dogs

musings about my dogs

Independence Day, Historical Education and Various Curiosities

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I think this poster to be a fitting theme for Independence Day.  I don’t particularly want to be a subject of King Obama I any more. Neither should anyone else with a brain.  Wake the eff up people!!!!

Oh, and WTF has this post not been saving for some bizarre reason?   This is attempt #3 and it’s really pissing me off.

Yesterday, because it was too hot for me to spend more than a few seconds outside,  I spent most of the day watching the History Channel’s series on the American Revolution, and I learned many interesting facts that either I had forgotten or that were hastily glazed over back when I studied American History in 7th grade.  I have a new sense of admiration for George Washington and his perserverance after watching that series.

Ronald Reagan took office when I was in 7th grade, (January 20, 1981) which was probably the most memorable event of 7th grade for me, so suffice to say a lot of time has passed since then.  I doubt if I had paid as much attention as I should have to history when I was 12 (I was probably paying more attention to Steve Perry than anything else at that time) but I probably remember more than most.

Now I really have to wonder about something.  Why is it the three biggest holes that I have had the bad luck to visit- Cleveland, Chicago and Detroit- have the most corrupt, nut job politicians ever?  Dennis Kucinich, until very recently, represented the Congressional district that includes Cleveland and the surrounding area.  Granted, Cleveland is not the biggest hole on the planet – Chicago is worse, and Detroit is the worst by far- but why do they keep reelecting nut jobs that help ensure that their hole stays a hole?

The only explanation I have, at least in Ohio, is the fact that public employees are pretty much owned by their unions- the unions drove out almost all of the heavy industry years ago, and with the exception of the UAW and a few others in private industry, the bulk of forced unionism in Ohio involves public employees.  So the unions have this huge base of campaign funding for their nut job candidates from their forced membership.  Sadder yet, is that the large majority of public employees in Ohio buy all the garbage their union PACs try so hard to sell.  Right to Work would solve some of the problem of high taxation and government waste and graft in Ohio, but with the captive audience and deep pockets the public employees’ unions have here, I hate to say there will be snowball fights in hell before that happens.  I am sure that most public employees in Ohio would be delighted to know that they have funded (and are funding) the Obama campaign, and they paid for our friend, Dennis Kucinich’s long tenure in Congress as well.

Ok, Dennis, we know if we wear our foil hats the Visitors can’t read our brain waves.  But Karl Marx still can.  He seems to be communicating with you just fine.

I had to deal with bottle rockets in the Cougar Pool again.  Now I think there’s a slow leak in the retaining ring that has caused most of the water to spill out too.  Beauty.  Ohio’s fireworks laws are really weird.  You can buy almost any firework known to man in Ohio- and the rednecks in the Drunk and Domestics do- as long as you sign a form that says you’ll be setting them off out of state.  Right…. These rednecks are going to go 100 miles in any direction to go across the border to set off their Roman candles, bottle rockets, etc.  That’s not happening.

I like fireworks as much as the next redneck, but not in town, and not when it disturbs my dogs so deeply.  I spent most of last night with a 65#, 101.6° bunkie, which was rather hot considering that it’s 95° outside at 10PM and the air conditioner is struggling to keep up.

Even poor Clara, the proud Malinois, is reduced to cowering up in Mommy’s bed when all that loud noise kicks in.  Sheena, however, does not give a damn.  She got all the pork rinds Jerry was giving out last night.

I wish Obama would stay out of Ohio.  It might cool down a bit when he leaves.

I’ve heard enough, thanks.  Go home.

Nothing Sucks Like a Bureaucracy, Speak English, and Ineptitude is a Constant

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My son wasted almost an entire Saturday farting around with upgrading his stinking phone.  I know he does everything on that damned thing, so it’s important to him that it works, but I ended up waiting around for him and his buddy to come back and ended up not being able to get the oil changed on my car.  That sort of pissed me off.  I ask for so little, and get screwed over so much.  Shame on me for allowing it to happen.  I need to get tougher.  I understand dealing with the phone company is a pain in the ass (which is why I tend to just do as much as I can with them online,) but I can only take so much of the negotiatory dance in one day.  I hate bureaucracies.  The cable company is just as bad, because you have to talk to thirty different people who tell you thirty different things before they get you to someone who actually knows something.  Then you have to bitch- obnoxiously- and negotiate rates with them and threaten to have your shit turned off at least once a year to get the good ‘ol boy pricing.  Whatever happened to loyalty discounts and so forth?  Why do I have to demand to talk to the supervisor and spend hours on hold and then hours arguing with someone seven states away (or in some God-forsaken third world hole) to get what I should be getting automatically without having to threaten and bitch about it?

I can deal with the cable company and the phone company a lot easier than dealing with any governmental or healthcare bureaucracy though.  Insurance companies of any sort (but especially health insurance) are the absolute worst to deal with, except for Dell Customer Service, who I will name, simply because I am convinced that everyone who works for Dell Customer Service lives in a ghetto in Mumbai and learned what few English phrases they know from watching Pee Wee’s Playhouse reruns.  Believe me, if he tells you his name is “Tom” or “Robert,” you can bet his given name is something that white Midwestern Americans can’t pronounce.  What amazes me (even more than the abysmal language skills) with these sort of bureaucratic systems is that no one knows anything.  Just what I need when I just bought a computer and I’m getting the Blue Screen of Death.  That actually happened to me once.  I ended up having to uninstall and reinstall Windows- yay!- after about 12 hours straight of farting about with these guys.

