Thursday, December 27, 2007

RQ Cooks

I thought it was time to share some recipes. You should be warned- I don't measure, I make things up as I go along, and I change recipes all the time.

Leftover Chicken Salad

I tend to like to use herbs instead of lettuce when I can. I don't stuff tacos with watery iceberg, I use cilantro instead. So I did the same for this chicken salad and used flat leaf parsley for the greens. Be sure to chop it really fine or you will end up with stringy salad.

Mix chopped up leftover chicken, chopped celery, chopped green onions (chop as high up the stalks as you can before they get yucky) chopped parsley. drizzle with some lemon juice, sprinkle with pepper and garlic salt. My chicken got marinated in tarragon before I cooked it, so I didn't add any other herbs, but you could add some chopped fresh tarragon or dill if you like. Add enough mayo to make it creamy.

If you want to skip all the chopping and you want a really fine salad that will work better on bread- throw everything in the food processor instead.

If you don't like mayo, use some sour cream or add some extra greens and drizzle with a good vinagarette.

Chocolate hazelnut pie

I got this recipe out of a very fancy cookbook, and it was called ice cream pie. The instructions didn't work well- so I fixed it. It is super easy for us non-bakers (cooking is art- baking is science, I'm an artist)

1 and 1/3 cups whipping cream plus another few tablespoons for softening the nutella
1 jar of nutella
a little more than half a stick of butter (5 tablespoons I think) melted
1 pack of chocolate graham crackers, made into crumbs in the food processor
vanilla

Make the crust first. It's a basic cookie crust. Preheat oven to 350. mix crumbs, melty butter and about a teaspoon of vanilla together. Press into a pie pan and bake for about 6 to 8 minutes till crisp. Let cool completely before adding filling

Mix the whipping cream and another teaspoon of vanilla till it forms soft peaks. put nutella into another bowl and add some whipping cream to soften. Mix well with a hand mixer (if it is too thick, add a bit more cream- but be careful no to overdo it or you'll have runny pie).

Fold nutella mix into the whipped cream in small batches. Once it is all in, use hand mixer to fluffy it up a bit more. pour in pie shell and let set up in the fridge for at least 4 hours.

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

The road to good intentions is paved in hell

So I spent last night taking the big memory card for my phone, converting it to work on the Kid's phone and loading it up with mountains of music he can shake his tale feather too. I made sure he has The Sun is a MAss by TMBGs, and a bunch of the GoGos and the Donnas and Franz Ferdinand. And Keane. The Kid looks like a junior version of Keane's lead singer and he can sing just like him too.

So then I stole the Kid's phone, replaced his memory card and loaded up a silly picture of the two of us from a happier Christmas as his new wallpaper. That was all I could do for him.

He was happy-ish. He was glad to have all the music, but a week or two ago the Kid dumped his headphones on milk. So he can't listen to the music. I didn't know this (of course, headphones have not been a priority).

So I spent a good chunk of the night working on a present he can't actually use. Sweet. Broke and useless.

Holy Shit Batman!

It's snowing.

It's Seattle.

It's Christmas.

That these three things are true all together is a very rare thing.

Kinda makes hazelnut ice cream pie seem inappropriate, but I'm going to eat it anyway.

Monday, December 24, 2007

Scrooge

I really hate Christmas. I hate that right now the entire world is saturated with gifts and presents and that tomorrow a gazillion bratty kids will wake up to rooms full of presents while my kid, who had the fucking patience of a saint isn't even going to get a fucking stocking.

I would do what my mom used to do. She hated Christmas about as much as I do, and she was horrible to me from Thanksgiving on. Then on Christmas eve, when the guilt was too much, she'd go and write bad checks for gifts to assuage her guilt. Then the bills would come in January and she was back to being horrible again. But if I do that today, we'll be homeless by February.

I hate all the fucking good cheer and hopefulness. I hate that every single thing on TV either tells me what a miserable parent I am cause I can't fill the house with toys or shows some sappy fucking movie where everything works out in the end cause Santa shows up. There is no Santa. It doesn't matter how good you are, or how awesome your kid is. It doesn't matter if you've been good or bad. Actually, if you've been bad, selfish and small minded and ruthless, you're probably going to have a better Christmas for it.

I hate that I can't give the Kid anything. I hate that he is so understanding about it. If he were awful then I could at least justify it. I could tell myself that he's too materialistic or bratty. But he's not. He's just a sweet, tenderhearted little monkey and I am terrified that he is going to be crushed tomorrow because I don't have any magic tricks up my sleeve.

I hate Christmas. And now I have to go put on a happy face and pretend like this isn't the crappiest Christmas ever and I'm not the biggest fucking failure as a parent. I'm so broke I can't even afford booze to drink myself into happy.

I truly hope the rest of you have a much better holiday.

Sunday, December 23, 2007

Eureka!

I have been studying political science for so long that it is rare that I hear anything profound come out of someone's mouth regarding politics anymore. I think the last time I read something that made me go "OMG!" was several years ago while reading a biography of the first socialist leader of Sweden, Tage Erlander. To paraphrase severely- a business that does not pay it's employees a living wage is a failing business in the eyes of the state, and should not be supported. Why would it be a failing business? Well the people who are employed are not making enough to live on, let alone contribute to the public good through paying taxes. If a business cannot employ people well enough so that they can pay taxes, then the business is failing it's duty to the state (WalMart- I'm thinking about you) by pawning off some of the costs of doing business on to the state.

So I was watching Bill Moyers interview Benjamin Barber about his book Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults and Swallow Citizens Whole. And I had another "OMG!" moment. To paraphrase again

When politics invades every aspect of life, we call it totalitarianism, when religion invades every aspect of life, we call it theocracy, but when capitalism invades every aspect of life, we call it liberty.
We are slaves to the market economy. It invades everything we do, from birth to death. But we call this freedom because we think we have a choice. More from the interview (and again paraphrased because I am not great with on the spot dictation) We think we have a choice because we can choose over 200 models of cars to drive, but what we can't choose is quality public transportation because it's not available.

The freedom to shop is not true freedom. (I would say that the freedom from shopping is not true freedom either and the kid and I are in the midst of what is being called "The Suckiest Christmas Ever!") So if we are entrenched in a society based on shopping- what do we call it?

(Editor's note: You may have noticed the Powell's books banner at the top of this site. If you are looking for books and you go through my site using that banner or any links, like the one for the Barber book above, and you buy books through that link- I get a commission. Yes I realize the hypocrisy of shilling for cash in this post. But buying from Powell's mean you support one of the last independent book sellers and help the Kid and I at the same time. I have also got some t-shirt designs up at CafePress, so if you want a bitchy t-shirt, now you know where to get one. )

Friday, December 21, 2007

Red Queen Recommends

Have you ever had soda made with actual cane sugar and not corn syrup? Unless you're a soda snob or have traveled a bunch, probably not.

One of my ex's, someone with a pretty solid science background, told me that there was no way you could taste the difference between a cane sugar molecule and a corn sugar molecule. He's an ex for a reason. You can totally taste the difference. Cane sugar makes the rest of the flavors pop (coke is actually a blend of lemon, lime, orange and cola flavors but you wouldn't know that from the heavy handed abuse leveled by corn syrup).

I can tell it's winter because all I want to do is eat fruit. We went to the grocery store and I spent way too much money for a bag of cherries and some oranges. And I was thirsty. I wanted something that wasn't tea or coke. I wanted something that would make my taste buds sing happy happy joy joy.

And then I found Boylan's Black Cherry soda. Oh My Fricken Gawd, you peeps. It is the best tasting thing I have ever put in my mouth. I would totally shill for the company if they would keep in soda for life. (Hint- Hint! Make me your shill!) It's made with cane sugar, natch and real cherries and pure goodness as far as I can tell.

You know what's nice

Googling yourself and seeing that at least some of the links actually are for you. At least 3 of the links on the first google search page are me, despite my having a much more common last name than I thought.

Now if only those damn genealogy freaks would stop googling my dead relatives, I might be the top link. A girl can dream- can't she?

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Shocking! Abstinence Only Programs Don't Work


I'm not a big one for celebrity gossip blogging but......

Jamie Lynn Spears, Britney Spears' 16 year old sister, is pregnant.

Let's see, take a teenager, give her more than the usual pressures not to have sex by requiring her to maintain virginal innocence in order to keep lucrative kid's television job. Amazingly, teenage girl still has sex, and gets pregnant.

Now if a whole shitload of money and massive public scrutiny are not enough to keep kids from having sex, then can we really expect abstinence only programs to work for kids who don't have that kind of pressure?

