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The Hair I’m Not Straightening

March 30, 2018

Robyn Parnell family life, foodie, Me so happy, movies, nature, politics, school, travel, Wow, Yikes!, Zoo , , , , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Hair I’m Not Straightening

Department Of What Is Wrong With This Picture

Dateline: At the hair salon…waiting for my turn…looking for anything other than Hairstyles of the Rich and Famous or celebrity tragedy magazines to pass the time. The pickings are slim. I pick up some kind of My House is More Beautiful Than Your House magazine. On the magazine’s second page I see the following photo, which accompanies advertising copy re furnishing one’s “dream house.” A certain detail gave me the feeling that the photographer and/or photo-stager had never actually cooked real food in a real kitchen.

 

 

pasta

 

 

Call me crazy, but my dream house would include having cooks residing therein who know the proper pasta-to-cooking-pot ratio.

 

*   *   *

Department Of The Darndest Things

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yet another dateline: last Thursday evening; after the afore-alluded-to haircut.

Backstory: I get my hair cut every six weeks. My current stylist  [1] blow dries/flat irons my hair to razor sharp, shiny verticality, which means that for 2-3 days every 6 weeks, I have really straight hair.  Ever since the birth of daughter Belle my hair has had a natural curl, no chemical inducement necessary.  [2]  The hair thing turned out to be one of those “temporary” pregnancy changes that stuck around après baby.

The first time the stylist suggested she blow dry my hair straight was four years ago, when Belle was a senior in high school.  Belle loved the way my hair looked when it was straight. MH and son K did not. They said,

You don’t look like yourself.

I agreed with them, even as I decided to forgo listing the upside of not looking like moiself every now and then.  I assured my spouse and our son that, regardless of whether or not I liked my hair straight, I’ve neither the time, the patience, nor the girly-hair-styling-skillset (nor the desire to acquire the latter) to successfully and regularly wield the Implements of Hair Uncurling ®. Thus, the look which they found so objectionable would be episodic and brief, at most.

Last week, on the eve when I returned from the salon, K made the inevitable comment re my hair. I said I was well aware that he didn’t like my hair “this way.” Before moiself could solicit reasons for his dislike, K offered the following:

“It’s just that it makes you look, in my opinion, like a soccer mom who brings Kraft Singles for the after-game snacks.  [3]

Damn right I raised that young man.

 

If this don’t straighten y’all’s hair, nothing will.

 

*   *   *

Department Of Continuing Datelines

Dateline: in line for a matinee showing of the movie, Love, Simon. Overhearing their interactions with the ticket clerk, I realize that the several women (all over a certain age, by the senior discounts I hear them claim) in front of me in the ticket line have each, separately, come to the theater to see Love, Simon. I offer an observation about that to the universe, after which the woman directly in front of me, and then the two women behind me, chime in about how they too have come to the theatre, separately, to see the same movie.

When was my turn  [4] I said to the ticket clerk, One for…can you guess? Ticket Clerk Lady’s face went blank for just a moment, until I followed up with, Yep, we middle-aged women all love us some Simon.

 

 

 

 

I’d enjoy this more if we were both older ladies.

*   *   *

 

It was great fun having Belle home for spring break (two weeks ago), and also getting to meet The Boyfriend. ® [5]  Belle, who will graduate in May  [6] with a B.S. in Biology, is pursuing a variety of jobs and internships that have to do with animal care, conservation and education; i.e.,  zoos and animal rescue/sanctuary organizations

Near the end of Belle’s visit I ventured to make a potentially touchy observation about her après-graduation plans. Which is just the kind of comment every child anticipates and appreciates…

 

 

 

 

 

The internships she’s applied for – a couple of which have already been offered to her – are with Big Cat and/or other “exotic” animal parks. These organizations describe themselves as providing “a sanctuary to wild cats in need.” Translation: there are, unfortunately, a great many delusional/ narcissistic people who think that it would be fun to own an exotic animal, and/or  that owning an exotic wild animal would make them stand out and be special – that the wildness of the animal will somehow give them cred. A few weeks or months after acquiring an exotic pet (whether via legal or questionable means), Joe Lookatmei’mcoolIownatiger realizes that the cub which was so adorable at 8 weeks old is growing into AN ACTUAL FRIGGIN’ TIGER – never mind that the breeder assured them it was from eight generations of “domesticated” tigers [7] and was really just a big, big pussy cat. [8]  At that point, Joe either voluntarily abandons/surrenders the animal or is forced to do so by his neighbors or an animal welfare organization.

Enter Wild Cat Sanctuary, Big Cat Rescue, Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge, et al, who offer a place for these discarded “pets” –  along with animals rescued or retired from circuses or other anachronistic “entertainment” shows –  to live out the remainder of their lives in as natural a setting as possible.  These organizations also work to, essentially, put themselves out of business. That is, they lobby for legislation which would end the captive wildlife crisis by outlawing the buying, selling, breeding and exhibiting of such animals. (Truly a noble cause – one which has been close to Belle’s heart for many years now, even preceding her years of volunteering at the Oregon Zoo.)

 

 

No, I do not belong in your backyard…but hey, dude, thanks for the golden retriever snack.