This is actually a screen saver.  It would likely keep others from farting with your computer.

If you don’t know anything, then why in the flying bejezzus are you answering the flipping phone?  The same philosophy applies to anyone who is supposed to be speaking with people whose first language is English.  If you can’t understand me and I can’t understand you, then what the hell is the point of the conversation?  Why in the hell am I repeating my account number, birth date and social security number fifteen dozen times if none of you idiots (providing you can understand enough English to have a clue as to what I’m saying to begin with) is able to find the information you need even when I provide my information so many times and in so many ways it brings me to the point of nausea?

This dog is NOT Sheena.  It has normal canine teeth, which Sheena does not have.  Otherwise this dog is Sheena’s doppelganger. However, I agree, dogs- even those as dim as Sheena- understand the English language better than a good number of redneck men.

My flaming type-A personality can’t take this degree of ineptitude for long, so I avoid these sort of “customer service” options like the plague.  My son is of a different temperment.  He thrives on pulling people’s chains and he takes delight in demanding to talk to supervisors and so forth, but I just don’t have it in me to be that crass.  It doesn’t come naturally for me.

Because my son belongs to a younger and more technically adept generation (and he is a hopeless techno geek anyway) he knows how to work his way through a bureaucracy, especially his cellular provider, who (for their protection,) I will not name.  I am not at all surprised.  He not only had the determination but the patience (which I do NOT possess, because I’d just say screw it and keep the old phone as long as I could at least call out and text on it) to end up more than likely talking with the CEO of the joint before all was said and done and he came back from the cellular store with the particular Android phone he wanted.   I’m still waiting until September for an upgrade. Hopefully I’ll be able to get a phone that doesn’t randomly call people for no apparent reason.  I’d also like to be able to get on Facebook with my phone, which I can’t do anymore, either because I don’t know how to install the software upgrade, or because my phone’s too old.   I should have opted for one of the Android phones the last time.  That way I could at least play Angry Birds if I get bored.

Yes, I am easily amused.

I have commented on the principle of entropy, which comes to us from the science of physics (too bad I can’t get with the math to be really good at understanding physics, but such is.)  Entropy is a high faluting way of putting forth the timeless assertion that as time goes on everything eventually turns to shit.  Ineptitude is one of those conditions that adds to entropy.  If entropy is what’s happening to the hillside that is eroding away into the sea, ineptitude is the torrential rain causing the friction and wear.

If you want an idea of the volume of ineptitude I experience in the course of a day: Visualize Niagara Falls.

Sheena Loves Cops, and Other Tidbits Better Left “TMI”

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Cops can also be creatures of habit.  I know a couple of them who love to park across the road and watch Jerry when he’s getting drunk and stupid out in the garage.

I’ve said before that my mentally challenged Husky mix, Sheena, has Issues.  One of Sheena’s passions is to escape the confines of our back yard (and it’s not that difficult considering it is surrounded by a rather elderly, oft-repaired fence) so that she can play with the kids at the Drunk and Domestic apartments behind the body shop.  Sheena has never met a human that I know of that she doesn’t like.

This mentality seems so foreign to me in a dog, especially because I am used to dogs being quite a bit more aloof.  Clara and Lilo have to be carefully introduced to new people and strange dogs.  You have to earn their trust.  Sheena is not like that at all.  She is a 75# galoot who will love you forever just for petting her.  This makes Sheena a bit more difficult to manage than the other two in some ways.  Unlike a normal dog she doesn’t really alert on strange people encroaching on her territory.  She only really barks when she wants to go out.

Jerry, as is typical for him, decided to get shitfaced last night.  Jerry being shitfaced is not news, but I was bound determined to get an early bedtime and at least try to get some sleep.

So I turned off the phone and shut the bedroom door at about 9PM, hoping at least for a quiet night.  I should know better.

Around 10:30 I hear incessant pounding on the front door.  Clara and Lilo start in going nuts barking and howling and wanting to eat whatever’s on the other side.  Jerry is running around with no shirt on babbling incoherently (thankfully he still had pants on) until I caught the word “cops” in the prattling.  So I put on enough clothing to be decent and go out to investigate.  Sure enough, there’s a cop car in the driveway, two cops on the porch, and Sheena’s sitting in the back seat of the cruiser sporting that shit-eating grin that only dim-witted dogs can completely pull off.

I apologized to the cops, (who must have really thought I was some kind of a nut job running outside in an old t-shirt and shorts with no makeup and my hair sticking straight up) thinking that either I’d be fined or otherwise in some kind of trouble, but they were cool about it.  They said Sheena was no problem at all, and she got in the car with them most willingly.  To their credit, they weren’t interested in making my life more difficult.  They just wanted to make sure Sheena got home safely.  They could have been dicks about it had they wanted to be- by rights, even though she is duly licensed, because technically she was neither confined nor leashed, they could have taken her down to the Dog Shelter and I’d had to gone to a rather unsavory part of town and paid $125 to retrieve her.  Yeah, it’s easier to just go around the corner and drop the dog off at home, because everyone at the D&Ds, and the cops, because of how often they are called out to the D&Ds, know whose dog it is.  Sheena is rather memorable if only because of her resemblance to the Abominable Snowman.

