Happy (belated) Vernal Equinox!
This particular astronomical phenomena – one of two moments each year when our sun is exactly above the equator [1] and which, in March, heralds the arrival of the season we call Spring – is deserving of a more sophisticated name, IMHO. The way my mind works, when I hear the words Vernal Equinox I think of a hillbilly mother hollering off the front porch for her miscreant son to come home for dinner:
“VERRRRRRNAAAAAAL!
Vernal Equinox, you git yer sorry butt home right now ‘fore I throw yer supper to the hound dawgs!”
Axial tilt is the reason for the season (any season).
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Department Of No, In Fact, They Are Not
We recently lost one of our cherished pets, our oldest cat, Mandy.
We never had children, so our pets ARE our children.
This was opening line in a letter to Dear Abby, 3/23/17. The writer goes on to express her disappointment that not all of her friends have expressed condolences for her loss, as they would for the loss of a child.
Her loss is genuine and heartfelt – I get that, and have been there. But it doesn’t matter how enthusiastically you all-caps your sentiment, your pets ARE NOT your children. The fact that you never had children does not turn your animal companions into de facto children. By definition. Offspring of dogs = puppies; offspring of cats = kittens; offspring of humans = children.
“My puppies are my babies.”
“Our cats are our children.”
We’ve all heard some variation of this sentiment. Perhaps some of us have even uttered it. And I “get it,” when it is used to describe and/or elevate the importance of our bond with our pets. It can also be used, IMHO and observation, as a self-protective response from people who have pets but no children and think they need to defend their child-free status when asked by us breeders (many of whom can be quite smug and overbearing about the matter) about their children:
“We don’t have children; we have two ____ ( dogs; cats; African grey parrots ).
However, in some cases I’ve gotten the impression that the utterers, particularly those who’ are child-free by choice, [2] are serious. That is, they actually equate the two.
My ____( dogs; cats; African grey parrots) are my children.
That statement is not only factually inaccurate, it is also, I think, insulting to the creatures on both sides of the equation.
Here’s something I’ve long wondered about: why don’t we hear that sentiment going the other way?
To wit: I’m one of those Animal Lovers ® people, and if I’m out for a walk, or at a park and I encounter dog owners and their puppies (and I refer to all dogs as puppies), I admire the canines and say something complimentary to their owners. This typically evokes my fellow bipeds to inquire after my pet status. When asked if I have any dogs my answer is, merely and truthfully, “No, not currently.” I’ve never – not once – been tempted to respond, “No, but I have two children. My children are my puppies.”
Alert the ASPCA – this is animal abuse.
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Department Of Inter Species Maladies
Aka Someone (Or Some Thing) Needs To Strengthen Their Abs
Our garbage can has a hernia.
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Department Of Friends With Benefits
By that of course I refer to my Swenadian [3] friend, currently living abroad while her husband has a temporary university teaching gig, who brightened my Monday morning with an email filled with jokes involving Swedish-English linguistic misunderstandings. [4] Such as….
* The HR division of a British parent company sent out a mail to their daughter companies worldwide. It asked simply: ‘Please report the number of employees broken down by age and sex.’ From the Swedish office came the reply: “The number is zero. If our staff are broken down it is because of stress and alcohol, not age and sex.”
and my personal fave:
* Lars and Ronny were dining at a restaurant in London. The waiter came to take their order. “I’ll have a bloody steak,” said Ronny. “And how would you like your fucking potatoes?” asked the waiter.
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Department Of This Is Why You Should Talk To Strangers
Wednesday 3/22/17: Dear Diary, I made a new friend today! [5]
I’m out running errands, ’tis lunch time, a bit earlier than I usually eat but my stomach is reminding me of my lighter-than-usual breakfast and there is Sushi Town and tummy says you can go there and get something healthy RIGHT NOW….
I’m so glad I did.
