Department Of Why You Don’t Want Me To Fill Out Your Survey
Dear, ____ (name of artistic group whose events I patronize),
I know that you-who-sent-moiself-this-survey – or the consultants which convinced you to do so, to justify their services – hope that having me fill out your survey will help you to “gain insights into the kind of audience” you are attracting, or wish to attract. [1]
However, I am slightly annoyed/somewhat mystified by the myriad of (what I consider to be) none-of-your-business/how-does-this-matter? questions. Checking “prefer not to disclose” was not satisfying, to moiself…then, my annoyance morphed into delight, when I came upon this question in your survey:
Please select any of the following sexual identities/orientations that describe you.
Aromantic
Asexual
Bisexual
Fluid
Gay
Heterosexual or straight
Lesbian
Pansexual
Queer
Questioning or unsure
Prefer not to disclose
Other:
At first glance I thought the first option was “Aromatic.” Which I decided to disclose to you, under “other.” I also thought about checking “pansexual” (I have this thing for cast iron skillets)…but…nah.
Anyway, thanks for the entertainment.
Are those your grill ridges, or are you just happy to see me?
* * *
Department Of These Labels Violate My Boundaries
Sometimes moiself wonders if social media has amplified the tendency we all have toward practicing amateur psychiatry. We scoff at our social media friend who barks, “Don’t poison your body – do your own research!” and sends us a link to a 15 minute video hosted by a dubiously-credentialed Guy In A Lab Coat® who spouts conspiracy theories contradicting 15 years of medical research on RNA vaccines. Then we turn around and employ (and misuse) psychological concepts and diagnoses, such as boundaries and narcissist.
In psychology jargon, boundaries are rules and guidelines we set for *ourselves,* to help us set realistic limits on activities and relationships. We choose and set these boundaries; thus, it is we who are in charge of enforcing them. Yet, those [2] I hear (or read about) who use the term boundaries emphasize the actions of *other* people – extended family; coworkers; friends and neighbors – whom they accused of ignoring or violating their boundaries. They forget the crucial point of boundaries (or perhaps never understood it in the first place): boundaries are rules that *they* set for *themselves,* not for others.
” Yet even as ‘boundaries‘ have taken off, the concept has become misunderstood, joining gaslit and narcissist in the pantheon of misused psychology jargon. When you want someone to do something, throwing in the word boundary can lend the request a patina of therapeutic legitimacy.
When imposed on us, boundaries can feel upsetting. Because many people view happy relationships as problem-free, a request to behave differently can feel like a rejection. Some people—out of trauma or other wounds—interpret a ‘no’ from a loved one as the end of a relationship. But boundaries are supposed to help preserve relationships, not destroy them. ‘People typically believe that boundaries are to control people, and in actuality, they are safeguards for yourself and for peace and comfort in your relationships,’ says the therapist and Drama Free author Nedra Glover Tawwab.”
( “The Most Misunderstood Concept in Psychology: What are boundaries?” By Olga Khazan” The Atlantic 8/23 , my emphases )
That article got me to thinking about more misuse/misunderstandings of the other two psychology terms the article mentions – terms that but get diluted with mis- and over-use.
Narcissist. How many times have y’all heard that term, used as a pejorative and also as an analysis of a difficult spouse/coworker/person/family member, despite the fact that the person being labeled a narcissisthas not received a Narcissistic Personality Disorder diagnosis from a mental health professional, nor has ever even visited a counselor? [3]
” ‘One of the internet’s favorite diagnoses is that someone is a narcissist—which has become shorthand for anyone who appears self-centered or entitled. The term is ‘thrown around so carelessly,’ says Jacquelyn Tenaglia, a licensed mental health counselor based in Boston. ‘I see narcissism being especially misapplied when it’s used to label someone who exhibits qualities that someone might not like.’
While it might feel good to call your frenemy who only talks about herself a narcissist, mental-health experts suggest refraining. Narcissistic personality disorder is a clinical diagnosis….”
And gaslit – I’m hearing that term more and more, to describe the allegedly nefarious actions and/or motivations of someone we don’t trust and/or just don’t like…but, are we really using it correctly?
The term is derived from the 1944 movie, [4]Gaslight. Gaslight tells the story of a late 19th century woman who is whirlwind-romanced into marriage, by a man who wants to gain access to her wealthy aunt’s estate, in which, he’s discovered, many valuable jewels are hidden. The husband tries to convince his wife that their house’s gas lights, which flicker and fade (but only when she is in a room, alone) are not in fact actually dimming, and that she is imagining the sounds she hears coming from the attic. The husband himself is the one behind both the noises and the dimming lights, in a strategy to drive his wife mad and have her institutionalized.
Someone can treat you poorly, even lie to you, without “gaslighting” you.
“Although in most cases the word serves to expose implicit power dynamics and level the playing field, it can also be used to do the exact opposite. That’s thanks to a process called ‘semantic bleaching,’ where a word’s true meaning gets diluted through imprecise and bad-faith usage…. woke—a word that originally meant ‘socially and politically aware,’ but now can be used to mean ‘sensitive’ and ‘irrational about social and political issues’ because of semantic bleaching by right-leaning media.”
Moiself highly recommends these articles I’ve cited (and hope I’m not violating any of your boundaries with this suggestion).
* * *
Department Of And One More Thing We’re Overusing/Doing Wrong:
Can we please stop referring to people as toxic?
“One of my most important rules as a therapist: Ignore all adjectives. When one of my clients says someone in their life is selfish, or cold, or hot-tempered, it doesn’t tell me much about the problem. Adjectives aren’t facts.
That’s especially true of ‘toxic,’ an adjective that’s become increasingly popular in and outside of my office (it was even the Oxford Dictionaries’ word of the year in 2018). It’s also easily overused — a way of reframing a difficult relationship as one not worth having.
So, when I have a therapy client who uses ‘toxic’ to describe someone, I don’t ask them to clarify, or to reconsider the word. Instead, I focus on the facts of the challenging situation they’re telling me about….
When you feel anxious around another person, your brain will begin to take emotional shortcuts that usually involve fighting, fleeing, or complaining to others. You quickly label the person as ‘toxic,’ declare their toxicity as the cause of your anxiety, and assume that escaping them will fix your distress…
When one of my clients starts getting into adjective-heavy territory, I redirect them with questions like, ‘What did they do?’…and ‘Where and when did this happen?’ and ‘How did you respond?’ Notice that none of these questions have the word ‘why.’ This is because ‘why’ usually requires you to guess a person’s motivation, or label them as a certain kind of person….”
(“Why Therapists Avoid Using the Word ‘Toxic’ – Labeling others can stunt your own growth,” Forge.medium.com ; my emphases )
Hey, I enjoy petty name calling as much as the next guy. But do I really think the person who annoys me – or even the who has treated me poorly [5] for years – has venom running through his veins, and that touching him would set off an anaphylactic or neurological reaction? Or is it that he does ____, and ____, and ____, and thus I believe it is ultimately unhealthy for me to be around him?
Delineate, please. Be specific; calling someone toxic tells me nothing, except that you don’t like them.
“Toxins are poisonous substances produced within living cells or organisms and can include various classes of small molecules or proteins that cause disease on contact. The severity and type of diseases caused by toxins can range from minor effects to deadly effects. The organisms which are capable of producing toxins include bacteria, fungi, algae, and plants. Some of the major types of toxins include, but are not limited to, environmental, marine, and microbial toxins. Microbial toxins may include those produced by the microorganisms bacteria (i.e. bacterial toxins) and fungi (i.e. mycotoxins).” ( 14.4A; Toxins, Biology Libre Texts )
Is your boss doing any of this? He may be a brazenly manipulative asshat, but he’s probably not toxic.
* * *
* * *
Department Of Affirmations Gone Astray
Moiself received yet another solicitation to purchase “anti-aging” products. The misogyny and (ultimate) futility of the concept behind the term “anti-aging” I have railed articulately commented about, many times, in this space.
“Viral on TikTok” and “proven by science” – such a deal!
This time I had a minor epiphany as to the appropriateness of the term. Anti-aging: it is, indeed, anti– aging…which therefore makes it anti-life. Because if you’re not aging, you’re not alive. The only people who do not (who cannot) age are dead.
Feeling rather smug, I briefly meditated upon another embrace-the reality-maxim:
Today I am as old as I have ever been, and, as young as I will ever be.
“I realized early on that it is detailed scientific knowledge which makes certain religious beliefs untenable. A knowledge of the true age of the earth and of the fossil record makes it impossible for any balanced intellect to believe in the literal truth of every part of the Bible in the way that fundamentalists do. And if some of the Bible is manifestly wrong, why should any of the rest of it be accepted automatically? . . . What could be more foolish than to base one’s entire view of life on ideas that, however plausible at the time, now appear to be quite erroneous? And what would be more important than to find our true place in the universe by removing one by one these unfortunate vestiges of earlier beliefs?”
May you always identify as the Best-Smelling Orientation; May you remove unfortunate vestiges of earlier erroneous beliefs; May you enforce boundaries with the narcissistic gaslighters, real or imagined, in your life; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] I know this because it says so on the survey’s intro.
[2] These folks are not mental-health care professionals.
[3] Oh, but that would be typical of a narcissist, right?
[6] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
[7] British physicist and biologist Crick, along with James Watson, Rosalind Franklin, and Maurice Wilkins, helped decipher the structure and replication scheme of DNA, for which he (and others) won the Nobel Prize in Physiology/Medicine.
Department Of This Is Beyond Depressing Sub-Department Of Are We Abetting A Nation Of Crybaby Snitches?
“As gold sunlight filtered into her kitchen, English teacher Mary Wood shouldered a worn leather bag packed with first-day-of-school items….
Everything was ready, but Wood didn’t leave. For the first time since she started teaching 14 years ago, she was scared to go back to school.
Six months earlier, two of Wood’s Advanced Placement English Language and Composition students had reported her to the school board for teaching about race. Wood had assigned her all-White class readings from Ta-Nehisi Coates’s ‘Between the World and Me,’ a book that dissects what it means to be Black in America.
The students wrote in emails that the book — and accompanying videos that Wood, 47, played about systemic racism — made them ashamed to be White, violating a South Carolina proviso that forbids teachers from making students ‘feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress’ on account of their race.”
( excerpted from, “Her students reported her for a lesson on race. Can she trust them again?: Mary Wood’s school reprimanded her for teaching a book by Ta-Nehisi Coates. Now she hopes her bond with students can survive South Carolina’s new laws.” By Hannah Natanson, The Washington Post, 9-18-23 )
I read Between the World and Me. I think every American should read Between the World and Me. I wish that a book like Between the World and Me had been published when I was in my American History and social studies classes in high school, and if it had been, I know we would have been able to read and discuss it.
Gaaaawwwwd, it makes me feel old, to read about this shameful South Carolina policy. Old in a different way than the usual, “In my day…” story, which is often the tag line for a Good Old Days ® conservative cultural sentiment.
Why does it seem as if we are going backwards? [1]Moiself was able to benefit from so many high school classroom topics and discussions that some people, apparently, would find “controversial” (read: threatening) today, but that which we students managed to deal with. Isn’t that the point of education?
I remember when a couple of friends of mine, who were taking the Logic class given by one of our high school’s most respected teachers, told me about how they were frustrated after a classroom discussion wherein a student brought up the topic of religion: this student thought that some idea(s) presented in the class threatened his religion in particular and/or dismissed the idea of taking something “on faith” in general, and wanted the class to discuss it. Being a class on logic, i.e., a class on learning to employ and evaluate different kinds of arguments [2] and learning how to recognize good or bad arguments, students who made illogical and or unsubstantiated claims re their religion were challenged, and the mistakes in their arguments and claims were pointed out to them, by both the teacher *and* by fellow students.
I listened to my friends’ recounting of the class’s discussion; I pointed out where I thought the other students and teachers had made excellent points, and gave my friends the, “Hey, chin up – this is good for you!” support. My friends accepted my feedback – one of them had to pout for a minute, as she was initially put out by the fact that I didn’t just jump to her defense, no matter what, but she was thoughtful and gracious about it.
And that was that.
It never occurred them to run whining to their parents like a tantruming toddler:
“Mommy, Daddy, that mean Mr. Guggenheim made me feel uncomfortable!
My teacher corrected me when I made false assertions
and used faulty reasoning!
My teacher introduced me to new ideas!
My teacher attempted to teach!
WAAAAAAHHHHHH! “
What’s with students – in an *Advanced Placement* class – turning into narcs? WTF ?!?!?! Coate’s book is just the kind of thought-provoking material “advanced” students should be reading and discussing.
This is yet another sad example of the wimping out by and dumbing down of the American student, and it is happening on all sides of the cultural and political spectrum. Those college students who essentially put their hands over their ears and assume the nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah I can’t hear you posture, as they bleat, “We feel threatened! We need safe spaces in order to learn!” while they shout down and/or attempt to censor professors and guest speakers with whom they disagree? Same coin; opposite side.
And what kind of parents would report a teacher for…..arrrrghhh. My own parents were conservative, both with regards to politics and religion, but it never would have occurred to them [4] to presume to tell my teachers what and how to teach.
* * *
Department Of I Don’t Give A Rat’s Ass About What Percentage Of Tag Fees Go Toward So-Called “Conservation Efforts,”
I Wish All Hunters Would Hunt Each Other And Leave Other Creatures Alone
Yet another misguided attempt at forging common ground. Because, yeah, what can unite us human beings – despite our differences in skin color, origin, religion, ethnicity, etc. – is the All-American ® desire to kill other living beings for the sheer, bloodthirsty fun of it sport.
“Hunters of Color, founded in Corvallis in 2020…is a nonprofit intent on diversifying the outdoors, specifically hunting. The organization has flourished since its inception, with ambassadors in Texas, Washington, New Mexico and many more states. It offers a mentorship program, hands-on restoration opportunities and anti-racist education services. The organization aims to confront and remove barriers for people of color interested in hunting.” ( excerpt from “The outdoors are for everyone: Oregon nonprofit aims to diversify hunting,” Oregonlive.com )
* * *
The Podcast I’m Looking Forward To (Sub-Department Of Note To Moiself:
Time To Stop Complaining And Appreciate Something)
Moiself has a long line of podcast episodes in my listening queue, but the one going to the top of the list will be the one that was previewed on the last Clear + Vivid podcast I listened to, which was C+V host Alan Alda’s interview with Maya Shankar. Shankar, a gifted violinist, had her hard work and dreams smashed by an injury which ended her dream of a musical career. Yet it was the end of that dream, and that career, which led Shankar down another path: to a PhD in neuroscience…which led her to being appointed to science advisory posts with both the Obama administration and the United Nations.
As if that episode wasn’t interesting enough (and it was), here was the teaser for the next C+V episode, featuring Matt Walker, the “…go-to expert on everything to do with sleep, from how it keeps both mind and body healthy to why we dream.
(Walker speaking; my emphases): “I often think of dream sleep as a Google search gone wrong. Let’s say that I type into Google, ‘Alan Alda,’ and the first page is all of your…accomplishments, but then I go to page twenty, it’s about a field hockey game in Utah, and I think, ‘Hang on a second, that’s not…’ but if I read it and I look, there’s a very distant, very non-obvious association. When you start to collide things together that shouldn’t normally go together, it sounds like the biological basis of creativity. And no wonder, as a consequence, no one has ever told you, ‘Alan, you should really stay awake on a problem.’
How can I not resist a preview like that?
Sometimes I feel as if Alda and his C+V staff write their podcast episode previews for an audience of one: moiself. The podcast’s focus is on communication; host Alda has a passion for the subject, both as an actor and as a lifelong science devotee (Alda hosted Scientific American Frontiers, and founded Stony Brook University’s Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science.)
Here is the mission statement for C+V:
“Learn to connect better with others in every area of your life. Immerse yourself in spirited conversations with people who know how hard it is, and yet how good it feels, to really connect with other people – whether it’s one person, an audience or a whole country.
You’ll know many of the people in these conversations – they are luminaries in our culture. Some you may not know. But what links them all is their powerful ability to relate and communicate. It’s something we need now more than ever.”
