The Katrina-Fetus link

First of all, I wanted to steer you in the direction of Eve's Apple, who posted this e-mail Monday. She brings light to perhaps the grossest capitalization on disaster I've ever seen. It's become a Rorschach Test for the extremists among us.

See, apparently, that little space between Katrina and the eastern coast of Texas looks like a 6-week-old fetus.

Now, I ran a Google Image search for a 6-week-old fetus, and I came up with this little beauty on the left. Okay, so the hurricane slightly resembles a deformed fetus. So let's all read landforms like tea leaves.We'll look to the man in the moon with as much regard -- maybe he is a symbol that all men should hover above the Earth nightly. ... Or, more likely, it means nothing at all.

By the way, some of the comments at the Eve's Apple fetus post are pretty interesting. When you visit, scroll down and skim through other people's ideas about the photo.

Now that I'm done ranting ...

Memphians who read this blog: Get gas. One radio station, 98.1 The Max, is reporting that the city will be out of gas by Friday. I don't know where they got that information, because I can't find it anywhere on the Web. But I'm afraid that it's going to spark enough panic that gas supplies will run short.

WMC-TV has this story posted Tuesday reporting so-called "gasoline worries." And Memphis Gas Prices (which is having connection issues today -- I assume it's being flooded by requests) is reporting several stations with gas above $3 a tank.

One more note for the Memphians -- I received this press release from the local Red Cross:

The Mid-South Chapter of the American Red Cross has opened another shelter for incoming victims of Hurricane Katrina. The Grand Casino Hotel graciously offered their convention center last Sunday to be used as an American Red Cross Shelter. As of last night, approximately 400 people were being housed in that shelter and it is at capacity.

In light of this situation, Trinity Baptist Church, located at 7200 Swinnea Road in Southaven, MS, has opened their doors as a shelter to aid the local Red Cross Chapter in housing more victims as they come into the Mid-South area.

“As always, there is a need for financial donations to help supply the assistance needed for the victims of Hurricane Katrina,” stated Rick Roberts, Director of Communications for the Mid-South Chapter of the American Red Cross. “But we are beginning to see a need that is growing among the victims for toiletry items…deodorant, toothbrushes, toothpaste, wash rags…donated items of that nature would be extremely helpful.”

Mid-Southerners wishing to donate these items can deliver them to the Mid-South Chapter office located at 1400 Central Avenue (next door to the University Country Club).

In addition, I just called Trinity to see if they had any other specific needs. The (very nice) woman with whom I spoke said they are running low on paper products (e.g. plates, cups, etc.), blankets, pillows, baby items (e.g. wipes, diapers, formula) and clothes.

My boss said she and her hubby are going to Sam's to buy supplies AND buying gas while they're there. (Sam's is still among the lowest prices in the city.)

[EDIT: Fixed a couple of typographical errors, reworded some strange phrases, and added a link. See what happens when you post without proofreading?]

Thoughts on Katrina

I feel like I need to mention something about Katrina, but I'm too hurt to know what to say. The devastation is incredible. I've spent most of the afternoon watching a New Orleans news channel's online feed. The anchors are at a loss for words -- how do you cover a hurricane after losing your own home? It breaks my heart.

And it hits close to home, literally. New Orleans, Biloxi, Gulfport -- they're all a few hours drive from Memphis. I've spent a lot of time vacationing along the Gulf. And with Dad on hurricane duty through the years, I've seen the damage caused by Hugo. And Andrew. And Opal and Floyd and Ivan.

I've seen the destruction of specific places -- restaurants, shops, etc. -- to which I attach very special family memories. I've also seen them rebuild ... never the same, but just as strong. And beyond that, I think Dad has given me a deeper understanding of the people affected by these storms. Knowing what storm survivors go through -- what they don't show on the news -- brings me to tears, even though I've never lost my home or my car or my clothes or my family.

I know times are tight right now, and a lot of people don't even know how they'll pay for their next tank of gas. But if you can help out those affected by Katrina, please do. FEMA has a list of recommended charities aiding in storm relief.

Like I said, they'll overcome and they'll rebuild. But it'll never be the same.

Suck the bear!

My boss was sick today. A sore throat. That wouldn't have been such a bummer to me except that I had a sore throat, too, so I was not really feeling up to doing a lot of extra work today. I didn't tell anyone I felt yucky. A couple of months ago, she and I got sick at the same time, and it's just too damn coincidental. I figured nobody would believe it a second time around, so I just let it slide.

I know it's just allergies, which is kind of a funny thing to say in August. My allergies usually kick in around March or April and are pretty well under control by late May or early June. But for the past week or so, I've had the itchy red eyes, the runny nose/drainage thing, the sore throat and the general achiness.

Now, most people would pull out the Halls cough drops and suck 'em down like there's no tomorrow. Not me. Five minutes of menthol lovin' makes my bronchi swell up like post-Playboy Anna Nicole Smith.

I learned early on that my asthma precludes most smelly stuff — eucalyptus, menthol, a lot of air fresheners, even Christmas trees (both pine and fir).

Anyway, when you start looking for cough drops with low or no menthol, your selection kind of dwindles. I can mostly handle Celestial Seasonings Soothers and a couple of formulas of Sucrets. But I really dig the Get Better Bears (formerly Dimetapp Get Better Bears). They're not mentholated, but they are medicated, so it helps out much more than sucking on candy all day.

With the boss out, I got behind on my own work today, and now I'm trying to catch up (it's 6:30 p.m.). Paul's run to the store to look for my bear pops. When I get home, it's citrus tea with honey ... and an early bedtime.

Last night, I spent a few hours (three) working on a CoH graphic. If it weren't copyrighted, I'd stick it on a shirt. The little guy to the right of the picture is one of my pets — Phantasm — and he's always getting me into trouble.

All my pets (Phantom Army, Phantasm and Spectral Terror) have a mind of their own, but Phantasm is the worst. He indiscriminately shoots at enemies, even if I have low health or power. Sometimes it seems like it does it especially when I have low health or power. ::grins::

The picture actually took a lot of work -- I had to cut around all the glowy stuff, which took a couple of hours. Then I had to blow up the blue power bar, clone the red damage icon, and change his name from Phantasm to the more appropriate "Aggro Magnet." The actual piece is about 3000x1500 px and I've still got some touching up to do.

My bro-in-law suggested I put Phantom Army on there, and that'll happen next time I feel like throwing three or four hours into photochopping something.

Now it's time to finish up a couple of things, go home, convalesce, and watch the remainder of Hurricane Katrina roll over the bluffs.

The tease in the tee

This morning, on my way into work, I saw a near-wreck. Man, it was like watching a FOX TV special in real life. ::grins::

Here's how it went down: I'm at the intersection of Ghetto and Hood right next to the Criminal Justice Center (a.k.a. jail). The light's been yellow for a while. I don't try to make it across. The car in the lane next to me is four car-lengths back ... and he decides to gun it.

The light's been red for a good four seconds or so before he even hits the intersection so (1.) cross-traffic has started to move and (2.) a woman is crossing the street right in front of him. He swerves to miss her. Okay, cool. Then he's almost hit by the cross-traffic, so he swerves again, the right side of the car lifts off the ground, he's on the left two wheels, the other car swerves, and ... he makes it across.

I was really kind of pissed. We were right next to the jail, and there was no cop in sight.

