Have Sharpie, will correct
I am totally with these guys who are making it their mission to fix misused apostrophes and typos.

I completely understand their pain. Sure, we all make mistakes, and I've been guilty of typing too fast or not thinking fast enough while driving through Apostropheland. But I have to admire their dedication to duty.

Typos I find to be especially annoying and, quite often, hilarious. I will always remember the poster I saw for a local production of "The Dairy of Anne Frank." (So hard to hide from the Nazis when you keep cows in your attic.) I once bought Husband a souvenir magnet from Philadelphia because it said that the City of Brotherly Love is in "Pennsylvannia." A few months ago on one of those annoying news crawls I saw a mention of Barack O'Bama. Ah yes, of the Dublin O'Bamas, a good Irish family. Last holiday season one local store had "Merry X'mas" written on their window. OK, Xmas is already a hideous abbreviation...the unnecessary apostrophe is just mystery-making.

And speaking of holidays, February 14th seems to stump everyone. Is it Valentine's Day or Valentines Day? I say it's the former, because it is the feast day of St. Valentine. Therefore, his day. But Valentine has become an entity of its own, (As in "will you be my Valentine?"), so it could be Valentines Day as in the day of many Valentines. (But I think it's kind of a stupid holiday anyway, so who cares?)

In other news, we have given up on our quest to train Cipher (The World's Most Amazing Cat, Screw You if You Don't Agree tm) from clawing our new chair. We tried, we really did. But the more we tried to discourage her from sharpening her claws on the Ikea throne, the more she became fascinated in pulling all the Fi-Hi (FItzgerald to Hillerman) fiction off our bookshelves. She seems to be especially fond of Forrester's Hornblower books...having pulled most of them onto the floor at one time or another. In fact, I'm rather surprised that she prefers Husband's taste in books to mine. I somehow had her pegged as a fan of mysteries, yet Tony Hillerman received only a cursory tug or two and Martha Grimes, not even a pull. But Hornblower has her fascinated, even if she is pulling them out of order.

There now, comfy?
They manage to be both green and morbid. And yet, oddly, I kinda like it.

Vote for the guy my brother likes
Husband and I received several pieces of mail today urging us to vote for one candidate or another in the upcoming Assembly race. One guy had on his mailing an endorsement from a firefighter and carrying a dramatic photo of firefighters silhouetted against a raging orange wildfire.

Is this guy running for fireman?

I fail to see how the endorsement of firemen should interest me. Now don't get me wrong, I have the highest respect for firefighters. In fact my brother happens to be a fire chief. But voting for someone my brother likes seems like a silly reason to vote for anyone.

I just find it interesting how different positions, such as school teachers, nurses, and police and firemen become wildly important at election time. Many of those people are sadly underpaid for doing such vital work and yet when the polls open they become the endorsers that every candidate wants. It's so odd, because for the other 364 days a year, the "important" occupations are professional athletes, supermodels, movie and TV stars, musicians, and whatever bozo won American Idle. Oh, excuse me, it's American Idol.

So why aren't they on campaign literature. "Bob Snarkly is the only candidate endorsed by Brett Farve." "Hortense Pupnhound has been endorsed by the guy who won the last round of Survivor. "Vote for Hugo Stuffright, the official candidate of the NBA."

But no. Instead we're supposed to respect the opinion of the people we see as everyday heroes but don't, of course, pay like heroes.

"Vote for the guy who has the backing of some really important and wickedly underpaid people doing thankless jobs because we value their opinion, but not their work." Yeah, probably too long to put on a bumper sticker.

The consequences of cheating
I did two sessions at the kitten nursery yesterday. And last night, Husband joined me. I think he enjoyed his first (and, no doubt last) session working with the kitties. They were a total tornado, as usual, and the back-to-back sessions were quite exhausting.

So we got home about 8 last night, quickly changed out of our kitten-food-scented clothes, and hoped Cipher (The World's Most Amazing Cat, Screw You if You Don't Agree tm) would forgive us.

She didn't.

She didn't really act as if she noticed the feline equivalent of lipstick on the collar, but once bedtime set in, so did her revenge.

