The World’s Still Here (Told You So) and the White Death Returneth

December 27, 2012Tonya Lanthron 1 Comment

The world obviously didn’t end on Friday, December 21, just like it didn’t end on May 11, 2011 or in 2000, or 1988 or 1986 or any of those other dates set by people who desperately look for meaning in the writing of the ancients and/or the scattered patterns of the skies.

It would be easier that way, maybe, but I don’t really want my life any more scheduled than it has to be. Routine is one thing, but scheduling all activities down to the minute is bullshit. I can imagine that might be part of the reason why today’s kids are so apeshit. I mean, most of them have to get up way early to go to the sitter before school, then spend all day at school with every second micromanaged, only to stay after school to play sport “A” and/or do activity “B” which is also micromanaged, and then come home to a late dinner and chores, fall asleep, and repeat the same noise the next day.

This would drive me apeshit as an adult, let alone as a freaking four year old! I really can’t schedule my whiz times.

There’s not much room for any quiet contemplation in that kind of rat race. I don’t respond to micromanagement well, and I don’t generally function well as a part of a group. What if I want to stare at the wall when everyone else is dancing about the room? I would be royally screwed if I would have to adhere to a day care schedule, let along to be a middle school or high school kid today. Granted, very few if any people share my need for copious quantities of solitude, but I’m sure that after awhile the lack of spontaneity and absence of breathing room would- given time- have to disturb even the most extroverted neurotypical.

It’s not that I’m so averse to having a schedule- as long as it’s mine and not one imposed upon me. It’s one thing if I set aside time for an activity that I’m interested in doing, and quite another if it’s something someone else schedules for me that I’d rather not be doing. There are also some things- like bodily functions- that just really don’t occur on a regular schedule, at least not for me. I take a lot of blood pressure meds, I like my coffee, and I don’t have much bladder capacity. I have to stay within reasonable proximity to a toilet.

I think that’s why holidays and so forth are so stressful for me- strange toilets. In all seriousness, there are people I want to see and spend time with, and others I’d really rather avoid. This Christmas I was pretty fortunate in that I spent most of the day with Steve-o (someone I did want to spend time with) and got to spend most of the day Sunday with my granddaughter (who I also wanted to spend time with) so I’m cool. I don’t need and I certainly don’t enjoy big formal parties and such.

All dressed up, (and this looks itchy to boot) with nowhere to go.

As far as the End of the World, I say let that be a surprise. There are some things I don’t think I really want to know about in advance.

Central Ohio is positioned in a sort of strange place in relation to weather fronts. It’s far enough south of the lake that we don’t get the “lake effect snow” that Cleveland and other cities too far north for human habitation experience. Columbus proper- or at least within the confines of I-270- sits in a bit of a valley. It rains a lot and it floods easily, but we get far less snow than the hinterlands up north. There’s a huge difference in snowfall just in going 15-20 miles further north. Most of the really wicked weather fronts end up either staying north or sort of blowing around us. So when forecasters say the White Death is coming to Central Ohio, I believe it when I see it. Far too often we’re supposed to get some huge-ass storm, the mere mention of which sets everyone off raiding the grocery stores on their quests for Velveeta cheese and Marlboros, and instead of White Death of the Apocalypse we get either a shitload of rain (that’s the default for Central Ohio anyway) or a piddly dusting of snow that doesn’t even warrant me putting on boots.

Redneck priorities- screw the milk and bread- we need smokes, and Velveeta cheese is good all by itself!

Yesterday we actually had a substantial snow- about 4″ or so within I-270. Despite the arrival of the White Death, I was quite able to get to work and get home in my nice little Hello Kitty Yaris. I think the traction control light came on once.

Maybe I’m jaded because the snow situation is very different where I come from, even though it’s only about 50 miles away. I remember one surprise storm up in the hinterlands all too well. My sister and I ended up pulling cars out of ditches with her ’68 VW Bug and a tow rope. She had snow tires on the back of it which came in handy. I also remember off-roading in snow-covered cornfields with VW Rabbits. They’re geared low and are fairly high off the ground, so they would go through a lot more than one would think by their size.

1983- when Reagan was president, the air was dirty but sex was clean, and Steve Perry wore Spandex. Damn, I should not have sold my ’83 GTI.

Asperger’s Is Not an Excuse, Actions Still Have Consequences, and Humanity is Still Totally Depraved

December 17, 2012Tonya Lanthron Leave a comment

I am glad that some thinking people are starting to understand that keeping people from protecting themselves and their families does nothing to change the fact that killers will kill. Even in the light of the past couple weeks’ worth of senseless shootings- and I freely admit that the existence of evil is something I don’t comprehend- I still believe that the Framers of the Constitution had the right idea when they included:

“A well-regulated Militia, being necessary for the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed. “

The Second Amendment has been expounded upon by far greater minds than mine, however, there are two points being made here. Some more left-leaning interpretations of the Second Amendment take the first part about a well regulated militia and assume that meant that the Framers were talking about the armed forces, National Guard and law enforcement but not about private individuals. What they are leaving out is a knowledge of 18th century history. In the 18th century there was really no full-time armed forces, but individuals who would volunteer in time of war (a concept similar to a very rudimentary National Guard) and individuals had to keep their own weaponry in order to be able to be available when the need arose.

Fast forward to the 21st century. Most Americans have no concept of what it would be like to have to defend one’s life and property if a scenario such as the one proposed in the film “Red Dawn” would arise, where there would be war in streets and neighborhoods rather than an abstract concept of soldiers and armies fighting over obscure hills and fields in far-distant lands. However, many Americans have experienced armed robbery, assault and other crimes of violence that could have been prevented if the victim had been able to defend him/herself. The Framers had a solution to that: “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.” The Framers not only believed so heartily in a strong national defense that it is one of only two responsibilities of the Federal government spelled out in the Constitution, but they also added it to the Bill of Rights- along with the proviso that individuals also have the right to defend their person and property. In this statement the right to self defense is underscored as a natural right rather than a privilege granted (or withheld) by the whim of the state.