It's at this point that I look up at the woman who's crossing the street and realize she's a prostitute (albeit a "classy prostitute" ... not some of the toothless wonders I've seen wandering other parts of the city). Then I notice she's wearing a gym shirt from my high school. It says SAINTS at the top and has room for you to write your name in Sharpie underneath it.

The bad part is not that a prostitute was wearing a shirt that said SAINTS on the front. The bad part is that I realized it fit her much better than it fit most of the people in my gym class. :-
Speaking of shirts, I don't think I've ever shared a picture of my editing shirt. It says "Weapon of Mass Correction." Pretty darn cute, huh?

More fortune cookie fortunes (plus a healthy dose of 'Woe Is Me')

I swear, I do not feel like myself these days. I'm trying really hard to keep my chin up, but it seems my brain is back to its old tricks, sabotaging an otherwise normal life. I don't want to leave home to go to work, I don't want to leave work to go back home ... I just want to put my head down and crash.

And it's so hard to concentrate -- I think this is editors' hell. I just sit and stare at the paper or the screen. Stare. Read a couple of lines. Realize I didn't catch any of it. Read it again. I refuse to leave the office until all my work's done -- I like to start the day with a clean plate -- but with my mind wandering all over the place, it's a struggle to leave here by 6 p.m.

Fortunately, I'm very particular about getting the job done right. So even if it takes me a little bit longer, I'm confident that the quality of my editing hasn't suffered. Even if I have to triple-check something, I'm not going to turn it loose until it has my seal of approval. Still, everything is drifting. My head doc knows about the concentration issue, and I figure it's just part of the territory -- when I'm too high or low emotionally, I drift. When I level out, my concentration returns.

Coworkers (and a handful of online friends) have mentioned they don't like seeing me withdraw like this. Trust me, if I knew how to fix my brain, knew how to snap out of it, don't you think I would?

Anyway, that explains why my posts lately have been rather mindless and meandering. I can't concentrate on this any more than anything else in my life. ::grins:: One of the SA forums promotes writing (or drawing) every day, and I've held myself to that -- I've written every day in August so far. It may not be quality, but it's something stable in my life. Stable is good.

Now that that's out of the way ...

I have more fortunes to share! ^_^ The reason I save my fortune cookie fortunes is because when I have enough, I turn them into bookmarks! I made one earlier this year, which I'd scan if I wasn't so lazy. By the way, don't those fortune cookies look like Pac-Man? Or :v: (if you're in the know)?

Anyway, here are the fortunes that grace my first bookmark:

• You are gifted in many ways.
• A gathering of friends brings you lots of luck this evening.
• Look for the dream that keeps coming back. It is your destiny.
• You have a quiet and unobtrusive nature.
• Although it feels like a roller coaster now, life will calm down.
• Go ahead and be as sexy as you can.
• You display the wonderful traits of charm and courtesy.
• Patience is easy to wish for and difficult to achieve.
• You make other people realize that there exists other beauties in the world.
  
• Every friend joys in your success.
• The best mirror is a good friend.
• Soon you will be sitting on the top of the world.
• You will be of good comfort.
• Do something unusual tomorrow.

My favorite is "Go ahead and be as sexy as you can." What the hell kind of fortune is that?!

Recent fortune cookie fortunes

These are real fortune cookie fortunes I've collected over the past couple of months. Yes, I save them.

• We can learn from everyone, especially from our enemies.
• Listen attentively. You will come out ahead.
• He who takes notes listens well.
• Personal achievement will be your key to happiness.

• The view changes only for the leading dog.
• Count each separate day as a separate life.
• You will step on the soil of many countries.
• You feed your body every day. You must also feed your mind.
• You and your spouse will be happy in your life together.
• Time heals all wounds. Keep your chin up.
• You are busy but you are happy. (This was punctuated by smiley faces on either side.)
• The strengths in your character will bring you serenity.

But I'm not sharing my lucky numbers. If I tell them to you, they become less lucky, and I didn't want to share with you anyway.

Also, check out the gold and silver fortune cookies with fortunes written on satin ribbons. Man, that's like the Lexus of cookies, no? :)

Bundle of Joyishness

So my buddies Mandi and Dave had a baby a couple of weeks ago. I mean, Mandi had the baby, and I assume Dave was just there to watch. If both of them had the baby, it be a miracle of science that would spawn a Lifetime Original Movie.

His name is Raymond Alexander (their last name here), which means his first and middle initials spell RA.

Like the Egyptian bird dude with the sun on his head. Or, according to this site, "The supreme god. Son of Nut." (Hey, that joke was just too easy.)

And anyway, RA isn't that bad of a god, as far as the Egyptian pantheon goes. This kid would really have issues if his initials spelled out THOTH or something.

Eh, I'm just kidding around. I wish Mandi and Dave — and the little guy — much health and happiness. He was in NICU for eight days for a respiratory infection, and he's on a heart monitor now. As she said, "It sucks, but better to be safe than sorry."

She also said, "He's absolutely adorable and such a good baby." I'll take her word on it, because Paul and I have decided we want a few more years of "couple time" (and "doctorate time" and "maybe-move-out-of-town time") before we consider kids.

In other news...

Today is National Punctuation Day.

I really should have snagged the apostrophe shirt (see the picture to the right). If you can't read the caption, it says, "It's not possessive." ::grins:: The NPD site has quite a few other shirts worth checking out, too.

Trouble about being an editor is that I can't turn off editing like a light switch. I mean, I don't care about errors in e-mail or IMs or IRC ... but it really jumps out at me when I see a mistake on the national news or on a billboard or in a magazine, etc.

Case in point: A newly opened business down the street has a big fancy sign that reads SOFA'S TODAY. Matt was in town when the sign was erected, and as I lamented the apostrophe, he told me, "Maybe today is the sofa's day."

Mmhmm. Sure.

"I've learned other people's stories, told my own stories through song..."

If you haven't heard of Yoko Kanno, I think it's time to get acquainted. She is quickly becoming one of my favorite composers and maestrae ... and that's saying a lot. Maybe it's because she has an extensive (and amazing) repertoire of instrumental and vocal works. Maybe it's because she's an awesome pianist (and I always look up to great pianists) ...

... Or maybe it's just because I can't get over a 40-year-old Japanese woman writing some of the greatest old-school jazz I've heard in a long time.

She actually writes in a ton of genres other than jazz ... and for a ton of people. In fact, somebody at Wikipedia who knows a lot more about Yoko Kanno than I do says she's worked on 27 anime series, eight films, and nine video games.

And that doesn't mean she's written a song for 27 animes, eight films, and nine video games. For the majority of those, she's written entire scores. For many of the animes, she's scored the entire series. In addition, she's written for a ton of J-Pop artists (including some she sings herself under a pseudonym).

Ugh. I feel like that line from Talking Heads' "Psycho Killer": "You're talkin' a lot/but you're not sayin' anything." ::grins:: I mean, it's hard to talk about music without hearing it, you know?

Fortunately for me, the YK Project has audio clips from a lot of her works available for download. Recognize this song? It's from Cowboy Bebop. Hard to miss if you surf over to Cartoon Network on Saturday nights.

She's hard to catch in the U.S. these days. Every once in a while, she'll pop over for a anime convention or a concert, but it's pretty rare to see her conducting or performing here. Bummer. You can pick up her CDs from Amazon. Most of them are fairly expensive because they're imports (think $25-$50 per CD). BUT you can get cheap copies (~$8-$10) through Amazon's partner program.

