Archive for December, 2008

Oh, the indignity!

Published at December 28, 2008 in Life with pets and Junebug. 5 Comments

Someone had to have her bum squeezed at the vet yesterday:

You’re going to squeeze *what*?

She hates the vet.  I’m not too happy to keep going there, either, but my reasons are more financial than fear-based.  But Miss Thing had a couple of bodily-fluid leaks (all over my sheets, no less) within a week, she was overdue for a rabies shot, and I had some time, so off we went.

Next time we walk up to the vet, though, we’ll avoid walking past the giant German shepherd up on the roof of the flat-fix place.

The bodily fluids leaked?  Anal gland juice last week, and then three big piles of bile a few days ago.  Again, right on my sheets, and near my head.  The anal juice leaked through to the mattress, too.  Tasty!  I think I got it out with some vinegar, though.

The vet told me that her anal glands were “very full” and that her anus was irritated.  Well, I’ll bet, considering she did a long scoot across the sidewalk shortly before the appointment, with a spiral-scoot flourish.  So now I have a dog with empty anal glands and a prescription for butt ointment.

Caitlin Flanagan? Is that you?

Published at December 15, 2008 in Sex sex sex, Pantysniffing, Revising reality and Woman-Hating. 8 Comments

Oh, no, it’s Charles M. Blow, wringing his hands about The Kids Today and Their Hooking Up:

The paradigm has shifted. Dating is dated. Hooking up is here to stay.

(For those over 30 years old: hooking up is a casual sexual encounter with no expectation of future emotional commitment. Think of it as a one-night stand with someone you know.)

According to a report released this spring by Child Trends, a Washington research group, there are now more high school seniors saying that they never date than seniors who say that they date frequently. Apparently, it’s all about the hookup.

“Hookup culture” seems to be the latest bugaboo among those who worry about the degradation of the young people — let’s face it, specifically of young women and girls. Because sex is harmful for girls, dontchaknow.

What’s most amusing about Blow’s handwringing is the fact that he contradicts himself within a few paragraphs. See, in the hip, under-30 lingo, “hooking up is a casual sexual encounter” and yet, a few paragraphs later:

I should point out that just because more young people seem to be hooking up instead of dating doesn’t mean that they’re having more sex (they’ve been having less, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) or having sex with strangers (they’re more likely to hook up with a friend, according to a 2006 paper in the Journal of Adolescent Research).

So Mr. Blow, on the payroll of the New York Times, is just making shit up to fit the latest (or, in typical Times fashion, just-about-over) buzzword. Well, not that surprising for the paper that employs Maureen Dowd, William Kristol and David Brooks (and, for that matter, Caitlin Flanagan herself).

But having defined “hooking up” as “casual sexual encounter, he then backs off that definition and admits that Kids Today aren’t actually having quite as much sex, or that they’re fucking strangers. So. What’s the problem, Charles? Continue reading ‘Caitlin Flanagan? Is that you?’

Duck, motherfucker!

Published at December 14, 2008 in Political theater and Schadenfreudelicious. 3 Comments

Bush dodges not one, but two shoes thrown at him by an Iraqi journalist during a press conference in Baghdad:

The U.S. president visited the Iraqi capital just 37 days before he hands the war off to his successor, Barack Obama, who has pledged to end it. The president wanted to highlight a drop in violence in a nation still riven by ethnic strife and to celebrate a recent U.S.-Iraq security agreement, which calls for U.S. troops to withdraw from Iraq by the end of 2011.

“The war is not over,” Bush said, adding that “it is decisively on it’s way to being won.”

Really? Butbutbut!

Doofus

In many ways, the unannounced trip was a victory lap without a clear victory. Nearly 150,000 U.S. troops remain in Iraq fighting a war that is intensely disliked across the globe. More than 4,209 members of the U.S. military have died in the conflict, which has cost U.S. taxpayers $576 billion since it began five years and nine months ago.

Polls show most Americans believe the U.S. erred in invading Iraq in 2003. Bush ordered the nation into war against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq while citing intelligence claiming the Mideast nation harbored weapons of mass destruction. The weapons were never found, the intelligence was discredited, Bush’s credibility with U.S. voters plummeted and Saddam was captured and executed.

“There is still more work to be done,” Bush said after his meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

It was at that point the journalist stood up and threw a shoe from about 20 feet away. Bush ducked, and it narrowly missed his head. The second shoe came quickly, and Bush ducked again while several Iraqis grabbed the man and dragged him to the floor.

