The good ship fucking idiot

Is she fucking drunk? See Katie in her nautical themed outfit. See Katie push the button to "honk the horn" of the ship. She her giggle and say, "Hello Coast Guard?" into a radio that the idiot fucking captain of the ship handed her. I hate you, Katie Couric.

Today's (Fucked Up) Woman

OK, so I am still watching the fucking Today Show...and today's target: Katie Fucking Couric.

A NEW SERIES called "Sun, Sand & Surgery!" HOly shit, I am not shitting you....this is a new series they are doing on getting plastic surgery while you are on vacation...Fuck me -- they have more to say about it than they can cover in one show? While introducing the series, Katie says, "Isn't that a little scary, though? To trust someone from another country? They must have different regulations, right?" Fuck you, Katie you xenophobic twit.

Right before the vacation boob camp segment, Katie did a "Today's Woman" segment. She interviewed a woman who wrote a book called To Hell with All That about the 'struggle' women today have today with living in modern times and trying not to feel guilty about not being good housewives like our moms were in the 50s. The author had some gal pals over to her house to dish about being wives and have careers and homes and still try to get your family all sitting down to dinner that doesn't come in a Styrofoam container. One of the women said that she and her husband have very different ideas about what "tidy" is and it's a struggle in their house and the author asked how she deals with that and she says, "Oh I have a really good therapist" They all giggle...Heeehee oh! How cute!

Holy crap, did he underestimate you!

Dear white, Christian, wives of soldiers, dwellers of America’s heartland, dear patriotic stock brokers who worked in Tower 2, dear wealthy, dear working poor who believe him despite their lack of healthcare that things are getting better, dear born-agains, dear soldiers and soon-to-be soldiers, and ditto-heads, dear women who don’t need control of their reproductive systems, dear Republicans and firemen and everyone else who thought he was a “straight shooter”; a President who “means what he says.”

I am writing to tell you that you have been had. This president thought that he could look you in the eye over and over and over and over and tell you lies. Blatant, huge misrepresentations of the truth to your faces, on TV, in public, in writing, in speeches he didn’t even write. About the war, about WMDs, about security leaks and about Saddam, about bin Laden, about the axis of Evil, about the United Nations and the Downing Street memo, about Swift Boats, about “Kenny-boy who?” about wire-tapping, about the anthrax, about Katrina and the levies, and about Brownie, about the election and the about privatized retirement accounts, about Medicare and leaving no child behind.

This guy automatically lies when his mouth is open. His default setting is Lie. And Smirk. Because he knows as long as you are forced with the choice of believing him or being unpatriotic, you will choose to believe him.

Every. Single. Time.

No matter how obvious and easy to disprove his lies are. He knows you would rather wave a flag and smile and cheer him on than rock the boat. The loveable idiot. (You or him?) Even if he’s wrong, he didn’t mean to be, so that means he wasn’t. He knows you will happily swallow it and chide those who don’t.

This was their plan all along. They knew this choice was too hard for you. They accounted for your sheep mentality and made decisions accordingly. Decisions to make you believe that we are in more danger now than we ever have been, to make you buy duct tape for your windows, to make you watch your friends and neighbors for any signs of being Arab (pronounced a-RAB with a long ‘A’).

And you fell for it. You stuck yellow magnets on your cars and attached cheap flags to your car’s windows and drove with PRIDE. These Colors Don’t Run. And you booed Cindy Sheehan and you watched Fox News and believed. Every. Single. Word.

All the while…
· The war is a mess
· There were no weapons of mass destruction
· The levies were predicted to break and all he saw was dollar signs for the companies of his friends and another chance to bankrupt our economy (which sounds like a conspiracy theory, but it’s coming fucking true!!!)
· He is friends with the a-holes who ran Enron
· Brownie wasn’t doing a heck of a job
· Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11
· etc.