I hadn't intended to spend an entire post talking music, but hey, this is really good stuff. ^_^

P.S. The quote in the title is from this interview, which is actually pretty decent. I think all musicians can appreciate the idea of music as a universal language. Unfortunately, I can't read most of her other interviews because they're in Japanese. And that's too bad, because I was really interested in the one titled "How do you do? I am a dog."

Undercover Furry Observer

It all started with JJCoolJ. I mean it didn't start with JJCoolJ, but he was the first one who ever made me realize Furries were serious. (Well, as serious as you can be when you're a giant polar bear looking for a good time.)

Let me back up a step in case you have no idea what I'm talking about. Now, this isn't the kosher definition of a furry, because I've learned it encompasses a lot more than this. But for purposes of quick explanation, a furry is someone who derives pleasure from dressing up like an animal (think sports mascot). They even have their own language -- when they get together, they yiff and scritch, etc.

There's actually a very enlightening article from Vanity Fair which has been preserved by a group of furries. "Pleasures of the Fur," as it's headlined, could just as easily be subtitled, "A Beginner's Guide to One Really Odd Fetish." And if, after reading the article, you really feel like you need more information (which you shouldn't), you can check out these furry-based comic strips: El Goonish Shive, Akaelae and Suburban Jungle.

Furries -- especially JJCoolJ -- became fodder for the Something Awful and ArsTechnica crew. There was even a Web page devoted solely to tracking JJCoolJ (link goes to cached version). As someone else said, JJCoolJ probably paid for (SA founder) Lowtax's kids' college education with all the money JJ dropped reinstating his membership over and over.

So why am I going on and on about furries? Because it's that time of year again. Mephit Furmeet 9 is in Memphis Sept. 1-4.

What is Mephit Furmeet, Kate? Glad you asked. It's the annual local furry convention. Three and a half days of ... fun?

Among the scheduled events:

• Furs with Puppets Meet and Greet (does this seem slightly redundant to anyone else? A guy in a fursuit ... holding a puppet?)
• Fursuit Social
• Shake Your Paws Dance
• The Furry Fems Pajama Breakfast (no guys allowed)
• Babyfur Gathering (Kittens and puppies, folks.)
• Furry Futures/Furry Genetics
• Sunday Mass with Kamau
  (a "Barbary Lion," Catholic priest, and EMT)
• My Little Pony Customization 101
• Furry Christians (led by Priest Kamau and "Kitsune," a U.S. Navy Commander and grey fox with opposable thumbs).

Oh, and I forgot to mention the furry karaoke ... the furry comedian ... the furry rock band ... and the two furries getting married on Saturday. No, this is not a joke. I don't want to cause trouble ... I mean, they all sound like lovely people -- err, animals. But I'd really like to get into the convention and furry-watch.

I want to be an Undercover Furry Observer (UFO).

At best, it would provide a wealth of writing inspiration. At worst, it would be an interesting way to kill a weekend. Maybe I could convince some of the Ars or SA guys to come with me ... as long as they promised not to get in any fights. (It's for their own safety, you know. People with claws generally win fights.) ^_^;

I'll keep you guys in the loop about my UFO plans. Until then, I'd love to hear others' experiences with furries ... and what you guys think of the whole phenomenon.

[Edit: To answer the first question asked to me off-blog ... No, you don't have to dress up to get into the con.]

The Worst Day Ever

I just want to go away. That is all.

Things you can do until I feel better:
(1.) Listen to this song.
(2.) Check out PostSecrets.
(3.) Kill me quickly and painlessly.

yippee.

Confessions of a GeekGirl

Ugh. I feel like such a GeekGirl. I rushed home from work today to play City of Heroes with Paul. On the way, I called him from my SideKick and listened to my iPod. Now I'm laying in bed, posting to my Web site from my laptop while Paul helps me beat a tough boss in Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories.

It's all very surreal to me, how I'm hooked up to ... everything ... no matter where I go. And while it's nice that I have the world at my fingertips, I don't particularly like the thought that I'm never out of reach.

But I am constantly amazed at how far things have come in my lifetime. I'm 25. Think about it ... CDs, DVDs, laptops, cell phones, gigabytes, Nintendo, RFIDs, Palm Pilots, TiVo, the Internet as we know it, Jolt Cola, the Mars Rover, LASIK, movies made entirely by computer, mp3s, e-mail, eBay, digital cameras, techno, lathroscopic surgery, etc.

I know there's a lot of bad stuff in the world today, but all things considered, I think it's a great time to be alive. What else do you think is going to change or be accomplished in our lifetime? Will it resemble The Jetsons or 1984? Something to think about while I play KH and ponder why Sora looks so goshdarn feminine. Weird.

P.S. Where do we stand regarding beads?

Books of utter greatness?

This was on FF's blog ... thought I'd see how I measure up.

US College Board's 101 Greatest Works
(Books I've read are bolded)

1. Beowulf
2. Achebe, Chinua - Things Fall Apart
3. Agee, James - A Death in the Family
4. Austen, Jane - Pride and Prejudice
5. Baldwin, James - Go Tell It on the Mountain
6. Beckett, Samuel - Waiting for Godot
7. Bellow, Saul - The Adventures of Augie March
8. Brontë, Charlotte - Jane Eyre
9. Brontë, Emily - Wuthering Heights
10. Camus, Albert - The Stranger
11. Cather, Willa - Death Comes for the Archbishop
12. Chaucer, Geoffrey - The Canterbury Tales
13. Chekhov, Anton - The Cherry Orchard
14. Chopin, Kate - The Awakening
15. Conrad, Joseph - Heart of Darkness
16. Cooper, James Fenimore - The Last of the Mohicans
17. Crane, Stephen - The Red Badge of Courage
18. Dante - Inferno
19. de Cervantes, Miguel - Don Quixote
20. Defoe, Daniel - Robinson Crusoe
21. Dickens, Charles - A Tale of Two Cities
22. Dostoyevsky, Fyodor - Crime and Punishment
23. Douglass, Frederick - Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
24. Dreiser, Theodore - An American Tragedy
25. Dumas, Alexandre - The Three Musketeers
26. Eliot, George - The Mill on the Floss
27. Ellison, Ralph - Invisible Man
28. Emerson, Ralph Waldo - Selected Essays
29. Faulkner, William - As I Lay Dying

30. Faulkner, William - The Sound and the Fury
31. Fielding, Henry - Tom Jones
32. Fitzgerald, F. Scott - The Great Gatsby
33. Flaubert, Gustave - Madame Bovary
34. Ford, Ford Madox - The Good Soldier
35. Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von - Faust
36. Golding, William - Lord of the Flies
37. Hardy, Thomas - Tess of the d'Urbervilles
38. Hawthorne, Nathaniel - The Scarlet Letter
39. Heller, Joseph - Catch-22
40. Hemingway, Ernest - A Farewell to Arms
41. Homer - The Iliad
42. Homer - The Odyssey
43. Hugo, Victor - The Hunchback of Notre Dame
44. Hurston, Zora Neale - Their Eyes Were Watching God
45. Huxley, Aldous - Brave New World
46. Ibsen, Henrik - A Doll's House
47. James, Henry - The Portrait of a Lady
48. James, Henry - The American
49. Joyce, James - A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
50. Kafka, Franz - The Metamorphosis
51. Kingston, Maxine Hong - The Woman Warrior
52. Lee, Harper - To Kill a Mockingbird
53. Lewis, Sinclair - Babbitt
54. London, Jack - The Call of the Wild
55. Mann, Thomas - The Magic Mountain
56. Marquez, Gabriel García - One Hundred Years of Solitude
57. Melville, Herman - Bartleby the Scrivener
58. Melville, Herman - Moby Dick
59. Miller, Arthur - The Crucible
60. Morrison, Toni - Beloved