Close enough…

It’s a good thing Jerry generally doesn’t remember the nasty epithets that roll so easily off my tongue when I am rudely awakened- let alone rudely awakened and then left to deal with cops.   It’s also a good thing that Jerry had a shred of sentience back in that crude reptilian part of his brain that kept him from interacting with the cops, mouthing off, and getting his sorry butt carted off for drunk and disorderly.  In Ohio all it takes to get busted for drunk and disorderly, and to get to spend the night in the nearest correctional facility, is for a cop to see you shitfaced.  Jerry knows this from personal experience, and suffice to say that retrieving him from public custody would be far more expensive and unpleasant (and I would have to encounter a far more unsavory crowd) than trying to retrieve Sheena from the Dog Shelter.

Both Clara and Lilo are terrified of cops, especially two big burly ones like the ones who brought Sheena home, but Sheena seemed to like the attention.

I’m glad the cops had mercy on poor Sheena.  She’s had a rough enough life.  However, either Jerry needs to find Sheena’s current escape hole (not usually difficult as an uncoordinated 75# dog has to fit through it) and patch the fence (again,) or refrain from letting her out the front door (which considering how shitfaced he was last night is within the realm of possibility.)

Sheena’s Saga, Historical Lessons, and More Trolling for Ephemera

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Sheena is to canine intelligence as Larry, Moe and Curly are to rocket science.

Suffice to say that I am an incorrigible dog lover, and I regard my dogs in higher esteem than a lot of people I know.  That doesn’t speak well for a good portion of humanity, though it does speak well for dogs.  Even when I was a little kid I could get along with dogs just fine but I had a lot harder time dealing with the little bastards that used to chase me down and beat the hell out of me.   When the neighborhood kids used to chase me, if I could make it there in time, and I could climb the fence fast enough, I would hide out in the neighbor’s Rottie’s run.  The only thing I had to worry about from Rex (the Rottie) was being slobbered on and maybe a flea bite or two.   He was probably a 120# dog, and he scared the living bejeezus out of most of the kids, but I could sit down on the ground with him and play with him.  He had a big, thick rope with knots on the end in his run and he loved a good game of tug.  Sometimes he would let me win.

Dad caught me hiding out in the dog run one day and just about flipped out.  Rex didn’t like Dad too much, but I could do anything with him (Rex, that is.)

While Rottweilers look formidable, most Rotties are slobbery big babies- as long as you’re not intimidated by them, that is.

Sheena is a genuine charity case though.   She has Issues.   However, like Rex the Rottie, she’s large (75#) and looks intimidating (the kids in the Drunk & Domestic apartments behind the body shop think she’s a wolf, which is fine with me) but Sheena is not a dog I would consider to be a threat.   She generally regards humans as non-threatening, and she is all about making friends and getting food.  Even though Sheena is generally a dog I would put in the “harmless” category, I have to quantify the danger factor when I talk about dogs.  Their taxonomic name: canis lupus familiaris (= “house wolf”) says it all.  Domestic dogs- with all their variations in size, color, coat and demeanor- are merely a subspecies of the grey wolf (canis lupus lupus) and even after 15,000 years of domestication, we forget this fact to our peril.  Even the most non-threatening dog can be dangerous or even deadly given the right situation- but Sheena is a dog I would consider to be a very low risk to humans.

Sheena has nubbins for canine teeth and her incisors are worn to the bone from cage biting.  Her previous slack-jaw redneck idiot owners kept her in a 6X6 chain link pen and used her as a breeding machine.  By rights she should hate people, but she’s remarkably mellow. Strange people could break into my house, and Sheena would sit back and quietly observe the other two dogs tearing the invaders to shreds.  Clara and Lilo do not like unauthorized visitors, and either Jerry or I have to carefully introduce them to new people.  They are polite with people as long as either Jerry or I am around to supervise them, even if they don’t particularly like that person.  Even so, the only person we allow in the house if we aren’t there is Steve-o, because Clara and Lilo like him and will tolerate him in “their” house.   It’s a funny thing but I swear having him watch the dogs last year while I was in NC is part of the reason why I have my granddaughter. (I left them movies, but go figure…)  I can take any of my dogs to be boarded- Clara and Lilo are surprisingly compliant when they aren’t in their own territory, and all three of the girls have been perfect angels when they have had to stay at the Vet, but at $25 per day per dog…that ain’t happening in my world.  I don’t spend $75 a day on my own frigging motel room on the rare occasions I travel.   Usually I can find a good deal on a Days Inn on one of those travel websites, but it’s been awhile since I’ve had the luxury of pleasure travel.

Spot the Similarities: Boston, 1852 vs Arizona, 2012!

