Ohai, i give u lolz nao.

Western Conference Champions! WOOOOT!

(Photos courtesy of the Freep, as usual. Thank you, Detroit Free Press photographers, for making my new hobby possible!)

Round 3 Game 3

Moving right along through the Conference Finals....

(Photos, Free Press, you know.)

At last, more NHLOL

I'd planned on doing one of these up after each Detroit win, but with games every other night, it's hard to keep up! So here's a combination of LOLs from Games 1 and 2 of the Western Conference Finals against the Dallas Stars.

But first.... When I went to the Detroit Free Press's website to pull down the pictures for this grouping, I found a crowd shot with Casey and me in it! See, there we are!



(As usual, photos courtesy of the Detroit Free Press. Thanks, Freep!)

More LOLHockey

I just couldn't resist. 8-2! Sweep! WOOOOOOOOOO!

(Again, photos courtesy of the Detroit Free Press.)

LOLHockey!

In honor of the NHL Playoffs and the Red Wings' 5-1 beatdown of Colorado yesterday, I present: NHLOL. It's like LOLCats and LOLDogs, only bigger and sweatier!

(Original photos courtesy of the Detroit Free Press. Captions courtesy of me.)

Running Away From My Problems

And right now, my biggest problem is winter.

This has been a particularly nasty winter, in my opinion. It hasn't been nastily, unpleasantly cold for the most part (I've only needed my big down parka twice thus far), but the snow! The ice! The complete lack of foresight by Lucas County and City of Toledo officials regarding the amount of road salt they'd need!

That's right ladies and gentlemen, it's the iciest winter I can remember, and the road crews can barely be bothered to plow and salt.

Need I mention that because of this unpleasant combination, I had a spinout? I was on the freeway on my way to work one morning, and the freeway was extremely slushy. Everyone was driving very slowly and sensibly. I was in the left lane, getting ready to take the left hand exit that was coming up in a few miles. I guess one of my tires either caught in a rut or hit a patch of black ice, because I felt the car starting to skid off to the right. I thought I could bring it back under control, but I was wrong, because then the car started to spin. I spun around one and a half times exactly and landed on the right shoulder, lined up as neatly as if I'd parked there on purpose.

I have to admit I was in something resembling a stupor at that point. I did think to turn my four-way lights on while I was sitting there staring at the traffic coming towards me. Moments later, another car slid out and landed in the ditch right near me, and that was what "woke me up." "Oh, I should see if she's okay," I thought. She was, but she was stuck. She called her husband. I called work to say I'd be late, because it's kind of tricky to pull back onto the icy freeway, especially when facing the wrong way.

Luckily, a nice man driving a white van stopped to see if we needed help, and he stopped traffic so I could do a tight little 3-point turn and make my way back onto the road.

So after that terrifying experience, I think I have a little bit of PTSD regarding icy roads now. And of course all the ice and snow happens to be falling during rush hour this year. Two of my co-workers also had freeway spinouts recently. One landed safely on the shoulder like I did, and the other spun into the median and wound up on the other side of the freeway. Neither were hurt, both were terrified.

And it keeps snowing, and they keep NOT salting the roads. My two co-workers have the option of working from home on the nasty days; the company issues laptops to its permanent employees. Contract employees like me, alas, have no such recourse.

So yes, winter has been particularly nasty to me this year, which brings me to the running away from problems thing. Next week, thanks to a generous subsidy from my in-laws, Casey and I get a few days in Florida. At Disney World, no less! Woot!

I mean, running away isn't cowardly if I have to come back a few days later, right?

Dental Woe

Woe, woe, woe is me, and woe is my top left incisor.

Once upon a time, my top left incisor had a rather large filling right along the gum line. That filling came out. At the time, I had no dental insurance, so I didn't do anything about it.

Well, all these [mumble mumble] years later, I finally go in for a cleaning. The hygienist and dentist were very nice and said I must brush my teeth very well if it's been [mumble mumble] years and my teeth haven't fallen out yet, but there are a few cavities that need filled, and oh yeah, that one top left incisor is too far gone, so it's going to need a root canal and crown.