61. O'Connor, Flannery - A Good Man is Hard to Find
62. O'Neill, Eugene - Long Day's Journey into Night
63. Orwell, George - Animal Farm
64. Pasternak, Boris - Doctor Zhivago
65. Plath, Sylvia - The Bell Jar
66. Poe, Edgar Allan - Selected Tales
67. Proust, Marcel - Swann's Way
68. Pynchon, Thomas - The Crying of Lot 49
69. Remarque, Erich Maria - All Quiet on the Western Front
70. Rostand, Edmond - Cyrano de Bergerac
71. Roth, Henry - Call It Sleep
72. Salinger, J.D. - The Catcher in the Rye
73. Shakespeare, William - Hamlet
74. Shakespeare, William - Macbeth
75. Shakespeare, William - A Midsummer Night's Dream
76. Shakespeare, William - Romeo and Juliet
77. Shaw, George Bernard - Pygmalion
78. Shelley, Mary - Frankenstein
79. Silko, Leslie Marmon - Ceremony
80. Solzhenitsyn, Alexander - One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
81. Sophocles - Antigone
82. Sophocles - Oedipus Rex
83. Steinbeck, John - The Grapes of Wrath
84. Stevenson, Robert Louis - Treasure Island
85. Stowe, Harriet Beecher - Uncle Tom's Cabin
86. Swift, Jonathan - Gulliver's Travels
87. Thackeray, William - Vanity Fair
88. Thoreau, Henry David - Walden
89. Tolstoy, Leo - War and Peace
90. Turgenev, Ivan - Fathers and Sons
91. Twain, Mark - The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
92. Voltaire - Candide
93. Vonnegut, Kurt Jr. - Slaughterhouse-Five
94. Walker, Alice - The Color Purple
95. Wharton, Edith - The House of Mirth
96. Welty, Eudora - Collected Stories
97. Whitman, Walt - Leaves of Grass
98. Wilde, Oscar - The Picture of Dorian Gray
99. Williams, Tennessee - The Glass Menagerie
100. Woolf, Virginia - To the Lighthouse
101. Wright, Richard - Native Son

How many of them have you read?

I've read 67. But as I was telling FF, I don't remember much about several of them because I was forced to read them in school. There's something rebellious in me that fights any text being forced on me. Books should be chosen, enjoyed, read on one's own terms.

I have found far greater enjoyment in the classics I've read since I've been out of school. I feel like I've gained great understanding by approaching a book on my own time, in my own way.

But as I told FF, I know many people who wouldn't pick up a classic unless their lives (or their grades) depended on it. It's sad, but it's the truth. But it leads to an interesting question: Does forced reading turn students off to books? Do study units and quizzes do more harm than good?

Food for thought.

P.S. Art is from The Canterbury Tales and Walden, the latter of which is one of my favorite books of all time. Also, Crumb's interpretation of The Metamorphosis is an awesome book.

Three random oddities

Three random links culled from my Bookmarks (which haven't been updated in a loooong time)...

(1.) Nails-a-lon.com ... a.k.a. "Women with horrible talons." My college piano teacher, Russ, instilled in me the importance of short nails. "If they're long," she'd tell me, "they just click-click-click on the keys." She didn't have much to worry about. I've never liked long nails.

But there are people out there who do. They hang out at Nails-A-Lon. They even have an annual nail get-together. I'm sure it's very ... scratchy. Frankly, the thought sends chills up my spine as I frantically search for the nail clippers.

(2.) The Flaming Fire Illustrated Bible. There are 36,665 verses in the Bible. And this site wants people to illustrate every one of them. It's a lofty goal — to date, they still lack over 30,000 verses. But every one counts.

Apparently, artistic ability is not a prerequisite for submission. (Or perhaps that artist just thought Jesus was a really angry guy.) Also, artists seem to be allowed to endorse products ... such as TraveLodge.

Anyway, the art ranges from beautiful to absurd, and it's an interesting look at how people perceive the Bible.

(3.) Star Wars: Fact Not Fiction ... Okay, every technogeek I know is intimately familiar with TimeCube. But, alas!, there are other wacky folks on the Internet. JAH is one of them.

I don't think I could paraphrase his work, so I'm just going to paste the first half of the run-on sentence which comprises the first paragraph: George Lucas quite naturally believes that he wrote "Starwars", when, in reality, he was told telepathically what to write in the original first three Episodes (4-6), by the very "Force" to which the films refer, and was "forced" to make only episodes 4-6, first ...

It gets wackier. Jedi is really code for "JEsus' DIsciple." Umm, yeah. Whatever you say.

"I was a worthy adversary."

A paper by my brother-in-law, circa 7th or 8th grade. Found it on my hard drive a couple of hours ago.

It was going to be one of those days I wouldn’t forget, for the rest of my life. It was Saturday, when I was between the ages of eleven or twelve. During the soccer season at St. Dominic’s, I played rather well for a Seventh grader, I thought, but the main thing was, we were going against Immaculate Conception. Which, we never faced before, it was definitely going to be a rough game, I thought to myself personally.

Now, it was an hour before the game my dad, the coach, of our soccer team was telling me what to do in today’s game. I was one of the outstanding players for our team; I could play any position, which would be given to me. I could play sweeper extremely good, with quickness and strength on my side I was a worthy adversary.

The game had started, tie score, it was rather boring my team had the defense of Immaculate Conception working hard, but on our side it was rather lazy. Somehow a miracle had happened for Immaculate Conception, they had broken our offense and were now barreling down the field extremely quick, both “Wings” on either side, so the two defenders were busy trying to guard their man. I was stuck in the middle, and there he was a tall black kid, at first I was rather afraid. Personally, I thought he was a giant standing around 6’2, he was moving quick and dead at me like a train. He stopped for some reason, and then I noticed his foot rearing back for a kick.

Boom! That soccer ball was heading on a step climb almost going over my head, and it wasn’t near me yet, so not really thinking. A quick plant on my feet and I lunged up into the air, my head and the ball on a one-way collision. It must have been some sight to see I probably got about a foot off the ground, and still rising as the ball neared my predestined collision spot. The crowd was cheering for our team to take the ball back, I could clearer hear all the moms yelling and screaming as the other team closed the gap on our goal.

My blood was pumping to a hardcore stream; I had my adrenaline in me going full blast. I lowered my head, so I wouldn’t be hit in the face. THUD! Almost everyone on the sidelines fell quiet, the moms had stopped cheering and the players just stopped. That ball probably soared about twenty feet into the air, off my head. That was a monster of a kick.

I fell to the ground after that blow to the head; I didn’t feel all right after the header. I fell on my heels and stumbled backwards, either the force of the ball or my senses were knocked out of me, but I stumbled backwards. I regained my balance, the moms still quiet, the two defenders just standing there watching. Our team got the ball and had a full offensive charge going with them. We scored off the defensive stop.

