The Mighty Quinn

The Upbringing I’m Not Regretting

April 7, 2023

Robyn Parnell are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, extended family, family life, freethought/humanism, friends, general ruminations, Holidays, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), nature, Oregon, politics, Recreation, school, science, The Write Stuff (literary life), travel, Wow, YEE HAW!, Yikes! a religious upbringing, atheists, Camp Adams, church camp, communion and cannibalism, Freethinkers, Holi festival, kids talking about religion, Skeptics, The Mighty Quinn, UCC denomination Comments Off on The Upbringing I’m Not Regretting

Department Of In Praise Of Religion

Yeah, I know – from moiself ?

It’s not what it sounds like, ma’am.

Confession: this post isn’t really about praising religion. As we approach the weekend of the most holy Christian festival (in which, as with most Christian holidays, the ancient rites and myths of paganism and other spiritualities were incorporated into the Christian myths) moiself thought it would be appropriate to write a wee bit about how I am, in some ways, grateful for the religious upbringing I had.

* I am grateful to have been raised in a moderate Christian family, whose parents were members of a moderate Christian church. And by my moderate I mean they were a members of a mainstream denomination (Lutheran), and not fanatical, tongue-speaking Holy Rollers. My church experiences allowed me an education into the dominant religious thinking of our country, of that time. Translation: I saw how the sausage was made, so to speak, which is why I became a vegan religion-free.

As soon as I was able to formulate such ideas to moi’s younger self, I was able to understand religious traditions (all of ‘em, not just my family’s own) for what they were: failed hypotheses originating from primitive/pre-scientific peoples who were trying to understand/explain their world. Although I had that understanding as far back as I can remember, like most atheists-skeptics-freethinkers in this culture, I did not “come out” until much, much later, when it was safe (well, safer) to do so: as in, when there was a critical mass of Freethinkers and their allies to provide a buffering from the, “You can only be good with (a) god/nonbelievers are going to hell, etc.” attitudes which religions are highly effective at promoting.

* Not only did my religious upbringing provide me with a good cultural education, I appreciate that it allowed me to experience and observe how nice, well-intentioned, and otherwise seemingly reasonable people can accept the unreasonable-ness of religion for a variety of reasons. I learned that people can note the logical flaws, improprieties and downright batshit crazy inanities of beliefs and practices of *other* religions, while *not* applying the same analytical skills to what they have been taught (i.e., they critique Judaism and Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism, et al on the respective scriptures, principles, teachings and merits of those religions, but accept the claims of Christianity on “faith.”).

* My religious upbringing allowed me to see firsthand the danger of the complacency of accustomization, which the adult moiself eventually formulated into this truism:

The ridiculous is no longer ridiculous when it is the familiar.

Favorite example: Decades ago I heard two (white, Christian) women talking about a new (to them) religious festival, which they’d read about in a newspaper article about local Hindus [1] celebrating the Hindu Festival of Holi. Among other activities, Holi celebrations involve adherents dancing in the streets and throwing colored dye and/or powdered paints on each other. One of the women offered a weak defense of the color-flinging (“Well…maybe…it’s kinda like dying Easter eggs?”), but both agreed that Holi seemed…ahem…rather silly, not to mention primitive and nonsensical for a religious rite.

Their comments indicated that they were totally oblivious of how downright bizarre and even grotesque their own Christian ritual of symbolic (or in the case of the Catholic flavor of Christianity, literal [2] ) cannibalism, celebrated in the Christian rite of communion, can seem to people of other religious faiths.

* My religious upbringing was an educational experience I tried, in part, to impart to my own children…which is why MH and I joined a Christian church (the most liberal denomination we could find – the United Church of Christ, aka The UCC). We remained active members for years, until MH and I were honest with ourselves about not being able “…to do this anymore.” [3] This coincided with our children (son K and daughter Belle) being old enough and comfortable enough – despite liking both their church friends and many of the church’s social activities – to send the same honesty *our* way:

“Why do we go to church when I don’t – and it’s obvious that *you* don’t – believe any of that stuff (i.e., Christian theology)?”

Footnote which deserves more than a footnote: [4] Looking back, K and Belle were both open about their views long before MH and I were. It seemed to me that their school peers talked about religion – read: regurgitated what they were taught in their parents’ churches – much more frequently than I could remember my peers doing when I was in grade school. [5] And while my offspring never initiated such conversations (they weren’t “afraid” of the subject; they simply had little-to-no interest in it) they would answer honestly any questions posed to them. Perhaps because he was older, [6] K was subjected to this more than his sister, and was subjected to denigrating comments from certain classmates who were obviously being raised by very conservative religious, creationist-leaning parents.

If only the Jesus kids listened….

Although I was both happy with (and relieved by) my children’s inclination toward freethought, I wanted to be sure they understood that they must not be like their peers who criticized them – I wanted K and Belle to own their own viewpoints, and not just hold the same opinions as MH and I did, without considering the issues for themselves. When, for example, K shared a story about an outrageous and/or inane or just plain ignorant religious statement a kid had made, I would defend the kid (“He probably heard that at home/in church”), then question K further, trying to get him (and Belle) to practice the art of understanding a different POV:

“Why do you think someone would ____ (say/believe/think that)?

Can you think of any reasons why someone might ____ (say/believe/think that)?”

I did this consistently, until one day, K replied, with an insight (and sigh of resignation) beyond his years:

“The thing is, Mom, you know that *their* families are not doing the same.” [7]

When classmates made anti-science/pro-religion comments, K would respond with his own opinions….which led to him receiving the “godless atheist” label. I was proud of the way he handled himself, even as my heart cringed to see him mistreated by ignorant and mean-spirited Jesus bullies. What was worse, IMO, were the friends who didn’t join in the abuse but who also didn’t stand up for him (some of whom, I eventually surmised, felt the same way as K but didn’t want to become targets themselves, and thus stayed silent).

Belle had less school drama re her (lack of) religious beliefs. And there were two major incidents which made me realize that she was fully capable of standing up for herself in that regard. The first involved the last year Belle went to summer camp.

Both of our kids attended several seasons of the UCC’s summer church camp. Camp Adams is located in the temperate rainforest of Molalla (Oregon), with lots of fields and trails and creeks and a swimming hole – an ideal camp locale. For the younger ages, Camp Adams was more camp than church. For the older kids, starting around grade 5, the counselors and camp staff introduced more “churchy” things, including basic Christian theology (as seen through a liberal UCC lens). This gradual morphing from all-camp-fun to camp-fun-plus-Jesus-is-the-reason-we’re-here is a typical progression, as I remember from my own years of church summer camps. [8]

So: For several years in a row Belle had enjoyed going to summer camp – she even claimed to LOVE the camp’s food. But Camp Adam’s mashed potatoes weren’t enough, the last year she went to camp.

A preview of coming attractions for that last-year-of-camp: when MH filled out Belle’s camp registration form, after the requests for standard information about family, emergency contacts, medical concerns, food allergies, etc. there was an open-ended question asking parents to list anything they thought “ …the camp counselors and staff should know about your child.” MH wrote, “Belle will probably have little interest in the churchy or theological (religious) aspects of camp. And that is fine.”

Both MH and I drove Belle to camp; I picked her up at the end of the camp week. When I asked her how this year’s camp was she described a couple of amusing pranks the campers and counselors played on one another, then said that the rest of it was not the same fun as it used to be, and she wasn’t going back next year. When I asked her to elaborate, she told me the following story:

Unlike in previous years, the camp had fireside “churchy” services every evening, which Belle found irritatingly pointless. One day near the end of the camp week, the camp’s chaplain asked to meet with Belle privately. He told her she wasn’t in trouble; rather, he was concerned for her: the camp’s counselors had noticed Belle sitting through those services making little attempt to disguise her disinterest. [9] The chaplain flipped through the pages of a bible on his desk, reading aloud several scripture passages he’d marked, passages which told of the Christian god’s love for his people and the importance of loving that god in return. He then asked Belle what she thought about them.

I was surprised to hear this – throwing bible verses at a nine-year-old was not something I expected from a UCC chaplain (but I said nothing, and let Belle continue her story). And Belle simply but firmly disagreed with him. She told him (in her 9-year-old vocabulary) that she did not find those verses – or anything in his bible – profound or relevant to her in anyway. Despite being interested in all kinds of mythologies, she did not believe the stories about the Christian god were any different or factual than those of the Roman, Greek, Hebrew, Egyptian, Norse, Celtic, and other deities she was reading about.

“Good for you!” I crowed, as I concentrated on *not* driving off the road (I was dancing in the driver’s seat with delight). What an intimidating position to be in – for anyone, let alone a child – and she was able to stand up for herself.

So where do kids get such ideas?

The second incident occurred around the same season, when MH’s parents came to Oregon for their annual summer visit. MH and his father were out running errands; I was also out, driving MH’s mother and Belle…somewhere. Belle was in the front passenger’s seat; for reasons I cannot recall her grandma had insisted on sitting in the back seat, and then for reasons I really cannot fathom but remember as being totally out of context, Belle’s grandmother began talking to Belle about “god things.” I gritted my teeth but said nothing – my MIL was talking to Belle, not me. And Belle handled it with steely grace.

“I don’t believe in a god,” Belle calmy stated.

“You don’t believe in God?!?” Belle’s grandmother spoke with shock and dismay, and if Belle had just said that she liked stomping on baby hamsters. “I feel sorry for you.”

“Well, I feel sorry for *you,*” Belle replied.

Once again, I thought my seatbelt would burst with pride. That’s a difficult thing for a child, to stand their ground with a beloved relative who is criticizing and/or disapproving of you.

It was a long time ago and I’m unsure of the exact timeline, but at some point I thought, my work here is almost done, and I stopped attending our church. [10]

I had wanted K and Belle to have a religious literacy, because at that time, religious thought seemed to rule the world (or at least the US of A).

I wanted them to be familiar with the dominant religion of our culture, which had figured strongly in both of their parents’ backgrounds, so that they would know what it was that they were “rejecting” (to use their grandmother’s language), and also so that they might be inoculated against religious proselytizing. [11] But, I wanted them to be exposed to all of this via a denomination/church where they would *not* be subjected to abhorrent doctrines which taught that, no matter what kind of life they’d led, post-death they would be sorted into either a rewarding afterlife or one where they are subjected to anguish and torment, depending on whether or not they had subscribed to certain theological abstractions.

