The Great Canine Christmas Caper of 2012

This only peripherally involves a "real" dog, it's really the story of an iron doorstopper.

The back story; hubby was working with his brothers a few years ago to get their parents into a nursing home and then sell the family home. One brother (we'll call him "GB" for "good brother") was great and very helpful hubby and GB would spend entire days getting rid of a lifetime of crap out of that house. It wasn't a big house but it sure contained a lot of CRAP. The other brother (we'll call him "PiA" for "pain in the ass brother") lives further away, is basically un or underemployed (by choice) and is generally a pain in the ass. PiA managed to cruise by one day when hubby and GB weren't there; his contribution to the clean-out was to pile up any and all metal he saw so he could sell the metal and keep the profit from it, he also brought his bulk trash all the way from one state away to leave at the curb.

Hubby went over, found this pile and was FURIOUS, how DARE PiA make this decision for his own gains. Hubby picked through the "trash" metal and found a lovely iron dog. He brought the iron dog home and looked it up on the internet, it was about 4 inches high at the withers, the head was probably about 6 inches from paw to the top of the head, it was a fox terrier (we have Aust. Cattledogs so there was no emotional connection to the breed). The internet (as usual) revealed some interesting details about the little bugger; they were Victorian era doorstops, there were certain breeds, all sorts of stuff. He excitedly read off details to me as he found out more and more about the history of the little iron dog. It was nice that he was so excited about this. It was interesting to look at. We have a sorta Victorian style home that is nearly 100 years old so it even "fit" nicely in our home.

Hubby named it "Ironsides" and Ironsides quickly won a place of honor in our home. He was placed on a soft mat in the center of a side cabinet in our living room. Ironsides became a family member. We were glad he was rescued from the trash heap…just like our three flesh and fur "real" dogs had been rescued.

We're not collectors. We don't have Precious Moments figurines or beanie babies or anything collectible. I can't stand the clutter and even without that stuff we STILL have clutter so we are NOT collectors of anything. Hubby made it clear that we would not BECOME collectors either, despite his clear love of ol' Ironsides he would remain our one and only iron doorstop and we were both good with that. Despite his obvious value on eBay, we didn't rescue him for profit or to become hoarders, we rescued him because he was on the junk heap at hubby's parents' house and he certainly was NOT garbage to be sold for the price of his metal weight.

Hubby and I have been together since December of 2001 and been married almost ten of those years. We're not new to each other so Christmas giving between us has become quite a challenge, add to that the fact that we have no kids to buy for so we can't even divert our gift giving attention to our kids or grandkids. It's just us (and some friends, etc.). I struggled this year over what to buy him, I actually bought AND RETURNED gifts before Christmas even dawned. We had agreed to buy ourselves a new TV for the living room as our "gift" so we were really just getting some smaller items but once the shopping frenzy hits it's tough to stop.

I had finally come to terms with the mediocre array of gifts I had stashed in the upstairs closet. It was the eve of Christmas Eve (that'd be December 23^rd), other than buying some scratch off lottery tix, I was DONE with my shopping. Put your pencils down folks and close your test booklets…you are DONE! Awesome.

Hubby and I were sitting in the living room enjoying The Sound of Music on TV with the dogs (3 live, 1 iron) strewn around us and the twinkling lights of the Christmas tree adding sufficient atmosphere when hubby mentioned that in his shopping travels he wandered into a local antique center and was AMAZED by the many interesting things there. I grunted in agreement and let him continue talking. He went on to say that he was surprised to find another iron doorstop there, he mentioned it was tagged at $140 and he didn't buy it because he doesn't want to become a "collector" but then he went on to say that maybe after the holiday he would go back and offer them $100 for it and see if they would take it.

EUREKA! A "special" gift…but it was at an antique center in a small downtown area where they kept variable hours AT BEST…would they even be OPEN on Christmas Eve? SHIT! But suddenly I was fired up by the thrill of the hunt.

Hubby rarely has a day off but he DID have off on Christmas Eve so I needed a reason to leave him the morning of Christmas Eve and go on my hunt. Enter one of the LIVE dogs…"Honey, I'm taking Maggie to the dog park…." Perfect, we can spend HOURS there so how would he know if we were there for an hour or 3 hours? Off we went.

We did legitimately spend an hour and a half at the dog park because I had to give said antique center time to open for the day, I figured if I got there between 11AM and noon I'd be able to get in because they'd either be open from early-ish until noonish or from noonish to whenever. We (meaning me and Maggie…the youngest of our dogs) got to town around 11:30ish. Maggie hunkered down in the car tired from her hour and a half of running around like a lunatic at the dog park and off I sprinted to the antique center. SUCCESS, according to a crayoned sign on the front door (not lying, blue crayon) the antique center was open on Christmas Eve from 11AM-2PM; YAY!

The place, like many antique places, is really an old store (Woolworth's in this case, I believe) divided into little booths with different vendors for each booth but they usually cover for each other. The guy manning the front booth was a grumpy guy; I explained what I was looking for, an iron fox terrier doorstop my husband had just seen the other day. Grumpy Guy (his name is actually Rudy) kinda shrugged and said he wasn't sure if he'd seen one of those but there was a Boston terrier somewhere in the back…maybe. Three other women, booth owners, were also there; they were MUCH more enthusiastic than Rudy. We spread out across the space to start looking for this silly iron doorstop. We were shouting across the store as we found things that might be "my" doorstop. Two more shoppers wandered in and got sucked into the hunt for the iron fox terrier. Dare I say this, it was FUN!

I was starting to wonder if maybe I should settle for that Boston terrier in the back and wandered off to use the ladies' room while the hunt continued in full swing. Suddenly I heard someone shout, "GOT IT!" I ran out of the ladies' room still drying my hands, the booth vendors and the other patrons were all shouting and pointing at a glass case RIGHT UP FRONT BY GRUMPY GUS RUDY ("GGR")! It was right under his NOSE. They fumbled around to find the key and finally liberated the little guy from his glass prison and placed him in my hands. He appeared to be in good shape and the genuine item but he was priced at $195 and I KNOW hubby said the one he saw was $140. Hmmmmmm.

I told GGR that I was sure this was the one but that my husband told me it was $140 and this one was marked $195. Without flinching GGR shrugged and said he must've told hubby he could have it for $140 so I could have it for $140. He barked out (HA, DOG…BARKED…soooooo funny), "you want it?" YES! YES I WANT IT!

I was soooooooooooo happy.

I figured I'd leave my little treasure in the car overnight and sneak it in the next morning when I got up with the dogs. I snuck it in, wrapped it in tissue paper and then tucked it into one of those holiday bags and then I stashed it in the cabinet in the living room where the Christmas tree was and where Ironsides resides.

Hubby FINALLY wandered downstairs at around 10ish, made coffee and said we'd open presents once he got some coffee in him.

I was like a little kid, so excited I was ready to POP!

We did the usual "you open one, I open one" and giggled and oohed and aahed over each gift.

When we were all done I said, "hmmm, the cabinet seems to be open a bit, did Santa hide something here?" DUH!

I handed hubby the bag from the cabinet, he remarked that it was awfully heavy (DUH) then he ripped the tissue paper off and his face went into one of those truly surprised faces, the kind where your mouth forms a perfect "O" and your eyes get big and round. I thought, "wow, he IS a good actor"…or maybe he really is surprised?

And then I found out that he really was surprised…and why.

It turns out that the eve of C'mas Eve I hadn't been listening to him all that well, he hadn't seen the fox terrier doorstop, he'd seen the BOSTON TERRIER one, he was kinda willing to SETTLE for the Boston terrier because he had no hope of finding the matching fox terrier to Ironsides, the FACING one. He asked where I'd ever found it and I sheepishly told him that it was at the antique center where he'd seen the Boston terrier doorstop, I admitted I thought he DID see this one. He said that had he seen this one he would've bought…at $195 and I admitted that I had gotten it for $140 because I thought this was the one he'd seen and I told GGR that it was $140 so he gave it to me for $140.

It was so much better than perfect. My mistake turned the gift into something so much better. He spent the next hour or two scouring the internet to learn more about our now perfectly matched pair of iron fox terriers, one left facing, one right facing. He'd occasionally grunt then shout out some little factual tidbit.

SUCCESS!

And there ya have it, The Great Canine Christmas Caper of 2012!

 

The SATs of Shopping

Christmas shopping is like taking the SATs (those are the Scholastic Aptitude Tests, you knew that, right?). You shop and you shop and you shop right up until the end. It's like when the teacher tells you that you have to shut your test booklet and put your pencil down. That's it, suddenly it's Christmas Eve and you are DONE shopping, whatever you didn't get you are NOT gettin'.

I thought that I was down to just buying some scratch off lottery tix tomorrow and I was DONE. DONE. I could finish before the time was up and I had to close my wallet and put down the stylus used to sign the credit card receipts. I thought I was there…then I remembered that essay question I skipped back on page three.

FUCK!

I bought hubby some small and rather benign gifts. We've been together quite a while and with no kids to buy for we just kinda buy ourselves whatever we want…within reason…when we want it. Awesome, right? Yes but it really would be nice to surprise him (or me) with something…well, UNEXPECTED (like the year hubby got me a commissioned portrait of our dogs at the time, we've since added one to the pack).

And when did that opportunity for me to do that for him rear its ugly head? Ooooo, at about 8:30 on the eve of Christmas eve. Yeah, swell.

And is it something easy? No, because easy would not fall into that category of the "ah-ha" moment on C'mas morning.

So what is this rare and precious item?

An iron doorstop in the shape of a dog that is somewhere at a local antique center that may or may not be open for some random and unpredictable hours tomorrow…and I don't know what booth the damn thing is even in.

So here I am realizing at the last minute that I forgot that essay question back on page 3 of the test booklet.

We have Christmas Eve plans starting at 3PM tomorrow including a 7 fishes dinner with a newly engaged couple and yet I'll be up early banging on the doors of the antique center two towns away and willing to pay any price for the damn thing.

And pencils down students.

Christmas Fun

Today was a really DIFFERENT day for me. For one thing I spent the day Christmas shopping with my best friend of more than 30 years. Now that should sound perfectly normal except that my best friend HATES to shop and I used to love it but no longer do. I was a solo shopper because I wanted to steep myself in the moment, she was a solo shopper because she wanted to be over and DONE with it all. Somehow, without trying, we've managed to meet in the middle.

