ten years ago this week, my dad was in moscow, my sister was working for dakota county over the summer (having just graduated from high school), i was living in a small apartment on grand avenue in st. paul, and my mother had just been diagnosed with breast cancer.

my dad gave up trying to find his return ticket (which he'd lost) and paid for an air france one way ticket home to get there in time; he arrived at 8pm and my mom's surgery was 8am the next morning. my sister's boyfriend came over and stayed at the house with my mom for a week, since abby was working and i was living in st. paul and working (and to be honest, full of college student angsty clueless depression).

the morning of july second was her surgery; she opted for a radical mastectomy rather than a lumpectomy, due to the fact that she (like me) is rather large chested, and rather than having the surgeons look for a needle in a haystack, let's just remove the entire haystack and therefore a) make sure all current needles are removed and b) prevent the occurrance of any more needles in that particular haystack. (this is, for the record, my overly-stretched metaphor for it, not hers. i recall her explaining it in some less tortured way.)

she didn't completely heal for a year; my sister spent a lot of the summer taking care of her, and my dad who faints at the sight of blood had to get used to changing her dressings (here's a hint: if the person with the dressing is in the middle of the bed, then the person changing the dressing can sit on the bed, making it not nearly so far to go if they faint.)

but heal up she did, and now here it is, ten years later. my dad has been to russia several more times, abby has not only graduated high school but college and is working away in corporate america, and i now live in minneapolis and have gotten over being a depressed college student.

and mom? she lives in south saint paul, in a new house, with my dad, and with a fine little yap dog named coco, and she's retired from working for the county. she's got fibro and is disabled, but she still sells antiques sometimes, and she takes care of her mom (my grandmother), and she organizes family events.

yay, mom. i love you.

if you're excited about seeing pictures of relatives of strangers, feel free to check out the pictures from this year's lindberg ladies mini-reunion from earlier this summer.

Occupation Forces Halt Elections Throughout Iraq

SAMARRA, Iraq -- U.S. military commanders have ordered a halt to local elections and self-rule in provincial cities and towns across Iraq, choosing instead to install their own handpicked mayors and administrators, many of whom are former Iraqi military leaders.

i'm surprised by this. i don't know why, though.

(p.s. stef, i think i fixed the archive thing.)

i [heart] my friend stef.

from her quotes file.

From the standpoint of health...there is a major problem with the "lose
weight, live longer" equation...fifteen studies published between 1983
and 1993...show weight loss to increase risk of premature death by up to
260 percent. This is thirteen more than the number of studies published
during the same period of time that showed weight loss to reduce death
rates. And of the two studies in the minority, one showed an 11-hour
increase in longevity per pound of weight lost...(To gain a year of life
at that rate, one would have to lose 796 pounds.)
-- Glenn Gaesser, _Big Fat Lies_

i broke down over lunch and went to brookdale and bought books. then i went to the applebee's across the parking lot and ate and read the first two-thirds (yes i'm a very fast reader) of the first j.p. beaumont book by j.a. jance. now i know who the hell anne corley is! this makes me feel much better.

i'm very pleased to have the gps in my car-- this means that i can do things like find brookdale again, even though i've only ever been to that area twice, because my car now knows where the ihop in the brookdale parking lot is.

AlterNet: Meet 'The Family':

"But at the upper levels there is this weird emphasis on the Old Testament. It's in the story, they talk about King David, who in some ways was a really bad guy. They are really interested in the biblical concept that whether you are good or bad it doesn't matter, what matters is whether you are chosen. That's part of the Hitler Concept. It doesn't matter whether Hitler was good or bad, Hitler was chosen for leadership. That was part of God's plan. Nothing happens that isn't part of God's plan. "

jeffrey sharlet, being interviewed by anthony lappé, of the guerrilla news network.

okay. and now i think my archive page is less ugly and more usable. so let's see...

although hell if i can figure out how to log out.

okay, it's nice that they've changed blogger around so tht it's now easier to find your way around (except for the bit where everything sort of lists off to the left hand side of the screen). but, hello? could you have told us poor pro users about this? you know, the ones who have paid to use blogger?

i have the plague. or at least a cold.

(reason number seven hundred and thirty two why i don't like immune system suppressors.)

Feminism Quotes

The infamous F word
The word feminist was introduced in the U.S. in 1895 and has been used as
a rallying cry for women and a term of derision against them ever since.
Time Magazine declared feminism dead in 1998 (as hundreds of books and
articles have for the past 100 years), but feminism remains too necessary
to die of embarrassment - even if many have been scared away from the word.
Following are some definitions of (and reflections on) this powerful social and political movement.

i am a feminist. i am. me. this is what a feminist looks like. a feminist, mind you; not all of us. there's differences between us, you see, and that's a good portion of what feminism is about.