Shoez!

In Iraqi culture, throwing shoes at someone is a sign of contempt. Iraqis whacked a statue of Saddam with their shoes after U.S. marines toppled it to the ground following the 2003 invasion.

Oh, no

Published at December 14, 2008 in Junebug. 2 Comments

You’ve got that flashy thing out again, haven’t you?

feets!

Thanksgiving dinner

Published at December 14, 2008 in Food. 1 Comment

I know, a little late, but here’s what I had:

dinner!

Clockwise from top:

Baked acorn squash
Baked sweet potato
Steamed kale with garlic, drizzled with the marinade (which I doubled) from
Maple grilled tempeh.

And for dessert:

puddin’

Coconut chocolate pudding.

Look who’s eating

Published at December 14, 2008 in Kitties. 0 Comments

And with a pretty good appetite, too:

nom nom nom

She’s pretty well back to normal, other than the shaved bits: She’s eating, having figured out canned food can actually be swallowed; she’s playing; she’s vexing the dog; she’s getting onto the bed and the couch. The one thing she’s having trouble with is jumping up onto the cat-feeding table, but then, she has had abdominal surgery.

Speaking of which, her incision is healing very nicely. It’s not even red anymore, and all the scabs have come off. There’s still a bit of bruising, but really not bad for a month out of surgery. I’ve even backed off the antacids, experimentally; the other day, there was a commotion out in the hall (someone moving) which sent her under the bed at the time when I had to give her the meds, so I couldn’t get her before I went to work, but since she continues to eat, I’m going to leave off for a while just to avoid the whole pill-shoving business.

And one of these days, I’m going to get a picture of her little go-go boots.

Dog butts make the best pillows

Published at December 14, 2008 in Life with pets. 0 Comments

Nice fluffy pillow

File under, “Things I didn’t really need to know”

Published at December 5, 2008 in Commerce. 3 Comments

Ann Taylor mannequins have rather aggressive nipples.

It’s sweater sale time!

I *heart* my governor

Published at December 4, 2008 in Hear me roar, Political theater and Woman-Hating. 7 Comments

Check it out:

NEW YORK, Dec 3 (Reuters) - New York Gov. David Paterson said on Wednesday he was “outraged” that no women were nominated to lead the state’s Court of Appeals, its highest court, forcing him to choose from seven men recommended by a panel.

Paterson said he believes the state constitution obliges him to pick one of the men nominated by a 12-member panel. But he directed state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to explore options for picking a new chief judge for the appeals court that is considered one of the most influential state courts in the country.

“Because we’re citizens of a state in addition to being public servants, we’re outraged,” Paterson said, adding that the panel’s rejection of more than half the population could discourage women.

“What we really wanted to do is just publicly acknowledge … the disappointing fact that they spanned the globe and couldn’t find a woman in New York state that was qualified to serve as the chief judge,” he said. Still, he called the seven male nominees highly qualified.

Four women served on the nominating panel, which was created in the late 1970s to reform the highly politicized way judges were chosen.

The current chief judge of Court of Appeals, Judith Kaye, resigns at the end of the year. Three other women serve on the seven-member court, and Paterson, joined by the Democratic attorney general, questioned why none of them was nominated.

This gives me hope that he won’t appoint a white guy (such as Bill Clinton, or the AG, Andrew Cuomo) to fill Hillary Clinton’s seat in the Senate. Paterson had once hoped to fill her seat himself if she were elected President, but fate (and Republican political operatives) intervened and Paterson found himself becoming governor after Eliot Spitzer was forced out. He hasn’t said who he’s going to pick, but he has said that nobody has been shy about asking him to appoint them, or people they support. But given that the press loves to talk about Bill Clinton or Andrew Cuomo getting the job, as unlikely as that is (Clinton because, why? and Cuomo because he’s in the middle of taking on AIG for its abuse of bailout funds and its shoddy practices), one starts to wonder if he’d give in to that kind of pressure, or pressure from powerful interests. Especially when there are such good women serving New York in Congress already, like Nydia Velasquez, Carolyn Maloney, Nita Lowey and Louise Slaughter.

But this? This makes me think that he’s got his priorities right.

And seriously — not one of the three women on the Court of Appeals makes it onto the list of seven? You could appoint all of the members of the CoA other than Judith Kaye and still have room for one more on the list. What I’d like to know is, how many of the three men on the court got onto the list?

(Via Echidne.)