Alda’s guests include many scientists, but not exclusively. He interviews people from across the spectrum of professions, including music and art. One of his most memorable guests (IMO) was Paul McCartney. Alda spoke with McCartney about communicating through music and the process of composing a song. Some of Paul’s songs he crafted deliberatly: When Paul was struggling with his grief over John Lennon’s death, Paul’s late wife Linda, knowing music was the vehicle through which her husband dealt with emotional issues, suggested he write about his feelings for his childhood friend and former Beatles bandmate…and that prompt resulted in McCartney’s heartfelt song, Here Today.[5] Other times, McCartney noted, although he would still apply his musical skill and experience in fine-tuning a song, the original idea for a song appeared organically, or out-of-the blue, as when he awoke one morning with the complete melody for Yesterdayin his head, after having “composed” it in a dream. [6]
Here are just a few of the guests and subject titles of recent C+V podcasts.
* Adam Mastroianni: Why You So Often Get It Wrong * Nancy Kanwisher: Your Brain is a Swiss Army Knife * Dan Levitt: You Are Stardust. Really. * Adam Gopnik: The Joy of Getting Good at Something Hard * Brenna Hassett: Why We Are Weird
So, if you haven’t already…check it out!
* * *
Department Of Reasons To Read Your Junk Mail
Because you may just stumble upon gems like this:
Robyn, you’re invited to a FREE Seminar and Meal! Presented by SMART CREMATION – your local pre-planning experts.
*Smart* cremation. As opposed to, uh, foolish or stupid cremation, where you, like, stumble into the crematorium chamber when you’re not really dead yet?
Also head-scratch worthy: the invitation’s envelope was addressed to, “The Robyn Parnell Family.” Hmm. Does my family have plans for me, to which I am not privy?
May you not “stay awake on it” when contemplating your next challenge; May you occasionally, actually, read your junk mail; May you creatively “collide things which shouldn’t go together”; …and may the hijinks ensue.
[2] Such as categorical syllogistic logic, propositional logic, predicate logic….
[3] But, alas, I was never able to fit it into my schedule, which was weighed down with everything else I either wanted to or had to take, and the class was offered only once a semester, at one time of the day.
[4] And I did ask them about it – about what they would do in similar circumstances – years ago. This was when I’d read an article about students complaining to parents about a teacher teaching something that the student didn’t like – something which was not factually incorrect, or presented in a rude or condescending or nasty way, but a mere fact, which made the student (translate: a fact which their parents had told them was not a fact, as in something about religion and/or the civil War) uncomfortable.
[7] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
(Which makes MH, Mr. Abner Kravitz. Yep, I’ve been having fun with that all week).
Left: Gladys Kravitz; Right: Samantha Stevens
For those readers younger than 50, Gladys Kravitz was the nosy neighbor of the TV series Bewitched‘s protagonist, Samantha Stevens. Gladys was convinced that there were extraordinary goings on in Stevens’ household, and was exasperated to the nth because she couldn’t prove her suspicions to her husband ( “Abbbnnneeeerrr!” ) [2]
Background to this startling revelation about my heretofore secret identity: Dateline, Tuesday morning, circa 7:30 am. I was at the coast, out for a morning walk…
But first, a relevant digression. A long time ago…oh, no – here it comes again…
From my late high school years until my late twenties, I ran [3] between two to five miles, every day. As recreational runners know, unleashed dogs and runners are not a good combination. [4] Every runner I’ve met has stories of being confronted, harassed and/or attacked by an unleashed/unaccompanied-by-its-human, aggressive dog. The stories, and the avoiding-being-a-dog-bite-victimadvice runners receive and pass on to other runners, are mostly similar, but sometimes divergent.
A person running triggers the prey instinct in many dogs; thus, the common wisdom shared amongst runners: when approached by a dog whose posture and behavior…
* stiffening or freezing of the body; * forward-leaning, hunched down, hunting/stalking posture; * “whale eyes” (wide, with a lot of white showing); * teeth baring; tense mouth/curled lips; wrinkled nose; * ears laid flat against the skull or stiffly held straight up (not relaxed); * barking, growling; “air-snapping”….
…indicates aggression, and there is no dog owner in sight, you should:
* stop running * stay as calm as you can * avoid eye contact (which can be seen as aggressive); * speak to the dog in a calm, firm, but non-threatening voice; [5]
* remain upright; * don’t scream (or flail your limbs or panic or jump up and down); * back into a corner or against a wall so the dog can’t get behind you; * look for a tree or car to climb [6] and hope to f***’s sake the owner appears…
I faced the aggressive dog situation many times when I was running for exercise. Those strategies worked for me, as they did for other runners…except when they didn’t. I heard too many stories of someone who did everything right and got bitten anyway.
Fellow runners also shared the WTF?!?!?confusion of hearing sure-fire advice from so-called experts which contradicted advice shared by other experts. As in: ignore the dog; *don’t * stop running. Continue what you’re doing, because some dogs will pay you no mind when you walk or run past them but if you stop, they “think” (okay, no human really knows what a dog thinks, we are trying to guess/interpret) you are a threat to them.
In other words, encountering an aggressive dog is situational and dog-specific: sorry, but there is no sure-fire, works-every-time, strategy. But, human nature being what it is, there is this sure-fire reality: there will always be some person who will tell you that, whatever you did, you should have done something else.
Back to the future background to the Mrs. Kravitz revelation: Dateline: the Oregon coast (Manzanita); Tuesday morning, circa 7:30 am; out for my morning constitutional. On that day I decided to walk north along the imaginatively named Ocean Road, which parallels the beach, then splits into two roads, one of which (Beulah Reed Road) continues along the coast and up into the streets winding around the base of Mt. Neahkahnie.
I walked along the road, noting the increasing number of vans and other vehicles I’d been seeing in my early morning walks – vans and campers parked alongside Ocean Road which look as if they’ve been there all night (as opposed to the vehicles whose drivers pull over, watch the waves and savor their morning coffee [7] before driving on to their jobs, or what/where ever). Those been-there-overnight vehicles are situated in such a way to indicate that the occupants are camping there, despite the fact that it is illegal to do so, and despite the “No Parking between 11pm – 5am” signs posted along the road.
As I turned up Beulah Reed Road I saw two more looks-like-illegal-campingvehicles parked on the west side of the road. Safety-conscious pedestrian that I am, when I am walking along a sidewalk-less road, I always walk facing traffic; thus, I passed close by both of the vans, whose occupants were presumably still inside/asleep (the vehicle’s windows had shades and other objects blocking the windows and windshields). One of the vans stood out due to its color and décor: a green van festooned with white and yellow flowers, sporting a Nebraska license plate and a message – “love mother nature and she will love you back” – painted on the van’s rear window.
The Green Van was in the same spot on the west side of Beulah Reed Road where, in the past few months, I’d walked past other camping vehicles one of which provided moiself with a memorable visual a couple months ago. The naked man who’d emerged from that vehicle and began urinating by the side of the road just as I was passing by was an unpleasant sight, but a minor startle compared to what happened Tuesday am.
I continued walking up Beulah Reed Road for a few more minutes, then headed back to Ocean Road. As I neared the Green Van(this time, walking on the far side of the road) I saw a husky/malemute dog lying in the sand by the right rear of the GV. The dog had not been there five minutes ago, when I’d first walked past the GV, and there was no sign of any humans (other than moiself) about. When I was about thirty feet away from the GV the dog’s eyes fixed on me; it got up and slowly began to cross the road toward me.
Oh, shit. It takes minutes to type what flashed through my mind in nanoseconds Some of the nicest dogs I’ve met, and some of the meanest, have been husky/malemutes – and those two breeds consistently rank high on the Biting Dogs lists….[8]
The dog was obviously not going to be one of the nice ones. It slunk toward me, in a crouched position (the classic hunting posture – have you ever seen footage of wolves or other carnivores stalking their prey?). Its approach was menacing, but silent…which I found more disturbing than barking. [9] If it had been barking, that would have (hopefully) alerted its owner.
“How’d ya like to see these teeth up close?”
I stop walking and spoke softly but firmly, remembering not to make eye contact. I did all the “right things,” which had no effect on the dog’s aggressive body language and approach, so I slowly began to continue my walk. The dog circled in front of me, blocking my path. It growled, bared its teeth and walked stiff-legged toward me, then began to snarl and bark. I put my walking poles between me and the dog and called out loudly: WHOSE DOG IS THIS – COME GET YOUR DOG. I did this several times; finally, a woman appeared from the west-facing side of the van. She had long, reddish hair and looked to be in her late 20s – early 30s. She made no apologies for her menacing dog, but unenthusiastically attempted to
(1) assure me that her dog was not aggressive (“He just has a lot to say” she said,
as her dog began barking even louder, flattened his ears, and raised his hackles) (2) get her dog under voice control.
She failed at both (1) and (2).
She held no leash (and with the dog’s thick fur I couldn’t tell if it even had a collar to which a leash could be attached). She kept calling to the dog, which would turn to look at her, take two steps toward the GV, then turn around and bark and take three steps toward moiself. As the dog continued to ignore the anemic “suggestions” of his owner to return to her, I swung one of my walking sticks at him, which temporarily stopped his advance (at that point he was less than two feet from me).
Oh, for some pepper spray, I thought – not for the dog, but to use on that pathetic excuse for a human being. GV lady may make van-decoration-declarations on loving Mother Nature but she obviously doesn’t give an oyster’s ass about walking responsibly through Mother Nature’s land while respecting and protecting *all* of Ma Nature’s creatures, including bipedal ones.
This brand only works on German-speaking dogs.
I made firm, aggressive eye contact with the woman when she repeated her, “He’s not mean/he has a lot to say”bullshit excuse. I replied, “Yeah, he’s saying a lot and none of it is nice – I’ve been bitten by a dog; I know when I’m being threatened. You need to get your dog under control, RIGHT NOW.” The insolent look on her face reminded me of a pouty adolescent whose parents had threatened to ground her until she cleared the dinner table. “I am going this way,” I pointed toward Ocean Road, “and your dog needs to gothat way.“ I pointed toward her van.
Which eventually happened. After the woman and her dog disappeared behind the other side of the van, I took a picture of the back of the GV.
I was seething when I got home (and really hungry). I posted the GV picture on my FB page, along with a very brief description of the incident. As I was doing so I remembered that on my way back I’d passed an elderly couple walking on Ocean Road, headed in the direction I’d come from. Damn, I chastised moiself– should I have warned them about staying away from that van? With that thought in mind I posted the same photo and incident description, with an “FYI” warning/introduction, on a FB page where locals post pictures and info about items of North Oregon coast interest.
I knew I should report what had happened to “the authorities.” As I fixed my breakfast and mulled over whom to call (The town? The county? ) I was contacted by my Friend and Neighbor ®. F&N had seen my post, and urged me to report the incident. I called the police non-emergency number; the dispatcher who finally answered said that Beulah Road was under Tillamook County jurisdiction, and that she’d have a TC deputy contact me.
The TC deputy took down the details of my report, and then…oh my my (“Officer Chatty Cathy,” my mind soon nicknamed him). He had a lot to say about what had happened to me, and about related incidents he had been/was currently dealing with. I was apparently a sympathetic ear into which he unloaded his and his law enforcement colleagues’ frustrations with similar incidents and with “what’s going on in the county,” including:
* increased illegal camping * increased reports of aggression between illegal campers and county residents * illegal campers’ aggressive/unleashed dogs (who go after both people and other dogs) * the overload of reports the county has to investigate without the staff to do so….
He said that TC had a backlog of *hundreds* of calls about illegal camping and other violations, but that because what happened to me involved menacing, he could prioritize my report, and would head for Beulah Road. I thanked him, and noted that the van had probably moved on. Actually…probably not, he said. And, in his experience, if it did move it would likely move to somewhere nearby, and a green van with Nebraska plates would be easy to spot. Should he find the van, he said he’d have an in-depth conversation with the van/dog owner. How he handles these cases, he explained, is based on the dogs’ and or vehicles’ owners’ demeanor and response. If they listen respectfully and are forthright and apologetic, he tries to educate them and lets them off with a warning. If they are unapologetic and insolent, and even (as some people have done) go so far as to assert that they have no intention of abiding by the _____ (leash, parking/camping/trash disposal, etc.) laws, he’ll give them “as many citations as possible.”
He asked me to spread the word: please tell people to report these encounters, even as he acknowledged the perception that “They (law enforcement) will do nothing,” and so most incidents go unreported. It’s true, we (local police/sheriff departments) are understaffed, he said, but people need to know that the reports, even if they cannot be immediately investigated, help them gather statistics in general, and make records in particular for individual menacing dogs and their owners, so that if (or as he put it, “unfortunately, when“) the dog harasses/attacks another person or pet, the dog owner can’t get away with, “Oh, he’s harmless/he’s never done that before….”
At one point in our conversation, I told him how I’d began my walk thinking about the increase in illegal parking/camping, and asked if he knew if that is indeed the case, or just my anecdotal impression? And is this uptick (in illegal beach camping) related to homelessness? He told me the increase in numbers wasn’t my imagination, but that my assumption about the cause was incorrect. He then asked me something which led to an “aha” turn to the conversation: “Have you heard of the website, ‘vanlife’?”
“You’ve seen the hype around #vanlife. You’ve seen the stunning photos on social media. Now you want to throw everything to the wind, quit your job, build out a camper van, and live a carefree life of adventure…. This page is designed as a jumping-off point for your personal vanlife journey. We go over the pros and cons of this lifestyle, the reasons why full time van life is awesome… We answer the most frequently asked questions about living in a van – everything from bathrooms and showering…to finding sweet camping spots.”
“After we’ve posted this cool picture of ourselves can we go back to our penthouse and order takeout sushi?”
I said I knew of the site, but had never visited it. I thought it was similar to other sites I’d heard about, where people share information about RVing and/or traveling and living in trailers and vans. It is that, Officer CC said, but has become so much more: it has become a source of the increased “incident” calls faced by local law enforcement. He proceeded to express his frustration re the influence of the van-lifestyle sites, where people post info for others who’ve chosen to live in vans, sharing tips about where to travel and camp “for free” (but not necessarily legally).
More and more, Officer CC said, the people he speaks to and then warns and/or cites for illegal camping are mentioning (in some cases, boasting) that they were “referred” to the Oregon coast by vanlife and similar websites and online bulletin boards. And, he stressed, these people are *not* homeless– they seem well-funded (trust fund babies?) and/or are working remotely. For whatever reasons, they have romanticized the idea of public urination and defecation[10] life on the road. They…
* find it glamorous to be house-less by choice;
* take pride in ridding themselves of the bourgeois trappings of consumerism:
* receive positive feedback from like-minded folk when they post cool pictures on Instagram of their adventures in livin’ on the road;
* believe that dogs also “need freedom” and so they ignore local leash laws;
* tell him that they love livin’ “for free”…
which – surprise! – turns out to be anything but free for the people in the communities who pay the taxes that fund the services to clean up after those freedom lovin’ van lifers, who leave their trash and toxic waste behind as they move on – and the damage these love-nature-and-she’ll-love-you hypocrites do to natural habitat areas frustrates him to no end…
As he described his dealings with these voluntary nomads, more than once he referred to van-life enthusiasts as, “hippies.” I could tell from Officer CC’s voice that he was much younger than moiself; it took all of my maturity (ahem) to refrain from correcting him:
“Actually, they aren’t hippies – that was an older generation. Any surviving hippies are at home rubbing patchouli and/or CBD oil on their aching joints…I think y’all need to come up with a more contemporary epithet for the younguns whose lives and values you find disrespectful, or just fruity.”
I’m not criticizing or mocking the deputy. He was amiable, empathetic, and eager to articulate the frustrations of law enforcement officers who cannot adequately fulfill their oath to serve and protect when they are overwhelmed by calls they cannot address.