Nope.

Ya know, I always liked her

I've been trying to dig up a video clip of my favorite celebrity interview moment ever, but I can't seem to find it. All I can do is give you this quote

Asked if motherhood is the best experience of her life, Huffman says, "No, no, and I resent that question. Because I think it puts women in an untenable position, because unless I say to you, 'Oh, Lesley, it's the best thing I've ever done with my whole life,' I'm considered a bad mother. And just when I said no you, you went back."

That was Felicity Huffman of Desperate Housewives fame. I am not a Housewives fan, but I love Huffman. I loved Sports night. I love her husband, William H. Macy. And I especially love that she doesn't give pat answers to stupid interview questions.

I Have Officially Seen It All.

I was looking at the SkyMall catalog online today and came across this little gem:



Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it's POOP FREEZE.
I'll just let the catalog description speak for itself here:

Pet waste removal made easy!

Poop Freeze is an easy, earth-friendly way to do your "dooty" and clean up after your dog. It chills animal waste to -62°F, creating an outer "crust" that enables you to quickly place in a bag and dispose. Makes picking up loose stool and diarrhea easier. Effective for all kinds of pets, including dogs, cats, birds, etc. Indoor or outdoor use. Safe for humans and pets when used as directed.


My sister says this is for people who think their shit doesn't stink.

Pardon the radio silence

I'm overcome with a case of the holiday blues.

Will return when I've had enough boozey eggnog to be festive and snarky.

In the mean time- entertain me. What's the best Christmas present you've ever received? Given?

Monday, December 17, 2007

I, Splotchy - The Next Installment

Edit: Just 'Cause I'm Compulsive, here's the intro from Splotchy's blog

This has probably been done before, but that is not stopping me, oh no.


Here's what I would like to do. I want to create a story that branches out in a variety of different, unexpected ways. I don't know how realistic it is, but that's what I'm aiming for. Hopefully, at least one thread of the story can make a decent number of hops before it dies out.

If you are one of the carriers of this story virus (i.e. you have been tagged and choose to contribute to it), you will have one responsibility, in addition to contributing your own piece of the story: you will have to tag at least one person that continues your story thread. So, say you tag five people. If four people decide to not participate, it's okay, as long as the fifth one does. And if all five participate, well that's five interesting threads the story spins off into.

Not a requirement, but something your readers would appreciate: to help people trace your own particular thread of the narrative, it will be helpful if you include links to the chapters preceding yours.


Oh, and if you pass it along & comment on splotchy's page he'll draw you a little something.


I, Splotchy: This Story Is A Virus :

Here's what I would like to do. I want to create a story that branches out in a variety of different, unexpected ways. I don't know how realistic it is, but that's what I'm aiming for. Hopefully, at least one thread of the story can make a decent number of hops before it dies out.


MathMan has tagged me to add to the story, which reads....


I woke up hungry. I pulled my bedroom curtain to the side and looked out on a hazy morning. I dragged myself into the kitchen, in search of something to eat. I reached for a jar of applesauce sitting next to the sink, and found it very cold to the touch. I opened the jar and realized it was frozen. (Splotchy)

"That's strange," I said out loud to no one in particular. My fingers slowly reached towards the jar again. My body experienced a wave of apprehension as weighted blanket covering me as I did so. The jar was completely frozen.


I picked it up and stared at it, my fingers stung with little knives of chill. "What the..." again I spoke aloud. Then I realized what had happened with a shock. Suddenly the jar flew from my hand. It shattered creating a collage-like mixture of frozen applesauce and glass shards on my kitchen floor, the lid lazily rolling to a stop across the room. (FranIam)


I stood for a moment considering what all this meant. Oh, I knew what it meant, I didn’t need to waste time thinking about it. He was back. And he was mad.

I ran down the hallway and flung open the door at the end. I was immediately hit with a blast of cold. I took a step back as I tried to catch my breath. I bent over, hands on my knees panting. He always had this remarkable effect on me. After so much time, it no longer scared me, but it was a shock nonetheless……

“You know,” I panted, “There’s no need to break things to get my attention.” (DCup)

I woke up in the same position as in my dream, on my knees. I was sweating even though room was freezing. (mathman6293)


I was used to the house being quite cold in the mornings, as the night log usually burns out around one AM when I am dreaming cozily under my covers, not normally waking to put a new one on until morning. I was surprised because on the rare occasions that it actually had reached sub-freezing temperatures in the house, I had awakened in the night to restart the fire. I would have been worried about the pipes before P-Day, but there hadn’t been running water in two years and that was one of the few advantages to being dependent on rainwater, no pipes. (Freida Bee)

The nightmares began during the following spring. The apple trees came to life in my dreams. At first the trees spoke and I thought they were amusing. That changed when the messages arrived. Lately, their anger was directed at me. (mathman6293)


The sound of the front porch floorboards creaking snapped me out of my reverie. I stood up, grabbed my shotgun and made sure a round was chambered, then quietly made my way into the front room and over to the window. As I peeked out past the closed curtains, my heart began to beat rapidly.

It can't be, the incredulous thought came, I saw him die last year!

(Phydeaux)


There was no doubt it was him. I knew the minute he tried to meow and managed only a croak. I could feel him purring before he even reached my leg. As he started to rub against me I bent to pick him up but that’s as far as I got. I smelled her perfume. I didn't see her and the scent was very faint, but a man doesn't forget the smell of a woman like her. As my arms pulled Sylvester to my chest my eyes were closed. The smell of her was strong on him, and my mind carried me back to the last time I'd buried myself in that heady fragrance. "Sorry I took your cat", she said.

(Brave Sir Robin)


For a minute, all I could do was stare at her gape-mouthed in the manner of a man seeing a ghost. Finally, I found my tongue.


"I'd invite you in for coffee, but everything is frozen".


'That's all right" she said "I like it iced now".


Over what can only be described as black coffee slushies, she told me the story of how she stole my cat and ran away to make her fortune as a curandera in the jungles of Bolivia. After nearly a year of sweltering heat and bugs, the only magic she had left was the cat's ability to freeze things. She could no longer produce the raised eyebrow of doom or break ear drums with her sarcastic cackle. When I asked her why she returned, the story got even more convoluted.


" After being run out of Bolivia, I found work at a brothel in Buenos Aires. By the way, your cat learned a few new tricks there. I suggest never saying the words frozen chicken in Spanish to him, you may not like the results. At the brothel I met this tango dancing hamster named Ruby. She told me that the only way I could get my powers back was to...( Red Queen)


...return the cat’s heart. I am sure I don’t have to tell you how long it took me to figure that out. That effing feline always liked you best...but my powers dwindled in him absense...I needed him. So I left the frozen rabbit on the lawn in hopes you would think he had self-destructed finally.


But it was a dangerous addiction, and as my cackle grew stronger, so did his hold on me. Slowly our roles reversed, and he began freezing more often and...just more...while my own powers dwindled slowly over the months. That is how I wasn’t able to keep my cover in Bolivia. He has siphoned all my abilities...and if I hadn’t lucked upon that oddity of a hamster, I would have been dead in two day’s time.”


And now here she sat.

And here I was.

(歐陽丹)


Sitting on a folding metal chair that was covered in a thin sheet of frost in the shack we’d called home. I shivered but not with from the cold – it was something inside much deeper than that. She is here. With another shiver I felt it – my heart was starting to thaw. She was breaking down the walls I’d meticulously built to forget her. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath before looking her and curtly asking, “Why are you here?”

“I think you know why”

(canukistanian)*

“No way am I going to Peru, I retorted. “ That damn hamster is more trouble...”


When I first met Ruby, she had just scurried through the crumbling bricks of an apartment house under renovations in the Pacific Northwest. She scampered over my feet, stopping to gnaw through my left shoelace. As she hurried on her way, she suddenly stopped & turned around. She looked at me quizzically & asked,


“Well, are you coming with me or not?”


As I stood there, shocked, and searching for the words to reply, she unfastened from around her neck what appeared to be a thick elastic band with clasps on the end. She quickly strung it through where my shoelace had been and fastened the ends. The she clapped her paws, as if to say “all done”, and turned to leave with a flick of her whiskers. I felt somehow strangely compelled to follow.

Months later, as I sat, dazed on the steps of St. Basil's Cathedral, blinking at the midday sun, i wondered how a case of mistaken identity could have gone so far.

The cat had joined us somewhere along the way, New Orleans, or Austin, I can't remember which. We discovered his freezing power when he saved us from a kitchen fire somewhere in Georgia. We had all taken jobs in this little diner off I-75 and since we had no place to stay, the manager was letting us sleep in the storeroom. One night nobody remembered to turn off the grill, and we woke to the smell of fireworks and frying bacon.

