Further Outrage at the Hands of My Father

Here's the latest offensive forward from my father, the most clueless individual ever born. I have cleaned up various small typos but did not change one word of it. Read it and weep.

He prefaces this forward as follows:

Hi, I just want to say that, if this is a true happening, it was handled very well. For one, I’m not ashamed to declare that God is my savior and Father in heaven.

(his name)

And here is the little gem in its entirety:

TENNESSEE FOOTBALL

The following is a transcript of a profound statement read at a football game recently.

This is a statement that was read over the PA system at the football game at Roane County High School, Kingston, Tennessee, by school Principal, Jody McLeod.

"It has always been the custom at Roane County High School football games, to say a prayer and play the National Anthem, to honor God and Country.

Due to a recent ruling by the Supreme Court, I am told that saying a prayer is a violation of Federal Case Law. As I understand the law at this time, I can use this public facility to approve of sexual perversion and call it ""an alternate lifestyle,"" and if someone is offended, that's OK.

I can use it to condone sexual promiscuity, by dispensing condoms and calling it "safe sex." If someone is offended, that's OK.

I can even use this public facility to present the merits of killing an unborn baby as a "viable means of birth control." If someone is offended, no problem...

I can designate a school day as "Earth Day" and involve students in activities to worship religiously and praise the goddess "Mother Earth" and call it "ecology."

I can use literature, videos and presentations in the classroom that depicts people with strong, traditional Christian convictions as "simple minded and ignorant" and call it "enlightenment."

However, if anyone uses this facility to honor GOD and to ask HIM to Bless this event with safety and good sportsmanship, then Federal Case Law is violated.

This appears to be inconsistent at best, and at worst, diabolical. Apparently, we are to be tolerant of everything and anyone, except GOD and HIS Commandments.

Nevertheless, as a school principal, I frequently ask staff and students to abide by rules with which they do not necessarily agree. For me to do otherwise would be inconsistent at best, and at worst, hypocritical.... I suffer from that affliction enough unintentionally. I certainly do not need to add an intentional transgression.

For this reason, I shall "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's," and refrain from praying at this time.

"However, if you feel inspired to honor, praise and thank GOD and ask HIM, in the name of JESUS , to Bless this event, please feel free to do so. As far as I know, that's not against the law----yet."

One by one, the people in the stands bowed their heads, held hands with one another, and began to pray.

They prayed in the stands. They prayed in the team huddles. They prayed at the concession stand and they prayed in the Announcer's Box!

The only place they didn't pray was in the Supreme Court of the United States of America - the Seat of "Justice" in the "one nation, under GOD."

Somehow, Kingston, Tennessee remembered what so many have forgotten. We are given the Freedom OF Religion, not the Freedom FROM Religion. Praise GOD that HIS remnant remains!

JESUS said, "If you are ashamed of ME before men, then I will be ashamed of you before MY FATHER."

If you are not ashamed, pass this on.

Jen

Okay, my problem with all of this is not just that more than one stupid person feels this way, nor that they circulate it amongst themselves very smugly and no one speaks up about any part of it that may bother them. And I'm sure I'm not the only person, "believer" or non, that is not offended by parts of this. Even the most rank-and-file, knee-jerk "Christian" of this particular ilk must feel that parts of this are just hyperbole. When in any classroom has anyone compelled a child to 'worship religiously and praise the goddess "Mother Earth" and call it "ecology"?' This would be the first I've heard of it. I thought that the purpose of Earth Day was to bring ecological concerns to light and encourage people to be good stewards of the planet by planting trees and recycling and so forth. Certainly I have not felt pressure to "worship" any "goddesses" when attending a local Earth Day event, and I live in a pretty crunchy granola-y Pacific Northwest location. I merely felt it my obligation to purchase inexpensive root stock and perhaps shell out a fair amount of cash for some organic raspberry lemonade or similar.

My God! Is this the "worship" of which they speak? Are they using the proceeds to buy gasoline and rags to use in the bombing of decent American churches? THE HUMANITY!!!!