(Excerpts from Tim Callahan’s review of Dinesh D’Soua’s frothy book of apologetics What’s so great about Christianity):

“…(religious moderates) claim that fanatics represent nothing more than a lunatic fringe. However, we nonbelievers repeatedly encounter…egregious behavior among the faithful. Often, those claiming to be among the Christian ‘saved’ are gratuitously rude and loutish. Sometimes it’s only their casual arrogance that offends. Or perhaps it’s the cosmic death threat. D’Souza writes (p. xi)

‘Death forces upon you a choice that you cannot escape.
You must choose god or reject him, because when you die all abstentions are counted as ‘no’ votes.’…

Implicit in this statement is the threat of eternal damnation, not based on whether or not you have lived a good life, but rather whether or not you have adhered to what my wife refers to as the ‘loyalty oath.’ According to the ethics and ideology of the ‘loyalty oath’ we’re all such wretches (as in the hymn Amazing Grace) that no amount of decency in how we live can make up for our unbelief. Conversely, any degree of depravity seems acceptable, so long as you’ve confessed your sinful nature and continue to affirm your belief in the (specifically) Christian god. It is surprising that we take offense at this?”

And so on this weekend Christians call Easter (even though most Christians have no idea why, and the word is not in their scriptures), I am celebrating the spring equinox, and reflecting on the ideas of renewal, and on the good fortune I had as a child and the even better fortune I chose to make for myself (and, I hope, model for my offspring) as an adult.

* * *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week [12]

* * *

May you reflect on an aspect of your childhood which was enlightening in ways you did not fully understand as a child;
May you detect the fine lines between the ridiculous and the familiar;
May you find an excuse to celebrate…something…which involves throwing colored paint on your fellow celebrants;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!

* * *

[1] Several local high-tech companies employ a substantial amount of East Asian engineers, who brought their cultural and religious traditions with them and were beginning to be more “open” about their festivals and beliefs.

[2] “Transubstantiation – the idea that during Mass, the bread and wine used for Communion become the body and blood of Jesus Christ – is central to the Catholic faith.” (Pew Research Center)

[3] As in, the intellectual dishonesty finally got to us, despite our wish to support a progressive, open & affirming congregation.

[4] Which is why it is there, and not here.

[5] Which was a large part of my inspiration for writing my juvenile novel, The Mighty Quinn.

[6] Belle is three years younger than K, and from what I heard her classmates didn’t talk religion as much as the older kids did.

[7] As in, those kids were not being encouraged at home to understand K’s POV – they were just being told that peop0le like K were wrong and/or going to hell.

[8] and is why K opted out of camp several years before Belle

[9] And apparently ratted her out to the chaplain.

[10] It took MH a bit longer to feel comfortable with being open about his beliefs; he kept attending services for a few weeks after the kids and I stopped going (I told the kids it was totally up to them if they wanted to go to church or not – even if MH and I were no longer attending, we would take them to church – any church – if they wanted to go).

[11] In my experience, some of the easiest converts, whether to mainstream denominations or cults (and what are cults, really, except for religions with less money and PR than the mainstream denominations?), are people who’ve had no religious background at all and are naïve prey for slick proselytizing.

[12] “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

The Ground I’m Not Breaking

April 24, 2015

Robyn Parnell books & magazines, current events, family life, movies, music, The Write Stuff (literary life), TV, YEE HAW! Author! Author! Book fair, Beaverton City Library, comfy chairs, ED commercials and side effects, movie sex is not sexy, Sexyback, The L word, The Mighty Quinn, This Here and Now, wardrobe malfunctions, your dryer's back 1 Comment

Department of The Informed Consumer

This is what the back/insides of your clothes dryer may look like, after someone has taken it apart in an effort to discover why it has stopped drying clothes.

Now you know.

* * *

The D word

As in, Duh – do ya think?

Earlier this week I found The L Word TV entire series collection as I scrolled through the Netflix offerings. I was looking for an intellectually-effortless diversion to pass the time until MH returned from a game of Ultimate Frisbee and we could watch The Serious Movie © we’d rented.

I recalled that the term “groundbreaking” [1] had accompanied every other mention of the show during its finale year, and thought it a shame that no such ground had been broken on my TV screen (the show had heretofore not been seen by moiself). Thus, I proceeded to watch the first two episodes of The L Word, that seminal, [2] groundbreaking cable TV drama about the lives of a group of Los Angeles area gay women.

Correction: I tried to watch the first two/pilot episodes of The L Word.

Hey world, we got your bold, sassy, livin’ and lovin’ LILAs (Lesbians in Los Angeles), hanging out at chic coffee shops (read: having sex), going to parties (read: having sex) and art gallery openings (read: having sex) and exercise class (read: having sex) and skinny-dipping in their chic condo pools (read: having sex) and flirting with straight women, all of whom have repressed or unaddressed desires to be with women (read: having sex)….

And all of the women – every fucking one of them (pun mostly unintended) – had the faces, physiques and wardrobes of models who’d just stepped off a Calvin Klein catwalk. Which is, of course, how the majority of lesbians in this country look (ahem [3]) . And the gym locker room scene between two topless ladies, featuring the spinning instructor who was so-skinny-you-could-see-every-clavicle-curve yet somehow had amazingly ample breasts (the outline of her implants could be plainly seen, what with her skinny-ass skin stretched so tight to accommodate them)? Classy.

I couldn’t make it all the way through the second episode, FAVOR. [4] I found the show too silly and too booby and too fake blow-jobby and…

Okay. My age or something may be showing here, [5] but I just don’t find the overwrought, overplayed scenes of what I call movie sex to be sexy, or the least bit erotic. Not. At. All.

You want erotic? I’m bringing sexy back with this:

While I take a breather and dab my forehead with a cool compress, I must apologize for the previous pop song reference.

By the way and apropos of almost nothing, did you know that when I first heard SexyBack I thought Mr. J. Timberlake was warbling about his allegedly alluring upper torso?

You know, like this:

And not this.

Excuse-moi. Once again, I digress.

The morning after watching The L Word I googled the show to confirm what (to me) was a duh suspicion: that The L Word was produced by men, who could sell to other men (who are the majority of television producers) the idea of nubile lesbians – not a lumberjack shirt or sensible pair of shoes in sight – getting all rubby-dubby with their hot lady selves.

I was close, if not entirely correct. Credits claimed The L Word was “created by” three women; however, two of the three executive producers – the ones who greenlight shows and are the real power behind what shows get made/aired and what doesn’t – were men.

* * *

Department of What’s the Point

While we’re circling the subject….

Yet another night sitting in The Stressless Comfy Chairs ®, awaiting the queuing up of yet another movie.

Ahhh. Welcome to the no stress zone.

I reached for the remote to mute yet another commercial about ED, only this time I paused to briefly consider the paradox of the ad. An attractive, older (silver tresses elegantly coiffed; no male pattern baldness in sight) couple was walking on the beach, holding hands and exchanging sly looks, while the voice-over promised you’ll be ready for whatever comes up, so to speak. The couple continued their stroll while another voice-over cautioned that, in return for the illusion promise of an appearance by the swashbuckling Captain Standish, [6] you may also be visited by his deck crew, Ensigns headache, backache, sore throat, sneezing, “indigestion” (upset stomach and diarrhea), sore throat, nausea…

So. You’ll be ready for sex, but who will want to be around you?

* * *

More Guy Things I Have Recently Learned About

“Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death.”
Albert Einstein

Albert was right – education really is a life-long experience.

Last week a friend called to reschedule our meet-for-lunch date because she had to leave her work to pick up her husband at his work. She took him home to get a change of clothes and tidy up, after he’d had a self-described “wardrobe malfunction.” Details: he’d been in need of a bathroom break, and while using the facilities he had “lost his grip.”

Never again will I be able to hear one person tell another person to get a grip without wondering just how metaphorical or literal the advice may be.

The story, entertaining on its own merits, elicited additional amusement when I relayed it over dinner to MH. I previously had no idea as to the real and present dangers every man faces when he uses public or workplace restrooms, until MH enlightened me. A wardrobe malfunction is a common result of urinal splashback, which, MH gravely informed me, is why smart men “never wear khaki.” Denim and other dark colored pants are best for hiding and/or absorbing splashback. [7]

Good to know.

Or, if splashback is unavoidable, make it epic.

* * *

We now take a (perhaps welcome) break in our unintentional Naughty Bits Theme to end with a moment of Self Promotion.

The Book fair is here! The Book Fair is here!

As I mentioned in last week’s blog, Saturday, April 25 (yikes, that’s tomorrow – I’d better start looking for my hairbrush), the Beaverton City Library is holding the ingeniously titled Author! Author! – a book fair featuring local (Washington & Multnomah county) authors.

The event is free, open to the unwashed lit-loving public who, from 10a – 1p may browse and (hopefully) purchase selected titles of fiction, nonfiction, poetry and children’s literature penned by local authors.

Yours truly will be there, with copies of The Mighty Quinn, and also my short fiction collection, This Here and Now . [8]

* * *

May your backs be sexy, may your wardrobe never experience a malfunction, and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!

[1] Whether a show breaks ground or fills in previously dug holes – makes no diff to us, as we are among the few remaining cretins/sensible people who refuse to pay $$$ per month to get 249 channels we have no intention of watching.

[2] That just doesn’t seem right, does it?

[3] PC apology/disclaimer forthcoming. One of these days.

[4] The return of my favorite acronym: For A Variety Of Reasons.

[5] But at least not my titties, unlike every character in that show, who must have signed multiple breast exhibition clauses in their contracts.

[6] One of my slang terms re such matters, along with, “Having the Irish toothache.”

[7] A phenomenon which is never, ever, to be confused with sexyback.

[8] Which is out of print – RIP, Scrivenery Press – and may only be obtained from the author herself, ahem.

The Seat Change I’m Not Accommodating

April 17, 2015

Robyn Parnell are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, community, current events, foodie, freethought/humanism, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), nature, Oregon, politics, The Write Stuff (literary life) Author! Author! Book fair, Beaverton City Library, Chinese broccoli, Clothes Clothes Clothes Music Music Music Boys Boys Boys, CSA, hormones.Orthodox Jewish males refuse to sit next to women on airplanes, La Finquita del Bujo, Sex Pistols, The Mighty Quinn, The Slits, This Here and Now, Viv Albertine 1 Comment

A Mind is a Terrible Thing To Waste

The dream I had Wednesday night was, perhaps, a plausible consequence of having teased my brain with two very different reading materials earlier in the evening. The first was Clothes Clothes Clothes Music Music Music Boys Boys Boys, the memoir of Viv Albertine, former guitarist of the seminal punk band, The Slits. The second was a foo-foo foodie blurb about varying key ingredients for a difference in thickness of vinaigrettes. Hours later, I dreamed I was a musician in a punk tribute band, who did mostly Ramones and Sex Pistols covers. I was the bassist, and took the stage name Cyd Viscous.

