04 July, 2008
Why Throwing Roe v. Wade At Me To Get Me To Vote For Obama Is A REALLY BAD IDEA
Because he thinks "mental distress" is not an acceptable health issue for late-term abortions.
"Now, I don’t think that “mental distress” qualifies as the health of the mother. I think it has to be a serious physical issue that arises in pregnancy, where there are real, significant problems to the mother carrying that child to term. Otherwise, as long as there is such a medical exception in place, I think we can prohibit late-term abortions. "
I've got news for Senator Obama. Mental illness (including distress) is not a mere temper tantrum where you can put pregnant woman in time out until she "gets over it". Mental distress is a very serious medical issue and, yes, it can raise "real, significant problems to the mother carrying that child to term," if she is under such great distress that she might harm herself and/or her fetus.
Ceiling H. Cat, how can he NOT GET THAT?!?
So tell me again why NARAL couldn't wait to support him...
(h/t to Melissa at Shakesville, who actually made my point much more coherently than I just did)
Labels: gah, in the news
~~ victoria on 8:44 AM ~~ 0 comments
29 June, 2008
I Think I'll Get My Name Legally Changed
Your Rockstar Name Is... |
 |
Labels: personality quiz, rock 'n' roll
~~ victoria on 5:04 PM ~~ 0 comments
20 June, 2008
I am...
Your results:
You are Green Lantern
| Hot-headed. You have strong  |
Click here to take the "Which Superhero am I?" quiz...
Labels: personality quiz
~~ victoria on 5:36 PM ~~ 0 comments
11 June, 2008
That's Just Crazy Talk!
My Wordle cloud, representative of my blog in March, 2008.
Labels: huh, moi, navel gazing, yay
~~ victoria on 8:38 PM ~~ 0 comments
08 June, 2008
Simon Sunday: My New Charm, Let Me Show You It
I realize I haven't done a Simon Sunday for a while. Simon is fine and back to his old self again (just waiting for the hair to grow back on his "arm" where it was shaved off). I just haven't really been up for posting things, lately.
I'll try to get posting back on track, but make no promises.
Labels: cats, furkids, Simon, Simon Sunday
~~ victoria on 12:12 PM ~~ 0 comments
06 June, 2008
Weekend T-Rex: a Two-fer
Because I'm in the mood for some glam rock, kittenz.
20th Century Boy, which has the distinction of being Simon's first most favourite song in the world. Actually, it is the version by Placebo that Simon went batshit crazy for the first time he heard it. I was watching Velvet Goldmine and he was curled up next to me, sound asleep. Then the opening riffs to the song played and Simon shot off the couch like a rocket and was glued to the TV for the rest of the movie, trying to pet the guys on the television screen. Whenever I played the soundtrack and it came on, he'd be up running around the apartment and howling along with the song. For a couple of weeks, I thought perhaps Marc Bolan had reincarnated as my kitty and ZOMG HOW AWESOME WOULD THAT BE?!?!??!1!?
...and Get It On (Bang A Gong), which has the distinction of being the first song I remember ever singing in public. Skipping along the aisles in the supermarket singing "GET IT ON! BANG A GONG! GET IT ON! BAAAANG A GOOOOOOONG!!!" Mom, realizing that it was too late to duck behind the produce or stuff me inside the freezer with the dreamcicles, quietly leaned down and said, "Why don't we wait and sing that one in the car?" She later had a talk with my babysitter about listening to FM radio when she's with me and the babysitter, in turn, talked to me about singing only the crappy rhymes I learned in preschool when I'm out with my mom, so that I don't give her a heart attack. Neither one of them explained what the song actually meant and why I shouldn't sing such a totally kick-ass rhyme like that at the top of my 5-year-old lungs.
I'd like to point out here that, unlike my TOTALLY LIVE SUPERMARKET VERSION, it's hard to find a video of this song on YouTube that isn't lip-synched.