No, that's not my problem. My problem here is that my own father is too stupid, thoughtless, or inconsiderate, to think for one minute (or possibly much less) about the content of the mail that he sends to me and consider that as a lesbian I might be perhaps less than excited to read an item that refers to me and my partner as devotees of sexual perversion. That, ladies and gentlemen, is my problem here.

Okay, aside from that minor detail, I also have some other problems with it, among them that I don't think that making condoms available to a vulnerable population in the hopes that they might use them to prevent disease and pregnancy is "condoning promiscuity," and that I am fairly sure that depicting small minded, ignorant people in a classroom setting will result in them being thought of as small minded and ignoran no matter what kind of spin anyone puts on it, whether they are described as possessing "strong traditional Christian convictions" or not.

The abortion issue I am refraining from comment on as it is very complicated and I am very conflicted in how I feel about it, but there is plenty of other fodder here so we can leave it alone.

I did reply to his forward, and in trying to walk the line between reasonable and pissed off I think I may have come across as sort of reasonably pissed. I said something along the lines of, I wished that he would think of me and my family before forwarding something that equated my "lifestyle," which by the way I did not choose any more than anyone chooses a "mainstream lifestyle," with sexual perversion, and that I did not wish to be critical of him but that I did not agree with him on some of these issues.

I'm sure he's at home shaking his head with his evil harpy wife about how sad it is that I grew up in a Godless household without his fatherly hand to guide me and now I'm a pervert and under the delusional belief that I can be a Christian without feeling the need to give the big fuck-you to anyone who does not believe as I do.

Well Dad, right back at you. My only hope is that you think for yourself a little bit. Don't let that bitch lead your thoughts around by that ring in your nose the way she leads the rest of you around too.

Over and out.

A Face Like A Cat's Ass

That's a line from a movie ("Victor Victoria" I think) and I only thought of it because this is the second time in two days that I have been forced to actually wipe the cat's ass after he's used the litterbox. WHY?!

Other than that, and the several jillion tiny cat-scratch scars I'm currently sporting, he's a fabulous kitten. But, again: one step closer to a moonlit trip to the pond in a burlap sack. This can't keep happening! I have a college education!

Speaking of which, bow down to me, O fearful reader(s). I have gotten perfect scores on all three tests so far in my self-paced tutor-assisted Psych 211 course. I rock!

So, while trying to obtain a photo of an actual cat's ass to link to for your amusement, I came across this and enjoyed it muchly. Hoping you do the same. :)

Argh

Why is it that if I try to go to bed at a halfway decent hour, instead of staying up way too late doing nothing important and puttering, the kitten decides that this is the morning to post himself outside the baby's bedroom door and mew piteously at 5:30 a.m. until she wakes up?

Little bastard. You'd make a nice pair of mittens, you know. I'm just giving you time to grow large enough to make a useful pelt.

A car! In the GARAGE!!!

Tonight I (through the kindness of dear friend John) parked the car inside the garage. Inside. The garage. Inside! The GARAGE!

In the six years (and two houses with garages) that we have been together we have never managed to park a car inside of a garage because of all the crap stuffed in there. The garage is just an extra room on the front of your house where you put all the junk that won't fit inside the house, or is too dirty, i.e. lawn mower, wheelbarrow, etc.

I needed a sitter this evening for a couple of hours and despite his bleary-eyed new parent sheen, John volunteered to come over and hang. He kindly asked if there was something he could do rather than sit for two hours, and figuring it would only take a few minutes, I pointed him at the garage. Honestly, there was just a bunch of recycling and stuff in the way and the other stuff could just be shoved off to one side. But it's just something I couldn't get myself out to the garage to do, for whatever reason. For whatever reason named Delia, I suspect.

Bless you, John. Sainthood awaits you after a lengthy and prosperous life. You Da Man.

And now I'm sure the neighborhood watchdogs will think I'm gone because the car is not in its customary place in the driveway -- but they will be wrong! Muwahahaha!!!

I'm going to go out there one more time and look at it before I go to bed. It is glorious to behold. But it feels a little wrong: Why is there a car in the garage? Where's all our junk?