Everything he touches turns to shit. Every company he’s run, every project he’s taken on, every disaster he’s ‘managed,’ every soldier who believed in the reasons for being over there…it all comes up shit and it will continue to come up shit until you prove him wrong about you.

How many times will he break the law, tell lies to promote his friends, make bad decisions with bad timing with disastrous consequences and you all look the other way. He’s a War President. He was just working on the information he had. He’s just stubborn…forgive him!

Stop it! Prove him wrong! Show him that there are consequences for breaking the law, for violating your trust. Look around you! Are you richer, safer, smarter, healthier and freer than you were in 2000? Fuck no! Dear American people, you’ve been had. You are now faced with the task of standing up and demanding respect. Don’t let him treat you like you are dumb. Don’t let them continue to ruin things for future generations and smile and smirk and “heh-heh-heh so I’m not your favorite person – go on.” You have failed so far, and you’ve lived up to their meager expectations, but now is your chance.

The President broke the law, not once or twice or even three times, but more times than we can count and he LIED to you about it. He wire tapped you illegally; he leaked classified information before it was declassified and stood up in front of America and told us all that we are too dumb, too docile and too scared to do anything about it.

To everyone who trusted him and thought he was right but now wonders, to everyone who is just now getting that they are the butt of Karl Rove’s cosmic joke, to everyone who wouldn’t vote that son of a bitch back into office a third time even if they could (he did talk about changing the law to make that possible, you know), please, I ask you if it is all you do today for your country, stand up and ask for the truth. Stand up and call your representatives. Stand up and refuse to be part of his master plan for making rich, white people even richer. Stand up and say we won’t let you get away with this anymore.

Please make the title of this entry correct. Please show me that it is true that you were UNDERESTIMATED and have hit your breaking point and will no longer sit back and be disrespected, devalued, deprived or disillusioned.

Dear fathers of soldiers, dear soccer moms, nurses and factory workers, dear lawyers and family farmers and bus drivers, dear compassionate conservatives and ranchers and and POLITICIANS. The time is now.

Matt Lauer is a fucking asshole

Jeesus fucking christ I HATE him! Why do I watch the Today show in the morning? I don't fucking know! He and Katie "I Heart My Colon" Couric can both go to fucking hell. Gawd!

Here's the thing: every fucking day there is something on that stupid fucking show that pisses me off. I have it on every morning and every morning I get mad, without fail! It's like I have to keep watching it to see if they will ever not piss me the fuck off!

Here's what happened today.

Matt has an interview with 5 members of the Compact which is a group dedicated to spending a year without buying anything new. Matt has them on the couch and he is treating them like they are from fucking Mars or something. He can't fuck believe that they are all wearing "second hand" clothing? "Can I assume that everything you are wearing is not NEW???" He asks, incredulous. He doesn't tell them that his suits are hand-made by baby monkeys in Indonesia and only worn for a matter of three hours before they are incinerated and the ashes dumped in a fresh-water stream.

"And what is the hardest part?" As if they have all been struggling with this mind-boggling decision, every minute. "Some of you must have kids who want a....Nintendo?" They tell him they aren't buying their kids a Nintendo for one year. He can't believe it. He hasn't gone a year without a new Nintendo since the early 90s.

His big fucking joke is right after one of the Compact members says that part of the agreement is trying to resist the media's pressure to buy things to make you feel better. "Hold on, while we go to a commercial break," laughs Matt. No one on the couch realizes he is joking. He has to say, "I'm just kidding." They they all laugh falsely.

His last hard-hitting question goes like this: "So when this is all over, are you guys going to, like, go on a major binge?" I wish I was kidding. Completely missing the fuck point that this is about learning to do without consumerism and buying is a drug that we need to wean ourselves from and these people are HAPPY about not buying things, you fucking idiot! Jeesus... Fuck! You fucking asshole. I hate you Matt Lauer.

It's a credit card!

