Two on Tuesday plus some venting

Going...

going...

gone

I did not have to work today, although it was a little weird. I left my house at the same time, took the same route, parked in one of my normal parking ramps, but instead of going to work, I went to the capital to play lobbyist. It was a little more enjoyable ride than a normal work day too, as Les and Allegrea were with me. We got to break up the day with lunch at Buraka. I ordered the misirwot. They have many very good vegan dishes, but that one is my favorite. My normal lunch is a half sandwich and an apple, so it was wonderful to be able to enjoy good food with two of my favorite people. The delicious food and quick, good service made up for the fact that it was a long-ish, cold walk in the rain. We spent the rest of the day wet but were still happy that we went--it was so worth it!

I will definitely be lobbying again in the future, even though the whole process sickened me. I've worked very hard to establish a life in which I could be completely authentic. I love the luxury of being who I am and absolutely abhor being fake and dishonest. I had to be both today. It's part of the political game and the only way to push legislation through the ridiculously broken and clunky political system. The senators, representatives, and staffers with whom we met were also masters of the game. I felt like I needed to shower when I left the capital. Partly because of their disingenuous smarminess and partly because of my own. I lied like a rug. It's necessary for the cause and all's fair in the animal rights war. I hate it, but I will lie, cheat, steal, become violent--whatever it takes to protect the innocent.

Today's 'Two on Tues.' is the truth I wish I could have told today. I need to vent.

1. I used the term, "good, responsible breeders" on more than one occasion. This implies that such a thing exists when it reality it's a complete oxymoron. There is no such thing as a good or a responsible breeder. I couldn't give a shit less why they breed or how much they love their dogs. There are more dogs (and cats) then there are homes--by FAR. When the population of a particular species is way too high, adding any more of that species is irresponsible and destructive to the species as a whole. For every dog these asshole breeders create, another dog will be killed. Period. No excuses, no justifications dismiss the fact that breeders=death.

2. I further elaborated that I didn't wish to have any negative impact on these fictitious "good, responsible breeders". I nearly gagged myself trying to say that, of course with my empathetic facial expression to really show how moderate my stance is. Since breeders are only slightly above the puppy mill bastards in my book, I wish them great negative impact. I would giggle--giggle and celebrate--any hardships that the dog pimps encounter. I'm so very glad that I have marketable skills and have been able to earn money for using my brain instead of being such a worthless person that I have to pimp dogs to make a living!

I feel a little less sleazy now that I was able to purge my dishonesty. I will need a couple of months before I am able to pretend to be a moderate animal welfare pansy and pander to people who know less than me, do less than me, and make money more than me. I need to atone with protests, direct action, doing bad things for good reasons, and just enjoy the hell out of being my angry radical activist self. I am an animal rights abolitionist NOT an animal welfarist, dammit!

I babbled much more than I meant to on a Tuesday. It's been a long day, but M & L won't be home until 9:45 or so. He was giving a talk at Olbrich tonight, and since I had to teach, he took L with him. Since I have been alone since I came home from my class, I did all the animal care chores and then had to decide whether I should be productive doing more chores or spend a little more time blogging. They just walked in the door now, and I am going to finish blogging. I'm oh-so-very sad that I don't have any time left to do chores now. ;-)

Monday. Yuk.

Jasper, letting me know that the armoire door should have been left open for him.



Our sweet little kittens left last night. After having them here for a week and a half, I'm having a hard time adjusting. I keep finding myself wanting to pop in to check on them or play with them, but they're not here. I miss the kids, too, of course. :-D I so very much wish we could keep all of the kittens!

M. came home from work early today, because he was sick. That is an extremely rare event. He really shouldn't have gone in at all today but couldn't manage to stay home. He's feeling pretty crappy. I'm under the weather today as well, but not nearly as bad as he is.

Tomorrow is a big day--we'll be at the capital all day for the Humane Lobby Day event. Les and Allegrea and I will all be riding together, and we will be meeting with other friends there. I hope that it proves to be an effective day. I also hope I'm feeling better tomorrow and not worse!

I'm feeling a bit on the bitchy side tonight, so I will just shut up now and stick with the kitten pictures.

I was working as a waitress in a cocktail bar. That much is true.

Luciana wanted to make a bracelet after we returned home from dinner tonight. My parents wanted to take us (M., L., Dej & Joe) all out to Fazoli's. Not the best food by any stretch, but the company was great. We got out the jewelry-making box, and she selected all of her beads. She said she decided that she would make a pink bracelet tonight, and would make more colors later.