Textbook buying sucks

I had to drive all the way to the college bookstore today because it was unclear which textbook I needed from the website. When I got there I was relieved to find that my instructor has the decency not to upgrade to the newest edition of the book, for which of course no new copies would be available. I'm taking a self-paced tutor-assisted version of this class which means I study at home and can go get help anytime I like and if I pass the tests with an 80 percent or better I will get an A.

At any rate even for the "outdated" form of the text, new copies are about a hundred bucks and used are $75.00. Naturally I ran back to my computer and purchased a used copy off the internet for 40 dollars, shipping included.

College bookstores are the biggest racket. I remember when I was going to Big Box University, way back in the day when the internet was just a gleam in some malnourished nerd's squinty, nearsighted eye. So the bookstore was pretty much your only option. Then when the term ended and it was time to get rid of your textbooks, you'd be paid about one-fourth of what you paid, and a few weeks later some other dork would pay three-fourths of the new price for your used texts. Plus most of the employees were work-study and therefore cost the school pennies on the dollar. And the bookstore made money hand over fist, from what I can tell.

It's still the same racket nowadays, we just have more options. I do have to buy my text sight unseen and hope it's not highlighted too much (I am assured by the buyer that it is in "good" condition, which I'm sure could turn out to be a matter of interpretation), but I will save 35-60 dollars over what I would have had to shell out from the bookstore. And if I'd taken care of this sooner I'd have it in my grubby little mitts already.

Rain

It's finally raining. Here in the Pacific Northwest we take pride in our rain and have 126 distinct terms for it, like the Native Alaskans (the People Formerly Known as Eskimos) are said to have about snow. There's that kind of rain that just makes your filthy windshield all sludgy, and the kind of rain that makes the gutters overflow, and the kind of rain that drives away evil spirits, and the rain that makes the babies cry, etc. I for one am delighted to see some rain after a record three thousand days (more or less) of constant, unrelenting sunshine. Our lawn is all dried up and I'm so accustomed to being able to walk around in capri pants and gauzy little t-shirts from Target that I feel I'm close to losing my edge. The moss behind my knees is all crunchy and uncomfortable. It's unnatural, in short.

So this morning it was gloriously cool and gray outside, a bit breezy like it gets when a storm is a-brewing, and it was such sweet relief to say out loud, You know, it looks like it's going to rain.
And later that morning it did, hard rain that falls sideways and makes you run for cover in the parking lot.

In the late afternoon another front blew in and we were treated to not just torrential rain but thunder and lightning, loud boomy rumbly lightning that went on forever and made the house shake. Delia had never experienced thunder before. The first crack was not too severe but made her come running from the front room to find us lolling around on the bed, where we were shamelessly playing with the kitten in broad daylight. "Mama? Mama! Mama!" She was not panicking but close to it. So we all sat on the bed (well, Delia bounced around and hooted more than sat, really) and when another peal of thunder came along it must have been right over the house because it really vibrated the walls. Delia just froze and her eyes got big and her face got a little distressed looking, and she threw herself at me. This happened a few times and although she seemed reassured when we told her that it was just loud noise and it couldn't hurt her, she still hastened to me each time.

Once the storm's leading edge had passed over the rain really came down in sheets and when the worst of it was over we got Delia all gussied up in her yellow rain slicker, her pink kittycat rain boots and her matching pink kittycat umbrella with ears (a gift from her indulgent GrampetuaMa) and I accompanied her outside to splash in the gutters until the rainwater drained away. It was idyllic and I only wish we'd gotten a photo or two. As compensation for this terrible oversight I offer the following photo of Her Majesty engaged in real, actual conversation with our dear friend Graham up in Juneau. She really pulled out all the stops and gabbled to him incomprehensibly for what must have seemed like hours to him. In reality perhaps two minutes or less. I spent the time usefully by bolting up the hall for the camera. Note the fading but still visible Sharpie pen marks on her arms. Did I mention she can push a chair up to the kitchen counter now?