I don’t have any problem at all with responsible gun ownership. The law-abiding person who owns a gun and has had appropriate background checks and safety training is not generally the person you have to worry about- unless you are trying to perpetrate crime. On the other hand, the unarmed are all potential victims. All one has to do to be a victim is to be in the wrong place at the right time.

This being said, I can go back to the fundamental argument that guns don’t kill people any more than spoons make people fat. The conscious decision to aim a firearm and pull the trigger is what kills. It’s easy to go around screaming “gun control,” until one realizes that the decision of a killer is the root of the lethal mechanism. It is possible to kill with bare hands, with knives, with poison, with motor vehicles, with a baseball bat. The possibilities of potential lethal weapons are only limited by a potential killer’s imagination and desperation. Banning firearms just means killers will find weapons other than guns to kill people with. There are still murders in the UK and in every other country where strict gun control has been enacted. The murderous impulse does not lie in an armament of steel, but in the convoluted and dark malice dwelling in a killer’s heart.

Dark malice that can lead to murder can surface in any human being alive today if circumstances and opportunity press that individual hard enough. Evil is that pervasive in this world. I don’t subscribe to all of Calvinism (my soteriological leanings are more congruent with Molinism) but I agree with 100% of one of the petals of Calvin’s TULIP- the Total Depravity of man.

Human beings, if left to their own devices, are 100% self serving. I’ve heard every excuse out there for why people kill- video games, bad childhoods, being deprived, being over-indulged, crappy schools, being bullied, being introverted, being mocked, et cetera and so on. I think a better question, given the total depravity of man, is what keeps everyone from becoming a killer? Or are we all killers, and the severity of our behavior is simply a matter of degree? If so, then what is the mechanism of our restraint? Does it have to do with the wiring of the frontal lobe of the brain, or is it a matter of the will, or a combination of both? I believe it is entirely possible that the only thing that restrains most from indulging their darker urges is simply the grace and mercy of God.

Even though I believe that there is a God and that He is highly involved in the lives of humanity, I also believe that He expects people to respond to Him. I believe He has expectations for his creation (and maybe this is my repressed Catholic guilt coming out.) After all, when one reads Scripture we learn that most of humanity’s problems arise from thinking our ways are better than God’s ways.

We don’t have the liberty to simply say, “the Devil made me do it,” if for any other reason than at the end of the day, God holds us accountable for what we do or don’t do. Psychology would say that humans do what they do to pursue pleasure and avoid pain, but there is a deeper aspect- the aspect of “you own who you are and what you have become.”

Things in life can and do suck, but it’s every person’s responsibility to choose how to react to things that suck. The question is, do we turn to God and His will or do we let evil win?

I find it disturbing that society is all too willing to absolve people from individual accountability and blame their abherrent behavior on everything from being bullied as children to being on the autistic spectrum. As someone who experienced both gratuitous and fierce childhood bullying and is a high-functioning autistic,* (apparently that’s what the medical community is calling Asperger’s Syndrome these days) I am here to tell you that both of those theories may have some credence, but at the end of the day, the decision to move beyond a painful past and to learn to work the wiring is not only possible, but it is also a moral obligation. Maybe I say this out of a sense of noblesse oblige that I was taught- that those who are given more are held to a higher standard. I can say that the convoluted and sometimes vexing wiring of Asperger’s or “high functioning autism” or whatever is the current terminology used to categorize the introverted, weird and/or eccentric is not a license to allow the depravity within to overcome. Video games are no excuse. Technology in general is no excuse. The laxity of discipline and the pervasive faux feel good PC philosophy being taught in the schools (while dreadful, false, and a contributor to the delinquency factor) is not an excuse either. There is a God, and He has standards and rules, even when it seems like society does not.

I don’t discount the influence of mental illness, and how society so conveniently “mainstreams” the mentally ill, denying that some people do have an inability to control their rage and that some people should be isolated from the greater community for a time to receive mental health treatment. I do understand what it is to be depressed and near suicidal, but I also understand that there is help available for individuals and families when mental illness becomes overwhelming. I’m no poster child for mental health, and insanity is downright pervasive in my family tree. If there is anything that society (as opposed to the individual) can do to help prevent violence it is to identify mental illness and provide ways for those at risk to get help.

I wish this were a joke, but it’s not. I have ancestors who were crazier than shithouse rats.

I may never know for what purpose God decided to plop my sorry carcass on this earth, but I’m pretty sure that no matter how beat up on I was or how bizarre my wiring, He didn’t intend for me to load up an assault rifle and shoot up a classroom of unarmed, defenseless kids.

I’m pretty sure God never intended me to be a pole dancer, either. I’m doing good to walk a straight line without tripping over my own feet.

There I go again with that whole morality thing again, and no, I am not talking about the mundane concepts of morality- refraining from fornication, eschewing the use of swear words, and those sorts of trite formalities, but a deeper morality.

One that says, “There is a God, and He has rules.”

Crappy Santa, My Awesome Playlists, and Whitey Tighties

December 16, 2012Tonya Lanthron 1 Comment

Ok, this is just a little too “festive” for my house.

I wonder what Dr. Freud would have to say about this? Is Santa a fecalphiliac? This just screams, “Ho, Ho, Ho, come crap in my mouth!”

While this little toilet decorating set is cute in a sort of creepy way (my grandmother used to always put toilet seat covers and rugs and tank covers on her crapper) I don’t see it making it through Jerry and the Natty Splatters. Poor Santa’s collar would be yellow in no time (because somebody can’t aim and won’t sit) and I have to have the plunger at the ready more than I would like to formally acknowledge.

I enjoy Christmas decorations, the kitschier, gaudier and tackier the better, but the bathroom is just an area in which the fixtures, let alone the decor, have a hard enough time surviving. Jerry was raised by wolves, and his bathroom etiquette reflects his upbringing. It is a rare day that I come home from work and the bathroom sink is not encrusted in face fur clippings and congealed toothpaste spittings. It’s so much easier to clean the sink before that mess dries, but Jerry does not clean sinks. I am doing good when he remembers to flush.

