Month: January 2011

Experience is a Most Effective Teacher, “Go Find Yourself” and Think About a Road Trip

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I think today’s kids (i.e. Steve-o’s age and younger) are mollycoddled way too much.  For Steve-o it’s a major crisis if his phone battery goes dead.  I never had a cell phone until the late 1990’s and even today I consider it sort of a mixed blessing.  No one needs to be able to contact me 24/7 except for God, and He has infinite ways at His discretion to get my attention should He wish to.   There are times I have to just turn the damned thing on “silence all” and let the voice mail get it.  Most of the time I’d rather not talk to anyone because I have to do enough of that at work.

Back in the dark ages of the 70’s and 80’s there were certain things that were inevitable if you were a kid- at least a poor kid growing up in a Midwestern backwater, that is.  I have to qualify that.  I’m sure that there were rich kids who never had to endure hand-me-down clothes or eating leftover tuna casserole over burnt mashed potatoes and/or Cream of Wheat for dinner three or four days a week, but I wasn’t one of the lucky ones.  I wasn’t even lucky enough to be an only child or to have my own room.

Nobody wore helmets to roller skate or ride bikes.  The only kids who had helmets were boys who played football.   No one thought twice about climbing trees.  My sisters climbed the TV antenna (Dad left it up even after he got cable, for some unknown reason) to go on the roof and sunbathe. Nobody used seatbelts, let alone car seats for kids.  If Mom rear-ended someone and you went through the windshield that was tough titty.  Mom did roll one of her cars when she had the dog with her- Mom was unhurt, the car had a few scratches, but the poor dog ended up with three broken ribs where Mom landed on her.   The dog lived for another 12 years after that, but she never liked being with Mom in the car again.  To put it in perspective, I put my dogs in harnesses and belt them in the back seat.   I blame the Toyota automotive safety training I took years ago where you had to watch crash test videos as part of said training.  It’s amazing to see just how far a seventy pound child in the back seat can be thrown out the windshield.  That visual changed my perspective, (I’ve seen a lot of real live body shop carnage in my time too,) but back then nobody gave it a second thought.  Kids would routinely ride around in pickup beds.

Back in the day you had to learn by experience, i.e. by screwing up.  I must have learned a lot because I screwed up a lot.  The pity is not so much in screwing up but in one’s reaction to it.  Ignorance is screwing up because one doesn’t know any better.  Stupidity is screwing up in the same manner over and over again without learning something from all the repetitive failures. 

Kids today are not given the permission to fail.  I know that sounds sort of twisted, but in our desperation to protect them from the evils we had to live through, we end up shielding them from the experiences they need to learn. 

Steve-o has absolutely no idea what it is to go a day without cellular service, cable, high speed internet, and an endless river of Mountain Dew.  He’s never had to wear anyone else’s old clothes with the exception of his early teen years when he grew from 5’5″ to 6’1″ within a year and a half and I had to buy his clothes at the Goodwill because he outgrew them so fast.  I am not going to buy a kid a new pair of pants (at $40-$70 a pop) that he will outgrow in a month or two.  He screamed and cried about it until I threatened to send him to school in my clothes.  I don’t think capris have ever been in style for men, and there is a lot of pink in my wardrobe.

They don’t get the experience that we had at an early age, save in the areas of premarital sex and experimenting with drugs.  I am sad to report that Steve-o has probably seen more carnal action in his 19 years than I have seen in almost 42.  He doesn’t care much for drink and drugs (thank God for small favors.)  I liked the booze and the homegrown back in the day, but for the past 15+ years my track record of overall clean living would make any temperance crusader proud.  As far as having to learn the hard way the value of a dollar by having to work shitty jobs with evil managers and impossible working conditions, they have no experience at all.  I don’t think Steve-o has ever had to scrub a toilet or scrape down a filthy floor.  I know damned well he never did either of those things at home. (Shame on Jerry’s poor example of  “you’re a man, and housework is for women” attitude- I couldn’t get Steve-o to lift a finger on household chores even when he was a little kid and should have been doing them!)   Society doesn’t help the situation, as it expects us old codgers to indulge their extended adolescence (no I am NOT supporting him until he is 26- supporting him at 19 is bad enough) which I say is complete and utter bullshit.  Then again, he has not been in any rush to go down and sign up at the plasma center to earn a few bucks, even though he should know Dad is just trying to scare him by telling him you can get the AIDS from selling plasma.

Grandpa (Mom’s -technically- stepdad, although I always thought of him as my Grandpa) always used to joke about people going off to “find themselves.”  He would always say, “Why do you have to go find yourself?  Can’t you see that you’re right here?” Grandpa was from Norfolk, Virginia (complete with the Foghorn Leghorn accent) and was the perfect example of the ultra conservative, cultured Southern gentleman.  He had a rather pithy sense of humor, which made conversation with him most entertaining. 

In the literal sense Grandpa was right- you should be able to see what is right in front of your face.  It always used to confound me that seemingly logical individuals would go off on some grand quest only to realize that they had already found what they were looking for before they left.  The irony in this is that sometimes people (me included) keep on looking when they have already found what they’ve been looking for.  You don’t always find the object of a search in the last place you looked.  Sometimes you find it, don’t realize it, and keep on looking anyway.   Irony turns to tragedy when you finally realize that you did find what you were looking for, but when you try to go back to where it was it’s gone again.  Sounds like the story of my life.  Then again, hindsight is 20/20.