Not since the night we brought her home has she been so blastedly awake all night. Meowing. Walking on both of us. Muffled thumps from the living room as she pulled books off of shelves, chased balls into furniture, and generally wreaked havoc on the house. I had indulged in a sleeping pill last night and so was extra asleep -- and extra sleepy -- so poor Husband was the one who got up in the middle of the night. (Usually it's my job because usually I'm awake at that time.) I got up at 5 after she successfully pulled everything off of my nightstand (clock, books, water bottle); what a delightfully un-jarring way to wake up.

She is a nocturnal creature, and is often playful at 3 am. But not usually this unstopably destructive. We can only surmise that she was punishing us for cheating on her. Well, we've certainly paid for our sins now. We're sorry, Cipher, please forgive us. Flowers and chocolate will be forthcoming. Please don't make us go on Dr. Phil. We'll be good.

Home from the nursery
Well, today was kitten day. And I gotta confess, I'm pooped. Who knew taking care of little kittens would be so tiring? But there are 17 now and that's quite a few kittens to feed and love. (Yes, socializing with the kittens is part of the job.)

Someone asked me what's involved in kitten duty, so here's the scoop.

First you mix up some food. A blend of canned kitten food and KMR (kitten milk replacement) which you stir up into a stinky brownish goo. Then you lay down lots of towels, for kitten feeding is a messy job. Then you grab some syringes and go to the first nursery. Each kitten is weighed before feeding, and the weight noted on its personal sheet. You also note how much he/she eats in a feeding, if they resisted feeding or ate eagerly, if they're eating on their own, if they go to the bathroom on their own or if you have to stimulate them into pooping.

The feeding is basically grabbing the little one by the scruff of the neck, putting the syringe in their mouths and letting them have it. Some kittens are easier to feed than others and you will always get food on you, the towels, the table, the kitten, your hair, the floor, and anything else within reach. After the feeding (or sometimes in between bouts of feeding) comes the cuddling. That's the best part. These little guys (average weight about 11 ounces) love to be loved. They'll curl up in your lap or on your shoulder and purr, try to eat your hair, nibble on your finger, and generally get used to having people around them. Even at a few weeks old they definitely have personalities. Some are more shy, others more curious. Each is a total delight in their own way.

Once each kitten in the litter is fed and loved, they go back into their nursery and then we clean up. We change towels, syringes, disinfect the scale, the table and ourselves. (You can either wear gloves or wash hands in between litters. I prefer to wash hands so I can pet them without latex.) This is to protect the litters from getting each other's germs. The poor things have been trading a cold around so we're being extra careful with them now. Oh yeah, you also have to clean their litter box, make sure they have water and clean bedding, and are generally comfy until the next crew comes in.

And then you repeat the process with each litter. There are currently 5 litters in the nursery: one with 5 kittens, one with 4, two with 3, and one with 2. My favorite kitten, the one I christened "Tioga" still is a sweetie -- but I have to confess that the two newest litters (the really tiny ones) are almost unbelievably cute.

It's a surprisingly amount of work really and today took about 3 1/2 hours, and three people, to get through the whole nursery. We usually only had 2 people on shift but today we got a new Monday afternoon volunteer. Which, considering the population boom, is a good thing....if it had just been the two of us I'd probably still be there.

I'm doing a fill-in shift on Wednesday, so I'll get to see them all again. Now I really must go and wash my one and only volunteer t-shirt -- it looks like I've rolled in kitten chow.

A victory for love
As my dear friend the Lurker says, "it's a good day to live in California." The California Supreme Court ruling in favor of same-sex marriages brings much joy to many and, unfortunately, much anger to some. The "some" being people who, in the name of God, seem to understand little about what love really means.

It's a bittersweet victory that comes 10 years too late for my best friend to marry his partner. It also comes too late for too many men and women who have died, of AIDS and other causes, without ever being able to have a true, equal, legal marriage with the one they love.

In a world filled with hate it stuns me that so many can be against love, in whatever form it takes. And that ridiculous "gay marriages threaten straight marriages" argument just leaves me shaking my head. I fail to see how my gay friends getting married in any way threatens my marriage. Equally stupid is the "sanctity of marriage" argument of one man and one women when pseudo-celebrities get married for a week in Vegas quickies that are over before the next issue of People comes out. Just how sacred is it when heterosexual marriages can last a sneeze-length?

