... [I'm guessing this is where the whole, "You find it easy to express irritation with others." thing comes into play in the Big Five too because I had no issue spewing out the following...]
Grant continuing to laugh while I go into psychotic mode: "You're cute..."
Me: "Are you fucking kidding me?! I'm telling you I can see you die 27 different ways in my head and you think that's cute? Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you?! STOP TALKING AND COME DOWN!"
Grant: "I'm going to paint up here. I'm not coming down. IT'S FINE!"
Me: "This is why I stay inside while you're doing this stuff, I CAN'T WATCH IT!"
Grant: "You really are cute..."
Me standing there visualizing shooting him in silence.
See, this, is NOT fine.
THIS makes me a nervous wreck.
Now if I was inside and he was outside screaming his head off because he fell 30 fucking feet and was in pieces all over my driveway because he didn't know better than to be up on a ladder on uneven ground - then I'd be perfectly fine.
Then I would be all calm and soft-spoken and even-toned...
"It's okay. I'm going to call the ambulance. They'll be here in a few minutes. I'll stay with you and make you laugh and think about whatever else is necessary for you to not notice that you're bleeding all over the place and there's brain matter on the freshly painted siding and all is good. It'll be just fine. I'm here. You're alright. I've got you."
I would be saying this all while casually scooping up random body parts so the doctors can reattach them later while using my other hand to try to stop the bleeding from the blood sucking chest wound.
In my head, while convincing you that it's merely a flesh wound and you'll surely be able to retain all your bodily functions and yes, you'll be able to walk again - I'll be making a mental list of where I can find the insurance cards, how much liability I have on the homeowners policy, who I have to call to notify that you're in the hospital, what to bring along to make you more comfortable, a change of clothes to come home in, checking the clock to calculate the efficiency of our EMTs so I can fill out their survey form accurately afterward on their performance, which neighbor I'm going to notify to hose down the driveway and what I'm going to tell the kids and who is going to be with them when we're not there.
Then I'll try to calculate how much time it'll take to lock up the house and the garage and the shed and figure out where you put your cellphone and if the car or anything else is blocking the driveway inhibiting the ambulance and police from moving in faster. I'll make a mental list of any and all medications, the names and doses and when you last ate and what that was.
When this sort of thing is necessary...
I'm your girl!
I'm good for that!
he keeps saying it has something to do with serotonin levels and other things that I haven't bothered to dissect yet...
I still blame kids - even though he's pointed out that my entire life has been filled with other people's crises that I've had to solve or endure.
I don't know.
I don't really care.
All I do know is that if your back is to the wall, I'm a good person to have on your side.
While someone is crying and/or mourning over something, my mind is trying to figure out: how I keep you out of jail, or from losing your house, or who to call to keep your kid alive, or how to keep you from going bankrupt - and all the tiny little details that will come back and bite you later if you don't think of them now.
and yes, I'm aware that the grammatical structure of the above sentence is totally fucked...
I'm less likely to put my arm around you and try to comfort you that way.
I won't be the one next to you crying with you.
I'll be the one trying to figure out how to make whomever did you wrong, cry.
I may, however, also be the one that gets you drunk so you can cope and I have time to sort your shit out.
I'm more likely to be the one to make sure your house is secure and taken care of and you have all the numbers for all the right people you need to contact and assure you that...
"It's okay - we'll figure it out. Go get some sleep and let me think about this. I'll be right here and I promise you that you're safe and sound and Heaven help the person who picks tonight to try to break into your house...because I'll be...right...here..."
If that is what is needed; I'm your girl.
That is true.
There are countless affidavits I could get to that effect too.
Actually, just writing that is making me all on-guard, alert and in protective mode...
I'm not good for calling if you want to have a girl-fest, sit on the couch with ice cream and watch chick flicks and sob over the day to day stuff in life. I know my limits.
Feel free to give me a call if you just found out that your husband is cheating on you with his secretary, you're on the verge of having a mental meltdown, you've just been given a horrid diagnosis or someone is laying face down in a pool of their own blood in your kitchen.
Then I'm like the Wolf in Pulp Fiction.
You know, something like:
The Wolf: You're... Jimmie, right? This is your house?
Jimmie: Sure is.
The Wolf: I'm Winston Wolfe. I solve problems.
Jimmie: Good, we got one.
The Wolf: So I heard. May I come in?
The Wolf: You must be Jules, which would make you Vincent. Let's get down to brass tacks, gentlemen. If I was informed correctly, the clock is ticking, is that right, Jimmie?
Jimmie: Uh, one hundred percent.
The Wolf: Your wife... Bonnie comes home at 9:30 in the AM, is that right?
Jimmie: Uh-huh.
The Wolf: I was led to believe that if she comes home and finds us here, she'd wouldn't appreciate it none too much?
Jimmie: [laughing] She wouldn't at that.
The Wolf: That gives us exactly... forty minutes to get the fuck out of Dodge. Which, if you do what I say when I say it, should be plenty. Now, you've got a corpse in a car, minus a head, in a garage. Take me to it.