Two minutes after I was seated at the sushi bar a woman was seated next to me. She ordered hot tea and water to drink, as had I, and when she asked for a bowl of miso soup I realized I had forgotten to do so and signaled the server. The Woman Who Did Not Forget To Order Miso Soup and I struck up a conversation about – wait for it – miso soup. As in, which sushi restaurant has the best? One thing led to another, and TWWDNFTOMS and were still chatting, almost two hours later. We exchanged contact information and I learned that TWWDNFTOMS is actually the lovely and talented KS. [6]
We had many things in common, including
*recent (moiself) and ongoing (KS) major life issues involving caring for frail, elderly mothers with dementia;
* having lived in/currently living in a certain Hillsboro neighborhood;
* other common interests from the sublime to the silly, including science and nutrition and current events and love of the Netflix series Grace and Frankie. [7]
The soup that launched a thousand conversations.
When I tested the waters by referring to Current Occupant #45 as the person whose name is not allowed to be mentioned in my house I discovered that KS is not only an intelligent, delightful, perspicacious person and well-read person with a ready smile and a quick wit, she is also one of those people whose moral compass and IQ exceeds that of her shoe size – read: she is fighting the good fight, and actively working to save her country from its electoral folly.
KS currently has a stronger stomach for political involvement than I do, and joked that I might not want to friend her on FB because so many of her posts and links would be the ones I confessed to skipping over recently because I just can’t stomach the stress of the political mess. She and her husband are involved with Indivisible, a grass roots kind of organization which triggered a this-is-familiar feeling for me, even as I told her I wasn’t sure I’d hear of it…until I returned home and did a search about the grass roots organization. Indivisible is composed of citizens who, in the organization’s own words, are
…working to inspire a cultural shift in how Americans think about the role of government in America by training the next generation of civic-minded leaders, disrupting and reframing negative media discourse about government, and creating a network of champions to change the conversation about government in their communities.
The organization advocates for local civic education and involvement. Your Congressional Representative weasels out of a Town Hall meeting – hold your own, anyway, and here’s how to do it, effectively and positively.
Check it out, moiself recommends. And take a chance on sharing a bon mot or two with that stranger at the sushi bar, or in line at the Post Office. You never know what may come of it. They’re your species, after all.
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Department Of For Some Reason This Was On My Mind
A Cinematic Blast From The Past:
Remarks from an email exchange with my friend and fellow movie lover CC, re why we both loved the film Winter’s Bone – a movie we saw separately and both admired, making us Jennifer Lawrence fans years before she hit the big time with The Hunger Games trilogy launched. What both surprises and saddens me is my use of the verb allow…because that’s what it feels like, sometimes, when it comes to movie roles for women.
A female protagonist, who is allowed to be just that – the protagonist, herself. She does the right thing; she is allowed to be resourceful and discerning; she is emotionally and physically strong, but not cartoonishly so. She is the main character, without a man to lead/guide/rescue her; without her character being an appendage to a man and/or his love interest. She is allowed to be and do all of this and be female without her sexuality
(a) being in any way part of the plot, or
(b)being threatened by others, or
(c) being threatening to others.
The desperation of the character’s circumstances was more than adequately portrayed by the actor without having her bare breasts used to illustrate her vulnerability (see directors’and/or actors stock excuse: “The nudity was necessary to the plot/character development…”)
Whaddya waiting for – stream/rent this movie if you haven’t already seen it.
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Department Of Things You Don’t Know You Need Until You See Them
To wit, an orange colander. Along with the obvious, straining–liquid functionality, this handy device may also be used to protect against the kind of alien radio wave transmissions that apparently beset the Current Occupant, aka SCROTUS, [8] aka #45, aka….
* * *
May you be surprised by those things you didn’t know you needed;
May you appreciate puppies and kitties and babies for what they are;
May your nudity always be necessary to plot/character development;
…and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
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[1] And which in March is when the northern hemisphere tilts toward the sun, giving us “longer” – sunnier days. The other equinox occurs in September, the Autumnal equinox, marking the arrival of Autumn.
[2] In contrast to those who would have liked to have had children but could not, due to infertility and/or other life circumstances.
[3] A married couple, the husband Swedish and the wife Canadian.
[4] Shame on those of y’all who thought for even a moment what the other the “benefits” might entail.
[5] My diary entry for the day, if I kept a diary, which I haven’t since, like, age eight, a venture which lasted for all of two days….
[6] As in my custom in this blog, she and all other civilian will be referred to be initials or a nom de blog, unless or until she requests otherwise or runs for public office, or has a tawdry affair with Ryan Reynolds.
[7] Season 3 is available tonight!
[8] So Called Ruler of the United States.