 

 

 

These organizations are almost always privately funded. Read: they are financed hand to mouth (claw to maw?) and are always scrapped for funds. Usually only the executive directors (if anyone) are paid; thus, they depend heavily on volunteers. Their internships typically run for three to six months; interns are compensated with board and a meal stipend, but no salary. So, interns get experience (and at certain sanctuaries it may indeed be the experience of a lifetime) in a field with arguably no future.  Unless you are able to turn the experience into qualifications to work as a zoo keeper,  [9] such internships provide experience for “jobs’ for which there are no paid positions.

Yet again, I digress. About that potentially touchy observation about her après-graduation employment plans.

I asked Belle if she knew the percentage of female applicants/volunteers in the internship programs to which she has applied.  She said she didn’t.  I said it wouldn’t surprise me if the stats showed 80% (or more) female. When Belle asked me why, I asked The Boyfriend ® to confirm or deny the observation I was about to make: what I considered to be an accurate if frustrating reflection on cultural conditioning/gender influences; specifically, re how both girls and boys grow up seeing – still, in 2018 – (mostly) women do much of the work upon which our society and the corporate world depends (e.g. managing home and the rearing of children), and for which you’d have to pay a lot of $$ to hire someone outside the family to do, but this work is unpaid and undervalued, thus leading to the lowered expectations of girls’ and women’s market worth….

But, I didn’t phrase it that way. I summed it up thusly (and noticed that The Boyfriend ® ruefully smiled at Belle before he nodded at me in agreement):

Men and boys learn early on not to work for free.

*   *   *

 

 

May you recognize an employer’s disincentive
to pay you if you’re willing to work for free;
May you slap into next Saturday the face of anyone who attempts to analogize the previous professional caveat into the personal realm;   [10]
May you never be forced to eat Kraft Singles, ® for any reason;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

 

 

[1] It sounds so strange to me, to write that I have a “stylist,” but I don’t know what else to call her and that’s what she calls herself.

[2] A phenomenon which my previous, before-and-after pregnancy haircutter had noticed and commented on.

[3] Both of my offspring had somewhat ignominious (and blessedly brief) tenures on kiddie soccer teams. It wasn’t their thing, and so MH and I never had the opportunity to be Soccer parents.

[4] No footnote here. Move along, now.

[5] He took time off from work to accompany her.

[6] Or so she assures us.

[7] Ain’t no such thing. You can’t breed the wild out of wildlife.

[8] Imagine the behaviors innate to a housecat – scratching the furniture, jumping on the countertops, sometimes getting overexcited when playing rough with its owner and putting its claws out – magnified by an animal ten times the size and strength of your tabby.

[9] A very competitive field, with few openings.

[10] Yep, I’m talkin’ the odious cow/free milk equivalency that was spewed by Previous Generations. ®  Which I actually heard from one of my aunts, many decades ago, when I was a recent college graduate home for a visit with my parents. My aunt (also visiting my parents) was chatting with my mother and moiself about the lives of my aunt’s four adult children. She said she highly doubted that her youngest son would marry his girlfriend because they were already…well…sleeping together, and – she shot a knowing glance to my mother and a warning glance to moiself – why buy the cow….you know the rest.  A delicious coda to the story: that son of hers did go on to marry that girlfriend, and from all appearances they have had and continue to have a happy marriage (and he is the only one of that aunt’s children who has not been divorced).

The Phone Call I’m Not Anticipating

March 23, 2018

Robyn Parnell extended family, family life, friends, general ruminations, health & wellness, Wow , , , , 1 Comment

It’s never good news, when the phone rings before 5 a.m. 

It was the doctor from the emergency veterinary clinic. Our 16 ½ year old Bengal cat, B.B.  was there for his second night, as the staff tried to figure out why he had stopped eating. Blood tests with our regular veterinary office indicated pancreatitis; supportive treatment and pain management hadn’t helped, and he was just wasting away in front of us. Multiple screenings were not particularly revelatory, and then an ultrasound   [1]   showed fluid collecting in his chest; they suggested draining it and doing cytology on the fluid.  B.B. briefly perked up after the draining, then the fluid began to return and he was entering respiratory distress….

Daughter Belle was back at college after spending her spring break with us. We woke up Son K to apprise him of the situation, and he chose to accompany MH and I to the clinic. The three of us went through the box of tissues in the room where the vet brought B.B. to us, to spend a few last minutes in the laps he so loved (“He’s not drooling,” MH noted, “So you know he’s really sick.”  [2]  ). When we were ready, the vet returned, added several syringe contents to B.B.’s IV catheter while I stroked his head, and he was gone.

It was at once peaceful and gut-ripping. And all before the new spring day’s dawn.

 

*   *   *

Department Of A Brief History

You could consider me a hypocrite, in that one of our family cats is – was – an outdoor cat. For over eleven years I’ve volunteered for public (county animal shelter) and private animal adoption/rescue organizations, all of which educate/advise that cats must be indoor only pets (these organizations require adopters to sign a “contract”   [3]  stating they understand that they are agreeing to keep their cat indoors). I know all the reasons why it is better – for cats, for other animals, and for the neighborhood –  to have cats live indoors only. I agree with all the reasons.

And that was our intention when we got B.B. And he did fine for about 6 months, and we did everything right and on schedule.  [4] And then…something kicked in. And and and and and: He realized who and what he was:  he had to be the Bengal Boss. Of me, of you, of all cats, of the laundry….

