We've had this bamboo plant for several years now and I haven't managed to kill it. In fact, it's thriving. Go figure...
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Friday, January 30, 2009
Cat of the Week: Tahoe
My favorite lake is this week's favorite cat. Tahoe is a 7-year old male shorthair with a beautiful white coat. (Like Tahoe in the winter.) He's a total charmer that loves to be petted and is the terror of any hapless pipe cleaner to comes into his orbit. Tahoe (ID# A443029) gets along well with other cats and is friendly, affectionate, outgoing, and a total charmer. If you're interested, visit the Peninsula Humane Society & SPCA website.
Cat of the Week Update: Brodi (my CoTW for Jan 16th) has been adopted. Also adopted another of my favorites, a sweetie named Pussinboots who roomed with Brodi in the same cat condo. But Clipper and Mr. Peabody, two handsome black kitties who I adore, are still around. People, step up and adopt one of these guys! Each is a total charmer who would make you a loving, wonderful companion.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Kits and Kids
I'm just back from cat duty. My regular shift is on Fridays, but I like to go in twice a week if I can. Certainly the cats need the attention. And I think I need it too.
Today there were two families with young children there and all of them were perfect examples of why most people should not have kids. Yelling. Screaming. (Oh, the screaming!) Running around. Putting their fingers in the cages to try to pet the cats after me asking them four times not to. Scaring the cats by banging on the cages. They were monsters. I asked the kids to be gentle and quiet around the cats. That didn't work. So I spoke to the parents. That didn't work either. So now we've got five kits running around like demons, making an incredible amount of noise, freaking out the kitties, and generally being hell.
I can't even begin to understand how hard it is to be a parent. But aren't you making it even harder on yourself by raising kids that nobody likes and that will, no doubt, grow up to be out-of-control? At the risk of sounding like an old fogey, I wouldn't have been allowed to behave like that. My parents, for all their faults, always made it clear what kind of behavior was acceptable. Acting like a spoiled brat was not allowed. So why are so many kids now allowed to be this obnoxious?
You see it every day. Kids having temper tantrums in restaurants. That ear-shattering screech that only children can achieve lingering in the aisles at the grocery store. Little whirlwinds running wild in public places without a parent to be seen.
One of the things I love about my friends is that those who are parents are good parents. Their kids have manners. They behave. They know right from wrong and are not allowed to be headache-inducing little demons from hell. So I'd like to thank my friends for being responsible parents.
As for me, no kids (ever!)(thankfully). But one hell of a headache.
I'm just back from cat duty. My regular shift is on Fridays, but I like to go in twice a week if I can. Certainly the cats need the attention. And I think I need it too.
Today there were two families with young children there and all of them were perfect examples of why most people should not have kids. Yelling. Screaming. (Oh, the screaming!) Running around. Putting their fingers in the cages to try to pet the cats after me asking them four times not to. Scaring the cats by banging on the cages. They were monsters. I asked the kids to be gentle and quiet around the cats. That didn't work. So I spoke to the parents. That didn't work either. So now we've got five kits running around like demons, making an incredible amount of noise, freaking out the kitties, and generally being hell.
I can't even begin to understand how hard it is to be a parent. But aren't you making it even harder on yourself by raising kids that nobody likes and that will, no doubt, grow up to be out-of-control? At the risk of sounding like an old fogey, I wouldn't have been allowed to behave like that. My parents, for all their faults, always made it clear what kind of behavior was acceptable. Acting like a spoiled brat was not allowed. So why are so many kids now allowed to be this obnoxious?
You see it every day. Kids having temper tantrums in restaurants. That ear-shattering screech that only children can achieve lingering in the aisles at the grocery store. Little whirlwinds running wild in public places without a parent to be seen.
One of the things I love about my friends is that those who are parents are good parents. Their kids have manners. They behave. They know right from wrong and are not allowed to be headache-inducing little demons from hell. So I'd like to thank my friends for being responsible parents.
As for me, no kids (ever!)(thankfully). But one hell of a headache.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Photo of the day: Archeology
They're constructing a new building on Memorial Way near KZSU. There are two consequences of this. The first is that there is NEVER anywhere to park now because it was already tight and they got rid of about 30 spaces near the station. The second is that the work as disturbed the landscape (OK, the overgrown ivy) along the way. As I was walking to the station to do my show last night, I spotted this bottle emerging from the dirt.
Patent medicine? Some opium-filled concoction consumed by the class of 1932? Nothing so glamorous, alas. It was one of those apple-shaped apple juice bottles from approximately 2002 AD. But it certainly looks like it had the potential to be something dramatic, doesn't it?
Sigh...now I'm sorry I pulled it out. I should have lived with the mystery.
They're constructing a new building on Memorial Way near KZSU. There are two consequences of this. The first is that there is NEVER anywhere to park now because it was already tight and they got rid of about 30 spaces near the station. The second is that the work as disturbed the landscape (OK, the overgrown ivy) along the way. As I was walking to the station to do my show last night, I spotted this bottle emerging from the dirt.
Patent medicine? Some opium-filled concoction consumed by the class of 1932? Nothing so glamorous, alas. It was one of those apple-shaped apple juice bottles from approximately 2002 AD. But it certainly looks like it had the potential to be something dramatic, doesn't it?
