now listening to...

Love Love LURVESES this Vitamin Quartet version of Are You Gonna Be My Girl by Jet


That's going on me iPod. Here's to orchestral ass-shakery.

Yeah!

Sunday, Puppy Sunday: the pups of others, extreme redneck edition

Thursday night I pulled up to a convenience store in Small Town and up pulls this big swinging redneck truck. A tall rednecky guy got out and sauntered into the store. I looked over and saw a white, fuzz-ballish thing looking back at me. Is that a...? Can it be a...?


Yes, big rednecky guy had a little white dog in a pink fluffy parka with fur trim around the hoodie. I went in the store and said "your dog is adorable. What kind is it?" He shuddered like I didn't know the half of it. He said "she's a schnauzer, and she's the devil. She's plumb awful and she gets whatever she wants." I got the feeling she's not a benevolent dictator.



Yup. Looks pretty devilish.

Heh. heh.
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okay, so this is about my pretty Praline.

I wish I had a picture or a video, but when I got back home from seeing my parents last weekend, she was on the back of the couch to be as close as possible to me, and she was so excited and wiggle-buttlian that she very nearly levitated. I willingly surrender my heart again and again to such innocent, unbridled exuberance. The boy was nearly as happy, but he's more grounded and not quite so air-worthy as his sleek big Sissy. My pups continually affirm my belief that they are chief among life's greatest rewards.

Who could not love dogs like that? Such good and sweet little puppies, and they love their momma, too.

**********************
Note to people if you're seeking new homes for your dogs: You may have better luck if the photo in your mass email doesn't show your dog sporting his lipstick.

Not to be mean or anything.

WBB

I said some nice things on the obituary site about WBB but someone had them removed. I am sorry you are so small-minded and limited that you can't be a basically decent human being and let me say my peace. It must be horrid to be you. I'm so glad to have no further contact with your limited, condescending, narrow-minded sphere.

This is my tribute to a very lovely gentleman who was alive to knowledge and learning. I will always admire him tremendously, and I know he felt the same of me. I saw his eyes alight with intelligent mirth when I whipped out a quip, and the uncomfortable looking sidewise when someone insipid said something, well, insipid. He recognized my intelligence and I celebrate his. I'm sorry that all in the clan could not merit from his example.

House vs. Bridge

White River at Calico Rock in Arkansas, March 2008.

Thinking of the renovation/refurb on my house, it is perhaps troubling that this video keeps coming to mind. Let Mother Nature take her course, scrap the place and start all over. :P Just kidding. Still, you never imagine you'd see a perfectly good house being thrown out like that.

I wonder if the people who lived there ever figured out where their house ended up? It's probably better not to know...

What do we value?

This article on Iraq war veteran Anthony Maschek who was booed at a forum at Columbia University was dazzling. Maschek was booed for saying he thinks ROTC should be allowed on the campus at Columbia 42 years after it was banned from that campus, and clearly the majority of students gathered there vehemently disagreed with him on that score.

That Maschek was booed by a bunch of Ivy League brats was unconscionable, but I found the following poster laughable to a staggering degree:



This sign says The military preys on low income communities.

What amazes me about that is the fact that for several years, I've been hearing more and more rumbling about useless degrees and certifications young American students are financing through universities and trade schools. Where is the outrage about young, naive people being exploited by the abject greed of a university system which-- like our Social Security system-- relies on steady growth of the influx of new students to prop up its unwieldy burden of tenured academecians and infrastructure?

Where is the outrage about universities enrolling still more students for degree programs for which graduates will find no market upon completion? The wisdom and morality of such a practice is truly so complex that it escapes me utterly. Hopefully someone will enlighten me.

Further, our military is voluntary, not conscripted. Countless men and women in the USA have been able to pull themselves together by virtue of the structure the military afforded them. That's not just poor folks-- Americans from all social strata have found purpose and direction for their own lives because of the discipline of life as an enlistee.

I'm not saying I think universities are all bad or that the military is preferable or vice-versa, but I do think it's the height of arrogance and vapidity that politically correct university students would presume to speak for everyone. The funny thing is that they'd probably be the first to describe themselves as "open-minded" and "accepting of others' viewpoints."

How infantile.

As often occurs, the real gems of the article are to be mined in the comments. I especially appreciated that of Rob:

I love the sign. The military preys on low income communities. First of all, no one is EVER forced to join the military. If a person signs and did it without making an informed decision, whose fault is that?

Secondly, all I can say is "Thank God"! If it weren't for the military, I would have been stuck in a horrible neighborhood in urban Detroit, and I would have never had the opportunities that allowed me to go to college, get a degree and teach.

So, thank you, military, for targeting me (so to speak) and helping me create a better life for me and my kids.

Ah, bless 'im.

"You're almost beautiful!"

It's funny this story has not been told me before recently. I think it was Christmas, I was at Mom and Dad's house, and I said something complimentary to Mom and Dad grinned on hi-beam and said "you're almost beautiful!" Mom laughed heartily and I asked to what they referred.