Our talk turned to what people can do to protect themselves against aggressive dogs (Officer CC said his wife is a runner, and that she and her running buddies frequently deal with unleashed and aggressive dogs). I said that, due to my afore-mentioned, bitten-by-a-dog incident, I’d done my research, and ordered a cannister of citronella spray [11] and an air horn, for self-defense. Before I could tell him I’d ruled out bear sprays/pepper sprays, he strongly advised that I tell my friends *not* to carry pepper sprays, because
* Unless you’re an expert who practices with pepper spray on a regular basis you can end up inadvertently spraying yourself, particularly when you’re under duress; * At the beach, where gusts of wind can arise seemingly out of nowhere, pepper spray can backfire, as in, get blown back on *you.*
He said that while he hated having to recommend it (“Nobody wants to hurt an animal,”) carrying a club might be called for (I said thanks/no thanks, and mentioned my walking poles). He expressed admiration for the air horn strategy: “What a great idea!” he enthused, noting that the loud noise would both startle the dog and alert nearby humans.
Yeah; okay, are we ever gonna get to the Gladys Kravitz connection?
After my conversation with the deputy I drove to Hillsboro, where I had business to attend to. While driving I received a voice mail from my Friend & Neighbor, and pulled over to return her call. F&N said that my local/beach group FB posting had spawned a comment firestorm: most were from people relating their own/similar incidents, and/or expressing sadness re what happened to me in particular and what they saw happening to their community. Other posters engaged in unfounded and unsolicited second-guessing, reframing the incident, and even claiming to know the dog’s intentions, despite having not been there. [12] Several of those I-wasn’t-there-but-I-know-what-really-happened posters also opined on what I *should* have done to avoid being menaced by the dog.
( Ladies, does this sound familiar?
“If you’d only done this/said that/worn that/walked this way,
you wouldn’t have been assaulted.” )
I’d read a few of the early comments, including two which asserted that “people should mind their own business” and “stop caring about who parks where or does what.” [13] The MYOB theme was picked up by a few other unbalanced strident posters. How that became a thing, considering the context, was a mystery to moiself. Translation: I found it bewilderingly irrational. The afore-mentioned Gladys Kravitz remark came from one such poster, who addressed her remarks to moiselfand fumed about why I was being Gladys Kravitz, and that I should have minded my own business….
Say what? Minding my own business – exactly what I was doing. I did not approach the dog and try to determine whether he was neutered. My business, which I was minding, thanks for your concern, was walking. I was out for a walk on a public road, enjoying the scent of the briny coastal air and minding my own beeswax, when an aggressive, unleashed canine decided to make his threats my business.
F&N and I had a giggle about how comments on my post had spiraled into many tangents. I said that, after violating the never-feed-the-trolls rule (I corrected one unhinged commenter, who seemed to be reading comprehension-challenged and tried to rewrite my story to fit her outrage at…whatever), I’m not going to read any more comments on that group. F&N said she’d keep me apprised of the more entertaining (read: whackadoodle) posts…although, I told her, the Gladys Kravitz epithet would be hard to top.
The next morning my phone rang: it was F&N’s update call. Apparently, by the end of the previous day, “things got nasty,” as she put it. She’d checked the FB local/beach site before bedtime: there were “248 or 258” comments, including a thread where people posted pictures of when they’d been bitten by an unleashed dog, and others posted either support or criticism for the bite victim. Then a man mentioned that he might carry a gun when he goes to the beach, and lawdy mama, it took off from there, with about 40 more posts related to carring concealed weapons on the beach. In the morning when F&N rechecked the site, about 40 of those packing-heat-on-the-beach posts had disappeared, taken down by the group moderator (or perhaps, I posited, by the posters who’d developed cooler heads overnight?). F&N said the nastiness also included some posts which made blatant or tacit references to class warfare, claiming that heartless “rich people” at the beach hate “the rest of us” and harass people who have no choice but to live in their cars…in sharp contrast with the deputy’s testimony that the majority of the people he and his fellow deputies encounter and warn about/cite for illegal camping are neither destitute nor homeless, but self-obsessed, “van life” adventure seekers, whose idea of freedom is mooching off of public services they can well afford to pay for….
And moiself? Oy vey. I’d not even considered filing a report about illegal camping.
I just want to go for a walk, anywhere it’s safe and legal to do so, and not get bitten.
May you enjoy any/all outdoor activities free from dog (or human) harassment; May you delight in observing online trolls but not in feeding them; May you enrich the public discourse by coining a better word than “hippies” to describe Gen Z…hippies; …and may the hijinks ensue.
[2] And of course, Gladys Kravitz turned out to be spot on: Samantha Stevens *was* a witch. Despite promising her mortal husband Darrin that she would *not* use her powers, just about every episode of Bewitched involved Samantha using witchcraft to create unusual happenings, or to try to undo the wacky situations created by her witch and warlock relatives, who would make mysterious arrivals and departures and mess with the mortals. Mrs. Kravitz witnessed just enough to have her suspicions, which would always be explained away by Samantha or others. Yep, Mrs. Kravitz was a nosy neighbor, but her suspicious were correct, and she was gaslighted.
[3] Or I could say, “I was a runner,” but I never took my identity from that; I ran for enjoyment and exercise, as opposed to training for the Olympics or whatever.
[4] Unless the dog belongs to the runner and is also running because…well, it usually isn’t the dog’s idea.
[5] This is not to make yourself the alpha or assert dominance, but to get as much control of yourself and the situation as possible, and to make any cues you give the dog – “sit; down; stay; go home” as understandable as possible.
[6] The strategy used by one elderly gentleman, in a neighborhood I used to live in, when he was attacked by two free-roaming dogs when he was doing his early morning neighborhood rounds, delivering advertising flyers. The man and I had greeted each other when I went out for my morning run, and I was able to rescue him when I returned and saw that the dogs had treed – carred? – him.
[7] Or sometimes, doobies…as I notice when I pass the vehicles and they have the windows down.
[8] Which I learned in my training for the animal rescue organizations for which I volunteered, and I confirmed this when I returned home, by searching for dog bite statistics.
[9] Many a person who has survived a dog attack says that the silent ones, who approach you steadily, are more dangerous than the barkers.
[11] The smell of citronella is irritating/offensive to dogs, but not harmful.
[12] Perhaps there is a Canine Psychic Intentions website I am unaware of.
[13] Those comments seemed to be related to other posters who focused on the illegal parking and camping situation, not the aggressive dog.
[14] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
Department Of Before I Get To The Complaining Thoughtful Expositions On Topics Of Importance To All Humankind…
First, this observation of appreciation:
I’m not a coffee drinker, [1] but I would like to thank the person who, somewhere on Necarney Boulevard (Manzanita, OR) at approximately 7:30 am Tuesday morning, was either out on their porch or deck with their morning cuppa Joe, or brewing it in a nearby kitchen with the windows open. Whatever grind or blend they were using, its enticing aroma wafted onto the bicycle/pedestrian path as I walked by. In combination with the morning mist, which carried the scent of the salty ocean…Aaaahhh. What a delightful sensory experience.
* * *
Department Of A Gut-Wrenchingly Devastating, Throwing-Heavy-Objects-Against-The-Wall-Anger-Inducing Thing To Hear… And Yet Also, Ultimately, Am I Surprised?
Unfortunately, the answer is, fuck no.
This Gut-Wrenchingly-Devastating-Throwing-Heavy-Objects-Against-The-Wall-Anger-Inducing-Thing-To-Hear can be heard in the latest Serial podcast, the capper to their five-part narrative series, The Retrievals. Moiself has written in this space about this podcast, which I can’t recommend strongly enough. In Episode 5: The Outcomes, former patients talk about the lasting effects of their experiences at Yale’s fertility clinic, wherein an IVF procedure caused them excruciating pain, both during the procedure and for hours and even days afterword (…and for “good reason” – it turns out a narcotics-addicted clinic nurse had been stealing the analgesic used for the procedure and replacing it with saline). But the patients’ reports of pain, even to the doctors and clinic staff who heard the patients screaming during the procedure, were discounted and/or minimized.
The following podcast excerpts (Episode 5: The Outcomes, transcript) are from conversations between Serial producer/investigator Susan Barton, and Kelly Fitzpatrick, one of the attorneys representing the patients in their malpractice lawsuits against the Yale clinic, [2] and Barton and Cecelia Plaza, an attorney who wrote a paper cited in the conversation (my emphases):
Fitzpatrick: “These women were repeatedly ignored….that sets it apart from a regular medical malpractice case. These women were gaslighted. They weren’t believed. …And that makes it different.”
Burton: “…So how do you do that? How do you sue for ignoring pain?… It’s not like that, another one of the (patients’ lawsuit) attorneys told me. You can sue because they should have investigated reports of pain…
And then I came across the perfect paper. It was called, ‘Miss Diagnosis – gendered injustice and medical malpractice law.’ ….
The paper…(didn’t say) ‘Here’s how you sue for ignoring pain.’ What it did do is explore how this issue of women not being believed in medical settings plays out in court….
The (paper’s) author was a young attorney named Cecilia Plaza… She set out to answer a specific question about the gender gap in medical malpractice outcomes, which essentially is a question about whether women can be fairly compensated in the medical malpractice system. And what she found is that women likely cannot.
Because the foundation of this system is, did what happened to you meet the standard of care? If it did, you’re out of luck. Like, you’re a woman, you think you’re having a heart attack. You go to the ER. The doctor says, ‘it’s just your anxiety,’ and sends you home. Then it turns out that you really were having a heart attack. Can you successfully win a case against this doctor in court?
Maybe not. Because doctors misdiagnose so many women’s heart attacks as anxiety that sending a woman home could actually be interpreted as a reasonable choice that an ordinary doctor would make.
Just to be clear, Cecilia’s paper is not a work of opinion. It is an empirical analysis based on a ton of data. And what Cecilia found is that women cannot expect to get as much money as men in this system. Because dismissing women doesn’t necessarily fall below the standard of care.”
Plaza: “You would have to basically make the argument that not believing your patient’s report of symptoms or of pain is de facto below the standard of care. That’s not currently the case, which is a little bit mind boggling. But you would have to make that argument, and the court would have to agree with you.”
Got that, amid the legalese?
* Because so many doctors misdiagnose women and have done for so long and for so often, it is considered to be routine.
* Because discounting, minimizing, ignoring women’s pain, and *not believing them when they report severe pain,* is so common in the medical field, it is considered to be the standard of care.
Recently, while re-reading Roxane Gay‘s collection of essays, Bad Feminist, moiselfwas reminded of my conflicted feelings on whether or not people ultimately care about, or learn from, the lives and stories of others.
RG’s essays – specifically, Blurred Lines, Indeed – took me back to last summer, when moi-blog-self mulled over issues of freedom/personal liberty after the SCOTUS Roe V. Wade ruling. We religion-free folk have taken a page from the LGBTQ playbook; thus, many of us so-called atheists, Freethinkers, Skeptics, Brights, et al, encourage “outing” ourselves as such, and not only for reasons of truth-telling (religion-free folk tend to be fans of reality), but also with the thought/hope that that increased visibility helps to break down barriers, open minds, increase participation in the civic arena, and counter stereotypes. Thus I outed moiself, in one sense, [3] by briefly mentioning my reproductive history:
(excerpt from The Liberty Loss I’m Not Accepting, 7-29-22): So. A dimwitted busybody curious person may wonder, If it’s personal/no one else’s business, why am I making it yours by writing about it here? Moiselfdoes this for reasons that are not so original and yet are nonetheless pertinent.
“In 1972—when abortion was illegal throughout most of the country—53 well-known U.S. women courageously declared ‘We Have Had Abortions’ in the pages of the preview issue of Ms. magazine. ‘To many American women and men it seems absurd, that in this allegedly enlightened age, that we should still be arguing for a simple principle: that a woman has the right to sovereignty over her own body,’ they declared. Gloria Steinem, Billie Jean King, Susan Sontag, Nora Ephron, Dorothy Pitman Hughes and Judy Collins were among the signers. The women spoke out ‘to save lives and to spare other women the pain of socially imposed guilt’ and ‘to repeal archaic and inhuman laws.’ They invited all women to sign in order to ‘help eliminate the stigma’ of abortion.” ( ” ‘We Have Had Abortions’ Petition Relaunches 50 Years Later—With Support From Original Signatories.” Msmagazine.com 1-20-22 )
It can be easy to ignore or discount issues that are critical for other people, if you think the issue doesn’t affect you or anyone you know. If you (mistakenly) think that you don’t know anyone who’s gay/atheist/has had an abortion, then LGBTQ rights/religious discrimination/reproductive freedom may be an abstraction to you. You can allow yourself to be on the fence about the issue – or even on the compassionate side of the fence but not really involved – if you think it doesn’t affect you or anyone that you know.
I’m not sure about my mother’s stance on abortion, but I know she went to her grave not knowing about her older sister‘s harrowing experience. [4] My parents were as loving and considerate as could be to all of my different friends, and they knew of (and even occasionally discussed with me) my political opinions. However and sadly, judging from the publications and mailers I espied on their coffee table during my infrequent visits to their house, it is likely that they could have fallen prey to fear-mongering politics of The Billy Graham Association and other conservative religious organizations.
During one of my visits, California had an “anti-homosexual” proposition on the ballot (I can’t remember which proposition, nor exactly when– there’ve been several, over the years), and I saw a GAY TEACHERS ARE AFTER YOUR KIDS -type flyer on their kitchen table.
I asked them if they took such hyperbole seriously. One of them (can’t remember if it was Mom or Dad) said they realized it was over-the-top, then said, “Actually, we don’t know anyone who is gay.”
“No,” I said, “Actually, you *do* know gay people. You just don’t know that they are gay because you don’t know them well enough to be privy to their personal lives, or they have chosen not to reveal this to you…” – I indicated the flyer atop the mail pile – “…because of crap like that.” (My mother later assured me that that the flyer had just come in the mail, and that they hadn’t “requested it”).
I proceeded to give them the names of friends and teachers of mine, whom they’d met and liked, who were gay. They seemed genuinely surprised. “Mr. Haffner is gay? He was one of your and your sister’s favorite teachers….” (Still is, Dad.)“That nice friend of yours from college – he’s so sweet and smart and funny, he was a premed student, I think – he’s gay?” (Yes, Mom. He’s still the nice young man – nice doctor, now – who impressed you. You simply know something about him that you didn’t know before).
Did it make a difference in how they thought, or voted? No idea.
* * *
I’m still wondering: when it comes to knowing the personal stories of others, what does and doesn’t make a difference? Still wondering after reading these excerpts from RG’s essay, Blurred Lines, Indeed (my emphases):
“On June 30 2013 in the Room for Debate section, the NYT asked, ‘Would support for abortion rights grow if more women discussed their abortions?’ When I first saw the question, I bristled. Women shouldn’t have to sacrifice their personal histories to enlighten those who are probably uninterested in enlightenment.
…what if she doesn’t want to tell her story? What if it’s too personal, too painful? What do these confessions really do? Some people will be moved, but those are rarely the same people who support legislation to erode reproductive freedom. Immovable people will not be moved by testimony.”
* * *
* * *
Department Of Different As In, And now For Something More Light Hearted: We’ll Always Have Paris…
A classic line from a classic movie. [5] There are lists of such – “best” or “most memorable” movie lines – compiled by the American Film Institute, et al. Last week moiself overheard two people discussing classic movie lines. [6] I got to thinking about those lists, which, if Iremembers correctly, tend to be skewed toward films released before the mid-1970s. So, off the top of moiself’s pointy little head…
Not *this* pointy.
…I started my own list of memorable lines or dialogue from films released since 1975. I’m not claiming these are the “best” lines; they’re just, IMO, marvelous.
In no particular order, I present you with the lines, in this format:
“Line/dialogue “ characters/actors who speak the lines ( movie in which the lines appear )
“You’re not too smart, are you? I like that in a man.” Matty/Kathleen Turner ( Body Heat )
“I have been and always shall be your friend.” Spock/Leonard Nimoy ( Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan )
“KKKKHHHHAAAANNNN !!!!” James T. Kirk/William Shatner ( Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan )
“Are you suggesting coconuts migrate?” Soldier #1/Michael Palin ( Monty Python & the Holy Grail )
“You sit on a throne of lies!” Buddy/Will Ferrell ( Elf )
“Louise, I don’t know how to fish.” “Neither do I, Thelma, but Daryl does it – how hard can it be?” Thelma & Louise /Geena Davis & Susan Sarandon ( Thelma and Louise )
“That is one big pile of shit.” Ian Malcolm/Jeff Goldblum ( Jurassic Park )
Look, I have ONE job on this lousy ship. It’s STUPID, but I’m gonna do it, OKAY?” Gwen DeMarco/Sigourney Weaver ( Galaxy Quest )
“Fuck you Mars.” Mark Watney/Matt Damon ( The Martian )
“Into the garbage chute, flyboy!” Leia Organa/Carrie Fisher ( Star Wars: A New Hope )
“Better get a bucket.” Mr. Creosote/Terry Jones ( Monty Python: The Meaning of Life )
“How do you like your eggs?” Emma/Sally Field ( Murphy’s Romance )
“It’s comin’ outta me like lava!” Megan/Melissa McCarthy ( Bridesmaids )
Before 1975; still one of my favorites of the classic movie lines:
Actually, there are hundred of reasons…
but all you need is one, and this is a good one.