Labels: rock 'n' roll, Simon, Weekend Music
~~ victoria on 9:07 PM ~~ 0 comments
05 June, 2008
40 Years Ago
Teddy Kennedy eulogizes his brother, Bobby Kennedy.
(h/t to Melissa at Shakesville
Labels: remember
~~ victoria on 7:32 AM ~~ 0 comments
26 May, 2008
The One Where Sexist Bullshit Makes My Head Explode. Again.
This story makes my blood fucking boil. Twelve-year-old Jaime Nared has all of a sudden been banned from playing on the mixed-gender team she's been on since she was in the second grade. Why? Because she's a phenomenally talented GIRL.
Here's the money quote:
Neal Franzer, The Hoop's director of operations, said Thursday that parents were "adamant" that their complaints have nothing to do with Jaime's skills.
"They said the problem was the boys were playing differently against her because she was a girl," he said. "They'd been taught to not push a girl, so they weren't fouling her hard, and the focus had shifted from playing basketball to noticing a girl was on the floor with them."
Riiiiight. Because, you know, it's just so much easier to discriminate against a talented girl (or woman) than it is to teach boys that EVERYONE should be allowed the chance to compete and excel at the highest level they're capable of and that capability has nothing to do with being female or male. (For the record, the boys on her team seem to have no problem whatsoever with the fact that she's exceptionally talented--and already 6'1"--or that she's a girl. In this video, one of her teammates says that having her on the team makes them try harder and play better.
It saddens and sickens me that the lessons of teamwork and competing to their fullest potential have been interrupted (yet again) by the inappropriate interference from some of the so-called grown-ups who are teaching them, instead, that it's perfectly all right to discriminate against someone ought not to be able to compete with them because of their gender/race/sexual orientation/religion/economic class.
Full disclosure: That this story comes out of Beaverton, OR is 1) not a surprise to me at all and 2) a bit of a trigger because I dealt with this sexist bullshit when I went to high school (SHS, not BHS, if you're familiar with the area). I had hoped that the mentality there might have evolved a little bit in 25 years, but I guess not.
(Hat tip to Melissa at Shakesville and so on down the line...)
Labels: gah, in the news
~~ victoria on 3:17 PM ~~ 0 comments
20 May, 2008
The One Where I Respond To Search Terms
are gerbera daisies poisonous to cats
Gerbera daisies are NOT toxic for cats, but if your furkid shows a curiosity for sampling flowers, it's best to keep ALL flowers and plants out of his reach, otherwise you end up with a sad, scary--and expensive--situation like this.
Plant a pot or two of cat grass or catnip instead.
flickr staff evil
Uh, no. I've met many Flickr staff and I can tell you they most certainly are NOT evil. You may not always agree with changes they make to the site, or you think they seem too slow responding to bug reports (seriously, do you want them to fix the bugs, or sit down and have a cup of tea with you while they explain the bug? Really, people!), but that does not make them evil.
Remember, Flickr is JUST A WEB SITE. It, hopefully, adds value TO your life, but it is NOT life itself!
victoria klum
Oh hai! Have we met? Don't be shy, use the email linkies and say hello (unless you're a spammer: I really have little interest in male sexual response or knock-off designer handbags at this time, kthxbye).
pilling a hypervigilant cat
You have my sympathy. Try Pill Pockets, but when you give kitteh one with the pill, you should follow it immediately with a treat sans pill so that kitteh doesn't have time to try to dissect the pill pocket.
grooming a male ass
YES!!! I may make it back to the #1 result for the Male Ass Grooming search! I still have no idea how I ever achieved that distinction, but I revel in the glory!
EDIT: I'm back on top!!! W00T!1!!
Labels: Site Stat Gazing
~~ victoria on 10:10 PM ~~ 0 comments
18 May, 2008
Weekend Jeff Tweedy: Gun
Jeff Tweedy reaches back to his days with Uncle Tupelo for this awesome-packed acoustic version of Gun.
UT fans should check out Tweedy's hilarious story of seeing former UT bandmate/collaborator Jay Ferrar in Mexico.