A few hours later, we were driving up to "McDonalds" and my vision went down. I couldn’t see hardly anything my eyes had gone almost completely blind, it was rather scary as I frantically told my mom that I couldn’t see the keys or her arm. My mom got rather jittery to get home.

A day later, still having a horrible head-ache, we went to the doctor and he told me, I had sustained a slight concussion, and that I had migraines from the incident. He told me they would soon go away, and we left. But still, even today sometimes I have horrible headaches and my vision still fades away from that incident, which I could only think, that must have been one hell of a kick.

Tie that one!

Bought a laptop from Tony (Tzi-Tzi ... ArsT profile; ArsC profile) last night.

His original message:

ok well here it is

• p3 700mhz
• 256MB of pc100 ram
• a 20GB HDD
• 2 batteries that seem to hold full charge
• a 14 inch lcd with no dead pixels and great brightness
• a dvd drive and a floppy disk drive
• and 2 power cables for it.

I replaced the motherboard a little bit back, and all the connections feel pretty solid and it runs great, as I'm using it now.
only thing is I'm running linux on it since I don't have a license for windows for it. other than that it seems to run great and has for the last 2 years that I've had it ... (and then more info followed)

He forgot to mention it's also got a Netgear G wireless card and VGA port. And since we didn't bother to haggle down the price at all, he talked his wife into tossing in the laptop bag, too. ::grins:: And, if for some reason it's DOA, he promised to refund the money and pay for shipping back to him.

He shipped the lappy FedEx two-day, so I'm having fun tracking it onine on its journey to Memphis. It's in Illinois now. It'll be here Wednesday.

He's got good Beerology and Heatware feedback (for you uninitiated, those are the technogeek versions of the eBay Feedback Forum.

Of course, I'm having morning-after purchase guilt, but it was a really awesome price and he's trusted among the ArsC crew.

Plus, we really needed something to replace our lappy. The right side of the keyboard (specifically, the letters I, O, P, J, K, L, N, M and the comma and period) no longer worked. My name on that keyboard reads: ese ate se ... which, when translated from Spanish, roughly means: Tie that one!

And now you know.

Elvis, Chagall ... and Tea

(1.) Elvis Vigil is tomorrow in front of Graceland. Assuming you guys aren't coming to Memphis for the oddity that is the annual vigil, you can catch the vigilcast online. But it's just not the same. You don't get to see the police blocking off Elvis Presley Boulevard so people can bring their lawn chairs and gaze upon the temple that is Graceland. You don't get to see the shrines, the photos, the Elvis impersonators, the people holding hands in a circle and singing "You Ain't Nothin' But a Hound Dog."

I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but when I was working for the CA during The Summer From Hell, a couple of the rim editors took the other intern, Andy, and me down to the vigil. It was just overwhelming, the people crying, holding candles, watching Elvis movies on the Jumbotron, etc.

Now, there were plenty of teenagers there (which, in itself, was kind of weird ... they weren't even born when he died). But what weirded me out the most was the group of five or six teenagers, 16- or 17-year-olds, who had drawn a pentagram with a huge photo of Elvis propped in the middle and different colored candles on each arm of the pentagram. They had their eyes closed and were sitting around the pentagram with their legs crossed and chanting. O_o Very odd, that.

Anyway, you don't get to see any of that on the Vigilcast, but you can still marvel at the people who are more religious about Elvis than most people are about Jesus.

(2.) Elvis-related oddity #2: "Elvis and Chagall" at The Dixon: A Vivian R. Jacobson and Seth Weinstein Multimedia Presentation, Aug. 21.

If you haven't yet caught what that's all about, let me copy a bit from the press release: The program at The Dixon will feature a multimedia approach incorporating slides as well as recorded and live music. Elvis’ hit, The Wonder of You, will resound as Chagall paintings are shown on the screen. In another segment, Chagall’s Biblical paintings are accompanied by Elvis’ Amazing Grace. ... Weinstein’s unique blend of rock and roll with the klezmer, a musical form rooted in ancient Jewish culture, will join the worlds of Elvis and Chagall.

Once again ... O_o

(3.) And a totally non-Elvis-related item: I subscribe to a number of coffee podcasts, but I've noticed the market is lacking a solid tea-focused podcast. After bouncing the idea off Rachel, I'm thinking I might give it a go.

I'm going to do some research and planning ... what kind of segments to include, whether I can secure a co-host, how much equipment I need (if any), etc. But, of course, all my planning won't begin until after I watch "Elvis and Chagall." Absolutely inspirational, that. ::grins::

Star Light, Star Bright

Around 9:30 tonight, I was poking through Duran's blog, when I caught his post from a couple of days ago about the Perseids.

Man, I was kicking myself. With Paul so busy and my head not in the game, I'd totally forgotten about the Perseids. >_< But I knew the peak viewing time ran from Aug. 11-14, so there was still a good chance I'd see some strong activity if I got out of the city.

So Paul and I grabbed the telescope, threw our chairs-in-a-bag in the back of the Vue, and drove 45 minutes out of the county to Old Poplar. We went out there a couple of years ago to watch the Perseids, but I'd forgotten how amazing the night sky looks when you get away from the city lights.

We found Ursa Minor and a few planets. The Milky Way was fantastic (and very visible) ... and we each saw quite a few meteors shooting across the sky. In a word, the whole night was spectacular. We got back around 1:30 a.m.

One of my cousins, a teacher in California, takes some awesome astronomy photos ... but I couldn't track down his Web site. It's now 3 a.m. and I've stopped trying. ::grins:: The photo above -- which I really dig -- is from NASA's site.

For next year's Perseids -- and for the Mars shindig in October -- I think we're going to hook up our telescope's CCD eyepiece to the laptop and view it on-screen. Sure is easier than fighting over who gets to look next. ^_^

I gotta thank [vari] for reminding me about the Perseids, or I would've totally missed them. Did anyone else manage to catch the big show this year (or are you planning to hit the great outdoors for the last night of peak viewing)?

New SnottyPaws logo

Paul asked me to make a new SP logo. He says it's not to replace the dancing cow, so my animation has to play second fiddle to a pixelated POS... not that I'm bitter or anything. ::grins::

It actually looks a lot like BBB, if I do say so myself. And now (having temporarily reclaimed my husband from this darned report, I'm going to do fun things like watch cartoons, take a nap, and go shopping.

^______^

Whip out the Geritol

When I was, oh, about 11 years old, I was really into The Monkees. You know, the manufactured pop group that starred in a TV show of the same name from 1965-1970.

Why did I dig The Monkees, you ask? Two reasons:

1. I couldn't watch You Can't Do That On Television ... or Ren and Stimpy ... or any of the other TV shows my friends watched.
2. I was totally into Davy Jones. I thought he was sooo cute. Hey, I was a kid. Cut me a break.

This year, he turns 60. And he looks pretty bad, as seen in the following then/now pics:


Okay, the third picture is the Davy Jones mask, which I thought was kind of creepy, so I included it for kekeke value.

It's actually really depressing, knowing the people who grace CD covers and TV screens get old, too. I guess in my mind they'll always be in a time warp. Tom Cruise (now 43) will always be Mr. Risky Business. Dee Snider (now 50 years old) will always be pre-PMRC. And Madonna (who'll be 47 on Tuesday) will always be pointy-boobed.