I am sad and angry that I never got to be "Best Woman" at my dear friend's wedding. But I dance with joy at the thought that so many couples will be able to share in the joy that I felt when I legally married Husband.

...

And speaking of Husband, today marked the 9th anniversary of his first show on KZSU. (And, being a sleepy slacker, I missed the entire thing.) If you get a chance, I urge you to tune in next week. Friday mornings from 6-9 am (Pacific), for a fabulous 3-hours of jazz, world music, blues, maybe even a little bluegrass. It's an unpredictable and delicious mix and an incredible way to start your day.

Anybody got a light?
You gotta love this study that links pot smoking to heart attacks and strokes. The great part is this: it's linked to people who smoke between 78 to 350 joints a week!

Who smokes 350 joints a week? Who are these people? How can they afford it? How do they have the time and energy to take part in a study if all they do is chain smoke pot?

I'm a supporter of medical marijuana (it was crucial to increasing the appetite and stopping the nausea of my dear friend, Steve, when he was fighting AIDS), so ridiculous studies like this just piss me off. Should we be surprised that smoking 50 joints a day has an adverse effect on your health? 50 anything in a day would have an effect. Why don't they do a study of people who smoke 1 joint a day?

Well color me incredibly, incredibly dull!
Range Rover ads are an abomination unto the Lord. But I just saw one that completely crosses the line into absolute ridiculous. Two face-lifted spoiled yuppy types (mother and daughter). And daughter says "I expressed my individuality by ordering a white-on-white Range Rover."

That's individuality? White? Isn't white the absence of individuality? It's a fucking white fucking Range Rover -- a car that nobody who doesn't live in Kenya needs. And here are these wacky "individuals" driving around Atherton in their white-on-white yuppy tank. You want individuality bitch? Go purple. Or polka dots. Or, even better, buy a hybrid. But don't smirk at your gazillion dollar white-on-white car and claim to be an individual.

Sheep.

I want this kitten!
Today was my day at the Peninsula Humane Society and I brought my camera along again. This kitten came in last week and I fell in love with her then. Today just cemented the relationship. Her litter hadn't been named yet, so the other volunteer and I named them. Her two Marmalade brothers are named Jack (short for Jack-o-Lantern) and Milo. This one I named Tioga. For some reason her beautiful coat reminds me of the beautiful rocks around Yosemite. Hence the name.

She is SO sweet. She purrs. She curls up on my shoulder. She's just a total flirt and has completely captured my heart. If I didn't think Cipher (the World's Most Amazing Cat, Screw You if You Don't Agree (tm)) wouldn't freak out I would adopt her. She's just a total sweetheart.

In search of...
Wanted: cashmere cardigan. WIth buttons. Preferably V-neck. Wine colored. (either Merlot or Burgundy. Vintage is negotiable.) Will settle for rich scarlet, but would prefer to stay away from just plain red.

OK, so it's spring. With summer around the corner. Hardly time to be buying sweaters. And yet, for some reason, it just occurred to me to look for one. Cashmere sweaters are the one wardrobe luxury in which I indulge. I love them. And I've been searching for the above described sweater for about 3 years now. It seems to be impossible to find.

Now quite often (don't shoot me) I buy men's cashmere sweaters. Why? Because I like the colors better. Men seem to get all the cool, rich colors. Women's sweaters all look like baby blankets. I look horrible in pastels and I don't like them anyway. I don't want a sweater with a color like "eggshell" or "soft robin." I want actual colors. Deep green. Sapphire blue. And, of course, the long-desired wine color. For colors like that I often have to wander over to the men's department and hope they have it in small. (I refuse to believe that sweaters have genders.)

But my dream cardigan is nowhere to be found. I did a lazy web search and found lots of cashmere sweaters, but none in the desired color. And none in my price range. (I just cannot bring myself to pay $250 for a sweater.) I'll go up to, maybe, $150...but that's pushing it. Typically I pay about $99 (on sale, usually at Macy's during the Christmas rush), and I did find some nice sweaters in that range. But while the styles were right, they were disappointingly displayed with non-colors such as "blush" (is that actually a color?) and "sea foam." (Has anyone actually seen green sea foam?)