Bitchin’ gob name, but you spell it like a wanker.

* * *

Return of the CSA [1]

The produce is here! The produce is here! Yesterday was first weekly pickup of our CSA’s season, which, depending on weather and other farmy [2] factors, runs ~ mid-to-late April through October.

I loooooooooooooooove going out to La Finquita del Bujo (“The little farm of the owl”), in the scenic Helvetia farmland just north of where I live.

Physician-farmer Lynn (Left) and farmer Juvencio (right)

I get a feeling of indescribable…tranquility comes closest, when I visit the farm, to load my basket with fresh/seasonal/local produce (I’ve missed having access to Chinese broccoli, which is rarely found in stores), count the farm goats’ kids and try to spot the swallow’s nests in the barn rafters.

Yummers – lots of green for dinner tonight.

* * *

Enough with the waxing bucolic. This is my blog, after all. Must be time to complain about something.

Department of Hormonal Ranting

You may have stepped in this pile of festering oral turd spew run across the story in several news venues. It seems that Texas businesswoman Cheryl Rios, CEO of a Dallas PR firm – the aptly named Go Ape Marketing – said that although she supports “equal rights,” a woman “shouldn’t be president” because of “different hormones” and “biblical sound reasoning.”

BBBRRRRRRRAAAAAAAA. I’m sorry, Tex-Ass CEO, but that buzzer means you’ve forfeited your chance to play in the Double Jeopardy round.

Women and men do *not* have different hormones – although the ones affecting this particular woman’s neuromodulators need some tweaking, as her asshat statements indicate. On the other hand, you have different fingers, in the case of most of the blather involving the word hormones, it is likely that she is simply ignorant, rather than willfully sexist.

Hormone, schmormone. Let’s all take The Hormone Pledge ® and stop using the term as a catch-all, mysterious gender chemical label – because it isn’t. People who say “hormones” affect behavior are likely referring to (what they think are the) “sex” hormones, and totally forgetting the incredible assortment of the body’s most powerful behavior regulating hormones (e.g., leptin, one of the key regulators of appetite) – that, like the majority hormones, have nothing to do with gender.

A hormone is, in simple terms, a chemical messenger produced by human organs and tissues that is used for sending signals to other organs and tissues, to coordinate the body’s activities. The vast majority of hormones (and there almost one hundred) are involved in regulating digestion, metabolism, respiration, tissue function, sensory perception, sleep, stress, growth and development, ambulation….you know, * everything.* All hormones are found in both men and women, in amounts that vary only slightly between genders in the case of estrogens (mistakenly referred to as “female” hormones – men also have estrogen) and androgens (mistakenly called “male” hormones – females also have androgens).

Back to the story, hormonally balanced boys and girls. As per the Huffington Post‘s account, Ms. Rios the Texas CEO (which in her case must stand for Christian Empty-headed Organism) made a Facebook post in which she “…stressed that ‘there’s an old biblical sound reasoning why a woman shouldn’t be president.’ ” But, golly gee whizzing snakes in a garden, she didn’t cite any biblical verses to support her view.

As for her – or anyone – citing “biblical reasoning” to justify anything – by now y’all are aware on my opinions on that matter. Ain’t enough hormones on the planet to explain that Go Ape Shit.

* * *

Preview of Coming Attractions

Mark your calendars, local book lovers: A week from this Saturday, on April 25, the Beaverton City Library will hold a book fair featuring local (Washington & Multnomah county) authors.

The event, ingeniously titled Author! Author!, is free, open to the unwashed lit-loving public who, from 10a – 1p may browse and (hopefully) purchase selected titles of fiction, nonfiction, poetry and children’s literature penned by local authors, as well as rub shoulders [3] with authors and fellow bookworms.

Yours truly will be there, with copies of The Mighty Quinn, and also my short fiction collection, This Here and Now . [4] Do stop by, if you can, to say howdy, browse the titles, and maybe bring me some celery sticks.

* * *

Department of Are We (Still) Having Fun Yet?

Recently there have been several articles, in the New York Times and other news outlets, about how flights to and from the Tel Aviv airport [5] have experienced delays and disruptions when ultra-Orthodox Jewish men refuse to be seated next to women.

Andrew Roffe, 31, a writer based in Los Angeles, said he and a friend wound up debating the ethics of the situation after Mr. Roffe described his experience on a flight….. When passengers started to board, an ultra-Orthodox man stood in the aisle, refusing to move and delaying the departure for 15 to 20 minutes until another passenger volunteered to switch seats.
“My buddy who is Orthodox was saying this is a traditional thing — he doesn’t want to be tempted when his wife wasn’t there. And I said, ‘Are you kidding?’ This was just some woman flying to work or home and minding her own business.”
(When a Plane Seat Next to a Woman Is Against Orthodox Faith, NY Times, 4-9-15)

In many of these incidences, airlines and/or passengers have tried to accommodate the Orthodox ortho-assholes’ men’s demands, a fact that is almost as infuriating to me as the idiocy of the demands themselves. Such “tolerance” is in fact abetting ignorance, discrimination and bigotry – don’t do it, folks. Would you accommodate a demand from a member of Christian Identity, or one of the other religious groups that believe in the separation of “the races,” if he refused to be seated next to an African or Latino or Asian man?

A flight from New York to Tel Aviv was delayed by half an hour last week after a group of male ultra-Orthodox Jewish passengers refused to sit next to women, the third such incident in recent months….The cabin crew tried to find seats for the men, but were met with refusal by other passengers, some of whom who took a dim view of the reasoning behind the request.
(“Groups of ultra-Orthodox Jewish men keep delaying flights by refusing to sit next to women,” The Independent, 4-16-15 my emphases)

A dim view, ahem. Once again, I ponder the dimmest of views that the backward thinking which produces the shrouding of women, both literally and metaphorically begets. Religions and cultures which preach restrictions for women, and for men’s contact with women, almost always cloak (yuk yuk) or justify such restrictions about women as being a protection for women; specifically, to preserve women’s modesty and/or privacy, to prevent them from being considered sex objects, to shield them from the less than gracious gaze of the menfolk, yada yada yucka.

Aside from the fact that religions which forbid or severely restrict intra-gender contact outside of marriage [6] are JUST PLAIN MYSOGYNIST and severely fucked up, the restrictions (for both men and women) end up doing the opposite of what the proponents of them say they do. Restrictions and proscriptions for women deeply and relentlessly sexualize women.

Limiting women’s physical presence in/access to public society and limiting inter-gender contact combined with shrouding the female form – these practices practically scream to men, LOOK, IT’S A WOMAN !! Males raised in societies where they have little or no contact with unrelated females learn a warped, circular, paradoxical social dynamic – ’tis a Catch-22 situation that reinforces the dangerous nonsense they are taught. They don’t get to know girls and women as people, but as The Other. This mysterious, dangerous, Other’s mere presence will tempt them to stray from whatever path they’ve been taught they must follow…and yet, they must desire this Other, as per Allah’s/Yahweh’s plan for family and procreation. Since the men in such societies don’t get to know women as friends, mere acquaintances or co-workers, women are either relatives or potential mates – potential seductresses! – who therefore must be cloistered and….round and round and round again.

Although there is nothing arguably or intrinsically private or provocative about a human being’s elbow, human nature being what it is, if you are indoctrinated with the idea that catching even a glimpse of a woman’s uncovered ____ (hair, feet, elbows, nostrils) is provocative, then it will become that forbidden fruit. I saw her suggestively wrinkled arm joint and felt a pang of lust – it must be true — praise Yahweh/Allah/Fox News and get that hussy away from me! [7]

I keep thinking about the Orthodox man on the airplane, who said he didn’t want to be “tempted” by sitting next to a woman. [8] Poor schmuck. The average American man boarding a crowded plane is not thinking about avoiding temptation when he is seated next to the average American woman. Yo, Ortho dude, here is what normal, rational people think about on airplanes: they wonder how long/late the flight will be and what will happen to their luggage, and will their rental car reservations be messed up like the last time they flew to Cleveland. They are hoping the human beings seated on either side of them are not Amway distributors looking for new recruits or the type of people who chow down three garlic sauerkraut chili dogs from the airport’s Baby Got Brat kiosk before boarding a six-hour nonstop flight.

♫ I like big brats & I cannot lie…♫

* * *

May all of your fellow travelers in life be healthfully-hormoned, and superstition- and sauerkraut–free, and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!

[1] You knew that was Community Supported Agriculture and not Confederate States of America, didn’t you?

[2] Sorry to get all agricultural-technical on you, and in only the second paragraph.

[3] And elbows or other non-sexual body parts, which still may be threatening to Ultra-Orthodox Jews (story to follow).

[4] Which is out of print – RIP, Scrivenery Press – and may only be obtained from the author herself, ahem.

[5] And, more and more, other destinations, as the high-birthrate Orthodox population increases, and encounters the rational – i.e. non-Orthodox – world.

[6] e.g. most strains of Islam, Hasidic and other varieties of Ultra-Orthodox Judaism.

[7] Although I’m singling out conservative Jews and Muslims here, I hold the same contempt for conservative Christians’ Purity Movement and similar organizations, which over-emphasize and warp human sexuality via their obsessive teachings on “sexual purity” (shudder).

[8] Time to tempt SCM with another footnote to nowhere. Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!

The Orthodox Eyes I’m Not Polluting

January 16, 2015

Robyn Parnell are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, freethought/humanism, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), making fun of lawyers and/or doctors, politics, The Write Stuff (literary life) Bad Author Bios, Ex-mormon, Ezra Taft Benson, Freethinking literary protagonists, Freethought Radio, Israeli Newspaper removes Women From Photos, Mel Brooks, oru kayak, Paris Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack, pretentious writers guidelines, Steve Benson, The Mighty Quinn, what is bravery in writing Comments Off on The Orthodox Eyes I’m Not Polluting

We now pause for a moment of rejoicing before the rants.

The new kayak is here! The new kayak is here!

We now return to our station’s previously scheduled programming.

* * *

Department of WTF
Aka, One of the Saddest Things I’ve Read During the Past Week.

Yes, the terrorist attack in Paris was sadder. And then, there was the article in the NY Times: Newspaper in Israel Scrubs Women From a Photo of Paris Unity Rally .

Angela Merkel and other world leaders and dignitaries were removed from the picture by the Israeli newspaper’s editors because the image of female forms are a temptation and presumed pollutant to an Ultra-Orthodox Jewish man’s eyes.