Why not choose a less offensive word? "A natural response is to change the word feminist to a word with fewer stigmas attached. But inevitably the same thing will happen to that magical word. Part of the radical connotation of feminism is not due to the word, but to the action. The act of a woman standing up for herself is radical, whether she calls herself a feminist or not."
- Paula Kamen, feminist

it's the week of lots of doctors appointments. last friday, yesterday, and today. the best part is getting to leave work early. this is especially joyous because i am finding out that my training was not as rigorous as it might have been, and i've been doing things wrong because that's how i was trained. i find this to be slightly aggravating.

i need to stop trying to teach pigs to sing. maybe that will be my goal for this week.

Harper's Magazine: Jesus Plus Nothing: Undercover among America's secret theocrats, by Jeffrey Sharlet

"The Cedars has a heart for the poor," they like to say. By "poor" they mean not the thousands of literal poor living barely a mile away but rather the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom: the senators, generals, and prime ministers who coast to the end of Twenty-fourth Street in Arlington in black limousines and town cars and hulking S.U.V.'s to meet one another, to meet Jesus, to pay homage to the god of The Cedars.

There they forge "relationships" beyond the din of vox populi (the Family's leaders consider democracy a manifestation of ungodly pride) and "throw away religion" in favor of the truths of the Family. Declaring God's covenant with the Jews broken, the group's core members call themselves "the new chosen."
[...]

Not long after our conversation, Bengt put a bucket beside the toilet in the downstairs bunk room. From now on, he announced, all personal items left in the living room would go into the bucket. "If you're missing anything, guys," Bengt said over dinner, "look in the bucket."

I looked in the bucket. Here's what I found: One pair of flip-flops. One pocket-sized edition of the sayings of Jesus. One Frisbee. One copy of Executive Orders, by Tom Clancy, hardcover. One brown-leather Bible, well worn, beautifully printed on onion skin, given to Bengt Carlson by Palmer Carlson. One pair of dirty underwear.

When I picked up the Bible the pages flipped open to the Gospel of John, and my eyes fell on a single underlined phrase, chapter 15, verse 3: "You are already clean."

[...]

"Yes," Doug said, "it's good to have friends. Do you know what a difference a friend can make? A friend you can agree with?" He smiled. "Two or three agree, and they pray? They can do anything. Agree. Agreement. What's that mean?" Doug looked at me. "You're a writer. What does that mean?"

I remembered Paul's letter to the Philippians, which we had begun to memorize. Fulfill ye my joy, that ye be likeminded.

"Unity," I said. "Agreement means unity."

Doug didn't smile. "Yes," he said. "Total unity. Two, or three, become one. Do you know," he asked, "that there's another word for that?"

No one spoke.

"It's called a covenant. Two, or three, agree? They can do anything. A covenant is . . . powerful. Can you think of anyone who made a covenant with his friends?"

We all knew the answer to this, having heard his name invoked numerous times in this context. Andrew from Australia, sitting beside Doug, cleared his throat: "Hitler."

"Yes," Doug said. "Yes, Hitler made a covenant. The Mafia makes a covenant. It is such a very powerful thing. Two, or three, agree." He took another bite from his plate, planted his fork on its tines. "Well, guys," he said, "I gotta go."

sorry for the long quotes. go read the article. thanks rj, thanks bill, for pointing it out.

speaking of semicolons, my ex-tocotox (now she's tocotox in a new and different way, you see) used to send me bouquets of them in email.

no, really.

it's quite cheering. i try to do it to people who i know who are depressed who i think would also find it cheering.

please insert incoherence about spellchecking, grammar checking, and copyediting and how they are sadly underused and underappreciated here.

i occasionally have problems with those things, especially in regards to commas (semicolons are a much finer piece of punctuation anyhow). just so you know that i don't think i'm perfect in this regard.

last week, i brought in a small carved stone hippopotamus to sit on my computer and look at me. it's carved out of a yellow and white stone, and it looks just like butterscotch candies. (except for being hippo-shaped, that is.)

i keep wanting to pop it into my mouth to see if it tastes like butterscotch, too.

Acceptance of America's Future By Bill Moyers, AlterNet

this is taken from moyers' acceptance speech for the lifetime leadership award, given at the take back america conference last week.

