Month: August 2014

A Fair Assessment? and Judgment vs. Mercy

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Newborn_human_child

I admit I’m biased in favor of life.  Especially when I hear of freaks like this.  I don’t have sympathy for women who treat their newborns like trash, (or their unborn children, for that matter) especially if they live in states that allow you to turn in a newborn at a hospital or fire station with no questions asked.  You might not want the kid, but someone else does.  More importantly, that kid deserves some sort of a chance.  There are millions of people who can’t have kids of their own for whatever reason who would be delighted to take your “unwanted” child in as their own.

All I can say to that is- unless she is profoundly mentally challenged, or suffering from an extreme mental illness- : selfish bitch.

aliciaenglert

So you were afraid your parents might think you’re a slut? I can almost understand that mentality from a 12 year old, but from someone who’s 23?  Besides, I’d rather my parents think I’m a slut than for them to discover that I’m an attempted murderer.

I was 22 when my son was born.  Yes I was (at the time) married to the sperm donor.  However, my son was not planned, and the timing was awkward at best.  Even so, it wasn’t a difficult choice- my son’s life and well-being took precedence over mine, and my son’s life and well-being definitely took precedence over my sorry excuse of an ex as well as said ex’s mother.  That’s a long story and I am not entirely without fault, but even as a rather emotionally impaired specimen, I have some sense of when to do what’s right rather than what appears to be expedient- or even logical.

I’m not even one of those people who is thrilled about being around kids.  One on one is OK, but not a whole gang of kids at one time.  I have no clue what a normal childhood is supposed to look like other than what I gleaned from the child development charts and so forth that I pored over in the hopes that my child might possibly turn out to be normal– or at least gainfully employed, and not a serial killer.   So far- and solely by the grace of God- my sorry parenting seems to have worked out.  He does have a job and as far as I know he hasn’t killed anyone.  As far as being normal, well, at least he is a good conversationalist, and he has good hygiene.  Then again, the same could be said of Ted Bundy, so you never know.

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Ted looked normal, but then, sociopaths usually do.

Even though I could never categorize myself as a warm-and-fuzzy mommy, I tried.  My son, the precious only male child, did thank me for being a hard ass.  That was probably the most rewarding thing he has ever said to me. It’s easy to just capitulate and give your kids what they want and attempt to shelter them from anything that might bruise their precious, fragile self-esteem.  It’s hard to say no, to set boundaries, to instill a work ethic, and to adhere to certain moral absolutes, but your kid isn’t supposed to be your “buddy.”  Maybe when they’re adults, but not when they are still kids and are still discovering why shampooing one’s hair and brushing one’s teeth daily are essential, mandatory life practices.

brush teeth

Mandatory: not negotiable, and NOT optional!

Our current societal mentality is all about what’s comfortable, what’s easy and what’s disposable.  Raising a child is not comfortable, not easy, (not cheap either) and 23 years later, he still “needs mommy” but, thankfully, not in the same way he did as a toddler.  I don’t have to bathe him or change shitty diapers, which is definitely a plus.

I don’t think the Roe v. Wade decision did much to make people see that children are valuable, but as heinous as the idea of killing innocent children for convenience sake is, it’s a symptom of a larger, age old problem.

It’s all about the pervasive view that, “It’s all about me,”- the temptation of the Garden.  “I can have it all,” or as the serpent in the story tempts Eve- “you will be like God.” (Genesis 3:5)

German_Adam_and_Eve

It won’t make you God, but it will make your life a lot more complicated.

But isn’t hindsight 20/20?

Oh, yeah, we humans want to be our own gods. Believe that.  Call it “original sin,” or “the depravity of man,” but that desire is the root and the essence of what’s wrong with humanity and society, and we can’t fix that longing because that’s written into who we are.

I know even though I find certain human actions to be reprehensible, that I am every bit as much a sinner and a violator as anyone else.  I don’t have the authority to pass judgment on other people, and I don’t want that authority either.  I know all too well that I don’t have much empathy, and I don’t have a high tolerance for stupid behavior.  I will comment on the actions of others- and I do have the authority to condemn certain actions, even though I have no way of discerning the thought processes and motives behind those actions.