* * *
May you not be an immovable person/uninterested in enlightenment; May you find a way to incorporate a classic movie line into at least one comment of yours during the upcoming week; May you be pleasantly surprised by enticing aromas;
…and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1]Moiself will occasionally treat myself to a latte-dah type drink, but tea is my hot beverage of choice.
[2] Fitzpatrick herself has been through an IVF procedure.
[3] The other sense – my religion-free status – has been out for some time.
[4] A few years before her death, at the request of one of her nieces (who suspected, correctly, that there were family stories to be told), my mother’s eldest sister revealed that the reason she and her husband never had children was that she was unable to, after having undergone an illegal abortion (that almost killed her) .
[5]Casablanca. Please don’t tell me if you didn’t know that.
[6] As in debating which were the best, or most-overrated or under-rated lines or dialog couplets….
[7] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
But if moiself did publish such a book, it would have a chapter titled, “The Girls of Summer.” Said chapter would be devoted to describing the elaborate role-playing [1] games my grade school friends and moiself played, in my backyard and/or garage, during summers, on the three-point-five days a week when we were *not* at the beach.
The games we played on a regular basis included
* Dracula (we were – surprise! – vampires, although no one ever played the titular Count. [2] );
* Haunted House (we transformed my family’s garage – in which my parents did not park their cars because doing so would have taken away a vital part of our play space – into a haunted castle, wherein we would haunt [read: terrorize] our younger siblings, aka “The Little Kids ®,” who were so desperate to play with us Big Kids ® that they’d do anything we’d say);
* Leopards (we were a family of leopards, living harsh lives on the African plains and forests)
* Amazonian Women ( explanation forthcoming)
.
* * *
Department Of The Hitherto Unexplained Connection Between Barbies And Nuns
First, the Amazonian Women game explained, or at least outlined.
My childhood home’s backyard was a vegetation paradise, particularly during summer. Our fruit-producing trees and shrubs included a lemon tree, a peach tree, a plum tree, a pomegranate bush, several banana trees, [3]and five apricot trees. A huge, great-for-climbing pine tree of some sort (the sort that produced so much sap my mother kept a jar of Crisco, soley dedicated to sap removel, by the kitchen sink) was behind the garage. The pine tree provided a good access point to the garage roof, which we kids were technically forbidden to climb onto, due to our (read: *my* ) tendency to play WWII paratrooper and jump off of the roof holding an umbrella. [4] Summer night bonus: If you climbed far enough up in the pine tree you could see the halo at Anaheim’s Angel Stadium light up when an Anaheim Angel hit a home run. The view was definitely worth the sappy hands, arms, elbows, knees….
The perimeter of our yard’s back and side fences was lined with a variety of shrubbery. Cascades of bougainvillea flowed up and down and around the backyard fence, and the vines’ vibrant magenta-colored flowers provided the perfect tropical aura for our Amazonian game: we would drape a garden hose at the top of one of the vines and adjust the hose’s sprayer to the finest mist setting, which provided the proper, lounging-by-the-waterfall atmosphere, and also kept us cool. You could work up quite a sweat in the summer as an Amazonian warrior, canoeing from island to island, hunting and fishing and gathering tropical fruits, fighting off dangerous wild animals, and planning excursions to either visit or plunder neighboring islands.
Our brothers and other neighborhood boys were welcomed for the tag games [5] my girl friends and siblings and I played on balmy summer evenings, but with the exception of having one boy join the Dracula or Haunted house game on a few occasions, the other games were all-female. There were no literal male occupants of our Amazonian island; there were a never-specified number of men that we’d taken from neighboring islands and whom we kept in captivity. My friends and I knew enough about mammalian reproduction to know that our species could survive as a single gender, so we kept these imaginary male captives for “breeding purposes” – the ultimate meaning of which was lost on us, but somehow, we knew we had to acknowledge that aspect of our culture.
My notes for my SoCal girlhood memoir have gathered dust; moiself hadn’t thought of the Amazonian game in ages, until Monday, when friend CC and I saw the Barbie movie. During our après-cinema lunch when we were discussing the movie, [6] I told CC about the Amazonian game, and how it fit into my theory of why so many girls (especially those whose girlhoods were 40+ years ago) – girls who would either then or later identify as feminists – liked playing with Barbies, and also sometimes pretended to be nuns.
Hold on to y’alls wimples: it’s the long-awaited for, Barbies-Nuns Connection. ®
Like all the girls I knew when I was in grade school, my sisters and I were given, and played with, Barbie dolls. I never received, nor wanted, a Ken doll. [7] I did have a few male dolls: I asked for, and received for Christmas one year, a G.I. Joe doll and a Johnny West cowboy doll (which came with a palomino steed, and a plastic vest and chaps and spurs wardrobe for Johnny!). But as I discovered, a boy’s G.I. Joe was not to be called a doll, but an “action figure.” You’d best not refer to any of a boy’s male play figurines as what they were – dolls – lest the boy’s little dingus shrivel up and snap off at the mere suggestion that he played with a kind of toy commonly associated with girls.
Like many most of same girls with whom I played let’s-pretend we’re_____ games, we also played the We Are Nuns games. This was not a The Sound of Music fantasy thing, [8] and with one exception these friends were *not* from Catholic families. But there was a similar appeal to the world of Barbies, Amazonian island women, and nuns.
It’s not a complicated connection, not in the least. The appeal was that those worlds (Barbies; Amazons; nuns) were composed solely of females. Thus, girls got to do *everything.* This was not the case when we played games with the neighborhood boys.
One of a bajillion examples: One summer day I agreed to play “The Smith’s Home” (or some other family name) with my younger sister and our next-door neighbor boy. Next Door Neighbor Boy and I were The Smith Family. We were a recently married couple, with a dog and a cat and two hamsters and no children. After we’d discussed the game parameters, NDNB announced that he was leaving our house (a fort we’d built in my backyard) to “go to work.” I wanted to head out as well, but NDNB boy-splained to me that things didn’t work that way: as the wife, I had to stay home. When he insisted on taking the family pet, a German Shepard (played by my sister), to work with him, I in turn explained to him that things didn’t work that way. Husbands do not take the family pets with them to work – name one husband in the neighborhood who does that?! And that was the end of The Smith Family game.
Now then: NDNB was a nice boy, of whom I was genuinely fond re his gentle disposition and kind heart. But he, like the other neighborhood boys and the brothers (whether older or younger) of my friends, always tried to take over during the few times we let them join our games. If the girls were starting a game of Blackbeard’s Buccaneers you didn’t want the boys to join in because they’d insist on being all of the pirates and you had to be…something else.
Who you callin’ a scullery maid?
As young females, we grew up seeing a world where males were in charge, of just about everything. In television and movies men were the primary (if not the only) protagonists, with the women there as domestic/romantic supporting players. I was no fan of Catholicism and steadily (if secretly) came to despise almost everything about any religious doctrine (including my own family’s moderate Lutheranism); still, nuns held a peculiar attraction for many girls such as moiself . [9]
Sure, nuns were “cloistered,” but at least a nunnery was a cloister of choice. Girls grew up seeing few-or-no female counterparts to the much-envied, free-livin’, swingin’ bachelor: whether by choice or circumstance, females who remained single were portrayed as objects of pity. “Spinsters” and “old maids” were the only terms for women who remained single and childfree.
Similarly, when you played with Barbie dolls, you could be the good egg, the louse, the protagonist and the hero and the side player and everything in between. Our Barbies ran the house, earned the paychecks, planted and harvested the crops, designed fantastical machines, drove the stagecoaches between the OK Corall and Santa Fe, flew to the moon in shoebox rocket ships – whatever you wanted them to do, with no Ken to tell you that you couldn’t, or yeah, maybe just this once but you gotta ride…
“Sidesaddle my PVC ass, Ken.”
* * *
Department Of Wait Wait Wait Wait Wait A Minute…
“The battle over legacy and donor admissions to college — the practice of giving special treatment to family of alumni and contributors — is about to heat up in California as critics take aim at what they see as a long-standing barrier for less privileged students to access elite institutions.
State Assemblyman Phil Ting (D-San Francisco) plans to renew efforts to deny state financial aid to any college or university that gives an admissions advantage to such applicants, who research has shown are overwhelmingly white and affluent.” ( “Battle over legacy and donor admissions preferences to heat up; USC, Stanford could take hit.” LA Times 7-31 )
What the….
Moiself is, of course, *highly* in favor of such a bill, even as I’m stunned (naive? ) by California’s need for it. Since when did state financial aid go to private universities?
* * *
Department Of And In A Related Story…
A long time in a galaxy far far away: In the summer after son K’s junior year of high school, he began the first of several rounds of visiting colleges he was interested in applying to. Moiself accompanied him on the first three campus visits, which were in California. [11] It was late June when K and I flew down to Sacramento, rented a car, then in the next three days toured UC Davis, Stanford, and UC Santa Cruz.
My Oregonian born and bred son, who was known to complain when the temperature rose above 72°, seemed to have had an weather-influenced relationship with the colleges we visited on that trip: the closer we got to the coast, the more he liked the school, inversely conflating the temperature of the area with what his academic experience would be.
When we deplaned in Sacramento the heat blast hit K in the face, and I remember thinking, “Yep, this is familiar…” I am a UCD alum. A couple of summers I stayed in Davis to work expanded hours at the student job I had during the school year. I assured K that if he went to UCD he would probably not be staying during the summer, and that Davis had winters an Oregonian would appreciate. Nevertheless, looking back, I think all he “saw” of UCD was the heat.
Neither MH nor I were the kind of parents who lobbied (nor even encouraged) our offspring to consider attending our respective alma maters. But in the fall of K’s junior year, one winter weekend afternoon when he and I were hiking in a local nature preserve, K mentioned his interest in studying entomology. I told him there were not many colleges which offered an entomology major, and of those that did…things may have changed, but when I was at UC Davis it had the top-rated entomology program in the nation (when we returned home I did an internet search and confirmed that that was still the case).
I forget the reasons K had an interest in Stanford (his aunt, my younger sister, was a Stanford alum, but I don’t know if that was the influence); he was curious about UC Santa Cruz for its connection to the Human Genome Project. So: we planned our trip, signed up for the campus tours of and presentations by the respective colleges, and moved from east to west, starting with UC Davis, then Stanford, then UC Santa Cruz.
As moiself mentioned, I don’t think K saw much of Davis but the heat. UC Santa Cruz – he liked many things about it, although he agreed with my observation, as we did a bus tour around UCSC’s verdant campus, which is situated in the forested hills of the Santa Cruz Mountains overlooking the Pacific Ocean and Monterey Bay, that it might be like going to college in summer camp.
As for Stanford, our visit there provided the most indelible, visiting-a-campus story.
We both enjoyed the Stanford campus tour, which was led by an enthusiastic student who was personable and articulate and knowledgeable and proud of his campus. K was quite keen about Stanford after that tour. Next on the agenda was a sit-down presentation for prospective students and their parents, given by Stanford’s Director of Admissions. In 20 minutes K went from, “Wow, I really like this place; it’s definitely going to be on my application list,” to, “I wouldn’t go to this snobby, elitist, self-aggrandizing institution if *they* paid *me* to do it.”
One of many statements the Dude of Admissions made which K found off-putting was a dyad of contradictory statements, which he kept repeating:
” *Any* person can get into Stanford! “ (After saying this, he would give examples of students from lower income, and/or nonwhite and/or non-big city backgrounds who were Stanford alums)
” Stanford, as one of the top rate universities in the United States,
is very selective, and has one of the, if not THE, lowest acceptance rates
of any college in the world! “
Several times during his presentation Admissions Dude said that he wanted parents or students to ask questions at any time, about any Stanford-related subject. After AD’s third repeating of his anyone-can-be-here/almost-no-one-gets-in couplet, a student raised his hand and asked how he might increase his odds of getting accepted to Stanford. AD answered with what he obviously meant to be a humorous story: “First of all, don’t do this….” He proceeded to tell how a high school senior had marched into AD‘s office, unannounced, hours before the admissions deadline. The student dismissively flung an admissions packet onto AD‘s desk and said, “Take care of it.”
I looked around the room, noting that both parents and students were snickering with “Oh, can you believe that arrogant wiseass?!” amusement. Moiself raised my hand, and when AD called upon me I asked him, “Was that student a legacy?”
Admissions Dude turned an impressive shade of white. [12] In a Very Serious Voice he stammered, “I can’t give any names; I can’t – uh, we can’t reveal any personal information about an applicant…”
To which I perkily replied, “I didn’t ask for his name; I asked if he was a legacy.”
Admissions Dude was quite flustered that I’d brought up an apparently taboo subject – as if no one present in the room had ever heard of legacy admission preferences before the big-mouth Oregon lady brought it up. He squirmed with discernable discomfort – I thought he was in danger of pissing his Trussardi trousers. The more the AD tried to act “plussed” the more nonplussed he became. As he strove to change the subject, several parents seated in front of K and I turned around and flashed me knowing, sympathetic, and/or incredulous looks.
K ended up applying to six of the seven schools he visited that summer. He was accepted at all six, and chose to attend the University of Puget Sound. He did not apply to Stanford.
Stanford LegacyGuide (The Koppleman Group)
* * *
Department of Employee Of The Month
It’s that time again, to bestow that prestigious award upon moiself . Again. The need for which I wrote about here. [13]
“If 50 million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.” ( Anatole France 1844 – 1924, Parisian poet, journalist, writer )
* * *
May you have fond memories of your own childhood summer games; May you be mindful of what popular foolish thing you believe; May you enjoy your own reign as Employee of the Month; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] No, not today’s RPG. It meant something different back then.
[9] One that was romanticized, of course, but what other options did we see?
[11] MH did the next three visits with K, to colleges in Washington, British Columbia, and Minnesota. And K and I later made an overnight trip up to Tacoma to visit the University of Puget Sound, which is where he decided to go (as did his sister, Belle, three years later, and for similar reasons: they both had the experience, upon touring the campus, of “Oh, this is my place.”)
[12] Made even more impressive by the fact that he was not white.
[13] Several years ago, MH received a particularly glowing performance review from his workplace. As happy as I was for him when he shared the news, it left me with a certain melancholy I couldn’t quite peg. Until I did.
One of the many “things” about being a writer (or any occupation working freelance at/from home) is that although you avoid the petty bureaucratic policies, bungling bosses, mean girls’ and boys’ cliques, office politics and other irritations inherent in going to a workplace, you also lack the camaraderie and other social perks that come with being surrounded by your fellow homo sapiens. No one praises me for fixing the paper jam in the copy machine, or thanks me for staying late and helping the new guy with a special project, or otherwise says, Good on you, sister. Once I realized the source of the left-out feelings, I came up with a small way to lighten them.
[14] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
Paging longtime friend EK, to whom I owe an apology. EK, whose family members hail from the Virginia/West Virginia area, was the first person who sought to change my mind regarding my dismissal of the legitimacy of the term.
Moiself grew up thinking that the usage of y’all was indicative of…well…an ignorant southerner.
Yeah, I know. Then I had a face-palming moment about the need for a distinguishing term to indicate when I’m speaking to yousingular or you plural. Thus and now, [1] it’s a term I use all the time, in place of *you-all.*
The summer after third grade I spent three weeks in Tennessee with my parents and sisters, [2] visiting my father’s family for the first time in my life. Moiself recalls being teased by my SoCal neighbors and friends upon my return, about the southern accent I had acquired during my Tennessee time. They actually howled with laughter when I let a y’all slip out (and after that taunting I made a conscious effort to “speak normally”).