Thankfully, though Jerry’s outward leavings might lead one to believe he’s a PigPen, his personal hygiene is impeccable. He is just too lazy to clean up filth that does not directly touch his own body.

No good playlist is complete without some old, live Journey. “Still They Ride” from the “Greatest Hits Live” album (1982-3) is pretty awesome. Anything from the “Greatest Hits Live” album is pretty awesome, including “Mother, Father” and, well just all of it. I am an incorrigible Journey fan and I admit it. It’s my not so secret pleasure. I’m still on the Jethro Tull kick lately too, as well as I’m enjoying The Babys “I’m Falling” and Rod Stewart’s “The First Cut is the Deepest.”

Then I’ll probably switch over to some Metallica (“Battery” and perhaps the “Unforgiven” trilogy) or maybe some Guns-n-Roses. Or maybe Neal Schon’s “The Calling,” which I’ve been enjoying a lot as of late too. He may have a creepy girlfriend, but Neal Schon is a hell of a guitar player. I don’t understand his obsession with tall, anorexic thin creepy blonde chicks, but then he can afford anyone he really wants. It’s sad, but frumpy old brunette women with the proportions of mutant trolls do not get significant others who buy them Bentleys, or who wine and dine them. It’s hard to go fishing when you don’t have any bait. Women like me are doing good to get a cranky old fart who screams about breakfast and the failing elastic in his whitey tighties, and whose only real purpose in life is to generate filth for me to clean up. Someone has to do it, but it gets tedious, believe that.

All I can say to Jerry in response to the comment regarding failing elastic in the whitey tighties is, that if your balls really are scraping your knee caps, then it’s high time you cart your sorry ass over to Target (because I really loathe department stores anytime during the holidays, and I try to avoid them) and buy yourself a six pack or two of the Hanes whitey tighties you like. It’s really possible for you to do that.

It is not against the law for men to buy whitey tighties for themselves, and it sure looks a hell of a lot less awkward for a dude to buy these than for me to go through the checkout at Target with a few packs of men’s skivvies. I wonder how many cashiers have mistaken me for a she-male when I’ve replenished Jerry’s whitey tightie stash. I mean, the guys at one dealership I worked for did have one of my technicians (granted, the tech I’m referring to is Chinese and he’s maybe 5’6″ and 100# soaking wet) convinced I used to be a man because I have big meaty man hands. I do have big meaty man hands, even for an Anglo woman, so I can imagine my hands are really huge compared to an Asian woman. But, I was born female and even had a child in (sort of) the normal way. No Y chromosome action going on here.

No, I can’t get him to wear boxers. Pity.

So I keep on going.

I love sleeping. I should be doing that, but my insomnia is getting the better of me tonight.

Beyond the Void, Someone to Talk To, and Miscellaneous Tidbits

December 10, 2012Tonya Lanthron 2 Comments

I know where this sign is. You can see it on southbound I-71, somewhere in Madison County- between Columbus and Cincinnati.

I don’t like to think about that most terrible place I think of as simply the void, but I was reminded of it in of all places in church this week. It’s that bone chilling, thought shattering, crushing experience of being everywhere and nowhere and immersed in grinding, mind-blowing pain that is brought on by extreme trauma, whether it be emotional or physical. Stephen King sort of describes it in his short story, “The Jaunt.” What I mean by the void is a sort of airless, timeless limbo that is between time and space (if that’s possible to comprehend.) It’s the moment in which you are hit with unspeakably horrific, life-shattering news and the grief and disbelief and shock hit you like a tidal wave- and worse.

In “The Jaunt,” the entry into the void was a bit different. A scientist discovered that teleporting things almost instantly across space was possible, but that live animals and humans only made it through “the jaunt” if they were anesthetized. Live animals came through the process aged and weak and died shortly after arriving at their destination- and the few humans that attempted it came out on the other side certifiably insane.

Maybe King’s story isn’t the best analogy, but it’s the closest reference I can find to those times in which the wind is knocked out of you, you are transported to an airless, breathless, motionless state, and your world falls apart. It’s infinity in there. And not in a good way. It’s what I would imagine to be a tiny sampling of hell- and no I’m not referring to the BMV. I have to go there soon enough for the dreaded driver’s license mug shot, for which no matter what I do it will turn out positively frightening and should say “Correctional Institute Inmate” on the picture somewhere, because yes, my driver’s license pics have always been That Bad. Even so, I’d gladly take an hour at the BMV waiting on having a shitty picture taken vs. one millisecond of the void. Believe that.

My driver’s license is valid, but the pic is just as bad.

I don’t like to be reminded of the void or of the times I’ve been there.

However, as far as psychological pain goes, I am almost always a delayed reactor. I can only think of one time that I completely fell apart instantaneously, and that is when I got the news about my four year old niece being killed, which was completely unforeseen. It seems that in order for me to fall apart I have to be caught off guard.

For years I dealt with- (and at times, still do deal with) post traumatic stress, which is the gift that keeps on giving, those brief illogical terrors that show up unbidden and in the least likely of places for the most bizarre reasons. One of the most memorable unbidden episodes was back when I was working a really crappy job. The only thing that kept me from going nuts in that place was that they sent me out to run titles from time to time. It’s not rocket science but it does give you a lot of time to yourself. You find the title offices of surrounding counties and turn in the paperwork so people who just bought cars get their titles registered and all that crud. Most of the time back then, title offices were in the courthouse in whatever county seat so I got to investigate some really cool old 19th century courthouses. Today public buildings might as well be prisons, but back in the day architects built things not only to last, but for their aesthetic value. That part of the title running thing was almost fun.

This is the courthouse in Marion County. I hope that the powers that be don’t decide to tear this one down too.

