So long 2007

This is a year I will not miss. 2006 & 2007 proved to be kind of tough and unpleasant. I have high hopes for 2008. Thank god it's the last year of the idiot despot's regime. It can only get better once he's out, so I'm really looking forward to 2009.

I got out of the shower and went into my bedroom to find Jasper in my bed cuddling a new friend. He usually likes to cuddle up to Luciana's old piggy, Ruby. Ruby lives on our bed, because Jasper always seeks her out and snuggles up for his naps. Well this morning, I noticed Ruby was by herself and Jaspy was snuggled up to someone and purring away. Upon closer inspection I found his cuddle buddy was a beheaded doll. Nice. I called both girls into the bedroom to a) have them enjoy the strange yet funny sight; and b) find out which of them was behind it. Dejanique's game face only held up for about 10 seconds before she started laughing uncontrollably. Mystery solved. She first gave it to Oliver, but he showed no interest. He prefers to cuddle up with Luciana's little ponies. Then she tried Jasper, and he took to it right away, rubbing his face on it and lying down next to it.

Now this begs the question of why we have this beheaded doll with her body painted in rainbow colors. L. found this miniature American Girl doll at Borders a few years ago, and we gave in a bought it for her. Nothing AG makes is cheap, so even this tiny six-inch doll was $20 or $25. Some time after that, my children came out of D's bedroom giggling and sporting a new necklace they had made together. Hanging on the necklace was the defiled head of Samantha, the AG doll. They did strange things to her eyes and it made a very Marilyn Manson-ish looking necklace. I was very annoyed that they had destroyed a very expensive collectible to make this stupid necklace, BUT they did it together, got along, and were laughing. Quality sister time was had by both, and that is priceless. I forgot about the doll. I had no idea the headless body (decorated by Luciana) was still around until it appeared this morning.

We will be going to my parents' for New Year's Eve celebration, as usual. D. will not be joining us. We eat chili and lots of good baked goodies, watch a movie, and play games. I try to catch little pieces of the Twilight Zone marathon throughout today and tonight. The girls, Mark, and I enjoy and look forward to it. I'm really sad that Dej won't be with us, but I understand that at 17, such a sober, boring New Year's Eve would be torture. She is attending a party at Brandon's (her ex-boyfriend) and taking a date. She will spend tomorrow with us, though, at least, having my dad's homemade pizza.

Our cockatiel, Ginger, has been sick--still is, although she is improving. We spent a good chunk of Saturday at our avian vet in South Beloit. There's always a long wait for him. As I had suspected, she has a respiratory illness, which is often fatal in birds. Usually, by the time they show any symptoms, it is too late and they are almost dead. I was very concerned that she wouldn't make it. We got a couple of prescriptions from him, and she has been showing tiny improvements each day. We have to keep the birdroom between 75-90 with 35% humidity. We've been running a steam vaporizer around the clock for her. I do know that birds should have a year-round temp of 75-90, but I've been trying to be more green and lowered my thermostat from 75 to 72. I'm trying to find ways to keep the bird room at 75 or above without having to keep the whole rest of the house that warm.

I'm so deeply sad and angry that Tatiana, the SF Zoo tiger, was killed because of human stupidity. How many zoo and circus animal 'attacks' do we have to have before people start to admit that this will always exist when animals are kept in captivity. They are not meant to live in cages, be on display, perform tricks. It's cruel, and they are angry. I personally feel that every single one of the animal to human 'attacks' is justified under the circumstances. Abused, captive animals are angry, and often insane, as we would be under similar circumstances. It's sickening that the first response is to unquestioningly kill the animals. How dare a mere animal take a precious human life--we are the chosen ones. Killing them for exhibiting natural behavior, when we are the ones who forced them into close proximity with humans--yeah, that's a fair solution. It's even more frustrating in the case of Tatiana, because the damn idiots taunted her and climbed over her wall. How dare she be killed because she was tormented and the very small area she could call her own was invaded. I feel no pity for the three humans involved in her justifiable 'attack'. None. The only thing they are worthy of is a Darwin award. The human gene pool could certainly use a lot more purging!