We set out by meeting in a parking lot where she'd just run into one of my many ex-boyfriends in line at the ATM. We started to head to the local outlet mall and before we got far we agreed we were STARVING. Awesome. She had a $5 coupon for Applebee's, I had a $15 gift card I'd recently won. We NEVER eat at Applebee's. There was an Applebee's right there. WOO-FUCKING-HOO! Awesome.

We had a reasonably decent lunch for which we each chipped in $8, that's right EIGHT DOLLARS. Cool. There was a Harmon Store (that's one of those kinda health and beauty products discount stores in case you all don't have them) in the same strip mall, she needed stuff from there. She checked out and had COUPONS! We have never remembered to use coupons in our LIVES but there we were…using coupons and gift cards like we had done it forever.

I also had a Starbucks gift card I had won. I had used some of it but didn't even know how much, there was a Starbucks in said same strip mall. We don't even LIKE Starbucks…we went and each got a small coffee and a little package of chocolate covered graham crackers (one for each of us). AWESOME. It turned out that we owed 30 cents after the gift card.

The day was shaping up really well.

We headed up the highway the few miles to the outlet mall. Interestingly we actually got a parking space! Cool.

She needed a pair of brown boots for her 18 year old daughter. I had a coupon for $10 off at Famous Footwear. And there they were, the perfect brown boots, on sale and then there was that $10 coupon! And I even got hubby a pair of slippers (the coupon specifically excluded slippers).

Off we went to The Gap outlet…she had a 40% off coupon there. She did well there and even got herself a few things.

Next stop the G.H. Bass outlet. Massive sale and with my $5 rewards coupon the scarf I wanted was just over $6!

The jeans she wanted at the Levi's outlet store were only $24.99…and they had her size and style! Whoop-Whoop!

Off to the Eddie Bauer store…she found a great duffel bag for her daughter…and a super soft and comfy flannel for herself…and I had a $5 coupon.

What an absolutely exhausting, fun, coupon-filled, hilarious day with my best friend.

We're both exhausted but I have to say it was a lot more fun than I could've ever hoped for, today, TODAY was my perfect Christmas. Everything else is just icing on that cake but a few hours of coupon-crazed, giggling madness was the real joy.

Feliz Navidad!

Still not over it

I'm not over the events of last week in Newtown, CT and I'm 90+ miles away with no kids of my own. If I'm not over it will those people EVER be over it?

No matter what I do, no matter how my brain tries to twist it, I cannot understand how any human being could pump 11 bullets into a little kid with two missing front teeth and cock-eyed pigtails. I can't. It makes no sense. I get upset with myself if I yell at my DOGS for barking too much.

Those people in Newtown, CT will NEVER have a joyful Christmas or holiday season again. Those little kids who lost siblings last Friday will carry that with them forever. Those twins that were cut in half by a crazed gunman? The remaining twin will always feel that loss.

Every bit of it, every little nuance is unimaginable. As the news media continues to camp out in Newtown the images show people surrounded with holiday decorations that can't possibly bring any joy to those people.

I love the corniness of this season, I love stumbling upon an ancient re-run of a Sonny and Cher Christmas special, I love Holiday in Handcuffs with Mario Lopez but all of that has even lost its corn right now.

WTF? Let's get rid of these fucking guns. These guns that allow someone to pump 11 bullets into a smiling, gap-toothed six year old.

Guns that allow you to shoot your way into an elementary school.

Do we even NEED THOSE?

Gun advocates are saying this wouldn't have happened if the teachers had been armed! Really? My best friend is a teacher, she teaches art to little kids, 3 and 4 year old kids. She's barely 5 feet tall herself and wears a size 5 jeans, she's tiny. Could she even safely wield a gun? Could she safely wield a gun that would combat what that killer walked in with? I'm sorry but I don't think so. Even if she could though, I know she doesn't WANT to. She's a TEACHER of SMALL children, a peaceful, loving person. She has no interest in learning to shoot a deadly weapon, she doesn't even eat MEAT for goodness' sake but the gun lobby is blaming the un-armed for this. Should we have also armed a room of SIX YEAR OLD CHILDREN?

Yeah, I'm wounded and I'm pissed. It needs to stop NOW. Get these guns GONE. I'm sorry but you don't see this in urban communities, you see it with middle-class white folks. That best friend I mentioned? She works in a dangerous urban area. Know what? I'm more worried she'll get mugged walking to her car at night than that a crazed gunman will burst into her classroom, another friend who is a school teacher works in an upper class neighborhood, I'm scared for her and her kids. She's a more likely target it would seem.

Anyway, once again, hug your loved ones tonight, two legged, four legged, whatever and tomorrow? Tomorrow do something nice for a stranger. Buy a cup of coffee, pay their toll, let them go in front of you at the grocery store. Nice feels good and we all need to feel good right now, hell I'd settle for feeling BETTER right now.

The year without a Christmas

Today is the day after my 54^th birthday. It was the end of a stressful and busy week at work. I routinely check the news on the internet. By 11AM I had a chance to do that before I made a quick trip to the mall at lunch to do some Christmas shopping.

TWENTY CHILDREN WERE DEAD. WTF? Really?

I'm childfree by choice but I do have tons of kids in my life. My friends have kids, some of THOSE kids even have kids. My next door neighbors have a kid who will be 5 in a few months. We love that kid. We love our neighbors. I wave to the little guy every morning on his way out to school with his dad. R's backpack is usually hanging jauntily off his back and he waves to me as they head out. In the evening I'm usually getting home from work and letting the dogs out when R and his dad are on their way in. We wave, sometimes R has something to tell me and he runs over to the fence before he goes inside.

Little kids like him were killed today. I don't know why. I hate it. I hate guns.

My heart can't help but try to understand what those parents are feeling. It's 11 days before Christmas. I'm sure that they had most of their Christmas shopping done. They had presents stashed all over the place, they were hoping that the kid liked it or that it fit. It's one of the last days of Hannakuh, was there some little kid excited to go home and light another candle with his or her family tonight and get another gift to continue to memorialize the 8 nights the lamps burned bright?

I can't help but think of all the kids in my life. My friend Ei's grandkids. She has many. I just saw an adorable picture on facebook of her youngest grandbaby, she'll be a year old soon, wearing an awesome Winter ensemble as she strolled the streets of NYC with her parents. She's only been with us for a year but I couldn't imagine her being taken away…not like that.

There are a lot of people asking us to pray. Pray for the souls of these angels, pray for the souls of the adults and pray for the soul of the killer. Pray to whom? I want a God that I don't have to pray to when something like this happens, where was this God WHILE IT WAS HAPPENING? Before it happened? Where was this God to stop the killer?

I believe in a deeply spiritual place. Something that exists in SOME OR MOST of us that is good and honest and spiritual. But who is this God that allows 20 little kids to die today? 20 little kids who were looking forward to Christmas, 20 little kids who recently sat on Santa's knee and whispered their deepest desire for whatever is currently the equivalent of a Red Rider BB Gun.

My heart breaks tonight for those families, all of them, not just the ones who lost their babies today but the ones whose babies had to be told to close their eyes so they didn't see bad things as they were led to safety and their waiting families.

Love hurts, it always hurts, even when it's happy and good it hurts in the anticipation of loss, today's losses were inconceivable. This needs to stop. It needs to stop NOW.

That 2^nd amendment that the NRA is so fond of is about bearing arms as a MILITIA, a military fighting unit when there is none, it doesn't mean that we can have semi-automatic assault weapons. Might I add, the founding father had no idea how good we'd become at inventing efficient killing machines that would bear the name "guns" same as their old, slow muskets.

Please hug your loved ones tonight and I don't care if your loved one is your spouse, your kid, your dog or your turtle, hug 'em, love 'em and feel free to be angry; we've all been stripped of something tonight, some more than others but we've all lost something and I'm fucking PISSED.

Today…in New York

I'm an NBC kinda gal. As long as I can remember I've been an NBC kinda gal. Not necessarily NBC shows but NBC news and news related shows. I never gave my NBC loyalty much thought, it was always just THERE, a family tradition as far as I can remember…we were an NBC family. The Today Show has long been the cornerstone of my NBC watching. I lived through the heartbreak of Katie breaking up with us and warmed up to Meredith after an appropriate period of mourning the loss of Katie. I cheered when Ann finally took her rightful place next to Matt and cursed them all when she was rudely dumped.

Now of course the rumors are flying that Matt will be shown the highway (though I'm not believing that one).

The bigger question though is why NBC? Why the Today Show? As their ratings continue to tank and people seem to be migrating over to GMA (I don't even know what network that's on) I had to ask myself what is it about NBC that holds my heart.

So here it is, best I can tell the NBC shows based in NYC come from Rockefeller Center and growing up in the general area as I did…Rock Center is THE CENTER OF NYC. When NBC lights a C'mas tree…they light THE CHRISTMAS TREE, sure there's some tree lighting up at Lincoln Center, but let's face it, that's like the understudy of trees.

When people gather outside of The Today Show they're gathering at Rockefeller Center not wherever those other shows broadcast from.

So maybe it's snobby of me but that's it, my comfort zone is right there where the Rockettes high kick and where the living nativity gets walked around the neighborhood each morning during the holiday season.

Oh yeah, and Brian Williams is a member of my triumvirate of awesome guys on TV (Jon Stewart and Jimmy Fallon round that out).

Confessions of an EX-shopoholic

Yup, that's me. I'm sure I mentioned this earlier here. I used to LOVE to shop. I'd plan my time around it. How soon before I could hit the stores on a weekend? What could I cut out of my day to add more shopping time? It was the biggest and dopiest waste of time ever. So I've worked hard to curb that behavior (and mindset). I thought about what I REALLY needed to have in my closet. I weeded out a bunch of crap and I set up a plan and a WARDROBE for work that would require little thought on my part each morning and very little shopping time as well.

How have I filled all that wasted time? Quite well, thank you. Yesterday I did another rescue transport. I have more time for those on weekends because I no longer need to carve out shopping time. But today was even better. I do still have to grocery shop and do that sort of thing. I took my youngest dog to the dog park for almost two funfilled hours. After that we went to PetSmart for some necessities then I stopped in Costco (quick trip and used a list for what I needed), then it was off to buzz through the grocery store.