I would so enjoy a road trip right now, but the closest I’m going to get today is making it home and possibly to Kroger’s because there is no food in the house.  I don’t need Jerry’s “no food” rant again tonight.

Man I would love to have another 72 Super Beetle, even though air cooled VW’s are not the vehicle of choice in Central Ohio in the winter.

More “As Seen on TV” Dreck, Sheena the Table Dancing Dog, and Things to be Thankful For

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The last refuge of the insomniac- infomercials.  I don’t know exactly why, but most nights I  have to get up once or twice during the night to take a trip to the bathroom.  Sometimes I find it difficult to get that last three hours of sleep between 2AM (when my bladder routinely rudely awakens me) and 5AM when both the dogs and my bladder decide I need to get up for the rest of the day. 

Some of the worst dreck on TV is on between 2 and 5AM.  I have to say the prize winner for most hilarious infomercial is for the Post-T-Vac.  I insist that anyone who can get Medicare to pay for old men’s pecker pumps has got a racket going on.  I’m glad this one doesn’t air during the day.  I remember it was bad enough back in the ’80’s and 90’s when there would be douche commercials or hemorrhoid cream commercials during the Westerns on Sundays.  I don’t know if there is such a thing as an effective segue from John Wayne to Summer’s Eve.  It was interesting to find out that you can extinguish a match with a hemorrhoid cleaning pad though.

I like this product, as gross as it might seem- it’s a butt wipe holder.

 No more reaching around all that way to make the distance around one’s fat ass- and no more “brown finger blues!”  I should get this for Dad for his birthday.  He loves gag gifts.

Some of the worst things that end up in infomercial hell are exercise equipment.  My mother owns most of this dreck.  I am surprised Dad hasn’t cancelled cable just to keep her off of QVC, but then he enjoys TruTV and History Channel too much to do that.   She hasn’t lost an ounce, but then again to be fair the products have to at least be assembled to make an honest assessment of their efficacy.   She has an entire home gym in her basement- still in pieces, in the original boxes.  And as far as I can tell, her butt is still as big as ever.  So much for the Ass Master 5000 or whatever they’re calling it now. I’m just glad she didn’t order the Totally Nude Aerobics.  I’d give myself a concussion bouncing around like that without wearing a bra.  If I am going to bounce around like a banchee I can guarantee it is in everyone’s best interest that I cover all the important parts thoroughly when I do it.  I don’t want to burn the dogs’ retinas with that visual.

I look at it this way.  I’m cheap.  I certainly am not going to pay “three easy payments of $39.95” for what looks to be an artificial step and some straps.  I can run up and down the basement stairs until I can’t catch my breath for free.

The beauty enhancers are also hilarious, and Mom has quite a few of these scattered about her house in the original boxes also.  I think she still looks the same as she always did, plus or minus a few more white hairs.  She doesn’t look bad for sixty-four, but then again, I’m forty-one and really don’t care if anyone can see the scars and potholes on my legs.  I think of them as battle scars, because a lot of them are- results of my ongoing battle with poor coordination and falling and running into things.   If I’m that worried about it I can do one of two things very easily: wear pants, or wear opaque tights- which thankfully are back in style.

Sheena is not exactly a graceful dog.  In fact, Sheena has even worse coordination than I do, which I thought was impossible without the assistance of vast quantities of alcohol.  The dog’s not a drinker, she’s just an extreme klutz.  She also has a thing for getting up on the end table (Sheena is not a small dog- she is a GSD/Husky mix and at her last weigh-in was 65#) to look out the picture window in the living room, much as a cat would do.  I am surprised she hasn’t tipped it over or destroyed the blinds.  She’s tall enough to see out of the picture window without standing on anything, but for some reason she prefers her perch on the table.   I haven’t gotten a pic of her on the table-yet-but as you can tell from this pic, she’s a pretty good size.

Clara likes to look out the dining room window, but she has enough class to simply stand on her hind legs and rest her elbows on the sill.  She and Sheena are almost identical in size (Clara is slightly taller but not as long as Sheena) but Clara is deliberate and precise in her movement, almost graceful.  Sheena lumbers and stumbles.  I am not sure if this has to do with her previous neglect, or if it has to do with inbreeding, or if it is a combination of poor environment and shady genetics.   Clara (in the pic below) certainly didn’t have the greatest genetic luck of the draw either (she was born with an umbilical hernia, rear dew claws, and has no undercoat), but then again it is sad what we humans have done with certain dog breeds’ blood lines.  GSD’s in particular have some pretty horrible genetic diseases inherent to most bloodlines. 

I am thankful for many things today.  I am thankful that I have never considered Totally Nude Aerobics as an exercise alternative.  I am thankful that the PP Perfect is not a real product. 

I am really thankful that I don’t have to use a toilet that is attached to a trailer hitch.

I did it!  I can honestly say that I used the words “toilet” and “trailer hitch” together in a complete sentence!