I  understand that people get their undies in a bunch about illegal immigration, and in these times of economic shittiness, as well as considering we have a presidential administration that doesn’t give a rat’s ass about preventing terrorism or upholding national security, I have to agree.  It is a matter of national security to keep terrorists, criminals and others who are a danger to society and a burden on the economy out of this country.  The American Patriot issue above from 1852 is disturbingly anti-Catholic, (I don’t necessarily go along with Catholicism in its entirety, but I have no problem with Catholics) but given that a good number of immigrants in 1852 were either Irish or Italian, the fact that they were foreign, that they were competing with local workers for jobs, that there were criminal elements involved and  they adhered to a “strange” religion didn’t help their cause.  Today, it doesn’t help the cause of Islam or the acceptance of Muslims that the perpetrators of 9-11 adhered to an extreme form of Islam.

I bet most of today’s high school students couldn’t pass the course offered at the Ford English School.

I don’t have a problem with legal immigration.  Henry Ford had a good model for that.  Learn English.  Assimilate into the prevailing culture.  Work and contribute to society.  Abide by the law.  The problem is that there is no set model for those who wish to come to this country and become legal citizens to follow.  There is no requirement for immigrants to learn the language or become gainfully employed.  When foreigners are allowed over here, they’re often given generous benefits for housing, starting businesses and other perks that are denied to the native-born.  Yeah, there’s a lot of resentment and fear toward illegals, a disdain for immigrants in general, and to a degree rightfully so.  Either follow the rules or go back to your third world hole.  Don’t bring the third world hole to us like Bill Clinton did when he brought half of Mogadishu to Central Ohio.

 

Sadly, weak leadership never leads anywhere good.  If only we would learn from the (bad) examples of former presidents Pierce and Buchanan.

I have bemoaned the fact for years that people have failed to learn from history.  Right now it would behoove the American public to learn from the weak leadership and atrocious policy making of the Pierce and Buchanan administrations of the 1850’s.  What people don’t understand is their poor leadership was a contributing factor to the Civil War.  Then again, most people have a very poor knowledge of 20th century history, let alone of the 19th century and earlier.

Granted, this country is not so much geographically divided as it is ideologically divided.   Weak (or should I say irresponsible and inept) leadership is exacerbating long standing ideological differences and creating a divide in this country every bit as venomous and as the ideological (and geographical) conflicts that lead to the Civil War.

Ask not for whom the bell tolls, indeed.

Nuptial Nuttery, Don’t Wanna Be a Bridesmaid, Don’t Wanna Be a Bride(zilla)

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At least someone’s getting some.

Nothing gets young twenty-and-thirty something women’s undies in a bunch like a wedding- especially their own, or God forbid, that of a family member or close friend.  I got railroaded into that mess exactly three times- once for my first ill-fated wedding, mostly courtesy of my mother, and twice for my sisters’ weddings- and I refuse to go through that noise again.  As far as I’m concerned if you must get married, then have the sentience of mind to just go the courthouse and let the Justice of the Peace du jour do it.  You can clue me in about it after the deed is done and I might be nice enough to score you a Target gift card or a free pizza or something.

  According to Steve-o, “If your pants are bigger than mine, I’m not getting in them.” If you see something like this on your wedding day, run like hell. Need I say more?

I wore a tie-dyed Toyota t-shirt, black shorts and shower shoes for wedding #2.  I’m glad I didn’t blow the scratch for high faluting clothes.  It was August and it was bloody hot.  I sincerely hope that the illustrious Steve-o and his daughter’s mother do actually get married- that would be nice- but I hope that they have the good taste to keep it simple and tasteful and most importantly, frugal.  Everyone knows it’s extremely rare these days for anyone to make it to his/her wedding day with his/her virginity intact, but let’s just say it would be a bit on the tacky side for the bride to blow all kinds of money on a bright white gown and to force her friends to buy fugly dresses they’ll only wear once, especially when the couple’s kid’s a year old or more.

 See what I mean about fugly dresses?  However, these may gain a second life, either as curtains, the covers for cushions that go in the dog crates, or upholstery of some tacky sort.

I don’t mind being the spectator and making commentary on the frightening (not to mention bloody expensive) fashion faux-pas I observe from others’ weddings.  That’s fun, as long as I don’t have to be involved in the party planning, I don’t have to make an extended road trip to be there, and I’m not stuck buying a fugly dress I’ll only wear once.

 This is not a fugly dress, however, this is not my mutant-troll proportioned body either.  My face is about 14 shades whiter than the model’s too.

I don’t believe in fairy tales and princess brides and all that happy horseshit.  I don’t think I bought that line of crap as a kid either, if only because I was awkward, ugly and proportioned like a mutant troll as a child too.   Plus ça change, plus c’est la méme chose…

Anyway, watching other people’s elaborate weddings fail to go according to plan does have some entertainment value, which is sad.  There’s a bit of the schadenfreude element there too, as I can’t help but to enjoy seeing the beautiful people get screwed over.  I get screwed over every day. That’s my “normal,” so I do enjoy a little bit of that sinister glee in observing a high dollar outdoor wedding getting rained out, or someone’s wedding pics suddenly taking on a whole different dimension when complimented by dog humping.   But I fail to see the wisdom in thinking that it is actually possible to engineer a “perfect day.”  The only person guaranteed to show up at your wedding is the one person who you’d never dream of sending an invitation: Mr. Murphy.