Today I did some shopping at a women's clothing store. While there, I saw a retarded man who mentioned that he was shopping for his girlfriend. Which sounds like a joke, but actually, it seemed that he really was as she was there with him. He was dressed in a huge yellow jacket and had thick glasses. The three store staff seemed non-plussed by him.

His name was Douglas which he said over and over. "I AM Douglas!" As if there were some dispute, perhaps internal.

He asked what kinds of payment they took and I overheard one of them offer to set up an account for him (!) which I thought was a little weird. They asked him a bunch of questions and he gave them his social security number, which was written in a notebook with a palm tree on the cover, and address and phone number and after a few minutes they told him he was approved.

"For WHAT?" he asked the cashier. He had lost interest.

"You have an account with us now. It's a credit card." she told him, nodding like it was a big deal.

He then turned around and walked through the store, pulling things off the racks and handing them to his lucky lady. He kept saying, "it's a CREDIT CARD!!" really loud and his girlfriend, happy about this news, started trying the stuff on.

I was observing all this from the bras and underwear section and unfortunately, he came over and started pulling panties off the table and holding them up.

"I'm buying underwear for my GIRLFRIEND. For St. Valentines day." He told me.

I said, "I'm sure she'll like that." Looking closely at a bra, trying not to welcome a conversation.

I heard him make a weird noise so I turned and glancing at him out of the corner of my eye, I saw him rubbing a paid of underwear on his crotch. His eyes were closed and he was moaning softly. Horrified, I wasn't sure if I should say something to him like, "Knock that off, Douglas!" or report it to the store staff. I chose the latter.

"Uhm...it looks like, uh, Douglas, over there is masturbating with a pair of underwear." I laughed uncomfortably. I raised an eyebrow and clenched my teeth in his direction.

The cashier looked at me, also horrified, "Are you shitting me?" she asked.

After a brief conference between the three of them, deciding what to do, the oldest and most experienced (with masturbating retarded adults?) approached him. Politely, she interrupted him and asked him to leave, which went better than I would have thought. He stopped.

"You'll have to go. You can't shop here today."

'Today?' I thought. She must not be working tomorrow.

He seemed to understand the gravity of the situation, but appeared unembarassed and set the underwear down and left. Without his girlfriend. She was in the changing room, and since its walls didn't go up to the ceiling, I assume she heard the whole thing, my report and the subsequent banishment. I wondered how long she would stay in there.

I couldn't help but think of Douglas as I drove home. I wonder if he's going to get that credit card in the mail and try to use it to buy gas or Burger King or something. "It's a CREDIT CARD!"

Joel Stein and me -- no yellow magnets for our cars

Joel's article for the LA Times has created some waves...

My aunt sent me the article and this is my response to her.

Thanks for including me on the "short list" for the Joel Stein article. I agree with his sentiment wholeheartedly. Especially the part about bringing them home and taking care of them. It's not something that you usually see in any mainstream media source. Not being familiar with his writing, I don't know his usual tone, but I figure that he wrote it in the tone he did to be purposely incendiary. Get people talking, make a wave...it seems to have worked. I read several progressive news websites and they all mentioned it. The biggest trouble with that approach is that you won't bring anyone to the middle to agree on anything...your supporters will say, fuck yeah! and your detractors will say, fuck you! and the conversation is over.

I have long said that I don't "Support the Troops". Not only because I do not believe in military answers to our troubles but also in that they chose a job that in my perfect world, no one would sign up for. I have a thought that with a draft, we would have a much more equal pool of Americans (not so many poor minorities) signed up, and thus reduce support for any conflict unless absolutely necessary...

Italian weirdness

I'm looking for crazy/weird/strange things to go and see while we're inItaly.

1) Giant knitted rabbit on a mountaintop -- I mean, come on!
How can we not go see it???

2) That's pretty much it, I mean, really, can we top that?

no themes

Here's the conversation between me and the caterer that I was interviewing today for our wedding: I shit you not.

Caterer: "Ooooh a circus band -- neat!"

