Year: 2007
Walking the Earth at Fry’s
Posted on April 5, 2007 in Consuming Mania
What’s wrong with walking the earth when you have flown with the angels?
City of the Silent
Posted on April 5, 2007 in Site News
Gosh, did I scare you folks with the revelation that I kept a cemetery site?
Or maybe you didn’t know that you can see more features if you register?
Heavy Hint: I could use a little help!
White Poles and a Full Moon
Posted on April 2, 2007 in Neighborhood The Orange
The full moon connected the dots on the sage-scrub hillsides.
Making an Old Noise
Posted on April 1, 2007 in Misc
Those of you who have known me for a long time, will be happy to see that I am rebuilding this. Slowly.
April First
Posted on April 1, 2007 in Humor?
It’s no use. I can’t come up with a decent April Fool’s this year. Life has been too much of a joke for that.
Friday Anteater Blogging – Sloths #3
Posted on March 30, 2007 in Xenartha
The cards and letters were just rolling in about the sloth series. As you may not know, sloths, armadillos, and South American anteaters are all members of the [[Xenarthra]].
Today’s feature video shows a sloth crossing the road. Very slowly.
Who needs cats or squids when anteaters combine the best qualities of both!
A Slight Discrepancy
Posted on March 29, 2007 in Site News
Why did I receive over 3500 visitors in the last week and yet receive only a handful of comments?
TikiWiki
Posted on March 28, 2007 in Bugs
If you have experience with TikiWiki or phpWiki, please let me know.
Red Night
Posted on March 26, 2007 in Weather
Car lights revealed the low [[Cirrus_cloud|cirrus]] clouds, millimeters above the pavement. Drizzle spotted the windshields and eyes looked through these at the signs of the strip mall: Denny’s, Mervyn’s, Ralphs, and Tae Kwan Do. The shaggy [[Washingtonia]] palms broke black across the deep rouge sky. “In a few minutes it will be raining,” said the store clerk as he rushed to grab some rogue shopping carts. One hour later we’re still waiting for more than minute drops.
[tags]strip malls, weather, Southern California[/tags]
Open Thread #10
Posted on March 26, 2007 in Open Thread
Lurkers awake! It’s been nearly a year since I last did this. If you have been hiding and not commenting, please say hi. And — oldtimers, as well — tell me what you like about this blog.
I’m busy reading A Maggot, but I’ll chime in sometimes.
[tags]Open thread[/tags]
The Red Retro Chair
Posted on March 25, 2007 in Cats
The red retro chair is a contested zone in this house. I have a sign on the wall over my computer that says “If you want the best seat in this house, move the cat.” The red retro chair, blocky and slick, is the best seat and Fiona is the cat you must move.
She’s there now, all twenty pounds of her. A neighbor of ours had her baby out the other day. I mentioned that I had seen her husband carrying the little one. He was panting. “How much does she weigh now?” I asked. “Sixteen pounds.” Still lighter than our cat.
I sometimes say when a cat is kneeling on all fours that it is contemplating the Mystery of the Seventh Claw. Don’t ask what that’s all about because it is a Mystery and that’s why you don’t know what it is all about. Fiona is not contemplating. She’s curled up, sacked out, squeezed out of wakefulness. If I were to want the red retro chair for reading A Maggot (we are short on furniture), she would whimper and be slow, very slow on moving her body to the floor. I might have to push her, tip her off the edge.
We have this ongoing battle, she and I. It happens at dinner time when I want to sit in the red retro chair and consume the evening repast. I move her, begin to eat. In the course of the meal, I rise to have seconds — a trip of maybe 30 seconds — and when I come back, she is back on the cushion, licking her bum and whining because she knows that I want the seat back.
Now she sleeps in the red retro chair and I won’t be disturbing her. Instead, I am reading my book at the computer:
For an amorous encounter with the Quaker Maid, Reader, thou had’st best count thy Gold first. This is no silver Queen, despite her modest Appellation, nor no modest One, neither, despite her first appearance. Thous must know nothing pleases your true Debauchee better than to be obliged to force and such is this cunning Nymph’s Device — to blush, to flee, to cry for Shame, until at last she’s brought to Bay.*
This is what I read in Fowles. If I read this aloud while Fiona slept in the red retro chair, of what might she dream?
When Things Fall Apart
Posted on March 25, 2007 in Avoidance Frustration Rage & Annoyance
I realize the hell that many people must be going through. It gets ripped in one place, usually due to bad advice or a good intention. Then jihad begins — somewhere — and punishment is exacted, usually on one person. That person suffers the most. The air clears, the pain is not undone. People look to the victim to forgive without apologies, to say that things can be the same as they were before. But a wise victim finds him/herself in a tortured place. You cannot trust these people again because they will hurt you in the same way. They’ve made up lies, carried the war too far. Yet, they, too hurt.
The damage is so massive, you see, that no one can fix it. Even if apologies are offered, relations just can’t be restored. Not without outside help, people skilled in conflict resolution. The best we can do without it is to simply not make war. Yet incidents will happen, people will not leave it alone or tread in another’s space. And the other will not like them there because they have never heard the least suggestion that what was done to them was in error.
We’ve been taught that apologies are signs of weakness, of total capitulation.
I fucked up. And I just can’t stand the sight of the people who fucked me over.
[tags]Anger, Avoidance, Frustration, Conflict, Moods, Emotions[/tags]