It's kind of funny how we get desires in our mind, isn't it? You go through life happily satisfied with your lot and then suddenly you think to yourself "you know, I've always wanted a purple thrumdoodle." So you wander down to the mall, or perhaps onto the web, looking for a thrumdoodle in the perfect shade of purple. (Not too grape-y, not too eggplant-y.) But alas, you can only find thrumdoodles in yellow. And the fact that you can't find one makes you want it all the more. So you go from completely satisfied to "I must find a purple thrumdoodle or die!" Well, perhaps that's an exaggeration, but you get the point.

So what's the point? Well, there isn't one except that it's 4:49 am on a Sunday morning, I can't sleep, and I can't find a purple thrumdoodle. Or even a wine-colored cashmere cardigan.

Amo, amas, amat
Finally all those Latin classic (oh the glory of being a Classics major) have paid off. The Vatican has now put part of their website into Latin. And prowling through (the only way I can bring myself to look at the Vatican website is to test my language skills) I am dismayed to realize just how much Latin I've forgotten.

I guess I should brush up before our Grand Tour in the fall.

Attack of the Swedes. Part two.
I have already written about my horror of, and loathing for, Ikea.(You'll have to scroll to the bottom if you actually want to read the original post.)

Well, despite my vow to never, ever, ever go into another Ikea. I went. I was only able to stand it because Husband promised to hold my hand the entire time. And he did. Like I was a hyperactive 4-year old he had to reign in. And after a gap of a few years since my last visit, I can honestly report...

Ikea still scares the crap out of me.

The cavernous and freaky concrete bunker of a garage is still as vast and forbidding as a murder scene. The entrance is still always about half a mile from where you think it should be. And the crushingly overwhelming layout of the store continues to haunt my dreams with visions of Swedish rooms in a box and aimless families wandering glassy-eyed through carefully arranged tableau vivants of domestic tranquility. It's freaking terrifying.

We went because Cipher (The World's Most Amazing Cat, Screw You if You Don't Agree (tm)) basically ate our living room chair and we've been desperate to replace it for about 9 months now. We must have gone to a dozen furniture store looking for a chair that wasn't hideous, hideously uncomfortable, or hideously expensive. As a last resort, Husband suggested Ikea. I wept.

So we went. And I hyperventilated my way through the entire store, dodging wild kids, ambling grandmothers, and unimaginative couples who think buying prepackaged houses en masse is the height of creativity. I tried to develop a mantra to get me through the ordeal, but I was too overcome by consumeristic claustrophobia. Husband, meanwhile, found my terror amusing -- but he very kindly held my hand like a lifeline to sanity and calmly found the chair area so we could accomplish our mission.

Yes, we found a chair (I'm embarrassed to admit.) Since Cipher will probably eat this one too, we didn't want to spend a fortune, and I think we're both OK with it. Husband actually had to go back into the store on his own to arrange delivery. I, meanwhile, need a cold compress and a Valium.

Our neighbors are aliens
Very nice aliens, but aliens nonetheless. I mean they must be. How do I know? They never have any garbage.

Granted they might be the most eco-conscious people on the planet. And they are very "green." He likes to ride his bike to work. They like to camp, hike, sail...all those outdoorsy things that give me hives. But they also have two kids....so why don't they ever have any garbage?

Between the two of us (and, of course, Cipher, the World's Most Amazing Cat, Screw You if You Don't Agree (tm)) Husband and I can pretty much fill our can each week....plus the recycle bin. But our neighbors? Rarely do you see them put their cans out on trash night. They often put out the yard clipping can. And every so often the recycle bin. But the actual trash can hasn't moved from the side of their house in over a month. Now I tell you, that's just not natural.

Maybe they compost. But that doesn't explain not having any actual garbage. Perhaps they have a secret goat in their backyard. But four people living in one house and never having any garbage is just plain weird. I tell you, it's un-American! The only way I can explain it is that they are aliens. They eat styrofoam. They have chicken bones for a midnight snack. When they watch TV, they sit down with a big bowl of empty toothpaste tubes, wet paper towels, and worn-out socks.