Proven: The Total Depravity of Man, Earthly Purgatory Remembered, and Middle Age Rules

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I was one of those wise-assed kids who most teachers really didn’t want to deal with.  Not only was I a whipping post as well as a social pariah amongst my peers, the teachers didn’t like me either, especially in elementary school.  Hindsight being 20/20, I fully understand why a young first grade teacher would be intimidated by a  freaky looking five year old whose current reading list included Dante’s Inferno, the KJV Bible, the Encyclopedia Brittanica, and whatever happened to be lying about the house or in the daily newspaper.  I highly doubt that too many teachers have had the dubious distinction of dealing with a hyperlexic  (or Asperger’s/hyperlexic, because parts of both of those descriptions fit) child, especially in the backwater town where I grew up.  I have all the sympathy in the world for any educator attempting to deal with a child like me.  You can take all the conventional child development theories and throw them out the window because I didn’t come close to following the patterns or the formal stages.  Erickson and Piaget did not encounter kids like me, I can assure you.  I could have had a lot of fun with them though.

I could read when I was two years old, and I can’t remember a time in my life when I couldn’t read.  I read voraciously as a child and still do.  The school system had absolutely no idea what to do with me, so in their wisdom they decided I should go directly to first grade at age five.  The only problem with this was at age five I was reading on the same level as a college freshman. I can just imagine how embarrassed my second grade teacher was when I used the word “sarcastic,” which apparently was not a word in her vocabulary.  She thought I was making up words- until I spelled it, defined it, and looked up the definition for her in the dictionary.  I was transferred to the other second grade class the next day.  That teacher didn’t like me much either.  As a child I made the simple mistaken assumption that if I knew something it was common knowledge.  Today I know better.   It’s safer for me to assume that if I know something, most other people don’t know, which is not a testament to my intelligence, but a sad commentary on the progressive dumbing down of society.  Intelligence is a constant and the population is growing.  I certainly don’t know everything- the more I learn, the more I realize I don’t know- but I do know that humanity has continued to head downhill since the Fall.  No matter what society wants to believe regarding technology and the human ability to build utopia, utopia is not happening.  Utopia is not going to happen at the hands of humanity, believe that.   Dystopia is alive and well though. If anything, human beings just screw things up in ever more creative ways.  Even though I would not consider myself a Calvinist in regard to theology (I lean more along the lines of being a confessional Lutheran as far as theology goes) John Calvin had it 100% correct in his teaching on the total depravity of man.  We are all born with the brown touch.  Everything human beings touch eventually turns to, well, you know, poo.

I’m not implying that I was some kind of prodigy or anything like that.  To this day I can’t explain why I could read at such an early age.  I still struggle with math (anything beyond basic business math is out of my realm) and I have the physical coordination of a drunken mule.  I’m scatterbrained and disorganized.  I remember things I don’t need to, and forget things I need to remember.  I am not particularly social unless I have to be for business reasons, and no one would accuse me of being Miss Manners or Emily Post.  What you see is what you get.

I’ve been trolling some blogs written by middle school teachers lately (oh, my condolences on that career choice) and thinking of that dark portion of my life almost makes me believe in purgatory again.  Middle school had to be the absolute worst three years of my life.  There were some funny parts, most memorably the day Ellen stuck a roach clip on Howie’s belt loop and then locked him in the science room closet, but for the most part it was a living hell.

“Howie” was my eighth grade science teacher.  I have all the sympathy in the world for this poor guy.  First of all, even considering this was 1981-2, he could have used a few couture lessons.  The polyester high water pants and white socks with black shoes weren’t winning him any fashion accolades.  He also combed his hair into an Elvis-style pompadour waxed up with that greasy Brylcreem stuff.  To top it off he had thick (and also greasy looking) coke bottle glasses- the style of glasses referred to in the military as “birth control glasses.” 

I have to wonder if Howie was one of those guys who went to college to avoid going to Vietnam.  I had several teachers in middle school and high school who readily admitted to doing exactly that.  I bet some of them wished they would have gone to ‘Nam instead of dealing with the hellions I went to school with.  Education was one of the easiest majors to complete back in the 1960’s and 1970’s, so a lot of guys who normally would have ended up as factory workers or truck drivers or roofers ended up going to college to avoid the draft.  This probably explains why I was volunteered to correct spelling for my freshman English teacher, and why my sophomore history teacher spent every class period reading the day’s chapter to the class in a dull, dry monotone.

Anyway, poor Howie had his work cut out for him.  My eighth grade science class was filled with every misfit and jackoff in the school.  Howie, being rather soft spoken and somewhat of a wimp, didn’t have any kind of control over that class.  It was cacophony and chaos every day. Most days I left that class with my hair full of spitballs and/or nasty notes taped to my back.  

One of the girls- Ellen- who was 13 going on 35, had a thing for Marlboro reds, enjoyed sleeping with anything remotely male, and rolling up a joint of Marion County Homegrown whenever she could get it, usually sported a pink feathered roach clip attached to her hair like a barrette.  I can only assume that she kept the roach clip handy should the opportunity to smoke some homegrown come along. 

