wordless wednesday: those peckers laid

addicted much?

We have a teensy problem with a certain short person in our home. Alright, it's not teensy at all, it's freaking ginormous, and I'm worn the hell out from all the SCREAMING!!! and WHINING!!!! and I'M NOT YOUR LOVEY ANYMORE!!!

Said Short Person is totally addicted to playing games on WebKinz. And yes, I realize that I allowed Said Short Person to play in the first place, I understand that I should have set better boundaries and kept to them.

But sweet and merciful heavens, WebKinz aren't real animals. Getting a gem? Who the EFF cares. If Said Short Person was bring me a REAL, TANGIBLE, SHINY gem, well then I might feel a little differently, you know, covering room and board and whatnot. And Zingoz? What are those? And what are they saying? Does anybody know?

The worst are the little Kinz-amated music videos. There's one with a catchy hook, and it starts out all nice and bop-ish, but turns a corner and ends up in a dark alley screaming MOUSTACHE LOUIE!!!!

People are getting paid to write crap like that. Wretched, wretched bile.

I'm contemplating a bit of a screen detox. And by bit, I mean until the whining stops. A few days, a week, a month, four years... whatever. The only thing holding me back is that Said Short Person will do anything I ask in order to earn a turn.

For example, at this very minute? Said Short Person is unloading the dishwasher and putting the dishes away. Said Short Person has also been known to move laundry from washer to dryer to folding area, bring laundry downstairs to be washed, shovel the sidewalk and eat unpleasant vegetables.

A screen detox means I will have to do all the work myself. And people, I do NOT enjoy the shoveling, I do not enjoy emptying the dishwasher and especially I do not enjoy putting wet laundry in the dryer.

Guess it's time to break out the Big Girl Panties. Parenting is not for pansies.

in which i am about to discuss religion

A pal of mine has a blog with a naughty name, and the entire premise of the blog is for her liberal-leaning self to banter/duke it out with this other guy and his right-leaning self. And most of the time it's (it is) pretty good.

She tweeted me (this means she talked to me using the medium of Twitter, and has nothing to do with any weird pinching nonsense, for the record) a number of times before, during and after writing the post. Mostly because she knows I fancy God, and because I know she doesn't exactly fancy religion, and I know this is getting to be a long set up, I'm sorry.

You can read the post yourself if you want this to take even longer, but there was a lot of generalizing going on, and assumptions that were both fair and unfair, and I thought both of them could have done better.

Anyway.

I was asked to write a little bit about my take on the whole religion thing. I do not claim to have all the answers. Actually, I don't know if I have any answers, which is why I'm still working on my post.

But.

For various sundry reasons, mostly comments y'all have left, twitter conversations, emails, long walks on the beach, and lengthy phone conversations, I know that lots of people do have lots of questions.

So.

Think about it, and if you have something you'd like to ask me and/or The Mister about our faith, the what or the why or the you seem so smart what are you doing, leave a comment or send me an email. We have a few really wonderful people who love to help us hash things out, and will be delighted to contribute here.

And no.

I'm not going to turn this place into a Religion 7-11. Also, I will not put up with The Nasty.

That is all.

a moment in my life

Doggy, doggy, where's your bone? Somebody took it from your...

HB!!! WHEN YOU SAY THAT I KNOW YOU TOOK THE...

SISSY!!!! YOU DON'T PUNCH ME.

WEE MAN!!! WEEEEEE MAAAAANNN!!!! YOU DON'T GET TO BE THE DOG.

HB, you're the doggy.

Close your eyes and go to sleep. Close your eyes and go to sleep. Close your eyes and go to sleep.

(random growling)

Sissy, and you take the bone.

NO!!! That's not how it... Put it there and don't touch it.

Doggy, doggy, where's your bone? Somebody took it from your home.

AAAAAAAhhhhhhhhhhHHHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

HEEEEEEYYYYYYYYY!!!! You weren't SUPPOSED TO TAKE IT!!!!

You, sis!

AAAaaaaaHHHHHH! You CHEATER!

yeah, about that.

Sorry about all the empty posts you have in your reader today. I was trying to be all smart and put a nav bar under my header, and because I'm SLOW WITH TECHNOLOGY I spammed the crap out of you.

And then? When I turned Blogger on this morning, do you know what I found?

THAT BLOGGER HAS CREATED A NEW WIDGET THINGY TO AUTOMATICALLY MAKE YOUR NAV BAR TABBY THINGS FOR YOU.

Bastards.

So now I get to undo all that I did because I'm pretty sure Blogger knows how to write code and make things pretty better than I do.

Thank you, Blogger, for those three hours of my life I will never get back.

Meh.

thumbs down

I am completely furious with New York Governor David Paterson. And as both a New Yorker and one of the entirely misguided people who voted Spitzer-Paterson a few years ago, I feel like I've earned this one.

Last week, Paterson stood at a press conference and told us that he was not running for election because he felt New York needs a person wholly focused on fixing the awful money situation we have going on over here. Then, he stuck his right hand in the air and gave us his solemn, honest pledge that he has never abused his authority as governor.

He did say a few things in between those two statements, for the record.

Rule Number One in Politics: When a politician raises their hand, unbidden, and solemnly swears anything, THEY ARE LYING.

The New York Times is reporting that Paterson instructed two of his staff members, and possibly the State Police to convince the victim that what happened to her was nonviolent. Paterson says that it was 'like breakups you hear about all the time.'

Her face was smashed into a mirror.

She was choked.

She was harassed into not pressing charges.

The Governor has a point there, that is the kind of breakup we hear about all the time. WHICH MAKES IT ALL WORSE.

Good work, Mr. Paterson. Way to go. You are an idiot. You might as well have smashed her face into the mirror yourself. Your coercion choked her all over again. And your actions have probably reopened the wounds of not only 25% of your staffers, but many of your constituents as well.

The statistics on domestic violence are disgusting. A quarter of women have experienced abuse. And that number only counts the ones who are talking about it. By trying to sweep this under the carpet, by not calling it abuse, by saying this incident was nonviolent, the Governor is condoning domestic assault. That is reprehensible. And shame on the members of the New York State Police who obeyed the Governor's orders.

There is no way that any of the people involved will get what they deserve, but sadly, that's par for the course with abusers.

sigh.

I'm so exhausted today. I'm exhausted other days, too, and I'm sure I'll be exhausted tomorrow because that's just how it goes when you have a baby who is finally getting a tooth, or teeth, and one who has a ratchety horrible cough that shakes his entire self, and another who has glands so swollen in his neck that the sweet little neck is level with his little ears, and another who has mastered the art of the Snotty Retort.

It's days like these that make a mama nap seem more like a requirement than a luxury. It's days like these when the bar gets lowered right down to the floor, when my expectations fly right out the window and never look back. It's days like these that make me really proud of myself for being able to get five seconds to wash my face, and remembering to change diapers and making mealtime happen.

And it's days like these that seem to never end. I'm not surprised when the baby wakes up for the fourth time after being put to bed again and again and again.

But, it's days like these that are the fleeting ones. The ones that I'll never get back. The days I can hold and cuddle and console and nurse my sweet ones, who are growing bigger and faster and changing right before my eyes.

And so I go, back up the stairs, to wrap my arms around the one who needs me. Because now is my time.