Now, all I knew about root canals is that people hate them, so when I got home I looked them up on Wikipedia. Big mistake! Aside from some truly disgusting photos of teeth, the description also involved the words "drill out the pulp of the tooth."

Still, since I didn't want the poor tooth to wind up even worse, I kept my appointment after work this past Thursday.

The technician was very careful to explain exactly what they were going to do, and that helped my nerves a lot. Even better was the fact that they used two syringes full of Novocaine, one on the front side of my gum and one on the back. The actual root canal itself I didn't even feel. I was able to just sort of zone out. (Which means there's now a note in my file about what a good patient I am because I hold perfectly still!)

After that, however, they had to shape my tooth down so it would hold the crown. And that was rather unpleasant. I mean, the vibration that comes when they're more or less using a dremel tool on my tooth just isn't fun, whether I can feel the pain or not! And I have to admit, the tooth (or what was left of it) was starting to hurt some when I was waiting for the tech to shape my temporary crown. The Novocaine was wearing off, I guess. And the tooth was probably embarrassed to be naked of its enamel.

But they finished in due course and I went on my way with prescriptions for Amoxicillin and Vicodin, with instructions to use Ibuprofen for pain during the day.

(As an aside, I'm really rather disappointed in Vicodin. Other people who've had it say it makes you feel all fun and floaty and gives you some really funky dreams. With me it just eases my pain and very gently makes me sleepy. However, the fact that it does ease my pain gives it a bonus over the Percoset I had when I broke my arm!)

So, yesterday when I was eating lunch, my temporary crown fell out. I called the dental office's emergency number, and the answering service paged Dr. Ahmed for me. When he called me back, he said to use a little bit of toothpaste to glue it back in, then come in to have it fixed better on Monday.

The toothpaste sort of worked--it would stay in for talking, and maybe even for drinking fluids, but I could tell that if I tried to eat with the crown toothpasted on there, it would just fall right off again, no matter how I tried to avoid having any food touch it. Sigh. So I got some denture grip goo and used that instead. The crown stayed on through dinner and overnight, but it was working loose, and then it fell out during lunch today.

Unfortunately, this time I didn't notice until I crunched down on it with my back molars. Um, yeah. That is one unusable crown. I suppose I'm lucky I didn't swallow it!

So now I have this horrible shaped-down, uncrowned tooth with which I have to go to work in the morning. And even worse, tomorrow we're being visited by an exec who has the power to decide whether my position stays or goes! (I will, of course, be heading straight to the dentist's office when work is done.)

I suppose I can just be careful of how I talk and smile tomorrow, and no one will notice. I've always been self-conscious about my teeth, so I'm used to not showing them anyway.

And hey, maybe I'll be lucky and the exec will have pity and decide I need to be hired as a permanent employee so I can be on their dental plan.... well, probably not much chance there. But I can dream.

Dear Sports Announcers:

You are not in Tampa Bay.
You are NOT in Tampa Bay.
YOU are not in Tampa Bay.
You ARE not in Tampa Bay.
You are not IN Tampa Bay.
You are not in Tampa BAY.
You are not in TAMPA Bay.

Tampa Bay is a body of water. Here, let me show you:


Perhaps you are a baseball announcer covering the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. If so, you are in the city of St. Petersburg. You are at Tropicana Field.

Or perhaps you are covering the Tampa Bay Lightning for the National Hockey League. If so, you are in the city of Tampa. You are at the St. Pete Times Forum.


Yes, I know it's confusing that the St. Pete Times Forum is in Tampa and not in St. Pete. Just bear with me here.

Perhaps you are covering football and you need to find the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. You need to go to Raymond James Stadium. This is in the city of Tampa.


Now, I do realize, brave announcers of sport, that Tampa Bay is now an acceptable name for what used to be called the Suncoast region, that lovely green-watered slice of Florida's Gulf Coast. If you were using Tampa Bay as the name of the region, I'd be fine with that! But this is not what you do. Oh no.

You insist repeatedly that you are in "beautiful downtown Tampa Bay." And to this I must, regrettably, take umbrage.