Labels: Weekend Music
~~ victoria on 8:28 PM ~~ 0 comments
Simon Sunday: Getting Back to Normal
Simon has been home for a week, after his Bogus Journey to the emergency veterinary hospital last weekend. We finished the Clavamox and Baytril prescriptions for his urinary tract infection last night, which was good because he had sort of figured out the pill pockets.
Oh yes, the pill pockets. Last Sunday I didn't have much trouble pilling Simon: the Clavamox are small and the Baytril followed immediately after when Simon was too confused to put up a fight. Monday was a completely different story. I got the Clavamox down him easily but he wanted nothing at all to do with the Baytril. I spent close to thirty minutes trying to get that stupid Baytril down him! To anyone observing, it must surely have looked like Wile E. Coyote v. the Roadrunner: No matter what clever scheme I tried (Shoving it in. Shoving it in again. Covering it in goat cheese. Covering it in Petromalt. Shoving it in again. Covering it in more Petromalt and smearing the whole thing on his face.), he outwitted me. By the time I got the last remnants of that damn pill into his mouth, it felt like I had played my guitar all night, but instead of steel strings, it had been strung with barbed wire. So, on the recommendation of the vet's office, I stopped at Petco after work on Tuesday and bought chicken flavored pill pockets.
The pill pockets worked really well, but still required preparation to keep up with Simon. I started off giving him one sans pill, then stuffed a Clavamox in one and gave it to him, which he ate quickly. The Baytril one, he tried to chew at, so I quickly grabbed one of his crunchy cat treats and offered it to him so he'd just swallow the Baytril and eat the new treat. That system has been working out fairly well, though the last couple of days Simon started trying to dissect the pocket and refusing the extra treat until he had chewed at the pill pocket some more. But, hey, no problem because we're done with meds, right?
Yeah, not so much.
For reasons known only to him, Simon thought it would be a really neat idea to use my head as a springboard to try to leap on top of the heater. It didn't work out too well for him and he ended up tearing one of his toenails and if you've ever accidentally trimmed too far on your cat's (or dog's) nails, those suckers bleed like a son of a gun! Naturally, I sprung straight into Mom Mode and put his foot under the faucet to try to clean the wound and stop the bleeding. He was having none of it and tried to run away several times. He yelped and growled and bit on me (clearly not wanting to hurt me, just trying to get me to stop what I was doing) when I put the wash cloth over his foot. He yelped and bit some more when I tried to hold cotton balls on the wound to staunch the bleeding. I finally got it stopped and just let him lay on my bed by himself while I cleaned up the kitchen and got ready for bed. He groomed the foot for a while but he hasn't been favoring the foot, so it seems all is as well as can be.
The discharge instructions from the emergency vet said I had to get Simon in for a follow-up urine test within 48 hours after discontinuing his meds, so I made an appointment for this afternoon. I felt horrible when it was time to put him in the carrier and he actually piddled a little bit (not surprising since, for one, he did NOT want to go back to the vet and for two, I had made him "hold it" all day so the vet would be able to grab a sample). He yowled all the way to our regular vet's office (thankfully, the emergency vet said we could go to his regular vet for the follow up, which is a much shorter car trip). The vet who saw him said that the notes that had been faxed over from the hospital said that he wasn't to be seen for five days after discontinuing the meds. We talked about what to do and I made it very clear that I did not want to put Simon through another trip to the vet. She ordered a regular test (not the culture), so, unless they see something off in that, we should be done with vet trips for a while.
The vet and I both nearly forgot about looking at Simon's foot, so she took him back to the exam room. She showed me how the nail had torn away from the toe a bit and that he'd probably eventually pull the nail off himself. Alternatively she could sedate him and take it herself, but neither of us wanted to put him through that today. So, he's back on Clavamox for the next five days in an effort to head off any infection.
I'd better go check the supply of pill pockets.
Labels: cats, furkids, Simon, Simon Sunday
~~ victoria on 7:54 PM ~~ 0 comments
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OTHER THINKERS:
"I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions."
--Augusten Burroughs