The only answer I have for that is: Kyrie elaison – God have mercy, Christ have mercy.

Have mercy on us all.

Tuna, Tab and a Twinkie

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Tuna-Sandwichestabtwinkie

 

Navin Johnson’s (Steve Martin’s character in the iconic film, The Jerk ) meal that his adopted mother served him on his birthday was a tuna sandwich wrapped in cellophane, a Tab and a Twinkie.  Most of my favorite things are like that- simple, cheap and uncomplicated.  I  share Navin’s enthusiasm for Tab, and I like a good tuna melt from time to time, although I’ve not had a Twinkie in at least ten years.

classy

I’d like to admit to complicated tastes, as in: oh, yeah, I sit around drinking vintage Cabernets and imported cheese while conversing about world history and literature with influential and erudite people.   I study some rather obscure and esoteric subjects (have you seen my collection of 19th century postmortem pics, for instance) from time to time, but in social circles, I’m not that good of a performer. I’m not that pretentious. Since I am pathetically socially inept, and not at all well connected, my evenings are usually spent watching Jerry empty out the Natties, go from just a little drunk, to full-on fall-over shitfaced drunk, as he attempts to argue philosophy with the dogs.  Jerry is not an eloquent conversationalist even when he’s stone cold sober.  Alcohol does not enhance his verbal communication skills.

Natty

FYI: Natty does NOT make you an enchanting conversationalist.  Ever.

Jerry isn’t the greatest company, but he is predictable at least.  He tolerates my eccentricities, which is saying a lot. It’s easier that way, and I don’t have to worry about what to wear or whether or not I am avoiding eye contact again.   To him, I’m just the tepid body that pays the cable bill and medical bills, buys food, and wanders around cleaning up the beer cans.  He’s doing good to refrain from calling me Mildred and asking me about my diarrhea, but that’s OK.  I’ve been married to him for 19 years and neither one of us has succeeded in killing each other or making good on threats made in the heat of anger to leave,  so it must be all good.

I don’t know what to make of current events.  Robin Williams committing suicide was just plain bizarre, although I can certainly attest to the truth that comedy is the flipside of tragedy.  We shouldn’t really be surprised that comedians invariably suffer with depression and all the psychological baggage that goes along with it.  Humor is a defense mechanism. Usually the funnier a person comes across, the more tragedy that person has endured. Most of the time I try to laugh to keep from crying- or to fill that awkward void when I just don’t have the words or when that proper, polished façade just doesn’t materialize when I need it to.

man in pink tank

This dude must have had some pretty serious childhood trauma to try to rock the Daisy Dukes AND the crop top.

Perhaps it is better to elevate sarcasm to an art form than to take out one’s pain and hurt and anger in more destructive ways.  I don’t want to hurt anyone, especially in the ways that I have been.  It might be a bit mean-spirited to show pics of people who have made unfortunate fashion/life choices, but hey, you set yourself up for those.  If I appeared in public looking like a crack ho, or morbidly obese and/or otherwise badly dressed, then someone posting my sorry ass pic online should be a wake up call, a sort of, “Get your shit together, bi-atch!” statement.  I would be asking for it.

Now, going as a Twinkie for Halloween might actually be funny, but I don’t think that was this chick’s intent.

twinkie

Sort of like a Twinkie, anyway.

Rage, Rage, at the Dying of the Light, and Please Let Me Go Suddenly…

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baby cradle

I wonder- sleeping? dead? doll?

There is something just not right, something incomplete and unfair, in an untimely death.

