In sickness and in....well, sickness
I've been feeling incredibly guilty for not doing AIDS Walk this year. It's tomorrow. It's also the first time in 16 years that I haven't signed up to walk. But I didn't think my back would be up for it. Now I don't feel guilty any more because guess who hasn't eaten since Wednesday? Anybody? That's right, me.

The creeping zarfs are back. I was sick all night on Wednesday (hey, sleep is overrated), a bit better on Thursday, and sick again yesterday. OK, I have eaten....I had a cup of soup on Thursday. And that's it. So I don't think a 10k walk is possible even if I had signed up. Thankfully my dear friends Jess and Andy are walking. They are two of the greatest people you will ever meet in my blog.

Back when I was a manager, Andy worked for me. He was so amazing I not only wanted to promote him and give him every possible raise, but I wanted to clone him, adopt him, and knit him sweaters. Truly one of the coolest guys ever. (Now he works with Husband. Well, he will for another two weeks or so. Sorry, Husband.) Jess is his gorgeous, fabulous wife and she has taken up the AIDS Walk banner. Thank you, Jess, you rock.

Now, for something completely different...

If you need a good laugh, check out The Ridiculous Race by Steve Hely & Vali Chandrakekaran, two TV sitcom writers who challenged each other to a race around the world (sans airplanes). Think Around the World in 80 Days meets Animal House. I'm only on page 30 and I've already laughed out loud more than I have in any book I've read all year. It's a truly hilarious, quirky, eye-wateringly funny account of travels, travails, and triumphs.

This you won't believe
Some insane yabbo named Brent Rinehart is running for Oklahoma County Commissioner and has produced a comic book (in pdf) which, among other things, stresses his condemnation of "homosexual preferences." It's scary, but it's also hilarious. My favorite is the image of a toga-clad scout leader dragging poor little Timmy into the woods to molest him.

I do not dance when I have my period
What is it with advertisers and women's products? I mean come on ladies, when you get your period do you dress entirely in white and do ballet moves on the beach? When you buy a new razor do you immediately put on your bikini and shave your legs by the pool? It's just plan silly.

I realize they want to suggest their products are so miraculous that you'll forget you have drop-dead painful cramps and can't fit into your favorite jeans. But really? Dancing? Hell I've even seen ads with women skipping. Yes, skipping down a busy street, pausing to admire their own reflection in a window. I've lost count of the times I've done that, complete a with Mary Tyler Moore-worthy spin of "I'm invincible. I'm spunky. I'm menstruating!" abandon. Oh the sheer joy of having a feminine hygiene product that turns the average women into an extra in Swan Lake.

There's one ridiculous razor commercial that states "every woman is a goddess of something." Uh, yeah, right. Apparently I'm the Goddess of Low Tolerance for Being Treated Like a Twit. I use a razor to scrape hair off my legs, not to lift my spirits to the point that cocaine seems dull. How lame are you if a new razor is the highlight of your day?

As an aside to this are cleaning product ads where the most anal retentive housekeepers have the most disgustingly dirty houses on the planet. Here's some woman claiming that protecting her family from dirt and germs is like a calling from God and then they show her bathtub which looks as if a bunch of frat boys have been mud wrestling in it. And why, oh why are we still being shown that women are the keepers of the house? I don't know of any modern marriage where the guy doesn't pitch in with the laundry, cooking, or general cleaning. And yet it's still the perkily perfect wife and mom (always a mom, that's key) who is the one that actually smiles as she mops her kitchen floor. I have never in my life smiled while mopping a floor. Perhaps if I mop the floor when I have my period I'll be doubly inspired and start jetee-ing across the room.

Too exhausted to write
I had good intentions of writing something pithy and/or witty tonight but I'm too tired. Today was Day 1 of "Let's Turn the Spare Room into Something We Can Actually Use" and I am just plain pooped.

So until I get my mind and my energy back, check out The Museum of Bad Art. Be afraid...

Home improvements
Husband and I are bravely undertaking a bit of a home improvement scheme. Since we're only renting it's not as if we're learning how to re-tile a bathroom or put a jacuzzi in the kitchen.

Nope, just paint a few new pieces of furniture and a buttload of cleaning out. It's that last part I dread.

We're turning our former guest room, current store room, into a music office for Husband. He just ordered a gorgeous new CD cabinet that supposedly holds 1400 CDs. This should hold most of his collection, probably all if he thin-packs more of his music. That will also free up some storage space in the CD rack in our living room so I can finally have my CDs organized as well. We're also planning on adding two new bookcases as well, which should eliminate the piles of books that carpet the floor of the room.