 

 

B.B. The Snow King, Patrolling the ‘Hood

 

 

 

 

 

Re the latter: one of B.B.’d  many ways of trying to establish what he obviously thought was his Divine Right Of Household Dominance ®  (besides terrorizing our two other indoor cats) was to spray on just about anything, but in particular, on a pile of laundry. But not on any old pile of laundry – only MH’s.  An equally enticing pile of moiself’s laundry would be right there, next to MH’s, and B.B. would selectively piss on MH’s. It had to be A Guy Thing (i.e., testosterone thing), I figured.

Eventually, we converted our covered back porch to BBVille. MH and Belle constructed a box/platform (which Belle painted)…

 

 

 

 

…on top of which B.B. had his dining area outside of his covered bedroom, with a heated sleeping pad under his “winter” bed, which was inside the mini-condo with a flap opening. He preferred to sleep in his summer bed, on top of the condo, for the warm nights when he liked to sleep outside the condo and listen to the cricket serenade.

 

 

 

 

 

In B.B.’s younger days he was quite vigilant in defending his territory from the encroachment of squirrels, lizards, mice & rats  [5]  ) and…yes and unfortunately…any birds foolish enough to get within striking reach  (and some of those arrogant, taunting Scrub Jays would hop right up to him – they were practically asking for it).

Our cul-de-sac abuts a local creek, around which dwells a variety of urban-adapted wildlife, some of which roam the neighborhood after dark. The raccoons are champs at discovering and remembering which house has outdoor dogs and cats (and thus, an outdoor raccoon buffet, which I’m certain they view as their local food cart).

We always took B.B.’s food dish inside at night; nevertheless, we still had the occasional night visitors. B.B. was street-wise enough to give raccoons a wide berth; the nutria,  [6] while bothersome to neighbors further down the creek, rarely strayed into our part of the ‘hood  (but B.B. killed two who ventured here).  Possums B.B. seemed to regard with a placidity bordering on compassion – I think he thought they were some kind of deformed, mentally challenged feline. He never chased them away, but would stand by, looking on in mild surprise and pity (as if to say, Now, isn’t that pathetic?), when a possum managed to waddle up to his food bowl and take a few nibbles.

He was watchful and cautious around dogs (and never tangled with them, to our knowledge, although he made a few passes at smaller ones that got too close when their owners walked them by).  Other cats…were an other matter.

He had what I can only describe as a friendship with the cat who lived in the house across the street, a long-haired gray male (the imaginatively named, “Fluffy,”), who was also neutered and who never showed any aggression (and thus was the only cat B.B. would allow in our yard). Several times I saw the two of them under one of our cedar trees out front, sitting side by side, as if shooting the breeze. One time I approached and saw that there was a (dead) mouse on the ground between the two of them, which made me assume they were telling the cat equivalent of fishing stories (“You shoulda seen the one that got away.”)  When Fluffy died, I wondered if B.B. missed his buddy.

Over the years B.B. cost us…I don’t want to estimate how much…in vet bills. Mostly/seemingly (as the vets tried to reconstruct how he’d obtained certain injuries) due to fights with other cats, or the hazards of roaming (e.g., jumping up on a fence post and landing on a protruding nail) and hunting (cracking teeth while chewing on a squirrel femur). Here is a photographic souvenir of one of his more “creative” injuries, which resulted from a bite at the base of his tail which got infected , requiring the vet to construct an interesting draining apparatus. To help B.B. save face, we told everyone the device was intentional – that B.B. was trying out a potential Halloween costume, with his butt as an African elephant’s head:

 

 

*   *   *

 

In his later years we would often bring B.B.  inside in the evening, for some playtime with us (and his favorite slobber toy. as per K’s video below – turn up your volume). We still had to watch him carefully – as in, MH would say to me will you watch him for a sec? while MH turned his back to do something or get some thing, because in that mere second of not being right there and looking at him, B.B. might take the opportunity to correct the fact that our family room was bereft of his scent and attempt to remedy that by peeing on anything within pee-reach.  [7]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As the weather warms it seems sad and strange, to not have him accompany me to and from the mail box (“like a dog,” as more than one neighbor has put it). B.B would scurry ahead of me, his tail upraised – the tip of it crooked always to the left, like a cane handle – and look back to make sure I was following him. Without warning he’d flop down in front of me, causing me to slam on my walking brakes and lean down to pet him as he rolled around on his back and commented  [8]   on the weather.

And in the coming summer, when I am out in the back and side yards, picking raspberries and blueberries, I know I will feel the absence of his presence by my side (and running commentary, which I always interpreted as, “you missed a bunch, back on the left….”

*   *   *

Department Of It Wasn’t A Uniformly Sad Week

There are usually opportunities for levity, even in bleak circumstances. To wit, I was able to bring a flit of amusement to the vet’s somber/compassionate visage as she described the euthanasia process to MH, K and moiself. When she said that she would begin by giving B.B. the anesthetic propofol, I felt a momentary relief of distraction, realizing the celebrity connection, and blurted out, Just like Michael Jackson!

And then, there was Monday. In the afternoon a UPS truck left a delivery on our front porch. It was a large box, addressed to MH, which presented me with the cherished opportunity to send him the following message:

You got a big package.

 

 

 

 

 

*   *   *

May you have the good fortune to have appreciated non-human companionship;
May your pangs of grief be assuaged by the depths of affection for what is lost;
May you find a ray of sunshine in a piss-storm
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

 

 

[1] Translation: $$$

[2] Despite B.B.’s tough guy of the “hood appearance, he was always a sweetheart to the vets, and drooling was his almost immediate response to petting and lap time.