My childhood (and young adult) impressions of the South and southern culture [3] came from the television shows my parents watched in the mid 60s-early 1971, [4] in particular the CBS lineup of The Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, Petticoat Junction, and Hee Haw. Those hick-o-rama shows were inexplicably (to anyone with an IQ exceeding their inseam size) popular at the time, with adults of a certain age. *I* wanted to watch cooler shows – more intellectual fare, like The Man From U.N.C.L.E, Laugh-In, and My Favorite Martian.
My father was also (inadvertently) partly responsible for giving me a negative impression of southern culture. Several times during my childhood, after that first visit to Tennessee and later on when his family members came out to visit us in SoCal, I asked my father why he spoke so differently from his siblings. He had almost no trace of an accent betraying his southern roots (but I noticed he’d “slip up” – i.e., his accent would slightly but noticeably resurface, when he was around his relatives). He told me that when he’d joined the army he worked on losing his “family way” of speaking, as he’d noticed that “you were labeled a dump country boy hick,” if you spoke “that way.”
Thus, in the same way that I could never picture a nuclear physicist with a southern accent (“Y’all wanna split some atoms, or what?”), I grew up thinking that I couldn’t take someone seriously who used the term, y’all. So, a well-deserved slap upside the head with the bigotry stick, for moiself.
* * *
Department Don’t Make Me Call Child Protective Services On Y’all
“_____ and ____ are letting their hair down for a good cause. Each hopes to win a national mullet championship while raising money for wounded service veterans.
___ and ___ are competing in the 2023 USA Mullet Championships. ___ recently finished in the top third of the 1-4 year age group while ___ advanced among 9- to 12-year-olds. These age groups are guided by the old mullet saying, ‘Home room in the front, recess in the back.’ “
( excerpts from “2 Oregon boys vie for title of ‘best mullet in America’” Oregonlive.com
Names redacted by moiself to protect those underage victims of abuse. )
Fer Chrissake (Chris as in Chris Waddle, the English footballer whose haircut was as famous as his soccer skills) – I thought it was the parent’s job to guide their youngsters *away* from disaster, and not have them compete for ignominy.
And don’t y’all love it when a sketchy event is (supposedly) justified by a noble cause? Somewhere, there is a wounded service veteran thinking, “Wait a minute – I thought I fought for truth, justice, and the American Way, ® but no one told me I’d have my leg blown off in Afghanistan so that a young boy could have the right to commit fashion suicide….”
There are some tragedies in life – like gambling addiction, heart disease, and hemorrhoids – which should be adult-only.
* * *
Department Of They Even Have A Special Sticker For “Bullshit”
*They* would be the US Postal Service, who sent me returned mail – my nephew’s birthday card – with this sticker.
“Attempted – Not Known.”
That’s attempted crap, if not a known lie. Putting it on a “professional” yellow sticker doesn’t make the crap any more professional.
The address is correct (moiself triple checked); it’s the same address my nephew has had for several years; the same address to which I’ve send other cards, and packages, and this is the first time ever I’ve received return mail for that same address.
My nephew’s address has three residents on the property; he and his wife are the owners, the primary residents, in unit #1. “Attempted – Not Known” translation: the postal carrier, whether s/he was a newby or veteran incompetent, glanced at the address or house, and for whatever reason my nephew’s name wasn’t the first name the carrier noticed, and the carrier was too slothful or stupid to take the FIVE SECONDS it would have taken to actually make an *attempt* to figure out which slot to place the card in.
This is not the first time I’ve ranted made a rational case about the USPS decline in customer service standards. Moiself understands that the paramilitary nature of the postal service is partially responsible for…for what? For people no longer taking pride in their work (I’m stretching, here, trying to come up with excuses for such shoddy service). But the USPS structure has been in place for decades, and the service complaints of moiself and my family and friends and neighbors have arisen, gradually but steadily, in the last 10 – 15 years.
Herbie Hancock and Van Morrison. This was moiself’s response to friend’s posting of one of those FB memes I think of as “culture shock” questions. The question: What was the first concert you attended?
Herbie Hancock was the opening act, and Van Morrison was the headliner. Quite the doubleheader, although I didn’t realize it at the time.
It was my first rock concert, [6] and I didn’t know the protocol. When I informed my parents that friends and I were going to a music concert my parents asked me about the dress code…and for the first time it occurred to me, having never been to a concert before, that I might need to wear something other than my standard blue jeans.
Since the word concertwas used, I thought the event might be a tad more formal than I was used to. Thus I donned what, for me, were my dress-up duds: pants that were not jeans and had no mustard stains (some kind of plaid bell bottoms, I bet)…
…and a white blouse I borrowed from my older sister. The friend and friend-of-a-friend I went to the concert with dressed along the same lines; the F-O-A-F’s older brother, who had procured the tickets and who was a veteran rock concert attendee, wore jeans and a t-shirt. After my friends and I arrived at the concert venue and were seated, we glanced around the venue, and I said to the friend seated next to me, “We look like narcs.”
At one point early on in Hancock’s opening set someone passed a joint down the row where my friends and I were seated. I slipped into cultural anthropologist mode, observing the ritual. When it was passed to moiself I did not partake, but felt like I should somehow participate. Holding the lit joint in my left hand, I dug in my purse [7] with my right hand and retrieved the emergency snack I’d brought along. I peeled back the wrapper of the Tootsie Roll® and passed it down the row of seats, along with the doobie I had declined to smoke. The subsequent partakees seemed to be…a bit confused.
About the music: I recall almost nothing of what Herbie Hancock and his band played except for one song: a highly syncopated jazz number with staccato vocalizations (I remember thinking of it as, “the hiccup song”). As for the headliner….
Although I liked much of Van Morrison’s music before that show (and after), I was not impressed with his performance. Halfway through his opening number it became obvious that he was off his-northern-Irish-ass drunk, which IMO was incredibly disrespectful of his audience. His band got even less respect from him: our seats were good ones, close enough to the stage that I could lip read the insults and obscenities Morrison traded with his band, as well as detect the musicians’ expressions of disgust and impatience when Morrison would start a song, forget the lyrics, then start a different song and snap at them if they delayed in following along. When a few audience members called out for songs they wanted to hear, Morrison flashed them sneers of utter contempt – at one point he even spat on the stage when someone called out the lyrics to a song he’d stumbled over.
Van Morrison was being marketed then (and still, even now) as some kind of Celtic soul mystic. Mystic soul, my arse. Self-important, Paddy-whacking, [8] twerp-troll was the impression I came away with.
May you seek psychiatric help should your hairstyle guidelines ever be something along the lines of, ‘Home room in the front, recess in the back;’ May you have memorable stories of attending *your* first concert; May y’all come back now, here? …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1]Thus and now – sounds like a good title for a book. Except that I’ve already done something like that (my collection of short fiction, This Here and Now published a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, by Scrivenery Press).
[2] My younger brother would not be born until the following summer.
[3] Of which my father himself was not fond of, to tell the truth, and he “got out of there” as he put it, as soon as he could (by enlisting in the army in WWII).
[4] All of those shows seemed get cancelled around 1971.
[5] Which, although I’m using the term metaphorically here, was/is the actual name of a street in Santa Ana, whence moiselforiginated.
[7] Yeah, I took a purse to a rock concert. I didn’t even take a purse to school….
[8] My ethnic heritage is 50% Irish; this, in our culture’s bizarre calculus of who can say what to whom, I’m entitled to diss my own.
[9] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
Department Of If Only People Understood This Basic Statement Of Reality Ninety Percent Of Interpersonal and International Conflict Would Disappear
Yourreligion does not prohibit *me* from anything.
It prohibits *you.*
Learn the difference.
* * *
Department Of Awwwwwww
Just sat down – well, metaphorically speaking, as I have a sit/stand desk and happened to be standing – when MH walked into my office and showed me what he’d found. It was, as he put it, “…a reminder of Crow”…and there went the rest of my plans for my post.
The reminder was a bag which holds vacuum cleaner attachments. Our late great cat Crow was obsessed with chewing on plastic bags. If you look carefully, you can see her toothmarks all over it.
I found the timing of this reminder somewhat bittersweet. It was almost exactly a year ago that we said goodbye to Crow, as noted in my post of 7-15-22…which I am going to revisit in its entirety here. Moiself be getting too sentimental now to write about other topics, as I’m thinking of Crow…and also our remaining Cat, Nova, who is not much longer for this world (she has stage 3 kidney disease) :
7-15-22
The Multicolored Overpass I’m Not Traversing
Something moiself has been thinking this week: it’s been over 29 years since we (MH and I) have been a less-than-two-felines household.
We’re down to one, the all-white Nova , as we said goodbye to Crow this week.
It had been a challenging past 18+ months for Crow, with a possible “vascular incident” (stroke?), the progression of her painful arthritis, and finally, diabetes. After veterinary appointments, blood tests, and consultations, we made an appointment with a veterinary euthanasia service who came to our home to do the deed.
As difficult a decision as it was, we were also much relieved, once having made it. Crow spent her last days at home, lazing on the carpet in the sun, eating and drinking whenever she pleased. [1] We were at her beck and call; I told her she was at a kitty spa.
At the time we adopted Crow (fifteen years ago), all-black cats were the most likely to not find a placement. [2] Instead of adopting a rescue greyhound, which was the original plan to add another pet to our family, we went to Bonnie Hayes Animal Shelter, [3] opened our house and our hearts, and Crow made herself at home. Crow had a good life, and she was spared a lingering death.
After the phone call with our veterinarian wherein we discussed treatment and care options, MH and I had a calm, rational discussion. We considered all the angles – plus the fact, particularly important to moiself, that Crow (like any pet) cannot consent to nor “understand” any course of treatment. After the phone call, we decided upon euthanasia. When we agreed that this is what we agreeing to, I asked MH if perhaps we might take Crow on one last trip to the beach, because she seemed to enjoy lying on the deck in the sun. And we both lost it.
A much younger Crow and Nova, circa 2008, playing with Nova’s favorite toy (a Lego helmet).
* * *
Department Of The Downside Of Loving Them
Dang, these critters tug at our hearts. And because we care for them properly, they just don‘t die like they used to: they get good medical treatment; [4] they live inside and thus don’t get killed by coyotes or run over by a car or contract illness and/or injuries and/or infection from other animals…. And if they refuse to die in their sleep in their old age, the combination of aging and chronic illness takes their toll, then *we* have to make the life-and-death decisions.
MH’s astute observation: for all but one of the cats we’ve had who’ve died, there came that awful time when we had to opt for euthanasia for them. Odds are that, with our remaining cat, the same will (eventually) be the case. Each time, we knew we were doing the right thing. Each time, it was still heartbreaking.
Observant readers may notice that moiself is *not* is reporting that “Crow has crossed the Rainbow Bridge.” Nor am I using similar euphemisms to describe the fact of her death. Although some pet owners seem to find such metaphors comforting, they make me…well…emotionally retch. Moiself is not a believer in – as in, I’ve seen no evidence for – any kind of “heaven,” for any kind of creatures. And since I hold no such ideas for humans I see no need to burden our recollections of our animal companions with similar mythologies.
I don’t mean to come off stony-hearted. Grief is complicated; expressing it, even more so. I promise not to slap you if you use the RB term around moiself, and I hear or read about “the RB” often enough to know that it makes some pet owners feel good. The only afterlife I give credence to is the only one we can know for sure exists: that which resides in our hearts and minds. In that way and in those places, our loved ones truly do continue to live “after” they are gone.
BTW: The Rainbow Bridge, for those of you who are fortunate enough not to have encountered the treacle-ism, is a mythical overpass (apparently based on imagery from some cheesy sentimental poems from the 1980s) which serves as a kind of transit for pets. For example, upon the death of their friend’s chihuahua, RB fans will say that Sparky has “passed over the Rainbow Bridge,” into a verdant meadow (or other Nature Setting ® ) where Sparky will frolic carefree until the time Sparky will be reunited with his “human parents.”
While I don’t believe in Rainbow Bridges, I do believe that pictures of baby sloths in pajamas are comforting to everyone.
* * *
Department Of There’s Always Something
After we made the decision to euthanize Crow, moiself thought, once again, about the many rational discussions which can be had as to whether people do or should treat or view their pets as their “children” – a perspective which, I believe, diminishes and misunderstands the reality of and relationships with both animals and children.
Also (as mentioned in a previous footnote), many people, including animal lovers/pet owners and those who are pet-free, hold strong opinions as to the ethics of using advances in veterinary medicine to treat conditions considered fatal just a few years ago – treatments which cost pet owners thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars…and the outcome is, eventually and ultimately, the same.
Pets, like their human owners, are mortal. They’re gonna die. Are you keeping your pet alive – in some cases, using tortuous treatments that humans with the same diagnoses can (and often do) eventually opt out of – because it’s in the animal’s best interest? Or are you prolonging its life (read: extending its dying) because (you tell yourself) you love it and want to keep it around for as long as possible/can’t deal with its absence…or want to assuage the guilt laid upon you, whether purposely or inadvertently, by yourself or by well-meaning friends and family (or even your veterinarian)?
“Leigh K—…found herself facing a five-figure bill when her dog, Rutherford, was diagnosed with a brain tumor…. Leigh knew Rutherford needed help when the large-breed coonhound mix struggled to walk a straight line and keep his head up. But you can’t treat without a diagnosis, which meant brain scans, which meant $2,500 down before the technicians would warm up the machine.
Then the real bills started. Radiation therapy was projected to cost between $12,000 and $15,000, which, for perspective’s sake, is a quarter of the average American household’s annual earnings. It’s a sum weighty enough to give even relatively affluent Americans a lightbulb moment on how drastically their lives might be rerouted.”
If my father had lived to see the age of $3k MRIs for pets, [5] he would have scoffed at the very notion. It’s not that he didn’t like animals, or was one of Those Pet Haters ® . Growing up in the Parnell family, moiself cannot remember a time when we didn’t have pets. My siblings and I were allowed to acquire a variety of critters, from dogs and cats to hamsters and reptiles. While my parents appreciated their children’s emotional bond with their pets, my father never seemed to have much of an attachment to them. When I look back via an adult’s perspective, I consider this pet-bonding detachment of his to be due, in part, to his impoverished childhood.
Chet Parnell grew up poor, on a farm, in a place and time when animals were utilitarian. His family’s infinitely patient and tolerant farm horse, who would let Chet and his siblings climb all over him, was a plough horse. A succession of family dogs had “jobs” to do – they kept the crows out of the corn and chased the neighboring farms’ dogs and roaming strays away from the chickens, and the barn cats earned a roof over their heads by keeping the mice and rats at bay. With the exception of the horse, the other “pets” had to hunt for and feed themselves (although my dad’s mother occasionally snuck table scraps to the barn cats, much to her husband’s dismay).
My father’s heart rose to the occasion when our family cat, Mia, died. Mia, a stray kitten adopted by my family when I was in grade school, had been “my” cat, [6] but stayed with my family when I went off to school. After graduating college and joining the working world, my parents and I agreed that, considering both my inability to pay my apartment rent if I also had to buy pet food and litter, and Mia being an old lady kitty and attached to her home, it was best if Mia stayed with them. I saw Mia two to three times a year, when visiting my parents, and noted Mia’s increasing frailty with the passage of time. Pay attention, I pleaded with them. If there is something wrong with her, take her to a vet, don’t just let it slide.[7] I was determined to be dispassionate about it – if Mia was dying, I did not want her to suffer.
One day when I was in my mid-twenties I received an early afternoon phone call from my mother. She called the private line in the medical practice where I worked, which was a red flag. [8] She apologized for calling me at work, said she thought I’d like to know about Mia, and told me the following story.
In the past few weeks Mia, age 20, had grown weaker, lost weight, and developed a tumor on her head. My parents found a veterinarian who would do house calls; after speaking with my parents over the phone, the vet came to their house with the assumption that he would likely euthanize the cat. After briefly examining Mia he told them that that would be the most humane option. My younger sister, by then in college, happened to be at my parents’ house for a visit, and she and my mother became so distraught re Mia’s situation that Chet banished them from the scene. He shooed his wife and daughter into the house, while he stayed on the back porch with the veterinarian.