Got that? An Ultra Orthodox Jew’s eyes must remain “pure” – eyes that, because they belong to a Jew, would have been removed from history just a generation ago, if another group of orthodox fanatics had had their way.

So. Your Ultra-Orthodox (men’s) eyes will be “pure” – whatever the superstitious fuck that means – while your minds will remain ignorant, closed and prejudiced. Pray on, brothers.

Does my bigotry make my butt look fat?

* * *

“The role of a cartoon is in fact to insult and ridicule and to attack and to defend against the overreach of people and institutions who, in the name of God or in the name of government or the name of whatever the particular institution it is, threaten the right and security of people to freely express their own ideas and live their lives.”

( Steve Benson, Pulitzer Prize winning editorial cartoonist for The Arizona Republic,
Ex-Mormon, eldest grandchild of LDS Church President Ezra Taft Benson,
interviewed on Freethought Radio, 1-10-15 )

Je suis Charlie.

Except that, of course, I’m not.

Last week I did not comment on the murders at French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. I held my tongue [1] for a variety of reasons, from the principled to the pedestrian. The former would include my disdain for the instant analysis (read: lack of introspection) that seems to be inspired by the plethora of internet social media outlets. The latter includes the fact that I just hadn’t the stomach for it.

One week later, now I can claim distance, wisdom, and introspection? Maybe just a steadier gut.

The following is not one of my legendary digressions.

You’ll find the segue. I know you will, boys and girls.

I’ve previously mentioned how fiction writers’ guidelines for certain literary publications [2] have made me both laugh aloud and cringe. Literary journals often flatter (read: embarrass) themselves by the pretentious, self-important and bombastic claims they make for the kinds of work they seek and publish. What particularly frosts my butt are statements from journals that claim to seek work that is “brave” and or “risk-taking.”

Brave?

I always make it a point to look at sample issues of journals whose guidelines make such claims, and have yet to find any story or article in them makes me admire – or even think of – the “courage” it must have taken to write it. A journal says it seeks stories that are “brave” and “risk-taking” – brave, how? I wonder, and risking…what…for what?

Ah, you dared to use non-standard grammar and punctuation; you had the courage to ignore standard plot conventions? [3] You bold, heroic risk-taker – you penned (yet another) another titty-ass nihilistic sex scene, that you wouldn’t have dared to do in your creative writing class or community arts center “memoir-ring your life” workshop?

We flatter (read: embarrass) ourselves for the most part – we North American writers – by even daring to think that we take risks that in any way require strength of character or some form of ethical bravery.

When I was submitting The Mighty Quinn manuscript I received feedback from several editors and publishers who directly or obliquely implied that the book would be a hard sell because:

* it featured non-religious, free-thinking children (and adults) as protagonists
* although it had sympathetic religious characters, Quinn’s antagonist was a religious bully (and the son of an abusive preacher man)
* without “toning down” the freethought- related themes, a publisher would risk negative reviews (or reviewer and bookseller boycotts) when word spread in the religious community.

Poor me. How brave of me to keep submitting the manuscript. Except, not. Not at all.

Despite veiled intimations of boycott, TMQ eventually found a publisher. TMQ’s publisher’s (then) publicity director alerted me to one of the reviews of TMQ, written by a reviewer using the title Rev. _____. [4] The review was generally positive, and also revealed the reviewer’s ambivalence for liking the book (“…I was a little concerned with the handling of religion and the fact that the boy with the biggest problems was the son of a family that was religious. This could potentially open up lots of questions that should be primarily handled by parents…”).

Who knows what happened (or is still happening) re TMQ‘s reviewing and distribution status. Silent boycotts and other kinds of subversion can be organized (e.g. a refusal to stock or review a title) without fanfare and opportunity to counter-protest. The book, while hardly biting satire, contains several thematic elements involving characters openly joking about/raise questions about religion. No one (to my knowledge) threatened editors or bookstore owners with vandalism or assassination if they considered publishing or stocking The Mighty Quinn. But, if you are a European editorial cartoonist who satirizes religious fanaticism, you and your colleagues are at risk of attack and murder, as we’ve seen too many times in the past and now, in Paris.

Satire is a genre of literature, and sometimes graphic and performing arts, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, corporations, government or society itself, into improvement.
Although satire is usually meant to be humorous, its greater purpose is often constructive social criticism, using wit as a weapon and as a tool to draw attention to both particular and wider issues in society.
(Wikpedia definition for “Satire”)

I assert that the right to hold all ideas up to scrutiny, the right – some of us say, the obligation – to mock that which is mock-worthy is as crucial to a functioning democracy as the right to peaceably assembly or cast a ballot.

“The only way to get even with anybody is to ridicule them.”
“After all the people that (Hitler) was responsible for killing and after utterly destroying half the world, I just thought the only weapon I’ve really got is comedy. And if I can make this guy ludicrous, if I can make you laugh at him, then it’s a victory of sorts. You can’t get on a soapbox with these orators, because they’re very good at convincing the masses that they’re right. But if you can make them look ridiculous, you can win over the people.”
(Mel Brooks)

* * *

Speaking of the two hallmarks of democracy – freedom of the press, and the obligation to mock that which needs or deserves mocking – just as I collect (or, used to collect [5] ) pretentious and overblown writers guidelines, fellow writer/attorney friend SCM and I alert each other when we come across a really juicy Author’s Bio. I recently received this email from her:

I was interested in reading one of this woman’s novels…until I read her bio.

The best (read, of course: worst) author’s bios are always/obviously penned by the writer, and usually corroborate the dictum that the less professional and self-confident the writer, the longer the bio (in some cases, like the one SCM cited, they approach novella length).

I had to follow the link, and was so taken with the sheer self-aggrandizing, TMI, verbal diarrhea-osity of it I had to meet SCM for lunch to celebrate her find. Also, I wanted to encourage SCM to follow up on her brilliant idea, to start a blog: Bad Author Bios. This blog will consist solely of links to…can you guess? We discussed the possibility that, after a few weeks, she will be receiving so many links from readers the blog will practically write itself – except for the part where she will have to include screen shots as well as links. [6]

To past, present and future composers of authors bios: here’s what readers need to know. What is relevant about a writer is what you write and what you’ve written. Your mommy and daddy and your former grade school teachers may be interested in your lifelong love of hamsters, your current triathlon training and your name-dropping of Celebrity D list activists you brushed shoulders with in college. The rest of us, not so much.

Behold the Contributor Notes section of The New Yorker. These writers are published in The New Yorker, FFS. They get one or two lines about their story or latest book. Concise, and classy.

I understand that certain publishers or editors want more, and will sometimes ask their authors and contributors to “flesh out” a bio because…because it’s their policy, or whatever. I’ve been there. [7] But it’s unlikely they asked you to list the literary equivalent of your high school sports awards, the location of the births of your children, your academic scholarships and your devotion to your superstition religion. When it is your choice, keep it short.

Speaking of which, in next week’s blog, I’m going to be recommending a book by an author who lists himself as First Name Last Name. That’s it. He is a physician, a highly educated and skilled and respected medical doctor, but does not bill himself as First Name Last Name, M.D. So. If this accomplished person, who has written three best-selling books and articles for the New York Times and directs a center for health systems innovations and chairs a nonprofit organization which works to make surgery safe globally – if this person can be humble, you, who are just a writer and not also a doctor and a writer, [8] can cut the 90 paragraph bio, okay?

* * *

Don’t be humble. You’re not that great.

Golda Meir

* * *

May you be successful enough to have strangers enjoy (and critique) your bio notes,
and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!

[1] “I held my typing fingers” just doesn’t do it, for me.

[2] Primarily located in the USA or Canada.

[3] “Speculative” fiction; i.e., you haven’t the talent to write a story that makes sense.

[4] Which indicates the reviewer wants you to know he’s an ordained Christian minister.

[5] It got so depressing I deleted the file one day…much to my regret. There were some gems in there.

[6] Writers who find out they’ve been shamed on the blog can, of course, edit their bios and attempt to cover their ego tracks.

[7] And made up silly stuff in an effort to be entertaining, if not personally revealing.

[8] Yeah, yeah, the petty part of me hates him for that.

The Toxins I’m Not Cleansing

January 2, 2015

Robyn Parnell are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, current events, family life, foodie, general ruminations, health & wellness, Holidays, making fun of lawyers and/or doctors, sports, The Write Stuff (literary life), Wow, Yikes! detox quackery, double rainbows, hoppin' John, Mighty Media Press, New Years Eve sucks, Oregon in Rose Bowl, pestle disguise, Scarletta Press, Sports Look, The Mighty Quinn, The SkepDoc Comments Off on The Toxins I’m Not Cleansing

Department of Just Sayin’
Aka, Is It Over Yet?

I hate New Year’s Eve. Always have. Correction: there have been breaks in the “always.” Including the years my family celebrated with neighbor/friends, sharing a dinner-and-games night. But mostly, it has always been a strange, awkward(t) kind of evening – an I should be having fun dammit/why am I not light-hearted and care-free kind of night. Instead, it’s a reminder of how quickly the last year flew by, what was intended and what fell through the cracks, one more reminder of dreams gone by/deferred, one more year closer to admitting dreams that were never to be realized….

Cry me a river. Pass the popcorn; it’s 12:24 am, is the last yahoo done banging the damn pot lids/setting off the mortars and can I go to sleep now and wake up and pretend it’s March already?

“Is it midnight yet? Have we had fun?”

* * *

Happy New Year, Indeed

MH’s attention was drawn to a certain object on the dish air drying rack. I waited for the inevitable comment.

“What’s this?” he asked, with a Twinkle in His Eye ® . He picked up the object, turned it back and forth in his hand, and attempted to unscrew its top.

“It does not take batteries,” I smirked, “and no, it’s not what you’re thinking.”

a pestle without its mortar is like a fish without a bicycle.

* * *

Start the New Year clean with this “detoxifying” dietary supplement, transdermal patch, kidney-flushing herbal tea, colon cleanser….

The come-on email that somehow escaped my spam filter, caused me pause for a moment to consider the quackery that is not just particular to the holiday season.

“Detoxing – the idea that you can flush your system of impurities and leave your organs squeaky clean and raring to go – is a scam.
It’s a pseudo-medical concept designed to sell you things.”

“Let’s be clear,” says Edzard Ernst, emeritus professor of complementary medicine at Exeter University, “there are two types of detox: one is respectable and the other isn’t.”
The respectable one, he says, is the medical treatment of people with life-threatening drug addictions. “The other is the word being hijacked by entrepreneurs, quacks and charlatans to sell a bogus treatment that allegedly detoxifies your body of toxins you’re supposed to have accumulated.”