Sigh...now I'm sorry I pulled it out. I should have lived with the mystery.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Monday, January 26, 2009
Grammatical rant #157
Nobody every "does" anything anymore. No, they have a "journey." You don't hear "Grad school was hard but I'm glad I got my Masters." Instead it's "I'm happy I took the journey." People, the pilgrimage route from France to Spain was a journey. This is just an event.
I'm all for finding meaning in life and, yes, it's the little things that make you happy. But why, for the love of Santana, does everything have to be so dramatic? Not everything in life is earth-shaking, yet contemporary society treats a trip to the grocery store like it's The Odyssey. Everything is momentous, a bonding experience, a fucking journey.
When I was a kid I remember riding on the train up to San Francisco with my father. It's an OK memory, I suppose. But in the hands of someone with more pretense, and less self control, than I it would become an epic. "Unlike real life, the click-clack of the train was taking us straight somewhere. Me and the enigma that I called "father." It didn't matter where. What mattered was sitting by his side, looking out the same window at the same neighborhoods, eating popcorn from the same circus-patterned box."
This trend makes even the dullest moment seem like a college's freshman's embarrassing attempt to find symbolism in a book they desperately want to be seen to understand. "I realized that, for my mother, that clean kitchen was Cyrano's white plume." No, bitch, it just meant your mom was incredibly bored and brainwashed by Mr. Clean.
Why can't something simple just be simple? Why does the most mundane memory (your first baseball game, getting your hair cut, getting your first puppy) have to turn into a rite of passage? "It was a really intense journey." No, it was you obsessing about getting Botox.
The offshoot of this is that it minimizes the things that really are important. It's like the trend towards referring to even the most minor of losers "superstar." The result is that people who really do have talent are lumped in with them so that Meryl Streep and Paris Hilton rate equal on the hyperbole scale. If the driving lesson with your mom becomes a touchstone of your life, what does that make your wedding day? The Rapture?
Nobody every "does" anything anymore. No, they have a "journey." You don't hear "Grad school was hard but I'm glad I got my Masters." Instead it's "I'm happy I took the journey." People, the pilgrimage route from France to Spain was a journey. This is just an event.
I'm all for finding meaning in life and, yes, it's the little things that make you happy. But why, for the love of Santana, does everything have to be so dramatic? Not everything in life is earth-shaking, yet contemporary society treats a trip to the grocery store like it's The Odyssey. Everything is momentous, a bonding experience, a fucking journey.
When I was a kid I remember riding on the train up to San Francisco with my father. It's an OK memory, I suppose. But in the hands of someone with more pretense, and less self control, than I it would become an epic. "Unlike real life, the click-clack of the train was taking us straight somewhere. Me and the enigma that I called "father." It didn't matter where. What mattered was sitting by his side, looking out the same window at the same neighborhoods, eating popcorn from the same circus-patterned box."
This trend makes even the dullest moment seem like a college's freshman's embarrassing attempt to find symbolism in a book they desperately want to be seen to understand. "I realized that, for my mother, that clean kitchen was Cyrano's white plume." No, bitch, it just meant your mom was incredibly bored and brainwashed by Mr. Clean.
Why can't something simple just be simple? Why does the most mundane memory (your first baseball game, getting your hair cut, getting your first puppy) have to turn into a rite of passage? "It was a really intense journey." No, it was you obsessing about getting Botox.
The offshoot of this is that it minimizes the things that really are important. It's like the trend towards referring to even the most minor of losers "superstar." The result is that people who really do have talent are lumped in with them so that Meryl Streep and Paris Hilton rate equal on the hyperbole scale. If the driving lesson with your mom becomes a touchstone of your life, what does that make your wedding day? The Rapture?
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Famous pants
Companies have really gotten out of hand when it comes to naming things. I recently saw an ad on TV for air fresheners that have a scent called "Brazilian Carnivale." Which makes me think it smells like sweat and vomit.
Clothing lines, too, have gotten even weirder. Green is now "moss" "elm" or "Irish mist." Thanks. And blue can be everything from "soft ocean" to "spring sky." "Gee, Bob, you should wear spring sky more often. It really brings out the red in your eyes."
But I had to laugh when I was in Macy's Men's Store with Husband today and he pointed out these pants. If you know Husband, you'll know why they are so funny.
The Dylan? The Bryant? "Honey, have you seen my Bryants? I want to wear them with my butternut blush shirt."
Companies have really gotten out of hand when it comes to naming things. I recently saw an ad on TV for air fresheners that have a scent called "Brazilian Carnivale." Which makes me think it smells like sweat and vomit.
Clothing lines, too, have gotten even weirder. Green is now "moss" "elm" or "Irish mist." Thanks. And blue can be everything from "soft ocean" to "spring sky." "Gee, Bob, you should wear spring sky more often. It really brings out the red in your eyes."
But I had to laugh when I was in Macy's Men's Store with Husband today and he pointed out these pants. If you know Husband, you'll know why they are so funny.
The Dylan? The Bryant? "Honey, have you seen my Bryants? I want to wear them with my butternut blush shirt."
Dead fish
Creepy? Hilarious? A complete joke? You decide. Farawayfish.com. Because it's never too late to piss people off.
Creepy? Hilarious? A complete joke? You decide. Farawayfish.com. Because it's never too late to piss people off.
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