[3] Which is essentially unenforceable.

[4] As per how introductions to the other cats were facilitated, timing of B.B.’s neutering, etc.

[5] Our cul-de-sac abuts a local creek, home to many rodents, and we were grateful for B.B.’s pest contro several years back, when we didn’t have the mouse/rat problems common to other homes in the neighborhood.

[6] An invasive, destructive rodent of South American origins – smaller than a beaver but quite aggressive and known to take over a beaver family’s territory, decimate neighbor’s lawns and even attack small dogs – no one in the hood regretted their demise, and after neighbors made multiple calls to animal control…I haven’t seen any nutria in the creek for years.

[7] For B.B., everything was within pee reach.

[8] Bengals tend to be extremely vocal.

The New Rules I’m Not Explaining

March 16, 2018

Robyn Parnell are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, current events, freethought/humanism, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , 2 Comments

Departments of Youtoo and Which Lives Matter

I recently overheard snippets of a conversation between two (white) guys about the horrible burden placed upon them during the past couple of years. Alas, it seems that that they can no longer sling sexist and racist slurs with impunity “even joke” about “some stuff –  not only that, White Guy #1’s ____ (wife? girlfriend?)  [1]  objected when WG#1 defended a friend who’d publicly commented about the body of a female co-worker. White Guy #2 made some kind of commiseration grunt, and said he wished someone would explain the “new rules” (of such discourse, I assume) to him.

 

 

 

 

It was so difficult to restrain moiself, lemme tellya.

But it was dinner time, and there was a long line behind me in the 15 items or less checkout line, so I took WG#2’s rhetorical plea for explanation in the spirit it was likely intended, and held my tongue. However, if I’d had the time (and didn’t care if I were to be banned from shopping in that store, ever again), I might have said something like the following.

 

 

 

 

The key thing of it – the “it” here referring to that wonderful/prickly path we trod along with our comrade human beings, – is that to walk through this world as a decent friend, partner, citizen, or even bystander, you have to hold, and act on, two seemingly disparate or incongruous hypotheses:

(1) If you are male and your friend is female, *she* is the expert on what it’s like to be a woman in your culture. Your job is to listen to her when and if she feels comfortable enough to give an account and/or an analysis of her experiences, not to explain to her why it wasn’t really sexism or misogyny, either personal or systemic, when she tells you how

* she (as well as the only other woman who serves on the company advisory board) is repeatedly interrupted and “talked over” by male colleagues during meetings;

* her engineering project lab partner ridiculed and downplayed her ideas to their professor and then later presented them as his own;

* despite her reporting him to their manager, a fellow waiter persists in grabbing her ass when he sees her balancing a beverage tray on each hand;  [2]

*  she was not nominated for her party’s candidacy for County Commissioner, despite the fact that she was the most experienced potential candidate, and when she commented aloud on the historical disparity of women in said office a party fundraiser took her aside and told her that he could not effectively raise money for women candidates…

If you are a man and your friend/partner/neighbor/co-worker is a woman, she is the expert on being a woman. Not you.  If you want to be an ally – if you want to be One Of The Good Guys, ®  [3]  listen to her when she conveys her experiences. Then, hopefully and deliberately, you will strategize on How Not To Be Those Kinds Of Men, and  how to influence and support fellow menfolk to do likewise.

(2) Here is where the (perhaps greater) challenge comes in: although your woman friend is her own expert on being a woman, she is not The President of All Women. ®  Nor does she speak for all women. She may have hold diametrically opposed positions on certain personal and personal positions and have very different life experiences than, say, her female cousin, or the woman who cashiers at the supermarket. Still, all three of them – your friend, her cousin, and the cashier – are their own “experts” re navigating this world as a woman, while you are not.

 

 

Ignore this cranky Italian writer and keep on trying.

 

 

 

The same goes for your black co-worker, who is an expert on being black. Your job as a white friend or acquaintance or neighbor or co-worker is not to whitesplain to him –

when he relates his experience of being terrified, and later enraged, when, while driving his new BMW and committing no traffic infractions, he was pulled over and interrogated by a police officer who wondered why he was driving through that particular neighborhood

–  re why he saw prejudice where it didn’t exist, and how difficult it is to be a cop…

Your job is to listen, and to learn, if possible. He is the expert on what it means to be black in America, not you – even though, as per (2) above

*  your black co-worker does not speak for the mythical “Black Community,” and

* he may hold political opinions and have had experiences that are vastly different from those of, say, his uncle, who is a rabid Clarence Thomas supporter.

Ditto for your LGBTQ friends, if you are straight, for your atheist/humanist/religion-free friends if you are a religious believer, or for any other “oppressed” or “minority” group.  [4]

Whiteness/straightness/maleness/religiosity has controlled the microphone for a long, long time.  You may feel the pendulum is swinging too far to the other side.  Tough titties.  If it truly is, pendulums being what they are, it will eventually swing back.

Your task between swings is to listen and (fingers crossed) learn. You can disagree, of course, but try reflecting on what was said, maybe even overnight or – gasp, in this world where a six second gif of your brain exploding seems to long – for a few days or longer, before you share your disagreement. Try the proverbial walking in another person’s shoes; wait for a long…long…long time before responding. And consider whether any response (other than a change of heart and/or action) is actually necessary. Will your feedback truly be helpful?