One day Howie was trying in vain to get people to shut up and stop throwing spitballs, eraser tips and other divers projectiles.  At the same time one of the boys decided it would be fun to grab my notebook and draw swastikas and SS lightning bolts on it.   At least he didn’t spit on it or smear boogers on it, which would have been more typical of this particular dude.  There were so many things flying through the air and so much noise going on that it was difficult to discern how many rules were being broken and to what degree.  It was in the midst of this tempest that Ellen sneaked up behind Howie and pinned her pink feathered roach clip on his belt loop.  Howie had absolutely no clue and went back into the back closet to get something, wagging his roach clip tail behind him.  Normally I didn’t take any kind of joy in others being tormented, being no stranger to torment myself, but this visual was so outrageously funny that the entire class was laughing themselves to tears and I was laughing right along with them. 

The science closet had a locking door on it.  A key was required to open the door from either side.  The key was on Howie’s desk as he usually left the closet door open.  Just when the visual of the roach clip tail couldn’t get any funnier, Ellen shut the door, locking poor Howie in the closet with no key.   The entire class (I hate to admit it but me included) was absolutely howling in uncontrollable laughter.

About  fifteen minutes later the principal showed up.  I can’t believe it took him that long to hear all the racket.  He immediately starts looking for Howie and then he hears the frantic pounding from inside the science closet.  Howie was eventually set free, but it took the principal awhile to find the key on the desk.  Rumor had it that Howie resigned from the school system following that school year from hell and got a job driving a bread truck.  I don’t blame him one bit.

Middle school thoroughly sucked.  Also in eighth grade I had the misfortune of being placed with a classmate who had been in all kinds of trouble with the law and technically should have been in Juvenile Hall- he was sixteen, still in eighth grade, and he was a pervert.  Granted, all sixteen year old boys are perverts to a degree, but this lecherous freak was way too close to me- the only thirteen year old in eighth grade with a 36C chest.  Every morning before home room this nasty dude would chase me around trying to grab said chest to the chant of “titty, titty, titty.”   This dude scared me half to death- but there was no way in hell I was going to let him grab me.  One morning he was particularly randy and had gotten very close to getting his wish.  It didn’t help that the other boys were egging him on.  Then my best friend decided she’d had enough of his behavior, so she tripped him.  He grabbed back at her, knocked her down and broke her leg.  The part of this that really torqued me was that she got in trouble for fighting as well as the pervo which in my mind was completely unfair.  I don’t agree with the common school rule that both parties in a fight get punished.  In my opinion there is an instigator and a victim and no one should face a penalty for defending themselves or for defending someone else who is being victimized.  So she got to finish out the school year in a cast.  The pervo ended up being expelled because he had caused so much additional trouble in the school, so that at least was a good thing.

I had a few small victories in middle school, but the best thing about it is that it is long since over. There were too many mornings of being thrown head first into garbage cans, stuffed into lockers, and being chased by a pervert.

There are those who say that they would like to be young again.   I would only want to be young again with one caveat- that I could be young again knowing what I know now.  I think I’d have a lot more fun with it.  Middle age has its disadvantages, but for the most part cougardom is a lot more comfortable.  I don’t worry about impressing anyone, and I don’t think I have to worry about being tossed into garbage cans, stuffed into lockers or being chased by perverts.   I don’t have to wear my sisters’ old clothes nor do I have to put up with guys asking for my phone number to call them for dates. 

Dear God: I like to be lazy and watch tv and eat food

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This kid’s prayer is positively hilarious, which is why I had to pass it along:

I like to be lazy and watch tv and eat food.

Oh, Steve-o… are you sure this lady didn’t get your sermon note by mistake?

This is definitely a Dude Prayer. No female would write a prayer like this, especially one raised by an old school Catholic mother who made you feel guilty for not being thankful for day old tuna casserole served over burnt mashed potatoes with big black flakes in them.  (How many times did I hear,”You should thank God you HAVE food!” and Mom meant it.)  No female I know would have written this prayer, regardless of age, not even a girl raised in a more “Jesus loves me” type Protestant tradition.  

I remember if you were doing an assignment on prayer for CCD- first you would go with the standard rote prayers such as the Our Father and Hail Mary.  Those were Safe Prayers.  If you had to make up your own prayers, you pretty much came up with the obligatory prayers for the conversion of heathens (i.e. Protestants…) and for starving children in Africa.  If you had the gall to write a prayer asking God for a pony, or a prayer asking God to send your sadistic older siblings to Africa with the starving kids, then Sister Mary Refrigerator Perry (and I think she was actually bigger than the football player and a lot more ugly) would call your Mom and you would be dragged to Confession so you could tell Father Whoever Was Hearing Confessions That Day how evil and selfish you were.   

Father Furey was the only priest with a sense of humor.  Everyone wanted to get Father Furey at Confession time.  He would usually laugh and tell you to pray to the Holy Spirit to help you do better. I think if Jesus had been a priest He would have been like Father Furey.  He had a lot of compassion for human frailty, especially kids’.  The other priests weren’t usually as forgiving, and one in particular would go on and on about all the stuff you have to do to cut down your time in purgatory.  (I became a Lutheran in high school, BTW…Martin Luther had a point- 95 of them, to be specific!)