Almost instantaneously, the temperature dropped below zero, and the hot oil spewing from the fry vats solidified in mid-air, flying across the counter to land on the tables and booths like greasy hailstones.

But that was a long time ago.

And that morning in Moscow, Ruby said, as she packed fresh cedar chips into her pillowcase, "I'm so sorry for any inconvenience. The cat doesn't want to go with me, so I hope you'll look out for him. He can be awfully naive."

(Wonder)


***I Tag 'Chelle & Jovial

One crisis down, one more to go

Good news on the homefront. Our rent is being paid and we will, in fact have a home for Christmas.

I guess this means I need to put up the tree.

I think this also means I need t find a way to get the Kid a Christmas present with exactly zero dollars and no cents (or sense- take your pick).

But first I am going to take the world's longest nap, the first nap I've had in a while where I am sure that it won't be my last nap in my own house.

Sunday, December 16, 2007

Tedium

I am slowly going through some 768 old posts and labeling them so that they are more easily searched.

It makes my head hurt.

I should have booze for this job.

Is motherhood harder than

Being bent over all day picking lettuce for minimum wage

Being a grave digger

Being a secretary who knows more about whats going on that the boss that makes 10 times what you do

Being a customer service rep answering the same questions over and over again during the day and being yelled at for things you have no control over

Being a prison guard

Being a counselor to rape victims or domestic violence victims

Being a nurse in a burn unit

Being a pilot flying a 747 full of people in rough weather

Being an immigration lawyer

Being a published author

Being a social worker

Being a scientist working on a cure for cancer or AIDS

Being a hospice care provider

Being the head of you own company


Probably not.

Saturday, December 15, 2007

The Mommy Fetish- short version

My piece for the anthology is about how we fetishize motherhood so we don't have to pay women to do the actual work of mothering. It's also about calling bullshit on the "motherhood is my greatest accomplishment" line that moms (both SAHM and working moms) are supposed to spew out instead of any accomplishments that might get the recognition outside of the home.

Over at RandomBabble and today at Pandagon and with some of the people (mostly guys) that I have talked to about the essay, I have started some shit. Apparently being pissed off that women get pigeonholed into an unpaid and thankless role means I'm bitchy or something. Fine.

But here's the thing. Women have been having babies and raising them to adulthood for at least 200,000 years, and pretty damn successfully. In developed countries with access to prenatal care and childhood vaccinations and general freedom from the violence of wars and famine, raising a child to adulthood is a given. We don't spend every day of our child's life worrying about whether they are going to starve to death or be turned into war fodder. We worry about whether they are reading at grade level or socializing properly or getting the right organic nutrients and college entrance test scores. These are not life or death concerns, they are marginal. Being a mother in a developed country rarely means making life or death choices for your kids.

So if you're a SAHM in America claiming that your kids are your greatest accomplishment- I call bullshit. If you're a working mom in America and you say the same thing- I call bullshit on that too. We (moms) are doing a tough and thankless job, yes. But not a job that hasn't been done by billions and billions of women before us.

And lots of people have tough and thankless jobs. Fast food workers, secretaries, farm workers, customer service people. I have yet to hear any of those people demand that people acknowledge their sacrifice for showing up everyday at a crap job. Because we pay them. Moms, on the other hand, get paid in stupid cards and flowers one day a year and a giant shitload of platitudes and sentiment the rest of the year.

I would rather have the cash than the sentiment. And I am sorry if you feel hurt because I think choosing to stay at home with your kids isn't an accomplishment worthy of my admiration. Whopdee fucking do. You're not some poor Sudanese mother who has managed to keep all of her daughters from being raped and her sons from being slaughtered (which would be an accomplishment). You've just managed to get little Chloe or Zack to sleep through the night or pick up cheerios in a pincher grasp or whatever. And so have we working moms, with half the time and twice the workload.

Be your own damn greatest accomplishment, let your kids be theirs. Give them an example to follow, not a fucking martyr.

just for fun

You Are Surrealism

Dreamy and idealistic, you've created a world that is all your own.
It's very likely that you've either dabbled in drugs or are naturally trippy.
You are always trying to push beyond the boundaries of your culture and society.
You believe that art, love, and freedom can change the world.

Better Man

In the comments to the last post, Wonder and I were talking about a phenomena we frequently run into in relationships.

"You make me want to be a better man"

"You're my moral compass"

If we had a dollar for every guy that said that kind of stuff, we'd be much better off than we are. I don't know how widespread this idea is that woman are supposed to be the ethics moderators for men, I only know how common it is in my relationships. And it SUCKS!

Granted, this is a kind of power can be sort of an aphrodisiac, at first. It seems like it's the power to teach someone something hugely important to the human existence (whether or not you believe in god). But the truth usually shows itself soon enough. You are not teaching them to be better people, you are the excuse they use to continue to be selfish and small minded. They don't have to do the hard thinking or feel guilt over being an asswipe because you are there to do it for them. It's the relationship version of catholic confession, a way to rid yourself of sin without doing the hard work of actual atonement.

And I wonder if this isn't the natural progression of making women the gatekeepers of sex, something that comes up way to frequently when talking about morals. Personally, I think any kind of sex between consenting adults is fine and not any sort of moral failing, but when you make morals so much about sexuality, and you make women the gatekeepers of sex, then it's not a giant leap to think that women are the gate keepers of morality too. (Add the not small belief that women are responsible for original sin and we get the extra burden of making up for that for all eternity by being the sacrificing and compassionate sex).

Wonder says she wants a guy who is a better feminist than she is. (Good luck with that). I would be happy with a guy has his own strong ethical beliefs and internal moral compass. I am already teaching one male (the Kid) how to be moral, I don't want to do it for a grown up.

Feminist lessons for the kid

The Kid is reading the Da Vinci Code, and like most people who have read it he has become OBSESSED.

I remember this age, I think I went batshit over the Mist's of Avalon, but I am sure I was not nearly as cute in my obsession as the Kid

Kid: Mom, did you know that the symbols we use for man and women, you know the one with the arrow and the one that looks like a person, are wrong.

Me: Really, what are they supposed to be?

Kid: Well, the woman is really a cup, but it looks like a V. And the men, it's an upside down V. It's supposed to mean spear but (In super quiet whisper) it really looks like a phallus.

Me: You know why I like the other symbols better?

Kid: Why?

Me: Cause in Christianity there is this idea that women aren't really people, but empty vessels that are useless till you fill them up, like a cup. I like the other symbol better cause it let's women be people, not empty objects.

Friday, December 14, 2007

Imaginary Pet Blogging- Ruby the Rebel


When last we left Ruby, she had gone to Buenos Aires for the annual tango festival. In Argentina, Ruby fell on hard times and found herself doing a burlesque tango show at a brothel. One night, when Ruby's fishnets were on their last leg and tips were low in walked Miguel Luis Manana Naranja, head of Espanovision, the second largest media network in all of Latin America.

Miguel took one look at Ruby's tattered fishnets and determined, furry face and decided that she was his new it girl, er hamster. He whisked Ruby out of the brothel and into a whirlwind of fancy parties, private jets and lavish dinners. He gave her a gold plated hamster wheel for her new penthouse apartment and made the producers of As the Wheel Turns create a part for Ruby based on her life in the brothel.

At first Ruby was overwhelmed by Miguel's kindness and all the luxury. Her water bottled was filled with nothing but imported French sparkling water that had been blessed by deaf -mute nuns. She had her own private stash of silkworms who worked day and night spinning out fresh silk for her bedding. Miguel took her everywhere with him. But the fast life was wearing on her. She found herself shooting up pure Columbian coffee and snorting echinacea just to get out of bed in the morning. She was far from her punk rock feminist ideal.

One night Miguel took her to one of his high stakes poker parties. He said she was his lady luck and had to go with him when she tried to decline out of exhaustion. She half heartedly threw on a long silk gown, did a line of coffee and smeared some lipstick on her tiny hamster lips.

At the poker table, Miguel was losing big to Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch wanted control of Espanovision and Miguel had gambled everything he had, except his shares in the company. The final straw was when he gambled Ruby on a bet to get everything back. Ruby was pissed, she wasn't possession he could dump when the stakes were high. Before the game could continue, Ruby ran out of the night and away from her luxury life.