The only problem is where to put the stuff that currently lives in our spare room. You see, that's where we (OK, I) put all those things that I don't know where else to put. The two big fans that only come out during heatwaves. Our luggage. Extra blankets and pillows. Leftover fabric from various projects (mostly pillows). And things that I keep because I don't want to get rid of them. High school yearbooks. Photo albums of long-gone friends. Old Halloween costume bits (because you never know when you'll get the urge to dress up like Mary, Queen of Scots and go to Safeway). There are two old dressers in that room and I happen to know every drawer is filled with something I'll either need to toss in the name of space economy or find a new home for in a home that has no room left.

I'm beginning to understand why people rent storage lockers.

We do have a loft in our garage where we can keep some things. The fans, for instance. But it's hardly a conducive space for storing photos or clothing. Plus it's a pain in the ass (and a two person job) to get everything up there and down again when you need them. I also have boxes of things from when I used to have an office or cubicle. I love to have a highly decorated space to work in so I have probably 3 or 4 boxes filled with postcards, fabric, toys, tchockes, pen holders, posters, and a bodily fluid clean-up kit (don't ask). Again, don't want to dump them.

Husband, with his usual flair for perfection has measured the space, measured the furniture, and made a computer model showing where everything will go. It's lovely. But there's no extra room. If I clean out the closet (again, tossing or moving to....where??) I can probably store some of my absolute treasures that I can't bear to lose. But I know that in the next few days I'm going to on a monumental sort out. It'll be good to de-clutter, I know, but why is it always so hard?

Once we get the room painted (we bought a gorgeous shade of orange...trust me, it'll rock!) and get everything set up it'll be a wonderful room for Husband to listen to, review, and write about music. But I cannot help but wish it were twice as big and had room for me to keep everything I want.

It's amazing how attached we get to property, isn't it? I have many items that belonged to my beloved best friend who has been gone for over 10 years now, and yet still I can't bring myself to throw away his tacky Hawaiian shirt or the coat he gave me and that Husband hates so much. (OK, I'll never get rid of that....sorry Husband. But I promise never to wear it around you.) Then there are books that I know I will never read again that I just can't put in the Salvation Army box.

Oh god, it just hit me....Christmas! Where am I going to put all my Christmas shopping? I always put it in the spare room because Husband never goes in there. (Why should he? The only thing in there is clutter and the cat box and cleaning the cat box is my job.) But my eternal Christmas shopping drop zone is going away!

You'd think two people living in a 3 bedroom house with have plenty of room but you'd be wrong. Our house is actually quite small. In fact, when everyone in our bookgroup shows up for a meeting our living room is crammed to the gills. But when you have two people who cannot seem to stop acquiring new books or music, space fills up pretty quickly.

Maybe I can accept that I'm a lousy cook, insist on take-out for the rest of our marriage, and use our oven to store my summer clothes.

Confessions of a lousy housekeeper
Yeah, I confess. I'm bad. I am so far removed from Donna Reed that I don't even bother to put on pearls and a housedress when I dust. Sad, isn't it?

Now in my own defense I will remind readers that I have a bad back. This makes chores like scrubbing the bathtub or mopping the floor painful, difficult and, well, stupid. I can do it, but I'll need at least 8 hours of recovery and several vicodins to recover. Is it worth it to have a pristine white bathroom? I'm am dubious. But the end result is that our house is most often a mess.

Poor Husband tries. I know he gets fed up with the clutter, especially since he's hard at work at the Bad Place all day while I'm at home with Cipher, the World's Most Amazing Cat, Screw You if You Don't Agree (tm). You'd think that I'd feel so guilty at being "kept" that I'd be a veritable demon with broom and mop. But, alas for poor Husband, while I do feel guilty I don't exactly do anything about it.

However tomorrow we have friends coming over for dinner (The Lurker and Mr. Lurker), which means, if nothing else, I have to at least clear a layer off the dining room table.

But the problem is, and this is really what keeps me from tidying up on a regular basis, there's just no place to put anything. You'd think 2 people living in a 3 bedroom house would have plenty of space for stuff. But you'd be wrong in our case. Our two main clutter items, books and CDs, take over every available flat space we have. And we're fresh out of official storage for both. Every bookcase is crammed, ever CD rack is full. And yet we acquire more. From where I sit I can see 13 books on the dining table, that's 13 brand-new books, none of which we have room for. So where the heck am I gonna put them?