I had to go to Union County, which was only about a half an hour out. The title office had temporarily been moved to the old high school which was slated for demolition, while the new county building was being built. So I find my way through the vestibule and follow the arrow upstairs. The staircases were well-worn and crumbling, but the metal framework beneath them was holding fast. I had a really strange feeling in that building, as if I were violating someone, or something’s space. I found the temporary title office, completed the transfers, and as I was leaving, a huge framed glass and gold leaf memorial caught my eye.

I don’t have a pic of the Union County memorial that was in that high school, but this memorial displays a similar concept.

It was a memorial of WWI veterans who came from that school. There were at least fifty names on that memorial, and I believe eight of those names had stars next to them, indicating that they had been killed in action. I wasn’t able to linger there long. For such a small, rural town to lose that many was sad, but the fact that the memorial was in a high school sort of struck me. These weren’t old men. This wasn’t a picture of grinning old men reminiscing over old times at the bar in the VFW. These were kids just out of high school- boys who either came home jaded and scarred, or never came home at all. I don’t know how to describe the wave of emptiness and profound grief that washed over me that day, but I had to run back to the car as fast as I could, and for some reason I was overcome with sadness and rage and I don’t know what else. I wept over strange young men who I had never met, who had experienced terrors beyond anything I could imagine, and to this day I have no idea why.

On a brighter note, I remembered that I haven’t put up any pics of my newest kitty, Jezebel. Jezebel was one of the feral kittens Jerry trapped back on the shop lot the week before Halloween. The other three went to the owner of the body shop’s horse barn to keep the vermin away from the horses. I wasn’t planning on another cat, but Jezebel, well, she’s all black. All black cats don’t fare well in feral or outdoor settings, so we made her a house cat. The first week or so she had to be handled with a welding glove (this is sort of normal with feral kittens.) Now she is very social and fond of human attention, Isabel (and she looks just like a mini-Isabel) and really isn’t fazed by much of anything, including dogs. The key to socializing cats is getting them before the socialization window more or less closes at 12 weeks. These kittens were about 6 or 7 weeks when we found them, which is the perfect age to socialize them. They can eat solid food and live OK without Mommy, so the mortality rate is low, but they can still learn to get along with humans, other cats and dogs.

Jezebel instantly gravitated to Isabel, (who is also all black) which we are grateful for because Miz Izz loves other cats and has always been good at schooling youngsters. So now I have a 14 week or so old kitten who is going to have to be spayed here in the next few weeks. But Jezebel is already a really good cat. No welding gloves are currently required.

Jezebel- “Mini-Izz”

Good Morning, Mr. Plunger!- Ass Pilots, Weenie Commentators and Wrongful Sympathizers

December 7, 2012Tonya Lanthron 6 Comments

Why am I the only one in my house who knows how to use this?

Ah, the lowly plunger. It may not be my favorite household appliance (or would it be more rightly regarded as a tool, like a can opener, or a kitchen scrubbie?) but when you need, it you need it. Especially in my house.

I should have known that the plunger would be necessary this morning, as Jerry had a lovely Natty-filled evening last night. 12 Natties or more usually = Natty splatters, but when you have the 12 Natties after half a bucket of chicken and a large pepperoni pizza, well, let’s just say the splatters increase both in bulk and volume.

Jerry is one of those rare individuals who can eat like a Sumo wrestler, drink like a whale, and remain svelte. How anyone can be 5’10” and 180# in spite of taking in 5,000 or more calories a day, I will never understand. Bastard.

Anyway, just as I am about to beat feet out the door this morning, and I try to do that before Jerry gets out of bed and takes his place on the throne, for obvious reasons. But I hesitated just long enough to hear the plaintive, whiny, cry of, “It won’t go down!”

This is the vision that went through my head. I have encountered- and had to clean up- similar blowouts.

Thankfully the mess was confined to the inside of the toilet bowl. He didn’t try to flush multiple times, which would have resulted in slightly used Natties, pizza and fried chicken all over the bathroom, which would have been a most unpleasant scenario at 7:30 in the morning, but it was bad enough. A few strategically placed plunges, and all was well. I am glad sometimes that I have almost no sense of smell. I was out the door and in the car. But it amazes me just how helpless an adult male can be, and that’s even after I’ve figured in that Jerry was raised by wolves.

Jerry’s baby picture?

I have said it before but I’m really tired of the ass pilots who go off every time some moron commits a gun crime, saying that private gun ownership should be outlawed. Guns don’t kill people any more than spoons make people fat. It’s what a person does with the gun or the spoon that matters.

How about a conversation regarding personal accountability?

I understand why all those football fans are pissed at Bob Costas. First of all, football is the last place for sentient minds to be looking for political commentary. Second of all, though I’m not a football fan by any stretch, most of the football fans I know are rather conservative in their politics. These guys, if they don’t understand anything else about the Constitution, they get the 2nd Amendment. The comments Mr. Costas made about gun control in the middle of a football game were at best ill timed and at worst simple minded. One part of winning hearts and minds is using the correct forum to speak out. The other part is having a message that actually makes sense. Poor Bob did neither.

Criminalize guns and then only criminals will have guns. Gee, that makes sense! (sarcasm alert!)

Maybe I’m just getting old, but it seems as if there are so many misplaced sympathies in this world. I don’t feel sorry for criminals, even if they had horrible childhoods and were raised by wolves. I got the living hell beat out of me almost every day growing up. I grew up poor. I was lucky on some days to have a decent meal and clothes to wear. That didn’t make me a serial killer or a psychopath. I’m sorry- but growing up poor, or getting the hell beaten out of you by everyone under the sun is not an excuse for criminal behavior. Acknowledge that your past wasn’t exactly optimal, and get over it. Do something productive with your life, even if it means merely refraining from harming others.

I think there would be a lot less crime if we went back to public hangings.