Any kind of staged event, from a graduation to a speech, to a concert, to a play- anything that involves a number of people and processes that have to work together correctly- is a guarantee that somewhere in that process Mr. Murphy will show up.  Murphy’s Law is alive and well, and nothing contributes to Murphy’s Law playing out than a number of people and processes that have to come together at the right time and in the right way.

Then there are people who are just plain touched in the brain.  I like venison as much asmost other rednecks, and I admit with some trepidation that I do know how to make deer meat taste good, but this cake draws the line:

Something in my visual cortex will not allow me to eat this cake.  That, and knowing what cake and sweets do to my blood sugar- I’ll have to pass.

I have to wonder about a wedding in which the bride is doing a keg stand too.  I know people get drunk and stupid at weddings, but one would think the happy couple would stay sober long enough to do the nasty later?

Sometimes we need to see the guys through beer goggles too!

I can’t really say I ever had any better luck getting lucky back in the day when I did indulge in a lot of binge drinking.  The last time I ever really got shitfaced, as in forgetting what planet I was on, etc. I woke up in a motel room alone.  That’s not a terribly good commentary  on my self-control, but at least I didn’t get friendly with the toothless truckers who were trying to hit on me earlier in the evening.

For some reason when I used to enjoy going to bars (?) which seems completely foreign to me now because I don’t like crowds and I can’t drink due to medical issues, the fugliest dude in the place always seemed to be compelled to talk to me.  I’ve tried to figure this out but can only come to two conclusions:

I was a target because I was just as fugly as the toothless truckers and/or lard assed bald dudes, and/or I was a target because the only things they picked up on were my boobs, as in boobs=female, usually.

One of the beautiful things about being my age is that there are no more worries about the “biological clock”- ’cause that dude’s been dead for a number of years now, and by the time a woman hits 40 she (should have) come to the blissful realization that while men are enjoyable, you don’t need one, and you don’t need to take their shit.

A Friendly Little Dystopia, Somewhere in a Solitary Bower, and Dead Presidents

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I’m more comfortable in my own little world.  Aren’t we all, I guess, unless you’re one of those people who thrives on being surrounded by the company of others.  I feel positively smothered in the midst of large gatherings. I can only take so much, no matter who it is or what kind of conversation is going on.   Most of my family are incorrigible extroverts (I understand the mentality, but acting as though I’m an extrovert positively wears me out) so they wonder why I don’t always answer the phone immediately or text back the minute I get a text.  Sometimes I simply have to turn all that stuff off or just ignore it if I have any hope of remaining sane functional.

It’s all good here in my own little dystopia.  I have old Journey songs on the MP3 player, iced tea (with lemon only, NO sweetener of any type) and a cougar pool, capacity: 1 old cougar, namely me.  The dogs don’t give a rat’s ass if I wish to engage them in conversation or not as long as they get their meals of processed, crunchy mutton and whatever else is in their dog food, and they get to go out from time to time to perform their bodily functions and run around in the grass.  Jerry will probably be going to the campground this weekend, so I get at least one quiet solitary overnight.  I may utilize some of said solitary time to enjoy some of my live Journey DVDs (cranked up, because I know Jerry is not a Journey fan) and/or finish reading a couple of books.  The one I just started – FDR’s Deadly Secret is proving most fascinating so far. The theory in this book is that FDR died from melanoma that spread to his brain, although he had a laundry list of medical conditions going on that could have killed him too.

I just finished another book – Florence Harding: The First Lady, the Jazz Age, and the Death of America’s Most Scandalous President which picked over quite a bit of formerly obscure Marion County history as well as some rather seedy dirty laundry involving Warren G. Harding.  Yes, Harding was a tomcat.  Yes, Harding had friends in low places, but as far as scandal goes, from today’s perspective, I would have to say Clinton far exceeded Harding in the area of tomcatting, and both Clinton and Obama have far exceeded Harding in having friends in low places, and in flat out scandalous and illegal behavior.  Since this book was written in 1998, before many of the Clinton scandals came to light, and Obama was probably still a “community organizer” somewhere in Kenya, I can forgive the author that.  This book was well-researched and documented, and (though long for most people) to me, a fascinating read.

I feel for Florence Harding.  I know all too well how difficult it is to be an intelligent woman stuck with carrying a man with a lot of issues.

I don’t personally think Harding was the worst president ever.  Obama takes the prize on that dubious distinction as the worst president ever hands down as far as I’m concerned, even when compared with Dick Nixon, (in his instance I will venture to speak ill of a fellow Republican,) Jimmy Carter and even Bill Clinton.  Many past presidents (JFK, FDR and LBJ to name a few- in the 20th century) were tomcats.  Almost every past president, including my personal favorite, Ronald Reagan, was involved in something that someone might construe to be scandalous.  It’s a necessity of the office.  Perhaps the most squeaky-clean of the 20th century presidents was Harry Truman- but his sort of Democrat is extinct today, believe that.

Even Reagan had his moments, but IMHO he would do better from the grave than the current squatter occupying the Oval Office.

