Near the Beginning...:#18: The Miracle of Life...

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Near the Beginning: The Miracle of Life...

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Merry Christmas!

The Bread Box Tradition...

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Me: Does it fit into a bread box?
Rich: Come on, you ask that every year!

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It's true. I stare at the box that holds a gift (or gifts) for me, and I ask. I should have learned my lesson the first Christmas, when he replied "Yes!" quite emphatically. What he neglected to say was that I would have to break, bend, and pulverize the wrought-iron chandelier to make it FIT into a bread box. Nevertheless, tradition won out:

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Me: Is that a yes or a no?
Rich: It's a "sometimes."
Me: "Sometimes"?
Rich: Yes. "Sometimes."
Me: Do I have to put it together?
Rich: You need to put it with something, but it doesn't exactly require "putting together."

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You know how the fine print works, right? "Some assembly required," or "Batteries not included," or "Penis sold separately." Obviously I would have to ask something a bit more in-depth if I were to get a working clue as to what the mysterious box covered in bright paper held...

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Me: What room will I use this in?
Rich: Any room you want, really.
Me: Is that so?
Rich: Yep. (He casually goes back to surfing the Internet while I stare at the box...)
Me: Will it break if I pick it up and drop it?
Rich: It could break, but it's not a guarantee...

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You see, he's not like me. He doesn't care to get hints, he doesn't want hints about his gifts. Apparently it's not what his family does. They accept the fact that they'll find out on Christmas morning, and that's that. Sometimes, like last year? He gets down-right annoyed. He wouldn't even answer the "bread box" question last year!

I, however, love the suspense. I love the give-and-take. I love the anticipation of what I think it will be just as much as I love seeing it when I open it, whether I was right or not! (And, I'm usually right, which does not work in my favor when fishing for hints the next year...)

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Me: Would you mind if I picked it up and shook it around?
Rich: Yes. (Very emphatic.)
Me: Okay, okay... Um... Any room in the house?
Rich: Yep.
Me: Do I have to rearrange the house to use it, in, say, the kitchen?
Rich: Not really.
Me: The bathroom?
Rich: No.
Me: Out in the garage.
Rich: That might be a bit tricky, but I've seen you do it before.
Me: I've used this outside?
Rich: Well, not this, exactly.

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He's getting into it now. Can you tell? Getting "chatty" about it, as it were.

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Me: So I have something like this already?
Rich: Hmmm... Maybe...
Me: Did I ask for it?
Rich: Not exactly.
Me: Does it get plugged in?
Rich: No.
Me: Oh.
Rich: (evil grin) You can give up now, if you want.
Me: Why? Do you think I know what it is?
Rich: I know you have no clue this year!
Me: What room will I mainly use it in? Is "use" even a good way to describe this gift?
Rich: Not really, but you'll "use" it mostly in the living room, I think.
Me: You think?
Rich: All the time. Hehehe.
Me: But it fits into a bread box without it being broken into bits and ultimately destroyed, right?
Rich: Yep.
Me: But I didn't ask for it?
Rich: No.
Me: And I can use it anywhere?
Rich: Yep.
Me: I hate you.
Rich: Kisses to you too, babe.

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Three more days of flying on the wings of anticipation.... And loving every minute of it...

Near the Beginning...:#17: Do a Little Dance...

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Near the Beginning: Do a Little Dance...

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Heterosexuals Don't Expect to be Tolerated....

As I've said earlier:

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...tolerance is only ever meant to be the smallest part of patience. And when the patience has been tried, tolerance goes out the window. Tolerate is what you do when your two-year-old tried again to drink from a cup instead of his sippy-cup, or you tolerate the sales person who called during dinner only as long as it takes to get them off the phone. You tolerate a visit from some member of the family you dislike for the sake of a holiday, or some-such other type scenario.

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While our capitol city council recently voted (and approved) a bill to allow same-sex marriage (much to the Catholic church's chagrin...), it seems that the church is also trying to influence politics in Uganda. (For those of you who are geographically challenged, that's in Africa...)

You see, they're trying to put a law on the books (PDF here) that, among other things, will:

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Section 2 of the Bill is titled, "The offence of homosexuality". It reads as follows: Clause "(1) A person commits the offence of homosexuality if --- (a) he penetrates the anus or mouth of another person of the same sex with his penis or any other sexual contraption; (b) he or she uses any object or sexual contraption to penetrate or stimulate the sexual organ of a person of the same sex; (c) he or she touches another person with the intention of committing the act of homosexuality."