A good friend of ours, who claimed at one point to be an atheist, died Saturday night.  It was not a pretty death (if there is such a thing) nor was it a quick or painless death.  The poor man had dealt with cancer for the past four years- a bout of colon cancer that almost killed him back in 2010, and the stage 4 lung cancer he was diagnosed with back in April that finally spread throughout his body and slowly, painfully and agonizingly did him in.  To greatly summarize the gory story, this guy spent the past month jacked up on every narcotic known to man, and was almost always straight out of his mind due to the cancer spreading to his brain.  Nothing could quiet the unimaginable pain associated with cancer spreading like wildfire, not even the Tramadol and morphine and whatever other heavy duty drugs that the hospice people have at their disposal.   Cancer is a pretty shitty way to die by all accounts.  I don’t say that to trivialize his pain or the pain that his widow is still going through and reliving all those horrors, but words just can’t paint an accurate enough picture.  I pray to God that I don’t die that way, and that I would be spared the awful reality of being a primary caretaker of a loved one dying that way, because I don’t have that kind of courage or strength.

Since everyone has to die, I could only ask to go the way my maternal grandmother did- suddenly, via a massive stroke that took her from walking, talking and being completely normal to being pretty much dead as a doornail in an instant.  It really sucked for the rest of the family, but it actually gives me some peace knowing that she didn’t linger around and suffer for months or years, slowly and painfully deteriorating until she was unrecognizable.

Stephen King said it in his book Pet Sematary: Sometimes dead is better.

pet sematary

I am not in any hurry to take the Dirt Nap- nor am I in any hurry for anyone else I care about to bite the big one either- but I still have a really hard time with suffering, and watching people sort of fade and melt away before my eyes.

Maybe that’s what that whole “mid-life crisis” thing is- understanding that personal mortality is about more than just the Dirt Nap- it’s the little bites of decay and loss and downhill slide of entropy that we endure every day.  Things like the realization that my eyes don’t adjust to close vision when I have my glasses on, or that the people I went to high school with look like my Dad’s friends- and that a good number of my Dad’s friends are dead.

The places are either gone or drastically changed, and that’s not even been from the distant past.  I usually don’t have too many reasons to go downtown- save for the paper nightie appointment once a year- because I go to a different primary care Dr. and his office isn’t downtown.  Yesterday I decided to take my granddaughter to the art museum (which I must recommend, as they have lots of fun stuff for kids) and I was amazed on the way down High St. to take her back home at observing the OSU campus.  At least temporarily, campus has been de-skankified and yuppiefied almost beyond recognition.   I think they’re trying to overcome their reputation of being the Midwest’s #1 school to get robbed and raped.  Good luck with that.  Especially on the night of the Michigan game.  Leave your car- and yourself- at home.  Watch the game, if you must, on TV.

Of course, campus gets a makeover about once every 20 years.  It will take about a year or so for the current renovations to get trashed, and when you think it can’t get any nastier, some builders come in with bulldozers, raze most of it, and start again.

Maybe that’s what’s going on with me.  I could use a renovation.

renovation

Home improvement is nowhere to be found in my box of talents.  Believe that.

I would like to expand my education- not necessarily in a formal way, because, sadly, most so-called institutions of learning are all about the almighty dollar and/or all about filling young people’s heads with socialist/globalist garbage.  Even poor Steve-o had to take two courses that I believed were total politically correct garbage- one course in “cultural sensitivity” and another on “our global economy.”  The first course mostly informed him that as a white male he is/was responsible for all of the evils in the world today, from inequality in the workplace to global warming (both concepts are crocks of crap, IMO.)  The second was supposed to be on economics but it ended up being a formalized diatribe on how industrialized nations are victimizing tribal peoples in third world holes, and how we should bury our cars and wipe with reusable cloths.  That would have been sort of funny, except that his major was automotive science. 

I think I will embark upon a self-directed expansion of knowledge, even though I know that my biases will play into that.  It’s no worse than a tech school requiring my son to take courses in BS to graduate.

Nuts! No Nuts, No Clue, and Screw You Too

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good nuts

Naturally good nuts.  That’s good, because we wouldn’t want artificial nuts.

neuticles1

Unless you’re the owner of a neutered male dog, and you take his loss of sexual potency way too personally.  There are, believe it or not, artificial nuts for neutered dogs.