Come on, answer my poll, and comment, even if you do think I’m a right wing nut job.  I’m not politically correct, and I’m not very easily offended.

History is an endlessly fascinating subject for me, especially 20th century history.  I don’t know where the fascination came from but for the past several years most of my reading has been historical non-fiction.  Truth is indeed stranger than fiction, and I tend to get more engrossed in a story if I know it’s at least somewhat derived from historical fact.

It’s not entirely that I dislike people. Dislike isn’t really the right word. Dealing with people in most circumstances wears me out and sucks up what little energy I have to begin with. I do have my misanthropic tendencies- and I think people get on my nerves more than I should allow- but there are people I do adore.  The main problem I have is I can only take most people in very small doses and I can only take so much of even those who are dearest to me.  I need a lot of time alone, and when for whatever reason I don’t get it, I get very crispy around the edges.

Perhaps it’s the old school Catholic upbringing, but I feel guilty when I actually do put myself first.

In the event an airplane loses cabin pressure in flight, the flight attendant always instructs the adults to put their own oxygen mask on before masking their rugrat.  It makes sense- you have to cover yourself before you can have the resources to cover anyone else- but sometimes I get so preoccupied with other people’s wants and needs that I forget to do the things that re-energize me.

One of those things is simply turning off all the electronics and locking the doors.

 

 

For the Love of Ephemera, Victorian Fashion Torture, and I Want My Car Back

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Ok, for the second bloody time now.  Why, oh, why did this damned thing zap the whole body of this post?   I am glad I don’t have to wear clothing like this.  I like the prices and I like the coverage, but I need a waist a tad bit larger than the circumference of my spine.   Corsets had to be nasty things to wear.

Now I know why these women died young.  They couldn’t breathe.

So, should I choose to design my own fashion,  to achieve the goals of comfort and coverage, and not rely on today’s dismal offerings from gay fashion designers who manage to only come up with clothes suitable for those with an exhibition fetish and the proportions of a 12 year old boy, I would have to come up with something like this ensemble:

The illustrious Steve-o has my car this week, which sucks.  He only has it because no one else had a reliable vehicle for him to drive whilst the infinitesimal intermittent miss he claims to hear in his Audi-  when a laundry list of conditions are met- is being checked out by his high-faluting buddies down in Cinci.  So I’m driving Dad’s nasty ’92 Mazda van that does, to its credit, have nice cold A/C, but I’m having my doubts about the ball joints, tie rods and that rather disturbing lifter noise.  Steve-o is the most anal dude on the planet (and I’ve seen some very anal car enthusiasts in my time) when it comes to his own car.  I just hope that he doesn’t think that because he’s using my car- for free- that it’s party time.

It’s not a Mazerati, but it does have nice cold A/C, a decent stereo and 5 on the floor.  Damn, I miss my car.

I feel sort of sorry for Dad.  He’s stuck in that nursing home rehab center, and the food is just plain frightening.  What’s worse is he’s going to get enough scary food when he goes home and Mom attempts to cook.  On the plus side he is losing weight, but it’s sort of sad to lose weight just because you can’t identify what’s on your plate and you’re afraid to eat it.  Dad wanted me to drive his van- he can’t drive at all for at least another three weeks while his sternum heals- rather than Steve-o driving it, because Steve-o has a 40 mile drive through the middle of nowhere to get to work.  I can get retrieved a little easier should Dad’s ancient Mazda decide not to start, or if the steering and/or suspension fails.  I hope it holds together, but I can always commandeer Jerry’s Tacoma, and probably should anyway.  The Tacoma has a manual transmission and Jerry hasn’t managed to blow the speakers in it.  The Mazda would have a good stereo- if not for all the speakers being blown to hell.

Better living through chemicals, especially when they’re in pastries!

Everyone Has a Purpose, Apparently Mine Involves Graciously Accepting Others’ Shit

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Suffice to say I’m not in a terribly great mood today.  The pragmatic side of me says that Jerry was a bit overdue for a drunk-n-stupid episode- it’s been almost a week- so I should be happy with conveniently being out of town and missing the Monday Night drunk-n-stupid.  The only problem with that was I got the Wednesday Night make-up round complete with two of the three elements I hate about the drunk-n-stupids.  One, he started in about money, blissfully ignorant of how much I just plain pay out for his skank ass, and also blissfully ignorant that when you sell crap on E-Bay you have to pay a fee on it, and you have to pay to ship it.  Explaining anything involving money or expenses to him when he’s trashed is like nailing Jell-o to a tree.  I should have just nodded my head and agreed with him- because when he’s shitfaced (even more than when he’s sober) he thinks any crazy shit that pops up in his head is Gospel truth, but I was stupid and decided to set him straight on a few things.  Mistake.   

So I got the oat opera torture until midnight and an attempt at drunken groping that was not only futile but just plain disgusting.  The problem is the only time he even gets horny is when he’s shitfaced, and the only thing he can do about it is slobber all over me and wave his nasty cigarettes around and spill beer all over everything.  Blecch.  My standards admittedly are low, but that’s just plain nasty.  There are a few things that can put an old cougar off doing the wild thing with the quickness:

Cigarettes.  Even back in the day when I smoked, I had the common courtesy to wait until AFTER the deed was done to light up.  Now that I haven’t smoked for years, just smelling cig smoke is enough to make me gag- without waving the damn thing in my face, ashing all over the place, and getting way too close to putting burn holes in my sheets and my skin.