I am a believer in capital punishment in three instances. Premeditated murder, rape, and child molestation- but these would have to be crimes committed without a shadow of a doubt, i.e. someone caught in the act, or proven guilty by means of irrefutable evidence. Hang them high and hang them in plain sight. I think that swift, public justice, as well as to stop mollycoddling violent offenders would do much to cut the rates of violent crime and thuggery in this country. I also think way too much money and time and effort is wasted on drug enforcement. Most of the violent crime out there is related to the drug trade. Take away the incentive. If drugs became dirt cheap and readily available, then there would be a lot less stealing and killing over them.

It’s probably a good thing that I don’t run the world.

Especially when I decide to put up Christmas decorations.

Misplaced and Out of Time, Airing Out the Christmas Baggage

December 5, 2012Tonya Lanthron 2 Comments

This is TV Christmas. Christmas in my home has NEVER looked like this.

It just struck me this morning. I was thinking about the one part of the secular Christmas stuff-you-have-to-do nightmare that was actually something to look forward to- going to my Grandma’s. Grandma had lots of cheap and kitschy old decorations from the 1950’s and 1960’s, including the aluminum foil looking tree and the really fruity looking elves, and the hollow plastic Frosty with the lightbulb stuck up his ass. She had a good number of decorations she had made herself too, which I thought were far more aesthetically pleasing than light-bulb-up-the-ass Frosty, but there was room for everything. Her display was rather eclectic. I enjoyed helping Grandma put up that corny kitsch, (and the pretty stuff she made) which was all carefully labelled, stored and you knew exactly where everything was supposed to go. Grandma enjoyed Christmas and all the decorating, cooking and baking that went with it. Her candy and pies and cookies were 100% homemade, and 100% legendary.

Jerry probably grew up with Christmas more like this.

Don’t get me wrong. I love the Christmas story and I love the way that God came to us as a human and that Jesus lived here on earth with us in a flesh and blood human body. I love the season of Advent and observing Advent and Christmas as part of the church year. It’s the materialism and the formalities and the stuff that people think you have to do that really gets on my nerves. The world could do a lot more with more quiet contemplation on what Christmas really is about rather than running around spending money they don’t have buying crap for other people that they really don’t need. Just my two cents’ worth on that. When the “celebrations” turn into being too expensive, too awkward and just plain another whole big stress, it’s time to re-examine the whole hoo-hah and maybe just drop out of a few things.

The real Christmas story (not Santa Claus or the kid with the BB gun) features a miraculous birth. It was about God becoming man and coming to earth to save humanity. I don’t care how much money someone has, you can’t top that gift. Materialists, you might as well go ahead and admit defeat now.

As far as secular holiday celebrations go, I can cook. The only thing I don’t do that Grandma always did is I don’t make my own pie crust. It’s too easy and less expensive to buy the rolled sheets of pie crust than it is to try to deal with just the right ratio of Crisco-to-flour. I have the delightfully tacky pink Christmas tree with blissfully tacky kitschy ornaments including a buzzard, (Jerry will not allow a live tree in the house, because Mr. Let’s-Get-Wasted-and-Start-a-Fire-With-Gasoline-in-the-Fireplace deems them to be “fire hazards”) and (less one Wiseman, because of someone’s bad decision to use gasoline in the fireplace) the Nativity set Grandma got for me the year before she died.

But it’s hard for me to get into the Christmas biz these days. The traffic pisses me off. The crowds in everyplace from Target to the Speedway station piss me off even more. I don’t have the money to buy gifts for people the way I would like to. I don’t have the time to do the crafts and cooking which made Christmastime fun like what Grandma used to do. Jerry goes off on his I’m-so-depressed holiday funk that lasts from December until the end of February, and it just plain drives me batshit. And to top it all off the past few years, I’ve been spending Christmas at my oldest sister’s, and that leaves me feeling more like the turd in the punchbowl than anything. I might have to break with that latter day tradition and do anything that does not require me to be around my sister’s boorish father-in-law as he’s swilling Chardonnay and catatonically staring at the football game. Perhaps I will take the camera and go to the west end of Marion and take some tacky Christmas pics. That is always fun.

My condolences to the unfortunate ’72 Super Beetle that’s flying high in this rather grotesque display.

Then this morning- I had a very sad longing, a sort of a dark epiphany. I realized the reason why the holiday cheer was getting on my nerves more than usual. As a kid, the best part of Christmas was the afternoon. Grandma and Grandpa would have dinner ready, and it was an elaborate spread. Everything from turkey to homemade cream pie and homemade candy, egg nog, scalloped potatoes, you name it, it was there. They had presents and goodies but that wasn’t the allure. There was something about the whole atmosphere in their house. It wasn’t high faluting like the house in the picture. It was modest, it was clean, it was perfect in an unpretentious way, and it was home. Truth be told, my grandmother’s house seemed more like home to me than my own home. Grandma was safe. There were no heated arguments over money or the lack thereof at her house, or being treated to Mom and Dad constantly picking at each other about this or that petty issue. My sisters were not allowed to beat on me with impunity as they normally could do at home, and most of the time when I was at Grandma’s they were somewhere else which was even better.

Grandma never decorated with whitey tighties, but now I am seeing some real motivation to decorate and innovate!

Now there’s a stranger living in Grandma’s house. Grandma died back in 2009, though in all fairness she and Grandpa had both started declining not long after Steve-o was born. Grandpa died in 2006 aged 91, after only three days in the hospital, and ten years after he had his bicuspid valve replaced (which was the first time since WWII that he’d been in a hospital for any reason.) Grandma unfortunately died a more sad and lingering death from pancreatic cancer, heart failure and liver failure at age 93, a little more than three years after Grandpa died. It was hard seeing her lose her sight from macular degeneration so for the last ten years of her life she wasn’t able to do the sewing and crochet and other crafts she loved. I guess that’s why I hope and pray that my time comes quickly when the time comes, but you get what you get.

No, I am not going out and buying tampons to do this, (I am still delighted that I’ve been able to skip that aisle at the store for over three years now) but I never thought a feminine hygiene item could be made so festive!

