31 January 2012

This is one of several Susan G Komen shirts I own; I have a couple of sweatshirts, t-shirts, even a backpack. But this one has a resonating tone, which is why I bought it.

Everyone deserves a lifetime.

It's a wonderful ideal; do whatever we have to in order to raise money to eradicate a disease that still takes far too many lives every year.

Apparently, though, the Susan G. Komen Foundation has agreed, in theory, that everyone deserves a lifetime EXCEPT people who have to rely on--because they don't have insurance and can't afford a mammogram or basic breast health care--Planned Parenthood.

One of the things I appreciated about SGK was that they stood up to the far right wingers who decried the fact that money was going to a place that performed abortions. In this, I don't care about pro-choice or anti-choice or whether Planned Parenthood hands out condoms and birth control pills; what mattered to me was that women who needed it had a place to go to get a breast exam and paid-for referral for a mammogram. Funds from the Komen Foundation did not go towards abortion; the money went wholly towards providing mammograms, breast cancer prevention and education, and basic breast health care. For a woman with no resources, PP was a place to go that would get them pointed in the right direction.

This IS a pro-life thing. Women without access to basic care still have the right to life. Their lives are just as valuable as anyone else's. Even if you believe abortion is wrong, you can't deny that any individual has a right to the continuation of their life as much as you believe that fetus has a right to its life. And today the Susan G Komen Foundation buckled to political pressure and pulled funding for Planned Parenthood.

It amounts to a loss of nearly 200,000 breast exams each year. Doesn't sound like a lot? TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND women need breast exams from Planned Parenthood every year.

My knee jerk reaction is to say that unless they change their stance, I won't be walking or crewing for them again. There are alternatives: I can walk in the Avon Walk this year instead; same basic principle, walk until you feel like your feet are gonna fall off, then get up and do it again. But unless SGK reverses this horrible, politically motivated decision, I'm fairly sure I won't participate in a 3 Day again. And that's sad, because I've met the nicest people and made the greatest friends doing this.

But...

I'm pissed off. I am mad as hell. I didn't raise money and walk my ass off to deny care to anyone. I did it to make care more accessible. For that lofty ideal of EVERYONE deserves a lifetime, not just everyone with good insurance.

30 January 2012

He's waving at you.

Really.

28 January 2012

He has a sense of humor, I'm sure of it.

1:30 in the morning, just as I was falling asleep, he wandered down the hall meowing his little head off. In the quiet of night, it was a huge sound, bold-type-faced MEOW MEOW MEOW.

I've learned that sometimes he's just looking for company, and if I call to him, he'll come into the room, get a few head skritches, and then he'll curl up and go to sleep.

Last night he turned around and walked the other way.

At 2:30... MEOW MEOW MEOW.

Big, bold, loud. But again, he didn't come when called, so I rolled over and tried to fall asleep. And I think I did, finally, but was pulled out of sleep at 3:30.

MEOW MEOW MEOW MEOW MEOW

By then I was less interested in making him happy than I was in getting some sleep. I sat up, seethed, "Max, just be QUIET, all right?!?"

He stepped into the doorway, stopped, and very quietly:

Meow Meow Meow?

I swear to God that cat laughed his way back down the hall.

27 January 2012

Well, that was odd and out of the blue LOL

It's also why I love my friends... ;)

26 January 2012

Since we needed to head in that direction in search of end tables this afternoon, the Spouse Thingy and I decided to have lunch at Panera, because today is Thursday and on Thursdays they have cream of chicken and wild rice soup, and it is TeH Awesome.

Today it was particularly tasty, and since we didn't find the right end table at the nearby stores in which we looked, that made the trip worthwhile.

Before we left, as I an wont to do because I am the Queen Of OMGIGottaPee, I decided to use the facilities before we left there, and as I opened the door I could already hear the sounds of frustrated motherhood coming from one of the stalls.

No, no, no, I said no!

She said no; I said "heh," albeit under my breath.

No, no...I mean it. No!

I made some noise, lest she think she was alone in there with her kid, because she really did sound stressed and part of me thought she might haul off and whack him one, and I'm just not down with people whacking the snot out of little kids.

No...No...No...

Heh.

No, that's not clean--don't--no, no no DON'T LICK THE WALL!!!

I had to flush to cover my own laughing.

Oh God, don't sit, that floor isn't clean...STOP LICKING THE WALL!!!

Ya know, I don't think I ever had a problem with the Boy licking bathroom walls. He liked to touch stuff even when told not to, but to his credit, not once did he lick anything in a public bathroom.

Well, not when I was with him. I have no idea what he's done as an adult.

And drunk.

But I'm betting he hasn't...

23 January 2012

Odds & Endz #864729, because it's 3:30 in the freaking morning and I can't sleep.

I never thought I'd miss stabbing myself with one of these every night. And I did, from April 2003 until July 2011, a .1ml shot of growth hormone, because my brain hasn't made any since 2002. I stopped because I was encroaching on 50 years old, and the older I get, the higher the cancer risks, and HGH just makes cancer grow faster.

Still...going off of it means added body fat, less lean muscle mass, and an unhappy me when I get on the scale. The 50 pounds I lost? Half of it is back. It was expected, but that doesn't make me feel any better about it. But the real drawback is that your body uses growth hormone to repair muscle, and without it, all those little nicks and tears you get just by existing take longer to heal.

