Liquids and Gels

Liquids and Gels
11 August 2006

Time Stamp: Yesterday was the first day of a new era in U.S. air flight. Henceforth domestic passengers must choose between buying sundries at their destination in order to circumvent the interminable processes of checking and collecting luggage, or packing personal items in order to save money at the price of valuable time. This choice is necessitated by failed actions overseas that set off a chain reaction of fear locally. Spin doctors and politicians declare that a terrorist plot of major proportions has been thwarted. Personally, I think this is just another ploy on the part of manufacturers about to launch a new line of products in a new medium. What quicker way to boost sales than to cause politicians to outlaw current media, to wit, liquids and gels? Ah, the deviousness of entrepreneurs determined to create and profit from a global market…

I need a more productive life…

Stroke By Stroke

Saw this exercise show on a health channel, one episode in a series on combatting obesity. Such shows usually irritate the heck out of me, coming as they do during mealtimes and involving people nearly immobilized by their bodies, the majority of whom end up opting for surgery to remove what their teeth put on. This particular episode, however, featured a woman of more modest excess weight, if such a thing is possible, something nearer my own experiences. She chose the ideal route: determined effort coupled with patience over a long time. The result was what I hope to be realistic. Thus inspired, I spent the rest of the day talking about getting serious.

It's been a couple of days since then now. Today, once more starting by failing, I enjoyed an ample breakfast. This, however, was followed up by a bit of unusual industry, including a trip to the swimming pool. The trip (across the lawn) was exciting; the laps refreshing, the time off the clock disappointing. Still, one must start somewhere, and the only right time to start is always now. I haven't been blogging all that long, but I know I've already said something to this effect before. Guess I'll just have to keep saying it until I actually hear myself and believe.

Female Felines

Acquired three new female felines: two kittens and their formerly feral mother. The mother, a beautiful ash grey charcoal-colored one-year-old, was curiously misnamed "Mouse". (Maybe it's an Asian thing; in some cultures misnaming a child is a common practice in order to conceal from demons the true nature of said treasure.) The name has since been adjusted to "Nouna". It sounds Hawaiian when you say it, though it looks grammatical when you read it...

Her similarly misidentified and misnamed children, originally called "Mickey" and "Minnie", have since been renamed "Ajax" and "Comet". They're both tuxedo cats: black backs with white chests and bellies. I think Comet was initially named "Minnie" because she has mini-gloves on her toes, whereas Ajax has full white gloves, along with the energy and aggressiveness normally associated with boys. Ajax's evident attitude on life is "Have Wall Will Bounce." The similarity to a younger JJ has already caused the name to be further modified to "A.J."

Last night was a major breakthrough in socialization. Everyone (except JJ) gathered on and/or under the bed and proved to be very affectionate, which in turn caused a bit of hissing . . .

My Boyz are in transition from jealously suspicious and defensive to interested in all the new playthings that have invaded their formerly tranquil space, both animate and inanimate. There's currently a contest on to see who can climb and perch the highest in the house, a challenge compounded by the high ceilings in a couple of key rooms. I think the real barrier is the fear factor for the Boyz, who know from personal experience how much jumping back down can hurt. The Gurlz are still too young to know any such fears, so their greatest challenge is simply whether or not they have enough springs to get to the highest places (without being hissed by their elders).

Speaking of hissing, I thought it would be wrong to separate the children from their mother, but all evidence suggests a fundamental truth: mothers need periodic breaks from their children. Live and learn.

All Roads Lead

All roads lead to the central room these days. That's where the new feline ladies are staying. Thus far they've unplugged my clock, my floppy disk drive, and the external speakers for my iPod. They've turned my bags and stuffed animals into nesting materials, my skin into a giant pincushion, and my sweet Boyz into hissers that sound like a couple of balloons deflating. Ah well... You should see what they're doing to my Boyz...

Time Touches All

There's a news story out that Fidel Castro has temporarily relinquished power, for the first time since taking it in 1959, all because he is about to undergo a major surgical procedure. He's just this side of 80, still a spring chicken by geriatric standards, but the carrion are circling in anticipation of feasting on his bones. A recent film romanticizes his youth, but the U.S. media continue to villify him and present him as a monster. Whatever the truth of the matter, he has certainly demonstrated the ability to evoke response. No one who enters his orbit can ignore him, and few who hear of him do so either. What is amazing to me is that this man who so epitomizes charisma has outlived every American of his generation who might have been characterized as charismatic as well. There's something awe-inspiring about enduring, surviving and thriving, and outlasting one's critics. Still, like Mount Rushmore, Castro is beginning to show the wear and tear of time. No one wins that clash, and that in its own way is a good thing.