The "spare room" is full of pile upon piles of books already. Not to mention boxes of CDs. We have this grand plan of turning the room into a music room for Husband, complete with comfy chair, nice stereo, and a place to write. But in order to do that we'll have to find a place for the piles to go. Which means more bookshelves. And a new CD rack. And (as confessed before) since I'm not working we really should be watching our finances -- so buying new furniture is really not the best idea for our 1-income family.

So I pick things up and move them around. This pile goes here (at least for now), that shelf can hold two or three more books if I lay them horizontally on top of the other books. We can probably put all these CDs in a new pile since they haven't been listened to in about a year and oh look, I wondered where that was.

Honestly it's enough to make me want to say "Hey Lurker, mind if we do this at your beautiful, always have enough room, larger than ours by quite a lot house?"

Sigh...

Nope, not scared
This morning I watched Rosemary's Baby, which I haven't seen in ages. I recall it being very creepy. Today, not even a shiver. Of course it was broad daylight, 80 degrees in the house, and not at all an atmosphere conducive to the creeps. But the fact is that when you're an adult and you watch a movie that scared you as a kid you very rarely (if ever) feel that thrill of fear again. Oh it's still a good film (although it gave me the giggles at the end when Ruth Gordon what shouting "hail Satan!") but I was completely unmoved.

What I find fascinating is how different the experience is when it's about a book. If I ever happen to pick up a book that I loved as a child, I find that the same book still enchants and delights me. And quite often when I pick up a book that I was forced to read in high school, and hated, I find that as an adult it's a completely different animal entirely.

I wonder why that is? Why is a childhood memory of a book still true and a childhood memory of a film so false? While wandering through a bookstore recently I came across a children's book that held fond memories for me. Turning the pages I was still charmed and it was all I could do to resist buying it. And yet a few months back I watched a movie that I recall as being hilarious as a child and was stunned at how entirely un-funny it was.

Very strange thing, the mind, ain't it?

Postcards from abroad
Perhaps it's the child in me, but I love, love, love to get postcards from friends who are traveling. In today's world where the personal letter is a thing of the past, it's really the only type of personal mail that still exists. It's especially wonderful when you didn't know that the person who sent the card was out of the country.

Yesterday's mail brought a postcard from Ireland, where the Belle of Belfast City is on vacation in the land of her ancestors. The Belle is a wonderful woman; beautiful, smart, funny, loyal, the type of friend that anyone would love to have. I am, however, luckier than most in that there's a whole host of women like the Belle who add color and warmth to my life. The Lurker. The Foreigner. Mama D. The Haiku Queen. SdeM. I'm not sure what wonderful things I may have done in my past life to deserve such great friends, but I'm very grateful that I did them.

Anyway, back to the postcard. It's such a minor thing. I mean I know how it is. You stop at some little shop and by a dozen cards. Then you spend an evening writing them all to friends and family, struggling to find a way to fill up three inches of white space. But it's so wonderful to receive one. Like small gifts. Amid the bills, catalogs, and junk mail there's this small cardboard scrap of humanity.

I know, I'm all soppy. But I do so love to be reminded how lucky I am. Thanks, Belle.

Shakespeare dreams
Lately, for some reason, Shakespeare has been on my mind.

A long time (another lifetime ago?) I was an acting major with dreams of performing all the grand female roles. Although I never saw myself as Juliet. She was too soppy. I am too plain. But ah, the others. Portia. Rosalind. And my absolute favorite, Beatrice.

But reality got in the way. In spite of being a damned fine actress I came nose-up against the glass wall that decrees that talented men who are less that gorgeous can still be cast in a role. But talented women without beauty cannot. Relegated to best friend, servant, and comic relief parts, I gave up my dream; realizing that my fragile ego was no match for the cruelty of casting.

Yet lately Shakespeare has regained his place in my brain. Perhaps it's having just watched season 2 of the Showtime series The Tudors. All that pre-Elizabethan history no doubt shook some dust off of old memories and vanished dreams. Snatches of long-ago monologues sneak into my brain as I fold laundry or drive down the highway.

I do fear thee, Claudio, and I quake lest thou a fervent life should entertain and six or seven winters more respect than a perpetual honor. (That's Isabella from Measure for Measure in case you're wondering.

And now, like an odd TV omen, I channel surf ahead of insomnia and find a repeat of the fascinating documentary In Search of Shakespeare. At the moment, Michael Wood and his dulcet British tones is in a timbered school that Shakespeare attended as a boy. I remember the first time I went to Stratford-Upon-Avon and attended a production by the Royal Shakespeare Company. I thought I was in heaven. My acting days were not long behind me and I had marvelously harmless daydreams of being up on that stage. I walked by the river, under trees drooping with green leaves, and wandered into the church where the Bard is buried. It was like a pilgrimage.