I also include one from a few weeks ago when we headed south for a birthday party for one of J's neices, Shelby, who turned three. Early in the day the kids had played in the water at the park, and now it was time for some serious dirt. Delia and her cousin Josie were like baby birds taking a dust bath... Josie got the worst of it but I don't want to post her photo without getting permission so here's one of Delia.

Good news

Our wonderful friends Karen and John (honorees of the Baby Shower) have welcomed young Kathryn into their home. All are well and home from the hospital. We could not be more delighted for all three of them and wish them good health and fun times. :)

Groceries

Had to run to the grocery store tonight for some late-night commerce. I usually go to a discount chain (LoseCo) rather than a standard type store (Dangerway). I began doing so after moving here to Bedroom Community; there is a Dangerway nearby but the LoseCo isn't much farther, whereas the closest one to my old house in The City was a bit of a hike. One day out of sheer ennui I decided to check it out...

It definitely does lack for certain amenities, but all the basics are in place, and good golly, the prices are so much cheaper, generally speaking. There are still certain items I buy on sale at the other stores, for instance soda pop, which is rarely priced all that well at LoseCo. Unless you like the cheap brands, which I do not. But here's one example: Ovaltine, a staple in our house. I used small amounts of it in the baby's warm milk as a weaning aid: "Sorry, kid, no more nursing, but look! Ovaltine!" At the Dangerway it's around 5 bucks a canister. The same canister at LoseCo is less than three dollars. Substantially so, like $2.64.

Anyway, having crossed over to the dark side of shopping, I am becoming yet more crafty in my penny pinching. Yes, friends, I have reached the final frontier of frugality: the bulk foods aisle.

It all started innocently enough. Some cinnamon. Last summer I needed some cinnamon. I don't use a lot of it most of the year, until the holidays when I am mandated to bake a jillion apple and pumpkin pies, and as such I'm not that willing to sink a lot of money into it if it can be helped. Plus I'm just cheap. So, I visited the always-interesting bins of bulk foods and filled an eensy-weensy bag -- so cute! so cunning! -- with ground cinnamon. I was astounded at the price, something like 28 cents. A container of the cheapest brands would run me four times that much. I dig this!

Today I needed Italian seasoning. I am no gourmet cook, though perfectly competent in the kitchen, and I fail to appreciate the Finer Things in this respect. I don't need my Italian seasoning to come directly from Italy, for instance. And since frugal mode has kicked in once again, I wandered back to the bulk foods this evening for another tiny plastic bag. This time, it was seventeen cents. Lordy. I will never go back.

I am always amazed at the people in that store shopping with the entire family at 9:30, 10:00 pm, even the toddlers. Our daughter (age 2) is in bed by 7pm most nights. She has stayed up til 8 a handful of times, and the latest was 9:30, once. And we suffered for it the next day. I can't tell you how many people I've seen at the LoseCo pushing a bleary-eyed baby around late at night. It's insane. Then, their kids may sleep past 7am, which Delia has done about five times in her whole life. I don't know. But I saw a kid tonight being wheeled around the store whose eyes were so red and weary-looking I wanted to just snatch her away and lay her down in the nearest crib. Perhaps these folk work non-traditional hours or something, but considering how many of them there are roving the store in chaotic throngs, clogging up the aisles to my great annoyance, you'd think they could spare one of the older teens to stay home text-messaging all their friends while the baby got some sleep.

Today we heard the baby sing a short ode to a favorite toy: Nah nah nah, la la, Hot Wheels cars, la la, la la... Last week on my birthday we went to a restaurant right on the river and she saw various types of boats plying their way up and down, and turned to me and said, "I want to ride on a boat." I told her we didn't have one, and her reply was, "We need a boat. We need a big boat."

The crowning glory of parenthood thus far, however, was yesterday morning when she climbed into my lap, threw her little arms around my neck and told me, "I wuvs you, Mama."

I didn't know it until that moment, but I had been waiting 39 years to hear her say that.

Oh and another thing

Here in the last waning moments of my First Annual 39th Birthday, I would like to make the following announcements:

I got A's in both my classes.

Kittens are adorable so that people will put up with the constant annoyance and not just take them out to the pond in a sack which at times still seems reasonable.