What will it take to get back in the fight? Understanding the real interests and deep opinions of the American people is the first thing. And what are those? That a Social Security card is not a private portfolio statement but a membership ticket in a society where we all contribute to a common treasury so that none need face the indignities of poverty in old age without that help. That tax evasion is not a form of conserving investment capital but a brazen abandonment of responsibility to the country. That income inequality is not a sign of freedom-of-opportunity at work, because if it persists and grows, then unless you believe that some people are naturally born to ride and some to wear saddles, it's a sign that opportunity is less than equal. That self-interest is a great motivator for production and progress, but is amoral unless contained within the framework of community. That the rich have the right to buy more cars than anyone else, more homes, vacations, gadgets and gizmos, but they do not have the right to buy more democracy than anyone else. That public services, when privatized, serve only those who can afford them and weaken the sense that we all rise and fall together as "one nation, indivisible." That concentration in the production of goods may sometimes be useful and efficient, but monopoly over the dissemination of ideas is evil. That prosperity requires good wages and benefits for workers. And that our nation can no more survive as half democracy and half oligarchy than it could survive "half slave and half free" – and that keeping it from becoming all oligarchy is steady work – our work.

thanks lore, thanks wcg, for pointing this out. this is a great speech; go read the whole thing.

how to get really fast service at the emergency vet, or, What My Dog Ate This Weekend.

so, we had some people over on sunday afternoon. one of them was late, and brought, as a peace offering, six bars of good chocolate from belgium. when everyone left, the one i live with went outside to help one of them get something into her car, and i went upstairs to play with my computer...

...leaving the chocolate on the coffee table.

...which pirate can get up onto.

so, there I am, checking my email, when I hear "PIRATE! DROP IT!"

uh-oh.

sure enough, she'd gotten up there and eaten not one, not two, but three of the bars.

so we threw her into the car, grabbed the remaining bars for evidence in case the vet wanted to see, and hustled off to the emergency vet.

my goodness, do those people move fast when you say "hello! my nine pound dog ate three bars of chocolate!".

they made her throw up the chocolate and kept her overnight for observation. she was fine all night, and is now back at home guarding he house from all of those people who want to use our sidewalk.

whew.

so, that's what i did yesterday. just in case anyone wanted to know.

when i was in college, i really liked a local band named pimentos for gus.

sadly, none of their lyrics seem to be on the web. how can this be, i ask you?

to combat this horrible problem, i give you the lyrics to sweet, by pimentos for gus, off their cd musica psycoustica.

like candy only healthier
like a princess only wealthier
all natural no saccharine
i dreamed it happening

sweet like honey sweet like wine
sweet like grapes that grow on the vine
honey do a dance like a bumble bee
and bring your sweet honey on home to me

there's no doubt i'm sweet on her
to my honey comb i'm leading her
got my hands stuck to the hilt
like the bear in the book by a. a. milne

sweet like honey sweet like wine
sweet like grapes that grow on the vine
would you teach me how to dance like the way that you do
so i can bring my honey on home to you

curvaceous like a valentine
good gracious she's on my mind
she's hanging like a candy cane
she's my date for trick or treat
[chorus]

i always forget about spring.

i mean, i remember, in the abstract. it's going to be spring, my arthritis will flare up because it always does. right? right.

but i don't remember.

i don't remember how i have give up wearing some of my pants because they catch uncomfortably at my swollen knee.

i don't remember how the problem isn't so much that i can't bend my knee, it's that i can't straighten it.

i don't remember how walking from the handicapped parking spot by the door to my desk at work wears me out so badly that all i want is a nap.

i don't remember how i need painkillers to get to sleep, that no matter how long i lie there, i can't get to sleep without them.

i don't go shopping for a month. i don't mean an enormous shopping trip, i mean grocery shopping, or anything more strenuous than picking up my prescriptions (which i can, gods be praised, do through the drive through).

i sit all the time, although i'm constantly wiggling around, because there is no position that doesn't make my knee hurt.

if i'm really really lucky, my wrists hurt so badly that i can't rest them on anything at the same time. this spring, i am not that lucky, and my hands have remained usable, although sometimes i pick them up and think, just think, about whether or not they're starting to hurt and if i need to give up all non-essential everything so as to not stress them out.

i already am beginning to forget. it's been raining here, y'see, which means that the pressure goes back up, and my joints stop hurting. we had a week or two where it was going to rain any second now, but could never really get around to it. constant low pressure. constant cool weather. constant pain.

