How can this be sibling rivalry when he's a cat and I'm not?

I have no luck with my parents' pets.  They don't like me.

The feeling is mutual.

When my mother was alive, she and my dad had a brindle cairn terrier whose fur was a weird shade of purply brown.  He was so tiny as a puppy that he fit into my brother Pat's shirt pocket.  Full grown, he was the size of your average cat.  His real name was Spartacus, but we called him Sparky and my folks adored him.  My mother fed him hot meals.  He slept in their bed.  They fought over who it was the dog loved best.

I hated the little shit.  Where was all that adoration when I lived at home?  They took more pictures of that dog than my baby brothers.  He traveled with them.  Dad took him in the car whenever there was banking to do or fast food runs to make.  Sparky rode shot-gun.  If you happened to be invited along, Sparky still rode shot-gun.

He was the favorite.  He knew it.  He rubbed our noses in it.  My folks had five kids they didn't particularly care about and one majorly spoiled dog.  Whenever Mom fed him, he'd look over his shoulder at me and sneer.  He was having beef tips.  I was having peanut butter and jelly.

I used to feed him gummy bears just to watch him try to open his jaws.  Until Dad caught me doing it.  After which I fed him marshmallows.  He would drool and foam at the mouth when he ate them.  I tried to convince my folks he had hydrophobia but they were on to me.  "Poor Sparky", they would coo, "did that bad person give you (fill in the blank) to eat again?"  He would look at me malevolently and nod. Snitch.

Twice he pooped in my shoes.  Once I was wearing them at the time.

But he's dead now, so I got that going for me.

Except my Dad now has a cat.  Snoopy.  Snoopy weighs 480 lbs.  He looks like Puss in Shrek Four, only Puss is orange and Snoopy is black and white.

Dad is killing him with kindness.  He lets Snoopy drink out of his milk glass.  He hand feeds Snoopy all sorts of people food, along with the cat food he gets too much of, and bribes affection out of him with high-calorie cat treats.  Snoopy looks like a tick about to pop.  He's so fat that no one can lift him.  Also, he hisses, bites, scratches and generally demonstrates his assholery if you even try to pet him.  I don't even have to do that to get hissed at.  I just need to exist in his presence.

I am currently visiting with my dad, where I usually sleep on a rollaway bed.  Dad  is in the hospital, so I decided to sleep in his bed for tonight.  Snoopy would have none of it.  He picked a spot on the bed and defended it against my interloping ways as if I were the antichrist. 

So I beat the crap out of him with a (very) soft pillow and claimed the bed.  Then I felt so guilty I couldn't sleep.  Snoopy is curled up with his favorite toy, looking pathetic.  I am on my way to the rollaway now.  

Mom (and Dad) always loved him best.

Thomas Jefferson was right... we need a revolution every 50 years

   I am so completely disgusted with our "Congress" that I am ready to fire them all and replace them with people whose names have been drawn from a hat.  I mean, think about it.  What harm could it do?  Even the mentally disabled could do a better job of husbanding our resources than the bozos in Washington now.

   If they allow our nation to be globally humiliated by a default, they better not show their faces to their constituents ever again.  You remember the concept of constituents, I assume... the people the bozos are supposed to represent and protect.  Congress doesn't seem to have much of a memory of the concept.

   I want to know how this present Congress can be said to be representative.  Where are the businessmen, the educators, the doctors and scientists?  Where are women, who make up 51% of the population but only 17% of Congress (17 /100 Senators, 74 /434 representatives)?  Where are the social workers, the sales clerks, the manufacturers?  In a population of 124 million workers, only 6% are lawyers, but 45% of Congressmen are lawyers.  Where are the young people?  The median age of the US population is 32.9 years.  For Congress, the median is 53 years.  Where are the African Americans, Hispanics, Asian Pacific and other groups that make up respectively 12%, 9%  and 3% of the population (24% in total), while Congress is 87% white males?

  We should fire them all immediately. Failing that, we should repeal their right to set their own wages.  Force them to use the same health care system the rest of the country must endure.  Slash their pensions- put that money back into Social Security and take Social Security out the general funds.  AND DO NOT PAY THEM FOR THIS TERM!  The lazy do-nothings owe us ALL their back wages.  And while I do not agree with Dick the butcher (Henry VI Part 2 Act 4, scene 4 71-78) that we should "First, kill all the lawyers, I DO agree with the following quotations.

"The people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution".   Abraham Lincoln



"The only difference between death and taxes is that death doesn't get worse

every time Congress meets".  

"This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as

 when the baby gets hold of a hammer".

Will Rogers

"Congress: Bingo with billions".  

Red Skelton



"We have the right as individuals to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right to appropriate a dollar of the public money".   

 David Crockett

"You can lead a man to Congress, but you can't make him think".  

Milton Berle

"Being elected to Congress is regarded as being sent on a looting raid for one's friends".       

  George Will

"Talk is cheap - except when Congress does it".   Cullen Hightower

"Members of Congress must live according to the same laws as everyone else". 

 Bobby Jindal

"Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress.

But I repeat myself".  

"There is no distinctly American criminal class - except Congress".  

 Mark Twain

And now, representing thinking women everywhere...

I say throw the buggers out. 

Kate Lapczynski

Back to school... in JULY??!!

I did not get to spend any time to speak of with my granddaughters this summer.  I feel frustrated and cheated about that.  And all the "Camp NeeNee" things we had planned to do are not going to happen because, for my grandgirls, summer is over. 

My summer ends on August 30th, when my general biology class meets for the first time.  My girls will have been in school a month by then.