She found her way to a clinic for coffee addicts in Peru. While there she became obsessed with the stories she heard of the Shining Path. After her life as a capitalist tool, she wanted to contribute to a great cause, and the Shining path seemed the way for her to do that. When she was strong enough, she packed up a simple rucksack with bread and nuts and trecked off into the Peruvian countryside to throw herself in with the rebels.

This was going to be about Christmas.

This morning I was getting ready to compose a post about the whole "Merry Christmas Controversy", in which I was going to implore my fellow Christians not to participate in the uncharitable complaining which has cropped up in recent years in the face of well-meaning, or even purely commercial attempts to recognize the seasonal celebrations of our non-christian neighbors.

I was going to comment that this sort of harping seems to originate from voices whose agendas appear inconsistent, at least in this Christian's viewpoint, with the teachings, much less the example, of Jesus. Of course if you're a Christian who read this blog, I'm probably preaching to the choir.

I was going to explain that this "War on Christmas" nonsense makes us look like fools at best, and worse, that it encourages the kind of bigotry that led a group of young men, who probably consider themselves Christians, to attack group of young Jewish men and women on a subway for replying to their "Merry Christmas" with "Happy Hanukkah"

But I want to stop right there for a moment. I've got more to say on the Christmas thing, but something caught my attention, and I almost skipped right past it.

If you've been following the conversation on here the last week, you've noticed the phrase "human tribe" popping up a few times. You've seen that the recurring theme this week has been -- what motivates people to help others when it's not in their own direct self-interest?

You've read Red's heartfelt thank-you to someone who helped her out, depite their disagreements.

We've wondered out loud how to change society so that helping people in need is the norm.


Now let's go back to that subway.

Cause I wanna take notice of one of those people we're talking about. Those people, like the KBR employee with the cell phone, and Red's not-so-anonymous benefactor. A regular person, who didn't just stand by & do nothing.

His name is Hassan Askari. He's a 20-year old accounting student from Bangladesh, who says he's not a hero. He's a Muslim, but he wasn't thinking about the religious differences between himself and these strangers.

"I didn't have time to think about that," he said. "I was more thinking that these guys were going to get beaten up and I should do something."

According to Mr. Askari, his parents are proud of him.
They taught him to stand up for others.

Because it's the right thing to do.

Hey Wonder!

B says you've been tagged for I splotchy. Got to it chica!

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Favorite Christmas Songs

I don't like traditional Christmas songs for the most part. Sure, I can sing O Christmas Tree in the original German and know most of the words to Adeste Fidelus, but I prefer my Christmas with a side of music with some rock and roll 80's pop in it.

So I have a cheesy weakness for the Beach Boys "Little Saint Nick". I know all the lyrics and will sing it loudly and off key whenever it comes on the radio.

Some other faves

The Waitresses- Christmas Wrapping (the same peeps that do I Know What Boys Like)



Erasure- Another Lonely Chrsitmas



The Pretenders- 2000 Miles



And my all time favorite Christmas song- The Ramones- Merry Christmas (I don't want to fight tonight with you)

Know them by their deeds

One of my few strengths is being able to admit when I'm wrong. And I have to say a great big huge apology to someone who I was not terribly kind to.

Last night, Wonder told me someone wanted to help out my current situation with some money, anonymously if they could. I wracked my brains trying to think who it could be, but I could not have been more shocked when I saw who it was (turns out paypal isn't so anonymous). This is someone I have not been nice to, someone I have been pretty dismissively mean to. For that, I am sorry. I guess I figured you were one of those types of Christians I run across all the time, all talk and judgment, not a lot of charity.

Thank you for your generous gift. I know you have kids and it's Christmas,that money could have gone for toys for your own kids. So please know it means a lot to us. It will help us get some groceries and cover overdraft fees until we get food stamps, and I am sure that if the Kid knew you're the reason we get to have a really good dinner tonight, he'd give you a tackle hug.

For not giving you the benefit of the doubt before, I am sorry. I am sure we will find many many ways to disagree in the future, but performing an act of charity for someone you don't get along with very well is pretty much the top of the list of ways Christians are supposed to be good. I am sorry, and thankful, and very impressed.

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

I, Splotchy

I've been tagged by Brave Sir Robin, so here goes.


I, Splotchy: This Story Is A Virus :

Here's what I would like to do. I want to create a story that branches out in a variety of different, unexpected ways. I don't know how realistic it is, but that's what I'm aiming for. Hopefully, at least one thread of the story can make a decent number of hops before it dies out.
MathMan has tagged me to add to the story, which reads....


I woke up hungry. I pulled my bedroom curtain to the side and looked out on a hazy morning. I dragged myself into the kitchen, in search of something to eat. I reached for a jar of applesauce sitting next to the sink, and found it very cold to the touch. I opened the jar and realized it was frozen. (Splotchy)

"That's strange," I said out loud to no one in particular. My fingers slowly reached towards the jar again. My body experienced a wave of apprehension as weighted blanket covering me as I did so. The jar was completely frozen.

I picked it up and stared at it, my fingers stung with little knives of chill. "What the..." again I spoke aloud. Then I realized what had happened with a shock. Suddenly the jar flew from my hand. It shattered creating a collage-like mixture of frozen applesauce and glass shards on my kitchen floor, the lid lazily rolling to a stop across the room. (FranIam)

I stood for a moment considering what all this meant. Oh, I knew what it meant, I didn’t need to waste time thinking about it. He was back. And he was mad.

I ran down the hallway and flung open the door at the end. I was immediately hit with a blast of cold. I took a step back as I tried to catch my breath. I bent over, hands on my knees panting. He always had this remarkable effect on me. After so much time, it no longer scared me, but it was a shock nonetheless……

“You know,” I panted, “There’s no need to break things to get my attention.” (DCup)

I woke up in the same position as in my dream, on my knees. I was sweating even though room was freezing. (mathman6293)

I was used to the house being quite cold in the mornings, as the night log usually burns out around one AM when I am dreaming cozily under my covers, not normally waking to put a new one on until morning. I was surprised because on the rare occasions that it actually had reached sub-freezing temperatures in the house, I had awakened in the night to restart the fire. I would have been worried about the pipes before P-Day, but there hadn’t been running water in two years and that was one of the few advantages to being dependent on rainwater, no pipes. (Freida Bee)

The nightmares began during the following spring. The apple trees came to life in my dreams. At first the trees spoke and I thought they were amusing. That changed when the messages arrived. Lately, their anger was directed at me. (mathman6293)

The sound of the front porch floorboards creaking snapped me out of my reverie. I stood up, grabbed my shotgun and made sure a round was chambered, then quietly made my way into the front room and over to the window. As I peeked out past the closed curtains, my heart began to beat rapidly.

It can't be, the incredulous thought came, I saw him die last year!
(Phydeaux)
There was no doubt it was him. I knew the minute he tried to meow and managed only a croak. I could feel him purring before he even reached my leg. As he started to rub against me I bent to pick him up but that’s as far as I got. I smelled her perfume. I didn't see her and the scent was very faint, but a man doesn't forget the smell of a woman like her. As my arms pulled Sylvester to my chest my eyes were closed. The smell of her was strong on him, and my mind carried me back to the last time I'd buried myself in that heady fragrance. "Sorry I took your cat", she said.
(Brave Sir Robin)

For a minute, all I could do was stare at her gape-mouthed in the manner of a man seeing a ghost. Finally, I found my tongue.

"I'd invite you in for coffee, but everything is frozen".

'That's all right" she said "I like it iced now".

Over what can only be described as black coffee slushies, she told me the story of how she stole my cat and ran away to make her fortune as a curandera in the jungles of Bolivia. After nearly a year of sweltering heat and bugs, the only magic she had left was the cat's ability to freeze things. She could no longer produce the raised eyebrow of doom or break ear drums with her sarcastic cackle. When I asked her why she returned, the story got even more convoluted.

" After being run out of Bolivia, I found work at a brothel in Buenos Aires. By the way, your cat learned a few new tricks there. I suggest never saying the words frozen chicken in Spanish to him, you may not like the results. At the brothel I met this tango dancing hamster named Ruby. She told me that the only way I could get my powers back was to...( Red Queen)

I tag Varkentine, cause I think he has the right kind of pervy mind to continue this. Brandann cause Varkentine "doesn't do committee written stories"

More on the human tribe and apathy

Shakes has the horrific story of a 15 year old girl in Brazil who was thrown into a prison for men and gang raped for a month.

The standard response is "Why didn't anyone do something"

I will say right here- none of us knows what we would have done in that situation. The statistics show that most of us would have ignored it. Even if we think we would have done something, the chances are that we wouldn't have, and I am just as guilty despite my general concern and proggy tendencies.

