videogames

Simply Enchanting, Of Rainy Days and Melancholy

2 Comments

melancholy tracks

There’s something about days like today- cold, heavily overcast, with torrential rain, that makes me wish I could stay home in bed.  When I was working out this morning and had done my laps in the pool, I didn’t want to leave the hot tub.  For a fleeting moment I thought about how nice it would be to say screw it all and just plain not do anything today- or do what I want to on my own time. Until I remembered all the crap I absolutely have to do today that can’t just be blown off, that is.

This picture reminds me of the times I spent wandering the railroad tracks that went past my grandparents’ house.  Technically we kids were not supposed to go anywhere near the railroad tracks, as they were live and in use until they were pulled up some time in 1983 or so, but there were two irresistable lures that made the tracks worth the possibility of encountering an oncoming train, and/or being eaten alive by the local insect life.   As far as oncoming trains, one could generally hear and see them in more than sufficient time to get clear.  The bugs were another story. The ground around the tracks was swampy and there were plenty of sources of stagnant water for mosquitos to breed in.   The open sewage creek that ran a few yards south down in the ditch alongside the tracks could be a source of foul odor in high summer, and it was positively rancid when the water levels in the creek got low and the wind blew in the wrong direction.  There was a reason why Dad freaked out when he found us floating paper boats in the creek. We had already figured out we were floating our boats in an open air toilet when we saw the dookie floating in in the creek.  Sometimes there was toilet paper and feminine hygiene items too.   He didn’t have to warn us “not to touch the water.”   Sometimes the dookie made it downstream faster than the boats.

Railroad spikes were worth fifty cents apiece to the right buyer, (if you could find one who didn’t ask questions as to how you got railroad spikes to begin with) which was a small fortune for a kid back then.  There were bushels and bushels of black raspberries to be had (in season) and they were well within reach.  Even so, while picking berries, one still had to be wary of both poison ivy and bugs.

spikesThese were actually worth some money in 1974- don’t know if they’re worth anything today.

Probably the one time I can remember getting a good thrashing from Dad instead of just having to deal with Mom breaking wooden paddles on my ill-fated fanny, was when my sister and I (not the sadistic one) decided to take a big gym bag down to the tracks and fill it up with spikes.  Never mind she was six, I was five, and we were both small for our respective ages.  We loaded this gym bag down until we could barely carry it with all the spikes in it.  It was a good eighth of a mile from the tracks to our house, and in order to get to the house from the tracks we had to wander by the whole neighborhood lugging this thing.

Dad’s friends had spotted us, and he had gotten numerous phone calls before we were even close to getting home.  Back then a kid couldn’t cut a popcorn fart without the whole neighborhood knowing about it.  He was waiting to tan our hides the minute we dragged the spikes in the door.

Back in the day no one would hesitate to narc on other people’s kids, and there was no mollycoddling – or mercy- when it came time for the punishment.  When punishment was administered, the neighbors didn’t hear a thing.  If nothing was broken or bleeding and they couldn’t discern any flaming injuries when your parents were done with you, they figured justice had been served and that was the end of it.

black-raspberriesWe generally got away with the raspberries, though.

The raspberries went when the railroad pulled up the tracks.  It seems as if all the weeds and garbage have come back to over grow the track bed, but the last time I went wandering where the tracks used to be it was rather frightening even in broad daylight.  I spotted plenty of trash, used syringes (not the ones used for insulin, either,) used condoms, had a near-death encounter with some redneck’s pit bull, and all sorts of nastiness, but no berry bushes.

I don’t like going to where my grandparents used to live.  It’s creepy knowing there are strange people living in their house.  It’s never been a particularly nice neighborhood (although when the tracks were pulled up, the city tiled over the sewage creek, which was a bit of an improvement) but it went from ‘po folks to dangerous folks.

I can’t fault anyone for having dogs, but when I bring Clara with me (partially because she likes to explore, and partially for protection) I don’t need someone’s pit bull coming at her as if it were going to tear out her throat.  Clara is formidable (she’s half Malinois, after all) but if a pit bull really wanted to get aggressive with Clara it would be ugly, and it would break my heart to see either her or another dog injured unnecessarily.  One of the most important tasks of a dog owner is to teach good socialization skills and appropriate behavior with other dogs.  Protection breeds are more prone to dog-aggression than most, so I try to keep all my dogs’ encounters with other dogs as positive ones.  Clara is particularly well mannered with other dogs and I want to keep her that way.  Should she have a bad encounter with another dog, it would be harmful to her physical well-being as well as her mindset toward other dogs.

pit-bull-dog-pI have mulled over the possibility of getting a pittie- though I am more familiar with the herding breed mentality.

I don’t have a problem with pit bulls- or any other dog breed- when the dog is handled responsibly.  A well trained and properly socialized pittie can be a fantastic, gentle, intelligent dog, but even an ankle biter can be dangerous if it’s ill-treated and improperly trained.  A pit bull can be deadly in the wrong hands, just as a GSD, Malinois, Doberman, Rottie,  and just about any other breed, etc. can be as well.  No dog is born aggressive or dangerous.  He / she has to be made that way.