Notice the pink gingham...uh...dress-type thing she's wearing. Notice the several holes in the front of it. When she first received that dress, she was about 4. It was, officially a dress that fit her nicely. I think she loved it most of all, because it was a hand-me-down from her best friend Emily (who used to be our neighbor, but we dont' see her often enough now). She wore that as a dress as long as she possibly could. Even when it was still a dress, it got its first hole when Mark thought it was funny to pretend to drill her stomach, accidently caught the fabric on the end of the drill, and left a hole in it. There was absolutely no way that was enough to keep her from wearing the beloved dress. A few years back, she outgrew the dress but happily informed me that she could still wear it as a shirt. Throughout the years, it has become more tattered and holey. Every spring, when we bust out the clothes to try on and sort, I'm sure that this will be the year that the dress-become-shirt would no longer fit and could be retired. Clearly, this is not yet the year for that to happen. Maybe spring of 2010 will be the year?

I have lots of cute kitten pics and I'm flaunting them! :-D

Yeah, thanks for the e-mail reminder, guys. :P I did indeed miss a 'two on tuesday'. My routine was broken this week, as the college is on spring break and I didn't have to teach last night. I got working on some database stuff and as I so often do when being a computer geek, became completely immersed and lost track of time. By the time I noticed the time, it was very late and I remembered that I had to get up early for work this morning and just went to bed. I've spent the majority of my adult life trying to juggle way more balls than I could possibly manage, which results in me frequently dropping balls. There's no denying it. I own it. I'm a ball dropper. LOL! I know exactly what my husband will have to say when he reads that. He's so incredibly predictable in certain areas, but most especially when it comes to juvenile wisecracks.

Total and complete detour here for a minute:

I knew when I got my husband that he was prone to frequently making the kind of remarks and jokes that adolescent boys would make and that he enjoys bad puns and groaners like no other. I thought that eventually my very 'grown up' sense of humor and decorum would serve as a good influence and at least minimize his tendency to whip things like that out. Most of his juvenile forays received an eye roll, but there were a few that were not tolerated so well. Like the number of times that he 'pantsed' me (for those who didn't grow up with brothers, that means to sneak up behind someone and pull their pants down to their ankles in front of others) while we were dating. Yes he did. Pregnancy did not prevent him from 'pantsing' me either.

The first time he took me to his parents in IL, I was in the bathroom, midstream, when my future husband opened the bathroom door (which is about 15 feet away from the toilet), giggled like a little girl, and ran away, leaving the door open. Stern lecture follows, I'm sure he gets it. Nope.

While in our first childbirth class (very large class) and we were asked to introduce ourselves and state the best/worst thing about pregnancy, my loving husband announces with boy scout seriousness to this room of strangers that his name was Mark and the worst thing about pregnancy was that, "the wifey doesn't give it up 6 or 7 times a day like she used to." This was in no way the truth, but the silent, staring group of expectant parents didn't know this. And still, I was convinced that I would elevate him. Then later, after giving birth (after three flipping days of labor with an overdue giant), he giggled like a little girl when he realized that he could fold me in half by pushing the buttons on my hospital bed, he only stopped after threat of death (truth be told, I'm pretty sure it was a promise, rather than a threat). After my stern lecture, I was pretty sure I had finally gotten through to him.

That short little history of our early years and where we started was just to illustrate where we started and where I thought we would be by now. As were most of my predictions about what my life would or would never consist of, I was wrong. His sense of humor has not changed one iota. I do believe he's gotten a little smarter about things like pantsing me in front of people, although who knows. I was in absolute shock when he pulled the same hospital bed crap the day after I had major surgery and was in unthinkable pain. Anyway, what has happened is that I not only recite his bad jokes and inappropriate statements with him, but I catch myself doing it too ("While you're down there, love.", "That's what she said", and many other classy sentiments like that). Not only did I NOT change him, but he's somehow managed to bring out the hidden 12-year-old boy inside me. I still don't understand how it happened.

Detour over.

M. was gone last night and tonight--speaking gigs. He just texted that he's on his way back from Milwaukee. I have to wait until he returns to watch LOST, so I'm counting the minutes. I also have to get a shit ton (no idea why, but I'm really digging that phrase lately) of database work done tonight and some homeschool work too. I have the kittens here all week (and Dej & Joe of course), and they are constantly luring me away from productivity with their cuteness.