I got home in the 3PM hour. I had time to put away the groceries, finish up the laundry, prep some veggies for dinner, vacuum downstairs and play a bunch of Frisbee with the dogs. WOW, right?

A year ago I wouldn't have gotten Maggs to the dog park because it would've cut into my shopping spree. I would've raced through the required shopping not because I wanted to get home and have fun with the dogs but because I NEEDED to get my ass to Marshalls or Kohl's. Not anymore. Matter of fact I buzzed into Kohl's to use the rest room and was surprised to see C'mas decorations all over the place. I barely slowed down to notice and I didn't even caress a random blouse. Nope, I used the rest room and high tailed it outta that joint.

What a great gift I've given myself. Not only is my bank account feeling better but my time is used for better things than retail therapy.

That's it really, just basking in the glow of good times WITHOUT wasting the day in a brightly lit store buying things I don't need.

You’re DRUNK!

Last night hubby and I went out. The weather was GORGEOUS (clearly we DON'T live along the Gulf Coast of the US) and we wanted to grab a few hours on one of those last great summer nights. We went to a local outside bar where we ran into some people we knew. Hubby's birthday is Thursday (tomorrow) and I mentioned this so these folks decided that it was a good time to buy him roughly a half a glass of Jack Daniels (and a beer). He had a few more beers. We left the bar and wandered down the boardwalk. We bounced in time to the drum circle going on, we talked to people we knew, we looked in stores and restaurants (trying to decide where to have dinner).

We finally decided to stop at his new fave dinner spot on the way home. It's a gorgeous old beach club with a wall of windows looking out over the ocean. The place wasn't crowded; we sat at the bar to eat so we'd have the full ocean view. He had more beers. He was DRUNK! I mean giddy, silly, talkin'-to-loud DRUNK. He'd go between the very serious drunken conversation and the very silly drunken conversation. He savored every bite of his dinner (tilapia, a fish that usually doesn't do much for me but this place really does make it special), he drank more beer.

As we left he looked towards the ocean and just threw his hands in the air to celebrate how glorious the evening was in every way; the weather, the food, the fun, maybe even each other. I turned to him and said, "YOU ARE DRUNK!"

He said, "YES I AM and WHY NOT?" He went on to point out that life is really not a bed of roses. You generally don't wake up every day immersed in the joy of living. He's right. As much as I most definitely prefer living to dying its true, every damn day is not exactly sunshine and lollipops.

We do need to make of it what we can even if it means being drunk on a Tuesday night. We don't have kids, we both work, our house is nearly paid off, we're okay but he's right, what is there to life? Life really is what you make of it. What makes your soul sing? I know I address this pretty often but he really had a point last night.

As we drove home he asked if I wanted to stop for ice cream, usually I'm the one asking and he reluctantly agrees but last night he asked ME to stop! He said, "it's ICE CREAM, why not? Let's enjoy it!" I love this, I hope this stays with him. When we stopped for the ice cream there were two women on the bench and they offered to move over so we could sit, I said I needed to stand after such a big dinner but we started a fun conversation with them, hubby rarely talks to strangers but last night he engaged EVERYONE in conversation, it was fun.

I don't think I want or need to actually be physically drunk all the time but I'd like to kinda live this feeling from him a bit more often. Yeah, I'm fuckin' drunk so make somethin' of it, go ahead, I'm serious, make something of it!

Shortest line in the grocery store

As a bleeding heart liberal and someone who routinely rails against the inhumanity of humans I have a shameful confession to make. I find that I often avoid handicapped people. I think it's a knee jerk reaction and I don't like it in myself. Look, I know that someone with a severe physical handicap isn't "contagious", I know I won't "catch" what they have and yet I shy away and I don't want to. I feel like an ass for behaving this way but I also don't think I'm alone with this horrible prejudice.

Last Sunday I was in the local grocery store and as we all know, Sunday's at any grocery store are not a great experience. The lines were, of course LONG. I surveyed the scene and noticed a very short line, I made sure the light above the register was still lit so that I didn't race over only to find out she was closing her lane. When I was sure I had a chance of making it there before everyone discovered this rare and beautiful event of a short line on a Sunday I bolted over to grab that prime spot. Once there I noticed that the cashier had some very severe physical handicaps, I looked around and wondered if everyone else was shying away because, like me, they didn't want to be confronted with this reality on a Sunday afternoon. It was tough to tell but it was clear that this short line was not growing.

I took a breath, silently called myself a horrible name and proceeded to unload my cart onto the belt. When it was my turn, I made eye contact and treated her the way she deserved to be treated…like she was the exact same as me, like she had feelings and emotions, got mad and sad and happy. I made the usual small talk, I told her I had my own bags with me and would bag my stuff. We worked together nicely and I pointed out that she was too quick for me to keep up with her so my bagging had lagged behind her cashiering. She dug in and lent me a hand and we finished our transaction.

I hope I grew a little bit from that and what else did I learn? That maybe I can grow a little bit and at least for now, until my fellow humans catch up with me, I can also get the shortest line at the grocery store on a Sunday afternoon it turned into a bit of a karmic bonus for me, choose to try to grow and get out of the store faster.

And THAT'S how I got on the shortest grocery line this past Sunday!

I think it may be working

Sometime earlier this year I decided I needed to stop shopping. I don't mean stop grocery shopping (though I'd love to stop doing THAT) I mean stop bullshit shopping. Shopping was a hobby for me even when I had no real money to spend on things. I'd just go out to "look" at stuff and then come home with the perfect dress or shoes or whatever but perfect for WHAT? No clue.

I long used the excuse that I was always looking for work clothes. I'm one of the many office drones saddled to a "business casual" dress code. I usually work one day a week from home (usually Wednesdays) and of course on Friday (because Fridays are somehow magical) we can wear jeans to work which is easy. I know that every single person who reads this (both of you) are able to do that math, that means I need three days of biz casual clothes per week and the remainder of the time is mine to choose.

So how in the world could I possibly spend so damn much time shopping for 3 days per week of clothes? I have no idea. I think that when I first latched onto this idea I decided on a "uniform" for the year. During the cooler months the uniform would be black or gray trousers (the super comfy pull-on ones from NY&Co. that look like "real" trousers but are just smartly disguised stretch pants), a pretty cami from Ann Taylor (they have tons of them and get in more each season, they don't really look like your standard cami they look like a cute, professional, sleeveless top that goes with everything) and either a jaunty men's cardigan or one of those light "swing" jackets.

Summer would mean wearing lightweight summer dresses or skirts. Easy (and those things are usually fairly inexpensive as well).

As summer is drawing to a close I realize that I've done pretty well with this plan. The best part is that it's EASY. I hate having to actually THINK in the morning about what to wear to work. I don't have time for that shit. I wanna jump out of the shower and into something presentable and run out the door. I don't iron, I could, I don't; which means making sure that everything is wash and wear (it is).

So now that I've stopped shopping as a hobby I'm realizing how great it is to NOT shop. Sure I definitely have more money in my bank account. That's the first obvious benefit here but pulling in a close second is the time I now have to do things OTHER than shopping. I'm not kidding when I say that I'd get up on a weekend and if it was crappy out (meaning no playing outside, no bike ride) I'd have to hurry out the door to go…shopping. What a friggin' waste of time, right? Here's the thing, for many things that I need to buy I'm now buying them online because it keeps me OUT of the stores and keeps me focused on what I actually NEED to buy. I'm easily distracted in a store…"ooooo, I want this and this and this and this…" but if I don't go into one then I'm not distracted.

Here's an example. I need printer ink cartridges, I could buy them online or I could buy them at Target but if I buy them at Target I'll BE IN TARGET! And frankly that's a dangerous temptation for me. I'll have to check out the sale items and poke around the seasonal crap and buy a few tank tops because look, they're marked down to $3.99!

Another benefit of this plan is that I've taken the time to go through my closet and dressers and more than once to weed out shit that I just don't wear. It's been liberating. I can now easily flip through the clothes in my closet because my closet is no longer jam-packed with shit I bought and never wore or wore once or twice. It's gone. Just gone. I'm feeling another purge coming on me soon.

Look, let's do the math here. Taking into account my 5 weeks of PTO, my work from home days, my 10 holidays/yr, figuring in roughly 104 days of weekends/yr, I'm thinking it all boils down to needing roughly 132 business casual outfits per year and you can slash off 20 weeks of those 132 days (roughly 3 days/wk * 20 for 60 days off of those 132) for summer skirts and dresses which are for me easier than pants (mentally) but even if we look at it as 132 business casual outfits per year, that doesn't shake out to really NEEDING all that many clothes. There's no need to make a fashion statement at the office, you need to look professional and reasonably well-groomed. So even if I actually went out and purchased 132 business casual outfits it still wouldn't have equaled all the crap I amassed over the years in my closet and dresser drawers.

One of the things for me was that I was always chasing the elusive item that looked and fit great and I'd settle for something that did one or the other but not both and then I'd regret it but still try to wear it. I can't tell you how many pullover sweaters I've bought in my life that never really made the cut but there they sat in my closet just waiting for their chance to "wow" me; or trousers, OMG they are the BANE of my existence (until discovering the ones at NY&Co) they'd be cut to high on the waist…or too low. They would be too long or too short, too tight through the butt or thighs or not tight enough but I'd keep trying and BUYING and the buying part was the WORST.

But what was I missing out those crappy days when it wasn't a day to go out and "play"? What else is there to do when one isn't going shopping? Duh! Howzabout just staying home? Just hangin' with the fur kids or reading or, WRITING? What about doing that? I would literally wake up on a weekend day and try to figure out how quickly I could get in my car and head out SHOPPING. Now I don't do that. Instead I linger over a bowl of cereal on the deck with the fur kids lounging around me or I'll plop down at my computer (like now) and dash out some words while sipping lukewarm coffee…with the fur kids draped over sofas and dog beds and me. Oh yeah and I listen to the radio again. Real radio is my favorite thing in the whole world and always has been. Radio where someone actually plays what they want and puts together sets of music that go somewhere (Vin Scelsa, Mike Marrone, Meg Griffin, I'm lookin' at you guys). Sunday morning on Sirius/XM, The Loft is programmed by Mike Marrone and is amazing, it makes my heart sing. It feels like old-timey (1970s/1980s) NYC radio full of long sets of connected music and artists.

