It's funny. I feel like I've run out of places to say things. Truth is, there have never been more places to say things. But physically, either cap your glib at a finite amount of characters, or do it subconciously, because it seems like there is an unspoken limit to how much of what you need to tell at one time.

Anyways, I've formed this theory, and I feel like I have extra special license to blab all I want on myspace now, because no one is hardly here anymore, so it is maybe just throwing it into the void, and maybe that's where this theory actually belongs...

Just to make it all neat and tidy, generations alternate. Physically, definitely, but I guess what I'm saying is that I think there is something to the idea that there is, very broadly speaking, a general temperament that accompanies that. I'm Gen X. My parents, Baby Boomers. Grandparents are "the greatest generation" (as coined by Tom Brokaw, I believe). Gen X want to rebel against Baby Boomers. Gen Y (1980's kids) rebel against Gen X.

Blogs are totally Gen X. 'Specially blogs from blogger and such that aren't even a product of social networks. We want to talk about stuff. About how the world is messy and funny and nasty and all things neatly condensed for mass consumption are for the birds.

But Gen Y has grown up watching us slobber our 'truths' all over the net. It's fine, but make it short. The world moves faster now than your meanderings. In general, Facebook is a good fit for Gen Y and Baby Boomers. It manicures the comments. It cuts down the yada yada.

It was hard for me, in the beginning, but I think I've got the jist of it now. There is a lot of potential in Facebook. A lot of good I just didn't want to see, because I was hung up on the weirdness. Gen X'ers, if I am typical, like the anonymity of the net. The internet was/is a great equalizer. On it, what you have and don't and where you come from and what you look like, up until now, hasn't been so visible. Gen X'ers got to know this magical internet device at an earlier phase of its existence. Back then, in the olden days, it was operated like truckers use CB radios: Everybody has a handle. Wasn't it unthinkable to be yourself back then? Your real name? Come on! Nobody does that. Your internet indentity is some unwieldly combination of letters and numbers you settle on after wasting god-knows quanties of time trying out all the ones already taken.

Gen X likes Facebook, don't get me wrong. I think we might even be the main bulk of its users. But, I think it still was a bit harder for us to adopt than the axis of younger people/older people that exists in my damn theory. The Baby Boomers (our aunts, moms, etc), the Gen Y's (our baby sisters, our little cousins).

So, I think I've accepted that I can 'belong' on Facebook, but I don't think this blog does. I don't know where it does belong, but here is better than there and maybe worse than nowhere.

I think this is kind of a weird-ass thing to say, but this just popped into my head.

I think, maybe, we are magical, child-like beings that can see ourselves going into almost any particular amount of debt, so long as the monthly payments (or our cumulative monthly payments) are less than the most money we've had, in cash, in our hands at any one time, whatever that amount may be.

Just a theory.

PS No, it doesn't count, that time you cashed out your income tax refund and you went home and rolled around naked in it. I'm talking about paycheck money here, pervert.




 

Ok. So I figured out how to change this damn thing back to the normal, old, original interface I've looked at for the last, oh 5 freakin years or so, but it's looking like I can't easily use or read any of the twitter/facebook knock-off status update stuff. What am I missing here? I don't use twitter at all, and facebook only occasionally, so I'm easily confunded by all this here newfangleded stuff, lol. Should I just bite the bullet & switch over to facebook?

Just got back from Trucks latest vet trip. Just two months ago, she just barely weighed a pound and had a heart murmur that rated 4- 4 1/2 on a severity scale of 6. Now, she weighs 3 pounds and her murmur has gone down a full point. It's always going to be serious and will require medicine, but she has continually outshined her odds at every turn.

Bill and I have had very little luck giving the rest of the kittens away. We still have 4 big handsome, healthy boys that need good homes and we are running out of options.

To make matters worse, my mom also has a litter of strays now. A mama cat showed up at her house a couple of months back and she's given birth to 5 kittens underneath a shed. They are a month old and she has yet to pick any of them up, but she is making progress convincing them that she's safe. When she can get them, she's going to bring them in the house and try to find them homes.

Her landlord also gave her the ever-so-nice surprise of dumping off a neutered, declawed adult tom at her house, due to his daughters pregnancy (who lives with him). She's tried to give it a go having her cat and this tom see if they can get along in the house, but it isn't working out, so she is really desperate to find someone who would take a adult cat.

If anyone has any ideas or leads of any kind, please let me know. I would appreciate it greatly.

Anybody seen the tv show on A&E called Hoarders? I feel weird about saying it's one of my favorite shows because it is just so sad to see how badly the accumulation of stuff can affect peoples lives.

Honestly, I have some hoarder tendencies myself. These tend to be personal items like shoes, jewelry, purses, etc. I'm also really bad about collecting lipsticks. Despite the fact that I do actually throw old ones away, I recently cleaned out my current purse to swap into a much smaller one and found that I had 3 chapsticks, one tiny sample, and 12(!) full sized lipsticks. And 4 of these were duplicates. Apparently, I must have liked the color so much that I bought two of them!

These tend to be little things by themselves, but once they get combined with my husbands stuff and then that gets combined with the constant generosity of my mom, I've definitely hit some points where I feel very overwhelmed with the amount of stuff that I've got in the house.