 

 

 

*   *   *

Department of Disclaimers

The previous harangue thoughtful exposition of compelling social issues was is in no way meant to be supportive two other controversial topics: (1) for fiction writers, the hideous admonition to, “write what you know,“  and (2) the  warnings against so-called cultural appropriation.  I find both concepts, however “well-meaning” their champions may be,  [5] to be despicable – inaccurate at best and intellectually suppressive at worst – and moiself has commented  on such previously in this space.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of I Am So Not Making This Up

Wonder Bible ™ Audio Player…the incredible bible that speaks! … Contains the  entire Old and New Testaments of the Bible in the King James Version.

 

 

 

Yet another commercial that I assumed was a Saturday Night Live parody, but which turned out to be deliciously real.

Simply turn on the Wonder Bible, and a pleasant voice reads the book to you.

The product description  material says that the Wonder Bible Audio Player contains skip and fast forward functions – tasks which comes in handy for any religion. For generations the “skip function” has been widely and successfully used by clerics (as well as their parishioners), who prefer to ignore the passages of their scriptures which champion violence,  genocide  misogyny, racism, sexual abuse, child abuse and other abominable/just plain bat shit crazy edicts and stories  [6] that populate the collection of bronze and iron age mythologies which have come to be known as the Old and New Testaments.  [7]

The road to atheism is littered with bibles that have been read cover to cover.
 ( Andrew Seidel, Civil Rights and Constitutional Law attorney,
Freedom From Religion Foundation )

Those of us happy heretics who know the bible better than most bible-believers can’t help but wonder how the “pleasant voice” narrating “the entire” Wonder Bible will handle such passages as

* “He that is wounded in the stones, or hath his privy member cut off, shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord.” (Deuteronomy 23:1)

* “Slaves, be subject to your masters with all reverence, not only to those who are good and equitable but also to those who are perverse.” (1 Peter 2:18)

* “Behold with a great plague will the LORD smite thy people and thy children, and thy wives, and all thy goods: And thou shalt have great sickness by disease of thy bowels, until thy bowels fall out by reason of the sickness day by day.” (II Chronicles 21:14-15)*

* “If two men are fighting and the wife of one of them comes to rescue her husband from his assailant, and she reaches out and seizes him by his private parts, you shall cut off her hand. Show her no pity.” (Deuteronomy 25:11-12)

* ” And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying…Whosoever he be of thy seed in their generations that hath any blemish, let him not approach to offer the bread of his God. For whatsoever man he be that hath a blemish, he shall not approach: a blind man, or a lame, or he that hath a flat nose, or anything superfluous, Or a man that is brokenfooted, or brokenhanded, Or crookbackt, or a dwarf, or that hath a blemish in his eye, or be scurvy, or scabbed, or hath his stones broken; No man that hath a blemish…shall come nigh to offer the offerings of the LORD…. ‘” (Leviticus 21:16-21)

 

 

Can’t wait to hear the pleasant voice tackle this one.

 

 

 

* “Samaria shall become desolate; for she hath rebelled against her God: they shall fall by the sword: their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped up.” (Hosea 13:16 )

* “…Judah’s firstborn was wicked in the sight of the LORD; and the LORD slew him. And Judah said unto Onan, Go in unto thy brother’s wife, and marry her, and raise up seed to thy brother.  And Onan knew that the seed should not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in unto his brother’s wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother.”  (Genesis 38:7-9)

* “A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent.” (1 Timothy 2:11-12)

* “…they warred against the Midianites, as the LORD commanded Moses; and they slew all the males….and took all the women of Midian captives, and their little ones….And they brought the captives…unto Moses….Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive?  Behold, these caused the children of Israel…to commit trespass against the LORD….Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him.  But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.”  (Numbers 31:7-18)

* “For she doted upon their paramours, whose flesh is as the flesh of asses, and whose issue is like the issue of horses.” (Ezekiel 23:20)

 

 

 

*   *   *

May you judiciously monitor your own skip function;
May you save your pleasant voice for deserving stories;
May we all be One of The Good Guys ® ;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

 

 

 

 

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

 

 

[1]  I don’t know the relationship, only that the person was female.

[2] And if you use any variation of the dreadful boys will be boys excuse to downplay such incidents, she will be within her rights as a sentient being to Gorilla Glue a hornet’s nest to  your boys will be parts.

[3] And if you don’t, then please speak with Eion Musk‘s SpaceX team (or The Hemlock Society)  to arrange your earliest possible trip off of this planet.

[4] Even if you may have legitimate disagreements with those labels.

[5] Oh, how I shudder to hear that term, for when it’s applied it almost always is used to excuse some kind of verbal or procedural disaster (“She means well….”).

[6] (All supposedly “inspired” by their god(s) .

[7] Or, The Hebrew Scriptures, as the OT is sometimes referred to.

The Omission I’m Not Admitting

March 9, 2018

Robyn Parnell community, current events, family life, foodie, friends, movies, Oregon, school, TV, Wow, YEE HAW!, Yikes! , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Omission I’m Not Admitting

Department Of Corrections

Dateline: Sunday eve. As I settled in one of the Comfy Chairs ® in our family room, looking over my 2018 Oscar ballot (along with fellow Eager Oscar Watchers MH and friend LH), I gasped in horror and embarrassment. My reaction was worthy of a supporting acting nomination, as I realized I was mistaken re my previous claims (on this blog, to fellow movie-loving friends, to total strangers in the quick check line at the Home Depot….  [1] ) of having seen every movie nominated for the Academy Awards  “Big Ones.”