So I guess I'm not exactly boosting the economy these days but the personal gains are so much better, I'm boosting my spirits and my quality of life. I'm slowing down to smell the roses, or in my case I'm smelling the fresh basil, mint and thyme growing on the back deck.

 

Human Babies

This may sound odd to some (most?) people but I finally identified this the other day. Human babies creep me out.

Uh-huh, they do. I know a lot of people think human babies are just the cutest things ever but the more I think about it the more they just plain creep me out. I'm creeped out by their little pudgy legs and sausage-like arms and the unnatural way their fingers and toes seem to work. They're legs don't even lay right until they've been walking for a while, their legs just kinda splay out all bowlegged and stuff.

I saw a commercial the other day for Cheerios, apparently the cereal of babies and people who need to lower their cholesterol (interesting combo), there was a tight close-up of a baby in a high chair picking up a Cheerio in her pudgy little fingers and stuffing it in her little round "O" of a mouth. Based on the voiceover copy and the overall tone of the commercial I'm certain it was meant to be adorable but between those little, uncoordinated, pudgy fingers and the "O" mouth I was completely grossed out.

Actually most of the faces they make strike me as odd. I guess since we have no idea what's going on in their little human brain we can't figure out why they're wrinkling their nose or puffing out their cheeks which adds to the overall grossness of the behavior.

Of course there's always the great moment when you realize that the little critter also has a "poopy face" (we'll get to the whole diaper thing next). Yuppers, it's lovely when the parent looks over and says, "oh, that's his poopy face". Ya know what? I think if that were me and I was able to identify a "poopy face" I'd grab the little bundle and race it to the nearest toilet, rip that diaper off and sit it down there. Look, start early, Freud's wacko theories about potty training were debunked years ago move on.

Diapers. They're another thing that just freaks me out. As the little bowlegged critter toddles around there's this big ol' bulge of diaper all over the place. Of course we all know what goes on in those things, the kid is sitting there peeing and pooping on themselves, which, GROSS.

Then there's the spit-up. They just do it. No aversion to it or anything. One minute they can be fine and the next minute the smell of sour milk is spewing from them in a gooey stream. OMG that is disgusting.

The more I think about it the more I realize just how non-cute I think human babies are. What is it that people get all gaga about when they see a human baby? Puppies and kittens? Now THEY'RE cute!

More arrogant humans

Get used to my rants kids they're never gonna stop. Here's the deal folks, humans will argue to spare the life of a convicted, violent killer but a dog bites someone who threw HOT COFFEE on them and they get a death sentence (http://www.causes.com/actions/1671310?recruiter_id=168392094&utm_campaign=invite&utm_medium=wall&utm_source=fb&open_inviter=true ) really people it is time to stop the BULLSHIT. This dog is just one of many that have recently been sentenced to die because of an act of cruelty by a HUMAN. Yuppers, humans do the deed and the dog gets put to death.

I have to say in all honesty that the longer I live, the less love and respect I have for humans and the more love and respect I have for animals. Humans truly have learned nothing from their past history. Discrimination led to years of hatred (still going on, sad to say) and lost lives, did we learn? Nope.

We scream forgiveness and rehabilitation for hardened criminals, they get out, they kill again or they languish in jail with 3 meals a day, TV, radio and books to read. A dog bites someone and its death. We need to STOP. Just stop. Stop our own bad fucking behavior.

Sometimes I get angry or frustrated with my husband because he doesn't want to go out much. He's truly content here at home in our modest digs with our little back deck and our three rescued dogs. And then sometimes I think that he's the smartest man alive for knowing where his heart is. Look, we stay home we get to hang out; we get to enjoy the basic, primal company of the three beautiful animals that share our lives and our world. Three pure and genuine souls without the arrogance of humanity built in. Could they bite if they get angry? Yeah, probably but they'd only do it if there was a reason.

If you're a human, and you read this please do your damnedest to try, just fucking try, to also be HUMANE in all your actions. Stand up for animal rights because there are a few (million) too many arrogant humans who truly believe they hold sway over animals and honestly it's simply arrogance that let's any of us do this, just protect them, just be kind.

I'm sick to pieces of all of this crap and I'm gonna keep ranting against it.

So suck it and be real.

Not so bad this year

If you read back about a year I think I posted about the hideous retail habit of forcing the seasons forward at breathtaking speed cycling me closer and closer to some unpredictable end. As you may already know I'm not thrilled with this shit.

This year, for some weird reason, I have to say that my local stores don't seem to be on this death march. By mid-August last year my local grocery store had their Halloween displays out. This year there is an obvious switch to that from the barbeque items of a few weeks ago but it isn't in your face, crazy displays dripping with Halloween stuff. It's just that a few shelves have started to roll over to Halloween from summer sun.

I have to say that everything seems more evenly parsed out this year. Maybe it's the recession or maybe a few marketing folks realized how creepy THEY feel when they walk into a store and feel that life is being forced right past them.

This year the back to school assault came appropriately after July 4^th in most cases (let's leave Target out of this since they had moved on by Father's Day, summer moved quickly through the aisles of Target this year) and even now with Labor Day looming large on the calendar ahead I'm not seeing too much season-specific stuff clogging the shopping aisles.

Hubby and I hit up the local outlet center a few weeks ago thinking there'd be slim picken's for summer stuff but we were pleasantly surprised to find great sales and TONS of summer stuff. We weren't assaulted by wool and flannel with the lightweight summer cotton relegated to a back wall of the store, nope, front and center screaming "BUY ME…CHEAP!" was where we found the summer stuff. Wonderful, glorious, seasonal stuff…in SEASON!

I actually think that the smart retailers are sneaking in a few other buying seasons between the big ones, benign stuff that is really not associated with any one time of year or a particular holiday or event. Things like furniture and home appliances seem to be filling the gap and this makes good marketing sense. You've just lived through summer, you've had wet towels draped on every surface in your home, you've had piles of kids eating and drinking in the family room, your spouse has embarked on some half-assed projects that left you more in ruins than repair. What to do? Spruce up the joint a bit. Buy that new sofa you've been thinking about. Upgrade the bathroom vanity.

It sorta hints that you know you'll be entertaining guests soon but you're not quite draped in garland and humming White Christmas just yet.

I hope I'm not imagining this. I hope this is a trend that can stick around for a while. Let's let things coast along, let's enjoy each time of the year in its own time (not 4 months before its time).

Not every item for sale needs to be associated with a holiday or a season, sometimes retailers and marketers can just MARKET to us without putting us through a forced march through the seasons.

A-LONE!

I tried to start this with a song title and the two that came to mind were either "Alone again or" or "Along again naturally". I didn't like the need for the word "again" as the second word of each of those, "again" just made it sound so despondent and that wasn't at all where I want to go here…but it did lend further thought to the discussion. Why does "alone" need to be quantified by "again"? Why can't someone just be "alone" and then "not alone"? What's the opposite of alone anyway? Is it coupled? That doesn't work because that means that you're either alone or with one other person. Alone would seem to lead to lonely and lonely just doesn't have a good vibe to it. But you don't have to be alone to be lonely and when you're alone you may very well be quite content and not the least bit lonely.

But I digress.

My best friend's daughter is heading off to college in a few days. My best friend has been dreaming about this moment for YEARS. She can't wait to not have to cook for anyone or clean up after anyone. She yearns to sit peacefully on her patio with the Sunday Times and a cup of coffee. These are the daydreams she's shared with me through all the years of getting up early on a Saturday to get to a soccer game or when she's stayed up too late making sure that all the kids hanging in her basement have safely made it their respective homes.

My BFF (we'll call her BFF) has been divorced for more than a decade. Her long-term significant other lives several hours away and although he's often with her he also travels frequently for business which means that she doesn't have him to worry about full-time.

Her older child mostly lives with his girlfriend now; although they are nearby they aren't there full-time so he's no longer a full-time member of the household.

That left just her daughter and now her daughter has to report to her college dorm by 8AM this coming Sunday morning and when BFF heads home that afternoon it will be to house empty of all humans (but still populated by a cat and large dog).

All of this suddenly occurred to her last night while we were out having dinner and sangria at our favorite local restaurant. Alone. She's going to be ALONE. Not long after she said this we both realized she had NEVER lived alone. NEVER. She lived with her parents until college, at college she had two roommates (both of whom she's still friends with), after college she got an apartment nearby with a friend, I was invited to go in with them but the other person was CRAZY and I opted to get my own little garden apartment. BFF went from a year or two of living the wild and crazy single life to being engaged and married. By the time her marriage was splitting up she had two kids so even after hubby was gone there were still those other two humans to reckon with.

WOW!

I've lived alone for long stretches of time twice as an adult and both times were wonderful. During my second turn at alone-ness I even bought my own little house. A cottage really, very small but cute as could be and quite comfy on a nice sized piece of property and all mine. I never thought of being alone as being an unnatural state of being. I never had a problem with it. I can remember at least two times when I had my little house and I was on my way home from a long day at work, I turned onto my street and as I approached my home I thought, "this is the HAPPIEST moment of my LIFE!" I could go in and not walk into anyone else's mess; no laundry on the floor, no dishes in the sink. The house would be just as I'd left it that morning. I could settle in at my coffee table with whatever I wanted to have for dinner; I could read a book and not have to wrestle for control of the TV, hell I could listen to the radio instead and not even turn on the TV.

Don't get me wrong. My current husband? Yeah, I'll keep him. One reason though is that we're both excellent at being alone. He "gets" that alone thing. He's been there himself. When we met we were each living alone (well, not really, we each had a dog); he in a one bedroom apartment and me in my little cottage. There were no roommates to deal with when we slept at each other's places it was just us. With no roommates in the mix we could bring our respective dog along for any sleepovers. We had privacy and time to get to know each other.

I mentioned this to A3 this morning (you know her, my current phone friend who doubles as an actual friend) and we started going through her family and realized that of anyone she's the only one who has spent any time alone and even her time on the A (as in alone) list doesn't really tally up to more than a few months.