Few people are more passionate about their hatred of smoking than ex-smokers.  Believe it.

Being shitfaced.  Natty Lite is not good for the breath.  Especially when you’re belching up used Natties in my face.  Waving the half-full beer can around in my bed, and possibly even spilling some of that embalming fluid swill in my bed sheets while doing so, does not earn any points for charm either.  Go back to your own hole and be shitfaced by yourself.

If you drink your dinner, do the world a favor- sleep alone.

Country music.  Country music has to be the #1 anaphrodisiac for me, save for extreme body odor.  Being that I am nothing to look at, and am proportioned like a mutant troll I can’t be terribly picky.  But start playing that awful song about saving a horse and riding a cowboy and you might as well understand that you’re not getting any action from me until you turn that torture off. 

I may be poor and white and mostly self-educated, but my family tree does actually fork.

Needless to say, even though he hasn’t had a woody since Bill Clinton was president (and probably never will again), last night was not the time to try to resurrect the dead.  It was certainly not a good time to start in pawing and slobbering on me.

Normally his drunk-n-stupids are just part of life, but last night’s really got on my nerves.  Dad is in the intensive care up north awaiting bypass surgery on Monday.  I spent most of the day Tuesday with Mom while the Dr.s were trying to figure out what was going on with him and what to do.   Now that they know what’s going on and what they’re going to do, they’re pretty much just watching him and trying to get his sugar and sinus infection under control before then. I decided he can watch History Channel just fine in the meanwhile without me sitting around up there not getting anything done except exposing myself to exotic germs and various funky assed diseases- whilst sticking to the god-awful uncomfortable vinyl hospital chair. 

Even so, I’m worn out and freaking out at the prospects of Dad having to have open heart surgery and all that, so I don’t need a ditzy assed drunk keeping me awake and being an obnoxious little titty baby.  Granted, I know that Jerry is both a ditzy assed drunk and a titty baby- he is truly helpless -which is aggravating as hell to me.

Shit: one of the most common elements in the universe.  Stupidity is the other.

This is a guy that if one of the dogs gets a case of the shits and unloads on the floor (fortunately the girls are trained, and this does not happen often) the first thing he will announce when I come in the door is, “Somebody shit on the floor and you need to clean it up!”

Oh, how many times I have wanted to rub his nose in it.  I don’t expect him to get the rug cleaner out, but at least make an attempt.  Scrape it into a bag or something.  It’s just shit.  As long as you don’t eat it, it shouldn’t kill you.

I know he was raised by wolves, but come on.

Killing Me With Country Music, Bad Tats, and Civility is Dead

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I am not a fan of country music.  Ironically, many country musicians espouse political and social views that are similar to mine, and for that reason alone I’d like to show their art a little love, but there’s something about that music genre in general that makes me want to projectile vomit, cry, and drive my car off a bridge all at the same time.

I don’t know if my loathing is born out of being trained in classical voice- it might be hard for some to imagine, but I enjoy opera and have actually performed a few arias in my time.  The most important part of classical training isn’t so much about style as it is control- learn the control and you can adapt to any style.    I also enjoy rock and heavy metal (especially the more orchestral types of rock/metal) and have been known to (long time ago) cover everything from Rush to the Scorpions to Stevie Nicks and even some Led Zeppelin.  I have a broad vocal range so I can get away with pretty much any style I want.  I actually enjoy most music (except for rap, which is simply loud drug-induced glorification of cop-killing and sister-raping) including some country-related genres such as bluegrass (as long as they don’t sing) and blues and jazz.  I even find David Allan Coe hilarious, mostly because his music is gloriously politically incorrect and he will lampoon anything, but start in with the “achy, breaky heart” stuff and you lost me.

Unfortunately, Jerry adores the country music that I can tolerate the least- the really old time twangy, sad sap songs about dead dogs and Momma gettin’ drunk and Daddy beatin’ all the youngin’s.   He likes to crank it up when he’s wasted, which is usually at night when I’m at least attempting to get some sleep.   This is not the country music that is a bit less odious, the kind you can almost mistake for pop.  It’s the kind of music that if you play it backward you get your truck back, your old lady back, the train un-runs over Momma, and you end up with a fifth of Jack Daniel’s in the bargain.  I can’t stand it.  I’ve tried to make myself tolerate it, but the love’s just not there.  Maybe you have to get drunk to appreciate it.  The only way I can appreciate it is when it’s turned off.

Something about that “Achy, Breaky Heart” song makes my IQ drop just thinking about it.

When I worked in some of the rural dealerships I had a few techies who insisted on blaring that awful stuff out in the shop.  I responded by cutting the breaker to their power strips so their jamboxes wouldn’t work.   Once they figured that out, I came in early and re-tuned all their jamboxes to the classical station.  Classical music in general (but especially Mozart) is good for the analytical mind, and some of those six-fingered yokels could use a little help with that.  At least after my re-tuning the oat opera lovers decided that they would humor the old bitty and listen to the Oak Ridge Boys,  Hank Williams, and Boxcar Willie with headphones.