Today I’m just trying to keep my mind off the rain and the funk and the dreariness.

basketball

Then I remember the damned basketball tournament is going to be all over TruTV, and I hope and pray I DVRd a whole lot of episodes of Top Gear and the bizarre 90’s cartoons I love so well.  Mmm, three middle aged Brits playing with cars, Cow and Chicken and 2 Stupid Dogs.  I guess that will have to be intellectual enough for me.

2stupiddogs

Don’t Wanna, Can’t Make Me, and Sweet Dreams are Made of These

Leave a comment

moretheyexpectSo, for a brief sanity break, leave those who were raised by wolves to figure things out for themselves from time to time.

The zoo calls that “enrichment” time for the animals.  Let the bears dig their dinner out of a bucket instead of just putting it in front of them. It makes their lives more fun. Or at least, it makes it more fun for the humans to watch.

I strive to have high standards for myself, but I don’t really expect much from rest of the world.  I know that might sound arrogant, but should I expect anything from anyone, even if I spell it out clearly, odds are that they will disappoint.  The old axiom, “if you want it done right, do it yourself,” certainly does apply in my life, although I should re-word it a bit for the 21st century.

“If I want it done at all, I better do it.”

If I keep my standards low, then when someone actually does perform adequately or appropriately, I am pleasantly surprised.  It’s sort of a twisted way of looking at the glass as being half full.

Of course there are some things I could give a rat’s ass less whether they’re done or not, because they just don’t make an appearance on my priority list.

assmaster

I’m not a sports fan.  I struggle to commit to regular workouts for my health’s sake.  I’m still trying to learn to enjoy exercise.  I appreciate being able to go to the Y and use the machines and the pool there, but the only person I compete against as far as fitness or athletic (in)ability is myself.

I will make time to work out, but I still don’t care to watch sports.  Especially next month when they will be clogging up TruTV with that March Madness basketball mess.  I know some people want to watch basketball, but why on the same channel that “World’s Dumbest” is on?  Why not cut a few of the late night pecker pump infomercials and have basketball on then?

I can’t say I am a huge fan of constantly dusting things either.  I don’t dust as often as I should, but dusting is one of those exercises in futility that I positively loathe.  Jerry is a constant smoker, which creates even more dust than what would be in a normal house.  That nasty nicotine encrusted film covers everything in the house.  If I get to it, I get to it, but it’s not one of my really compelling priorities.  I can dust the whole frigging house from top to bottom and the filmy sludge will return in less than a day.  To me that seems like an insane waste of time, which reminds me of poor Sisyphus.  We the unwilling, doing the impossible for the ungrateful.  Sometimes I think I have more in common with Sisyphus than I’d like to acknowledge.

unwilling

I know I torqued Jerry off last night by not fixing him dinner, however, he has spent the last few days being particularly obnoxious.  Last night I did make a special trip to get him chocolate milk.  That favor was greeted with a tirade about how he had to get up and lock the door.  I was gone for five minutes, in broad daylight, and the door leading into the kitchen was locked.  The outside door was unlocked because it’s a little easier to only have to dig for one key- once you’re already in the foyer- when it’s cold and your hands are full.  But since His Nibs doesn’t do anything that might involve carrying in groceries or anything like that, he wouldn’t know.

It’s my own fault for being too nice.

Paradise_Garden_Wallpaper_pkuk6Here’s a lovely little slice of paradise.  Or it would be, if there were a pool and a pool boy.

The bad thing about me and utopian scenes is that I’m always the one who cues in on the one nasty thing in the picture.  For me the idyllic scene above becomes:

Paradisecrapperfiretacos

This would be the kind of dream I have.  Everything is perfect for a minute, and then there’s flaming porto johns, Richard Simmons, and flatulence-provoking taco references.

Now here would be my definition of a nightmare:

detroit 3It would be my luck that when I die I’ll end up in Detroit.

Dog Doo, Tea Bagging, Dingbats and Family Annoyances

Leave a comment

only chick

I’ve never been much for political correctness, but my boobs aren’t speaking to you, bubba.

I’ve always had a sort of loathing for meetings/seminars/workshops in which the facilitator requires the participants to wear name tags.  At least a name tag like this could have served a practical purpose in a few of those sort of events.  I appreciate my anonymity, and hide behind it whenever I can.   I never had the choice of a cute HK tag to wear, even as the only chick at most of the automotive functions (there still aren’t very many female parts or service managers in car dealerships) I’ve attended.

I really don’t give two shits in a high wind if some stranger from Moose Dick, Alaska, who I will never see again, remembers my boobs, or my name.  I’d rather he forget them both.  Unless he’s hot, and there are exactly -0- hot guys on the planet who have ever bothered to drool on my shirt.