The Wolf: Now boys, listen up. We're going to a place called Monster Joe's Truck and Tow. I'll drive the tainted car. Jules, you ride with me. Vincent, you follow in my Acura. We run across the path of any John Q. Laws, nobody does a fucking thing unless I do it first. What did I just say?
Jules: Don't do shit unless.
The Wolf: Unless what?
Jules: Unless you do it first.
The Wolf: Spoken like a true prodigy. How about you, Lash LaRue? You think you can keep your spurs from jinglin' and janglin'?
Vincent: Look, Mr. Wolf, my gun went off, I don't know why, and now you're helping us out of the situation. I'm cool with it, all right?
The Wolf: Fair enough. Now I drive real fucking fast, so keep up. I get my car back any differently than when I gave it, Monster Joe's gonna be disposing of two bodies.
The Wolf: Jimmie, lead the way. Boys, get to work.
Vincent: A please would be nice.
The Wolf: Come again?
Vincent: I said a please would be nice.
The Wolf: Get it straight buster - I'm not here to say please, I'm here to tell you what to do and if self-preservation is an instinct you possess you'd better fucking do it and do it quick. I'm here to help - if my help's not appreciated then lotsa luck, gentlemen.
Jules: No, Mr. Wolf, it ain't like that, your help is definitely appreciated.
Vincent: I don't mean any disrespect, I just don't like people barking orders at me.
The Wolf: If I'm curt with you it's because time is a factor. I think fast, I talk fast and I need you guys to act fast if you wanna get out of this. So, pretty please... with sugar on top. Clean the fucking car.
The moral of this story:
Don't ask me to clean your house or cook you dinner and we're good.
A well-organized mind will eventually lead to a well-organized listing of local restaurants as well...
I must share this with you too because every line is funny.
Choosing your doctor is important.
The Big Five.
The only thing that may be misleading is the 'well-organized' part. My mind is well-organized. Ridiculously organized. You would never associate the two if you looked at my desk though.
My theory is a well-organized mind will eventually lead to a well-organized hiring of a maid.
I do remain calm in a crisis.
That's probably where I'm best suited.
I'm not moved by much.
A couple of times Grant has said that I run at such a high level that in a crisis, I'm just fine. But that's why the every day little mundane things irritate me the most.
Oh my God, like today.
I nearly came out of my own skin when Grant decided to set an old wobbly ladder on uneven ground and go 30 feet up in the air - to paint. I saw him dying a horrid, mutilating death and being splattered all over my driveway.
Me: "GET DOWN FROM THERE!"
Grant: "It's fine"
Me: "It is NOT fine! You're going to die! GET DOWN!"
Grant who is laughing his ass off at this point half way up the ladder: "You do love me..."
Me who is not seeing the humor in the situation: "SHUT UP AND GET DOWN! Oh my God..."
Grant: "It's fine."
Me: "How the hell is this FINE?! I can SEE the right side of the ladder OFF THE GROUND!"
really, it was like trying to reason with a 15 year old boy... you are NOT immortal... you CAN die... [I'm guessing this is where the whole, "You find it easy to express irritation with others." thing comes into play in the Big Five too because I had no issue spewing out the following...]
Grant continuing to laugh while I go into psychotic mode: "You're cute..."
Me: "Are you fucking kidding me?! I'm telling you I can see you die 27 different ways in my head and you think that's cute? Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you?! STOP TALKING AND COME DOWN!"
Grant: "I'm going to paint up here. I'm not coming down. IT'S FINE!"
Me: "This is why I stay inside while you're doing this stuff, I CAN'T WATCH IT!"
Grant: "You really are cute..."
Me standing there visualizing shooting him in silence.
See, this, is NOT fine.
THIS makes me a nervous wreck.
Now if I was inside and he was outside screaming his head off because he fell 30 fucking feet and was in pieces all over my driveway because he didn't know better than to be up on a ladder on uneven ground - then I'd be perfectly fine.
Then I would be all calm and soft-spoken and even-toned...
"It's okay. I'm going to call the ambulance. They'll be here in a few minutes. I'll stay with you and make you laugh and think about whatever else is necessary for you to not notice that you're bleeding all over the place and there's brain matter on the freshly painted siding and all is good. It'll be just fine. I'm here. You're alright. I've got you."
I would be saying this all while casually scooping up random body parts so the doctors can reattach them later while using my other hand to try to stop the bleeding from the blood sucking chest wound.
In my head, while convincing you that it's merely a flesh wound and you'll surely be able to retain all your bodily functions and yes, you'll be able to walk again - I'll be making a mental list of where I can find the insurance cards, how much liability I have on the homeowners policy, who I have to call to notify that you're in the hospital, what to bring along to make you more comfortable, a change of clothes to come home in, checking the clock to calculate the efficiency of our EMTs so I can fill out their survey form accurately afterward on their performance, which neighbor I'm going to notify to hose down the driveway and what I'm going to tell the kids and who is going to be with them when we're not there.