But the 17th row is about as close as I'll ever get to performing Shakespeare again. And yet, at odd times....while waiting for a light to change or standing in line at the grocery store...I'll smile to myself at the memory of those days, long ago, when I was a Shakespearean heroine.

I don't want to live that long
And This is why I think John Cage is a loon. A concert that takes 639 years? Give me an effing break.

A happy story

For years, Husband and I have supported that wonderful organization, Heifer International. This story in the New York Times is a great illustration of how a small action can produce a huge reward. It's a total warm fuzzy.

I've always been terrified of him
Gosh, aren't we ever so enlightened? The US government has just (just!) removed that known terrorist Nelson Mandela from its terror watch list. (Of course I had to find out about this from BBC news. Good lord! Why was he on there in the first place? One of this century's greatest and bravest humanists and we had him blacklisted? I am ashamed.

Photo of the day
Just back from kitten duty. (The first of 3 shifts this week.) This little guy is Kobe. He's the runt of his litter, but he's so darned cute.

Photo of the day
Cipher, The World's Most Amazing Cat, Screw You if You Don't Agree (tm). Making it impossible for me to read the paper.

VERY bad poetry
I can't recall where this slim little volume came from; whether I bought it for Husband or he for me. But for sheer crap, nothing beats Very Bad Poetry. Edited by Kathryn & Ross Petras, this book contains the absolutely worst poetry ever written. It's been on our bookshelves for a few years now and I still pick it up now and again and laugh at the awful rhymes, atrocious grammar, and hideous themes.

Since I have nothing else on my brain today, I thought I'd take this opportunity to share a few of my favorites. (Read on, I'll end with my absolute favorite.)

Well, to start with there's this delightful air by that most famous of authors, Anonymous:

Ode to a Ditch

Oh, ditch of all ditches
Death's storehouse of riches,
Where wan disease slumbers mid festoons of slime!
Oh, dark foetid sewer
Where death is the brewer
And ail is the liquor he brews all the time!

Where to start? First off, who the hell would write a poem about a ditch? Secondly....well....who the hell would write a poem about a ditch??? (Plus it goes on for four more stanzas.)

Dear old Anonymous also gives us a lovely piece of dental work:

My Last Tooth

You have gone, old tooth,
Though hard to yield,
You have long stood alone,
Like a stub in the field.

Awfully glad not to have the author read his own work on that one.

Missing body parts seems to be a popular theme with bad poets. Witness Cornelius Whur's contribution:

The Armless Artist

Alas! Alas! the father said,
O what a dispensation!
How can we be by mercy led,
In such a situation?
Be not surprised by my alarms,
The dearest boy is without arms!

Yes, well very nice. Thanks for sharing.

Next we have the unforgivable Bertha Moore, a Victorian "poet" who specialized in (God help us) baby talk. With apologies I share with you the atrocious A Child's Thought:

If I were God, up in the sky.
I'll tell you all vat I would do,
I would not let the babies cry
Because veir tooths was coming froo.
I'd make them born wif tooths all white,
And curly hair upon veir heads
And so vat vey could sit upright
Not always lie down in veir beds.

Makes you want to womit, don't it?

I could go on, and on (and on), but I shall have mercy and merely end with what is, in my opinion, the very pinnacle of poetic poo.

On Visiting Westminster Abbey
By Amanda McKittrick Ros

Holy Moses! Have a look!
Flesh decayed in every nook!
Some rare bits of brain lie here
Mortal loads of beef and beer,
Some of whom are turned to dust,
Every one bids lost to lust.

Personally, I think that "Holy Moses! Have a look! Flesh decayed in every nook!" is as near to perfection as possible when looking for the absolute worst opening line to a poem. Plus it rhymes.

Have a Very Bad Poetry day!

Forget policy, the question is: does he like The Stones?
You know when pop culture as crossed the line and now passes for "real" culture when presidential hopefuls make their iPod playlists public.

The ever- charismatic Barack Obama will be featured in a cover story in the next issue of Rolling Stones. Here's a sneak preview of his carefully thought out musical tastes. No Butthole Surfers. No Pansy Division. Nope, it's Dylan, Coltrane, Stevie Wonder and the Boss.

Ya gotta wonder though. Is this really the music he likes or is this what his PR crew decided would give him the most "cred?" The London Times article points out just how politically varied his choices are. Bruce Springsteen for the hardworking factory dude. Jay-Z (what? No Eminem?) for his street-smart side. Coltrane and Charlie Parker for the hipster crowd. Elton John for baby boomers (and, possibly, the gay crowd). And Stevie Wonder's classic R&B to "celebrate his blackness."