I would never have written out a prayer as an assignment in CCD that would make any insinuation that I might be proud of the fact that I occasionally indulge in any of the Seven Deadly Sins (Pride, Greed, Envy, Anger, Lust, Gluttony and Sloth), let alone both gluttony and sloth.  I did not want Mom to get a phone call from Sister Mary Refrigerator Perry (the director of Religious Education,) for any reason, and I tried to avoid going to Confession any more than the one time a month when Mom made us go.   My childhood prayers mostly consisted of asking God to forgive the sins I couldn’t remember doing so I wouldn’t die and go straight to hell, and asking Him not to send me to hell for wishing my sisters would either run away or drop dead.   I remember when I was reminded to pray, thanking God for puppies and kittens, and thanking Him for those few and far between days when my sisters didn’t have the opportunity to beat the hell out of me.  Hell was quite the ongoing theme in my childhood.  Prayer, and religion in general, to my childhood mind, was all about avoiding hell.

There is so much more to Christianity than avoiding hell.  I appreciate the kid’s honesty though.  Who doesn’t want to watch TV and eat? 

Jesus told the disciples to let the little children come to Him- not to scare them away with hellfire.  I believe there is a literal hell, and Jesus Himself said that apart from Him that’s where I would be headed,  but there is so much more to God and life and relating than simply avoiding hell.  I would rather come to Jesus just like this little boy did- honestly.  I am one of those people who has done a lot of theological questioning over the years.  Mom was none too thrilled when I joined the ranks of the “heathens” (to be fair, Catholics now refer to Protestants as “separated brethren,” which is a little nicer sounding than “heathen”) but I had to be honest with my own heart, my own relationship with God and how He is helping me understand it.  There were too many things specifically in Catholicism that I couldn’t reconcile in my heart and mind to honestly profess to be Roman Catholic.  I’m certainly not the model Christian by any stretch of the imagination, but my upbringing forced me to ask questions- to “seek, knock and ask” because I saw so many apparent contradictions between my very old school Vatican I Catholic mother and my very fundamental old time Baptist grandmother.  I come to find out that neither “side” is completely “right” or completely “wrong.”  They share far more in common than most people realize.  No one “side” has a corner on the truth- and the starting point is that of the little child.  Honesty.  The little child doesn’t get the starving kids in Africa.  I know I did wish a lot of evil on both of my sisters.  I liked eating and watching TV as much as the next person.  The cool part about this is God already knows that, but He wants to love and work through us anyway.  We come to Him as we are and then HE makes us what He created us to be.

Now that’s an honest prayer!

Diabolical Sabotage, How Not to Get Things Done, and Basically Farting Off

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I really wanted to Get Something Done today.  Yeah, right.  So far I’ve been mollycoddling idiots, which is not my favorite thing to do.  It’s a few rungs above cleaning cat boxes, or my least favorite activity- which would have to be anything involving cleaning and sorting and/or getting dirty.  I am glad as hell I don’t have to go outside to work, and I am thankful for many other things I don’t have to do.  Still, it gets old when you’ve told the fifteen thousandth ass-pilot of the day that their stuff is not there yet because they are in the middle of a snowstorm.  Your route may potentially be delayed if the freeways are down to 10 miles an hour and zero visibility.  Look outside, you jackwagons!

Anyway I generally don’t like to fart off but my attention span is about that of paint right now.  As soon as I try to concentrate and get something done someone pesters me with something stupid, something that can wait, something I have no control over, etc. and so on.  If we weren’t short handed today I’d put my phone on voice mail and then see how many people solved their own problem/answered their own questions tomorrow.  I would say 85% of the people I talk to with an “urgent” problem either a.) have the answer to their own problem, or b.) are totally farking clueless to begin with, or c.) need to be talking to someone who can actually address their problem and do something about it.   The other 15% usually have a legitimate bitch, and/or something I can actually fix.  So I’m glad I don’t talk to people as much as I used to.  I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again, intelligence is a constant, the population is growing. Unfortunately my patience with stupidity is shrinking which is probably not a good thing, being that stupidity is becoming ever more common.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

OK.  I’ve released some of my frustration with the unwashed masses of humanity.

I am generally not the “huggable” type, even on a good day.  What I would really like to do is go home and have a nice quiet evening of “Dirty Jobs,” cop shows and Chinese takeout.  Unfortunately these are the kind of days I come home to Mr. Drama Queen going off on how someone said something to hurt his feelings at work, so he’s got crank up the stereo, stay up until 1AM and drink a case of Natties to forget about it.

Well, back at it.   I might get something done before the end of the day but I doubt it very seriously.

Grab the Velveeta Cheese and Marlboros! The White Death Approacheth!

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A friend of mine worked in the Kroger’s store in Marion, and she claimed that whenever there was a threat of a snow storm the store would always run out of Velveeta cheese and Marlboros.  In normal places I would assume that milk and bread would go first, but I’ve noticed here in the greater Columbus area it’s not the weather but the time of the month that determines grocery store shortages.  Never, ever go to the grocery during the first week of the month.  Stock up around the middle of the month, especially if you want the stuff you can’t normally afford like beef or seafood.  The only people I know of who are eating steak and shrimp are buying said delicacies with the food stamp card.  I know it sounds cynical, but the reason why working people are thinner is because they are paying for everyone else to sit at home on their fat arses eating the food that working people can’t afford.