Then I'll try to calculate how much time it'll take to lock up the house and the garage and the shed and figure out where you put your cellphone and if the car or anything else is blocking the driveway inhibiting the ambulance and police from moving in faster. I'll make a mental list of any and all medications, the names and doses and when you last ate and what that was.
When this sort of thing is necessary...
I'm your girl!
I'm good for that!
he keeps saying it has something to do with serotonin levels and other things that I haven't bothered to dissect yet...
I still blame kids - even though he's pointed out that my entire life has been filled with other people's crises that I've had to solve or endure.
I don't know.
I don't really care.
All I do know is that if your back is to the wall, I'm a good person to have on your side.
While someone is crying and/or mourning over something, my mind is trying to figure out: how I keep you out of jail, or from losing your house, or who to call to keep your kid alive, or how to keep you from going bankrupt - and all the tiny little details that will come back and bite you later if you don't think of them now.
and yes, I'm aware that the grammatical structure of the above sentence is totally fucked...
I'm less likely to put my arm around you and try to comfort you that way.
I won't be the one next to you crying with you.
I'll be the one trying to figure out how to make whomever did you wrong, cry.
I may, however, also be the one that gets you drunk so you can cope and I have time to sort your shit out.
I'm more likely to be the one to make sure your house is secure and taken care of and you have all the numbers for all the right people you need to contact and assure you that...
"It's okay - we'll figure it out. Go get some sleep and let me think about this. I'll be right here and I promise you that you're safe and sound and Heaven help the person who picks tonight to try to break into your house...because I'll be...right...here..."
If that is what is needed; I'm your girl.
That is true.
There are countless affidavits I could get to that effect too.
Actually, just writing that is making me all on-guard, alert and in protective mode...
I'm not good for calling if you want to have a girl-fest, sit on the couch with ice cream and watch chick flicks and sob over the day to day stuff in life. I know my limits.
Feel free to give me a call if you just found out that your husband is cheating on you with his secretary, you're on the verge of having a mental meltdown, you've just been given a horrid diagnosis or someone is laying face down in a pool of their own blood in your kitchen.
Then I'm like the Wolf in Pulp Fiction.
You know, something like:
The Wolf: You're... Jimmie, right? This is your house?
Jimmie: Sure is.
The Wolf: I'm Winston Wolfe. I solve problems.
Jimmie: Good, we got one.
The Wolf: So I heard. May I come in?
The Wolf: You must be Jules, which would make you Vincent. Let's get down to brass tacks, gentlemen. If I was informed correctly, the clock is ticking, is that right, Jimmie?
Jimmie: Uh, one hundred percent.
The Wolf: Your wife... Bonnie comes home at 9:30 in the AM, is that right?
Jimmie: Uh-huh.
The Wolf: I was led to believe that if she comes home and finds us here, she'd wouldn't appreciate it none too much?
Jimmie: [laughing] She wouldn't at that.
The Wolf: That gives us exactly... forty minutes to get the fuck out of Dodge. Which, if you do what I say when I say it, should be plenty. Now, you've got a corpse in a car, minus a head, in a garage. Take me to it.
The Wolf: Now boys, listen up. We're going to a place called Monster Joe's Truck and Tow. I'll drive the tainted car. Jules, you ride with me. Vincent, you follow in my Acura. We run across the path of any John Q. Laws, nobody does a fucking thing unless I do it first. What did I just say?
Jules: Don't do shit unless.
The Wolf: Unless what?
Jules: Unless you do it first.
The Wolf: Spoken like a true prodigy. How about you, Lash LaRue? You think you can keep your spurs from jinglin' and janglin'?
Vincent: Look, Mr. Wolf, my gun went off, I don't know why, and now you're helping us out of the situation. I'm cool with it, all right?
The Wolf: Fair enough. Now I drive real fucking fast, so keep up. I get my car back any differently than when I gave it, Monster Joe's gonna be disposing of two bodies.
The Wolf: Jimmie, lead the way. Boys, get to work.
Vincent: A please would be nice.
The Wolf: Come again?
Vincent: I said a please would be nice.
The Wolf: Get it straight buster - I'm not here to say please, I'm here to tell you what to do and if self-preservation is an instinct you possess you'd better fucking do it and do it quick. I'm here to help - if my help's not appreciated then lotsa luck, gentlemen.
Jules: No, Mr. Wolf, it ain't like that, your help is definitely appreciated.
Vincent: I don't mean any disrespect, I just don't like people barking orders at me.
The Wolf: If I'm curt with you it's because time is a factor. I think fast, I talk fast and I need you guys to act fast if you wanna get out of this. So, pretty please... with sugar on top. Clean the fucking car.
The moral of this story:
Don't ask me to clean your house or cook you dinner and we're good.
A well-organized mind will eventually lead to a well-organized listing of local restaurants as well...
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