In a lot of ways, Hoarders is a similar idea to two other shows that I watch, BBC's How Clean is your House? and TLC's Clean Sweep. But one major difference is that Hoarders deals specifically with the psychology of hoarding, its causes and effects.

For one thing, families influence each other. I've always known that there are things in both mine and my mom's backgrounds that would tend to lend itself to us both surrounding ourselves with objects in order to feel a sense of material security.

One way that this manifests itself doesn't seem on the surface to be a problem at all. My mom is a clearance shopper DE-Luxe. She always knows where the bargains are stashed away in the stores and almost always has a coupon. I have either inherited or adopted her ways on this and relish the days when I walk out of stores with a bag full of bargains.

And for years and years, there have been entire months that have gone by where I have not had to purchase dishwashing liquid, shampoo, towels, etc. because of my moms bargaining prowess and total generosity.

The trouble in paradise here is that I almost never throw anything away. I have an issue about examining things item by item, deciding that they are still useful or still have the potential to be useful until I eventually reach a point where there simply isn't room for all of it.

It has taken me a long time to confront this about myself. Examining things item by item can be a good thing, but without a realistic Big-Picture view, it can fail to take things far enough. Useful or not, every home has a limit for how much stuff it will hold. My home hit its limits quite a while ago and Bill and I will definitely be spending a good chunk of his upcoming vacation doing some much needed Fall Cleaning.

I've also realized just how much the excess amounts of stuff actually keeps me from finding things that I like much more than just what is easy to get to. I hit a point a while back where I realized I had too many bath towels for the cabinet space that I have. This creates the problem that I can be lazy about washing towels because I have plenty more. A good half of these towels were old and frayed and should have been thrown away. I made the determination of how many towels would fit in the cabinet comfortably, picked out my favorite, nicest ones, threw the crappy ones away and made a nice donation pile for Goodwill out of the remainders.

I think watching Hoarders has actually been one of the most mentally useful things I've done in a long while. The elements of psychology involved really did get me thinking about my own situation, the elements involved, and has definitely helped kick-start a different way of dealing my stuff.






 

Sometimes, the best thing to cheer me up is really craptastic old pop music. How I love it so..



This one is great for when you have some fat-ass middle-management type making a special trip to your workplace just to tell you that you suck

Just plain awesome:

On impulse Bill and I planted some more seeds last month in the possibly vain hope that we could have a few more things come in before frost. So far, we've got radishes, lettuce, turnip greens & swiss chard emerging, so we'll actually get to see how they fare during fall here. Dug up some more sweet potatoes. They did better than I expected, but our soil is just wwwaaayyy too clay for potatoes in general. This coming spring I want to dig 4 raised beds, amend them with coarse sand & compost and use them specifically for potatoes, onions, carrots and a few other root crops.

We were surprised that the raspberry we planted this spring is actually yielding. It's not much, but considering that a very small, shallow container of raspberries from the store typically costs 3-4 bucks a thing, I think we will end up at least having broken even on the original cost of the plant.

This winter is going to suck it. It's pretty amazing how quickly I got used to having my own homegrown vegetables. I couldn't tell you when I last bought a bag of onions or carrots from the store. Unfortunately, it won't be long before we'll have used up the last of what we grew and have to start buying them again. And I really don't look forward to it.

One thing is for sure, if the word 'vegetable' makes you think of the produce section of Walmart, you are seriously missing out. There are so many more varieties of everything than you could even imagine. In the grocery store, there is only one kind of carrot - the one that comes in a bag. In reality, there are carrots of practically every color, and they all have different tastes.

The crap from the store is just what ships well. It's what looks pretty for the longest amount of time. And usually, it has no flavor and makes people think they hate vegetables. So instead, we eat twinkies, get fat & diabetic and die young.

the big health care speech tonight. Don't know if we'll hear any specifics, at least in terms of what any of the actual legislation is going to look like, but who knows, I might be surprised.

Can't say that I truly understand the "trigger" option that is going the rounds, but for good or for ill, I'm feeling like that is where we are heading... If I had to hazard a guess, I'd imagine the house is going to initially pass a bill with a robust public option, but the senate version will not, and that the compromise bill will have agreed-upon elements of reform, but the house version of the public option will be on a 'trigger' basis. Possibly some fairly substantial increase in the number of people who would be added to Medicaid as a consolation prize?

I'm sorry if this sounds cynical. It may look nothing like this, but this is the vibe I'm getting.

Gooma (the striped one who looks just like her dad, Goomer) and Truck at around 3 weeks old.


Took her to the vet yesterday for a check-up and see if she needed a medication adjustment. So far, she's on the right dosages, but that may change after she gains a little bit more weight.

She's doing very well. It's hard to believe that just about a month ago she weighed less than a pound and was in very bad shape. Now, she's almost doubled her body weight and is really active and playful.

She's my girl.

The long term prognosis is still poor, but for the first time ever, the vet actually talked about things we could possibly do for her in the future. Just hearing the word "future" in association with her makes me both smile and cry. And whatever that future holds for her, she's both doubled in size and lived twice the life already than any vet thought she had. I say a prayer every night in thanks for one more day with her.