So instead of lamenting the human condition and being outraged that nothing was done to help this girl, I want to know what do we do to change society so that helping is the standard response and ignoring the pain of others is the shameful response instead of the backwards way we have it now.

How poverty really works, and how sometimes the universe gives you presents

Three months ago, when I started classes, I stopped receiving food stamps. My income level is such that based on income alone, I am unequivocally eligible for the full amount of food stamps per month for 2 people.

But I had the gall, as a poor person, to get an education. And not just an education, but I was going for an academic degree. And people in academic programs are not eligible for food stamps.

If I had known my place and instead went for a technical certificate in something like medical assisting (a career where I would make less hourly than I do now) then I would have been eligible not only for food stamps but for a whole host of other programs.

With few exceptions*, technical and vocational programs do not lift people out of poverty permanently. They stave off poverty only as long as those skills are in high demand. And once the demand is met, those technical certificates are worth little.

So we have been without food stamps for three months. It is not a coincidence that those are the three moths I owe rent for. It was a choice. Feed the Kid or pay rent. That is the total of what my meager earning can provide. I chose feed the kid.

So now Christmas is looming along with an eviction. Payday isn't until Friday and my bank account is overdrawn. The cupboards and fridge are near bare and last night I had the Kid eat a super loaded baked potato for dinner. The last potato, actually. He was mortified that I was skipping dinner and kept trying to give me his potato. If he had known that I skipped lunch too, I don't think I could have gotten him to eat. After he went to bed, I had some celery and some chicken stock. I swear I'm not on some super restriction diet, though it sounds like it.

Today is the last day of class, and I filed for food stamps this morning. In a week or so, we can go to the grocery store and restock the cabinets (if there are cabinets to be stocked). In the mean time I just have to get through till Friday.

So I came into work today. On the last day of every quarter we have a big pot luck lunch, but I usually get here too late to get anything. The universe smiled on me today though, cause I have never seen such a spread in over four years here. I just loaded up a plate with turkey and potato salad and orzo salad with artichoke hearts and mashed potatoes and .......

I was planning on skipping lunch today too. I'm really glad I didn't have to.

*Exception- the program I work for actually teaches skills that people can use to start their own business. They have high earing potential straight after graduation. This is a program that was originally designed for a very male dominated field, which might explain why the income potential is higher than that of other vocational programs. We have a large population of female students and a very gender friendly campus.

Horrible Admissions

I admitted to liking a certain super trashy pop song over at the Pink place last week, so I thought you all should get your own admissions here to.

I, super chef and dinner party thrower extraodinaire, have some really heinous guilty pleasures when it comes to food.

1) Spicy pork rinds. They tear up my mouth and make my eyes water. And I love them.

2) Tostitos queso dip. It's velveta with hydrogenated pepper chunks in it. It's basically melted plastic. But it's really really good over chili cheese fritos.

3) Vienna Sausages. They are little salty meat sticks covered in an odd jelly slime. I eat these in the dark and make the Kid buy them so no one will see them in my possession .

Alright kids- I dished. I fully expect you all to share in comments. What food(s) are you ashamed to buy but love to eat?

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

The Human Tribe and some other stuff

Wonder and I had a giggly, manic phone conversation till the wee hours last night. Some highlights include:

The use of the southern y'all versus you guys. I don't like y'all, but I like the gender specific you guys even less. I have decided to use "you peeps" instead. It is gender neutral and has the added bonus conjuring up images of fluffy marshmallow chicks.

Our family has a very distinct way of speaking. I wasn't raised around my cousins and it wasn't until a few years ago that I started seeing them on what could be considered a regular basis. When I took my first 2 week long Christmas vacation to the family compound, I was weirded out by all these women who have the same squeaky voice as me, who use the same inflections as me, the same weird phrases as me. We say "I suppose" and "exxXactly" way too much.

Wonder and I were also talking about how people everywhere are racist. I think it's the tribal thing- we all want to categorize who belongs and who doesn't.

So from that thought- this morning I decided that if we really want to end global warming - we need to dress it up as a two headed alien with acid green skin. That way we can look at all the other humans and say "We are way more like each other than we are like the green monster" and get over ourselves.

Monday, December 10, 2007

Wanna make someone act like an asshole, tell them it's their job

There is a story going around the internets about a 22 year old woman who was gangraped by fellow KBR/Halliburton employees in Iraq. She was then thrown into a shipping container, refused medical treatment and told not to tell anyone. She only escaped because a sympathetic guard let her use his cell phone to call her dad.

Amanda wonders why the guard didn't do more. I don't. I know that it takes a very special type of psychology to be a "helper" in these cases where MOST people who are told they have a job to do would follow orders, even if those orders are morally repugnant. Study after study has shown that people who are doing a job will commit heinous act, the most notables being the Milgram experiment and the Stanford Prison Experiment, if it is part of their job. In the Stanford experiment only one person out of over 50 objected to the way the prisoners were being treated.

There are some specific traits to "helper" types, while there are no outstanding traits to those who would inflict pain. Helpers generally have a parent who was highly ethical and held them to high ethical expectations, they usually come from some kind of marginalized group like a religious minority and they have an adventurous spirit.

For everybody else, doing a job that you have been told to do is more important than how you feel about the job. There is a responsibility trade off. The actors give up moral responsibility, they are just doing what they are told, and take on the physical responsibility of the actual work of inflicting pain. When you give people in a group this kind of work, they are even less likely to question it than if you give it to an individual.

So while we may be horrified (I certainly am) at the behavior of the KRB men who raped this woman and their fellow employees who prevented her from getting help, it is not surprising. MOST of us would behave the same way in the same circumstances. And that is probably the saddest statement on the state of humanity that there is.

News from the home front

I have been under some major stress. About a week ago I got a legal notice from my landlord that they are trying to evict me. This same landlord has recently raised my rent without giving the required 60 days notice, (actually she gave it to me after the effective date of the rent increase with a note that said I owed x amount in back rent plus late fees) and I have been without cabinet doors in my kitchen or heat in my bedroom (okay, there is a heater but it's a fire hazard and not usable) for going on two years now.

Yep- I haven't paid my rent since October. Granted, I have no idea what my actual rent amount is since she raised it and despite being pretty damn patient I am not in the mood to spend another winter sleeping in the living room, effectively turning my two bedroom apartment into a one bedroom because it's too damn cold to sleep upstairs.

So I sent my little non-legalese response to her attorney. I don't know how this is going to turn out. Kid and I may end up homeless for Christmas. But just having sent in the response I feel better.

Wish me luck- I think it's going to be a bumpy ride.

They really don't pay me enough

So student I have never met before comes into the lab on the second to last day of the quarter to finish a project. He asks for help on the computer. No problem, that's my job.

Then- problem.
"Can you show me how to multiply these numbers?"
I go over, take a look, happy to help until I see that he is trying to do a spreadsheet in a drawing program. "No, you can't multiply in a drawing program, here's the calculator".

Five minutes later...

"Uhm, is there a better calculator?"

"Why?"

"This won't do percents, there's no percent sign".

Dear gawd- I am here to teach computers. I am not here to teach eight grade math. But I do.

"A percent is a part of a whole. There is never a percent sign on a calculator. You can multiply it by .15 to get 15 percent and then add that to the original number or you can multiply it by 1.15 and skip the adding part".

I am a shamelss thief

I think this is what they meant by rabbit.

Brandann should be posting this, since she sent it to me. But OMG! Funniest shit ever.

Go see this and then check out the other items people bought to go with it.

Lotto Shopping

Kid and I play the "If we won the lotto" game, a lot (when you have nothing, everything is a big dream- go with it).

So today we were playing the where would we travel game

Christmas in florida with the fam and a real trip to disneyworld

A visit to some silly girl in Hawaii that keeps stalking me on the internet in February

School trip (over 3000 per person) to Spain and France in march

Nate's (the Kid) regular Atlanta trip in July while Mommy goes and drinks wine in Hungary

Japan in August

Mexico to see Mayan ruins and for dias de los muertos in November

Then- cause I'm all inclusive and shit, I got Brandann involved (being that she is the crazy stalker in Hawaii- if I am planning an imaginary trip to visit her i should include her)

So here are a few more destinations:

Taiwan
India
Cuba

Any other suggestions? I'd like to see the Hermitage in Russia, and London, and Rome is my favorite city ever.