A multi-county tourism region does not have "a downtown."

A body of water most certainly does not have a downtown.

If it did, your reports from beautiful downtown Tampa Bay would look like this:


Please do keep this in mind as you mindlessly natter along, will you? It can only increase your credibility. If you're not going to shut up during halftime so I can watch the marching bands, you can at least get the correct name for the city you're in. I do hope this isn't too much to ask.

Sincerely,
Former Resident of Florida's Suncoast, Who Has Swum in Tampa Bay and Knows That It Is Wet

But I didn't want...

a pair of guinea pigs.

My mother-in-law gave me two little girl guineas for Christmas. Without asking first to see if I wanted them. And it's past the time limit during which they could be returned to the store.

I love guineas, don't get me wrong. I had my little Colin for years and loved him dearly. And these two little girls (Artemis and Athena, at least for now) are very sweet and pretty and make cute little tribble-purr noises.

But I didn't want guineas right now. They're messy and they take a lot of time and they're expensive to take care of properly. I don't have time. I don't have money.

I can't even bring myself to look at them. My kitchen table is now a place of dread. And I'm going to wake up in the morning, and they'll still be there, and we'll have to try to figure out what to do with them.

Who the bloody hell gives someone a pet without ASKING first?

Puma Man, he flies like a moron....

I actually got away with watching a MST3K movie for a homework assignment for my American Indian History class! This is the result. I am amused by how scholarly it looks. The one I'm actually turning in even has footnotes!

Representations of Aztec Character and Religion in The Pumaman

The Pumaman, released in 1980, tells the story of how Professor Tony Farms (Walter George Alton) discovers that he is the descendant of the Aztec "God From Other Worlds." The movie opens with a flashback to the God From Other Worlds leaving a gold mask on Earth. "With this mask, I will always be with you!" he intones from his spacecraft. Geography is clearly not the God's strong subject, because even though the opening text clearly states that this is an Aztec legend, the God is leaving the mask at Stonehenge (or an emaciated papier-mâché representation thereof). The God decrees that his son and his son's descendants will be the mask's custodians and they will have the powers of a man-god—a Pumaman. The movie then cuts to the modern day.

Kobras (Donald Pleasence) acquires the mask and wastes no time in establishing his status as the villain; he uses the mask to take over the will of Jane Dobson (Sydne Rome), the woman he hired to decipher the mask's Aztec inscription. (This causes a plaster representation of Jane's head to appear on a shelf.) Since the inscription warns that the mask is under the protection of the Pumaman, Kobras decides that the Pumaman must be killed. He sends his goons around London to throw potential Pumamen out windows.

Vadinho (Miguel Ángel Fuentes), the Aztec high priest, defenestrates Tony before the goons get there to do it themselves, and Tony lands on his feet unharmed. Vadinho runs after him and proclaims, "You are the Pumaman," before vanishing. Kobras decides that throwing prospective Pumamen out of windows is inefficient; instead he sends Jane to confirm Tony's Pumaman status. Jane invites Tony to come to her home that evening. The plan, of course, is that Kobras and his goons will kill Tony while Jane distracts him.

Fortunately for Tony, Vadinho shows up at Jane's house to rescue him from the thugs. While Tony has shown rudimentary puma powers up to this point (he can sense danger (unless the plot requires otherwise) and can see in the dark), he doesn't attain full Pumaman status until he puts on the mystical belt Vadinho provides. Tony is then able to escape by flying. Vadinho explains the Pumaman legend and Tony's other new powers, which include a form of astral and/or physical projection (the movie never makes this clear), the ability to use his hands as claws, and puma-like jumping.