Really, they're very nice. For aliens.

Concerned about alien abductions?
Who isn't? But thankfully, help is on the way with this Stop Alien Abductions kit. Order yours today. Makes a great Christmas gift.

War and peace
So far the war in Iraq has cost $3 trillion. Check out 3 Trillion.org where you can see what you could buy for the cost of the war.

For the past week, KZSU has been having a Peace Week special. Tonight is my contribution to the theme. I was somewhat hampered by the fact that most world music tracks aren't in English, so it's a bit difficult to know what the song is about. Of course, tracks called "No More War" and "Let There be Peace," are lovely, but I've had to do a bit more work to find material. However, I think I have a full show prepared. Due to baseball, I have a shorter than usual show. I'll go on air at approximately 6:15 and go until 8. I invite you to tune in.

Thank you, Mrs. Loving
Mildred Loving has died at the age of 68. Don't know her? Well, in 1967 she (a black woman) challenged Virgina's ban on interracial marriage (her husband was white). This lead to the Supreme Court ending the laws against such marriages.

As a happily married woman (in an interracial marriage) I have so much to thank her for. Bravo for having the courage, strength, and wisdom to challenge these laws and make love legal.

Now if we can just get gay and lesbian marriages made legal, we'll all be able to live happily ever after.

Please tell me this is a joke
This has got to be a joke. Doesn't it? It's not real, is it? Please tell me it isn't real.

That's what you call news?
So I went to CNN.com to check out today's news and under the "Top Stories" section was this earth shattering headline: Did Mariah Carey get married? This is a question to which I can only reply "who the fuck cares?"

In a world full of war, famine, genocide, and, well, actual news, this is something deserving of a headline?

Does anybody remember when news actually was news? I know that the quest for celebrity gossip is, for some unknown reason, huge in contemporary media, but this is the best they can come up with? What's the matter, didn't Britney do something space-worthy today? Is Mariah Carey even famous anymore? Are there people who actually care what she does? What is with this cannibalistic need to know every boring detail in the boring life of every boring person who has even the tiniest bit of fame attached to them? I really don't care who gets liposuction, has anexoria, files for divorce, is picked up for a DUI, adopts a Korean orphan, buys a loaf of bread, or sleeps through their wake-up call. This is not news. It's not even mildly interesting. It is however, sadly hilarious.

Now I admit that when I am bombarded with actual headlines (about the aforementioned war, famine, and genocide) I find myself longing for a good "lost puppy reunited with family" stories to restore my faith in the world. But finding out that Tom Cruise got a haircut doesn't work. It has the opposite effect. Instead of restoring my faith in the world, it confirms my faith in the fact that "the world" has totally lost its sense of perspective.

Stop calling yourself that!
And now in the "what took you so long?" department, a few citizens of the Greek island of Lesbos is suing a gay group over the use of the word "lesbian." Um....sorry Lesbos, but I think you're a bit late out of the gate on this one. This is just too funny.

Today's digression:
I object (as if that would have any effect) on the hijacking of certain pieces of art and music to sell things. The two that bother me most are the one that uses the likeness of a Van Gogh self-portrait to sell eye drops and the reworking of "Ode to Joy" into "Ode to the Manwich." Yes, I'm sure Beethoven had meat sandwiches in mind when he wrote that. How proud he'd be to know that his genius is now being used to sell crap.

Every so often you'll hear a favorite song being used to sell, say, a car, and you'll think to yourself "no, not that one!" And you feel angry at the company that has conscripted something for which you have good associations because now instead of happily singing along you're now going to think "Lexus" whenever you hear it. But I think it's worse to take something that most people think of a great art and use it to hawk products we don't need to people who don't need them. Especially poor Van Gogh, who was not a commercial success in his lifetime -- now he's a posthumous commercial spokesman. Poor Vincent!

Those darn kittens
I took some photos of the kittens in the nursery today. In case you're interested. They are SO cute. Some of them are easier to feed than others. One didn't want to eat at all. Another grabbed onto the syringe with both paws and sucked down 19 ccs of kitten food. Then cuddling ensued. I want to adopt most of them.