We got a floor-model couch for two hundred bucks that kicks the cat-pee-smelling asses of both of our other couches, which by the way we Craigslisted for free, with full Total Honesty Disclaimers about the fact that they had been whizzed on, and even so got six or seven responses in a half hour. And which cost a thousand dollars combined.

That thing I said, about kittens? He's just lucky there isn't a pond nearby. If he wakes the baby I'll go out in the yard and dig one myself.

The company of good friends makes any birthday bearable, even the one where you can't believe how much gray hair you have and how many extra chins you are sporting, and even when you come home from the restaurant with your whole left side covered in greasy marinara handprints from your inexplicably uber-cuddly two-year-old child who, normally a bit standoffish, could suddenly not stand to be anywhere but wrapping her tiny arms around your neck all night.

That being said, goodnight and have a pleasant tomorrow.

Our Pride(s) and Joy(s)

Ringo, our new kitten, is 100% All White Meat Kitten right now, full of beans and super scratchy-bitey-chasey-climby. He is also quite handsome, as these photos will attest:




I also caught Delia in a private moment recently. Enjoy!

Why Things Could Be Worse

Found the baby today with an empty pill bottle. Felt every bit of blood drain from my extremities.

Turns out she'd used her new chair-scooting talent to gain access to the countertop, where she found the bottles of dog thyroid medicine. News Flash: child-proof caps only work if you are sure to screw them back on all the way. I asked her where the pills went, and she led me to the dogs' bed on the floor in our room, and then I actually saw a two-year-old do a double take: "They're gone!" Then she told me, "The doggie eat them. Ollie eat them all up." I asked her if she had eaten any and she said, "No. No, I feed them to the doggie." I looked in her mouth and couldn't see any evidence of green pill in there. So far the only pills she's had have been chewable vitamins so I was pretty sure she would have chewed on any pills she'd put into her mouth. Whew... I know she's seen me give the pills to the dogs in the morning so she must have known they were dog pills. And lucky us, Ollie will eat virtually anything you hand to her or that falls to the floor. Last fall we had to get her to throw up after she ate a cold pill that a friend dropped on the kitchen floor. So I knew the doggie in question had to be Ollie. Hope won't eat anything not on her pre-approved list, and even then only if it's offered by someone she knows.

So the baby's okay, but what about the dog? The first vet I called, a well-known emergency vet across the river, told me to bring her in so they could induce vomiting, but when I told them I had given her some hydrogen peroxide already to try to get her to hurl (based on past experience) the snotty girl on the phone told me that that was the absolute worst thing I could do. Way to handle the distressed pet owner, lady! Then I decided to try someplace closer, so I called a closer vet clinic and they asked me, "Do you have any hydrogen peroxide in the house?" So I guess it's only okay to induce vomiting if you're trained professionals with a fancy emergency clinic. The second clinic told me to bring her in right away if she didn't start vomiting, and of course she didn't.

I had to race around like a squirrel on amphetamines, since the baby was (of course) poopy as well as sopping wet from playing at the water activity table while I syringed hydrogen peroxide down the dog out in the back yard, plus the baby seat was sitting in the car not strapped down. So I violated all the laws of space and time getting that all squared away before throwing everybody in the car and driving like a bat out of hell to the vet clinic -- during rush hour and with expired tags, by the way, and through a notorious speed trap. Oddly enough, I did not burst directly into flame.

The vet gave her something that got her to hurl (and how!), and then gave her charcoal. He told me she threw up a very large amount of green pills, in fact he seemed more than a little impressed with the sheer volume of pill-spew they recovered. I was just relieved that he didn't bring it out to show me. Some things I just don't need to see for myself.

She should be just fine. The vet told me it was good that I'd discovered this so quickly and brought her in right away, since if we'd waited a while they wouldn't have been able to detoxify her with the vomiting and the charcoal. He didn't say she would have died, but I suspect she might have. She ate about seventy 0.3mg thyroxine pills. At least, she would have had a rough night.

A hundred and fifty dollar vet bill is a very cheap price to pay for an incident like this, my friends... I have gone and checked on the baby twice already and we are busily stowing anything resembling medicine up yet higher. And checking the child-resistant caps!