 

 

To Protect, Serve, And Apologize

 

 

 

Just in case y’all have lives as pathetic as mine are wondering, the “Big Ones” are the seven awards for Best _____

Picture;
Director;
Actors in a Leading Role, male and female;
Actors in a Supporting Role, male and female;
Best Original Screenplay  [2]

There was the name, Canadian, dignified, yet mocking me for my smugness.  Christopher Plummer,  number four of the five actors listed for Actor in a Supporting Role, for his role as multi gazillionaire J. Paul Getty in All the Money in the World, a movie I’d made plans to see with a friend.  I can’t remember what happened…but I didn’t see that movie.

Christopher, darling, loooooove your work all these years – and really, could anyone have played a Shakespeare-reciting Klingon general as well as you did?    [3]   So sorry to have missed your latest.  I hope you’ll forgive me.

 

 

A pox upon the silly human; I am sick with laughter as she fears her remembrance doth hold rank!

 

 

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Stress Reduction
Sub-Department Of Eventually Luck Runs Out

No political rants today; the week has been stressful enough.  To wit: one of the many, many things I do not “believe in” – including gods, the efficacy of homeopathic remedies, and the accuracy of the garment label claim, one size fits all – is “fate.’  Accordingly, I also do not believe that I can, intentionally or otherwise, “temp fate.”

So, apparently it’s just sonofabitch coincidence that, two days after musing to moiself, apropos of nothing, Golly gee, it’s been 40 years since anyone has hit my car, am I lucky or what?!, guess what happens in the parking lot of the Elderberry Inn on Highway 26?

Ford truck backing up, meet stationary Subaru Outback.

 

 

 

 

 

The first Very Nice Claims Department Person (for the insurance company of the dude who hit me  [4]) I spoke with asked me to describe the extent of the damage (to my front passenger door), starting with, Have you checked to see if the door still works?

I told her the door can be opened and shut and locked; I didn’t know about the power window (which was all the way up,) and would not check it. VNCDP asked why I would not check the window. The question surprised me. I told her I’d leave that to an auto service person and would NOT attempt to ascertain whether the window “works,” seeing as how:

(a)  This is NW Oregon (the claims dept person was located…somewhere else); it rains, frequently. It is raining right now, even as we speak. Thus, even if I am able to get the window down…

(b) I might not be able to get it up

(c) I realize (b) is a problem typically associated with men….

 

Okay; I stopped myself from saying (c). But I did think it.

 

 

 

 

 

Now I get to be acquainted with just how much fun it is to deal with insurance bureaucracy and repair estimates…and with what appears to be, as of this writing, the looming/potential ignoring of responsibility by the Dude Who Was Initially So Cooperative ®   [5] – a dude who almost made his boneheaded-act worthwhile  [6]  by telling me, as I was photographing his insurance card and driver’s license, how he’d once backed his truck into his wife’s car.

Your Honor, the Defendant has already admitted that he doesn’t look where he’s going when he puts his truck in reverse….

 

 

 

Why do I get all the bone heads in *my* courtroom?

 

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of This Ought To Last Him

Back in the day, I used to regularly make buttermilk biscuits for son K and daughter Belle.  I gradually and persistently tweaked the recipe as the years went by, trying out more “healthful” ingredients,  [7]   but one thing that remained the same was son K’s love of Gloria’s Mount Hood Marionberry Fruit Spread as a biscuit topping.

I fell out of regular biscuit baking when the offspring flew the proverbial nest. Son K graduated college three years ago and is living and working nearby. He has turned into an occasional and enthusiastic baker, and recently asked for my biscuit recipe. He also wanted to know where he could find that marionberry fruit spread he loved so much (he’d looked, but had been unable to find it in any local stores).

Even when I served it on a regular basis, it had been difficult to find a regular supply of the stuff  – I used to order it by the case from the maker. I searched the web and thought I’d found a supplier via the Made in Oregon website, but the site had an out of stock notice re the marionberry spread. Perhaps, I sadly posited to K, it’s no longer being made?

A few weeks ago I spontaneously decided to stop and check out a roadside store I pass regularly on my drives to and from the coast. I had long been intrigued by the signs outside the store advertising the store’s various specialty items, such as, “vegan jerky.”  After stopping to sample the store’s wares I was able to assure MH that vegan jerky was not, in fact, “jerky made from vegans” (which was his guess). Unexpected bonus: the store had jars of various flavors of Gloria’s fruit spreads, including a couple of the Mount Hood Marionberry K adores. Gloria’s was still being produced, the store clerk assured me, but she had no idea where the store got their supply.

I did my Internet Snooping Thing, ®  found the local producer, and….

What to get your 25 year old son for his birthday?  Why, this, of course:

 

 

Shown: case one of two

*   *   *

May you correct that which needs correcting;
May we all live in the future wherein car repairs are accomplished with a Harry Potter-ish Carrus Reparo spell;
May someone love you enough to give you cases of your favorite fruit preserves for your birthday;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

 

 

And a (one day belated) Happy Birthday to my favorite son.