Sunday, December 09, 2007

Kid comes home

from the library and in his best imitation of a moaning whale yells

"Foooooooooooooooood"

So of course I respond with

"Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuude'

"Foooooooooooooooooood"

"Ruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuude"

"Fooooooooooooooooood"

"Mooooooooooooooooood"

Maybe Hillary is OK

My insomniatic self is watching some Wall Street Journal Review (I think) show with Maria Barteromo interviewing Hillary about sub prime mortgages and tax breaks. When Barteromo starts whining about how repealing the Bush tax cuts will put pressure on people who are already stressed, Hillary cracked up before Maria could even finish the question. Her response , once she finished laughing, was "You're talking about people who are in the same tax bracket as Bill and I, and we aren't feeling the pressure".

That needs to be a media clip played over and over and over, every time a rethuglikan stars whining about taxes. Every single time.

Golden Compass- Anti-Catholic?

With all the hullabaloo surrounding this movie, I asked the Kid if he had read the book. Kid reads at least one novel per day, chances that he has read something are high. Turns out he's read the whole series, loves them and had The Golden Compass hiding in the filth pit he calls a bedroom.

So I read the book. Since I can't explain my thoughts without giving up the plot- stop reading now if you're the kind of person that doesn't want to know.

Lyra, the main character is an orphan living in an alternate England. In this universe, the Catholic Church runs the government through various councils and departments. The entire story is about the fight between theocracy and science and the idea of getting rid of original sin. It is very much a condemnation of theocracy and the way fear of the unknown makes people in a theocracy behave very badly.

If you're a raging Catholic biggot like Bill Donohue and have the ultimate dream of a Taliban style American theocracy run by Catholic bishops, this book is going to piss you off. There are three distinct reactions to fear of the unknown in this book- the first is to hurt and kill innocent children to protect people from the unknown, the second is to kill and innocent child in order to manipulate the unknown, and the last and only logical response is to figure out what it really is. If you are someone who is afraid of the truth, then this book will piss you off.

I can't wait to read the next book, Kid has promised to bring it home from the school library on Monday.

Saturday, December 08, 2007

Class-Food-Babies-Women-Media

“As a diner, the idea of me chewing 17 bites of one thing and another 17 bites of another is absolutely boring, and not how I want to eat,” said the chef Mario Batali."
Entrees are dead! claims the NY Times. Wives get expensive push presents after pushing out a kid!

Why should we care about the lives and tastes of people who, unlike most of us, are not worrying about whether their ARM mortgage is about to give up it's teaser rate or if we can keep the heat on with the rising utility prices?

Because these are the types of stories the NY Times, arguably the most read newspaper in the country, is publishing. And when those are the kinds of ideas that are pushed onto the rest of us, the competition to succeed (or at least appear that you are) gets tougher.

One of the most awesome aspects of the American dream and capitalism is the idea of social mobility. We have this idea that through hard work and the right opportunities we can succeed and give better opportunities to our children. Part of that involves giving our kids the cultural cues to be part of a better class than they are currently in. It starts with basics like better food and housing, access to doctors and dentists, education. But very quickly it goes to non necessities, the right clothes, the right schools , tutors and extracurriculars, technology, etc. While a huge part of this can be seen as spoiling a child, the reasons for doing it are so that our children feel comfortable and confident in a better social class. It is our version of teaching them what fork to use with what course. And a lot of the work of making sure kids have these opportunities falls on women who play chauffeur and shopper, negotiate parent teacher conferences, make sure that the home looks right for the class they are aspiring to and that the food the kids are getting is not just enough calories for growing bodies but the right kind of calories from the right kind of food in the right kind of portions grown in the right kinds of places with enough variety so that the kid won't look like a complete idiot when someone says "let's have a prosciutto sandwich".

So when the Times comes out with a story about how the entree is dead, I groan internally. This means I am going to have a much tougher time cooking if I want the Kid to have the right social cues.

I am a fabulous cook. I throw awesome dinner parties. People have suggested I open a restaurant or go to cooking school to be professional. I have no interest in cooking for money. Pulling together a meal made entirely of appetizers and small plates is something I could do, but the amount of work involved in coming up with several complementary small dishes on a daily basis is too much for the average mom. We barely have time to cook to begin with, and if we do, we also have the clean up to think about later. The cookware dirtied by a tapas dinner would make a Thanksgiving cook cry. But if we want our kids to fit in, we will do it. Heaven forbid our child gets bored after chewing 17 bites of a one dish meal of beef stew with organic beef and veggies done in a slow food style (slow food being the last trend women had to follow to prove their devotion to their families bellies).

And with all this extra work women are doing, it is no surprise that expensive presents are the part of the barter system. We would think it unconscionable for a woman to say to her husband "Let's see, 40 weeks of pregnancy, that's 6720 hours plus the hazard pay for labor and delivery- that will be $50,000 please, plus a bonus cause I managed to push out a kid with penis who will carry on your family name". But a shiny bauble of sentimentality provides a financial motivation in a less crass way.

Friday, December 07, 2007

Language is such a funny thing


Kid walks into living room with a bowl full of oreos and a glass of milk and joyfully yells my favorite Spanish word "Calcetines!"

Calcetines is Spanish for socks. Kid thinks is should be Spanish for milk. I think that socks and milk should never mix, but the image above is what you get when you search google images for socks and milk.

Christmas for hamsters

Since Varkentine has threatened a show down between imaginary hamster extrodinairre, Ruby, and his coke snorting owl that this is the only suitable present for Ruby this year.

Yes- it is sized to fit a squirrel. I think Ruby can make it work though and I am at a loss as to what kind of creature would make a good body guard for her. Anything that would be big enough to take on an owl would prolly also use Ruby as a canape.

Thursday, December 06, 2007

Imaginary Pet Blogging

Bet you didn't know that before her career as an actress in the popular telenovela "As the Wheel Turns" Ruby was a punk rock superstar.

Ruby fronted the band Furry Little Bitchez and may be remembered for the song "Leaky Water Bottle" which was considered by music critics to be the seminal work of postmodern anger in a world where female hamsters are still kept in guilded cages.

Furry Little Bitchez broke up shortly after the release of Water Bottle. In an expose on VH1 it was revealed the Ruby's dissent in planning the bombing of a Petco tore the band to pieces. Ruby just wanted to have fun while her more militant band members wanted to use their music to further their revolutionary ideas. It may be the first time in history the musicians actually thought that more than just kick ass music was needed to change the world .

After the band's breakup, Ruby went to Argentina for the annual Tango festival. There she met Latin American media mogul, Juan Miguel Luis Manana Naranja and the part of the dramatic hamster, Reina Chiquita was written just for her.

More Of Ruby's story can be found here

Quick analogy

Sex is to rape what open heart surgery is to a vicious stabbing.

Sure, in surgery and a vicious stabbing you have someone taking a knife to your chest, but no one in their right mind would ever confuse the two.

It's the little things

"We're looking for a python"

"Would a python eat a gun?"

"They're not fond of cold food."

"Would it eat a warm gun?"

"They don't like metal."

"What about a warm gun covered in meat sauce?"

"Yeah, they'd go for that."

I'm watching the show Life, and that little exchange just cracked my shit up.

Wednesday, December 05, 2007

How to teach boys

Aunt B over at Tiny Cat Pants has an awesome post about Masculinism 101 and how men need to be the ones to change rape culture. (I've said it before- women have been trying to prevent rape for eons, if we haven't come up with the perfect way of walking, acting, dressing or never leaving the house yet- then there is no way for women to prevent rape).

In comments the question was asked:

It gets fairly difficult for to differentiate when you start talking about date rape. Or a sex act that occurs when both are drunk. That’s harder to define, no? Is it rape because the law says a party can’t consent when drunk? What if the party really meant to consent? What if the party consented when drunk but felt guilty [about being drunk, about the sex] the next morning? What if the party wouldn’t have consented when sober but got up the nerve, so to speak, when drunk?

THOSE are the kinds of situation that scare the fool out of me as the mother of a son. What do I tell HIM to ensure he is safe?
Well, as the feminist mother of a son, lemme tell ya.

When Kid was very small, I started teaching him about consent. When we would roughhouse or tickle fight, one "no" was all it took for me to stop. And I taught him that one "no" was the line I drew at him stopping. Period. End of game. We both got to say when it was too much and those boundaries were absolute.

I taught him this not just because it would help him pay attention later in life when things with girls start happening, but also as a way for him to judge the behavior of another grown up and to give him a kind of toolbox for dealing with Catholic priests or Boy Scout troupe leaders. If he was secure in the knowledge of his own bodily autonomy, then he would be better able to judge when someone was trying to take it from him.