This reminds me of visiting my Dad and him showing me the guns he kept. In a dresser. And under the bed in the guest room. Unsecured. And his stepson regularly brought his young daughters over. I mentioned it to him how this might be sorta dangerous and he told me in all seriousness that "those girls know not to come up here unless someone brings them upstairs for some reason. They know they'll get their little behinds tanned if they come up here." ....Yeah, Dad, and children always do exactly what they are told and certainly never disobey for any reason! Although this was long before we really thought about having a baby of our own, I made a mental note not to bring children to Dad's house. I wouldn't be too tempted to let Delia out of my sight at their house anyway, since I'd be worried his evil wife would organize some kind of intervention and kidnap her with a pack of her church cronies, to get her out of our Godless, immoral house of sin and depravity where we worship the Devil etc etc. She sure as hell isn't going to be staying there without one of us for any length of time; who knows what kind of things they might expose her to, like one of their church services or something.

Anyway, all's well that ends well. Give your kids (and dogs) hugs and check your medicine cabinets.

Girl Giant

You must see this.

You MUST.

Girl Giant.

Mr. Wuv Cat

Welcome to the family, little Siamese(ish) dude.

J's sister Amy (small town vet and Patron Saint of Downtrodden Pets), sensing a weakness in the Force, just "happened" to have a sad, adorable kitten in need of a home. Okay, she's pretty much always got some sad-sack, down-on-its-luck cast-off stray of some kind, so it was pretty much a sure bet that telling her we were down one cat would result in another one joining the fold. Last time this happened we got Banshee, also a Siamese mix, who was so painfully stupid that we had to find her a new, less complicated home to live on so she wouldn't keep peeing on our stuff. Before that it was Bosco, a fine and doltish huge, greasy hundred-pound Doberman with impossibly long legs who would eat blackberries off the vine and cherries right off the tree in our back yard. And who could fart like a rhinoceros. Yet we loved him. From a distance and with many lit candles.

Anyway, now we have Ringo. He was brought in to the vet clinic a pathetically thin (less than one pound) and largely bald kitten, suffering from ear mites, worms, malnutrition, neglect, etc. Oh, and a truly impressive case of ringworm. Hence the baldness, and the name. He has since packed on the ounces and grown the hair back, though it's still a bit thin on his tail which was practically hairless to start with. He is Siamese-oid, a creamy white with gray ears and tail and a gray diamond over his nose. His fur is slightly longish but not like a Persian or anything. When I get a chance I'll get a photo on here.

And he is Mr. Wuv Cat. He wuvs us. He wuvs the baby. He wuvs the dogs and he'd wuv Wilbur (the matriarch, an aging and cranky black cat named when She was thought to be a He) if only she'd let him, but she never, ever will. He lays on your chest and purrs, and when he's really comfy he'll lick your chin so hard it hurts. He has known adversity, and he much prefers prosperity. Don't we all.

Hard Times

Today I got the call that my cat, Slick (the left hand cat in this picture), missing since Saturday night, had been found in the neighbor's backyard Sunday morning, dead, half buried in the garden by some animal (?). I had posted some signs on the mailboxes around the neighborhood just last night and was going to visit the Humane Society today. Now I guess I don't need to.

He was a good cat, a lovely cat, a sweet cat. A total pest to our other cat, a willing cuddle toy to Delia, an utter gomer with no sense of balance. He was a good, good kitty, and he didn't deserve a violent end.

I still can't really believe he's gone, I guess because he just vanished into the night and I never got to see him to say goodbye. By the time I gave up waiting for him to turn up and went out and put up the signs, the neighbor had long since disposed of the remains.

O Slicky, we hardly knew ye. Rest in peace with your old friend Beany. Tell Grandma we miss her. I will miss you sleeping on the back of the couch with your tail wrapped around my neck, and Delia will miss wrestling with you. I'm afraid Wilbur won't miss you at all but she's pretty malevolent and her opinions don't count here.