After Mia had been euthanized and the vet had left, Chet got a legal pad and a pencil, and a shoebox for the body (Mia would be buried in my parents’ backyard, by the rose bushes where she would nap in the summer shade). He wrapped Mia’s body in a towel, placed her in the box, then composed a poem, on the spot, about Mia.
Mom read the poem to me. I found it overwhelmingly touching then, and still do, after all these years – to think about what my father wrote to comfort his grieving wife and daughter, and also the mere fact that he did so. The poem’s theme was how gentle and sweet Mia was; how she’d had a good life…. I can remember only parts of it, [9] but its closing stanza is etched on my heart:
Mia was loved by the Parnells all;
As there is a time to rise, there is a time to fall.
To be loved by a family is why she was made,
And now our dear Mia will rest in the shade.
As I hung up the phone, my employer noticed the distraught look on my face. Dr. B asked me what was up. With all the detachment and professionalism I could muster – which turned out to be none at all – I blubbered, “My family kitty died!” and tried to tell him how my father had written a poem….
I was a hot mess. Dr. B placed his hand on my shoulder. Compassionately, yet firmly, he said to me, GO HOME.
And now for dear Crow, I say, with gratitude for years of love and “tummy time,” Go home.
Crow was a gentle spirit and a good sport. Here is one of moiself’s favorite pictures of her, one I called, for obvious reasons, *rumpcat.
* * *
Department Of The Supporting Cast And Crew
I cannot say enough good things about the doctors and staff of our family’s long-time veterinary clinic, the (surprise!) feline-exclusive All About Cats Clinic. Also deserving of high praise is Compassionate Care, the in-home euthanasia service we used, as per ABCC’s recommendation. CC’s vet was kind, empathetic, sweet, and competent – she gave MH and I (and Crow, I imagine), a sense of tranquility in an emotionally taxing situation.
“She had a good life,“ was son K’s post on our family chat site, when MH informed our offspring about Crow’s death. My reply:
“Yes, she did…and though it may sound strange, I dare to say that her death was good, as well. She was comfy on the carpet, enjoying lots of pets from us, and she just ‘went to sleep,’ as they say. It was one of the more peaceful things I have ever seen.”
* * *
Punz For The Day Dead Catz Edition
Hmmmmm. On second thought….
When face palm cat just won’t cover it.
* * *
May you experience the distinctive love of, and for, a pet companion; May the inevitable loss of that love help you to appreciate it all the more; May you be strong enough to lather, rinse, and repeat; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] But not, oddly, wanting “tummy time” with MH, which, until the diabetes, was her favorite activity. She seemingly became uncomfortable sitting in laps or being held during her last two weeks – one more piece of the puzzle which help us make the decision.
[2] Fortunately, thanks to deliberate and innovative strategizing on the part of regional animal shelters, almost *all* healthy cats and dogs at shelters who do not have “behavioral issues” (read: biters) now find homes.
[4] Too much, some critics say, in that using “human” treatments for cancers and other mortal illnesses – treatments previously unavailable to animals and to which they cannot consent – are essentially torturing pets in order to assuage our guilt….and speaking of the latter, many people on fixed incomes cannot afford the substantial vet bills but feel pressured, if the procedure/treatment is available, to do so, lest they be considered a heartless person who doesn’t really love their pet.
[5] Which was one of the quotes we got for what a brain scan would cost, when we were trying to figure out the “neurological incident” our cat Crow seemed to have suffered.
[6] And was so named to indicate that – mia is Spanish for mine.
Department Of Two Words, Which Bother Me, To The Same Degree
Those would be: selfie, and panties.
Selfie. Why is that necessary, when you have perfectly good words like narcissist?
Panties. Seriously? Grown ass females, even little girls, do not wear panties; they wear underpants or underwear. Fetishists and pedos [1] want women and girls to wear panties.
* * *
Department Of Don’t Say You Weren’t Warned
To maintain a pretense of sanity, moiself has been trying to stay away from the news. But some gems still sneak on through. Attention, all ye Book Banning Cretins, especially the ones in Florida: isn’t there some other classic Florida Man® thing you need to do, maybe throw an alligator through a fast food franchise’s window, to protest…something?
Apparently, among the books the BBCs have banned from their own narrow minds are anything involving the history of
* freethought and expression
* the exchange of information
* the kind of people who ban books and what happens to them and their society afterward.
I know; y’all will need the smelling salts to believe that an elected official who took an oath to defend the U.S. Constitution would support banning books.
If requested to offer sage counsel, moiself would advise that DeSantis and his ilk should avoid pissing off us cranky, feminist authors. The older we get, the less the phrase “life-in-prison” is a deterrent.
* * *
Department Of Belated Yet Timely Information
“…an anthropologist from Utah State University, David Lancy, performed (an) analysis on parenting. The conclusion was….clear-cut: When you look around the world and throughout human history, the Western style of parenting is WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic societies..). We are outliers.
In many instances, what we think is ‘necessary’ or ‘critical’ for childhood is actually not present in any other cultures around the world or throughout time.
‘The list of differences is really, really long,’ says Lancy…. ‘There may be 40 to 50 things that we do that you don’t see in indigenous cultures.’
Here in the U.S., many parents don’t have…firsthand experience before having children themselves. Instead, we often learn…through parenting books, Google searches and YouTube videos. But this information comes with two big caveats….
For starters, parenting advice can give the impression that the recommendations are based on science. But a deep look at some studies reveals that the science is more like smoke and mirrors. Sometimes the studies don’t even test what the parenting expert is purporting they do.
… Ben Bradley argues…: ‘Scientific observations about babies are more like mirrors which reflect back the preoccupations and visions of those who study them than like windows opening directly on the foundations of the mind.’…
And sometimes the data supporting the recommendation are so flimsy that another study in a few years will come along and not only overturn the first study but completely flip the advice 180 degrees…”
‘Twas a wee bit past Mother’s Day is when I saw this article, and Father’s Day is just around the proverbial bend. After attending a family wedding this past weekend, wherein with two of my nephews were new and/or about-to-be fathers, I found this article most noteworthy. [2]
Reading the article made me think about way back when, [3] to the baby books MH and I were given/bought, and how eventually I set them all aside (in one case, I threw one across the room, yelling, “Oh seriously, fuck this!”) in dissent and frustration).
The book that became a frisbee was one of those dreadful, “how to get your baby to sleep” screeds books (which had been either recommended by or gifted to us by a family member). Several of the parenting books contained “advice” and “expertise” which didn’t sit well with either MH or moiself and which seemed contrary to both logic and the reality of our babies. I began to look up information about the authors of those books, and when moiself did so I found that they were penned by – surprise! – stealth conservative evangelical Christians. [4] This explained much of which I found questionable about their advice: *control*was the overriding and underlying issue.
William and Martha Sears, just two of the stealthers, have co-authored several books peddling their attachment-style parenting theories, and one of them was given to me by a friend. Guess what the Sears’ also wrote: The Complete Book of Christian Parenting and Child Care: A Medical and Moral Guide to Raising Happy Healthy Children. The word “medical” being included in the title both cracks me up and disturbs me. [5]
Once again, I digress.
The sleep advice books were the worst of the parenting manuals authored by conservative evangelicals. In the Conservagels[6] world, there is a supposed, divinely ordained, patriarchal hierarchy: On top of the pyramid is a (male pronoun-using) deity, followed by a father, followed by a mother, then children. Parents *must* be “in control” of their children, from birth to young adulthood. The takeaway was that your children, yes, even that six-week-old infant, are sneaky little buggers trying to control their parents, and will manipulate you unless you set the rules and routines *from the get-go.*
Creepy. That’s the word which comes to my mind as I recall the gist of those books: You must set a routine early on for sleep-training and other despicable concepts practices to let the little pea brain precious gift from above know that just because he cries it doesn’t mean he’s going to get a response from you if, in your opinion (which you will form using the criteria in the book), his vocalizations are not for a legitimate need (e.g., he’s hungry, or has a wet/poopy diaper). He needs to learn self-control; he needs to learn to self/soothe cry it out, and not have his parents (read: the female one) at his beck and call.
*From the get-go,* from the moment we escaped from the hospital, [7] K wanted to eat, lightly, around the clock (every three hours, for many, many months). That was just how he was – eat a little, sleep a little. Three years later, on the evening when his newborn sister Belle and I came home from the hospital, I had to go in to wake Belle up to nurse, after she’d slept for five straight hours and I feared she’d succumbed to SIDS or something. [8] *From the get-go,* Belle was a different infant. She would nurse heartily, then sleep heartily. After Belle was weaned, she and K seemed to switch sleeping patterns for a little over a year – she became the night owl and he in turn liked a good 8-10 hours. [9]
After two weeks (ha!) paternity leave, when MH was home from work he did the lion’s share of our babes’ care, except for feeding them. We figured it made no sense for *both* parents to be sleep-deprived, and since I was the one with the human milk glands, I was the one getting up to feed them. [10] Several months into a brutal sleep deprivation, I tried a sleep training book’s advice: after feeding K and changing his diaper and rocking him for a bit, I’d put him down in his crib, and let him cry and cry. It did not set well with either of K’s parents, to put it mildly. I usually went back to K’s room after an hour, fed him/changed him/rocked him again, and he’d go back to sleep.
One night, the third or fourth in a row when we were trying the sleep training advice, MH and I were in bed, attempting to read our respective books, while K was wailing away in his bedroom. MH, frustrated with the “let him cry” advice, announced that he couldn’t take it anymore. He got up and headed to K’s room, with moiself trailing behind. “He’s a baby,” MH said, as he picked up and cuddled our son, who immediately stopped his wails. “He’s just trying to tell us…something…in the only way he knows how.”
I came to the conclusion that my son may have been channeling the spirit of one of the bajillion pet hamsters I had as a child (K seemed to be nocturnal)…or maybe he was just bored and/or lonely, and guess what – he doesn’t speak yet. Other than that, no, this 3-month-old infant who doesn’t even know his top from his bottom is nottrying to manipulate me, and no thank you – and by no thank you I mean, F-off – to the rigid asshats who are trying to convince me that he is. [11]
Eventually, both K and Belle learned to speak English.
* * *
Department of Employee Of The Month
It’s that time again, to bestow that prestigious award upon moiself. Again. The need for which I wrote about here. [12]
May your pictures of yourself be just that, and not selfies; May you shun panties: go commando, or put on underwear; May you ban book banning and read banned books; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] Hum these three words to the tune of Winnie-the Pooh’s “Heffalumps and Woozles.” You won’t regret it.
[2] The story would be interesting even if I had no kinfolk on the cusp of parenthood; the timing of my seeing the article merely coincided.
[3] Okay; thirty years ago, anticipating/after the arrival of our first born, son K.
[4]Stealth as in, they were attempting to fly under the radar by not identifying themselves as such.
[5] Because, as we know from SCIENCE, babies born to Christian parents will have different physiologies (digestive tracts; REM patterns…) than babies born to Humanist, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu and Jain parents.
[6] Forget selfie; here’s a neologism which begs to be coined.
[7] That’s kind of how we viewed it – a concept shared by many new parents, as we discovered later when we compared notes. We left the hospital, where we and our baby were being cared for by professionals…and they’re going to just let us get in the car and take our baby home, when we’ve never done this before?!?!
[8] Plus, by then, *I* needed her to nurse. Nursing mothers understands the old farm idiom of why the cows come home.
[9] Which translates as nothing resembling a regular sleep pattern for moiself. For the first five years of motherhood, I often felt like I’d fallen out of the zombie tree and hit every branch on the way down.
[10] K and Belle were breast fed exclusively – no bottles – when it came to liquid nourishment. They went from me to a sippy cup, which had its advantages when we saw other parents deal with the fight to get their kids to give up the bottle.
[11] K later became a fine sleeper, thank you very much.
[12] Several years ago, MH received a particularly glowing performance review from his workplace. As happy as I was for him when he shared the news, it left me with a certain melancholy I couldn’t quite peg. Until I did.
One of the many “things” about being a writer (or any occupation working freelance at/from home) is that although you avoid the petty bureaucratic policies, bungling bosses, mean girls’ and boys’ cliques, office politics and other irritations inherent in going to a workplace, you also lack the camaraderie and other social perks that come with being surrounded by your fellow homo sapiens. No one praises me for fixing the paper jam in the copy machine, or thanks me for staying late and helping the new guy with a special project, or otherwise says, Good on you, sister. Once I realized the source of the left-out feelings, I came up with a small way to lighten them.
[13] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
Dateline: last Saturday; 8 AM-ish; walking north along a section of the Oregon coast, from Hug Point to Arch Cape and back, during a minus tide. While looking at tide pools and observing the creatures in and around them, moiself had a flashback to childhood:
Flashback dateline: a Saturday, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away (So Cal; late 1960s), at my usual hangout, a minimum of four days a week, in the summer: [1]
This beach day is a family outing, to Corona del Mar. After a morning of finding less-than-rad barrels to body surf (I prefer the waves at Newport Beach), I scarf my tuna sandwich and Seven-Up, [3] and look for something to do during (what I’ve been told is) the mandatory post-prandial 30 minute wait before going back into the water.
Debunking the Myth
“No, you don’t have to wait 30 minutes or more to swim after you’ve eaten. Swimming right after you’ve had something to eat isn’t dangerous at all. The concern was that because digestion diverts some of your blood flow from your muscles to your stomach, swimming might somehow inhibit that necessary blood flow to the stomach, causing cramps so severe that you could drown. Alternately, another version of the myth claims the opposite: your limbs won’t get enough blood flow because your stomach is diverting it, causing you to drown. These concerns are unwarranted because your blood just isn’t diverted enough to cause any real problems. There are no documented deaths attributed to anyone swimming on a full stomach….
Where Did the Myth Come From? …It turns out that this “rule” has been around since at least 1908, when it was included in a Boy Scout handbook. The handbook warned that if boys didn’t wait at least 90 minutes before swimming, they might drown — “it will be your own fault,” the manual admonished. Where the Boy Scout handbook got the idea isn’t known, but it certainly wasn’t accurate. Still, the fallacy has doggedly persisted for over 100 years….” (Is Swimming After Eating Really Dangerous? Dignityhealth.org )
I get my parents to follow me south along the beach to the base of some cliffs, to one of my favorite tide pool areas. Many is the afternoon wherein I pass more than the minimum 30-minutes-after-eatingdictum by exploring the rocks and tide pools, playing with harassing the anemones, [4] or just settling down on a rock and watching the ocean’s flora and fauna. My parents dutifully follow me, but after a few minutes of tide pool observance, they want to move on. One of them (I can’t recall who said it first but the other chimed in with agreement) says something along the lines of, “Yes, it’s nice, but there’s not much to see. Not really anything here.”
Looking back, moiself realizes that they didn’t mean to sound dismissive, they were just ignorant. To them, and probably to most non-scientist-folk of the time (or, sadly/likely, even most folks today), what counts as Life ® – as in, as in, something “to see” – is something that’s big, and furry. As in, mammals…followed by birds and fish and “bugs.”
My folks looked in the tide pools and saw seaweed-covered rocks and saltwater. The fact that the ocean in general and tide pools in particular teem with life – the kind of life which actually dominates the planet, in terms of sheer biomass and diversity of species.… That kind of life-stuff didn’t count.
Anemone. Like this minty one on the Oregon coast, sea anemones were thought by my parents to be plants, until the little smartass that was moi’s preteen self informed them that sea anemones were predatory sea *animals,* related to jellyfish.
Excerpt from the episode’s conversation with Freakonomics host Stephen Dubner and guest, Holy Shit author Melissa Mohr:
Stephen Dubner: “What do you think is more common over time: for words that are taboo to become less taboo, or vice-versa?”
Melissa Mohr: “Hmm, that’s an interesting question. You’ve got this kind of euphemism treadmill [5] that Steven Pinker talks about, where it starts off as a bad word but then people use it more and more and you get used to it and then it falls away, and then you need to come up with another bad word…and you’ve seen that with religious words; we’re seeing that with f*** and c*** and sh**…”
SD: “But on the other hand, ‘homeless person’ becomes taboo.”