Now that the Kid is of an age where girls are very soon to be The Most Important Thing In The Universe! I can take those experiences and show how they relate to sex. Consent must be an absolute "Hell yes" and anything short of that is a "no". "Maybe" is a no, saying nothing is a no, "I don't know" is a no, "Not now" is a no- and not an excuse to ask again five minutes later. I am teaching my son that the only good way to enjoy pleasure is when both people are ready and happily excited about it.

I did hear one super rad idea at TCP though. If you want to make sure the girl is willing and able to have sex, ask her to put the condom on for you. I am definitely adding that to the lesson plans. And that is how you teach boys not to be rapists.

Overheard in Seattle

"My step mom had literally like killed 12 people, but she hasn't killed me yet"

Outside Westlake Center

I was saving that for a post about how interesting catching random bits of conversations can be, but I have yet to hear anything that comes remotely close to being that interesting. I have to wonder if the guy meant "literally", cause if he did his stepmom may be one of the most prolific female serial killers in history.

Then again, maybe he and his stepmom are engaged in some epic WoW battle.

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Say it with me!

Gender is a construct. Repeat: Gender is a construct.

What does that mean. exactly?

Gender, as opposed to sex, is an idea created by society. Sex is biological. The only inherent difference between men and women is the ability to produce children. Period. Everything else that you think of as male or female is an idea created by society.

Women are not naturally more nurturing, men are not naturally more aggressive. Women were not just gatherers, men were not just hunters. Not all men feel the need to sow wild oats, not all women fall in love with every guy they sleep with. These are ideas created by society to keep the basic power structures intact, regardless of whether those power structures are fair or even the most efficient way of running a society.

From the moment we know the sex of a child, we start putting gender roles on them. Tiny babies who wouldn't know blue from pink get dressed to match their sex. Guess the wrong sex of a non-distinct baby in a gender neutral color like green and the mother will issue a sharp correction pdq. The sex of a baby shouldn't even matter, since it will be a good long time before that baby is having any sex of it's own.

Everything that we think of as feminine or masculine is created, and if it's created rather than inherent- it's changeable. Men can love babies and fashion, women can love football and fast cars . Liking things that don't "belong" to your gender doesn't make you a Tom boy or a Girly man, it just makes you a human with varied tastes and experiences.

Blaspheme!

Maybe it's all the drugs I've been taking (or trying not to take- and they're all Rx, btw). Maybe it's just that I have been living inside my own head way too much lately. Maybe I'm just a hairsbreadth from the edge of reason, but I've been thinking about god lately.

First, I was thinking how boring it would be to know everything that was going to happen before it happened. Imagine watching Adam and Eve in the garden all happy all the time, never doing anything but eating and sleeping and fucking. They have no struggle because their world is perfect, so they never have to do anything creative. Get fruit, eat fruit end of story. I don't know about you, but if I were god, I would be bored to sobs after watching my creations do the same damn thing day after day after day.

So if I were god, I'd create free will. Sure, giving creatures free will means giving up some of my all knowing, all powerful god authority. But it would certainly be more interesting than watching "get fruit, eat fruit" all the time. I don't know if I would have started the free will program with a forbidden tree of knowledge, but it does give the "1st" people (as I am in no way, manner, shape or form a believer in the biblical story of creation- this is all a thought experiment, so go with me) their first real choice- knowledge or perfection.

I think it would be one of the best soap operas ever, to create this world and then sit back and watch what happens. Sure, maybe every now and then you get bored with the story line and throw a flood into the mix just to see what comes from it. But if your goal as god is entertainment, then minimal interference would be the best way to go.

After that, I was thinking about the creating of beings to begin with. Sure, it might be fun to create your first bunny rabbit or oak tree or person, but after bunny rabbit number 1000- it would get dull. So I would pawn off the actual reproduction on the creatures themselves. And fore those creatures smart enough to figure out that reproduction leads to babies (and a whole lot of work) I'd give them orgasms so that there is incentive to have sex and make sure that they didn't get pregnant every time they have sex.

So that is what I've been doing. I've been playing god in my head.

Monday, December 03, 2007

If you're looking for something tawdry...

You might want to check this out: Don't Touch The Pink Stuff

Monday Link-O-Rama

The household is in a bit of a crisis at the mo, and while I deal with some big stressful crap I am not so good with the blog thinky crap. Instead you get Monday Link-O-Rama!

Echidne has a couple of great posts about the upcoming recession and the tiny house movement.

Pandagon has a great piece on structural racism and the war on drugs

Sir Robin always has the funniest random Flickr blogging.

The Kid and I are obsessed with winning free rice

I like layer tennis. I wish there was a match every day

Saturday, December 01, 2007

It's snowing

And I am pretty sure the Kid went off to his Saturday woodworking class wearing nothing more than a hoodie and a t shirt.

Snow in most other places isn't a problem. You put on boots and a big coat, you salt the sidewalk and shovel the driveway and get on with your life. But snow in Seattle shuts the city down.

Seattle is the second hilliest city in the country (San Francisco is number one). All of our neighborhoods are named for the hill they are on- Capitol Hill, First Hill, Phinney Ridge, Queen Anne. When it snows, those hills become ice slopes that could get a diamond rating at a ski resort. Buses stop running and park on the street at the edges of hilly spots. One year, the hill in front of my mom's house had no less than 7 stranded buses. They couldn't turn around and they couldn't get off the hill.

I need to run to grocery store. Thankfully it's just a quick walk, but I am worried that they might decide to close down for the snow (chickens!).

I do get to wear my wooly mammoth coat and my shearling boots though. They only get worn once every couple of years. It doesn't snow often here, but when it does.........

Tacky is the new swank

Tonight is my friend Amanda Panda'a birthday and we are celebrating with a tacky Christmas sweater, cookie decorating party.

Much booze will be consumed (of course)

I'm thinking of making anatomically correct ginger bread men

But since my boobs are big enough to launch a thousand ships- I have to make my own tacky sweater (or t-shirt)

must get crafty!

Way too much fun for insomniacs

Imaginary pet blogging

I admit it, I am jealous of people with cute pets who get to post pics of their adorable kitties and puppies once a week. I tell people I don't have any pets cause I've got one monkey child who destroys the house already. But secretly I want something furry and cute. Or maybe a fish. I don't know.

However, since reality has rarely stopped me from anything I have decided to blog about my imaginary pet hamster, Ruby. Enjoy this video from Ruby's days on the popular telenovela "As the wheel turns".

A little challenge

Think you know your world?

Final Score: 379,240
Level Completed: 10
Traveler IQ: 113

Think you can top that? Have you got geography game?

Go Here!

Friday, November 30, 2007

Me in 75 words or less

So for this book thingy I have to come up with a bio that is 75 words or less. I can rant and rave till I'm blue in the face and cramped in the typing hands, but coming up with a serious bio about myself is daunting.

I thought about doing it Chuck Noris fact style.

Red Queen eats computer students for lunch and flosses with copper wire after.

Red Queen can party like it's 1999

Red Queen is not an alcoholic, she process all the vodka she drinks into pure mountain spring water for drought ridden areas.

Whadda think?

The agony!

I am a freak for the perfect pair of sunglasses. I had a pair for years which were called my "Italian movie star" glasses. They were a slightly oversized pair of pink sunglasses whose lenses were a gradient of brown to rose. They made me feel like Sophia Loren whenever I wore them.

Then I stepped on them.

After that I went through many many pairs of glasses. I have 5 pairs right now on the shelf next to my desk and none of them are right. I lost 2 pairs in Mexico, one in the surf off Tulum and another when I was hiking in the jungle near Calakmul. A giant, dinner plate sized dragonfly flew into my glasses as they were perched on top of my head and cracked them in half. I finally found a cheap pair at a market in Chetumal that were *almost* as good as the Italian movie star glasses. I've been wearing them for about a year now.

Being in Seattle, you might think that sunglasses aren't as necessary of a fashion accessory as they would be in Phoenix or Florida. You would be wrong. Us northwesterners have developed super sensitive eyes, like vampires. When that strange glowing ball in the sky finally decided to show itself, we don our glasses as fast as we can so that the burning can be avoided. It may be winter here in Rainland, but we must always be vigilant!

So of course last night I stepped on my purse and heard the unmistakable crunch of a pair of cheap plastic glasses snapping.

What will I do now? Nowhere in Seattle will sell sunglasses until April. I will be blind and stumbly.

But maybe I can use this as an excuse to get a hamster- a guide hamster! Named Ruby!

Tag- you're it!

So about a decade ago I was tagged by the lovely Konagod to do the 8 things meme.

Since I suck like a hoover and blow like a fill in the blank, I'm just now getting around to it.