Granted, some people are on public assistance due to circumstances beyond their control.  Not everyone is working the system in a dishonest way.  I understand that.  But it does grate me the wrong way when I see the system being abused.  I’m paying for that, as well as I’m paying for a lot more government graft and waste, which is why all I can afford is the day old sale meat and ground turkey.

The Obama lovers wonder why conservatives are pissed.

Anyway, on a brighter note (after having to have a course of antibiotics for a Clara-inflicted neck puncture) Sheena has finally been pronounced free of any funky regrowths since her spay surgery/partial mastectomy.  That makes me very happy although she will have to be watched carefully for mammary growths for the rest of her life.  It’s highly unlikely they will recur since she no longer has a source of estrogen to feed them.

Now I simply have to try to keep Sheena and Clara from fighting.  It’s one of the harder things about having multiple dogs.  They can and do fight.  Clara fought with Lilo at first too.  The bad thing with Sheena is that when she fights she’s taking a  knife to a gunfight.  She’s uncoordinated and has worn down canine and incisor teeth.  Clara has a perfect set of teeth and spot on coordination.  It’s never a fair fight. I just hope Sheena figures that out very soon.  Clara doesn’t normally start it but she will finish it.

I’m not a sports fan but this is funny.  A big ol’ portion of crow for the president of OSU, eh?

elysianhunter’s Wide World of Sports, cont., Limited Time Offers, and Political Commentary (a Bit to the Right of Reagan)

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I don’t mean the above as an insult to Special Olympics.  I’m glad that there is a venue for those with physical and/or mental challenges to participate in sports activities if they so choose. It’s great to encourage people to overcome obstacles and work hard to get healthy, have fun and achieve a higher goal.  However, the idea of the mentally challenged engaging in a motorsport seems a bit counter intuitive.  I’ve yet to see a chainsaw sculpture competition for people with tremor disorder. I hope nobody ever thinks of that one, because Jerry with a chainsaw could be a very dangerous thing. I don’t know of chess tournaments for those in a vegetative state, or beauty awards for old cougars with bodies that look like roadmaps of Atlanta either. 

Ohio State actually won the Sugar Bowl last night.  I dozed off around 9:30 or so.  I read it in the news this morning.  So now everyone can shut up about Terrelle Pryor and company getting caught hawking memorabilia and getting free tattoos- at least until next football season.

The more I think about it, I don’t think either chess or beauty pageants are technically considered sports.  I could possibly gain an interest in chess, if I had the time, motivation and a worthy opponent.  Chess requires a strategic mind. The closest I get to honing my strategic abilities is in playing freecell and other variants of solitare.  My oldest sister did the beauty pageant thing only to discover two important truths: 1.) There actually are people more vapid and self-absorbed than she was in high school, and 2.) Beauty is generally not compatible with brains.  The beauty pageant crud is also incredibly expensive.  By the time you buy the dresses and the makeup and hairdos you’ve spent a small fortune, but that’s just the beginning of the indignities. To me, the exquisite torture of being confined for inordinate lengths of time with a bevy of dingy bimbos who would like nothing better than to rip out your throat and crap down your neck is even worse than parting with boatloads of cash.  I would pay boatloads of cash to avoid confinement with dingy bimbos if I had to do so to preserve my sanity. 

Thinking about the beauty pageant tomfoolery almost makes me glad I never had a daughter, and that my son is the Straightest Man in the World.  Just ask him.

Apparently chess and beauty pageants aren’t sports, but bowling, billiards and poker are considered sports, at least on ESPN.  Poker I would have to put in the NASCAR category of “non-athletic” sport.  If it were possible to get ripped by sitting on my ass and playing cards, believe me, I’d be learning poker with the quickness.  The same goes for driving around in a continuous left turn with the pedal to the floor for 500 miles.  If I could drive my way to a buff bod, believe me I’d be on it.   I wouldn’t mind continuous driving except for one thing.  If a race is four hours long, do they wear a Depend under their racing outfit?  I don’t know of very many people who can drive for 500 miles without having to take a whiz.   Maybe they have empty Mountain Dew bottles to whiz in, like truckers do.  

Billiards (or pool) might have a bit of athleticness to it, as you do occasionally have to stretch across the table to make those awkward shots.  I thoroughly suck at shooting pool.  Bowling also requires some physical coordination, which is why I completely suck at bowling.  Even though I suck, I do like to go bowling occasionally.  I’m doing really good if I can score 100 or more.  My bowling scores are usually more like 48, 71, or 82.

I have to love the “limited time offers” I see on infomercial TV.  Probably the most hokey one I’ve seen (other than the foot washer and the pecker pump) is for colorized two dollar bills.  Basically someone thinks I am going to pay $10 plus freight for $4.  Not in this lifetime.

I try not to follow the doings of British royals too closely.  Americans don’t have royalty, but we have Hollywood, and that’s far worse.  I try not to follow Hollywood either.  Even though I am not enamored of inbred Europeans, and I generally don’t follow their escapades,  I think  the “limited time,”  “As Seen on TV” horrible knockoff of Princess Diana’s engagement ring is beyond tacky.  I can only hope that Prince William takes after his mother and not his creepy dad. It would be sad if he treats Kate as bad as old creepy Charlie treated Diana.   Ultimately Charlie got even creepier Camilla.  Charlie and Camilla are a far more appropriate match.  Eww.