MM: “Yes. Right now we are in a New-new Victorianism in that way. And of course that’s very culturally specific in the United States. Among my relatives in Wisconsin who didn’t go to college, they’re not going to say, ‘the unhoused,’ …but in academia, and Cambridge it’s, yep —.”
Moiself highly recommends the episode, which deals with one of my favorite subjects: language, and the evolution [6] of usage and vocabulary. Speaking of which, if you’ve the mind to do so, read some of George Carlin’s books, or just google some of his standup routines. The late great comedian and author was noted for his keen, observational wit and analytical social critique, and had an almost academic interest in the quirks of the English language. Plus, he was fuckin’ hilarious.
“I noticed that of all the prayers I used to offer to God, and all the prayers that I now offer to Joe Pesci, are being answer at about the same 50 percent rate. Half the time I get what I want. Half the time I don’t. Same as god; 50/50.
Same as the four-leaf clover, the horse shoe, the rabbit’s foot, and the wishing well. Same as the mojo man. Same as the voodoo lady who tells your fortune by squeezing the goat’s testicles. It’s all the same; 50/50. So just pick your superstitions, sit back, make a wish and enjoy yourself. (George Carlin, from his live standup album, You Are All Diseased)
“You want I should squeeze *what*?”
* * *
Department Of, Seriously?
Dateline: Wednesday, circa 10:45am, in a movie theater, watching previews before the main attraction (Chevalier, which moiself recommends). Among the trailers was one for the upcoming (and likely, final) Indiana Jones movie.
After the fast-paced series of exotic locales, death-defying stunts, and other hallmarks of the IJ franchise, the screen cuts to the movie’s title…and I was…what?
The coda to one of the most successful action/adventure series in movie history gets this lame name?
I know, right?
* * *
May you stand in awe of the diversity of this planet’s non-furry life; May you debunk a myth (and get to blame the Boy Scouts handbook for the myth’s origin); May you avoid strenuous workouts on the euphemism treadmill; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] This is not an exaggeration (and I have the sun damaged skin to prove it). Until we were older and could either drive or bicycle to the coast on our own, my friends’ and my parents (and then our older siblings, when they got their drivers’ licenses) took turns taking us to the beach.
[2]The Beachwas our generic term for the Orange County coast, from Huntington Beach to Laguna Beach. Most often it referred to our favorite hangout, Newport Beach, followed by Corona del Mar.
[3] The Parnells were not a soda-drinking family (for which my parents received high praise from our dentists). Soft drinks were for special occasion only, but this rule was suspended during summers, when my siblings and I could have one soda each to take with us to be pat of our beach lunch.
[4]Moiself love the feeling of sticking my fingers between their tentacles, and having the tentacles close around them. It freaked out some of my friends, which therfore made it even more fun to do.
[5] “Psychologist and linguist Stephen Pinker coined the term euphemism treadmill in a 1994 article in the New York Times. It refers to a process by which words that are used as a euphemism for a concept that’s somehow tainted then end up becoming tainted themselves by association. At that point, society generates a new “correct” euphemism. Then that chugs along for a while until it picks up the taint as well, and people seek a new term. A matter of racism: Pinker pointed out that a good indication that there’s an underlying issue is that the euphemism treadmill keeps coming up with terms that are essentially synonymous with one another, e.g. coloured people, people of colour, Negro (literally, Spanish for black), and black. That underlying issue is, in the case of skin colour, racism. Even the most derogatory N-word derives from the Latin for black, but countless layers of complexity and history have piled up on top of it. All that complexity and history passes right on along to the next popular term people choose.” (excerpt from “What is the Euphemism Treadmill,” Mental health at home, )
[7] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Defipix: indiananition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
Department Of Sometimes It’s Better To Imagine The Answer
Dateline: Saturday the 15th; 7:50-ish am. While walking and listening to a podcast about All Things Chicken ®, moiself heard the following question, posed by the podcast host to the chicken expert guest:
This picture shows one component of one of the best presents ever received,
by anyone, on any planet, in any galaxy. [1]
* * *
Department Of I Don’t Know Who Lisa Norgren Is But I Love Her
Dateline: early last week. Perhaps this essay has been floating around social media for a while, but last week was the first time I saw it. [2] This essay is, well, powerfuldoesn’t even begin to cover it.
I have witnessed both of my offspring, when they were young, dealing with this issue [3] addressed by Norgren’s essay: family members “teasing” them and not accepting no or please stop from a child. In every case I witnessed I intervened and explained, but the adults doing the teasing never seemed to get it.
And I’ve seen with moiself’s own eyes/heard with moiself’s own ears, how it is the same people in this the same society who say Relax; lighten up, I was just teasing/playing, why are you so uptight, we’re just having fun/you’re making a big deal out of nothing to the uncomfortable young girl who will be the same people questioning the girl later – when she grows into a young woman and finally gets the courage to report harassment (or worse) which has gone on for some time – about Why didn’t you speak up? Why didn’t you say no the first time? Why didn’t you fight for yourself?
Why ?!?!?!? ?!?!?!?!?
Because. That. Is. What. You. Taught. Her. To. Do.
You [4] taught her to not “make a fuss;” you taught her to ignore her instincts and feelings when someone made her uncomfortable. You taught her to shrink and bear it.
“A grown man looms behind my three-year-old daughter. Occasionally he will poke or tickle her and she responds by shrinking. Smaller and smaller with each unwanted advance. I imagine her trying to become slight enough to slip out of her booster seat and slide under the table.
When my mother views this scene, she sees playful taunting. A grandfather engaging with his granddaughter.
“Mae.” My tone cuts through the din of a familiar family gathering together. She does not look at me.
“Mae.” I start again. “You can tell him no Mae. If this isn’t okay you could say something like, Papa, please back up—I would like some space for my body.”
As I say the words, my stepfather, the bulldog, leans in a little closer, hovering just above her head. His tenebrous grin taunts me as my daughter accordions her 30-pound frame hoping to escape his tickles and hot breath.
I repeat myself with a little more force. She finally peeks up at me.
“Mama . . . can you say it?”
Surprise. A three-year-old-girl doesn’t feel comfortable defending herself against a grown man. A man that has stated he loves and cares for her over and over again, and yet, stands here showing zero concern for her wishes about her own body. I ready myself for battle.
“Papa! Please back up! Mae would like some space for her body.”
My voice is firm but cheerful. He does not move.
“Papa. I should not have to ask you twice. Please back up. Mae is uncomfortable.”
“Oh, relax,” he says, ruffling her wispy blonde hair.
The patriarchy stands, patronizing me in my own damn kitchen. “We’re just playin’.” His southern drawl does not charm me.
“No. *You* were playing. She was not. She’s made it clear that she would like some space, now please back up.”
“I can play how I want with her.” He says, straightening his posture.
My chest tightens. The sun-bleached hairs on my arms stand at attention as this man, who has been my father figure for more than three decades, enters the battle ring.
“No. No, you cannot play however you want with her. It’s not okay to ‘have fun’ with someone who does not want to play.”
He opens his mouth to respond but my rage is palpable through my measured response. I wonder if my daughter can feel it. I hope she can.
He retreats to the living room and my daughter stares up at me. Her eyes, a starburst of blue and hazel, shine with admiration for her mama. The dragon has been slayed (for now). My own mother is silent. She refuses to make eye contact with me.
This is the same woman who shut me down when I told her about a sexual assault I had recently come to acknowledge.
This is the same woman who was abducted by a carful of strangers as she walked home one night. She fought and screamed until they kicked her out. Speeding away, they ran over her ankle and left her with a lifetime of physical and emotional pain.
This is the same woman who said nothing, who could say nothing as her boss and his friends sexually harassed her for years.
This is the same woman who married one of those friends.
When my mother views this scene, she sees her daughter overreacting. She sees me ‘making a big deal out of nothing.’ Her concerns lie more in maintaining the status quo and cradling my stepdad’s toxic ego than in protecting the shrinking three-year-old in front of her.
When I view this scene, I am both bolstered and dismayed. My own strength and refusal to keep quiet is the result of hundreds, probably thousands of years of women being mistreated, and their protests ignored. It is the result of watching my own mother suffer quietly at the hands of too many men. It is the result of my own mistreatment and my solemn vow to be part of ending this cycle.
It would be so easy to see a little girl being taught that her wishes don’t matter. That her body is not her own. That even people she loves will mistreat and ignore her. And that all of this is “okay” in the name of other people, men, having fun.
But. What I see instead is a little girl watching her mama. I see a little girl learning that her voice matters. That her wishes matter. I see a little girl learning that she is allowed and expected to say no. I see her learning that this is not okay.
I hope my mom is learning something, too.
Fighting the patriarchy one grandpa at a time.”
~ By Lisa Norgren
* * *
Department Of Everyone Should Read This Book
“As a retired brain surgeon, Henry Marsh thought he understood illness, but he was unprepared for the impact of his diagnosis of advanced cancer. And Finally explores what happens when someone who has spent a lifetime on the frontline of life and death finds himself contemplating what might be his own death sentence.
As he navigates the bewildering transition from doctor to patient, Marsh is haunted by past failures and projects yet to be completed, and frustrated by the inconveniences of illness and old age. But he is also more entranced than ever by the mysteries of science and the brain, the beauty of the natural world and his love for his family. Elegiac, candid, luminous and poignant, And Finally is ultimately not so much a book about death, but a book about life and what matters in the end.”
An excerpt from chapter 16, the chapter wherein March examines issues brought up by both proponents and opponents of assisted dying (my emphases):
“It has always struck me as somewhat illogical that the most passionate opponents of abortion and assisted dying usually have religious faith, with a concomitant belief in life after death. Surely, if our lives continue after death, abortion and assisted dying are not absolute evils? If there really is going to be a heavenly banquet after death, why delay? It is as though they think that assisted dying is cheating – that we need to suffer when dying if our soul is to be reborn that there is something ‘natural’ about dying slowly and painfully….
Our fear of death makes it very difficult to look it in the face and see the manner of dying as a practical problem, as a question of choice, that can be regulated by the law, rather than as something divinely ordained, and which is not negotiable. We all fear death, but for people with religious faith there is the added fear that their faith might be mistaken, that there is no human soul or essence and no afterlife… ” [5]
( Ali Amjad Rizvi is a Pakistani-born Canadian atheist ex-Muslim and secular humanist writer and podcaster who explores the challenges of Muslims who leave their faith. He writes a column for the Huffington Post and co-hosts the Secular Jihadists for a Muslim Enlightenment podcast together with Armin Navabi. [7])
* * *
May you teach children notto never ignore their unease; May you not ignore your own mortality; May you someday have cause to ask, “Well, what about their buttholes?; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] A few years ago, daughter Belle made us (MH and I, for a family Christmas gift), a “Chicken Hole” game board (plus bean bag filled chickens for tossing). Once you ‘ve played chicken hole you’ll never be satisfied with plain old cornhole.
[5] I have read books by doctors who addressed this phenomenon and have personally talked with doctors about this very subject: how, in their experience, religious people are so often puzzlingly (to the doctors) ill-prepared to talk about their inevitable death – it is obvious to the doctors that these people have avoided thinking about death other than via the allegedly comforting idea of “going to be with Jesus.” Then, when faced with their death, they have so much fear and discomfort with making final care decisions. Unlike many religion-free folk who have considered the realities of their own demise as a natural (if not exactly anticipated) part of living, many religious folk have never seriously done so, and when they’re finally being confronted about their doubts (“What if I’m wrong, and there is no afterlife?”) they also have the added burden of being ashamed by having doubts, which they fear will be seen (by other religious folk) as a marker that they are less than stalwart believers.
[6] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
Active, reliable, sarcastic, affectionate, bipedal, cynical optimist, writer, freethinker, parent, spouse and friend, I am generous with my handy supply of ADA-approved spearmint gum and sometimes refrain from humming in public.
The Classic TV Sitcom Identity I’m Not Hiding
August 25, 2023
Robyn Parnell are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), community, current events, extended family, family life, freethought/humanism, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), nature, Oregon, politics, Recreation, travel, TV, Wow, Yikes! aggressive dogs, batshit loony commenters, Bewitched, bogus class warfare, dogs and runners, Gladys Kravitz, hippies, illegal camping, nature loving hypocrisy, The Classic TV Sitcom Identity I'm No Longer Hiding, van life 1 Comment
Department Of, Curses – My Cover Has been Blown!
According to a rather irrelevant and batshit crazy deranged, ad hominem attack/comment someone made about moiself on a Facebook group…
Can you believe it – someone said something nasty on social media?!
…I am…(gulp)…Gladys Kravitz. [1]
(Which makes MH, Mr. Abner Kravitz. Yep, I’ve been having fun with that all week).
Left: Gladys Kravitz; Right: Samantha Stevens
For those readers younger than 50, Gladys Kravitz was the nosy neighbor of the TV series Bewitched‘s protagonist, Samantha Stevens. Gladys was convinced that there were extraordinary goings on in Stevens’ household, and was exasperated to the nth because she couldn’t prove her suspicions to her husband ( “Abbbnnneeeerrr!” ) [2]
Background to this startling revelation about my heretofore secret identity: Dateline, Tuesday morning, circa 7:30 am. I was at the coast, out for a morning walk…
But first, a relevant digression. A long time ago…oh, no – here it comes again…
From my late high school years until my late twenties, I ran [3] between two to five miles, every day. As recreational runners know, unleashed dogs and runners are not a good combination. [4] Every runner I’ve met has stories of being confronted, harassed and/or attacked by an unleashed/unaccompanied-by-its-human, aggressive dog. The stories, and the avoiding-being-a-dog-bite-victim advice runners receive and pass on to other runners, are mostly similar, but sometimes divergent.
A person running triggers the prey instinct in many dogs; thus, the common wisdom shared amongst runners: when approached by a dog whose posture and behavior…
* stiffening or freezing of the body;
* forward-leaning, hunched down, hunting/stalking posture;
* “whale eyes” (wide, with a lot of white showing);
* teeth baring; tense mouth/curled lips; wrinkled nose;
* ears laid flat against the skull or stiffly held straight up (not relaxed);
* barking, growling; “air-snapping”….
…indicates aggression, and there is no dog owner in sight, you should:
* stop running
* stay as calm as you can
* avoid eye contact (which can be seen as aggressive);
* speak to the dog in a calm, firm, but non-threatening voice; [5]
* remain upright;
* don’t scream (or flail your limbs or panic or jump up and down);
* back into a corner or against a wall so the dog can’t get behind you;
* look for a tree or car to climb [6] and hope to f***’s sake the owner appears…
I faced the aggressive dog situation many times when I was running for exercise. Those strategies worked for me, as they did for other runners…except when they didn’t. I heard too many stories of someone who did everything right and got bitten anyway.
Fellow runners also shared the WTF?!?!? confusion of hearing sure-fire advice from so-called experts which contradicted advice shared by other experts. As in: ignore the dog; *don’t * stop running. Continue what you’re doing, because some dogs will pay you no mind when you walk or run past them but if you stop, they “think” (okay, no human really knows what a dog thinks, we are trying to guess/interpret) you are a threat to them.
In other words, encountering an aggressive dog is situational and dog-specific: sorry, but there is no sure-fire, works-every-time, strategy. But, human nature being what it is, there is this sure-fire reality: there will always be some person who will tell you that, whatever you did, you should have done something else.
Back to the future background to the Mrs. Kravitz revelation: Dateline: the Oregon coast (Manzanita); Tuesday morning, circa 7:30 am; out for my morning constitutional. On that day I decided to walk north along the imaginatively named Ocean Road, which parallels the beach, then splits into two roads, one of which (Beulah Reed Road) continues along the coast and up into the streets winding around the base of Mt. Neahkahnie.
I walked along the road, noting the increasing number of vans and other vehicles I’d been seeing in my early morning walks – vans and campers parked alongside Ocean Road which look as if they’ve been there all night (as opposed to the vehicles whose drivers pull over, watch the waves and savor their morning coffee [7] before driving on to their jobs, or what/where ever). Those been-there-overnight vehicles are situated in such a way to indicate that the occupants are camping there, despite the fact that it is illegal to do so, and despite the “No Parking between 11pm – 5am” signs posted along the road.