Me: "Yeah -- they are really amazing. We've been fans for years. They're called The Circus Contraption."

Caterer: "Well, what do you think about a circus theme...a friend of ours did a hot dog and cotton candy and popcorn thing..."

Me: "No...we're not really into any theme...Just a party. We don't want to base everything on the band."

Caterer: "Well sometimes it helps to have a theme to center all the elements of the party around."

Me: "Yeah, I understand, but no. We're just looking for great food and fun and this band is a part of that."

Caterer: "OK...Well that's fine. No matter. We can come up with something great...Nice and simple and elegant."

Me: "Great!"

Caterer: "But if you can think of a central idea that everything can be based around, so it will all go together, that would be helpful."

Me: "You mean...uhm...wouldn't that be called a theme?"

I am so not hiring her.

Crazy year...

Christmas 2004 -- Jon has a severe neck muscle spasm. Firemen come to our house and make sarcastic comments about our tiny tree. We spend 7 freeking hours in the emergency room. On Christmas. Jon's fine now.

April 2005-- my 13 year old, cat and friend Alastyr experiences liver failure and we put him to sleep. Fare thee well stout traveler.

May 2005-- we go to New Mexico and Arizona and put 1000 miles on the rental car.

July 2005 -- we build a patio in our backyard. We are now owners of a grill.

July 2005 - another trip to the emergency room and we decide to get married. My mom is thrilled. I dye my hair bright red.

August 2005 -- I officiate at my friend Deirdre's wedding.

November 2005 -- my family spends Thanksgiving all together for the first time since my grandma died. It was amazing and I think for the first time in many many years, I actually felt very thankful on thanksgiving...I was aware of my family and what an amazing group of people they are and how much I love them.

That bring us to now. Lets try this again.

Radioactive Feline

So we're back! Scotland was awesome, rainy, crowded, beautiful...

Today Scotland isn't on my mind, though, it's my cat who has hyperthyroid and we are dropping her off at some crazy radiation clinic this morning to get injected with radioactive iodine. It's our last hope as the medication she has been on for four years or so stopped working about 6 months ago.

I think the weirdest thing is that she is 14 and we really don't know how many years she has left, but we just couldn't put her to sleep. It was a hard, crappy choice, but we felt we had to try everything we could before giving up on her.

When she gets home, she will be radioactive, just a little, but enough that we should limit our touching her to an hour a day and we have to flush her cat litter down the toilet for two weeks until she "cools down." Visions of Silkwood... She is becoming the 6 Million Dollar Cat. Worth every penny.

My car's in the shop to be repaired from when the guy hit it and drove away. I have a turquoise blue Nissan rental -- it's hideous and huge compared to my two door Civic. It turns out, according to my insurance company that if we had NOT gotten his license plate number as he drove away, I would only be responsible for $100 deductible, but since Jon had the presence of mind to get his license has he was driving away down the street, it's technically a collision and I have to fork out $500 if he has insurance and $300 if he does not. What's up with that??!? I will appeal the decision.

Beware of Begbies

Two people have now told me about the "scene in Trainspotting where Begbie beats up the yank tourists during the fringe festival. Remember that??"

Yes. Thanks.

Jon and I joked about putting Canadian flag pins on our backpacks, but we've been told by two Scottish co-workers that it wouldn't make any difference, the Scots hate everyone. We'll just steer clear of the football games and try to blend into the other 50 thousand tourists that are there this week.

Our cat sitter, when we interviewed him, told us the urban legend of the cat dying while the owners were away and the cat sitter puts the cat in the freezer, not knowing what to do with the body, and the folks return home a day early and find it in the freezer...huh! What a great story to tell people who are hiring you to watch their cats...

I just got my new fleuvogs (www.fleuvog.com) they are so pointy. I cannot wear them to Scotland. Funny! They are called Tokyo Gibsons. Yes they are.