L. and I had a really entertaining conversation tonight after reading our Trixie Belden before bed. Trixie was feigning a crush on a boy, which led L. into a zillion questions about crushes--"What causes them?", "How do they happen?", "How can you tell if someone has a crush", "Why do girls doodle the boy's name?", etc. I explained to her about pheremones, hormones, deep biological imperatives, and all that stuff that wipes the mystique and romance right out of the picture (yep, I'll take science and logic over that crap any day). Of course she countered with even more questions--"Why do we even have hormones?", etc..., and then "Have YOU ever had a crush?". That's pretty easy: "Of course I have. I've had many in the past and will probably have more in the future. Humans can get crushes at any age and they occur throughout our lives." I reminded her of past crushes she has had and told her she would have many more crushes on many more boys or girls in her lifetime. She said, "Yeah, sometimes I think that girls are really, really pretty. But...I would say that I'm not gay. I would prefer to marry a woman because, you know, boys are so bizarre and violent. I think I mostly get crushes on boys."

While I hoped for two little lesbians, I can accept that my daughters had no choice in their sexual preference, and I love them for who they are. I'm pretty sure I have two little heteros, despite my best efforts, and the most I can hope for now is that they'll end up bi. ;P The fact that my militant, radical feminist philosophy did not turn my children into daughters of Sappho should serve as the final proof that you cannot MAKE someone gay (or not gay)!

I'm entertaining myself immensely here tonight, and while I had more fun L. stories to share from tonight, I see it's late and I need to go be productive before M. gets home and we watch LOST.

Botswana comes out every night while we do our reading time. He comes out during the day as well, but the night-time outing is part of our routine, and he expects it. He's so cute and interactive. I really struggle with getting good pictures of him, particularly at night when I have to use the flash. I haven't yet managed to capture his true cuteness, but I'm going to keep trying.

Giant sausage fingers that are incapable of moving anything

L. and I have both recovered fully from the little virus that hit us. Despite being under the weather, I was buoyed by the beatiful, unseasonably warm weather we had outside. I wasn't feeling the greatest and had to spend some time inside taking care of those chores, but I was outside every moment I could manage. M. was a total workhorse and made up for me moving a little slowly. He got most of the spring yard cleanup done, which puts us in the rare position of being ahead of schedule. That's a good thing, because we have to spread LOTS of compost and re-mulch this year, so that will take up a good chunk of the spring. This was the first weekend in a while that he hasn't had to speak somewhere and/or travel, and it will probably be one of the last for several months.

L. was outside from breakfast until bedtime, completely enjoying the little break from winter. She and Hunter pulled out all the yard toys--they played with bikes, pogo sticks, the swing set. They played at our house, his house, the park. They visited and hung out with their favorite neighbors, the Leders. It was a good weekend for all of us.

The beautiful weekend made it that much more difficult to get up and go to work on this cold, rainy, dark and dreary Monday. I got a taste of spring, and I'm just bitter that it's gone! On the positive side, though, I have kittens! Dej, Joe, Sparta and the kittens are staying here until next Sunday night, as Dej is off for spring break. I'm going to have a tough time staying productive with the kittens distracting me with cuteness all week long! A lot of my work in the evenings is programming stuff, though, so I can take the laptop in and sit on the floor with the kittens and try to do both.

The kittens have two modes now: running at full speed and passed out cold. There isn't much time wasted on in-between phases. They tear around at high speed, climbing, chasing, until they are so exhausted they just flop down and pass out. They are all using their litter boxes nicely. It's so fun to watch them work so hard at and eventually master their various motor skills. They are just so precious and full of their own individual giant personality. I feel so lucky to have them here to enrich our lives!

This little guy wore himself out. He wanted Allegrea to hold him like that for hours. She would put him in his little kitten bed, he would wake up, climb back onto Allegrea, and instantly konk out--sound asleep. She had a really hard time leaving him. :-D

I still have much work left to do tonight, so I'm off to be productive.

Down but not out

I returned home from class last night to find my poor baby girl was sick and vomitting. We put in a long night. During the times that she was able to sleep, I was able to get my grading done and midterm grades entered. It feels wonderful to be done with that. Now I can enjoy my spring break (from classes at least) without having to even think about grading. I think I'm dropping today, h. I have a weird headache and a stomach ache and am feeling pretty crappy at the moment.

Wednesday night's LOST was a little less action-packed than most of them have been this season, but it is necessary sometimes to have those episodes that lay the foundation for the big reveal episodes. I did love a few scenes, though. Top three:

1. Hurley and Sawyer's reunion. How sweet was that? I can't be the only person who teared up during their hug.

2. When Sawyer tells Hurley that it's 1977...Hurley's reply, "Oooh. WHAT?!"

3. Sawyer's totally bad-ass schooling of Jack. I'm not a big fan of the whiney-bitch, Jack, so I really loved the totally together Sawyer putting Jack in his place.