Health Bulletin Heading

Proof positive that weight loss is/may be detrimental to one's health and well-being:

A premature announcement from an initial study suggests that weight loss in older women is a sign of incipient dementia. Gotta tell ya: if a woman is losing weight, willfully or otherwise, you don't want to stand in her way. There's a distinct sense of pms around women who are midstream on a diet. If, indeed, initial evidence suggests that loss of weight is a sign of dementia, I don't find that to be a newsflash. The only real newsflash is that some moronic male considers it news at all. Anyone being deprived of adequate sustenance, oral gratification, (or any other kind, for that matter,) is going to be cranky. Gender is irrelevant; sex is the issue. When one gets hungry, one gets hungry, and denial... by anyone... is unacceptable. Of course you're gonna lose your mind!

Monkey See

I guess if it's okay for one country to bomb the heck out of another, it should be okay for another country to do the same, especially if they share people, financial interests, and nominal complaints. After all, it's the patriotic stance when one's leadership feels the need to look like it actually cares about what has happened to a conspicuous (read, been seen on mass media) segment of its population.

Perhaps I've been reading too much Lois MacMasters Bujold lately. Now there's a writer who's not afraid to use multisyllabic words and argue multiple viewpoints on contemporary controversies amongst her characters, all while retaining a light, humorous touch and rapid-fire pacing. She argues against war while modeling patriotic heroism, feminism featuring decidedly male heroes, theism in the mouths of acclaimed agnostics. Oh yes, and she touches on economics, class, culture, education, influence, biology, technology, bureaucracy, etc.

So bombs away! I've got a good book with which to sit this one out as well...

Gotta get off this darned fence someday... but not today...

Telephone Buzz

My ear's been affixed to my piece
But finally I've a moment of release
Playing phone tag all day long
Wears down a will that started out strong
Talking to disembodied voices
Eventually seems like just more noises
Battering my fragile, overcaffeinated head
Making me long for my abandoned bed
Talk is cheap, demanding dead trees' sacrifice
As the only action that will suffice
To substantiate all that chatter
Making hot air really matter

Change of Pace

Thoughts have filled my mind, then slipped away again
Eluding alike keyboard and pen
I need to switch gears now that I'm back here
Juggle who's in charge, what's far and what's near
Time zones differ by quite a bit
Temperatures too, making me feel more fit
Time to sort illusion from truth
Time to admit I'm no longer in my youth
But old age hasn't caught me either, I'm sure
I just need less coffee and more water that's pure
I have to ignore the joints that ache
For my own and everyone else's sake
Time once again to take charge of my kitchen
And end all that needless restaurant-related twitchin'
Cooking's a sport, just like any other
Not just domestic, restricted to Mother
It's chemistry and physics applied just right
That can leave you hungry or make your pants feel tight
Time to take charge and improve the cash flow
To make use of paid tuition and all I'm supposed to know
Wash the car, weed the yard, cut the grass, make things grow
Because while I was gone, someone let everything go.

Time to change the pace of things
Time to get moving with a new set of wings.

Home Again Home Again

Home Again Home Again
2 July 2006

Traveling from home to home is a time warping experience for me. Roles flip as completely as the weather, and I go from being in charge and all wet (in more ways than one) to cosseted and coddled, and who am I to complain? Max and JJ make me feel so welcome, so missed, so loved, so needed and kneaded. It’s a less desperate neediness, more pleasant because it seems less urgent. What does that say?

Tomorrow the Boyz will speak for themselves once again, but today I celebrate my much missed and freshly renewed Internet access. It’s hard to believe that a short decade ago this was all still fairly novel, primarily the province of governmental and educational institutions. Now, it’s an integral part of much of contemporary society, at least in this neck of the woods.

Woods – that’s where I think I’ve been; lost in some frontier space where things are still done manually, mechanically, or not at all. We nearly lost a little one in the weeds in the backyard, debated whether or not George Washington had the right idea about chopping down a tree, tried to define the difference between a weed and a tree,  buried the front yard in plastic bags filled with the waste that was once the backyard.

The birds of paradise are blooming. I raided them twice in one month for visits to Mom, would have done so a third time had I not run out of time. The blooms still linger, fertilized by the rodents now rotting silently in shallow graves beneath the tropical awning. The neighbors watch in wonder, puzzled by the seeming ease with which life thrives amidst the wilderness that is the homestead yard. Neighborhood cats prowl in answer to some silent siren call beneath the sagging floorboards. Life and death tango amidst the tangled brush, but I cannot linger. I have my own menagerie to which to attend.