Shut up and blog

It's raining. I am happy for my lawn. How weird is that? Happy for the rain so we don't have to pay for water. We haven't gotten a water bill yet, so that will be interesting to see.

My friend Gibson went to Thailand and returned to work yesterday. He seemed high from the adventure of it all. I asked him to tell me his one favorite thing -- what was the best experience he had and he said it was the white water rafting. "They would never run this river in the US" he said.

The guide's name was Tip (!). He was missing his front two teeth because someone had hit him with an oar. The only English he knew was "Paddle forward" and "Paddle backwards." Gibson and Ellen's raft was the first to shoot down the rapids and then they got to wait and watch everyone else's follow. They saw 2 rafts flip over. You couldn't pay me money to get in Tip's boat! Gibson and Ellen are in a different class than I am when it comes to adventure.

To the Races!

Sunday mornings are made for yard work now. Go figure.

Jon is out with the rake, the apple tree trimmings and the yard waste containers. It's amazing what we find out we can do.

I made a salad to take to the racetrack. We're meeting the fam there for a variation on the Sunday Family Dinner. I am not a racing fan. Poor horses. I can't imagine anything I would like less than being beaten with a stick and being told to run as fast as I can. That's no fun at all. Jerry likes the races. The rest of us are clueless, happy that there will be lunch.

The mental list of things to do grows by the minute. I found out that the old wooden fixtures in the bathroom are not screwed to the wall, they are glued, with some crazy ass industrial glue that is tearing the wall apart when I try to peel them off. Yay for owning our home. How much will it cost to replace a toilet paper holder now?? I bought new fixtures, but I don't think they will be put into use for some time now. We want to paint the outside of the house and the upstairs and get new lights for many of the rooms. It never really will end, I don't think.

The other day we were leaving a bar in the late afternoon and this guy who looked like Michael Moore asked if I would buy a poem for $1. I agreed and then he said, "Would you like a poem or an anecdote?" I was like, "Hey! An anecdote sounds great." He gave me a piece of typed paper and I gave him my dollar. The page had two anecdotes on it. They were short and pointless. Jon commented that buying boring anecdotes from a man who looks like Michael Moore is a pretty good anecdote.

The morning after...

Why did I start this crazy blog? Now it's calling to me. You must write write write. I guess that just happens...seems like a boring read for anyone but me and even then, I am pretty bored.

The thing on these blogs where you can click a band or an interest or whatever and see the other folks who put that particular thing down is interesting. The one that struck me as the most crazy was the band, The Midnight Choir, (as I write this, I realize that there are probably many bands called that, but whatever, lets just assume that we mean the same one) the one other person who has them listed as a band is some guy in Norway. They are a defunct local band, with a very loyal, but tiny following. The singer left and the rest of the members created a band called The Bad Things, which is great music, but very different. Anyway, I thought it was weird and random that across the world, someone has them on his list of bands. That's the beauty of this internet. Is there blog protocol for reaching out to the folks that put things in their interests?

Seems very Napoleon Dynamite. "Hey, you know that band too? Cool."

But it makes me curious about him. Mr. Norway, if you read this, please feel free to say hi.

Sata Poka ha

I did it, I finally joined the blogging masses. I'm not sure what the purpose of this project will be. Do it to do it. I just wanted to do it. Alright? Gaaaaaaaaddd.... Get off my back!

We just bought a house. It's 104 years old. Seriously. This is my topic of choice these days.

Jon and I are going to Scotland next week. We're going for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival which is when hundreds of thousands of foreigners come to Edinburgh and all the Scottish leave to get the hell out of Dodge while the craziness is going on. There are about 4 major festivals in Scotland during August. We are crazy to be going. see: www.edfringe.com.

We cannot believe it's finally here -- the house pretty much overshadowed everything else in our worlds for a few months. We have tickets to the Tiger Lillies (creepy, tripped out, falsetto singing, accordion playing dark, dark musical comedy group who brought you Shockheaded-Peter). see: www.tigerlillies.com