I generally hold and/or bite my tongue when otherwise seemingly intelligent (or obviously dense but well-meaning and nice) folks uses the Important-And-Sciency-Sounding-Poison-Language © with me. The young man who, after finishing giving me a blissful foot massage advised me to drink a lot of water in the next few hours to help my body “flush out of toxins” stimulated by the massage? I just smiled dreamily. I was under the spell of the massage’s endorphin rush; I didn’t have the energy to mouth a simple, if sincerely incredulous, Dude, really? What are you saying, and who told you that?

Toxins? What, exactly, are these toxins?

I often wonder if the purveyors of toxin-speak even know the definition of the word they use so heedlessly yet authoritatively?

A toxin (from Ancient Greek: τοξικόν toxikon) is a poisonous substance produced within living cells or organisms.

So, you’re saying, without blood test results or other evidence to back up your claim, that there is poison in my body? What, someone slipped rattlesnake venom in my tea?

When I ask for evidence of specific toxins that are lurking, unflushed, in my body, [1] I receive analogies. The toxin-believing crowd can’t exactly describe what the toxins are, nor what the detox process is, so they resort to analogies. False analogies. “Just like we wash our hair and brush our teeth…” My favorites are the ones having to do with a machine: “Just like we must periodically flush our car’s coolant system…”

That is incorrect; you forfeit the bonus round.

As much as it may seem to have a mind of its own, [2] your Honda Civic is not a living organism. Machines have no way to clean themselves. The crucial systems of the human body evolved to do so. The kidneys, liver, bowels – the organs most frequently cited by the Toxin Touters – all are self-cleansing. When they fail, due to disease or injury or abuse, medical intervention is necessary.

This is your liver.

This is your liver on David Crosby

Like all fast fixes – from miracle diets to wrinkle creams – the idea that we can wash away our lifestyle transgressions with a pill, a drink, a gargle or even an “internal cleanse” [3] is an attractive idea to some, and much easier than making changes to nutrition, exercise and other lifestyle habits. [4] And most of us seem to hold some vague ideas that we are doing something wrong, or that our modern, technologically dependent life contaminates us with…well, with bad things. [5] And we need to get rid of these bad things.

Harriet Hall, aka “the SkepDoc,” is a retired physician and former Air Force flight surgeon who researches and writes about medicine, so-called “alternative and complementary medicine,” and quackery and critical thinking. According to Hall, the detox industry’s rhetoric is “… reminiscent of religious fasting and purification rites (Jewish mikvah, shamans using smoke, American Indians sweat lodges). It’s mysticism, not science.”

Our bodies come equipped with livers, kidneys, stomachs, intestines, enzymes and metabolic processes that deal with toxins efficiently with no outside help. When kidneys fail, we use dialysis. In certain cases of poisoning with large amounts of heavy metals, we may use chelation therapy. In addiction treatment, “detox” is achieved by simply abstaining from drugs or alcohol for a few days. ….. there is no medical evidence to support any other methods or benefits of “detoxification.” [6]

* * *

Department of Ch-ch-ch changes

As of January 1, 2015, Scarletta Press, publisher of my middle grade novel, The Mighty Quinn, is no longer Scarletta Press. The Publisher Formerly Known as Scarletta is now Mighty Media Press. And they have this to say about that:

Mighty Media Press delivers captivating books and
media that ignite a child’s curiosity, imagination,
social awareness, and sense of adventure.
Mighty Kids. Mighty Minds. Mighty Future.
Be Mighty!

Although I like the name change, I be mighty skeptical (if just a bit less mighty hopeful) as to how this will impact their promotion efforts for one of their Scarletta titles…even though, one might reasonably think, The Mighty Quinn, ahem, hello, can you say, “tie-in?” I knew you could.

“The what formerly known as what?”

* * *

Department of Because It Works

Dateline: New Year’s Day. MH and I, out for a walk. MH asks if I’m taking him to Sports Look, a local restaurant/sport bar, for dinner. “For dinner?” I am confused. I know he’s referring to being able to watch The Rose Bowl game (it’s only being broadcast on ESPN, and we are the holdouts who don’t have cable), which is mildly important to us this year, lukewarm college sports fans that we are, because an Oregon team is playing a Florida team. But the game starts at 2pm, I reminded him, not dinner time. Also, it’s New Year’s Day, and, remember, I always make Hoppin’ John on New Year’s Day.

I picked up that tradition – serving black-eyed peas and rice, green and some cornbread concoction “for luck and prosperity in the New Year” – from my Tennessee-raised father. I maintain the tradition partially because I like my version of Hoppin’ John, and partially in memory of my dad.

Besides, I explained to MH, I want us to benefit from the folk wisdom of poor people who ate beans and rice every year, believing it would bring them good luck and prosperity, who then again the following year were too poor to serve anything fancier than beans and rice on New Year’s Day.

Remember how well it worked last year?

* * *

Department of Making My Daughter Groan

Driving home from lunch, Belle pointed out a rainbow grazing the horizon. “Now, if there were two of them,” I wondered aloud, “would the first one be the rainbow and the other a rainbro?”

* * *

An optimist stays up until midnight to see the new year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves.
(Bill Vaughn)

Happiness is too many things these days for anyone to wish it on anyone lightly. So let’s just wish each other a bile-less New Year and leave it at that.
(Judith Crist)

* * *

May the happiness you seek be bile-free, and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!

[1] And I have done this, with those who have used the toxin jargon.

[2] Especially when piloted by teen drivers.

[3] It’s only two days into the new year and I just don’t want to type enema.

[4] Why give up my bi-weekly craft beer six pack & cheesecake fest when I can do a bi-yearly liver cleanse?

[5] I actually think this is likely true, but want evidence before I put any purported “cleanser” up my hoo-haw, an organ which evolved to expel, not intake.

[6] Detox Quackery (Harriet Hall, the SkepDoc, Skeptic, v. 14 #1 2008)

The DMV I’m Not Suing

December 12, 2014

Robyn Parnell books & magazines, community, current events, extended family, foodie, friends, games & puzzles, Holidays, Holy Shit!, making fun of Norwegians and/or the Irish, Oregon, politics, The Write Stuff (literary life), Yikes! driver's license renewal, Grapes of Wrath, homeschoolers banning classic literature for sexual content, lefse, Merrriam Webster Word Games, santa hats, The Mighty Quinn 4 Comments

My apologies to those of you wretched, lonely hearts devoted readers who have told me you look forward to sitting down with your coffee on Friday morning and reading my blog.[1] Technical difficulties delayed its usual early morning posting. Let’s just say I oppose the death penalty, except for those who create and distribute computer viruses.

* * *

Dateline: Wednesday. Birthday coming up in less than a week. Driver’s license renewal. Fastest time ever at the DMV – in and out. Worst. Picture. Ever.

Not this bad.

“I need an override,” the woman at the camera station called out to her supervisor.

“What, my face broke the camera, ” I mumbled half-heartedly. The supervisor smiled, clickety-clacked on the computer keyboard and replied, “Only cracked it.” After she left I asked Camera Woman, “No, really – what did you need to override?”

“When there’s a discrepancy with your past picture, the computer calls for a compare.” It seems the DVS’s picture processing software is sophisticated enough to opine, “There’s no way this can be the same person…and even if it is, holy facial recognition software, do people have no pride? She could have at least brushed her hair; oh yeah, lady, but it’s raining outside yada yada yada, nice try with that excuse….”

Really. A bad picture.

Almost this bad.

* * *

That was no way to start a Wednesday, or any day, but especially the second Wednesday in December, which was my annual Ladies’ Lefse Party. But, the day was soon redeemed

Returning home from the DMV, still pissed about the picture incident [2] I decide to play a word game to calm myself down before getting down to work. It’s the little things that matter, you know? Like the oh-so-special feeling I get when playing Jumble Jong and I get an AWESOME! message plus bonus points for using the available tiles to spell the word, smuttily.

Also, there was the lefse party.

Lady Marmalade, just some of the Lucky Ladies invited to the Ladies Lefse Party.

* * *

Department of Pretend There Was An Artful Segue

Friend fellow writer and self-described reluctant homeschooler [3] SCM has had trouble “finding her tribe” as she put it… as so sharply evidenced by a local homeschooling list serve posting she sent me (to which she has since unsubscribed), which she titled, From the “I can’t make up this shit” files…

(my emphases)

Messages: Classic Literature I don’t let my kids read.
Posted by: (redacted)[4]
I had a frank discussion with my kids literature teacher after one of my own picked up Grapes of Wrath, which I’ve never read, and read it during our reading time, not outloud. Apparently there are some rather gratuitous love scenes in there or at least one. Never having read it, I’m kicking myself for having trusted the many “classic literature” lists that I’ve printed and clung to while shopping for books to build our home library with.

I emailed their teacher my list and she went through it and marked the ones that were safe, the ones that weren’t, and the ones she either couldn’t remember or hadn’t personally read. What an eye opener! For starters, here are the ones we removed from our shelves because of such love scenes.

1984
Candide
Grapes of Wrath

I’m sure there will be others, but this is just a startling starting point. I don’t mind an occasional bad word or even a string of bad words.

It’s the erotic love scenes that disgust me when I think of my teenage son picking up and reading from material I HAVE PROVIDED! It’s sad to think about the books they’ll be missing out on because of unnecessary inappropriate scenes.

If you know of other not-so-classy “classics”; I would steer away from that are usually found on classics lists, please let me know.

Holy fucking inappropriate love scenes.

I mean, objecting to “love scenes”? In “classic” literature, that you yourself admit you’ve NEVER READ?

And, “Grapes of Wrath,” really?

For the love of butt-fucking pornography, I’m trying to remember what might be determined “inappropriate” about The Grapes of Wrath, a book which was one of many triggers responsible for the awakening of my political consciousness….. Ah, maybe that’s it. That and, you know, all the scenes featuring poor people striving for a better life amidst political forces determined to keep them in their place.

“It’s sad to think about the books they’ll be missing out on because of unnecessary inappropriate scenes.”

No, ladyass, it’s sad to think about the books your kids will be missing out on because their mother has a frigid, rigid, prude-drooling fear bucket where her brain should be.

I’m trying to imagine her and others of her ilk, going through her books [5] and marking which ones are “safe.”

NOVELS AREN”T SUPPOSED TO BE “SAFE” – THAT’S THE FUCKING POINT.

And that message of hers sparked replies – a back and forth from fellow home- obscurants schoolers who seemed to be almost bragging about the fact that they have lists of “Classic Literature I Don’t Let my Kids Read.”