I can't imagine trying to learn in 100 degree heat, or when the bright sun from outside distracts me from my books.  My childhood summers were too long- out from mid-June until the day after Labor Day in September- but my girls' summers are too short.  

The weather was against me this summer.  Though my pool was opened on May 23rd, our first swim did not come until early July.  I remember summers past when my girls and I cavorted in the pool like the dolphins we are.  This year, only Emily and Delaney have been in the pool with me.  Twice.

Granted, I have been spending a lot of time in Michigan, caring for and visiting with my Daddy, who is 87 and failing.  Granted, the pool company opened my pool and then did NOTHING to it until my return home in late June, at which I fired them and hired someone who has turned out to be a miracle worker.  (Her name is Rhonda Loop, with is pool backward).  Granted, I have been puny on and off this summer.  Granted, my girls have spent most of their time with their other grandmothers.  (Apparently the equal time clause has lapsed)'

But if the summer wasn't so !$^#%*%#  short, none of that would matter.  Sigh.

So, here I am, all geared up for fun in the sun, chock full of ideas for things to do with my girls, chomping at the bit for some QFT (quality family time) and it is all for naught. 

Sending kids back to school in July.  Whose bull-shit idea was that?

My world...and other stuff

   After the tornados, and rains, and snows of this Tennessee winter, the weather has finally turned lightly to spring.  So what do I do?  I head north, where it is still winter and where there is still snow on the ground to visit me Dadums over my spring break. Wish I could convince Daddy to move South.  (Excuse me a moment while I get over this fit of hysterical laughter at the thought of convincing my dad to do anything.        Okay, I'm fine now.)
   I really don't like going to Michigan.  There is no easy way to get there and I must leave my cozy little home, my family, my friends, my church, my sisters in the Order of the Daughters of the King, my beloved GFWC Tullahoma Woman's Club and all the wonderful women who are a part of it, my cats, my grandkids, my bed, and, this semester, my job.  It means a lot to my dad though, so I go.  And it's only for a week this time. (Next visit will have to be longer- and hopefully, I won't go alone).
   I hope when I am 86 that three things are true:  that my mind is still sharp (unlike Dave's mama), that my body allows me to be relatively mobile with relatively little pain (unlike my Dad) and that my kids are as good to me as I am to Mama and Dad.  I am taking odds on each of those, if you are interested.
   I will post again from the pleasant peninsula, as soon as my fingers thaw out.  

IT"S 2011??!! When the hell did THAT happen? Let the RANT begin!

   My New Year's resolution was to post to my blog at least once a week.... and it is now February 10.  So much for that.  My One-Month-Into-The -New-Year resolution is to post to my blog at least once a week...


   So, let me start with a rant.   Or two.


 Part one:  Bull-shit advertising. 
   I think everyone in the country should boycott and chastise Groupon until they pull those hideously offensive anti-environmental ads off the air.  The whales are facing extinction- let's party!  The Amazon is being deforested- let's get a bikini wax!  Shame on everyone involved.  Who thought this was funny?


   Now, mini Darth Vader turning on the car with the Force (and a little help from Dad)- THAT'S funny!


Part two.   Higher Education in Tennessee.
    Dedicated, educated instructors and professors in Tennessee have gone without raises, cost of living increases, or any sort of monetary improvement in their salaries for FIVE YEARS, and have been told they can expect none any time soon.  Administrators, of course, have not had to suffer the same economic fate because, as you know, schools NEED administrators but can get along just fine without teachers.


   And NOW there is talk about abolishing tenure.  Most of the population would probably agree with that action because they have been deliberately and historically misled about what tenure really is.  It is NOT a guarantee of employment.  It IS a guarantee that teachers cannot be fired on a whim without due process. 


This from Wikipedia:  "Academic tenure is primarily intended to guarantee the right to academic freedom: it protects teachers and researchers when they dissent from prevailing opinion, openly disagree with authorities of any sort, or spend time on unfashionable topics. Thus academic tenure is similar to the lifetime tenure that protects some judges from external pressure. Without job security, the scholarly community as a whole might favor "safe" lines of inquiry. The intent of tenure is to allow original ideas to be more likely to arise, by giving scholars the intellectual autonomy to investigate the problems and solutions about which they are most passionate, and to report their honest conclusions. In economies where higher education is provided by the private sector, tenure also has the effect of helping to ensure the integrity of the grading system. Without tenure, professors could be pressured by administrators to issue higher grades for attracting and keeping a greater number of students."




Higher education is theoretically based on the concept of SHARED GOVERNANCE, which means that administrators and faculty are equal shareholders in the mission of the school, and have shared rights and responsibilities regarding curriculum and the distribution of resources.


 The reality is that cynical lip service is given to shared governance by administrators.  Faculty are involved in decision making to this extent - faculty are required to serve on committees (Financial Aid, Student Affairs, Academic Affairs, Budget, etc.),  required to attend discipline meetings, department meetings, Faculty Fora and Faculty Orientations, without any additional remuneration for the hours they spend in these activities.   The presence of faculty on committees is touted as evidence of shared governance- but if one voice can consistently drown out all others, what, exactly, is being shared except time and space?


   So, think about this.  You, in your job.  You haven't had a raise in five years.  Gas prices, food prices, utility costs have all gone up.  The value of the dollar has gone down.  You are not living at the same level you were living five years ago, you have lost ground.  You are not appreciated and you know it.  When you ask for a raise, you hear "You're lucky to have a job".  How long would it take you to start looking for a better job? 


So why don't educators go do something else?


They think that what they are doing is important.  Too bad Tennessee doesn't.