On one hand, it seems to be a lovely gesture for William to give his fiancee his mother’s engagement ring.  It’s worth a huge amount of money (unlike the cheap gumball machine knockoff advertised in the commercial) but to me, considering the trainwreck Diana’s marriage was, I would consider that ring accursed.  I don’t even want a cheap gumball machine copy that will turn my finger green and has a slide adjust so it “fits any size.”  Anyone who pays $20 plus freight for this is a.) asking to share in someone else’s 30 year old curse, and b.) is stuck with yet another worthless piece of poorly made costume jewelry.

I might like it better if it were amethyst instead of sapphire, but that’s just me.  I’m not a big believer in costume jewelry with the exception of funky earrings.  If I’m going to bother to wear rings, bracelets, necklaces or watches, I want decent stuff that won’t turn me green or fall apart.  Otherwise, I just don’t need it.

The “limited time” offers seem to drag on forever and ever.  I mean, how long is Billy Mays going to be selling stuff from beyond the grave? I can imagine his Oxy Clean and Awesome Auger commercials are still going to be aired twenty years from now, and there will still be warehouses full of that crap for the hawking.  When you think they’re gone, they magically reappear, announcing for the fourth or fifth year in a row, that it’s imperative to call in the next ten minutes- to buy crap that has been sitting in some warehouse gathering dust since the Clinton administration.  I hadn’t seen the Lipozene commercial for some time, until last weekend, when it reappeared in its original form, where you pay $30 for a 60 day supply.  I tried it a few years ago, when I was just a little less cynical and had a little more money than I do now.  It doesn’t work.  Anything that sounds too good to be true generally is. 

I’ve said it many times that I am politically slightly to the right of Reagan.  I am deeply concerned that the political correctness BS has gone amok yet again.  For those who don’t know what political correctness is, I do have a summary.  If I knew who originally wrote it, I would give due credit, but I don’t. Rumor holds that the following definition was written by the winner of a Texas A&M contest in 1997, but I can neither prove nor disprove it.  I do, however, agree with it:

“Political Correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.”

This being said, it is downright offensive to me (but who cares when a Christian or a conservative is offended, eh?) that a distinguished Navy captain can be dismissed for some off-color videos recorded several years ago for the entertainment of his troops.  The videos may have been in poor taste, but shouldn’t the punishment fit the “crime?” It seems a bit ironic that DADT was repealed, and then *all the sudden* no one in the military can make any kind of remark (in jest or otherwise) regarding homosexuals.  I find it offensive that certain special protected groups have more right to be offended than the majority.  Nobody cares about offending a law abiding, native-born, conservative WASP, but just stand back and watch the fireworks when someone says something derogatory about Obama’s pet groups- such as gays, minorities, illegal immigrants, or convicted felons!

The Navy captain incident was bad enough (but again, nobody cares because he appears to be a native born conservative WASP type) but now a jail employee (presumably also a native born conservative WASP who nobody cares about) has been suspended for saying the “Obama Prayer.”  I need this T-shirt. 

The shirt says:

Pray for Obama

Psalm 108:9

Psalm 108:9, in the King James Version, reads:

“Let his days be few; and let another take his office.”

AMEN!

What native born, conservative WASP isn’t praying this prayer or something very similar?

Winter in Central Ohio, Beauty is Where You Find It, I Am the Anti-Football Fan

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I have a hard time finding anything beautiful in a Central Ohio winter.  We don’t get snow like those up around the lake do.  Most of the month of December we had a very small amount of snow cover, which is not typical here, but most of the time winter is simply cold, wet (precipitation forms will vary, but precipitation is a factor on most days) and dark. I can deal with cold and wet, but it’s the dark that gets to me.  It’s dark in the morning when I leave for work and dark when I get home.  Most days are overcast even at high noon so even the daylight hours are usually subdued.  I took this pic at about 5:15 last night.  The pink sky (and the bit of lingering daylight) intrigued me.  Despite rush hour traffic (which sucks) I had to snap off a pic if only for the rarity of a nominally clear sky and no precipitation falling from it.

Beauty is where you find it.

Technically I understand that after the winter solstice (December 21 or thereabouts) the amount of daylight starts to increase by a minute or so every day, until summer solstice (June 21 or so) but during January and February it’s hard to convince me that life isn’t just one big long dark night.

Tonight is a Big Deal among my friends who are into Ohio State Football.  I am not a football fan by any stretch- sure I’m glad they are playing the Sugar Bowl and all that, but I just can’t get ramped up about football.  So I will be nice and rested tomorrow morning, as I am planning on getting to bed nice and early, so I can taunt my hungover co-workers who I know are going to stay up until 1 AM drinking beer and woofing at the TV screen.  Not me.  I’m watching Dirty Jobs.  Later I might troll on over to History Channel or TruTV to see what’s on there.  I might as well get an education.

Cincinnati gets snow even less often than Columbus, but this is the view from my sister’s house on Christmas.  It’s unusual to have a white Christmas in Cinci, so this was kind of cool.