I just feel like kicking something.

* * *

Department of, awwwww…..

A week ago this afternoon, at the invitation of a staff member, I did a reading of The Mighty Quinn followed by a Q & A session [6] at the Hillsboro Boys and Girls Club. The group of kids attending would be in the 4^th – 8^th grade age range…or so I was told. The kids seemed younger; the coordinator explained that, just before she made the announcement to gather in a meeting room for the reading, someone else announced that a movie was going to be shown in another room, and most of the older kids went to the movie.

Well, yeah.

After the reading (and a Q & A session seriously in need of some mediating [7] ) the event coordinator took a picture of me and the kids, and then dismissed the kids to their other activities. One girl, who had been one of the most enthusiastic Q & A participants, approached me with a shy gleam in her eye.

“Here,” she said, holding out a coin. “This is for you.”

I must have had a confused look on my face. “It’s a nickel,” she explained.

Actually, it was a quarter.

Of course I had to take it. For two reasons

You cannot refuse such an act of generosity from a child.
Have you seen my last royalty statement? I think she may have.
I said, for two reasons.

* * *

The Return of the Santa Hats

As a part of our household’s seasonal décor, anything that can be classified as art, that has a face, must wear a miniature Santa Hat. Don’t ask for an explanation because I don’t understand it myself (and I’m the one who insists on the practice). This has made for a whole lotta Santa hat-making as the years go by and we keep collecting specimens for our Wall of Faces:

This image represents less than 10% of the faces. Be afraid; be very afraid.

* * *

May your days be merry and bright, may you read the classic books and fight the good fights, may your Santa hats fit you just right, and may the holiday hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!

[1] Yep, I’m talkin’ you, BOM.

[2] And then more pissed for being so petty as to care about a driver’s license picture.

[3] With a near genius child, no money for non-public school options, living where the public school choice is in the lowest 15% of everything (and sends out how-to-keep-your-grade-schooler gang-free info)

[4] Or should I say, retarded. Which I would, if I thought I could get away with the (now) non-PC epithet.

[5] Or, worse, yet, taking some other patsy prig’s word for it, as she doesn’t seem to be familiar with the books she criticizes.

[6] “Meet a REAL author, who lives in Hillsboro…and you can ask her why the heck she hasn’t moved to Portland!”

[7] At least these kids didn’t ask me how much money I made, but they did ask why I wasn’t giving them free copies of the book.

The Accordion I’m Not Throwing

December 5, 2014

Robyn Parnell books & magazines, current events, family life, foodie, freethought/humanism, Holidays, music, politics, The Write Stuff (literary life), Wow, Yikes! Asshat of the Week, Boys & Girls Club, Brian Joyce, Fruitcake for the Holidays, FSM, Hanukah spatula, House Intelligence Report on Benghazi, nutmeg grater, Perfect Pitch, Star Trek shuttlecraft, The Mighty Quinn, velvet plaid shirt, Vuvuzela Comments Off on The Accordion I’m Not Throwing

As we dive into the holiday season, that time of year when some members of the human race strive to hold charitable thoughts for all members of the human race, I can’t help but reflect upon the fact that my nutmeg grater resembles a Star Trek shuttlecraft. [1]

* * *

Chappy Chanukah [2]

Truly, the FSM has touched me with his noodly appendage. I felt his presence – what other possible, earthly explanation could there be for my good fortune? – while searching for Hanukah-themed bling décor for a friend’s upcoming party. What unbridled joy, to stumble upon a holiday-themed kitchen gadget that incorporated one of my favorite words: [3]

Gentlemen and Ladies, start your latkes.

* * *

While We’re on the Holiday Theme:
Department of Not Passing the Holiday Breathalyzer Test

Fruitcake for the Holidays: A Special Recipe [4]

Ingredients:
– one cup each of water and white table sugar
– four large eggs
– two cups of dried fruit
– one teaspoon baking soda
– one teaspoon salt
– one cup brown sugar
– lemon juice
– nuts
– one bottle of whisky

Instructions:
Get out a large mixing bowl. To ensure whiskey is the highest quality, pour one level cup and drink. Repeat.

Turn on the electric mixer; beat one cup of butter in a large fluffy bowl. Add one teaspoon of sugar and beat again.

Make sure the whisky is still okay. Cry another tup. Turn off the mixer. Break two leggs and add to the bowl and chuck in the cup of dried furit. Mix on the turner. If the fried druit gets tuck in the beaterers pry it loose with a drewscriver.

Sample the whisky to check for tonsisticity. Next, sift two cups of salt. Or something. Who cares? Check the whisky. Now sift the lemon juice and strain the nuts. Add one table. Spoon. Of sugar or something. Whatever you can find.

Grease the oven. Turn the cake tin to 350 degrees. Don’t forget to beat off the turner. Throw the bowl out of the window, check the whisky again and go to bed.

Yet another victim of Aunt Erva’s Holiday Fruitcake.

* * *

By the end of this day, publicity-shy moiself will have survived enjoyed another public appearance re The Mighty Quinn, this one involving a reading and Q & A session with thirty-to-forty 4^th – 8^th graders at the Hillsboro Boys & Girls Club. If only I had some fruitcake to see me through the ordeal.

* * *

The Department of Not Holding My Breath…

In this case I’m not holding it for an apology [5] from anyone else in the paranoid conservative talk show radio foghorns media, now that the House Intelligence Report on Benghazi has been released.

Brian Joyce, one member of the talk show radio host contingent, wrote a persuasive and seemingly heartfelt apology. I wonder what we’ll hear from the rest of his colleagues?

We told you the President was covering up what happened in Benghazi. We told you the President didn’t have a “shred of integrity” on Benghazi. We told you the President was providing “cover” for the terrorists who killed four Americans in Benghazi. We told you that the President could have helped the four Americans who were killed in Benghazi, but instead ordered the military to “stand down.” Heck, we even told you the President’s Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, faked a concussion just to avoid testifying on Benghazi!

And after two years of trying our best to convince you that all these things were true, it turns out that we, the media, were the ones who were lying.

To those members of the media – specifically, the unmedicated, verbal crap-wiping legion of Fox News-parroting twitclowns – who created the nonexistent “cover-up” of the Benghazi attack, this Asshat of the Week award is for you.

* * *

Dateline: Last week. Scenario: offspring (Belle and K) are home for Thanksgiving break. Belle wanted me to run some errands with her after I was done exercising. After completing my workout I showered and dressed, and as I exited my room, Belle eyed my shirt and gasped.

“Is that velvet? Velvet and plaid?”

I nodded, and let her caress my sleeve.

“Oh, wow,” she said. “It’s like the 90s all rolled into one.”

* * *

Department of What If

What if the paper towel dispensers in public restrooms were not motion-activated, but rather emotion-activated? It wouldn’t be enough to need to dry your hands – you’d have to really, really, demonstrably, want to dry your hands.

* * *

As my birthday approaches, I’m going to step out of my comfort zone [6] and reveal something personal. Not only have I never (successfully) played a musical instrument, [7] it has been said (by moiself) that you could inscribe my innate musical ability on the tip of my pinkie finger and still have room for the Declaration of Independence.

However….

Another little-known personal fact: despite my lack of musical talent, I have demonstrated perfect pitch. I once threw an accordion in a dumpster, where it landed on a vuvuzela.

* * *

May all your pitches strive for such perfection, and may the holiday hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!

[1] If you fail to see the resemblance, a little more eggnog might do the trick.

[2] Y’all know the rules, about the ch- pronunciation, right?

[3] That would be spatula.

[4] Too many people, most of them fruitcake recipe testers (hic), I imagine, claim credit for this recipe, so I’ll leave attribution to the Collective Consciousness of Christmas Culture.

[5] Or even explanation for their fear-mongering slathering passing as “investigative concern.”

[6] I hate that phrase – “comfort zone.” Just typing it makes me feel like a slimy mattress salesman with an ill-fitting toupee.

[7] Being the leader of my high school’s AWMKB (All Women’s Marching Kazoo Band) doesn’t count.

The Frog I’m Not Kissing

September 26, 2014

Robyn Parnell are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), family life, friends, general ruminations, movies, school, science, The Write Stuff (literary life), travel, Yikes! Annie Hall, Astoric column, Cyrano be Bergerac, fairy tales, James Watson the DNA dude, Joe Jackson, Led Zeppelin, Marshall McLuhan, old boyfriends dreams, Roxanne the movie, sabbatical, The Mighty Quinn, wishing wells, Woody Allen movies Comments Off on The Frog I’m Not Kissing

“Pretty women out walking with gorillas down my street….”
Joe Jackson, “Is She Really Going Out with Him?”)

A long long, time ago in a galaxy far far away, I left a movie theater having just seen the latest rendition of one of the oldest fairy tale plot devices. The movie was Roxanne, a modern re-telling of the Cyrano be Bergerac story. While I found the Steve Martin-Darryl Hannah vehicle to be somewhat charming, as I joined the après-movie queue [1] outside the women’s restroom I was also frustrated by the sameness of it all.

Why aren’t the roles ever reversed? I groused to myself – ah, timing – just as a Sweet Young Thing ® standing in line behind me began gushing to her companion about the movie’s “uplifting” message:

“It’s like, you know, how true beauty is what’s inside a person, and when people, like, look beyond the physical stuff and people are, like, transformed, and so people shouldn’t, like, judge a book by its cover, because the one with the lousy cover might have some really good stuff inside…”

SYT’s commentary went on for some time, increasing in both volume and vapidity, to the point that I finally reached my WTF point. We were standing in a piss line; I’d never see her again. I turned around and addressed SYT.

BTW and yes, I am One Of Those People ® who will sometimes speak to a Stranger when we are both standing in the same line, particularly when a Stranger makes inane comments loud enough to intrude upon the brain waves of bystanders. Dream scenario for this situation: the Marshall McLuhan scene in Annie Hall.

Ah, but I digress.

“Actually,” I smiled at SYT, “the point of that movie, and other stories like, is a bit more specific. The underlying message is not that beautiful people can learn to appreciate homely people. The message is that, if you are a man who is unattractive, even ugly or deformed, you can pursue the pretty princess; you the man-troll can make a beautiful woman look beyond your physical deficiencies to appreciate the goodness within you. Think about it: that storybook train runs only one way: ugly man to pretty woman.” [2]

She did not respond, unless you count her open mouthed, frog-like gaping. Hmm. If she’d been a guy frog, some hot babe could have kissed her and transformed her into…. Nah.

Cyrano be Bergerac. The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Beauty and the Beast. The Princess and the Frog. Shrek. Ninety-nine percent of Woody Allen movies starring Woody Allen.