I'll share some random pics, as I really don't feel like typing anymore.




Luciana made this magnolia flower out of Play-Doh.







L. & Hunter wearing the hats that Grandpa John got for them at the Chicago Flower & Garden show.

Happy LOST day!

M. had already decorated the house (in the morning before he went to work—who else would decorate before 6:30 am?!) and the minute he walked in the door from work in the afternoon, he already had the Celtic music playing. Loudly. I returned home from class later that evening to find that M & L were hip deep in their St. Patrick’s Day celebration. My kitchen was knee deep in their mess from making dinner and carving soap. They had waited dinner for me. Mark, with L’s help, made his traditional meal of vegan hash, baked potatoes, corn, and Irish soda bread. They stepped it up a bit this year with green bread. They added green food coloring to the bread dough. It was indeed green. It tasted great, but the idea of eating green bread was a little creepy to me—much too mold-like looking. M. also had green beer (also made with green food coloring).

L. was very proud of the fact that she not only helped with dinner, but had completely set the table by herself. I was not allowed to go into the dining room until the food was on the table, and then she led me into the room with my eyes closed, so I could be surprised by her table-setting artistry. When she commented about how much she loved that bread, M. said that they could make it anytime she would like. She said she could only eat in on St. Patrick’s Day or it wouldn’t be special.

They did their traditional Irish Springs soap carving while I was at class but waited until after dinner to do the traditional sea-worthy contest. This consists of filling the kitchen sink up with water, putting some of their D&D die-cast miniature characters in their carved soap boats, and dropping them into the water. The winner is the one whose boat didn’t sink (or at least floated the longest) and whose miniatures stayed upright in the boat. M. won the first round, but L’s second boat did better than her first. They usually carve lots of other miscellaneous items too. This year, as Dej wasn’t around, they decided to hold off on the rest of their soap carving and wait until this weekend when Dej could join in the fun.

I started to clean up the kitchen mess after all of the festivities, but M. shooed me out. While I took care of feeding the indoor and outdoor critters and reading L’s bedtime story (Nancy Drew), M. did a good job of cleaning up the kitchen. I was pleasantly surprised when I finished everything up and got L. tucked into bed, to find that the kitchen was sparkling clean (and smelling very strongly of Irish Springs soap).

It’s so cute how silly little traditions like this are so meaningful and memorable to the girls. L. told M. that she would always remember that day, because it was so much fun.

Special guest post

We've been very busy celebrating the most important holiday of the year (according to my husband)--St. Patrick's Day of course. More on that tomorrow.

I'm posting something my dear friend, Anthony Marr (founder & president of H.O.P.E.). He's a wonderful writer with a brilliant mind. He actually makes me a little jealous, because he's damn good at everything. Really, everything! He's an altogether amazing person who has made this world an infinitely better place.

To my horror, I just watched in one of the MySpace bulletins an extremely graphic video of witch-burning in Kis, West Africa, showing about five people being beaten with sticks, then pushed into a fire pit and actually burnt to death, while onlookers threw wood and leaves into the pit to keep the fire going. The perpetrators were reportedly "Christians". But when I tried to repost the video, it had by then been yanked.Still, it has caused me to write the following short piece, which I will post anyway:
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Yesterday I posted a piece titled "Scientists Driven to Confront Politicians on Global Warming". There is a separation of Church and State, but Science is the whipping boy for both, and has been for as long as Science has stood up for truth.

The first case of religious persecution of science, of a scientist, of a female scientist named Hypatia, occurred in Alexandria in 415 AD. The then Christian bishop Cyril condemned Hypatia for her "heretical" teachings, experimental science and pagan practices. She was denounced as "a woman who did not know her place". Cyril's preaching against Hypatia incited a mob led by fanatical Christian monks to have her dragged from her chariot, stripped, and flayed alive with oyster shells unto death. Her story needs to be told.

In the 3 centuries spanning 1400-1700 AD, the Church burnt 450, 000-9,000,000 people at the stake for witchcraft (predominantly women) and heresy (predominantly men).