Grandma’s house is still there but it’s not the same. I’m sure the lady that rents it from Dad is alright. Dad generally tries not to rent to serial killers and nut jobs, although his last renter’s family were pretty crazy after he died and they left the place a disaster area. I’ve not met her but she does have a lovely Pitbull that Dad says is a very sweet dog. I think what bothers me even more than knowing that there’s a stranger living in Grandma’s house is that I’m not able to be anywhere near as involved in my own grandchild’s life as my Grandma was in mine. I seldom get to see Sophia, and even when I can, I am beholden to her mother’s schedule and whims. To make that even worse, I live an hour’s drive away. I can’t live in the safe house across the field. Her mother doesn’t want her to be in my house, because she doesn’t trust Jerry, and Jerry smokes in the house. If I want to see my granddaughter I have to either go to her mother’s house or take her to my parents’ house. I cherish any time I can spend with her, but I don’t see where I am going to be able to have much influence in her life. It saddens me.

But, as far as doing what I want to do with secular holiday celebrations, I think this is the best suggestion of all.

The End of the World, Take # 479, Pragmatism Has Its Advantages

December 3, 2012Tonya Lanthron 2 Comments

I was fortunate enough this weekend to pretty much not have to do squat. So I didn’t. It was lovely. I missed seeing my granddaughter, but I had such a horrific headache yesterday that it was good for me to simply stay in bed. After awhile I felt better and figured since I pay for premium cable (mostly because Jerry has to have all those stinking sports channels I don’t watch) I might as well watch TV. The only thing that sucked is that it seems right now everything on TV is all centered on the same theme- that 12-21-12 is going to be the end of the world. Never mind that the Mayans, while technologically advanced, were superstitious enough to pull beating hearts out of live humans, to sacrifice to demons.

I really want to trust my apocalyptic timing to guys like that. I think that the whole Mayan calendar thing is sort of the same concept as going through the calendar on my cell phone and coming to the conclusion that the world must end on December 31, 9999 because no programmer thought it necessary for there to be a provision for a five-digit year. Never mind that by the time the year 10,000 rolls around either a.) all the humans will be dead, or b.) if there are humans they will be using different technologies than we use today.

People have been trying to set a date for the end of the world for forever. Odds are they’re wrong this time, just like they were back on May 21, 2011. And all those other times too.

Is this the End of the World- or just Detroit?

Let’s face it, the odds are against the date setters, and if I were God (good thing I’m NOT) I wouldn’t let them have the satisfaction. I’d pick a day and a time that’s completely off the radar and surprise everyone which is exactly how God said He’s going to do it:

(Jesus said-) “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.” – Matthew 24:42-44 (NIV)

I don’t know when the End of Days is going to be, and I’m not really that worried about it, because it’s one of those things I can’t change, but I could almost bet it won’t be on December 21. Maybe whenever it is, it will be at the end of February when the world (at least Central Ohio’s portion of it) is at its most dark, dreary and depressing.

There are, however, websites devoted to Doomsday 2012 who claim true believers with all the credibility of Britney Spears. Yeah, the crazy chick who went nuts and shaved her head. I’ll believe it when Ozzy endorses it.

Ozzy Rocks! Never mind he’s the same age as my Dad.

I just don’t see too many believable authorities giving the 12-21-12 doomsday theory much credence. Unless proven otherwise, as far as I’m concerned, the doomsday sayers are simply modern-day Millerites. We’ve all heard that noise before. NASA has pretty much shot down most of that hoo-hah. I figure if these guys could send people to the moon and get them back then they probably know a thing or two about stuff that’s going on- or not going on- in outer space.

Speaking of outer space, you really don’t hear much about UFOs anymore. I mean, they’re sort of in the same category as Bigfoot. I’ll believe there’s such a thing as Bigfoot when someone can either capture a live one or find a carcass. How can a giant ape live in the forest without ever leaving a dead body or even scat? I mean, bears live in the forest and they leave carcasses and scat. People catch live bears too. It would be as if someone is alleging the existence of redneck men but can’t provide evidence of beer cans, Hershey splatters in the toilet bowl, and a trail of cigarette cellophanes and dirty clothes behind them. Redneck men exist. Even should they try to hide, we can prove the existence of the redneck male by virtue of all the PBR and Natty Lite cans and Slim-Jim wrappers they leave behind, as well as all the fudgy whitey-tighties.

Unfortunately, most rednecks are not shy. Even when they should be.

I think I should have some sort of celebratory “The World’s Still Here” party on December 22. Then again, that’s the day I will probably be at CVS around midnight, buying all the candy my sisters don’t want my nieces and nephews to have. This year I am really only bothering to buy the good stuff for my granddaughter. Steve-o has already gotten a high dollar pair of shoes and a car seat to put in his car- early- so I’m not getting him anything else. I got Mom a velour sweater that isn’t fugly, and I got Dad a gag calendar (so far) that has Toilets of the World on it. I’ll probably also get him some socks and some long johns or something. It’s hard to buy for the man who has a taxidermied squirrel on a skateboard.

At least Dad appreciates my humor.

Life is a Gift (a Gag Gift?) and Other Greeting Card Sentiments

November 26, 2012Tonya Lanthron 4 Comments

Just a little perspective- for that poor sucker I saw jogging down Morse Rd. in the freezing rain the other day.

I am not in any way, shape or form an optimist by nature. At best I am pragmatic and can adjust, adapt and overcome, but I hate to admit I am not generally one of those “carpe diem” (seize the day) types. If one is shaped by early life experience, i.e. having the hell beat out of you just about every day, then, at least in my experience, you tend toward a wee bit of trepidation in simply facing the day.