Art and literature teem with images and stories of unattractive schmucks who pursue and win (and are portrayed as ultimately deserving of) the hearts, minds (and bodies) of beautiful women. The homely, rejected but deep-down-decent protagonists know what it’s like to be judged and ignored for their inadequate exteriors, even though they have so much “inner beauty” to offer. Why then do the stories not have these men seek out their homely but decent, kind and wise female counterparts – kindred spirits with whom they could find simpatico, and mutually beneficial relationships?

When was the last (or first) time you had the opportunity to read your children the bedtime fable of the devastatingly handsome prince who finds happiness with the wall-eyed but kind-hearted, intelligent princess? [3]

What sparked this particular intellectual excursion, I cannot say. Perhaps the OBFD (stay tuned for acronym explanation) has something to do with it.

* * *

Department of Awwwwww…..

Dateline: last week, after enjoying a sushi lunch with friend SCM and her seven year old daughter P, we three womenfolk got ourselves to the Streets of Tanasbourne, an outdoor mall, to attend to a serious errand. SCM was in need of new lady undergarments, and while she shopped for them [4], P and I played at the mall’s fountain. That is, P and I attempted to play, as much as the fountain’s numerous warning signs would allow us to act in any way that might resemble frolicking.

“No wading in the fountain, no walking along the rim, no sitting on the edge…no furtive glances in the direction of the fountain, no no no no…”

The signs did not say NONONO re using the fountain as a wishing well, and P pointed out to me the plethora of pennies that previous well-wisher had left. I doled out a handful of pennies, one by one, to P, who tossed them in the fountain one by one, and one by one [5] told me who and what she’d wished for.

For her mother, P wished for – surprise! – new underwear. For her father, new trousers. For her various friends, a puppy, a pet, a puppy, a pet, another puppy. For my daughter Belle, a black kitten.

“This is for K,” P told me, as she tossed the last penny into the fountain.

I found it touching her last penny was used to make a wish for my son. “And what is your wish for K?” I asked her.

P paused for a moment. “Someone to keep him company.”

* * *

Department of Ahhhhh…crap.

Readers of this blog may remember my post from last week, wherein I mentioned daughter Belle’s plan to take the train home for a visit – along with seven of her dorm friends who wanted an adventure/escape from college for a few days – this weekend. The visit is still on…in a different scale.

Belle’s friend MGN has been given a final countdown in her long battle with renal failure. Assuming MGN makes it to the weekend, Belle will be spending most of her time “home” in the hospital, visiting MGN. Belle’s college friends, once they heard the news, kindly and graciously backed out of the trip (“I won’t be any fun to be around,” Belle warned them), and Belle will be coming home alone.

MH and I were in Astoria when Belle texted me with the news. We drove up the steep, winding, road to the Astoria Column and climbed the 164 steps to the top of the column. I launched a small balsawood glider [6] from the column’s observation deck, in honor of MGN. It was a windy, pre-rainstormy day, and the flimsy glider rode the drafts like a tiny raptor, circling downward until it came to rest in a grove of fir trees.

Best wishes for MGN…and for her grieving friends, like Belle. The mortality of your peers in your face is just not something we imagine our children facing at age eighteen.

* * *

The Return of the Old Boyfriends Dream

Scene: A university lecture hall. Standing at the dais is a man who is much too young to be James Watson, [7] yet that is who we lecture attendees are supposed to think he is.
Looking around the crowded venue, I spot another young man. This one, I know. He is standing off to the side, leaning against the lecture room wall, exchanging glances and smirks with his younger sibling, both of them trying to look professorial….

Old [8] Boyfriend Dreams ® . They’re baaaaaaaaaaaaaack.

I’ve had them before, and have noticed a pattern. An old BF’s appearances in my dreams – typically in supporting roles, sometimes in brief, “walk-on” parts – coincide with times in which I am facing a current or imminent, significant, change in life circumstances.

When I wake up in the morning (or middle of the night) and my first thought it, Yo, dude, why were you (former bf) running amok in my subconscious?, my second thought is, Oh, okay…it’s this, again.

The OBFDs first made their appearance during my pregnancy with K. Those OBFDs also coincided with a desire to listen to my old Led Zeppelin albums, go figure.

A brief donning of my amateur dream interpretation hat is all it takes for me to figure it out.

Not as awesome as the Hogwarts Sorting Hat.

I understand that those dreams signify my concerns for What Is To Come vs. What Might Have Been. The old BFs represent The Road(s) Not Taken; they symboloize how every opportunity, every fork in the road, every major decision to be made, involves choosing certain paths and thus (by default if not intention) rejecting others.

The reason now for such dreams to be happening now, as in, again, is no surprise. It’s Transition time.

“Oh, no – not another learning experience!”

My husband’s workplace offers employees a period of leave every seven years. Employees may use the time for purposes at their discretion (Travel? Classes? Eight weeks of couch surfing?). As of last Saturday, “We” are currently on MH’s sabbatical. “We”as in, when MH takes his sabbatical I get one (or have to take one, depending on POV issues), too. [9]

As much as I am fortunate to be able to do this, sometimes the timing is…problematic. The previous sabbatical came at a time where I was in the middle of what would become The Mighty Quinn, and I was not in the place to be able to put that and other writing projects aside. [10]

FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS ALERT – Of course, I felt guilty for even having such resentments, and was glad I did take the opportunity to make wonderful, life-long memories of travel adventures with MH, K and Belle (and even if Belle hasn’t forgiven me for the holding-my-hand-over-the-still-steaming-pile-of-bear-shit incident, she’s got a great story to tell).

The timing of this sabbatical is more fortuitous in many ways. It comes at a time when I’ve already taken a philosophical and mental sabbatical of my own, from my work. It comes at a time when significant family concerns (including elderly parents’ health crises on both sides of the family, and K and Belle leaving our nest) are bracketing my slow-dawning realization that I have chosen to devote decades of my life to what seems to be, for me, the wrong profession.

Cliff Notes version: WTF do I do now?

Not the most convenient realization to have at my age, when my chronological peers are anticipating and planning for their retirements. Sigh. I’ve always been a late/backwards/sideways bloomer.

It’s time for Act Three. There are bound to be more rumination on his subject…or maybe I’ll just spare y’all and extend that particular sabbatical.

* * *

May your roads, taken and not, be navigable and scenic, and may you know joy that comes from hearing a seven year old’s earnest wishing well announcements, which will surely help the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!

[1] Four stalls, in an eight theatre multiplex?

[2] No, that’s not quite a verbatim transcript (Roxanne came out in 1987).

[3] Cinderella doesn’t count. She is beautiful; her deficiencies are not physical but situational, in the form of poverty and an abusive step family.

[4] At a store, the name of which may or may not rhyme with Shick-gloria’s Meek-fret.

[5] I feel a theme coming on.

[6] You can purchase the gliders for $1 at the gift shop. On previous visits to the column, I always thought it a cheesy thing to do…and it probably still is.

[7] One of the two scientists credited – mistakenly – as being the “discoverers” of DNA.

[8] Old as in former, not old as in age seventy-three.

[9] His leave is paid. Mine is not.

[10] Indeed, returning from the sabbatical, I felt as if I were starting from scratch.

The Nest I’m Not Emptying

August 29, 2014

Robyn Parnell books & magazines, community, family life, general ruminations, school, The Write Stuff (literary life), travel, Yikes! Dueling banjoes, empty nest, Hillsboro Saturday farmer's Market, honey badger, Jacobsen's Books, may you live in interesting times, Parkinson's Disease, The Mighty Quinn, The Pie Guy, University of Puget Sound 4 Comments

It started early this summer. Subtle hints dropped, direct and dire predictions [1] flung (“Those were the best times of your life, when your kids were at home; oh, you’ll look back on those days and wish….”), and everything in between….

I’d tried not to give it an inordinate amount of brain wattage, but people kept bringing it up.

Yep, son K is back to college for his senior year, and daughter Belle begins her first. On the drive back home to Hillsboro, after we’d taken Belle to her UPS freshman orientation, I said to MH, “It’s not like we just dropped her off for summer camp, is it?”

Anyone know what this is?

The She Meant Well [2] award re this situation goes to my maternal unit, as per our Tuesday phone conversation. We talked about MH and I taking Belle up to college for freshman orientation last week, and how K would be returning to Tacoma this week. My mother asked me if I was going to miss my offspring. I said something like oh yeah, big time, already, even though K is still at home (he caught the train to Tacoma on Wednesday).

“I find it interesting [3] that you think you’ll miss them” she said.

“Uh…really? Why?” moiself responded. “I like them.”

“Well, you always seem to have so much else going on in your mind…”

Oh. Yeah, right. It’s not like I’ll even notice that, for the first time in over 21 years, my two groovy and much-loved children are not around.

What does she think I am, a honey badger?

honey badger don’t care.

* * *

MH has a sabbatical coming up, and we will be doing some traveling. Good timing, I think (hope). What with Belle & K both in college, the Dueling Banjoes of our elderly parents’ health crises [4], and my professional mid-life crisis, I find myself…unable to even pin down what I’m feeling. Floating, for lack of a better word.

Wise compassionate counsel from wise, compassionate friend SCM:

One of my Oregon Attorney Assistance Program newsletters talked about transitions—good or bad, they will always leave you feeling uneasy, and to give yourself time to get used to them, and to be forgiving of yourself if you feel badly (even for good changes). You’re transitioning with writing (or making some decisions about where to go next) and transitioning with parenting children to parenting adults. Those are both big life changes.

* * *

These are the breakfast plates I purchased for K and Belle, a long long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. One section for scrambled eggs and/or my special recipe whole wheat vanilla soymilk tofu (!) [5] pancakes, the other for fruit (bananas, seasonal berries, kiwi… they both loved kiwi).

Don’t worry about me, I’m doing fine. Just staring at empty plates. [6]

* * *

Something else on the plate.

C’mon out tomorrow to the Downtown Hillsboro Saturday Farmer’s Market. Hillsboro’s seasonal open-air market is celebrating its 32^nd year of operation, and features over 100 vendors and their fresh local produce food and garden products, flowers, baked goods, arts and crafts, live music, and more.

As for the more: wipe the fresh blackberry (mmm, yummers) stains off your fingers and stop by Jacobsen’s books for their summer author signing series, which is held during market hours. This Saturday yours truly will be at Jacobsen’s, with The Mighty Quinn. I’ll be there from 9a – 1p, except for when I’m slipping out to one of the produce booths to sample some of the gorgeous fresh fruit, or drooling over the Pie Guy‘s wares.