So what to make of all this? Can we be alone? Do we want to be alone? For some weird reason I always thought that alone was a natural state of being and we had to adjust ourselves to be with other people but maybe the reverse is true, maybe coupled or grouped is natural and alone is completely unnatural. I doubt that pre-historic humans could have subsisted alone, they needed their community to hunt and gather and care for each other. As civilization progressed people lived in villages and towns, they had large families, they went from their family of origin home to their family of marriage home and started pro-creating. There were always people around. I'm sure no one EXPECTED to come home to an empty house or to things just as they'd left them that morning. It's me, isn't it?

We really AREN'T "alone again naturally".

Leeetle Birdie…

I don't really like birds. In truth they freak me out a bit. They look so DAMN pre-historic. They really do. Birds, to me, are shrunken dinosaurs. I try to like them, I really do, but they just don't conjure up the image of a warm, cuddly pet in my mind.

Considering my feelings about birds I think it's odd that today I had two mentions of two different cockatiels today. Isn't that odd? My one friend told me that her parents found a very friendly cockatiel in their garage. Clearly the bird was someone's pet but despite diligent efforts on the part of my friend's parents they can't seem to find the owner which has left them in the awkward position of suddenly having a pet bird for the time being.

Then I get to work and one of the blogs I subscribe to showed up in my inbox and what is mentioned in it? Yup, pet cockatiels! Weird, right?

There was no point to this except for the oddity of having cockatiels creep into my Monday morning uninvited and unexpected. That's never happened to me before.

Phone Friends

Didja ever have phone friends? Those people you talked on the phone with for HOURS AND HOURS AND HOURS? I guess it's not so common anymore. We text now. We're short and to the point at least for the most part. Who would EVER stay on the phone for 3 hours…or all night? Yeah, ALL FUCKING NIGHT?

I've had 2 "phone friends" that I can think of. Three if you include my current friend who is down in Maryland but I don't think of her in this category because if we lived closer I'd force her into my group of regular friends so she's only safe based on distance.

I guess in fact the other two didn't qualify as only "phone friends" either but it was before the time of e-mail and texting (yes, children there was a time before e-mail and texting, trust me, there was).

Phone Friend #1, we'll call him "P" (that's odd, phone friend #2 has the same first initial, perhaps we'll just call him #1 or P1, yes that's it P1). P1 was a guy friend in high school. We would talk all night and often fall asleep on the phone together then wake each other up in the morning by screaming over the phone. Classy, I know. I never dated P1. I never so much as kissed him. In person, in school, we were "friendly" but didn't really move in the same groups. It's weird, ya know. We were both pretty "popular" (I'm crazy, crazy people are always reasonably popular because others are afraid of us, trust me, it's true) but in different groups and in different ways but come night time? We were each other's everything. We'd talk about all sorts of stuff which totally escapes me all these years later. We never kept in touch a single day past high school but for those 4 years we logged thousands of phone hours together. Sweet.

In the '80's I had P2. I miss her…a lot. She was one of the most unique and wonderful people I've ever known and I've only seen her once since the '80's. We were both at a Sopranos (yeah, the TV show) premier party in NYC. She was married to some very normal guy. She seemed happy. I hope she is. We would talk for HOURS most week nights in the middle of the night. She was one of the few people I've ever known who was so much like me. We "got" each other. She had a little dog that she adored and a house she owned in an off-beat part of NYC that would've scared the average person but for her…it was home. Damn I miss her (and no, I can't even fucking find her on facebook so stop asking).

My current friend that almost makes this category doesn't have "P" as a first initial. I don't want to just be phone friends and I don't think we are. But I have to say that as far as P2 goes, I miss her, I do. A3 is my current phone friend and the only reason we're "phone friends" is because I have a long commute to work and she lives a few hours away. She's not close enough to see all the time. It'd be great if she were closer mostly because we're both breakfast people (a whole OTHER category) and our significant others are NOT breakfast people so I'd have someone to meet for breakfast if she were closer but that's not in the cards and that's fine. Life happens that way.

I don't really know where this rant came from but now I'm missing those first two phone friends and making a commitment to A3 that she will NOT fade away. Not fade away, great song, better sentiment.

More musings on life and death

So after that other post the thoughts of life and death and round and round kept playing round and round in my brain. It brought to mind a Joni Mitchell song, "The Circle Game". She basically takes you through a person's life in the space of a 4 minute song. And that's bothersome on some level but mostly because IT'S TRUE.

I sent an e-mail to a friend recently about how much I hate the end of summer and when I detailed why I hated the end of Summer she wrote back that those were the very reasons she LIKED moving into the other seasons, she liked how orderly the other seasons are compared to summer.

Summer feels like endless time sprawling out without end. Summer is soft breezes, miles of sand and ocean; it's long, long days that just slip into night and the dawn comes quickly after. Summer feels unplanned and free without the passing of time but that isn't the reality. The reality is that even while we sit on the deck and watch dusk creep slowly from the sea and we sip our beers and margaritas and talk and laugh at nothing at all time is ticking on no matter how easy it all feels.

The end of summer brings those ordered seasons. It's back to school, then Halloween, then Thanksgiving and C'mas and New Year's Eve. They stack up at the gate like planes waiting to take off from Newark airport. Time is planned and ordered, commitments are made (where to spend the holidays, what to buy for whom, etc). This is what unnerves me and forces the passage of time on me. There are songs about this stuff, about being "in the autumn of my days…" and other references to the waning of life just like the waning of the seasons.

When summer lands on our sunny shores I see nothing but blue skies and amber sand and time STOPS. It stands still for those 10 weeks while we all become young again. We stay outside until well past when the street lights come on and enjoy the velvety warm nights and the sticky-sweet mornings.

Summer lets me be carefree again. I take long bicycle rides to nowhere and lounge in the pool even after a busy day at work. But autumn, no. Autumn doesn't lead to carefree fun it means buckling down. Autumn means finishing up projects before the end of the year. It means planning and planning and executing and planning. Not Summer, no way.

With all the talk of death and loss as the summer wanes it's hard not to look around and wonder how much will be different next Summer at this time. How much more loss will we suffer? How much more heartache and heartbreak? I'm not being a Nelly Negative here but it does kinda hit you that first week that you wake up at your normal time (5:30AM) and it's dark out instead of light, maybe some of that darkness bleeds over into where my head goes.

Will everyone I love still be here next year? I hope so but there have already been losses this year, some sudden, some expected but none of them welcome. I don't like this feeling of the passing of time, it goes too quickly. Why am I not still 22 or 26? Why can't I still fit in size 2? Why don't I stay out until 3AM and be ready for more of the same the next day?

No answers and no way to stop it, just carry on and hope for the best, it's all we can do but I sure wish we could roll back the clock to a lifetime of endless summer days and short summer nights.

And we do all go 'round and 'round and 'round in the circle game, don't we?

Mostly Dead

I heard from a friend today that one of his friends is, well, mostly dead. That may sound harsh but it's a fact. The person is in a coma and has been for 3 weeks, there's no hope of recovery. It got me thinking and it wasn't pleasant. First of all, I'm a pretty optimistic person overall. Life is great, a veritable bowl of cherries. I don't act old (or not VERY old anyway). I try to be youthful enough without being dopey about it.

All that said I can't help but stare down a host of missed opportunities. Oh yeah, I've heard it all before, "you're still young yet" and "you've got plenty of time to still pursue your dreams" and on and on. Okay folks, slap yourselves because as lovely as it would be to think those things there comes a time when you need to know you're options are gettin' pretty limited. Yes they are.

Look, here's a fact folks, I'm never gonna be an Olympic athlete. Yup we were all just treated to those Summer games in London and those athletes were young. Yeah there were a few true old-timers on some of the teams but they were pretty rare and no doubt they'd been in the game for quite some time. Yeah, I got no hope of that. I realize that even in my prime I would've never been considered an athlete but maybe if I knew then what I know now I would've tried a bit harder. I would've found something and really thrown myself into it. Those gymnasts were amazing, they flew through the air defying gravity. That would've been nice to pursue…maybe.

And then there's all the other loves of my life, I had wanted to be a food scientist, not gonna happen. I loved radio like you can't even imagine and I was young at a time when radio was fresh and exciting, yup that's off the table now. Writing, yup, loved that when I was young, still love it but let's face it, even if I did get something out there now it wouldn't be like I'd be staring down a lifetime career as a writer, I'd be spending my "declining years" as a writer. Okay, that'd be pretty cool but it would still be a last ditch effort.

I have an acquaintance just finishing up the long process of becoming an architect, it hasn't been easy and it has taken a long time. Apparently there is a lot of work that goes into becoming an architect; you have to invest a lot of time and obviously a substantial amount of money to get to the point that you are finally an architect and making the big bucks. She's gutted out the whole process, the internships with low or no pay, the exams, etc. What an accomplishment and every time I see her, despite all the effort she has put in she's always so happy that she did it, she fulfilled an awesome goal and she went after something that really spoke to her. I wonder if she'll regret something ELSE when she reaches my age or if she'll continue on the fearless path she's started on.

I'm seeing some Facebook posts about a friend of several of my friends, I didn't know this person but she seems to have been a very talented photographer and it's clear that she died and from the looks of her photos she certainly died far too young. I haven't yet found out how but it does seem sudden. How sad to for her to be cut-off from life that way. She was beautiful, her photos look wonderful and her friends are all shocked and saddened, one friend wrote a truly lovely poem about her. But there it was…death.

It's hard to think about, but it's all around us all the time. Certainly as we get older it rears its ugly head more frequently but that makes it worse not easier. It taps you on the shoulder and kinda reminds you that you're also in that line somewhere.

This isn't intended to be morose it really isn't. Just real, it's just real. My friend happens to be on the radio and he talked about this openly today. He brought up the concept of death…hell, not the concept he brought up the REALITY of death and put it out there. A bold move, in our overly polite society death just isn't talked about but there it was on the radio. He played some stuff, some sad, some poignant and some that just plain put it out there.

I do want a do-over. I really do. I'd be braver and less afraid of failure. That was my thing when I was young enough to have the expanse of time stretching out ahead of me like a highway across the mid-West, I was scared of failing, scared of making a fool of myself, scared of SOMETHING. Damn that really sucks but it is what it is. I'm still optimistic, I'm happy to have what I have but there's just so much out there that I never bothered to go for.