It seems that the only people group out there that is acceptable to lampoon these days is the Redneck Nation.  Perhaps my distaste of Waylon Jennings, et al is a way of distancing myself from my redneck heritage.  I have to admit though, that I’m not that far removed from the trailer park.  Poor white folks are poor white folks after all.  I may not care much for NASCAR, (stock car racing has to be the most inane “sport” ever) either, but at the end of the day, yeah, I still believe in God, the US Constitution, guns, and guts.  The alternatives to those aren’t panning out so well.

I also refuse to get tattooed.  I’ve played around with the thought of having eyeliner tattooed on but I don’t like the thought of someone getting that close to my eyeballs with a needle.  I have a lot of friends with tats, and as far as I’m concerned, to tat or not to tat is a personal decision.  I still envision those horrid monstrosities- really bad sailor’s tattoos- on my Grandpa’s forearms.  I can’t imagine they looked good when he had them done when he was 18 and in the Navy- in 1943.  In 2006, when he was in the assisted living center, right before he died, they were positively frightening.  I knew there was a reason why he wore long sleeved shirts, carefully buttoned at the wrists, even in high summer.  He was a railroad executive for many years after he had served in the Navy- and didn’t want anyone to know he had those horrid tats.    That would be my luck.  I would end up with something positively embarrassing and hideous, like my best friend in high school who had her boyfriend’s name (Ray) tattooed across her back in huge letters.  When she broke up with him, his name was still there, to remind God and everyone.  I suggested to her that she modify her back and add the letters BESTOS- and see if she can get paid to advertise brake pads.  That got me a punch in the arm.

I find it hard to imagine this dude ever finding gainful employment, unless he can wear a ski mask, or keep the bag on his head all day.

It used to be that people had some manners.  Not anymore.  I can play that game too, and in some ways I do.  The next time Jerry decides to drop a load when I’m brushing my teeth (we only have one bathroom- acck!) and neglects to flush and spray, so my toothpaste ends up tasting like “shit with a hint of mint,” I’m going to leave some dog bombs under the seat in his truck.  And I’ll set all the presets on the truck stereo from “Country Torture 105” to the classical station too, since he doesn’t know how to change them.

Country is to music like Homer Simpson in a muu-muu is to fashion.  Humorous and nauseating at the same time.

Drunken Tilling! Everyone Has a Double, and Here’s to the Mysteries of Life!

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Sometimes I am truly amazed and humbled by things I don’t understand. 

Especially how Jerry has managed to live 55 years and still has all of his fingers and toes.  Then again, since he only has ten of each, he may have lost some in the past.  It’s probably in poor taste for me to make a West Virginia joke, but it’s not uncommon in some parts of WV for entire families to have six or seven toes on each foot.  Maybe he had more genetic diversity in his family than in others, because I think he was born with the customary ten toes and ten fingers, which is a good thing.  I went to school with a guy who had six toes on each foot, and he also had a thing for eating boogers, paint and dead bugs.  I don’t think extra digits=extra intelligence, but I’m no geneticist, so there may not be any correlation between having too many toes and whether or not your mamma and your sister are the same woman.  (“Aunt Mom??”)

Anyway, back to more of Jerry’s drunken activities.  Last night’s drunken activity of the evening was tilling.  For those who are extremely urban and have never grown a garden, or observed someone grow a garden, tilling is what you have to do to break up the ground so you can put seeds or plants in it.  Our garden plot is somewhat large, which means manual tilling, with a shovel or hoe (also a digging tool, but not to be confused with “ho”) is not practical.  Tilling a large garden plot requires a roto-tiller, which is a funky thing that is powered by a lawnmower engine, but in the front of it there are vertical, rotating tines that dig up the ground (versus a horizontal blade like a lawnmower.) 

It would be in one’s best interest to be relatively sober when operating such a potentially dangerous machine, but Jerry was at least a 12 pack into it.  So he is traipsing through the mud with the tiller dragging him along.  His shoes ended up so caked with mud that I am surprised the dog shit he stepped in on the way in the house managed to stick to them, but of course, dog shit sticks to anything.  I could have killed him for tracking in dog shit (again) but in his defense I don’t think he could see it and I’d be surprised if he could have smelled it as shitfaced as he was.  I retrieved the shoes, tossed them on the back porch and of course, had to clean up the shit that got tracked all over the floor.

Just a quick passing observation.  Legend has it everyone has a double.  Even Obama.  I couldn’t stop laughing the other night when Jerry and I were watching “The Legend of Awesomest Maximus,” which is about the most corny spoof of Greek mythology I’ve ever seen in my life.  The movie was funny in a puerile, sophomoric way as most National Lampoon humor is- nothing highbrow here-but my uncontrollable, blow-iced-tea-out-my-nose laughter was caused by the uncanny resemblance shown here:

This is King Erotic, the evil king of Greece (from “The Legend of Awesomest Maximus”)

I think they look alike.  Too alike. Creepy.