So how old are some other musicians? Let's give it a whirl. (Oh, I'm testing out a new script here. Let me know if the mouseover works like it's supposed to.) Not all of these people are old by my standards, so don't give me the "that's not old!" lecture. I just think it's interesting ...

• Cher ... 59
  
• James Hetfield ... 42
  
• Gene Simmons ... almost 56
• Serj Tankian (Soad) ... almost 38 (did you know he's from Beirut?)
• Rob Zombie ... 39
  
• Alice Cooper ... 57
• Michael Jackson ... almost 47
  
• Tori Amos ... almost 42
  
• Dexter Holland (The Offspring) ... 39
  
• Elton John ... 58
• Lil' Kim ... 30
  
• Ozzy Osbourne ... 56
  
• Mick Jagger ... 62
• Keith Richards ... 61
• Britney Spears ... 23
• Dave Matthews ... 38
  
• Tracy Chapman ... 41
• Adam Duritz ... 41
  

I left out all the obscure musicians I really dig. I'll save that for another post. :-)

Why post when you can game?

As much as I love you guys, Dear Hubby is home tonight, and we're going to play some City of Heroes. I'm trying to get to level 38 at which point I'll get a power called Fulcrum Shift and then I'll be popular and everyone will love me.

And you guys care. No, really. I know you do.

See my buddies and me in the picture? We're such a fun-lovin' crew that we don't even go fight baddies. We just stand outside elevators and read the newspaper. All night long. While talking over TeamSpeak.

Well, I think I've said enough. Oh! I posted a comment in the Bead Hub thread answering SGG's question and letting Lauren know she's in like Flynn.

What kind of deadline do you think we should set for beads? Doesn't matter to me as long as you guys adhere to deadlines better than Paul. ;-)

Kate: The Hard Drive Slayer

Man, the last couple of days have been killer. Last night, I came home to a blank computer screen. Ooh ooh! I know what that means! A hard drive is dead! (This is becoming old hat to me now.) I gulped hard and rebooted.

I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw some activity. When Windows loaded (albeit slowly), I started looking around ... and panicked. I'd lost my 40-gig D:/ drive, which largely served as backup in case my (partitioned) primary drive borked.

My main concern: the book. I was frantically digging through files ... until I remembered there's a desktop shortcut to my book directory. And it was fine. (It was at this point, and this point only, that I realized that the publisher has a copy of the book ... and I have one at work ... and one on the jumpdrive. So I wasn't in any danger ... but still ...)

Honestly, I can't figure out what I lost except for some mp3s (which are backed up on the iPod), plus some college stuff that I hadn't accessed in years. In fact, I had the entire contents of my college partitions (named JoeBob and Beef Jerky) on my D:/ drive.

R.I.P. JoeBob and Beef Jerky. Mostly you were just taking up space.

When Chris The Tech Dude came by my office this afternoon, I told him about the dead hard drive, and he slowly started backing away from my office. Paul and I have a stack of, what?, five hard drives or so that have died since January. And that's not counting the one at work that fried last month. But they were old drives ... and they'd certainly been put through their paces, like two years of near-constant brownouts when we lived in an apartment.

The second blow to my frazzled nerves came tonight, when Paul informed me the MAMML guys (link goes to his research professor) were going to be working on their mega-huge report for another week. I blew up. I know they're stressed and they want this to be right, but I feel like I'm playing second fiddle to water disinfection byproducts.

I did have to rib him some about not knowing the definition of deadline. The report was due Aug. 1. As of today, they're 10 days late ... and something about that kills my inner journalist.

But mostly, I'm just giving him a hard time.

Anyway, in an attempt to drown my sadness about the past couple of days, I decided to buy a cabochon I saw online when I was looking up links for the Bead Hub thread.

That's a picture of it above. Pretty isn't it? Also, it's fossilized dino poop. ^_^

The Official "Bead Hub" Post

After I started reading your comments last night, I got really excited. You guys are the best buddies in the world to indulge my blessing way necklace dreams. ^_^

I really liked Monstee's idea: "Do me have to juggle addresses too, or am Kate going to act as 'Hub' and do all mailing together? Me am Monstee! Me need clarity!!!"

Okay, so I guess it loses something when I quote him, because I just can't pull off Big Blue's attitude. But I'd be more than happy to serve as a hub for you guys.

Here's how I envision it working:

1. Each participant chooses and sends me 8 beads or charms (since we don't know how many people are participating yet). Choose ones that mean something to you or represent you. If you pick out a bead specifically for one person, let me know who it's for. Otherwise, I'll give everybody the same one.

2. Enclose a note explaining why you chose that bead.

3. I'll take the beads and charms, add spacers, and string them into a necklace (or bracelet, depending on the size of beads and number of participants). Then I'll send back the finished product, any left-over beads (if we have fewer than 8 people), plus copies of each others' notes about which bead is yours and why you chose it.

If you already have beads/charms or know of a local store, by all means, choose a few things and send them to me. If not, you can buy them online and ship them directly to my house. One of my favorite online sites is Fire Mountain Gems, which has an amazing selection. When I say amazing, I mean their paper catalog is nearly 1,000 pages ... with a 100-page addendum sent every three months.

I would not suggest you brave a bead show. Paul will attest to how crazy they can be, because I drag him with me three or four times a year. The photo above -- that's the typical scene at one booth at a bead show. It's fun ... but a little overwhelming at times.

If you're cool with this plan, drop me a note in the comments and I'll send you my address. Now I'm getting nervous. Don't let me down, ok?

Beads and baubles

On the left side of my watch dangles an orange-and-white marbled charm, one of the lampwork beads Matt left in Memphis. I set the bead in sterling silver and spent a month debating where to hang it. It's preeeetty, and it reminds me of my torch ... and Matt ... and that Matt's far away with my torch! ::grins::

Last night, when I posted pictures of my anklets, it reminded me of a ritual called the Blessing Way. It's a rather frequent occurrence for the Navajo. Centered around life changes, it's typically performed for expectant mothers, sons leaving during wartime, those moving into a new home, etc.

There are actually a number of rituals associated with the Blessing Way, but my favorite is the bead ritual, in which each person brings to the ceremony a bead or talisman that is special to them or speaks to them in some way. The idea is that the person being blessed walks away with a necklace symbolizing the love and strength of those who care for them. The photo at left is an actual Blessing Way necklace I saw online.

The jewelry I wear symbolizes a lot to me — special people, places, phases of my life. I have a "ruby in the rough" (ruby and zoisite) ring from a little traditional Voodoo shop in New Orleans; a Peruvian blue opal bracelet Paul brought me from Chicago; an Italian charm bracelet with links representing places I've been; and, of course, my wedding ring.

Now I can the "Dude, Where's My Torch?!" charm to the list of those representing a particular moment in time.

Unfortunately, I'm not experiencing a big life change, other than the stress of having my husband go through the doctoral process. I'm not moving, not going to war, and definitely not pregnant. But the idea of all of my friends getting together and creating Blessing Way necklaces for each other really strikes my fancy. Just seems like something that would lift my spirits when things get rough.