When Tony finds and invades Kobras' mansion, Kobras looks at Tony through the mask, gaining control of him and causing another plaster head to appear on the shelf. Tony escapes, but Kobras takes away his powers and orders him to kill himself. Vadinho helps Tony escape the suicide order by guiding him to use his power to feign death. (This power was not removed because Kobras didn't know it existed.) Kobras is fooled, but Tony has no way of regaining his other powers. Vadinho goes to the mansion with explosives strapped to his body. Kobras looks at Vadinho through the gold mask. Vadinho hands the explosives to a nearby thug then promptly punches said thug in the nose. During the ensuing fight, the plaster head representing Tony falls to the floor. Jane, who has inexplicably fallen in love with Tony, smashes it, and Tony is free to use his powers. Tony "projects" himself to the mansion, jumps around like a moron on a pogo stick while Vadinho fights the henchmen, then goes after Kobras. Tony almost manages to look at Kobras through the mask, but Kobras drops through a trapdoor and escapes by helicopter. Tony pursues him. The helicopter crashes and explodes.

Next we see Vadinho, Tony, and Jane at Papier-Mâché Henge Stonehenge. The God From Other Worlds arrives in the spaceship to take the mask and Vadinho home to the temple, and the viewer is left to imagine that humankind will be safe as Tony and Jane start working on conceiving the next Pumaman.

The Pumaman was written and directed by Alberto De Martino, whose career was founded on directing movies with titles like The Triumph of Hercules, Holocaust 2000, and Miami Golem (imdb.com). In my mind, this conjures an image of someone whose movies were meant to entertain teenagers at the drive-in, not someone who has a penchant for skilled cinematic storytelling. While I was unable to find any source which explicitly states De Martino's reasons for making The Pumaman, film critic Albert Walker of The Agony Booth speculates that the primary reason was to quickly cash in on the superhero craze generated by the 1978 release of Superman: The Movie (agonybooth.com). Given the presence of a flying superhero and the fact that this superhero's powers are a result of his alien heritage, this seems as plausible an explanation as any. The story may also have been designed to take advantage of the popularity of “ancient astronaut” theories put forth by authors like Erich von Däniken in his 1968 book Chariots of the Gods. These theories speculate that the "gods" of ancient people were actually extraterrestrial in nature, not divine or spiritual (Wojciehowski 30).

Vadinho, the Aztec priest who guides Pumaman in the use of his powers, is the only non-white character in the entire movie. In some ways, Vadinho is a walking stereotype of a Native American. Physically, he's a large muscular man with the sort of face which gets an actor typecast as a bodyguard, henchman, or caveman (and Fuentes' acting résumé does bear this out) (imdb.com). His voice is deep and he speaks slowly, which is common in movie portrayals of male Indian voices (Meek 98). Vadinho is spared the indignity of speaking in broken, non-grammatical English, but his English is not as easy or fluid as that of the American characters around him. Still, since Vadinho is not from an English-speaking region, it would be unfair to characterize his English as stereotypical.

Vadinho has many traits of the “noble savage” and “Indian guide” stock characters. He has a special connection with the gods which the whites around him lack. He does not have an affinity for nature, as noble savage or shaman characters commonly do, but he is still the keeper of secret knowledge (media-awareness.ca). In spite of Vadinho’s insistence that the Pumaman’s power is meant to protect the Aztec people, all of his own wisdom and knowledge are devoted to helping the white Pumaman. Vadinho is the hero’s mentor but is not allowed to be the hero. Vadinho’s death is not required as the end result of his guide work, as it was for the Indian guides created by authors like James Fenimore Cooper, but he is still relegated to a supporting role (Averbach 76).

Vadinho’s actions, however, turn the popular stereotypes on their heads. He is a far more efficient fighter than Tony. Vadinho seems far more intelligent than Tony throughout the movie, and it is Vadinho who is prepared to sacrifice himself to stop Kobras through a suicide bombing. Even so, the movie undercuts the possibility that an Aztec man is the true hero by implying in several ways that Vadinho is not actually human at all, but is instead one of the Gods From Other Worlds. At one point, Vadinho says that Tony is the worst Pumaman he has ever seen. Vadinho and Tony appear to be approximately the same age, so if the Pumaman role is strictly hereditary, how many Pumamen could Vadinho have seen in his lifetime? Vadinho also has the ability to heal himself of cuts and bruises by the use of an amulet. Unlike the other characters, he is able to resist coming under the control of the gold mask. When the spacecraft arrives at the end of the movie to take Vadinho and the gold mask back to the temple, Tony asks if Vadinho is one of the gods. Vadinho, who has stressed humility before the gods up until this point, replies very non-committally that "We all are, a bit." Vadinho’s earlier dialogue gives every indication that if he were not one of the gods, he would refer to himself as “a humble servant of the gods,” or something of that nature. The movie seems to hint that the genuine Aztec descendants are unimportant as their mythology plays out in the modern day; their story is given to a white man and a god in disguise.