My own personal hero Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) was one such heretic, whose heresy being to teach what we now know to be true (thank you, Science!): that the Earth is not fixed at the center of the Universe as the "infallible" Church then taught as "inerrant" truth, but that it moves in a Universe without a meaningful center, that the Sun does not revolve around the Earth as the Church then taught, but the Earth around the Sun, and that the stars are not pin-holes in some sky-vault through which heavenly light shone as the Church then taught, but distant suns, many with their own planets, some possibly with life and some even with civilization. Bruno was seized at age 44, tortured for 8 years throughout which he steadfastly refused to recant, at the end of which he, then a wrecked invalid, was burnt alive at the stake.(For a photo essay see the global warming section of www. HOPE-CARE. org)

Most of the "witches" were single or widowed women with estate. The Church persuaded their neighbors to turn them in as witches, tortured them hideously until they confessed, burnt them alive as certified witches, and confiscated their estates.(How do you think the Church became so filthy rich? Tax exemption?)

Finally, after some residual witch-hunts in America, the persecution has died down. Now, it's just Creationists berating Evolutionists as "evil".But the persecution did not die out.If you have the stomach for it, here is a video of "Christians" burning "witches" alive in West Africa, as we speak! (This was written while the video was still up. I think it immoral to yank such truth-revealing videos which the videographer might have risked his/her life to take, just because it offends some apathetic people's sensitivity. These people do not have to watch it.)

Speaking of evil, in my humble opinion there is nothing more evil than human arrogance and cruelty in the name of God..

Anthony Marr, founder and presidentHeal Our Planet Earth (HOPE)
www. HOPE-CARE. org
www. MySpace. com/AnthonyMarr
www. YouTube. com/AnthonyMarr
www. HomoSapiensSave YourEarth. blogspot. com
www. ARConference. org

Despite all my rage I'm still just a rat in a cage

The kittens have grown a ton since last weekend, and they got even cuter! They are starting to eat their mommy's crunchy cat food, much to her dismay, as she really, really LOVES her food. They are working hard at mastering hiding, pouncing, and the run-by-ankle-bite. It is so funny to watch poor Sparta trying to keep track of the little balls of energy now. She still wants to groom them each fastidiously, but they don't want to be still that long. She works so hard to hold them down and lick away, while they try to wrestle with her and run away. We are so completely in love with these sweeties! This is the reason I stopped fostering kittens--I get too attached and it rips my heart out when I have to place them. I still deeply mourn Lila's brother, who was adopted to a wonderful woman 1.5 years ago! This adoption process is going to kill me.

I have to point out that the disgusting debris all over the carpet (that will soon be removed) is litter. The litterbox we have here for Sparta is low sided, so the kittens can get in too. When she buries her deeds, litter flies all over and the room is a mess. Between that and the spilled paint of every color that my artist daughter used in her various paintings, I'm just counting down the days until we can rip it out. We can't start that project, though, until the kittens have all been placed.

M. is gone again tonight, giving a talk in Madison. I was looking forward to having some time with just L., but she called Hunter as soon as we got home. They're having a great time playing, which makes me happy, but I still feel a little lonely. I called Dej to kill some time, and she chatted with me for about 15 minutes and then very politely said, "well, okay...I'll let you get back to whatever you were doing." What a polite way for her to say that she has better things to do at the moment. :-)

Most of my weekend was sucked up by the very unpleasant task of doing taxes--both ours and Dej's. I have to do Joe's next weekend. I do not like to do taxes. At all. But it does feel wonderful to have them done. I have never, in the 25-ish years I've been doing my taxes, gotten them done this late in the year!

Dej & Joe were going to let me take family pics with the kittens, but by the time I got done with taxes, there wasn't enough natural light to work with, and I prefer to not use the flash. We should be able to squeeze time in next weekend. I did snap some quick photos of Dej wearing the super cute ring I ordered her (the one from the awesome etsy shop I mentioned in a previous post). She has giant man-hands like mine--both girls do. Because her hands aren't as rough and torn up as mine, nor are they as pasty, they are much nicer looking. Her big hands mean she can pull off big, fun rings, and this looks so cute on her.

My girl is now in bed, and I have much to do. I see that Carrie has lost her collar again, so I need to try to track that down. Somewhere in this house, we still have Tica's collar floating around and Carrie's previous collar. I don't understand where they could be that we are completely unable to find them after looking for months. Someday they will show up. I know Carrie had her collar on when I got home tonight but doesn't have it on now. She's only been upstairs in my bedroom and closet since I last saw it, so there is hope of finding it. Petey jumped into the closet where we store all of our outdoor toys/sports equipment and the food for the outside birds and cats I feed. He managed to knock down our huge container of sidewalk chalk, so we now have lots of broken chalk all over the closet and the floor of our side entryway. I have to run back down and clean up whatever Daisy didn't eat off the floor.