Forwards, O How I Hate Them

Okay, not all of them. Some are cute, harmless, amusing, etc. But sadly, my Dad likes to send me whole batches of them every so often, and while some of them are kind of funny and I don't mind those, it's the ones like this that I wish he'd quit sending. In particular it was this section that made me almost, but not quite, send Dad a tart little response asking him not to send me stuff like this anymore:

"Whether you like it or whether you don’t God was a part of building this great nation. To remove him is to take away the very foundation of what this country was all about.

I don’t care about your political correctness!

I don’t want to know your sexual preference!

I could care less about all of that. Stop making it the headline of the day!

That’s not America."

I didn't send him the tart little email, but only because I have to ask him not to come install some damn pyramid-scheme air filter system in my house, "just so you can write me a letter of testimony, you don't have to buy it." If I reject both his air filter and his emails, he'll get all sensitive and think I don't want to see him anymore. That's what he did when we requested he and his wife, whom I do not like but to whom I am perfectly civil, find somewhere else to stay the night we brought our daughter home from the hospital when she was born. We just felt that we would like to spend our first night home together as a family without visitors, plus we were totally overwhelmed and didn't need to have to take care of anyone but ourselves and our tiny new person. Naturally he interpreted this as, "You're mad at me for not being able to come see you the night the baby was born because I had a doctor's appointment that was evidently more important, even though I said I'd drop everything and rush to your bedside the minute you called," and attended a motorcycle rally the first weekend of her life after stopping by to visit for a whole twenty minutes because, "We paid for this rally a month ago and it wasn't cheap!"

Um, no, I don't have any childhood baggage about my Dad, why do you ask?

Okay, so first of all what bothers me about this kind of thing is the whole "this is a Christian nation," thing that I've come across here and there, generally in connection somehow with my Dad. I once attended a service at his church that happened to be right around July 4th, 2002, so it was the first Independence Day after 9/11 and also right around the time that they were arguing that whole Pledge of Allegiance thing about whether to include "under God" or not. You can imagine how they took that ball and ran with it, and so I was forced to listen to how this was a Christian nation founded by Christian men on Christian ideals blah blah blah and that taking God out of government and prayer out of the schools was directly responsible for Satanism, teen pregnancy, drug use -- oh, and homosexuality.

I was utterly mortified since, as some of you know, I am a drug-using, teenly-pregnant, devil-worshiping fag. Okay, not really, but I am a lesbian who has never really used drugs, didn't get pregnant as a teen or any other time until I had pay two grand for the privilege, and so far as I know have not practiced Satanism, unless it was inadvertant and then I suppose I could blame it on an allergic reaction to painkillers like all the celebrities do...

And, um, didn't the framers of the Constitution deliberately separate church and state so that people who didn't want someone else's belief system shoved down their throats by the government could live in peace? Wasn't that part of why they came here and stole this continent from the people who already lived here? I mean, I know it's a little late for us to pack up and leave it to the Native Americans, but can't we at least maintain the semblance of giving a shit about freedom from religious persecution? And hey, news flash: that includes Christianity!

I would also like to state specifically that my Christianity bears very, very little resemblance to whatever brand of "Christianity" that these people profess to practice.

And secondly, who's making an issue out of who else's sexual orientation? Not preference, you hate-peddling moron. Orientation. It's funny how if you're in the minority and you bring up a point you have an agenda, whereas if you're on the other side of the issue, you're just "morally right." Funny how that works. Really. Funny.

Okay, enough soap-boxing. I just woke up itching for a fight, evidently. Carry on.

One Down

One class completely finished, one to go. My mother (a finer woman never walked this earth) has offered to take young Princess Delia off my hands for an entire day, and even -- gasp! -- for the night on Saturday, leaving me to study my brains out without interruption. I plan to have the event catered... Although, we're not sure if we can bear to part with her for the night too. Plus she might yell a lot and you know, the 'rents aren't getting any younger, they need their beauty sleep. But, I think I'll send along the necessary accoutrement and see how it goes.