The version of Aztec religion depicted in The Pumaman is unique, to say the least. There do not appear to have been any puma gods in the Aztec pantheon, or if there were, they were minor. In the first fifty results from a Google search for puma Aztec, twenty-three listings pertain to this movie. Others are for soccer, video games, and shoes. Not a one of the first fifty mentions Aztec myth.

Perhaps the legend of the God from Other Worlds who left the Earth was based in part on the Aztec belief in the feathered serpent god Quetzalcoatl, who is said to have gone into the east after promising the people that he would return someday (León-Portilla 26-27). Still, many religions, including Judaism and Christianity, mention a god or godly figure who will someday return to the world. There is not enough detail given about the god in the movie to identify him with Quetzalcoatl.

Masks did play a role in Aztec religious ritual, but they were not intrinsically powerful. A mask was sacred because it was part of a priest’s ceremonial regalia, not because it was directly connected to the god it was supposed to represent (Brundage 1985 44). Vadinho’s role as the mask’s guardian does seem to fulfill at least part of the Aztec expectations for their religious leaders; one of the Aztec words for a priest is teopixqui, which means “he who keeps or guards the god” (Brundage 1985 101).

Vadinho emphasizes humanity’s free will throughout the movie. He tells Tony that the gods can not take the mask from Kobras because they do not interfere with humanity. When Vadinho is captured by Kobras, he is able to resist the mask’s powers by chanting the mantra, “Each man is a god; each man is free.” The historical Aztecs would not have recognized this concept. The Aztecs developed a warrior culture to obtain human blood and hearts to appease the sun god (Brundage 1975 40). They believed their purpose in life was to fulfill their debt to the gods who allowed them to live, even though this debt could never be repaid. The debt was one of blood. One way to pay was to slay enemies in battle or capture them for sacrifice on the sun’s altar, but another was to mutilate one’s own body (Brundage 1985 157, 188-189). Furthermore, the Aztecs believed that their fate was set at birth. The intercession of a benevolent priest could ameliorate unfortunate birth portents to an extent, but there was no way to entirely escape fate (Brundage 1985 180-181). Vadinho’s gentle New Age philosophy bears little resemblance to the blood-soaked rites of the classical Aztecs.

It is entirely possible, however, that the writer mixed up the Aztecs with the Incas. The movie’s opening text calls the God From Other Worlds an Aztec legend and Jane refers to the mask as an Aztec artifact, but Vadinho never calls himself Aztec. In fact, he says his home is in the Andes Mountains. The Mexican Aztecs certainly did not live anywhere near the Andes, the Incas did. Inca and pre-Inca artwork depicts priests shapeshifting into jaguars (Steele and Allen 161) (if we’re going to speculate that the filmmakers mixed up Incas and Aztecs, we can also wonder if they mixed up jaguars and pumas). The pre-Inca temple of Chavín is decorated with paintings of felines in human-like poses (Urton 15). Some historians claim that the Inca city of Cuzco was designed in the shape of a puma’s head, though this may have more to do with their leader Pachacuti wearing a puma skin as a symbol of strength than with any mythological event (Steele 162). The puma was also considered a powerful spiritual being who endangered the moon goddess during a lunar eclipse (Cobo 29).