Apparently it was 40 or more years ago, and I was a very little girl. Mom was all dolled up for something, probably an awards banquet for the folks at Schilling Motors in Memphis, where Dad worked. I remember her in some stylish heels covered with glittery silver lamé. Quite posh and elegant. Mom was smokin' hot and always tastefully got up. [ I remember a little boy in my class saying "hubba, hubba" when she walked in one day. Seems like the little boys were very alert when she came in the room.]

Anyhoo, Mom proceeded to tell me she and Dad were going somewhere all those years ago and I saw her decked out in her finery and I gushed "Momma! You're almost beautiful!" She said it was her favourite compliment she's ever gotten.

She knew what I meant. She really was beautiful. And she still is.

Being a Mom is one of the toughest jobs going. To be a Mom is to be the constant in the lives of the people she loves, and to be the very hub of the wheel that keeps everyone in motion. To be a Mom is to be sought for comfort, when often those very same people don't think to ask if her heart is breaking, too. A good Mother is as vital as the stitching that holds the silk of a balloon together, gossamer-fine, almost disappearing into the fabric, and yet so essential to the proper function of that cloth and the key to the survival of the souls it carries aloft. Moms are easy to take for granted, but we are so very lucky to have them.

I'm very lucky to have mine, and I love her very much.

Your first October baby will always think you're almost beautiful, Mom.
Happy Birthday. I love you.

Test #1

I squeed my pants.


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Thinking of New Zealand

and the lovely people from there. Kiwis make the world a better place, and I hope their recovery from this latest earthquake is swift.

Goat licks electric fence

He ain't real bright, but he sure makes me giggle. Reminds me of some people I know.

Whoopsie!

Um. I KNOW I have some non-girlie bandaids around here-- I just didn't have them at hand when I had to don my Nursie cap. Making a mental note to get a more manly stripe of plaster for the odd moments when the garbage trolley goes rogue.

The patient is fine, btw, and after irrigating the area, I sent a photo to Ambulance Driver for advice. The goose-egg lump is the worst part of it. Poor dear! You'll also be happy to hear the garbage trolley was not rendered unusable by the assault. Well, not entirely.


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Now Playing: PJ Harvey's Battleship Hill

Love the new CD. Let England Shake features harsh texts which contrast with lush instrumentation and soaring vocals. This is my favorite track from the CD. White Chalk remains one of my favorite albums of all time, mostly because even with the dark subtext, the music was not bleak but was austere-- a marked distinction. PJ Harvey productions always evolve for me. They start off seeming to be one thing at first glance-- upon first listen, and over time layers unfold, revealing new details that tend to up-end my first impressions. Always a fun journey.



Cruel nature has won again...

Man Names daughter Facebook

Careful there, dude. I heard that PetRock murdered her parents in their sleep when she hit puberty. Add to that the fact that you'd better hope that there little revolution of yours ends up the way you want, else the bad guys may just set an example by putting down your litte girl who committed the double-sin of being born female and having a name redolent of uprising against your oppressors.

A doorable.

I've spent a goodly bit of time recently considering updates/improvements to my house. I've mentioned that the primary task soon will be a complete re-wiring of mi casa. This has everything to do with safety and nary a whit to do with aesthetics. Frankly, I'd rather spend those thousands on something pretty, but I clearly need to re-wire my thinking, because nothing's a prettier thought to think than that my pups are safe in my house when I'm away.

That said, the grode factor of the kitchen-- while technically clean-- still oogies me out a bit, and I'm on the horns of a dilemma with regard to what to do. The 1931 metal cabinets are not horridly out of form, but they are covered by 3/4 century of contact paper, (doubtlessly lead) paint, and whatever much couldn't be scrubbed out in the days of toil I spent trying to clean them properly prior to moving in last year. I'm in a state of sticker shock, actually-- I can't believe that for my small kitchen I'd be looking at $5000 - $7000 for cabinets and counters I would find to my liking. Now my thoughts have turned to simply adding a wood cabinetry island (part of my cunning plan all along) and taking out the metal cabinets for a proper strip/de-grode/exorcism, but we'll see. One thing that drives me round the bend is that two of the upper cabinets were hung not flush together, so I can see goodness-knows-how-many years of grot in that 1/4" space in between them. It's just been too gross to tackle...

I can see miles of daylight around the front and back doors. Seconds and Surplus in Dallas has these amazing doors. Either of these doors would work for me, stylistically, and for a heavy solid wood door, I think the $600-ish tag is not bad. I'd leave them natural-looking, but I guess I'd need to wax them or seal them to keep them from getting grimy?

Oh, and they don't have lots of the smaller bits and bobs, but S&S is an outstanding place for door casing, baseboard and crown molding. Seriously, their prices were about 1/4 of what I priced my crown molding to be here in Backwoods Burgh.

Anyhoo, this was all food for thought, and I suppose the whole grand project will be taking shape in months to come. It's going to take a lot of creativity to work around the sheer financial daunt of the whole thing. Fingers crossed and all that. I'll settle for the outlay of cash being more than I'd hoped but far less than I'd feared.

Spent Saturday night with my lovely parents. We went to breakfast and we talked about a trailer we rented in 1967 when I was a wee girl. We laughed so hard. That story will be coming soon. Nice weekend, but it's good to be home with teh puppehs.

Cheers, m'dears!
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