Clause "(2) A person who commits an offence under this section shall be liable on conviction to imprisonment for life".

Where does the death penalty enter this twisted world of sexual paranoia? Let me quote the applicable section and sub-section. Section 3 of the Bill is titled, "Aggravated homosexuality". It reads in part: "A person commits the offence of aggravated homosexuality where the offender is a person living with HIV". "A person who commits the offence of aggravated homosexuality shall be liable on conviction to suffer death". And just in case there's any conjecture, we have this finale: "Where a person is charged with the offence under this section, that person shall undergo a medical examination to ascertain his or her HIV status".

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I'm wondering how many "straight" politicians it takes to sit around the table to envision every conceivable type of "same sex" activity to make a law against it? I wonder if it was an "awkward" conversation as they drafted this "law" against their fellow human beings?

Even above and beyond the realm of 1984 is the fact that:



So now, not only are you guilty just by being gay; not only can you be put to death for having "gay" sex; you will be fined and go to jail if you don't report gay activity! (Strangely, on this last point, I'm reminded of the DADT policy... Wonder why, wonder why...)

A split is coming, fellow humans, and we watch it grow wider and wider every year, not only here in the United States, but the world over. We wonder why there can't be "bipartisanship"? The church is no longer content to be sidelined. As it did back in medieval times, it wants to rule again. It meddles in politics (while screaming about an individual right to worship freely and say any damn bloody thing that comes to mind no matter how idiotic...), lobbies to pass laws based on badly translated, sadly misinterpreted ancient texts, and it pits human against human to serve the "greater good" of "godly living." "Let's not simply punish them for the acts, let's also punish the other ones who don't tell!"

Let's face it--attempts at tolerance are out the door unless they think their freedoms are being somehow "infringed" because they can't have a mandatory recital of the Lord's prayer each morning in school. In fact, in North Carolina, a "Christian" would like an Asheville City Councilman removed simply because he's an atheist (because, in the fundamentalist mindset, you are free to believe whatever you want as long as it involves a bible, a god, a son crucified, and a steeple within a half-mile radius...)

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"My father was a Baptist minister. I'm a Christian man. I have problems with people who don't believe in God," said Edgerton, a former local NAACP president and founder of Southern Heritage 411, an organization that promotes the interests of black southerners.

The head of a conservative weekly newspaper says city officials shirked their duty to uphold the state's laws by swearing in Bothwell. David Morgan, editor of the Asheville Tribune, said he's tired of seeing his state Constitution "trashed."

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The grand tradition of making Jesus proud by ignoring laws and reason and common sense. Never mind that the U.S. Constitution states that "no religious test" shall be used for any office holder anywhere within our boundaries (which, of course, nullifies the religious test called for in North Carolina's state constitution): Edgerton has a problem all right, not the least of which is his ignorance and idiocy. He's probably cheering on Uganda's "fight" to protect "normal" people.

Is this what "conservative" Christianity has come to? Fascism? Making people "tattle" on one another, basing civic laws on beliefs that, most often, can't even be agreed on by the plethora of denominations within the church itself?!

Let's see: what other "offenses" can be traced back as an "attack" on Christianity and the "traditional family"? Eating out? Teenagers working part-time jobs? Women in the workplace? Television? Skipping church on Sunday? I know! Let's make it all illegal, and punish anyone who knows of people "engaging" in these activities, as well as the criminals themselves!

Dictating dogma through the government... What will the church think of next? Something else, I'm sure, that I don't expect to tolerate...

The Army Made Me Skinny...

Life made me chubby...

Actually, it was part life, part genetics. We who are descended from farmer stock have a genetic handicap, you see. They bred 'em big and stocky--thus, in today's day and age, farmless in rural America, I continue on with my so-called "battle." The bulge, that is. I find it sincerely frustrating that, although I can now squeeze into a 36 (something I haven't been able to do since 1998), unfortunately guts don't shrink in relation to waists, and thus...

Too poor to join a gym... Too lazy to wake up early and jog... Too exhausted when I get home to put in the effort. Small consolation that the treadmill sold for a nice price at the yard sale--at least I don't have to go into the unused spare room and stare at it for ten minutes in guilt every evening--that alone must have been worth 150 calories, no? No? Yeah, no...