Since a brief mythological survey makes it obvious that pumas (and jaguars) were more important to the Incas than to the Aztecs, it is tempting to try to make sense of The Pumaman by thinking that the filmmakers said “Aztec” when they actually meant “Inca.” I find it difficult to believe that this is a simple matter of mistaking one culture for another. Consider the lack of historical research. Jane refers to the mask as a 3000-year-old find, even though neither the Aztec nor the Inca cultures reached power before the early fifteenth century (León-Portilla 83; Urton 10). Consider the shoddy production values in evidence throughout the movie. The sarcens of “Stonehenge” bear only a passing resemblance to stone. The spaceship of the God From Other Worlds looks like a Christmas tree ornament. When Tony "flies," it looks like the crew used a fishhook through his waistband instead of a harness to suspend him in front of the bluescreen. His Pumaman costume consists of a navy blue sweatshirt with a gold mask on the front, a cape, and a pair of khaki slacks. The background music sounds like something you would hear if you walked up to an electric keyboard and pressed the “demonstration” button. Given all this, I find it hard to believe that the filmmakers did enough research into any of the subject matter to actually have any knowledge to mix up. Instead, I must conclude that they just didn’t care.

If I wanted to make a movie like this, I would start by making sure I either pulled the background from actual mythology or created a completely fictional culture. I would let Vadinho be the human hero and eliminate whiny Tony completely. If I didn’t have enough of a budget to create the special effects my story needed, I would instead hint at mystery offscreen and let the story and acting carry the movie. Spectacle and entertainment are not the same thing.

I chose to work with The Pumaman in large part because I think it’s one of the most hilarious bad movies I have ever seen. (In fact, I first encountered it as an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000.) On a deeper level, I liked the way Vadinho defied the traditional sidekick role to do most of the heroic work himself. I wanted to work with a “lowbrow” movie because the movies made for pure entertainment value are reflections of the culture and time which created them, maybe more so than the films considered great works of cinema (Rotella 12-13). I also have a strong interest in religions of other cultures, and I was hoping I would find some seed of an Aztec myth which the filmmakers had used for their background. I found no such story, but I can’t say I was really surprised. Even though none of my research uncovered a key with which I could make sense of The Pumaman, and even though all the meaning I could find led back to the dollar signs in the director’s eyes, at least I can still laugh at it.

Selected Bibliography

Averbach, Márgara. "The return of the Indian guide: New formulations of the Indian guide at the end of the 20th century." Comparative American Studies: An International Journal 2, no. 1 (2004): 75-90.

Brundage, Burr Cartwright. The Jade Steps: A Ritual Life of the Aztecs. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1985.

---. Two Earths, Two Heavens: An Essay Contrasting the Aztecs and the Incas. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1975.

Cobo, Bernabé. Inca Religion and Customs. Translated and edited by Roland Hamilton. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990.

Internet Movie Database. "Alberto De Martino." Internet Movie Database. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0210130/ (accessed November 23, 2007).

Internet Movie Database. "Miguel Ángel Fuentes." Internet Movie Database. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0297450/ (accessed November 23, 2007).

León-Portilla, Miguel. The Aztec Image of Self and Society: An Introduction to Nahua Culture. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1992.

Media Awareness Network. "Common Portrayals of Aboriginal People." Media Awareness Network. http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/issues/stereotyping/aboriginal_people/aboriginal_portrayals.cfm (accessed November 19, 2007).

Meek, Barbara A. "And the Injun goes 'How!': Representations of American Indian English in white public space." Language in Society 35, no. 1 (2006): 93-128.

Rotella, Carl. "Pulp History." Raritan 27, no. 1 (2007): 11-36.

Steele, Paul R. and Catherine J. Allen. Handbook of Inca Mythology. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, Inc., 2004.

Urton, Gary. Inca Myths. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1999.

Walker, Albert. "The Pumaman: a recap by Albert Walker." The Agony Booth. http://www.agonybooth.com/pumaman/default.asp?Page=1 (accessed November 20, 2007).

Wojciehowski, Eric. "The Return of Ancient Astronauts." Skeptic 5, no. 1 (1997): 30-33.