I know that Christian faith is necessarily optimistic, which is one of the reasons I really struggle with faith. I admit that there have been many times in my life when the only thing keeping me from the option of self-annihilation has been the Catholic teaching about mortal sin. I was raised old-school Catholic, even though I can’t in conscience call myself Catholic. My particular way of understanding Christianity is best described as confessional Lutheran, which is fairly close. I don’t want to end up spending eternity being tortured forever and ever being chewed up in Beezelbub’s flaming maw because I died with a mortal sin on my soul. According to Catholic tradition, suicide is a mortal sin because if you kill yourself you don’t have the opportunity to confess your sin and be forgiven for it, so you burn in hell. As miserable and painful as life can be at times- and my life has had plenty of misery and pain- I still believe that no matter how bad it gets (even though Obama was “re-elected” by sole virtue of voter fraud and I’m still pissed about that) automatic and eternal consignment to the fires of hell is definitely a downgrade.

Obama’s bad, and dangerous on many levels, but even he’s not the end of the world.

I need to believe that there will be a day when things are made right- not just in this country, not just on a few small levels, but made completely right. Yeah, perhaps in this, color me optimistic, or perhaps just a perfectionist. I want to be around to see it. No, I can’t explain faith in rational terms, other than to accept Pascal’s Wager. I would rather live with the knowledge that God IS, than to pretend He is not, and have to face the consequences of conscience-less living at some point. I know my agnostic friends have trouble with the notion that God is in charge. I’m weaker than that. I have to acknowledge that God is in charge, which is (paradoxically) liberating. I have problems when I start thinking I’m in charge.

Even knowing that God is in charge doesn’t guarantee me a sunny outlook. It’s a challenge for me to wake up in the morning and see life as a gift. Sometimes I do view life that way, but more often than not I see it as a burden or even a sick joke. Sometimes sarcasm is the only way I can get through the day, and that’s not a very good thing either. I wish I could take the Lord’s advice in Matthew 6:25 and not worry about stuff- but I do. Worse than that I let stupidity and ineptitude piss me off which (while pointing those things out can be funny) doesn’t do much for my mental state either. Anger and worry are not a very good combo.

There may be some hope for me yet:

License to Annoy, I Hate the Holidays #584, and The Drippy Winter Funk

November 20, 2012Tonya Lanthron 2 Comments

Ok, so I am a brunette by virtue of hair dye. I’m also over 40. Cut me some slack.

Oh, yes, this brunette remembers way too much, especially in regard to others’ drunk and stupid antics. Jerry is attempting to stay sober so he can get good and liquored up for the OSU/Michigan game Saturday. Joy and rapture. The game is at noon, which means I can forget my Saturday morning cougar nap. Jerry will be raring to go by 8AM if not earlier. I wish he had the same enthusiasm for waking up on work days. I don’t care for football on a good day, but dealing with Jerry when the beer drinking begins at noon (or earlier) is going to be hell on wheels. I can just imagine dragging him in the car to go home after the game. It’s almost enough to make me wish I could drink to forget. Right now I’m not in a particularly social mood either and I’m sure I will be even less inclined toward interacting with other humans after dealing with my relatives on Thursday.

No, I won’t have to eat this. But in the end, I don’t know if eating humble pie is worth a high class meal. I’d rather be home alone eating White Castles, truth be told.

Maybe I shouldn’t be so despondent. I do have a family. I get along with my parents for the most part and am at least on speaking terms with my sisters. But these get togethers serve to sort of rub my failure in my face. I’ve never really done anything worthwhile other than somehow manage not to either starve to death or become a victim of a spree killer, and being around my sisters only underscores the point.

I know it’s been a long time, but a tortured childhood is a gift that keeps on giving!

Steve-o has managed to thoroughly piss off my granddaughter’s mother- so much so that I would be pleasantly surprised if I will be able to have any interaction with my granddaughter again. He’s actually at the point of wanting to do what the male contributor of his DNA did- signing off his parental rights- which will in effect make me a stranger on the street. Yeah, I know, the whole biz with relationships and so forth- and I am a cynical one. I have to admit I pretty much anticipated this, though I am thoroughly disgusted with the POMC and the way he’s handling things. It breaks my heart. When it comes to kids in Ohio courts fathers have no rights except to pay up. I’m pissed at him- because I warned him not to be such a dick to her- but I also understand the futility of him trying to maintain any kind of meaningful relationship with his daughter when her mother won’t speak to or deal with him for whatever reason. The courts always side with mothers in this state, unless they’re crack heads or serial killers and sometimes even then. She is a good mother, and her relationship to Steve-o or to any of the rest of the family is not an issue there. If she doesn’t want him or any of us around her kid, she can and will get her way.

This is reason enough for me to avoid the forced family togetherness this week. I’m pissed at my own son, won’t get to see my granddaughter, and have to deal with my parents and my two sisters. Damn, I wish I could have a nice, stiff drink. Or twelve.

I’m ~~almost~~ considering feigning communicable illness to avoid the compulsory Thanksgiving roadtrip to my sister’s house, where I will have my poverty, marriage to a drunken redneck, and my painful lack of any sort of meaningful accomplishments rubbed in my face yet again. Hello, punchbowl! The turd has arrived! That’s how I feel when I go to her house, and I have to drive 100 miles to do it. Me in my Goodwill and Target discount rack clothes, driving a Toyota Yaris, showing up about as welcome as Cousin Eddy (remember Christmas Vacation) in this suburban wonderland of palatial homes and BMWs. It’s depressing. I don’t know why I even bother showing up, because I know my sisters are ashamed of me anyway. I give them something to laugh at, or perhaps my saga serves as a cautionary tale for their offspring. Even so, I don’t really think either one of them would give two shits in a baggie whether I showed up or not- except that, for whatever it’s worth, I do bring homemade pies.

I may be poor and not good for much, but I can cook.

There is a bright spot. I have to work on Friday. So I have a good excuse to beat feet quickly after dinner and not stay overnight at my sister’s. Then I’d end up having to go through the hell of Black Friday shopping with the two of them and my Mom. I think I’d rather slit my wrists with a rusty razor blade and slowly die of exsanguination. The rusty razor blade would afford a far more pleasant death than traipsing through Nordstrom’s (there’s a place where I am definitely the turd in the punchbowl) while my sister runs around flashing her plastic and Mom’s gawking at all sorts of fugly high dollar kitsch she can’t afford.