Well, in all of this I'm wishing that friend of a friend a peaceful journey from this world, he's lingered 3 weeks now between life and death and that can't be very fun either so a toast to The Brick for a peacefully journey ahead.

Asshats on Facebook

Yes, this does actually apply to some of my friends, the real ones, not just the ones you "approved" on Facebook but the ones you even KNOW who are on Facebook. What is it that qualifies you for the truly gross title of "ASSHAT"? It's when you post something that doesn't quite give enough info to make sense to anyone or to just a few select people. If you just got good news, bad news, or even weird news that morning….either post the fucking news or shut yer damn piehole. Seriously. I do NOT want to read something that HINTS at your newsworthy item. Either do the big reveal or share it the old fashioned way, with a personal phone call to your key "stakeholders" (to share an offensive corporate term).

I did a quick log onto FB tonight and got hit with one of these little nuggets. "Nothing like starting my Saturday with good news in the mail. Yes I am happy, Woot!" No further info. We're all just supposed to get on the party wagon with that one, right?

As if FB doesn't make assholes of us all enough times a day when we cave into the madness we end up posting teasers like the above. Look, I would LOVE to know what is making a friend so happy on their Saturday but I can't be bothered pandering to their little guessing game. People, either share with others or shut the fuck up.

That is all…for now.

Breaktime

On Facebook I get lots and lots of animal rescue info. Some of it is awesome good news but much of it is heartbreaking bad news. Abused, abandoned dogs, dogs on death row for no reason other than careless humans too cheap or lazy to spay/neuter their dogs and others sent to their death just due to shelter overcrowding. It makes my soul hurt.

I do some small amount of animal rescue, not as much as I could, or should, but…some. I have 3 rescued dogs, rescued Australian Cattledogs. They're fun, they're awesome, they're DOGS. For all the sad stories, for all the happy stories, there are also just the day-to-day stories.

Yup, no matter what; these dogs, in THIS HOUSE have their own little world and their own little lives. They are fed, cuddled, loved, yelled at, laughed at/with. I guess that's the best part of having them, that they're HERE. Just every day they're here for me and hubby.

Hubby is on vaca this week. He spent the middle of the day on a fishing boat, after a dip in the pool it was naptime. Our male dog LIVES TO LIE DOWN WITH HIS HUMANS. This is his favorite thing to do so off they went to dreamland. Two hours later I heard T-bear barreling down the stairs and then tossing himself on his back in the middle of the foyer and rolling from side-to-side on the rug. There he was; a 45-pound dog, fairly large when it comes down to it, and joyfully rolling around like a puppy (he's 9 years old).

T-bear came to our family after spending 3 months in a shelter. He had been turned in by a family that bought him from a pet store. That means he was born in a puppy mill. Puppy mills are evil horrible places. T-bear was turned in to the shelter when he was just over a year old. He was no longer a cute little puppy, he was now an adult dog, big and untrained, and off he went to the shelter. He was one of the lucky ones, he was in a low kill shelter with an awesome director who wanted him to end up with the right family, he did; he ended up with us. He's the king. Right now he's zoned out happily on two dog beds piled on top of each other because he CAN be. Because he's safe and loved and cared for (and there are lots of dog beds in this house).

Our oldest dog suffered a stroke 9 weeks ago. I came home to find her completely paralyzed, unable to do so much as bark. We've spent $7,000 in the past 9 weeks to get this 12 year old dog healthy again. She's had acupuncture and physical therapy in a hydro tank. We're lucky, we can actually afford this extravagance but we also have pet insurance and today we received a check in the mail for nearly $5,000! Awesome, perfect, nice to get that money back but what's even nicer is that our dog can walk (and bark) again. She was a rescue, just like T-bear. I met her foster family in a park somewhere, she'd been with them for a few weeks and they were anxious to move her along so they could get their next foster. She was only about 9 months old at the time, she's been with me ever since.

Our youngest dog, our "accident" is a failed foster. She was due to be put down, euthanized, PTS as it's commonly called simply due to overcrowding at the shelter where she was. She was only 6 months old at the time, a baby condemned to death because she was in an overcrowded shelter, she'd been there too long and she was deemed less adoptable than some of the others (not good with men…she's fine with men). She's crazy and wild and skittish. Her family died in an accident and she landed her sorry ass in a shelter. A baby who had a family suddenly in a scary place with no one to explain things to her and no way to understand what landed her there. Her behavior was most likely not great, how would you feel in those circumstances, would you allow strangers to stuff you in a cage and handle you less than lovingly? Probably not so the only way they would turn her over was if rescue would take her, lucky for her, we could pull her just in time. She was adopted out once but got returned to us, she had already bonded to us and she just wanted to come "home" to us we kept her.

These are all successes. They're ALIVE, they made it. But the things I see on Facebook these days are heartstoppingly sad all those who don't make it and even worse the cruelty of humans towards these helpless animals. What is wrong with us humans? How are we so justified in our arrogance to other animals? We seem so sure of some pre-ordained hierarchy not just within the animal kingdom overall but even within each species. We see this in how humans treat other humans, we judge on race, culture, or other stupid variables. We go so far as to pass laws to make sure that the "inferior" groups are aware of just how inferior they are. It's shocking when you really think about it.

And because we humans have learned NOTHING from our past mistakes, we're now pushing these prejudices onto our canine companions. Yup, arrogant humans get to say what breeds can live or die based on vast and ignorant generalizations. This canine holocaust is benignly called "breed specific legislation" (BSL), look under those meaningless words and what you find are laws not just authorizing mass killings, no these laws oftentimes DEMAND mass killings of specific breeds of dogs even if those INDIVIDUAL dogs have done nothing. In some instances families are told to surrender a harmless family pet to be euthanized simply because they look like a breed that falls under these laws. Hard to believe isn't it? I wish I was making this up but I'm not.

Pit Bulls are the most commonly executed breed. This confuses me to no end. You all do realize that "Petey", the dog from the Little Rascals, was a pit bull, right? I mean for years and years pitties were "America's dog". They were THE family dog to have around. What happened folks? They did change, we did. We became stupider and less tolerant.

Facebook is doing an excellent job of getting this info out there. Rescue groups and individuals are sharing information like the sad and stupid killing of Lennox the pit bull in Belfast and other similar situations but I have to say that it is actually starting to tear my heart to shreds. I go through periods of not being able to even look at these items anymore. I feel helpless and useless. Why can't I do more? I haven't done enough.

My comfort? The only real comfort I can get is looking around me on a night like this and seeing these three rescued dogs comfortable and SAFE. Safe from the scary life of a shelter dog, safe from the fear of abuse or abandonment, they're here with me and my husband and they are loved and cared for and fed and loved and kissed and petted and played with. They're safe.

I want every single dog to feel this way and live this way. I want humans to wake up and get over their arrogance and stupidity. We need to know that the prejudices we harbor are wrong against other humans and equally wrong when applied to other species. Wake up people we really aren't all that great.

For right now though, right this very second, I'm not looking at those stories on Facebook; nope. I'm writing this blog post and I'm glancing up at some very contented canines who are happy and safe and loved.

As Bob Barker always says, "Please spay or neuter your pets!"

Summer Lovin’ Had me a Blast

As I was doing casual laps in a circle around the pool tonight prior to going to ballet class it occurred to me that maybe part of my issues with the seasons that aren't Summer (in addition to not wanting to be cold) are that the other seasons all come with OBLIGATIONS. I HATE obligations. As soon as Summer ends things get all crazy with shit. HalloweenThanksgivingChristmasNewYear'sValentine'sDay…everything just HAPPENS and suddenly you're arguing about where to spend C'mas or how to have a vegan T'giving to appease some distant relative's significant other.

Summer? No Summer doesn't do that. Summer comes free of obligations. The only "holidays" are MemDay, July 4^th and Labor Day and their distinction is that there are no obligations. Yup, it's true. You can get invited to 14 bbq's and 4 pool parties and not go to any of them or go to all of them and no one cares.

It's carefree and rather childish, or actually rather teenager-ish to enjoy the lack of obligations so much but I think that's a big part of it (other than the sultry warm weather and dripping humidity which come with their own dose of teenage angst and oversexed hormones).

Summer has iconic Summer songs associated with it. Everyone has a few Summer songs that immediately conjure up specific memories, even specific smells that make a person feel young again, invincible, HOPEFUL. No other season has that, sure, C'mas has its own music but it just isn't the same, it's something that everyone shares, to the point of irritation we all share too many C'mas songs in stores, in advertising…EVERYWHERE but Summer songs? Those dig deep, they speak to someone's individual heart and soul, they get personal.

So those were my reflections from the pool today. Summer is more than just heat and humidity, it's my favorite years, it's being a girl in my Summer clothes, it's flirting with boys on the boardwalk until the sun comes up, it's walking out of a sweaty club and seeing the sun rising over the beach, wash, rinse, repeat.

It's Italian ice for breakfast and a long nap on the beach. It's a bike ride at dawn and another one at dusk. It's short nights and long, long, sultry days.

It's not wondering where to eat C'mas dinner or what to buy Aunt Martha this year. I admit that I can wax romantic over C'mas songs and can kill a December afternoon staring at Hallmark holiday flicks but one needs to pass the cooler months SOMEHOW.

It's going to all 14 BBQ's AND those 4 pool parties in one day then watching the fireworks burst over the beach.

Summer = Heaven

Stick Figures

Back in those days of big hair and parachute pants known as the 1980s there was another annoying fad known as "Baby on Board". Yup, those little yellow plastic diamonds suction-cupped into the back window of the family mini-van. They were annoying and got no less annoying (though slightly more humorous) as their parody signs started spouting up all over the place.

I rarely see any of those anymore, for that I'm grateful.

Their replacement is even more offensive and annoying though. Stick figure families. Have ya seen 'em, they're like Colorforms for your rear window (I know, I'm old you probably don't even know what a Colorform is, look it up, you're on the internet)? The back window of the family Prius now sports a stick figure depiction of the family that drives around in said Prius. I have never actually seen these stick figure thingys for sale anywhere which makes me think that they are only available in stores that cater to the cult of family which I don't frequent.