but it poured like crazy early this afternoon, and i went to bed last night without taking extra painkillers, and it's getting better.

i write this so that maybe i won't be as surprised next year. maybe i'll remember.

by popular demand (okay, well, at least i know one other person besides me who wanted to see this...).

from the book, reading the vampire slayer:

on the second season of angel, soul-restored angel is manipulated by wolfram and hart through his guilt and obsession with darla to the point of non-demonic nihilism: he abandons the collective (firing wesley, cordelia, and gunn) and attempts suicidally to destroy wolfram and hart. before his subsequent epiphany-- a realization that to regain his "path", he must accept the humble necessity of small "good works"-- he sought the totalizing moral solutions of revenge and obliteration (of wolfram and hart) and redemption (of darla).

i read this, and realized that this is a parallel to buffy, season five, and how this description of angel season two also speaks to it.

through the end of season five, buffy is depressed. her mom just died, she's facing glory who she can't beat, she now has to be the grownup in the house as well as being the slayer and she doesn't know how.

i do not mean slightly mopey. i mean suicidal.

and in the last episode, she seizes on committing suicide as a way to get out of her obligations while saving the world. this is, as quoted above, a totalizing moral solution, involving redemption for her, while saving both dawn and the world from obliteration.

however, it ain't that easy.

when season six opens, the rest of the gang is barely holding the hellmouth back. buffy, unlike angel, doesn't get an epiphany (or if she does, i'm not recalling it)-- she gets dragged back, and has to deal with being the slayer, being responsible, and being a grownup.

my friend xat brilliantly notes:

"I thought it was clear that Buffy was making a selfish choice, was seeking an escape, and I really liked that season six was about her hating it here, about her neglecting her friends and family and being self-destructive. The extent of her pain and how quiet and pervasive it is is such a nice contrast with the blowout of Willow at the end of the season, and how the two of them deal with pain at such different volumes."

xat, you need a copy of this book. i will lend it to you next time you're in town.

(p.s. not just brilliant because it agrees with me. i hadn't actually thought of it that way before.)

it is one of my many many joys in life that i have never been and will likely never be mistaken for a soccer mom.

other joys, at the moment:

• the bathroom is tiled, and should be being grouted as i type this.
  
• saturday, we primed it, and sunday, i painted it a nice shade of light yellow. it's very cheery.
  
• we're now discussing repainting the living room. i am having a failure of imagination, and may send nathan off to the paint store by himself for that one, as i am unable to come up with another color that i would like it to be.
  
• sale at lane bryant this past weekend. bought clothes. bought funny girly clothes. (this is not a euphemism for underwear, this is a euphemism for t-shirts with lace on them.)
  
• manny's for dinner tonight.
  
• the dog.
  
• finding out that i am more compatible with the divine lisa c. than with people that i was in relationships with for multiple years.
  
• the airconditioner is in in the attic.
  
• reading the vampire slayer: an unofficial critical companion to buffy and angel which i bought at wiscon. (even though they, like everyone else on the planet, totally miss what the ending of season five was about! arrrgh! although i now have new things to think about for angel, season two.)
  
• my gargoyle is guarding his diamond on my desk.
  
• new sneakers!

and that's all, for now.

what sort of noise do lemmings make?

(a very ugly table based noise, apparently. sorry about that; cleaning up the formatting.)

sraun 95%
michaellee 91%
jenx 91%
starstraf 91%
q_skud_ 91%
the_siobhan 91%
ptlee 87%
angilong 87%
arthos 87%
eriker 87%
rivka 87%
nolly 84%
le_merle 84%
silmarian 84%
serenejournal 84%
melanied 84%
nadinelet 84%
wandra 80%
kenhighcountry 76%
cjdoyle 76%
lilairen 76%
charlesks 76%
holyoutlaw 76%
sistercoyote 76%
kalikanzeros 74%
mactavish 72%
teal7 72%
boxofdelights 72%
polyfrog 72%
eleanor 71%
mittelschmertz 68%
drewan 64%
angilong 62%
ailsaek 47%
fourgates 47%
ottawaluc 42%
lydy 41%
xiphias 39%
How compatible with me are YOU?

WMD just a convenient excuse for war, admits Wolfowitz

The Bush administration focused on alleged weapons of mass destruction as the primary justification for toppling Saddam Hussein by force because it was politically convenient, a top-level official at the Pentagon has acknowledged.
The extraordinary admission comes in an interview with Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Defence Secretary, in the July issue of the magazine Vanity Fair.

jesus h. christ on a pogostick.