As I turned up Beulah Reed Road I saw two more looks-like-illegal-camping vehicles parked on the west side of the road. Safety-conscious pedestrian that I am, when I am walking along a sidewalk-less road, I always walk facing traffic; thus, I passed close by both of the vans, whose occupants were presumably still inside/asleep (the vehicle’s windows had shades and other objects blocking the windows and windshields). One of the vans stood out due to its color and décor: a green van festooned with white and yellow flowers, sporting a Nebraska license plate and a message – “love mother nature and she will love you back” – painted on the van’s rear window.
The Green Van was in the same spot on the west side of Beulah Reed Road where, in the past few months, I’d walked past other camping vehicles one of which provided moiself with a memorable visual a couple months ago. The naked man who’d emerged from that vehicle and began urinating by the side of the road just as I was passing by was an unpleasant sight, but a minor startle compared to what happened Tuesday am.
I continued walking up Beulah Reed Road for a few more minutes, then headed back to Ocean Road. As I neared the Green Van (this time, walking on the far side of the road) I saw a husky/malemute dog lying in the sand by the right rear of the GV. The dog had not been there five minutes ago, when I’d first walked past the GV, and there was no sign of any humans (other than moiself ) about. When I was about thirty feet away from the GV the dog’s eyes fixed on me; it got up and slowly began to cross the road toward me.
Oh, shit. It takes minutes to type what flashed through my mind in nanoseconds Some of the nicest dogs I’ve met, and some of the meanest, have been husky/malemutes – and those two breeds consistently rank high on the Biting Dogs lists…. [8]
The dog was obviously not going to be one of the nice ones. It slunk toward me, in a crouched position (the classic hunting posture – have you ever seen footage of wolves or other carnivores stalking their prey?). Its approach was menacing, but silent…which I found more disturbing than barking. [9] If it had been barking, that would have (hopefully) alerted its owner.
“How’d ya like to see these teeth up close?”
I stop walking and spoke softly but firmly, remembering not to make eye contact. I did all the “right things,” which had no effect on the dog’s aggressive body language and approach, so I slowly began to continue my walk. The dog circled in front of me, blocking my path. It growled, bared its teeth and walked stiff-legged toward me, then began to snarl and bark. I put my walking poles between me and the dog and called out loudly: WHOSE DOG IS THIS – COME GET YOUR DOG. I did this several times; finally, a woman appeared from the west-facing side of the van. She had long, reddish hair and looked to be in her late 20s – early 30s. She made no apologies for her menacing dog, but unenthusiastically attempted to
(1) assure me that her dog was not aggressive (“He just has a lot to say” she said,
as her dog began barking even louder, flattened his ears, and raised his hackles)
(2) get her dog under voice control.
She failed at both (1) and (2).
She held no leash (and with the dog’s thick fur I couldn’t tell if it even had a collar to which a leash could be attached). She kept calling to the dog, which would turn to look at her, take two steps toward the GV, then turn around and bark and take three steps toward moiself. As the dog continued to ignore the anemic “suggestions” of his owner to return to her, I swung one of my walking sticks at him, which temporarily stopped his advance (at that point he was less than two feet from me).
Oh, for some pepper spray, I thought – not for the dog, but to use on that pathetic excuse for a human being. GV lady may make van-decoration-declarations on loving Mother Nature but she obviously doesn’t give an oyster’s ass about walking responsibly through Mother Nature’s land while respecting and protecting *all* of Ma Nature’s creatures, including bipedal ones.
This brand only works on German-speaking dogs.
I made firm, aggressive eye contact with the woman when she repeated her, “He’s not mean/he has a lot to say” bullshit excuse. I replied, “Yeah, he’s saying a lot and none of it is nice – I’ve been bitten by a dog; I know when I’m being threatened. You need to get your dog under control, RIGHT NOW.” The insolent look on her face reminded me of a pouty adolescent whose parents had threatened to ground her until she cleared the dinner table. “I am going this way,” I pointed toward Ocean Road, “and your dog needs to go that way.“ I pointed toward her van.
Which eventually happened. After the woman and her dog disappeared behind the other side of the van, I took a picture of the back of the GV.
I was seething when I got home (and really hungry). I posted the GV picture on my FB page, along with a very brief description of the incident. As I was doing so I remembered that on my way back I’d passed an elderly couple walking on Ocean Road, headed in the direction I’d come from. Damn, I chastised moiself – should I have warned them about staying away from that van? With that thought in mind I posted the same photo and incident description, with an “FYI” warning/introduction, on a FB page where locals post pictures and info about items of North Oregon coast interest.
I knew I should report what had happened to “the authorities.” As I fixed my breakfast and mulled over whom to call (The town? The county? ) I was contacted by my Friend and Neighbor ®. F&N had seen my post, and urged me to report the incident. I called the police non-emergency number; the dispatcher who finally answered said that Beulah Road was under Tillamook County jurisdiction, and that she’d have a TC deputy contact me.
The TC deputy took down the details of my report, and then…oh my my (“Officer Chatty Cathy,” my mind soon nicknamed him). He had a lot to say about what had happened to me, and about related incidents he had been/was currently dealing with. I was apparently a sympathetic ear into which he unloaded his and his law enforcement colleagues’ frustrations with similar incidents and with “what’s going on in the county,” including:
* increased illegal camping
* increased reports of aggression between illegal campers and county residents
* illegal campers’ aggressive/unleashed dogs (who go after both people and other dogs)
* the overload of reports the county has to investigate without the staff to do so….
He said that TC had a backlog of *hundreds* of calls about illegal camping and other violations, but that because what happened to me involved menacing, he could prioritize my report, and would head for Beulah Road. I thanked him, and noted that the van had probably moved on. Actually…probably not, he said. And, in his experience, if it did move it would likely move to somewhere nearby, and a green van with Nebraska plates would be easy to spot. Should he find the van, he said he’d have an in-depth conversation with the van/dog owner. How he handles these cases, he explained, is based on the dogs’ and or vehicles’ owners’ demeanor and response. If they listen respectfully and are forthright and apologetic, he tries to educate them and lets them off with a warning. If they are unapologetic and insolent, and even (as some people have done) go so far as to assert that they have no intention of abiding by the _____ (leash, parking/camping/trash disposal, etc.) laws, he’ll give them “as many citations as possible.”
He asked me to spread the word: please tell people to report these encounters, even as he acknowledged the perception that “They (law enforcement) will do nothing,” and so most incidents go unreported. It’s true, we (local police/sheriff departments) are understaffed, he said, but people need to know that the reports, even if they cannot be immediately investigated, help them gather statistics in general, and make records in particular for individual menacing dogs and their owners, so that if (or as he put it, “unfortunately, when“) the dog harasses/attacks another person or pet, the dog owner can’t get away with, “Oh, he’s harmless/he’s never done that before….”
At one point in our conversation, I told him how I’d began my walk thinking about the increase in illegal parking/camping, and asked if he knew if that is indeed the case, or just my anecdotal impression? And is this uptick (in illegal beach camping) related to homelessness? He told me the increase in numbers wasn’t my imagination, but that my assumption about the cause was incorrect. He then asked me something which led to an “aha” turn to the conversation: “Have you heard of the website, ‘vanlife’?”
“You’ve seen the hype around #vanlife. You’ve seen the stunning photos on social media. Now you want to throw everything to the wind, quit your job, build out a camper van, and live a carefree life of adventure….
This page is designed as a jumping-off point for your personal vanlife journey. We go over the pros and cons of this lifestyle, the reasons why full time van life is awesome… We answer the most frequently asked questions about living in a van – everything from bathrooms and showering…to finding sweet camping spots.”
(excerpts from the intro to Van Life How To: Complete Guide to Living in a Van Full Time,
my emphases )
“After we’ve posted this cool picture of ourselves can we go back to our penthouse and order takeout sushi?”
I said I knew of the site, but had never visited it. I thought it was similar to other sites I’d heard about, where people share information about RVing and/or traveling and living in trailers and vans. It is that, Officer CC said, but has become so much more: it has become a source of the increased “incident” calls faced by local law enforcement. He proceeded to express his frustration re the influence of the van-lifestyle sites, where people post info for others who’ve chosen to live in vans, sharing tips about where to travel and camp “for free” (but not necessarily legally).
More and more, Officer CC said, the people he speaks to and then warns and/or cites for illegal camping are mentioning (in some cases, boasting) that they were “referred” to the Oregon coast by vanlife and similar websites and online bulletin boards. And, he stressed, these people are *not* homeless– they seem well-funded (trust fund babies?) and/or are working remotely. For whatever reasons, they have romanticized the idea of public urination and defecation [10] life on the road. They…
* find it glamorous to be house-less by choice;
* take pride in ridding themselves of the bourgeois trappings of consumerism:
* receive positive feedback from like-minded folk when they post
cool pictures on Instagram of their adventures in livin’ on the road;
* believe that dogs also “need freedom” and so they ignore local leash laws;
* tell him that they love livin’ “for free”…
which – surprise! – turns out to be anything but free for the people in the communities who pay the taxes that fund the services to clean up after those freedom lovin’ van lifers, who leave their trash and toxic waste behind as they move on – and the damage these love-nature-and-she’ll-love-you hypocrites do to natural habitat areas frustrates him to no end…
As he described his dealings with these voluntary nomads, more than once he referred to van-life enthusiasts as, “hippies.” I could tell from Officer CC’s voice that he was much younger than moiself; it took all of my maturity (ahem) to refrain from correcting him:
“Actually, they aren’t hippies – that was an older generation. Any surviving hippies are at home rubbing patchouli and/or CBD oil on their aching joints…I think y’all need to come up with a more contemporary epithet for the younguns whose lives and values you find disrespectful, or just fruity.”
I’m not criticizing or mocking the deputy. He was amiable, empathetic, and eager to articulate the frustrations of law enforcement officers who cannot adequately fulfill their oath to serve and protect when they are overwhelmed by calls they cannot address.
Our talk turned to what people can do to protect themselves against aggressive dogs (Officer CC said his wife is a runner, and that she and her running buddies frequently deal with unleashed and aggressive dogs). I said that, due to my afore-mentioned, bitten-by-a-dog incident, I’d done my research, and ordered a cannister of citronella spray [11] and an air horn, for self-defense. Before I could tell him I’d ruled out bear sprays/pepper sprays, he strongly advised that I tell my friends *not* to carry pepper sprays, because
* Unless you’re an expert who practices with pepper spray on a regular basis you can end up inadvertently spraying yourself, particularly when you’re under duress;
* At the beach, where gusts of wind can arise seemingly out of nowhere, pepper spray can backfire, as in, get blown back on *you.*
He said that while he hated having to recommend it (“Nobody wants to hurt an animal,”) carrying a club might be called for (I said thanks/no thanks, and mentioned my walking poles). He expressed admiration for the air horn strategy: “What a great idea!” he enthused, noting that the loud noise would both startle the dog and alert nearby humans.
Yeah; okay, are we ever gonna get to the Gladys Kravitz connection?
After my conversation with the deputy I drove to Hillsboro, where I had business to attend to. While driving I received a voice mail from my Friend & Neighbor, and pulled over to return her call. F&N said that my local/beach group FB posting had spawned a comment firestorm: most were from people relating their own/similar incidents, and/or expressing sadness re what happened to me in particular and what they saw happening to their community. Other posters engaged in unfounded and unsolicited second-guessing, reframing the incident, and even claiming to know the dog’s intentions, despite having not been there. [12] Several of those I-wasn’t-there-but-I-know-what-really-happened posters also opined on what I *should* have done to avoid being menaced by the dog.
( Ladies, does this sound familiar?
“If you’d only done this/said that/worn that/walked this way,
you wouldn’t have been assaulted.” )
I’d read a few of the early comments, including two which asserted that “people should mind their own business” and “stop caring about who parks where or does what.” [13] The MYOB theme was picked up by a few other unbalanced strident posters. How that became a thing, considering the context, was a mystery to moiself. Translation: I found it bewilderingly irrational. The afore-mentioned Gladys Kravitz remark came from one such poster, who addressed her remarks to moiself and fumed about why I was being Gladys Kravitz, and that I should have minded my own business….
Say what? Minding my own business – exactly what I was doing. I did not approach the dog and try to determine whether he was neutered. My business, which I was minding, thanks for your concern, was walking. I was out for a walk on a public road, enjoying the scent of the briny coastal air and minding my own beeswax, when an aggressive, unleashed canine decided to make his threats my business.
F&N and I had a giggle about how comments on my post had spiraled into many tangents. I said that, after violating the never-feed-the-trolls rule (I corrected one unhinged commenter, who seemed to be reading comprehension-challenged and tried to rewrite my story to fit her outrage at…whatever), I’m not going to read any more comments on that group. F&N said she’d keep me apprised of the more entertaining (read: whackadoodle) posts…although, I told her, the Gladys Kravitz epithet would be hard to top.
The next morning my phone rang: it was F&N’s update call. Apparently, by the end of the previous day, “things got nasty,” as she put it. She’d checked the FB local/beach site before bedtime: there were “248 or 258” comments, including a thread where people posted pictures of when they’d been bitten by an unleashed dog, and others posted either support or criticism for the bite victim. Then a man mentioned that he might carry a gun when he goes to the beach, and lawdy mama, it took off from there, with about 40 more posts related to carring concealed weapons on the beach. In the morning when F&N rechecked the site, about 40 of those packing-heat-on-the-beach posts had disappeared, taken down by the group moderator (or perhaps, I posited, by the posters who’d developed cooler heads overnight?). F&N said the nastiness also included some posts which made blatant or tacit references to class warfare, claiming that heartless “rich people” at the beach hate “the rest of us” and harass people who have no choice but to live in their cars…in sharp contrast with the deputy’s testimony that the majority of the people he and his fellow deputies encounter and warn about/cite for illegal camping are neither destitute nor homeless, but self-obsessed, “van life” adventure seekers, whose idea of freedom is mooching off of public services they can well afford to pay for….
And moiself? Oy vey. I’d not even considered filing a report about illegal camping.
I just want to go for a walk, anywhere it’s safe and legal to do so, and not get bitten.
* * *
Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week [14]
* * *
May you enjoy any/all outdoor activities free from dog (or human) harassment;
May you delight in observing online trolls but not in feeding them;
May you enrich the public discourse by coining a better word than “hippies”
to describe Gen Z…hippies;
…and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] Or at least, channeling her spirit.
[2] And of course, Gladys Kravitz turned out to be spot on: Samantha Stevens *was* a witch. Despite promising her mortal husband Darrin that she would *not* use her powers, just about every episode of Bewitched involved Samantha using witchcraft to create unusual happenings, or to try to undo the wacky situations created by her witch and warlock relatives, who would make mysterious arrivals and departures and mess with the mortals. Mrs. Kravitz witnessed just enough to have her suspicions, which would always be explained away by Samantha or others. Yep, Mrs. Kravitz was a nosy neighbor, but her suspicious were correct, and she was gaslighted.
[3] Or I could say, “I was a runner,” but I never took my identity from that; I ran for enjoyment and exercise, as opposed to training for the Olympics or whatever.
[4] Unless the dog belongs to the runner and is also running because…well, it usually isn’t the dog’s idea.
[5] This is not to make yourself the alpha or assert dominance, but to get as much control of yourself and the situation as possible, and to make any cues you give the dog – “sit; down; stay; go home” as understandable as possible.
[6] The strategy used by one elderly gentleman, in a neighborhood I used to live in, when he was attacked by two free-roaming dogs when he was doing his early morning neighborhood rounds, delivering advertising flyers. The man and I had greeted each other when I went out for my morning run, and I was able to rescue him when I returned and saw that the dogs had treed – carred? – him.
[7] Or sometimes, doobies…as I notice when I pass the vehicles and they have the windows down.
[8] Which I learned in my training for the animal rescue organizations for which I volunteered, and I confirmed this when I returned home, by searching for dog bite statistics.
[9] Many a person who has survived a dog attack says that the silent ones, who approach you steadily, are more dangerous than the barkers.
[10] That was my snarky thought, not his.
[11] The smell of citronella is irritating/offensive to dogs, but not harmful.
[12] Perhaps there is a Canine Psychic Intentions website I am unaware of.
[13] Those comments seemed to be related to other posters who focused on the illegal parking and camping situation, not the aggressive dog.
[14] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org