Kinda makes you wonder what "the other guy" would put on his list.

Random waves of grain
It's all about context, isn't it? Check out Requiem for a Day Off.

In a gourmet celebration of summertime fruit. The ever-fascinating Finny shares a looks-freakin-delicious cherry pie recipe.

In the "when will you learn?" category. Those no money down home loans which have left so many would-be homeowners in financial ruin are largely a thing of the past. Except if you go through the government.

Why does Arkansas have such a bad rap? Because of folks like this yabbo His crime? Kidnapping and assaulting his mother because her pet dog killed his pet skunk. (No I'm not kidding.)

Rotating skyscrapers with floors moving independently so that the silhouette is ever changing? Not as far-fetched as it sounds. Only problem is it looks like a sex toy.

Parking in San Francisco? Don't forget your spark plug-resistent windows. A decoy car parked by the SF Police showed a car broken into in 90 seconds. I just want to know how you break a window by throwing a spark plug at it.

My late Christmas present
Oh that Husband. All I did was mention that blank wall space and he goes and buys me a Monet. How much? Just a record $80.4 million. And while the papers may be filled with phrases like "anonymous buyer" and "unknown client" I'm here to tell you that it was, indeed, Husband.

It's called Le Bassin aux Nympheas which is French for "does not go with our sofa." (But one can always buy a new sofa.) I suppose I should say "oh, you shouldn't have. It's too much." But I suppose I'm worth it.

More on the kittens
Just back from kitten duty. This week I'll also be there tomorrow and Wednesday, so it'll be a major dose of cuteness for me. And work.

When there were only a few kittens it was a fairly easy job. Mix up some food, squirt it in their mouths, cuddle. Repeat. Now, however, every nursery is full and the kittens are old enough to tear up their space in between the morning and afternoon shifts. This means nearly every one needs to be cleaned and changed. Old towels out. Old newspapers thrown away. Everything moved, all kittens out. Clean the walls and floors and rebuild their space. New litter box. Fresh water and food. Plus kittens to be fed and played with. It's a surprising amount of work. Anyone who thinks kitten duty is just playing with cute little kits is in for a rude surprise.

One litter is pretty sick, unfortunately. The vet came in while we were doing our shift and said they're getting better (yay!) but it's an uphill road. (Boo!) Today, at least, we had 3 people. On Friday there was only 2 of us and it was a completely exhausting shift.

I love being at the Humane Society and doing something to help the animals. But sometimes it's sad, too. A few weeks ago two of the kittens got sick and had to be put down. And there's a separate area for unsocialized cats, many of them fresh off the streets, and they all look so confused. One bib, beautiful black girl had stitches in her head...she must have been in a fight, poor thing. And then there are all the sick cats and dogs. I just wish all of them could find safe, loving homes.

I look at Cipher (The World's Most Amazing Cat, Screw You if You Don't Agree tm) and am truly grateful for all the love and life she's brought into our home. Husband says she's made our little family complete. I agree (though I am continually tempted to add to our family by adopting one of the kittens. New favorite? A gorgeous little tortie named Ella.) and wish that every family with a little extra space and a little extra love could come to the shelter and make some animal's life.

And now, a vicodin, a hot bath, and then there's one more cat to feed. And she's letting me know that I'm keeping her waiting...

Got a match?
Ron Liddle in the London Times writes of books he'd like to burn. Not in a Nazi way. But in a "I can't believe I read that tripe" way.

Among the authors and titles listed were several I agree with. Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and Salman Rusdie's Midnight's Children. I would, of course, have to add anything by Saul Bellow (sorry Lurker), Ayn Rand, the drivel that is The Da Vinci Code and, of course, The Beans of Egypt, Maine.

It's interesting the way that books take on a marketing life of their own. So often so-called blockbusters are total crap (again, The Da Vinci Code) that sell like hotcakes because of word of mouth. Conversely, there's a huge range of amazing novels that people ignore because they have the reputation of being difficult to read or, worse, dull. One of the reasons why I adore Husband is his complete open mindedness when it comes to books. I think that his list of top ten would include two books that many people avoid: Moby Dick, and Don Quixote. (As an aside, one of the critics mentioned in Liddle's article lists the Cervantes epic as the worst novel ever written!)

Over the years our book group has read many a tome that I have enjoyed flinging across the room in disgust; But very few would I burn (Bellow, Rusdie, The Beans, and Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow being the exceptions). But then again it's too hot for a fire right now.