Then after a three week break or so, it's on to the next term! Anatomy and physiology, featuring real cadavers... or parts thereof. I'm not sure how I feel about this yet but seeing that I have little choice (i.e. none whatsoever) I guess I'll just figure it out as I go along. As I understand it, we don't dissect anything human, we just observe. Yeek. Still tough.

Watched "RV" tonight, with Robin Williams (I mean he was in it, he didn't stop by to watch it with us or anything). Although it was pure Hollywood hokum, it was fun and had us howling with laughter at times. Our threshhold is pretty low, given, but still. Good times.

Well, all this blogging is cutting into my WoW time in a big way. :)

Kute Kid Kwote of the Day (tm): Delia was goofing around and sort of hopping rearward and very excitedly paused to announce, "Look! Guys! I'm backing wards! I'm backing wards!"

Lately she's been saying, "I have to go!" But we're not sure where she thinks she has to go. Also, "My teeth is getting bigger and bigger." And, "I promise!"

She couldn't get any cuter. I hope we can all deal with it when the cuteness fades into surliness in the teen years. I miss her already...

Little Bender

Threw a little shower for my fine and decent friends Karen and John. Knowing them as I do, I figured that the usual hateful shower games would be especially loathed by one and all, so we had an impromptu Interpretive Lego Sculpture Juried Exhibition, with first and second place decided by popular vote. The topic was, "What do you think Karen and John's baby will look like." If the winning entrants are at all suggestive of the actual outcome, the baby will either need a good plastic surgeon or an exorcism. Ha ha! Just kidding, Karen and John. We all know your baby will exit the womb not only super cute, but quoting Monty Python lines and playing a musical instrument, and doing both better than I can at the age of 38.

The plan is to name the baby after Bender Bending Rodriguez, unless of course they want to dash an old woman's hopes and settle for something boring like Zorak or Postlethwaite or something average like that.

Step 1: cast ye your Legos as ye may, on the floor for everyone to fondle. Note the rather robustly pregnant Karen, center stage.

Step 2: assemble your masterpiece from the Limited Edition Floor Sweepings Collection (featuring obscure shapes and colors, and four frozen Han Solo slab pieces leftover from the Star Wars kits)

Step 3: photograph finished works in front of cake for posterity

Step 4: distribute prizes
Step 5: allow your two-year-old to disassemble said works while you are distracted on phone

.... Okay, that last step is probably optional, but at least it was after the guests had all gone home.

A good time was had by all, and with a minimum of wrapping of toilet paper around any part of anyone else's anatomy (to my knowledge).

Factoid

Our hall bathroom has a vent under the vanity that blows outward (not upward). When we run the a/c, the cold air blows straight onto the base of the toilet. As a result, trips to the restroom are extra refreshing on those hot summer days...

WoWeeeeee

OMFG World of Warcraft is huge. I may never surface...

I Feel the Earth... Move... Under my bed...

Woke up at 1:38am this morning with the bed shaking madly. Thought it was a dream, nobody else woke up -- checked the TV, nothing in the news, back to sleep. Then my Mom asked me on the phone later: So did you feel the earthquake last night?

My second one, the first was in San Diego when I was 15 or so, same general scenario. I was the only one who woke up that time too. Evidently I am a light sleeper. When we had the infamous Spring Break Quake I was out of town; if memory serves, I was in Los Angeles, the earthquake capitol of the world...

Got a quiz back today, 24 out of 25. Not too damn bad!

Today I went to gas up the car and as we pulled away from the station, Delia leaned forward in her seat, craned her little neck, and waved to the nice gas station saying, "Thanks for the gasolines!"

She is an utter delight.

She had to spend the evening with Pastor Dave since I needed child care in a hurry in order to get to school, and she very obligingly ate a huge dinner, played long and hard, and settled right into bed without any fuss at all. She's either suffering from an attachment disorder or just very, very secure. It almost pains me a little how much she doesn't seem to get bent out of shape when I have to leave her with people, but then she did have a hard time staying at the gym the first few times, until it became familiar to her. Thus far she's only spent 1:1 time with people she is pretty well acquainted with, from church mostly or relatives. So I should be pretty happy that she's okay with me being away, that she knows I'll come back.

Must run, much to do...