Son K, age 2 ¾, Mackenzie River Valley, circa Fall 1995

*   *   *

 

 

[1] To the dude with the pack of florescent light bulbs, I am so sorry.

[2] I vacillate on including Best Adapted Screenplay in my “big ones” category;  I want the original author of the adapted material to get the lion’s share of the credit.

[3] In Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.

[4] Which shall not be mentioned by name here…unless they really piss me off, so stay tuned.

[5] Of course he was, seeing as how he hit me.

[6] Strike that – of course it wasn’t worthwhile, under any circumstances.

[7] Replacing most of the unbleached white flour with oat flour and whole wheat pastry flour; using non dairy “milks” and/or yogurts and other substitutes for butter….

The Posts I’m Not Reading

March 2, 2018

Robyn Parnell community, current events, general ruminations, music, politics, sports, Uncategorized, YEE HAW! , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Posts I’m Not Reading

Although my number of FB contacts is growing at a moderate pace, the number of posts to my home page seems to be growing exponentially. Even so, it is taking moiself less time these days to do my read/nod/skim (of the posts) and say, move along.  The number of political posts re Cadet Bone Spurs and his band of (Global) Village Idiots….  I. Just. Can’t. Do. It. For. Very. Long.

I’m trusting (a hard thing for me to do, trust me  [1]  ) the FBI and investigative journalists (both here and internationally) to do their respective jobs. When I despair, I try to remember Watergate, and how long it took to detect, understand, and expose the Nixon administration’s tangled web of deceit, criminality and paranoia. In one of life’s many nasty paradoxes, it often seems to take only months for greed, incompetence, criminality, racism, misogyny, and treason to slime their way to the top, yet years to bring the purveyors of such to justice.

 

 

Note the date. The Watergate break-in was June 1972. It took more than two years of evidence-gathering, investigation and testimony….

 

 

*   *   *

A Blast From The Olympic Past

Dateline: Friday, February 23, NY Times sports section. My attention was captured by the following headline, for a story about a Public Address system announcer at the Winter Olympics being told to stop using French pronunciations for some of the Canadian hockey players:

Kerfuffle Erupts In Canada Over French Pronunciations

My first thought was, What a great name for a band!  I need a bit of help – not only am I wavering between just what music genre/kind of band would be most suitable, but the name itself…there are so many opportunities:

 

Kerfuffle Erupts

 

 

 

The Erupting Kerfuffles

 

They Might Be Erupting Kefuffles

 

 

The Artist Formerly Known as Kerfuffle Erupts

 

 

Bruce And the E- Street Kerfuffles

 

Stand by Your Erupting Kerfuffles

 

 

The Kerfuffle Family Eruptions

 

 

 

Please, somebody, stop me.

 

*   *   *

Department Of Fuck You, Coca-Cola  [2]

I know it’s nutritional rubbish, moiself would often acknowledge, even as I engaged in my longtime diet cola habit. I justified it because I didn’t have one every day, and when I did it was (usually, only) one a day, at lunch (if I was out for lunch, which I often was during the week and almost always on Saturday and Sunday). Besides, I liked it.  “Sodas” were a rare treat when I was growing up. I loved the taste, and especially the bubbles, the carbonation – and the flavor of mineral water  [3]  is, to moiself, what I imagine licking the sidewalk would taste like.

And the diet products…I justified them with, at least I’m not getting the over NINE TEASPOONS of sugar that’s in an average can of Pepsi or Coke.  Then came the mounting evidence against diet sodas, which indicates that people who drink them are at greater risk of developing Type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome – the latter of which is responsible for the seeming conundrum which is that consumption of diet drinks is linked to increased weight gain.

Yep, Evidence reared its fearsome head.

 

 

 

Knowledge is both power and willpower for me (even if it takes a while to sink in, when it comes to altering longtime habits).  It is difficult for me to not know something once I know it. The clincher for me, in my successful swearing off of the Soda Habit, was the Ick Factor ® realization that came with recent revelations: every time I consume a Diet Coke or its rival equivalent(s), I am supporting the soft drink beverage companies’ morally reprehensible – and disastrous, to public health – campaign of obfuscation and deception.

These revelations include that the Coca-Cola company, as far back as fifty years ago, began a campaign to hire scientists to attempt to shift the blame/public attention for increasing obesity and type 2 diabetes rates away from sugar consumption by blaming dietary fat. Their scheme to divert attention from the mounting evidence linking soda consumption with weight gain and poor health included funding the Global Energy Balance Network, an “astroturfing”  [4] organization purporting to research diabetes but whose employees were actually being paid to promote the idea that insufficient exercise, not bad nutrition, was the primary cause of weight gain. [5]

 

 

 

 

 

The evidence is out and, like diet soda drinkers’ waistlines, it is increasing. Whether due to health concerns, or the encroachment of beverages other than sodas into the market (or some combination of those and other factors), soda pop consumption in the US has been gradually declining…leading the soda beverage industry with a marketing challenge: How, in the face of increasing awareness that their products are a health sinkhole, can they keep pushing the young happy healthy looking people have even more fun drinking our fizzy stuff images?

Of course, beverage corporations are not the first to deal with this issue. Tobacco companies can no longer (directly) market their death-by-stick products as part of a carefree or even healthful lifestyle – they can’t even market them at all, in certain venues.