I’ve considered it a plus when the boob-oglers had teeth and hair.

Of course now that I’m older, the kinds of guys who would be ogling my cleavage (providing their vision is still good enough) have gotten even more scary than they used to be.

Some older guys are hot.  Unfortunately they were hot when they were younger too, and they ignored me then, too.  I was a kegger when I was 21, and that has not improved with age.  I am not one of the beautiful people, and usually that doesn’t bother me much.

tbagI guess if you’re that dumb, you deserve to be removed from the gene pool.

Today I’m sounding pretty misandrist (which is unusual for me, because I generally like men and get along better with them than with other women) and I’m sure it has to do with Jerry.  He did go and work out last night which I am proud of him for.  I just hope he isn’t too disheartened to find out that he can’t keep up with me.  I can bench press more than he can.  But in all fairness I quit smoking over 10 years ago, I don’t drink, and I’ve been working out already pretty consistently for the past 3 years.  He’s 12 years older than me, still smokes like a freight train, considers beer a food group, and lifts weights 12 ounces at a time.  That mindset apparently doesn’t do jack for your upper body strength.

Jerry can be a horrible dingbat at times and he displayed that today.  I really hate any family member calling me at work unless it’s something important.  Usually it’s dumb shit that can wait.  Unless someone is in the hospital or dead, or by some Miracle of God I’ve come into some serious money, I really don’t want to hear about it.  I have to talk to enough people and hear about enough problems while I’m at work without listening to anyone’s tirade about this that or the other thing that I can’t remedy until later anyway.  Jerry calls me with stupid shit (pun intended) such as “Sheena had the shits all over the floor.”

poopYes, Jerry, clean it up!  With your bare hands!  Why not?

So then I get to dread cleaning up congealed diarrheal dog shit for all the rest of the day.  Thanks, Jerry, for being the shit monitor.  How about YOU cleaning it up every once in awhile?  Jerry’s really good about pointing out the (blessedly rare) dog or cat accidents, but then he claims that “I can’t clean it up, because I’ll puke.”  Granted, I have a very limited sense of smell, but I can see, and I can feel, and I can be weird about germs, so what makes you think cleaning up shit is less gross for me, Captain Oblivious?

Mom is just as bad. She will call me with some (usually) imagined crisis (usually involving Steve-o, Sophie, or one of my nephews)  that I can’t do a damned thing about, only to find out later that she was making yet another mountain out of another molehill.  Steve-o is 21.  If he decides he wants to hang out with his buddies, or whatever, it’s not a Federal case.  As far as how he is raising his daughter, he and her mother seem to be doing a good job. Barring neglect or abuse, I will not intervene with their parenting. I had a hell of enough time raising my own offspring to be butting in on how others raise theirs.

happy yr home

As far as parenting my nephews, apparently she doesn’t have the courage to approach my sisters every time she thinks they’ve stepped outside their bounds.  In reality, my sisters are much stricter with my nephews than I ever was with Steve-o.  Unless they are doing illegal things or egregiously immoral things, it is none of my business and my sisters are responsible for correcting them anyway.

“Mother” does not start with “s.”  She is his grandmother, but the no-smother clause works with grandparents as well.   She might be Catholic, but, Steve-o’s not.  (See the video clip from Monty Python’s Meaning of Life on Protestantism which is pretty funny.) Though I may not approve of fornication, I also know that a.) he’s going to, and b.) if he’s going to, using a rubber is a pretty good idea.  He already has one offspring that we know about.

old-lady-with-naughty-ooooooh-look“Oooh, what are you doing with condoms!”

I only wish Jerry had been calling to bitch about something as trivial as dog shit.  Apparently he failed to understand what I meant, on numerous occasions, when I said I was cancelling a very expensive automatic recurring withdrawal from my checking account (i.e. that I could no longer pay for his life insurance, etc. that had been coming out of my checking account, and that he swore up and down, “yeah, I’ll pay you for it” but never did.)  Apparently (oh lucky freaking me) dumb-ass answered the home phone when he was home at lunch, which is only really there for phone solicitors and other people I don’t want to talk to.  So the insurance people were wondering why we had cancelled, etc. (and those people are annoying as shit when they call because they get a spiff on every policy they convince you not to cancel) so, not remembering I said I was cancelling the EFT, he proceeded to call me at work and give me a nasty little tirade about it.

pretendidiotJust because I’m used to irrational tirades doesn’t mean I enjoy them.

Joy.

I know I shouldn’t let him take financial advantage of me, (and I’m done with subsidizing these ridiculously overpriced insurance policies) but I will have hell to pay for it.  I’m not looking forward to that at all.

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

Leave a comment

signers-drawing

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.

the_second_amendment_protects_poster

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.

SelfDefense1

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.

heart_core_dark-1680x1050

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?

evilvsgood

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.

insaneI 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.

Sexy pole dancerI’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.”