I guess I can't solicit my own necklace, huh? Maybe I'll just mail all of you a bead and hope you send me something in return. :)

MAMML lovin'

It's 8 p.m. Sunday night. I'm in the MAMML lab (that's Mobile Analytical Monitoring and Miniturization Lab, for the uninitiated). Last night, Paul and I were here until nearly 1 a.m. Tonight, he tells me it'll be an hour or two more.

I spent all day (well, four hours, and it seemed like damn near all day) making a red velvet cake for Paul and his two cohorts on this report: Mike and the guys' research prof Dr. Emmert. But it turned out really well (guess the planets aligned and the humidity was just right) ... and anyway, the guys seemed to really appreciate the break. I know this report has been hard on them all. Dr. Emmert promised me I'd have my hubby back soon -- I think I'm going to hold him to that. ::grins::

I'm sick of red velvet cakes. They're a real chore to make, and I've done two in four days. Nobody else gets one for a while. And to answer your comment, FF, you don't get one anyway because, as I recall, you are allergic to all things red.

Last night, I bought some fine-gauge hemp, along with some amethyst and a number of art glass focal beads. While Paul was analyzing data, I spent the better part of three hours knotting up an anklet. It took a really long time because the finer the gauge, the more knots it takes. Tonight, I made a spirit bear anklet (since Matt still has my necklace).

At this point in my post, I originally typed, "I like them! Maybe I should take a picture of my ankle!" ^_^ Then I decided why should I just say that?! So behold! My ankle! And, why yes, those are my favorite wide-leg jeans AND my absolutely favorite Nintendo flip-flops (complete with logo tag).

On second glance, that's a really weird picture, but I think it's because I had to hold the camera upside-down in order to get my ankle right-side up ... and it looks kinda weird and distorted. Or then again, it could be the video card on Paul's work computer, which is perpetually on its last leg. It makes staring at this monitor an exercise in inducing migraines. Also, notice the huge bulge where I've fractured my ankle/foot a couple of times and sprained it on more occasions than I can count. And I have an extra bone in there, too! ^_^

Okay, it looks like the MAMML boys are on the way out the door, which is my cue to sign off and get out of here (finally). 'Bout time, too. I'm running out of ideas for jewelry to make, things to paint, and ways to creatively die in World 5 of Super Mario Bros. 3 on my Game Boy Advance. Later, kids. :)

Hear no evil, see no evil ...

1. Hear no evil: Having reached the point of boredom with music on my iPod (I've got enough to last the drive from here to Toronto about 15 times), I decided to turn to Podcasts for my latest diversion.

At Paul's suggestion, I signed up for C2C casts. I think I started listening to C2C during the Summer from Hell, because I was driving home late at night. Art Bell had come out of retirement (for a second time), and he was good company in the middle of the night.

I get some passing amusement from the guests, but it's the callers that really get me going. It's like listening to Chatterbox on crack. (As to that link ... yes Lazlow is a real guy [he's on the left]. With a real radio show ... and a clothing line ... and three video games under his belt ...)

Anyway, I've subscribed to a couple of other Podcasts (Leo Laporte's TWiT and NASA's science@nasa), but I'd love suggestions as to other good (informative, funny, interesting ... but not explicit) Podcasts out there. Ha ha. I said out there. Right after talking about Art Bell. I'm a frickin' comedienne.

2. See no evil... I read this really cool article about a blind video game player who uses audio cues and timing to play games. And apparently, he kicks butt, too.

It got me to thinking about playing video games without being able to see. This kid, Brice Mellen, started with video games like Space Invaders and Asteroid. Admittedly, there's not a lot to look at there.

Now he plays things like Mortal Kombat and Soul Calibur. They're a lot more visually stunning, but I guess there's still not a lot of scenery, per se, as long as you can imagine one dude beating up another dude.

I'd be interested to learn whether this guy enjoys playing FPS or RPG games. Just seems like those would be a little more boring (or impossible) without one's sight. Anyway, he wants to study video game design in college. More power to him. I think he's already shown he can beat the odds. Ha ha. I said beat the odds. Right after talking about a blind gamer. I'm a frickin' comedienne ... again.

Spam and cake (mmm ... tasty)

I love spam that really speaks to me. Like the piece I received today:

Because, lord knows if you quote 12 different adages (one of them twice), I'm way more likely to buy your breast firming cream. No, really.

In completely different news... I made a red velvet cake last night for my coworkers. Tensions have been high around the office, mostly because of the renovations.

It took me two and a half hours, but at 1 a.m., I put the finishing touches on my cake ... and proceeded to watch the bottom layer collapse just enough for the middle and top layers to slide precariously to one side. I was too tired to fix it, so I threw my hands in the air (waved them like I didn't care) and went to bed. All in all, my slightly lopsided cake wasn't the prettiest in the world, but it tasted damn good, if I do say so myself.

It's a secret family recipe. Actually, I can't even call it a secret family recipe, because it was solely Aunt Linda's until I got married. The recipe was part of my wedding gift. As far as I know, her own son and his wife don't have a copy.

Anyway, Paul requested Aunt Linda make a really big red velvet cake as the groom's cake at the wedding, and I think it went faster than the wedding cake. Carrie will vouch that it's just that good.

Problem is that it's completely from scratch -- no cake mixes or tubs of Duncan Hines frosting. And that means it takes a long time to put together. Even more so when Chef Kate forgets to preheat the oven. (Hey, cut me some slack. I know how to cook -- pretty well, actually -- but the motto around our house is "Better living through take-out.")

The next time one of my blog buddies is breezing through Memphis, I'll make sure to bake one. But don't expect me to be like Duke, the dog who's always trying to give away the recipe to Bush's Baked Beans. Because, dude, wild horses couldn't drag this one out of me.

But I will enlighten you with the keywords from my spam mail. It's the least I can do.

Strong Tea vs. Strong Glue

Here's the worst idea ever: reflooring the office during office hours on a weekday.

It's part of a number of office renovations planned for the next month or so. Painter dude has become a fixture around here. Nice guy, and his painting hasn't really gotten in the way of us worker bees. As long as you don't lean on walls or run into doorways, you'll stay clean.

But floor dude came in today and put glue down everywhere. For most of the day, he left us an 18" unglued walkway along the wall as our only means of transport. This presented a number of problems:

(1.) There was a long leap into the women's bathroom.

(2.) Our 18-inch walkway didn't account for pillars and fire extinguishers, so our hallway became a veritable wall-hugging obstacle course.

(3.) The breakroom was off-limits, so those who wanted to use a microwave had to (a.) hug the wall to get to the fridge, navigate the 18-inch walkway to the back door of the building, walk around the building and in the front door, climb the stairs, use Chandler's microwave, then (juggling hot food) walk back down the stairs and out the front door, go around the building and in the back door, and once again navigate the hallway; or (b.) abandon that plan and go out to lunch.

The whole glue thing didn't upset me too much until I realized I couldn't get any sugar for my tea. So I decided to go out to lunch and stop at Walgreens for a box of sugar.

I went to Walgreens. I bought a headwrap, some makeup, and a box of Whoppers. I forgot the sugar.

When I came back, my Almond Biscotti tea was really really strong and bitter. (Bitter almonds? What cyanide? ::grins::) By this point, glue dude had laid a few tiles outside the breakroom (probably because hungry people needing the microwave were on the verge of mutiny). So I went in and got a big cup of sugar. Then I sealed it up and stuck it in my office for the next time somebody becomes glue-happy.