I keep telling myself that part of my new and fabulous life in Florida will include a personal trainer with the body of a god, the patience of a saint, and the monetary independence that will allow him to whip me into tip-top physical shape out of sheer goodwill, sort of like a charity project. He'll show up around 10 in the morning ready to go; I'll come in from off the lanai, finish my coffee and leave my paper on the kitchen counter, and we'll work out for about an hour or so; then he'll be off to his next charity case (Richard, perhaps? :D) while I finish reading the paper, drinking a protein-packed soy latte with the faint aroma of almonds and the taste of cinnamon and vanilla doughnuts...

Of course, I could just break down and pretend like I'm back in basic: get up at 3:00 am, run for a gazillion miles, then jumping jacks, down hill skiers, yadda yadda blah blah, have breakfast at 6:30 a.m. after cleaning the barracks and making the bed and waxing the floor and still have a full day of work ahead of me... But just the thought is exhausting, let alone any possible follow-through! Even the military couldn't break me of the inherent laziness--my first day out, I slept in until 10:00 and didn't even feel the urge to run, or do anything even remotely run-like...

But I was skinny...

The sole motivating factor in the military, sadly, was that if I didn't run the gazillion miles, my punishment would be to run a gazillion more. Motivation is a funny thing, isn't it? I only exercised to get out of doing more exercise...

This is why I am now on the smaller side of "chubby." If there is such a thing.

I wonder how much lipo costs these days...?

But then, I'd really like to meet that personal trainer...

Near the Beginning...:#16: Flights of Fancy

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Near the Beginning: Flights of Fancy

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Near the Beginning...:#15: Rethinking Abstinence

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Near the Beginning: Rethinking Abstinence

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Dick--I Mean Deck--the Halls...

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Me: No, I have to... It just wouldn't seem right!
Rich: But it defeats the whole purpose! We're trying to get the house ready to sell, not enter it into a decorating contest!
Me: You know what my grandfather used to say about the undecorated houses?
Rich: Uh...
Me: "Oh, they must be Jewish!" Not that there's anything wrong with that, but you know how I love the holidays and decorating!
Rich: But--
Me: I have to decorate something!
Rich: But--
Me: I've already agreed not to put up a tree so we can sell it on eBay, and that's a huge part of decorating.
Rich: But, babe--
Me: And I'm not putting up the icicles around the edge of the roof!
Rich: Yes, but--
Me: But I am decorating in a "tastefully simple" kind of way.
Rich: (Quizzical eyebrow raise.) Huh?
Me: You know, a little here, a little there. The Christmas plates, stockings on the mantel, a few bubble lights.
Rich: I suppose...

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I had already started, you see. With the stockings and the nut cracker soldiers on the mantel, the ancient Santa and reindeer that Mom always had placed in the corner hutch. About seven boxes were strewn across the living room floor with Beaux hopping from box to box to sniff and toy with some of the precious treasures.

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Rich: I just thought that--
Me: The upstairs is still being worked on, I need to rerun the wiring, but it will get done--we have all winter to finish the upstairs.
Rich: Yes, but--
Me: And I'm not putting up the village or the train set, so that also saves time and space. (I was really quite proud of this sacrifice I was making!)
Rich: Can I just--
Me: And we'll even, if you don't want to, not set up the Island of Misfit Toys display, just in case that one (jerked finger toward Lil Wet Paws as he discovered stringed lights and Hawthorne stared at him with utter boredom mingled with contempt) gets a little to mountain-climby.
Rich: I just--
Me: It's just a few lights and some of the smaller decorations!

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How the hell am I supposed to enjoy my last Christmas in Pennsylvania if I can't decorate?! It would go against all the fuzzy-warm memories of childhood, the sense of tradition, the only bright and shiny time in a long and gloomy winter! I was now on the war path...

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Me: I'm decorating, and that's all there is to it! I'm tired of feeling like Scrooge! Thanksgiving was already five days ago! This house is usually decorated FOUR days ago! All the neighbors have their lights up already! I feel like... like...
Rich: I just wanted to ask if I can put up the nativity?
Me: Oh... Why wouldn't you be able to?
Rich: Well, I know it's not exactly your thing...
Me: So? It's your thing! And you have just as much right to put it up as anyone else! I've never stopped you before... Why are you asking now?
Rich: Well, since I was the one who said we wouldn't decorate, but now it seems we are decorating, I just thought... I dunno...
Me: Quit being such a dick and start decking!
Rich: Decking?
Me: The halls? "Deck the halls with boughs of holly, fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la?" Ever heard of it?
Rich: Okay, okay, I'll start decking!

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Ahh... Now it's starting to look a lot like Christmas...

Near the Beginning...:#14: Shedding Some Light

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Near the Beginning: Shedding Some Light

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