Since I don't know where or how one acquires these little gems I can only entertain that in my incredibly boring fantasy world. Does one go eagerly into the "Stick Figure Store" and peruse the wide selection of stick figures? I've noticed that you never see a stick figure family of fattys, do they not exist or do you just choose to fictionalize yourself as a thin, hip family or do only thin, attractive, hip families buy these? (As usual, SO MANY QUESTIONS.)

These adorable little stick figures families often depict a pony-tailed mom, a sporty dad and any variety and combo of little kids. A young boy with a hockey stick, a young girl in a ballet tutu, perhaps two little diapered babies and let's not leave out the family pets, a dog and two cats.

What does it all mean? Do I care that you are allegedly the proud bearer of the "perfect American family?" Do you care that this is your legacy depicted on the window of your car like some ancient cave painting?

Of course I have seen the occasional single mom depiction which makes me want to approach the woman and point out that she's driving an advertisement for sexual predators. "Looky me, I drive a Mercedes SUV, I have no spouse and two teen-age daughters, please follow me home to my darkened McMansion". Does this stuff only occur to me? Granted I have a long commute which affords me far too much time for my mind to wander down these unlit parking lots of thought but still…

I have a fantasy of finally seeing one that depicts sad reality. A single woman and then along the entire remainder of available window space 30 or 40 stick figure cats. That one'll be sure to keep people a safe distance away. "Hey, look at me; I'm that cat lady your friends all warned you about!" I haven't seen it yet but I know she's out there and will one day proudly display her true self.

And they’re HUMAN, too!

There are two stories in the news right now about celebs being credited with "saving" someone's life. What each of them did was act the way any normal, compassionate HUMAN would be expected to act. The thing that made these simple acts of humanity NEWSWORTHY was because it was a celeb who acted like a human. What a shitty message to send, celebs who act like a normal human are NEWS. We're so disgusting when it comes to celeb culture these days. It's funny to read about people who came into fame decades ago, they lived in relatively normal homes that they stayed in for sometimes the rest of their lives. They were just people who went to work on movies or TV shows. It seems refreshing now to look back at that time and wish it were that way again.

I'd love to NOT know every detail of faux celebs' make-ups, break-ups and hook-ups and I'll bet they'd be happy if I didn't know that shit too. I've had my share of drama over my years on the planet and mercifully that drama gets to be confined to the people I actually know. It must suck to know that going out for coffee is cause for someone to take your picture and speculate on your relationship to the person you're with.

Damn, people get a life. Congrats to the celebs that proved their humanity but I'll bet that many others would've done the same in the same circumstances.

Kid Stuff

As previously mentioned I did a dog transport yesterday. I admit, I'm weak, I wish I could keep them all but at least I know that they're going to safety in either a foster home or their forever home so it's easier to let go of them. Yesterday I had the pleasure of sharing a car ride with a 5 month old puppy and a young adult dog, probably about a year old, maybe a little older. They were both VERY GOOD BOYS. They were truly delightful to be around but I realized something about myself yesterday.

I've never been a fan of human babies, first of all, they leak from both ends and that's just the BEGINNING of my issues with them. I don't like their chubby little thighs or cheeks, I don't think their little pincer type fingers are adorable. I don't "get" them. I don't "get" babies or all the fuss surrounding them…hence I've never had any. Don't get me wrong I don't like kids in general but once a kid at least gets to an age where they can go potty on their own (and if the need me there to wipe them or pull their pants up then it doesn't count…sorry) and maybe even have a bit of a conversation things do get better. That's not to say that I love every 8 or 9 year old because that is often an ugly age personality-wise but at least if you tell them to buzz off you can tell them why.

I've always known those things about myself but I didn't realize there was some cross-species synchronicity until yesterday. Who can resist a puppy right? The puppy I transported was no different, he was ADORABLE, truly a little gentleman, he curled up in a little puppy bundle on the floor of the backseat of my car and never said a peep the whole trip. He was sweet and adorable and good there is no doubt about it. But the youn adult dog really had me. I have to say that if I had to pick one of those dogs to bring home with me it would've been the adult. Odd, right? All 3 of my dogs are rescues and none were a puppy when we brought them home; my oldest (now 12) was about 9 or 10 months old when I got her, our male dog (now 9) was a year and a half when we carted his stinky butt home from the shelter and our youngest (3ish?) was about 6-7 months when she joined the pack. There's something about that young adultness that was appealing to me. They were all housebroken (that's a good thing) and were all something MORE than a puppy. Puppies are silly and cute and kinda fall over themselves, dogs are a tad more dignified. If, for some reason I HAD to have a puppy instead of an adult dog I certainly would love it like crazy and all that but I realized yesterday that I really do like that young adult mentality even in dogs.

The dog (as opposed to the puppy) did something so cute and sweet while I was driving, we had been on the road for about an hour and had about half an hour left, he had spent most of the ride happily watching the world roll by from the backseat of the car but he must've gotten bored and put his front paws on the console in the front seat and then he gently just leaned his head against my cheek for a while. There was something so sweet and almost mature about that gesture, a gentle "thank you" for taking care of him. Puppies are still too new, they don't know "thank you" yet and they don't have to…THEY'RE PUPPIES, people are going coo over them no matter what.

This made me think of kittens; my friend has two kittens. They're adorable, but they're EVIL. They've destroyed her dining room curtains by literally swinging from them like a couple of swashbuckling pirates swooping down on their unsuspecting prey which could be anything on the dining room table. They're cute but they aren't cats. A cat will curl up and purr in your lap and make you feel like all is right with the world a kitten will do that for a minute, maybe two, before they suddenly jump up and take an unsuspecting swipe at your nose and dart out of sight.

It was nice that a beautiful ride spent with two lovely, well-behaved animals could lead to such a profound moment of self-discovery…keep those BABIES away from me (and yes, puppies and kittens also seem to have occasion to leak from both ends…same as human babies)!

Good Deeds

If this were a thesis the statement would go something like this: "Trendy businesses attract more socially aware clientele than non-trendy businesses" which would then be followed by proof of that thesis. You'd have to determine what defines a "trendy business" vs. a "non-trendy business" and what defines "more socially aware". Thankfully my days of writing thesis papers are behind me (for now…who knows what dopey college moves I'll decide to make in the future) so this crazy statement doesn't need to be proven for me to make it and stand by it.

There's a trendy new coffee shop near me. It only serves coffee and some trendy pastries, some flat bagels spread with awesome fig butter mixed up on-site. There is no tea on the menu and I think there's only one decaf coffee, there are no lattes capuccinos or other fancy coffee beverages, they offer two Iced Coffee selections. There are no seats and no WiFi. They currently have just two locations; the first one is literally in a shed, a very nice shed but a shed nonetheless. The line snakes out the door and that's for 3 or more people. Their second location isn't much bigger though it isn't a shed it's a small space carved out of the corner of a paint store and a plumbing supply store. The employees are all young and beautiful; they have lovely skin.

Apparently in the world of upscale, trendy coffee there are only two ways to make it, French press or "hand poured", hand poured means you pour water of a specific temperature in a circular motion over freshly ground beans. This place uses that method, there are no coffee pots sitting around growing stale as the day goes on. Each hot cup of coffee is brewed when it's ordered. There are pre-measured tins of beans that are ground when someone orders that blend, then they are expertly packed into a filter and the hot water is poured over the beans and the perfect cup of coffee drips down into the awaiting cup. I like coffee and always have but this coffee is no ordinary stuff; I have to say that every person who goes there because of all they've heard comes away raving about the place, it changes how you feel about coffee. Their iced coffee tastes almost like a milk shake and I take mine with just plain milk and two equals but somehow that translates to something creamy and delish. A cup of coffee there is NOT cheap but probably no more than Starbucks.

They have a cute little blackboard propped up over the counter where they put adorable sayings or thought provoking questions (in the movie of the story of YOUR LIFE, what actor or actress would play you and why). Of course you don't have to answer the question but it usually starts a lively discussion while you wait for you fresh brewed, hand poured beverage.

Yup, it's trendy, made even more so by how rare it is…only two small locations.

On Sunday I usually go and get an iced coffee for me and some kind of hot coffee for hubby. This past Sunday I had to do a rescue dog transport. It's a "rescue railroad", volunteers take dogs from high kill situations (usually in the Southern states) and move them to either a forever home or a foster home (to safety basically). The trip is usually broken up into legs so that no one person is driving from So. Carolina to Massachusetts, I was driving from NJ to CT. I walked in and they started to make my regular iced coffee and asked what was for hubby, "Nuthin'" they gasped. I explained that I was hittin' the road for rescue and so he was on his own for coffee that day. They laughed.

I asked if Amy came by on her way to NYC, yes she did. Where was Amy going? Oh she was doing the Lincoln Tunnel Run for Special Olympics, she's a special ed teacher. It seemed like a lot of the regular clientele were dropping by on their way to doing some socially aware thing on a Sunday.

So, do trendy places like that attract a more socially aware clientele? I don't know and my investigation ends here with the knowledge that Amy and I both stopped there on our way to doing something fun for ourselves that would benefit someone else.

Anyway, they do have great coffee, so maybe the next thesis statement would be, "really great coffee inspires a generous lifestyle" J

Ten Years

It was ten years ago this week that I moved into the home of my dreams. It isn't big or fancy. It's old and 10 years ago it needed A TON of work…it needs less work now but still needs work (both bathrooms and the kitchen).

The day I moved in may also still be the most romantic day of my life.

My significant other at the time actually moved us in. I bought the house, I closed on the house on March 28^th and we had been working on the house for nearly a month so we could move in, in the meantime we were living in his small apartment a quarter of a mile down the road. He would come here during the day (he worked nights bartending) and paint and do other prep work. Our neighbors to the left were/are an elderly couple and the wife would talk to my Significant Other ("SO") as he worked. Then there was THAT DAY. SO was talking to the neighbor, she asked when we'd actually be moving in, he said that when the house was "ready" we'd move in. She said that they'd lived in their house for more than 50 years and it still wasn't "READY" that somehow you just had to take that leap.

That was it.