I like mustard too, but NOBODY needs this!

I can’t get into the holidays. I wish I could- but I have no money and no time to do any of the things that would make the holidays fun. I thought I would at least be able to enjoy some time with my granddaughter, but I highly doubt that will happen either, thanks to my son and his abysmal relationship skills.

If I could avoid my entire family and all the holiday crud and come out sometime in March or April that would be OK with me. But, alas, the drippy winter funk begins. I know I have to deal. Oh, and I have to remember to go to Target and get my scripts. I don’t want to run out of Prozac anytime soon.

I’ll be armed with the camera for both my Thanksgiving Dinner in the Punchbowl and the OSU/Michigan Beer Drinking and Football Outing. Comedy is the flipside of tragedy, and I’m going to be trolling for comedy this week for sure. If I can get past the tears, that is.

Here we go again!

Neal Schon Rules, Bad News and Silver Linings, and Other Ephemera

November 8, 2012Tonya Lanthron 1 Comment

I’ve adored this guy’s work for 30 years so I’m biased, but this album is good!

I’m glad that I’d agreed to take my sister-in-law with me to the Journey show last night, because when I woke up yesterday I was damned depressed. Somehow there’s got to be a silver lining in four more years of the worst president in American history, but yesterday morning I sure as hell couldn’t see it. I still can’t, but part of the Serenity Prayer is accepting what you can’t change. That being said, I will work like hell to change what I can, and I will still keep on telling the truth about the Naked Emperor. I have a moral obligation to call out evil for what it is. I hope and pray that the history of Richard Nixon will repeat itself. The difference between Obama and Nixon, however, is a.) Obama is evil and corrupt to his rotten core and his deeds far exceed the treachery of Nixon’s, and b.) unlike Nixon, Obama thinks he’s God, and he will not peaceably resign.

The media (who remember have covered for Obama and his slimy cronies all along) are going to say that the GOP needs to move toward the center. Bullshit. The GOP needs to move- and stay- more to the right. Many people didn’t bother to go out and vote for Romney because they couldn’t see a clear difference between the plan Romney proposed and the slimy bait and switch tactics that Obama’s been passing off. Obama won partially because he’s a liar and adept at deceiving the American people. He’s played the race card, apparently to the point of making people believe that just because one is black that their race gives them free rein to be completely inept but still get a free pass. I say equal opportunity also means that every race has the equal opportunity to SUCK- and to be called out and face the consequences when they suck. My black friends don’t get that, and most of them still think Obama is the best thing since sliced bread.

My black friends don’t believe me when I tell them about Obama’s complicity and approval of black genocide (40% of all aborted babies are black, but black people are only 12% of the population,) and how it works in his best interest to keep as many people as he can uneducated and governmentally dependent. When I criticize Obama and call out his hatred of our country to them – and even to some white people I know who have inexplicably jumped on the Obama Titanic- the first response is that I’m a racist. Though I also point out that I would vehemently oppose a(n) (all) white guy who has done and said what Obama’s done and said, my rational arguments against him fall on deaf ears.

Apparently these two ass-clowns were so funny that people wanted an encore.

It’s never too early to impeach, although Obama would really have to do something outrageous to cheese off Harry Reid and that crowd. If it were possible for the public outcry against him to be so overwhelmingly loud that even the Dems in the Senate would have to hear and fear for their cushy positions, they would throw Obama under the bus, but the problem so far is even with all the egregious errors and trampling on the Constitution and the impeachable offenses that Obama’s committed, the media covers for Obama. They’ve done a really good job of putting a ribbon on a turd, but let’s face it, even when you put a ribbon on a turd, you don’t make the turd not be a turd anymore.

But the Affirmative Action president gets a pass! Apparently if you’re black (or half black) you don’t get the equal opportunity to face the consequences when you fail.

Sadly, while I liked Mitt Romney more as I listened to him, even I have to admit that I didn’t so much vote FOR Romney as I did AGAINST Obama. That’s not a really great motive, even when you are voting against evil. I think what this country really needs is to have someone really great to believe in, and who can explain his/her plan in a way that connects with the majority of people. Unfortunately the last one we have seen like that is Reagan, and he’s dead. Romney is a good man, and I thought he had a much better plan than Obama, although I freely admit my mentally challenged deaf Husky could do a better job in the Oval Office than Obama. At least Sheena is housebroken. The problem is that Romney is not a Reagan, as much as people like me who are so disgusted and appalled with the Marxist-in-Chief would have liked him to be. Romney appealed to those who really had it with Obama, but Romney didn’t appeal to those who for whatever (bizarre and whacked out) reason were neutral toward or favored Obama. Therein lies the problem.

I don’t think that being less conservative and more politically correct is the answer at all, unlike the MSM pundits who want the American public to shut up and be good little socialists like they are in Europe. I think being American, not accepting the status quo, and standing up for the truth is the only way to fly. The challenge is how to get the right message across, and finding the right person to do it.

All I know is I will keep on telling the truth, and maybe one person might get it. I’m too crass and to the point to even think of pursuing political office. For the most part, I vent, but maybe my venting will make someone stop and think.

Back to Neal Schon.

I am so glad I got to hear his rendition of the National Anthem.

The Journey show last night was awesome, and so were the other bands- Pat Benatar and Loverboy were excellent live, and the whole show was certainly worth seeing. If anything it lifted my mood and got my mind out of the dark funk.

This too shall pass. I don’t like to let political views stand between friends, even though I believe very strongly in what I believe in. At least I care. I may not be 100% right but then again neither is anyone else.

Everyone has to believe in something. I believe I’ll get back to jamming to The Calling and stay out of trouble for the afternoon.

ELYSIANHUNTER, ALWAYS INCITEFUL:

Because comedy is the flipside of tragedy

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gratuitous self pity