I’ve never owned a male dog.  I’m of the opinion that female dogs generally are smarter, live longer and have fewer overall health problems- even though spaying a female is a lot more expensive and involved than neutering a male.  I have encountered more than a few male dogs that would make me hesitate to consider a male dog,  but in fairness I’ve also encountered a few that I really liked.  I find it really hard to dislike any dog, with the exception of my cousins’ psycho Chihuahua, Andy- but Andy’s been dead for nearly 40 years.   If anything, poor Andy was an argument against incessant inbreeding.

GoodbyeTesticles

You didn’t need them anyway.

I  may end up with a male dog someday, but I wouldn’t consider having an intact male, even though neutering doesn’t guarantee placid behavior.  Uno, the one-brown, one-blue-eyed, twisted little Shih-Tsu, who used to belong to my mother-in-law, positively tormented poor Isabel (who was a five pound, spayed, elderly, black cat) by chasing her all over the house and attempting to hump her constantly.  He was neutered, but that didn’t seem to matter to Uno and his Red Rocket.  I was glad when we found that guy a good permanent home- away from Isabel.  He was a sweet dog, but humping the cat (aside from being counterproductive) is just plain creepy.

I’ve had three male cats, and they weren’t at all bothered about being nutless.  Other than reduced longevity, (and males are bigger) I really don’t see much difference between spayed female cats and neutered male cats.   I think the male cats I had were secretly relieved of being culled from the gene pool and therefore set free of the obligation to -well- screw like tomcats.

cats

Thought I was going to post a gratuitous pic of feline copulation, eh?

Since I’m on the subject of nuts, (for what reason I have no idea) I have to comment on the illustrious, nutless wonder who is squatting in the White House.  Normally, I can’t stand to listen to Obama speak, and if I feel I must find out what kind of garbage he’s spewing, I just read the transcript later. Unfortunately I was subjected to the Wanna-be-Imperial One’s press conference regarding the Ebola epidemic and his African summit while I was waiting on my car to get serviced at the Toyota dealership.  Hindsight being 20/20, I wish that I had remembered my headphones, or that I had decided to wait outside.

Since I sat through every infuriating minute of it, I thought I would offer the rational person’s Cliff’s Notes on this particular address:

Let’s send billions more dollars in “aid” to Africa that will not be (and never is) used to do anything to ameliorate squalor, disease and poverty, but will be squandered on funding terrorists, supporting regional warlords, and  empowering garden-variety thugs.  While we’re at it, we’re just going to open our borders to every terrorist, scumbag and non-English speaking, uneducated indigent who can manage to traipse on in.   Because terrorists need love too?  Then the Naked Emperor cries and whines and wonders out loud why American corporations are clamoring to incorporate in foreign countries to avoid the evil IRS and its labyrinthine and oppressive tax system. 

Oh, and we can’t send the Ebola medicine to Africa because it’s experimental…and they might die from it.  Even though they are almost certainly going to die from the Ebola, why should we try giving a drug that might help?  Someone might sue us or something.

Really?

I almost threw up all over the customer lounge.   Thankfully by that time, my tire rotation and car wash were done and the service advisor had come to retrieve me.  I just hope they torqued my lug nuts to 76 ft lbs. like the owner’s manual suggests.

no clue

On the way home I had a few insights on B.O.’s asinine rhetoric.

1. Why are we spending a red dime to support any terrorist harboring country? I don’t give a flying fart in a high wind what’s going on there.  It’s not our problem. In fact, as cruel as it sounds, perhaps some of these third world holes could use some thinning of the herd.  Especially when foreign aid never seems to get where it’s supposed to go, and the poverty and desolation persists no matter how many billions of dollars are thrown at it.

2. Why do veterans go without medical treatment, and American citizens are taxed so heavily they can’t afford their own healthcare (even though they work for a living) while our government pisses away our tax dollars to support terrorists and others who only want to kill us and send the world back to the Dark Ages?  Americans’ money could be better spent on our own infrastructure and military, and to secure our borders against the terrorists and thugs, but what do I know?

3. Why is this illegitimate president still squatting in our White House?