Another Year, SSDD, Be a BOHICA, and Maintenance of the Status Quo

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No one could ever accuse me of being an optimist.   I may be a realist on my best days, a pragmatist most days, and the darkest pessimist on my worst days.  Today I am at my normal level of pragmatism, so right now it’s maintenance of the status quo.  I’m still wondering how I am going to scrounge enough money to get through the month without having vital services shut off, going without either scripts or food or both, and avoiding overdraft charges on my checking account- again, maintenance of the status quo. 

By the grace of God.  Apart from that, I am completely hopeless.

I am usually a tad bit cynical after the holidays.  I’m glad it’s all over as I really don’t enjoy the holidays much.  Maybe it would be different if I’d had some sort of successful life.  Success is not all about financial success- though financial security certainly wouldn’t hurt.  I’ve  lost touch with most of my old friends, a good number of my favorite family members are dead, and Jerry is horrendous to deal with as he goes about jollily rehashing everything I have either failed at or haven’t done for whatever reason in the past 20 years.  Yesterday I had pretty much had it with his incessant whining about food or laundry or the dogs and I decided I would just take off to Mom and Dad’s for the day after church.  He was mad that I didn’t call him but I didn’t call because he would have guilted me into either coming back home first and getting stuck with breakfast detail,  or I’d end up getting guilted into cutting my trip short because there was nobody home to fill the ice trays.

There must be something on that missing part of the male “Y” chromosome that renders human males unable to refill ice trays.  It is a little thing, but annoying as hell when all you have to do is rinse out the trays, fill them with water, and put them back in the freezer.  Since it takes three or four hours for the water to freeze, it makes sense to use the ice, then refill the ice tray so there will be ice the next time someone needs it.  However, in Jerry logic, “I figured if I put them in the sink, you’d refill them,” seems to be an acceptable answer.

If I were to take the same approach to getting things done as Jerry does to filling the ice trays, I could rationalize my whole life away.  It’s the magic solution to having other people do everything for your lazy ass!  Maybe I can try this one- “I figured if I ran out all the gasoline in your truck, you’d refill it.”  That one would go over splendidly for sure.  Better yet, “I figured if I let your dirty clothes pile up until you have nothing left to wear but a pair of whitey tighties with sprung elastic and a big old racing stripe stain up the butt, that you might actually take it upon yourself to learn how to wash your own damn clothes for a change.”

I’m not holding my breath. He would probably take to wearing my clothes instead, which is a visual nobody needs.

I forgot one of the handy acronyms from the texting cheat sheet: BOHICA, or Bend Over Here It Comes Again.  This acronym dates back at least until the early 1980’s.  I remember seeing it on one of Dad’s buddy’s girlie posters in his home body shop.  This dude did amazing paint work and custom restorations- VW’s, Detroit iron, motorcycles, you name it, but he had a real taste for tacky soft porn as was reflected on the walls of his shop.  Back in the day those who worked in automotive were almost exclusively male, so parts stores, dealerships and supply houses would sponsor girlie calendars and posters as promotions for their products.  Today it is considered a bit gauche to sell automotive parts and accessories by placing them next to a nude or nearly nude buxom bimbo, (who likely had absolutely no idea what the carburetor or header or cylinder head she was holding up was used for) but it was common practice then.  Anyway, I remember seeing the BOHICA acronym on one of his bimbo pin up’s T-shirts, with a caption below it spelling it out, and I thought it was funny.  It is a testament to my naivete at the time that I thought that it referred to spankings.  I guess it could, for the S&M fetishist.  Crack that whip, baby!

There is much more to be said for a woman with a mind than for physical beauty .  Beauty is fleeting, but stupid is forever.  Once the beauty is gone, and the pretty young thing is neither, all you’re left with is stupid.  I hope Steve-o gets this through his thick skull, and believe it or not, after his foray into the world of the 34DD bimbos with nothing upstairs, I think he has.   This is probably what starts the whole mid-life crisis for some dudes, when they turn their now frumpy 45 year old in for a 21 year old version.  The irony to this is they don’t have enough sense to see the writing on the wall and realize that bimbo #2 will be just as frumpy and probably even more stupid than bimbo# 1 in 20 years.  I’ve seen it with dudes too, and that’s even more sad.  I’ve seen way too many drop dead gorgeous dudes who are dumber than a box of rocks, but more cocky than a chicken coop.  They attract women like flies, treat them like shit, and move on.  The problem is that twenty years later, when the hot dude is transformed into a balding, paunchy old lecher, he doesn’t have enough sense to know that he’s not hot anymore, so Mr. Formerly Hot Stuff still struts around, grossing everyone out, when he has nothing left worth strutting.  That’s just plain disgusting- unless of course Mr. Formerly Hot Stuff has money, and then the young bimbos seem to have the fortitude to overlook the beer gut, lack of hair and/or teeth, cocaine habit, and dragon breath.

I guess money could overcome a multitude of flaws.  Maybe this is what Hugh Hefner’s fiancee is thinking.  What she doesn’t realize though, is that the Hef could potentially live another 20 years.  I could see him living to be 104. It would serve her right. 

One advantage to being plain and frumpy and poor like me is that you know who your friends are.  I have very few friends, but then again I don’t have much to offer.  I can, however, refill the ice trays.

I must have a purpose!

I’ve been called an ice queen before.  SSDD!