Here's da rules

1. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
2. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged write their own blog post about their eight things and include these rules.
4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names. Don't forget to leave them a comment telling them they're tagged and that they should read your blog.
5. 8 is a magic number. Not three.

I tag back Brandann, Sir Robin, Ben, Wonder, Scarred, the other Ben, Chelle and Candi Cane

1)I have an irrational fear of walking barefoot on grass and swimming in water that might have "stuff" in it. I HATE the idea that tiny things I can't see might be touching my feet.

2) When I was in high school I blew off Bud Bundy (David Faustino) at an underage dance club
3) I've made cookies for Paul Newman- twice.

4) When I am about to slam someone's arguments I start out with a very polite "I suppose, but"

5) I am a giant slob. I use the excuse that I am breaking with traditional feminine roles so that I don't have to clean

6) I have a collection of porn mags from around the world. My favorite is gay Japanese manga.

7) I am always thinking of things that would go on a personalized t-shirt. The banner and name for this blog came from a t-shirt I made after a drunken party conversation. It's my version of "that would be a great name for a band"

8) I might have earned myself the reputation of being "that girl that dates all the professors" but I'm not telling.

Thursday, November 29, 2007

more fun with gmail chat

Me: You should open a speakeasy in your basement. but we need a password.

Slyvie: Vegamite!

Me: Do you come from a land down under?
Where women bblow and men chunder.

Sylvie: I never got that line

Me: Chunder is to vomit, if I recall

Sylvie: Eeeeewwwww!
Wait, so all the women are blowing the puking men in Australia?
That's disgusting!
I never saw any of that going on there.

Me: tourist- you've gotta get down with the dirty bits of Aussie culture to see that it's really just one giant imitation of a roman vomitorium

Sylvie: I will have to ask my cousins about that!

me: they may not tell you cause you're a feriner

Sylvie: But I'm family!
Foreign family, but still, fam, nonetheless!

me: but they didn't tel you while you were there. They obviously think you're an outsider

Sylvie: Poop.

me: i only tell you these things as a person who has never been to Australia and only knows about Australia from Simpsons cartoons and outback steakhouse commercials. So you know I am learned and right

Sylvie: Yep! Don't forget Foster's commercials, too.

me: It's australian for beer

Scariest thing I have ever read

Cheney resigns
Bush appoints Jeb to be Veep

Jeb becomes lead rethuglikan candidate

4 more years of another Bush.

Excuse me while I curl up under my desk and try to wish myself into a coma.

Partay!

At some point last night we reached 10,000 visits on site meter!

Since Wonder doesn't see the stats, she sometimes doesn't believe people actually read this.
But they do.

For those of you who are lurkers, consider this a very cordial invite to delurk. Where are ya? How did ya find us? If you could only eat one food for the rest of you life, what would it be?

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Whoopdee Doodahday!

I wrote an essay called "The Mommy Fetish" for the feminist anthology "What We Think" and it's been accepted. So has the a piece by the fab Brandann.

Send congratulations on over to Random Babble (link in blogroll)!

Based on your results your vulva and vagina are of average quality

According to the Vagina Institute, I don't have the pretty pretty princess porn star version of a pussy that turns men on. Really? No, really? I can think of more than a few men who would disagree and judging by repeat uhm performances, guys like my naughty bits the same way they their pringles, once you pop they can't stop.

The idea that there is one version of acceptable pussy is laughable. Some quotes from various guy friends (some of whom I've slept with, others I haven't)

"I love hairy pussy"
"I like them to be wide and loose"
"Maybe I'm a little different from guys my age, but I like more hair than you usually see" (from a hot hot grad student who adorably mispronounced labia- at least he knows what they are)
"I hate shaved pussy, I like it when the curly hairs tickle my nose"*
"I like them loose so I can really move around in there"
"I hate hate hate bare pussy"*
"I like big big lips, I really like meat curtains"*
"Big clits- easier to find"
"She was a little too furry for me, but she's awesome in every other way"

Much like there are boys who like big, curvy girls and boys who like tiny ones,boys like different types of pussies.

And while cock size is important- each girl has a different idea of what small, big and too big are. And we won't even get into boys whose cocks curve, but sometimes the curve is a g-spot finder and sometimes it's just hitting the wrong spot.

Nature loves diversity. It's good for evolution. Sameness makes populations more susceptible to catastrophe. Where we get this idea of homogeneous beauty from is from capitalism (I'm on a roll today since I pulled all the poly sci 101 stuff out). Capitalism requires huge groups of people to have the same tastes and preferences in order to sell stuff in mass quantities, sex included. So while it shouldn't be surprising to me that they are trying to create a need (capitalism 101 folks) by making women feel bad about having a pussy that looks different from the pornified version that is supposed to be ideal, it still grosses me out. And I'm even more grossed out by the types of people who buy into this ideal.

In honor of

16 days of action against gender violence- I give you an oldy but goody. Actually 2 oldies but goodies since comments were eaten when I switched to haloscan and you all really should get to read what kind of asswipes crawl out of the woodwork when you threaten to take their god given right to rape away.

How men can stop rape

Gotta love the asshats

Poly Sci 101

One of the fab things about living in Seattle is the high level of political literacy. This means I don't have to argue with people who still think that the cold war is going on and that the worst threat to democracy is Communism, or as someone wrote on another blog "Communism's limp-wristed cousin, socialism".

First- the limp-wristed insult, to which I'd like to say "excuse me, your fox news education is showing". Resorting to gay bashing doesn't really make a point, but shows some serious levels of teh stoopid.

Second- here's a little edumacation for those not so lucky to live in politically astute places.

Communism, democracy, theocracy, monarchy, anarchy, totalitarianism- these are all political systems. They tell us how we want to choose those who would have power over us,what laws they will use to govern and how we will limit their power. Ideally in communism, democracy and anarchy the people have direct control over power, but only anarchy and communism believe that eventually people's best natures will show through and everyone will behave themselves. Democracy is a bit more realistic about people's better natures and gives us a way to get rid of asshats through the vote.

Capitalism and socialism are economic systems. These systems tell us how we choose to allocate resources. Pure free market capitalism relies exclusively on competition, socialism relies on cooperation. Capitalism is not exclusive to democracy, quite contrary actually. Fascism is ACTUALLY capitalism attached to totalitarian political structure. Socialism is not anti-democracy either, quite the opposite. Socialism works best when people get to choose it.

Now I may come off as a pinko liberal commie,but I am not in any way, manner, shape or form a communist. I love democracy. I love being a part of shaping the government and I love that everyone in a democracy gets a chance to do that. I want more democracy, not less. I want national referendums and for every single citizen to get to vote easily- including people with criminal records. But when it comes to economics, I am actually a hybrid kind of girl.

For all my proggy tendencies, I don't think all capitalism is bad. I like the stuff that capitalism produces, like the computer I am sitting at now and the vast array of shoes that currently fill my closets. Capitalism works best for items where the consumer can get near perfect information. I know how many pairs of shoes I need (and how many pairs of shoes I want)and what kind of shoes I want. I also know what I need my computer to do (music, videos, email, word processing, photo editing) and what I don't need it to do (video games, TV or DVD watching). Competition insures that I can get what I want at a price I am willing to pay.

Then there are things I need that as an individual that I will never get perfect information for. Health care is one of those things. I don't know if I will live to be 80 without ever suffering from an expensive disease or if I will get hit by a bus tomorrow. The uncertainty factor in health care makes it impossible for me to competitively shop for it. But governments can get near perfect information on health care. They may not know which individuals are going to get cancer or be hit by a bus, but they have pretty good numbers for how many individuals get hit by a bus or get cancer and how much treatment for those things will cost.

Then there are things where I know how much I'll need and what price I can pay, but the difference in quality doesn't just make for an unpleasant experience but for a life or death situation. These things include spinach, where i would like some guarantee that trying to get my Popeye on won't land me in the hospital with kidney failure due to shoddy farming practices. Also, children's toys. I may know just how good or bad the Kid's been at Christmas, but taking a lead paint detector with me to the store is not very practical.

For situations like food quality and toy safety, relying on competition alone won't work. We can't afford to wait for people to die of ecoli before grocery shopping so that we know what brands of spinach are safe to eat. That is where government regulation comes in. I know in little libertarian fantasies there is no government regulation of anything because competition in the free market will eliminate producers of bad goods. I invite all libertarians to become my personal food and water testers if that dream comes to fruition. I'll even make the delicious spinach salad with a bacon ecoli dressing, but they have to take the first bite.

I've been interrupted by students so many times writing this post that I can't remember what the original point was. Oops.