I called on my way home to ask what our plan was for that night, what work we'd be getting done at "the house". He said that maybe it'd be a good night to order some Chinese food and take a night off. Okay, maybe that WAS a good idea. I got home that night to our little apartment ready to go to "the house" and put in a few hours of work. I walked in and the apartment was EMPTY. There was a desk chair and not much else in the place. The dogs weren't even there…at the time it was my rescued cattledog and his ancient rescued mutt. He spun around in that desk chair and said, "honey, let's go home…" we loaded the very few remaining things into our two cars (my 2001 Honda Civic and his Nissan Maxima) and we drove up the street. The dogs were there and he had moved everything else in that day. There was a bottle of champagne and some Chinese food waiting for us. We were home. That was it.

Ten years later and we're married for nearly 7 years. His ancient mutt went to The Rainbow Bridge several years ago at the ripe old age of ~18, my cattledog is now 12 and there are two more cattledogs at 9 and 3 years old. We've replaced all the electrical, the furnace the hot water heater. We ripped up the horrible floors and refinished the original hardwood downstairs. Upstairs is laminate floors, a new linen closet, a walk-in closet in our bedroom, pull-down attic stairs and some other upgrades. The yard is fenced in and there's a deck and a patio. It's our home. It's not a McMansion but it's our home and we've been here TEN YEARS! I've never lived ANYWHERE for ten years.

I have to say that the time really did fly by. I can't believe how excited I was that first year to decorate for C'mas and looking back the house was still a friggin' disaster then but for me it was dreamy. It was a C'mas miracle to be living in this house.

So now I'll go to bed in the same home that I've gone to sleep in for ten years. We started out in the back bedroom but moved to the middle bedroom. We have all new furniture. We sleep on a $3,000 mattress now instead of that old lumpy thing we started out with. We have matching dressers and a home office that is amazing, complete with an expensive desk in a buttery yellow stain. The dogs will sleep in the places they've claimed as their own (Tuggie in bed with us, Maggie in the office on the chaise, and 12 year old Ding, the only original member of the household other than us will hunker down on her dog bed in the dining room keeping careful watch over all of us…it's her job) and I'll sigh and smile that I'm still here in the house I bought 10 years ago that looked just like my grandma's house.

Sleep tight!

I AM that asshole!

My previous post may've led you to believe that I AM that pompous asshole. I'm that intolerant person who doesn't "get" all the "common folk". That's true. That's the problem. That family in a suburb of Wichita, KS isn't the one that's out of touch…it's ME. Yes it is. If you live in Kansas (or Arkansas or Oklahoma or wherever) you've seen NYC on TV, you have some idea of what it's like, there're reference points for those people. Not for me. I've only ever lived in the armpit of NYC and Philly. I've ALWAYS been able to catch a bus into NYC within walking distance of my home. The bus route into NYC runs right past my current house…to be exact, it stops in front of my neighbor's house.

My friend was going to meet me at 4PM yoga today but she opted to go into New York and take ballet class instead since 4PM yoga was cancelled. Yup, that's how we roll here.

And that's what freaks me out. I truly don't know what it's like to live in small town America. I would imagine that for many of my fellow Americans they'd be HORRIFIED to live so close to their neighbors that they could easily see in their living room windows…but that's how close we live to our neighbors. We don't have a condo or a townhouse, we have a freestanding, single-family home but yeah, we can take a peek into our neighbors' house quite easily, by accident even and we're used to it.

On Friday I did some errands in the "sticks" of NJ and I thought, "wow, this is so spread out, maybe I could LIKE THIS!" Nah. I don't see it happening. That's just it. I truly don't know what it's like to live separate from other people. I'd actually be afraid of that feeling. I feel that kind of far-away-ness would be scary. How would someone know if anything happened to me if I didn't have a next door neighbor that was, well…NEXT DOOR?!

Sure, I've seen Mayberry, RFD but is it truly representative of small-town America? I don't know because I've never BEEN THERE!

So, yeah, I'm that asshole, I'm uninformed I think that the world is like NYC and the small places? They'd be like Philly (sorry Philly but really…own it).

My Country ‘tis of thee…

I'm a liberal. I also think I'm patriotic. But sometimes patriotism means facing some harsh realities. I don't like guns but for many years now I've heard the NRA talk about a citizen's "right to bear arms" as a right of the constitution and something not to be disputed. I didn't agree with them but as someone who wanted to, at the very least, put some stock in the words written by the founders of this country I grudgingly acknowledged that maybe, just maybe I'd have to give the NRA this one.

Then on Friday I read this article: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/04/23/120423fa_fact_lepore written by Jill Lepore in The New Yorker. It rocked my world. It rocked my world because it filled in the missing piece for me but it also made me sad at what the citizens of this country have become (or maybe what we've always been). Based on Ms. Lepore's research the 2^nd amendment to the constitution isn't about me being allowed to pack heat on my way to the grocery store…it's about the right to have a militia, an ORGANIZED GROUP OF CITIZENS…a MILITIA that are armed to defend against actual threats. This is far different than what the NRA has been touting since the Reagan administration. This take on it makes it clear that the founding fathers weren't expecting us to be armed to the teeth with assault weapons and semi-automatics, no they expected states to have armories stocked with weapons and ammunition at the ready for the citizens to use if the need for a militia presented itself.

The NRA uses the right to bear arms as an umbrella statement for people's overall rights. By telling people that the government is trying to rescind your right to bear arms they imply that once that goes it's a slippery slope to Nazi Germany. This fear tactic is working. I'm sorry to say this, I'm sorry to be some east coast snob but the NRA tactics of fear mongering have convinced some of the less informed citizens of this country that they are, in fact, at risk of losing all of their rights.

It's human nature to fear what you don't know or don't understand. I suspect that there are many people in this country that have had little exposure to foreigners of any kind; little exposure to people who are different from them, who are gay, or of other religious beliefs, or NO religious beliefs; little exposure to educated people or abstract thoughts about science and these things induce fear. I started to poke around the internet on Friday to learn about places I have little knowledge of; these places weren't faraway lands…they were places like Kansas and Oklahoma. Because yeah, I too fear what I don't know and can't understand. It seems that Kansas has a growing number of "ghost towns", abandoned towns where there is nothing left just the buildings, no people, they're all gone. I can't imagine that, I can't imagine there being so little commerce, so little LIFE that people have no choice but to find it elsewhere but clearly that's something that happens. Before those people left those small towns what did they know about other cultures? Other religions? Other overall beliefs? It's hard to say. Did they get that info from TV or the news?

If you consider whole towns of people diminishing down to nothing, no one left to eat cherry pie at the diner and no one left to make the cherry pie at the diner, then what? These people were "small town America" and people embraced that but with that type of isolation comes fear of what is different. Fear of the big city of urban life fear that those big city slickers are gonna strip you of your rights as an American…and you're pretty sure those fears are accurate, just look at what the NRA is telling you about what the big time politicians wanna do, they don't want to let you have guns in your home to protect your property or hunt and those rights were assured you in THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

Look, I'm a pretty curious person. I do a lot of research for the sake of finding shit out and I never bothered to look into how accurate this was and I'M OPPOSED TO GUNS…d'ya think that someone who is living in a small, and getting' smaller, town is going to reach out for more info and challenge the NRA's stand? No. No they won't.

Worse than this though is our arrogance. Americans are arrogant. We are. We are fucking arrogant people. Somehow THAT'S what got bred into our DNA. We cannot be WRONG. We can't and we'd rather die arguing than admit we were wrong and LEARN FROM IT.

Sad to say that the wrong people are going to read Jill Lepore's article. People like me will read it…and admit that our former beliefs were wrong. I'm thrilled and relieved to know that what I used to believe about the 2^nd amendment is wrong but that's me. That NRA-believin', small-town livin', social conservative, right-wing person in the middle of the country is never going to read it (why would they read a snobby magazine like the New Yorker?) and if they DID read it…well, it would just provide fuel to further trash the lefty liberals who want to strip away everyone's rights.

Here's the thing people. If you expect a government to be there for you then you need to give a little on your part. As much as the arrogant people of this country would like to brandish their semi-automatic high in the air and scream from the hilltop that they don't need government…well, try to live without it. It's flawed, certainly, but it's also necessary but you have to allow it to do its job, protect the citizens, provide social programs, incur taxes to reap benefits.

I told a friend that I wanted to go on a missionary trip across America to preach the ways of diversity, to preach NO religion and a broad acceptance of differences. I don't someone to stop being a devout Christian if they really believe in that but I want them to accept me for NOT being a devout Christian and celebrate our differences. I don't need everyone to enjoy exotic foods from strange and foreign lands, but I'd like them to try some of them and then make an educated decision (personally, I'm not a fan of Indian or Thai food but I've tried them on several occasions, I've had the experience to make the decision). I want to be listened to and I want to listen. It's okay to fear what you don't know or understand but I'm so sure it's okay to continue to avoid knowing or understanding different people and lifestyles.

We're at a crossroads, we're being taunted by bullies at the NRA and they are rallying their supporters in the rank and file of American arrogance. Humility is a virtue we'd do well to learn and experience right now we have to be willing to say, "huh, maybe I was wrong about that…" and then continue to learn more and develop our own opinions and thoughts on the subject. It's one thing to say, "hey I KNOW the constitution doesn't guarantee me the right to have a stockpile of guns…but I still WANT a stockpile of guns…" it's another thing altogether to stand your ground and insist that it's your RIGHT to have that stockpile of guns.

And what is a "right" anyway? Who grants those? We talk about God-given rights…what if you don't believe in God (or god)? Who grants you rights? People say that driving is a privilege not a right…what makes that difference? How can we say that owning a semi-automatic weapon is a right? Rights are entitlements but who grants those? We are an entitled society, from what I can tell we think we have a right to EVERYTHING but when everyone thinks they have a right to everything then at some point each of us infringes on the other's rights somehow, someway. This entitlement is just arrogance in a pretty suit.

We need to wake up, we are not a nice people and the ones who claim to be the nicest, the most religious, the bestest of the best…those are the ones that show the most entitlement; the most absolute arrogance and that will be our downfall. If you can't humble yourself; not before your God (or god) but before your fellow human then you, my friend, are an arrogant fucking asshole.

Make it a goal to humbly admit you were wrong about something, tell someone directly and ask for more information. Embrace new things and admit your wrong and see how that goes. It's a start.

And most importantly, be kind to others, we're forgetting how.