The market is held on Main Street between 1st and 3rd. Jacobsen’s Books is at 211 E. Main, on the north side of the street.

Be there, or …

* * *

When I learn something new – and it happens every day – I feel a little more at home in this universe, a little more comfortable in the nest.
Bill Moyers

May you feel a little more comfortable in your nest – or fledge quickly and crap all over the nest next door, whatever floats your boat – and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!

[1] Mostly from my mother, with the implication that it’s all downhill after this.

[2] “Thank god kids never mean well.” – Lily Tomlin.

[3] The dictionary definition of interesting – “engaging or exciting and holding the attention or curiosity” – is not how my mother typically employs that word. When she uses it, it is more along the lines of the apocryphal Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times.”

[4] my SoCal mom has a myriad of physical and mental health problems; MH’s Floridian father is battling the progressive physical and cognitive deterioration of Parkinson’s Disease .

[5] One of those stealth-health things…and they loved them.

[6] It’s time for a lighter footnote. Pretend you’ve just read an outrageously funny fart joke.

The Nose Hairs I’m Not Trimming

July 25, 2014

Robyn Parnell books & magazines, community, current events, extended family, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), making fun of lawyers and/or doctors, movies, Oregon, politics, reproductive rights, The Write Stuff (literary life) cartoonist Mary Lawton, Donut vandals, Funny Times, Golden Wingnut award, James Garner, Mad Magazine's It's A Gas, manatea infuser, Murphy's Romance, Oregon, Portland and Hillsboro, Portlandia, Sally Field, smelling farts may be healthful, Spam, The Mighty Quinn 1 Comment

Lovely Spam, Wonderful Spam

There is a certain beauty to these disparate messages in this week’s spam file – a mélange of subjects I find peculiarly compelling:

* A scary number and an awesome cat
* Weird food KILLED my blood pressure
* John Kerry With Egyptians Over Gaza
* My hips went from a 40 down to a 35 in seven days
* Mail from CIA (Congratulation) !!!
* [SPAM] is NOT SPAM!
* Free Viagra for under $5!

And this, from a company that helps inventors turn their innovative ideas into branded product…this, to me, is the most poignant spam of all:

* Tangled, messy garden hoses are a thing of the past

Please, say it ain’t so.

How will I ever convey to my offspring the contentment that can only arise from laboring to transform a tangled, messy garden hose into a straight and tidy irrigation tube, if the former no longer exists?

I swear, those entrepreneurs just want to suck the mystery out of life.

Mom, tell me again about the good old days, when everyone worked together to untangle the hose.

* * *

Silent But Deadly = Recuperative

Readers with such totally meaningless lives they must fill the void in their souls by reading my blog excellent memories may recall last week’s blog, wherein I mentioned the mini-strokes that have afflicted my mother. Those Wacky Scientists ® may have come up with a non-surgical, non-pharmacological, totally natural treatment for her.

I am, of course, referring to fart-smelling.

As reported in The Week:

“A new study …suggests that exposure to hydrogen sulfide could prevent mitochondria damage….. Hydrogen sulfide gas…well known as a pungent, foul-smelling gas in rotten eggs and flatulence, it is naturally produced in the body and could in fact be a healthcare hero with significant implications for future therapies for a variety of diseases,” a professor at the University of Exeter, said…. the study suggests that “a whiff here and there has the power to reduce risks of cancer, strokes, heart attacks, arthritis, and dementia by preserving mitochondria.”

I can’t help but wonder: is there is a corollary effect for gas emissions of the northern orifice; i.e., does listening to belching have mitigating effects for auditory or other sensory disorders? In other words, any excuse to play this:

* * *

Why I Never Ran a Lemonade Stand [1]

* * *

Apparently, my calling, where my true talent lies, is writing Amazon reviews. Such as the one I penned for my “manatee tea infuser.”

I love the way my manatee looks; I love the very concept, and I love the way she perches on the rim of my teacup, with her loose tea-laden nether regions soaking in the hot water, infusing the teacup with…well, with very little actual tea.

The holes in her silicon trunk are just not holey enough to allow for proper circulation. The only thing that comes close to the disappointed look on my face when I sip what I am hoping will be a freshly brewed cuppa, and taste instead a week mug of almost-nothing (hey, did I mistakenly order the homeopathic tea?), is the forlorn expression on the manatea herself. I think she knows what’s going on. She is a tea infuser that does not infuse; she is forlorn, bereft of purpose, just another pretty (if bewhiskered) face.

The review itself received several glowing reviews, and is currently listed as the most helpful review for the product. I may now return to Antares with a clear conscience. My work here is done.

“(Moiself) has written one of the most informative and creative reviews of any product that I have ever had the privilege to read. Thank you for a review that not only provided the information that I needed and also managed to be very entertaining.”

* * *

Tonight is Hillsboro’s Bards & Brews. Bards & Brews is a last-Friday-of-the-month literary event, co-organized by Jacobsen’s Books and hosted by the downtown Hillsboro restaurant/wine bar/retail shop, Primrose & Tumbleweeds:

Join us for a celebration of the written word! Local authors of every flavor will gather for Bards & Brews to share their works in a series of talks and readings, while you enjoy a meal or a beverage from the world’s largest collection of Oregon wines and beers.

As I mentioned last week, I’d rather be home trimming my nostril hairs with a weed whacker than do author appearances, but since the nose hair situation is under control and my name is on the list, I’ve no excuse but to show up. I’ll read a couple of passages from my featured book and be available to talk afterward. [1] Here’s the slate (author and book title) for tonight:

* Robyn Parnell (The Mighty Quinn)
* Caitlin Claire Diehl (First Daughter)
* Tammy Owen (House of Goats)
* Paula Stokes (The Art of Lainy)
* Paul Gerald (60 Hikes Within 60 Miles of Portland)

I hope to see your friendly faces (perhaps made even friendlier by the beverages?) tonight. If nothing else, you may pick up some hiking tips from Paul Gerald (aka that Portland hiking guy).

Bards & Brews, Friday July 25, 7 – 9p
Primrose & Tumbleweeds
248 E Main St.
in old town Hillsboro, one block north of the Hillsboro Transit Center

* * *

Department of I Am So Not Making This Up

And the Golden Wingnut Award goes to….wanna-be nurse Sara Hellwege.

I will really, really try not to refer to her as Sarah Hell-Wedgie. So, please, erase the following image from your mind.

Dateline: Tampa, Florida, where not-yet-graduated-or-licensed nurse Sara Hellwege (not Hell-Wedgie) has apparently fallen out of the bounteously-limbed Tree of Illogic and Absurdity and hit every branch on the way down. Despite the obvious signs that Hellwege is suffering from TBI ( theological bullshit instruction), she was able to apply for a job in Tampa medical clinic, and is now blathering “religious liberty violation” because she did not get the job after she said she would not be able to do the job.

No shit. [2]

Sara Hellwege is a member of a conservative religious “medical” organization that believes, contrary to all medical and scientific evidence, that birth control causes “the death of a human embryo.” When asked by the clinic’s human resources director about her affiliation with the group, “Hellwege admitted she would refuse to prescribe the birth control pill to anyone who wanted it. She was summarily told that prescribing the birth control pill was part of the job and was not hired.”

All together now: Sara Hellwege does not want to prescribe birth control, but she applied for a job at a family health center where prescribing birth control is a job requirement.

Uh huh.

“I’ll prescribe that crazy bitch a dose of turn your brain and cough.”

* * *

Best. Vandalism. Ever.

Portland is just so, you know, Portlandia. Eleven miles west, we Hillsborons [3] struggle to have any kind of identity, other than our unofficial city motto, [4] “Yeah, we’re not Portland, but at least we’re not Riverside.”

Oh, but that was then, and this is now:

“In my 25 years in police services, I have never investigated or seen a criminal mischief involving pastries.”
– Lt. Mike Rouches, Hillsboro police spokesman.

It seems a Hillsboro neighborhood has been plagued – or blessed, depending upon your POV – with a unique form of vandalism. In a kindergartener’s dream titled article, “Donut Caper Hits Hillsboro Neighborhood,” The Oregonian reports that in the past six weeks, vandals have plagued Northeast Farmcrest Street and neighboring areas, “scattering doughnuts around” and other food, too, including red potato salad, “…But doughnuts have been the most common food found.”

And just in case you’re wondering, I HAVE AN ALIBI FOR THE PAST SIX WEEKS.

Here the breaking news reporting gets more species-specific:

“Maple bars smeared across cars. Two chocolate doughnuts with sprinkles sat atop the windshield wipers of one vehicle.”

With sprinkles. I love that this important forensic detail is mentioned.

As you can imagine, Hillsboro’s finest detective squad exists only in our dreams has been assigned to the details. Read the article in its entirety, and you’ll shudder to think of the hypoglycemic sickoes behind these and other incidents:

On July 18, a Hillsboro sergeant found a box of Little Debbie Coral Reef Cakes strewn in the middle of Farmcrest Street. The dessert was the yellow cake with chocolate creme version, which is topped with brightly colored starfish and fish-shaped sprinkles.

The next day, July 19, a woman told police that…she found doughnuts thrown around her yard…. Mysteriously, a “Twilight” book was also left in her driveway.

Now we’re talking.

Hello, CSI Hillsboro, do I have to spell it out for you? Crimes of pastry side-by-side with one of the worst crimes against literature – this is no coincidence.

As one befuddled resident put it, “Can the world get any more cruller?”

* * *

R.I.P. James Garner

If you haven’t already, treat yourself to a viewing of one of the actor’s best (IMHO) if underappreciated roles, in Murphy’s Romance. I love this movie for so many reasons, including the realistic, well-written the role of a kid, where kid gets to be a kid and not a sitcom-ish sassy-talking, wiseass Hollywood version of A Kid ® . The chemistry between Garner’s and Sally Field’s characters is mahvelous; also, the movie has one of the best ending couplets [5] in cinema history (spoiler alert):

SF: “So, how do you like your eggs?”

JG: “I’m sixty.”

* * *

May your Romcom dialogue be convincing, your wedgies be heavenly, your neighborhood vandalism be hypoglycemic-neutral, and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!

[1] Cartoon by Mary Lawton. Her work is featured in many venues, including the aptly named Funny Times.

[2] Except for the batshit crazy kind.

[3] For some reasons, residents of Hillsboro have resisted my attempt to label us thusly.

[4] Hillsboro has no official city motto. And since I’m about as unofficial as they get, I feel totally justified in coming up with an unauthorized slogan.

[5] I’m probably using this poetic reference incorrectly. So, sue me.

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