= = = = = 

Because I do not engage in much forethought, I decided that the front room--where the spiffy gym equipment has lived, mostly unmolested--really needed to be painted. It was two shades of beige, one medium, one dark, and since the house doesn't get a lot of natural light, it felt like a cave. So I decided it needed to be the nice, soft yellow that the kitchen and the family room is. Yesterday I put up a coat of primer, and a coat of yellow; it needs one more coat but I ran out of light, and I need about a half gallon more paint.

Here's the thing about painting a room that has 10 foot ceilings: you go up and down a ladder a lot. You bend over, kneel down, twist and turn and stretch, all while moving that paint roller back and forth. It's an ouchy kind of thing.

Today...today I got up and I don't think there's but 2 square inches on me that isn't sore. And I think those 2 inches might just be numb.

When we moved in here three years ago, I painted. I turned the library red, two of the bedrooms blue, and I was able to paint several days running. Today I did not go buy more paint, nor did I even contemplate getting a couple of walls finished. Nope, I sat in my chair and watched TV and played online, and said multiple bad words every time I had to get up to pee.

On a scale of 1 to 10, the ouchiness is about a 7.3... If I was still taking HGH, it'd probably be a 3, and I'd have finished the room.

Meh...not really worth whining about since I know I'll feel fine in a couple of days. It's just the idea of it all. I start out most days achy, I don't want to pile more on.

Plus, I'm really sleepy but the freaking wind and rain is keeping me awake, so I whine.

Here's your cookie for reading this far.

= = = = =

Part of my online play today was looking at other peoples' tattoo pictures; I've been doing this a lot, mostly for the hell of it. But I came to the conclusion that if I got every tattoo that makes me go ooooh neato the only area not inked would be that 2 square inches that isn't achy right now.

I like tattoos, but I don't think I want to go that far...

= = = = =

I miss having Borders to go to for people watching and writing. The closest reasonable substitution I've found is Panera, but if I think I weight too much now? Sheesh, in the time it takes to wrote a book, I would easily add a hundred pounds to that.

= = = = =

The extent of my social awkwardness? I still haven't talked to Siri on my iPhone.

= = = = =

There's chocolate in the kitchen, and I can hear it calling my name. I'm trying to ignore it, but it keeps whispering that middle-of-the-night chocolate is calorie free.  I think the chocolate is lying to me.

= = = = =

At 3:42 a.m., that sounds really funny. I'm pretty sure that at noon I'll look at this and think, "WTF is wrong with you?"

= = = = =

And finally, something spiffy...

A sea cave in Florida.

Ok, almost 4 a.m., time to try to sleep again...

20 January 2012

I think he means it, too...

14 January 2012

I've been talking with a soon-to-be-published new writer online off and on over the last couple of years. It started with a forum post about NaNoWriMo and just kept going. Other people chimed in, we all joined hands and sang Kumbaya, discussed killing adverbs, overuse of literary cliches, and came to the conclusion that we might all be better writers if we started drinking heavily.

New Writer Person had a lot of faith in her writing, deservedly so, and took her NaNo story, chipped away at it, polished it, chipped some more, all the while showering agents and publishers with query letters and book proposals. And it paid off. She landed an agent who sold the book and got her a small advance that she should easily be able to out-earn.

The book is slated for a third quarter release this year; she posted the news and I posted back a genuine I-am-happy-for-you congratulations and promised to buy a copy on the day the book drops...to which she responded, "Thanks! If you ever get published I'll buy yours too!"

11 January 2012

This is my spiffy recumbent bike. It's been shoved into the back of the garage since we moved here, and was in the back of the garage in the house before this. Probably the house before that, too, but given how often we moved before we bought this house, that's not an appreciably long stretch of time.

I've had an itch lately to ride it, so yesterday the Spouse Thingy took it to the local bike shop to get it tuned up, brakes adjusted, chain greased, everything checked out. And today he picked it up, and rode it home.

The front fork is bent.

Not just a little out of line; that sucked is bent. He says it's rideable if I push hard on the bars to keep it from swaying to one side, but I want to ride, not push. If I want to push, I'll get on the Trikke or Strider.

It's not fixable, most likely.

I can use it inside on the bike rack thingy, the one I have the Strider on now for indoor use, but that's not riding. That's watching TV while pretending to exert myself.

I'm not sure I want to buy a new bike just yet, so it'll have to do.

Still....bummed, I am...

10 January 2012

6 January 2012

Hmmm...I may have inadvertently screwed up a life lesson for the 10 year old ahead of me at Walmart when I gave him a quarter to cover the tax he didn't know he'd need. It wasn't until after then that I realized Mom was nearby, in sight, watching closely...and that she might have sent him through the line alone on purpose and with intent. So instead of learning that just because you have $1 in your pocket, that doesn't mean you only need a $1, he learned that if you're little and buying stuff by yourself, some old lady will cover your difference...

4 January 2012

Found this posted on reddit... It's California Street in San Francisco...

click to biggify...

I stared at this picture and thought several times, one thought right after another, I freaking walked up this more than once. On purpose.

Now I think I need some retroactive Ibuprofen. Or vodka.

Damn, I wish I had some vodka...