 

 

 

 

 

 

But they can still, through print ads and entertainment placement – and with the unwitting [6]  cooperation of music and movie stars and other celebrities – try to play the Bad Ass Cool Card ®.  The ultra hip Rebel, defiant of convention and evidence, does what he wants to do simply because he wants to do it, his lungs (and your and my) air quality be damned.

Taking a page from the tobacco industry’s vile playbook is what likely spawned the insidious Diet Coke commercial which ran during NBC’s telecast of the Olympic Games. Did you see it? I was slack-jawed at the ad’s blatant yeah, so what?-ism   [7] – and by its tacit acknowledgement that drinking a Diet Coke is not a good thing to do, but c’mon, you know you want it (and the company really wants you to want it). It was a basic, up yours to health: have a Diet Coke because you can.

Here’s the thing about Diet Coke; it’s delicious. It makes me feel good.
Life is short; if you want to live in a yurt, yurt it up…
(from the Diet Coke ad,” ‘Because I Can’ Featuring Gillian Jacobs”)

I like it; it makes me feel good.  Protested every junkie, ever.

Oh, and the equating of “living in a yurt” with not falling for corporate propaganda and acting upon information and actually caring about what you put in your body?  The ad’s cynicism and anti-intellectualism is so transparent…and, sadly, it’s also probably effective.

The attractive, mildly-sarcastic-enough-to-be-cool-young-woman ®  all but blurts out that she knows she’s putting liquid shit in her body, but she wants to do so, so there – an attitude which  appeals to the 13 year old in all of us who wants to give a Nyah Nyah Nyah Nyah to whatever authority is telling us to do (or not do) something.  Nice touch, Coke marketing douchebags.  [8]

The ad is titled, “The Diet Coke Ad ‘Because I Can’ Featuring Gillian Jacobs.  This leads me to assume I’m supposed to know who Gillian Jacobs is, other than the latest Pretty Young Thing Prostituting Herself for Her Ten Minutes of Fame Making A Buck Shilling A Product.

 

 

 

Young Lady, do your parents know of your low-class harlotry?

 

 

 

She’s most likely an actor…of some kind…appearing in some thing. I’ll waste neither precious time nor keyboard strokes Googling her.

I will, however, venture to waste keystrokes and do a cringe-worthy thing here: make a plea to y’all to stop buying and consuming the crap Coca-Cola et al are selling.  I’m talking baby steps here (at least, at first). If you are a soda junkie aficionado, please consider, maybe, giving it up when you dine out?  [9]  Water is the beverage our bodies need – order tea and/or coffee,  [10]  if you need to dress it up or just can’t imagine having “just water” with you meal.   [11]

Or, speaking of just, just do the math yourself: look up those reports I cited. After that, ask yourself why would you want to continue rewarding such atrocious behavior?

 

 

Book ’em, Danno: Criminal negligence and complicity in the second degree.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of I Guess Someone Was Running On Autopilot

Dateline: Sunday afternoon, at a grocery store’s express checkout line. It’s a busy day and the line is slow (express line?!  Fail); thus, I have a chance to observe the young checker-man. With every new customer, Young Checker-Man symmetrically and oh-so-briefly raises the corners of his mouth, like some AI approximation of a smile, as he asks them variations on the same questions (what kind of bag do they want, if they didn’t set their own in front of him, and do they play the store’s Monopoly game) before he dismisses them with Have a nice day.  I had only two bottles of sparkling juice, and when it was my turn I quickly and kindly told YC-M that I didn’t need a bag and did not play the store’s monopoly game, thank you. In the three seconds it took me to look down at my purse and extract my wallet I found that YC-M had double-bagged my items and given me three of the store’s Monopoly game tokens.

As the line was long behind me, I decided not to bring YC-M’s ignoring of my instructions to his attention.  Still, I couldn’t resist one more test to his attentiveness. As YC-M cheerlessly instructed me to Have A Nice Day I chirped, “No thanks, I have other plans.”

He didn’t even blink.

 

We give you a bag, whether you want one or not. It’s what we do.

 

 

 

*   *   *

May you always have other plans;
May you develop a (non-life-threatening) allergy – ethical or physical – to soda pop;
May you appreciate a kerfuffle worthy of the Olympic games;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

 

 

 

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

 

 

[1] Methinks I need to rephrase that.

[2] and PepsiCo and Dr. Pepper/Snapple and….

[3] Often suggested by friends and acquaintances as an alternative to soft drinks.

[4] Astroturfing is “…the practice of masking the sponsors of a message or organization (e.g., political, advertising, religious or public relations) to make it appear as though it originates from and is supported by a grassroots participant(s). It is a practice intended to give the statements or organizations credibility by withholding information about the source’s financial connection.”

[5] And we now know it’s the other way around – you can’t out-exercise a poor diet.

[6] I’m sorry to imply there is any association with any variation of the word wit with the word celebrities.

[7] But really, I shouldn’t have been.

[8] The Los Angeles office of the ad agency Anomaly and Ogilvy & Mather.

[9] Dining out is, according to one doctor I talked to years ago, when most people consume sodas. I’m not sure that this is true anymore (maybe it never was)…but it would be a start, to quit association soda consumption with the “treat” of going out to eat.

[10] Or, of course, a yummy Oregon Pinor Noir.

[11] The beverage and restaurant industries have worked for years to insure we feel somehow inadequate for having “only” water with our meals.