How does one person make a difference?

Well, I started posting a comment in Smacky's blog, and it just grew and grew, so I thought I'd import it over here and get a dialog going. To quote a bit from his original post:

By the way, the total number of US soldiers killed in Iraq is now more than 1,800. Something to think about down on the ranch, okay? Damn it. Fourteen more marines just died this morning. I'm not sure the power of those magnetic yellow ribbons on your SUV is reaching all the way over there.

Ouch. But it got me thinking...

Anyone who took Media 101 should know the criteria of newsworthiness: audience, timeliness, impact, prominence, conflict, uniqueness, and proximity.

By those standards, why should we ever talk about one dead soldier when we can talk about 1,800? Write a story about 1,800 murdered Marines and you've got impact! And timeliness! And conflict! It's easy to quietly forget that every person out there has a story. A family and a hometown. Maybe a cat curled up on the couch or a '66 Chevy they're restoring in the garage. I mean, look at that picture above. It was taken in November 2001 at Fort Campbell. How many of those guys lost their limbs out there? How many lost their lives?

The other night, Mom and I were talking about community work, and she said that as she and Dad near retirement, it's easier for them to give time than money. I told her I've reached a point in my life where I can donate money but not time. (Of course, I'm not rolling in dough ... but I have more money than time. And if I guess I'd really be set if I could quit funneling money to my friends. ^_^)

My problem is that I'm overwhelmed by the number of support groups out there. There are groups that write letters, groups that send phone cards, groups that gather up frequent flyer miles. Who's legit and who's not? Which donations are useful and which are pointless?

In other words: How can I best spend my money (and/or how can Mom best spend her time) to have the greatest impact out there?

No regrets

Today is my grandmother's 85th birthday. I wasn't terribly excited about the prospect of going to see her. I love her dearly, but as her health has declined, I've found it harder and harder to visit. When I was growing up, I would spend sunny summer afternoons at Grandmother and Papa's house with my cousin Ashley (nine months older than me, also an only child).

Grandmother and Papa fueled our imaginations -- one day, Ashley and I were detectives searching for clues as we traipsed down the street to the neighborhood park. A feather on the ground? It's a clue! A garage sale poster? That's a clue, too! The next day, we were spies burying coded messages in Mason jars in the back yard. (I've often wondered what happened to those jars, and if someday I could sneak into Grandmama's yard to dig one up.)

Anyway, as the years went on, Papa developed Alzheimer's. We were locked away somewhere in his memory, somewhere he could no longer go. When he was lucid, he'd talk about the war. Then he'd beg my father -- whom he mistook for his brother, Jack -- not to leave.

I always regretted not seeing him more in his last days. I'd tell myself that I was busy, and anyway, he didn't remember me. Or that I didn't want to see him that way, didn't want to see him die. But now, with the clarity of time, I realize those were lousy excuses, ones I never should have believed.

After Papa died, Grandmother's health worsened. When she and Papa moved to the retirement center, she lived in a condo as a self-sufficient woman. When she could no longer take care of herself, she went to a semi-self-sufficient nursing facility. Now she's in a skilled nursing facility where, she assures me, the nurses are nice, even if they don't let her pick out her own clothes. :-)

I wanted to take the easy way out today. Dad and his two sisters had planned a family party at the nursing home, and I thought I might call her to wish her a happy birthday. The old excuses were threading their way back to me: I was busy and tired, and anyway, I didn't want to see her deteriorate. But then I realized my time with her was running out, and if I didn't do something, I'd be saddled with more regret.

So after work, I went to the nicest florist I knew, chose some Gerbera daisies, a couple of red sunflowers (yes, red!), and several long-stemmed roses. When I got to the nursing facility, Grandmother was sitting alone at a table. I knew she could hardly speak in sentences anymore, but I told myself that Mom and Dad would be there in 15 minutes and the party would start. Until then, I surmised, I'd make small talk and let her slowly put words together.

Her first question was about Paul -- how was his doctorate going? I laughed to myself, because she's always liked him a lot. And I laughed because even though her speech was slow, her mind was clear as a bell.

Everybody was (very) late for the party, so I ended up sitting in the lobby talking to Grandmother for nearly an hour. But it was okay, because she told me her memories of Downtown Memphis a half-century ago, how the now-vacant buildings used to be so beautiful and busy. She talked about her old house and her nurses and what she had for dinner. And I absorbed it the way I used to absorb her stories about gnomes when I was a little girl -- totally in awe.

Dad was the rambunctious son of a Navy officer, always doing something stupid like setting his eyebrows on fire or cracking his skull open. Grandmother managed to move the family from base to base every couple of years and keep him out of trouble (mostly). And she was strong and resilient: When they were relocated to Morocco, she learned to drive so she could go to the open market.

I see that strength and resilience now. I don't think she has any intention of giving up. And that's good, because now I know that the more time we are together, the more her stories become my own.

P.S. The pictures -- which are totally cool but don't warrant their own post -- were taken by a friend of one of my editors in Vancouver, B.C. There are five more where those came from. Beautiful, huh?

Realizing it could be a lot worse

I got really angry at Paul tonight. I wasn't angry at him, but I was angry because school is taking a lot out of him -- time and energy -- and I'm tired of being patient. I have no good reason to get angry; I admit this.

Ugh, and it makes me feel all guilty and stuff, but it's just because I miss hanging out with him. This is why I am posting a picture of us on our first Halloween together. We went as the king and queen of hearts. ^_^ We had the big-ass card outfits which were incredibly uncomfortable, so we only wore them for like an hour.

But anyway, if we can survive looking really really goofy, then we can survive anything. But for god's sake, honey, hurry up and get the damn doctorate, or you may find yourself floating in some of that nasty Houston water you're testing.

Yes, that's a threat. ;-)

I had fully intended to post my top ten list of things for which I'm thankful (per Carrie's blog), but I just can't tonight. Something happened, and I'm very sad and very angry. I don't think I'm allowed to say what I know or how I know it, but let's just say that the public has been (thankfully) spared the details. It's affecting my thought process tonight.

The person who told me doesn't read my blog and wouldn't know this ... but these are the kinds of things you don't tell me right after I've left my psychiatric appointment, because my mind is all in jumbles anyway. Now it's like I can't even cope or think straight. I want to cry, but I can't, and it's not like I even knew them anyway ... but knowing the details of what went down is really, really getting to me. So pray (or send good thoughts, if you're not the praying type) to me. And my family. And their family.

I guess after the hurt subsides, other emotions will set in. Anger first, and then a vague sense of comfort in knowing that my parents are stable, my husband is stable, and my doctor is keeping me stable.

Like today, where he normally writes "suicidal thoughts" on my files, he wrote "suicidal thoughts, SAFE" and he underlined safe three times, like maybe I'd reached this psychiatric milestone at which point he'll no longer ask me every five weeks if I keep a gun around the house or have purchased one since our last session.

Anyway, I'm off to do some grocery shopping -- with Paul in tow. I'm sure I'll still be a little sad about that family, and feel a little guilty for pressuring him to be home more. But at least we'll have groceries. Cup is half full, Kate. Cup is half frickin' full.

P.S. Site tally through midnight on 7/31 ... 9,945 visitors accessing 18,336 pages and generating 35,440 hits. When we hit 10,000, I'm throwing a party. ;-)