Thanksgiving, the way it should be

1. Sleep until around 10:30.
2. Go back to sleep for a little longer while cuddling husband.
3. Get up and shower while husband starts preparing ingredients for stuffing.
4. Note as sausage smell wafts into the shower that the smell of sausage cooking could probably be used to wake coma patients.
5. Go see if husband needs help with stuffing. He doesn't.
6. Eat light lunch while watching football.
7. Doze on couch while watching football.
8. Do prep work for random dishes while husband wrestles 11 pound turkey from slippery sweet brine into roasting pan and slides pan into oven. (I did offer to help, by the way.)
9. Wash dishes used so far so there won't be so many to do later. Also so we can all have matching plates at dinner.
10. Put together macaroni and cheese casserole to bake later.
11. Cut canned cranberry sauce into rounds, put in refrigerator.
12. Smell turkey.
13. Doze on the couch and watch more football.
14. Slice potatoes after husband peels and rinses them. Boil, mash with butter and milk.
15. Watch while husband pulls turkey from oven. Ooh and aah at its lovely golden appearance when the foil comes off.
16. Put macaroni and cheese and stuffing pans into oven for 30 minutes.
17. Catch up on dishes again.
18. Let in-laws in when they show up with rolls and pies. (Pumpkin AND chocolate!)
19. Enjoy wonderfully juicy turkey that doesn't even need to be squished through cranberry sauce while having nice, tension-free dinner conversation.
20. Eat pie.
21. Watch hockey. Attempt to explain hockey to in-laws.
22. Watch father-in-law become mesmerized by lava lamp.
23. Divide up leftovers so in-laws can go home before father-in-law is too sleepy/mesmerized to drive.
24. Finish watching hockey game with husband.
25. Decide to leave the rest of the dishes for the morning.
26. Take hot bubble bath.
27. Sleep!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I'm trying to help you, silly dog!

A few nights ago on my way home from work, there was a dog standing in the middle of Front Street. As I'm sure you can imagine, any place named "Front Street" would be a very bad place for a dog to stand.

This was a very big dog. He looked to be maybe part German Shepherd and part Mastiff or Rottweiler. Imagine a beefy, jowly German Shepherd with flop ears instead of up ears, and you'd have a pretty good idea of this boy.

Big Dog trotted off to the side of the road while I was waiting to turn and headed down the sidewalk. I didn't want him to run back in the road and get hit by a car, and he did have a collar, so I thought maybe I could coax him over and find out where he belonged, or at least take him to a local shelter or vet's office.

I pulled off into a warehouse's driveway-- it's all industrial on the east side of the Maumee River. The dog was around the corner of the warehouse. I approached very slowly, making sure I had a clear path back to my car on the off chance he turned out to be unfriendly. My hands were out so he could see them.

I have a theory that all dogs have the secret name of "Puppy." No matter who the dog is, if you call it Puppy, it will listen to you. Big Dog was no exception. He looked very interested when I called out, "Puppy! Come here, puppy!" Big Dog walked over and looked at me expectantly. I held out my hand for him to sniff. After a moment, Big Dog decided he approved and we could be friends.

I tried to pet him and get a good look at his collar and tag, but he moved his head so I couldn't. He was very polite about it and didn't growl or snap or anything, he just didn't want to be touched on his neck.

Hmm. Maybe if I got him over to the car I could get a better look? This patch of grass was uncomfortably close to Front Street, after all. A few people honked and waved as they drove by.

I asked Big Dog if he wanted to go home. He wagged his tail. "Come on," I said, and started towards the car. He happily bounded along just ahead of me, bouncing the way dogs do when you're going to throw a ball for them. "Want to go for a ride?" I asked him. He ran straight to my car. When I opened the door, he climbed right in as if we'd been doing this for years.

Right in to the front seat. Hold on here, Puppy, dogs ride in the back seat! I opened the back door for him (I have the sort of little back door where you can't open it unless you've first opened the front door) and he rather sheepishly climbed back over the driver's seat and into the back. He thought it was funny.

I still couldn't get a look at Big Dog's tag. I tried to reach again, and he politely climbed back out of the car. I absently bent to brush a pawprint off my seat, and when I looked up he was gone. I guess he went down the other side of the warehouse, where some guys were working. I couldn't see him, though, so I don't know where he really went.

I really was trying to help you, Big Dog. I hope you found your humans again.

Retraction

At least a partial one.

I really wish I had not posted the previous post. I suppose I could delete it, but since it's been up for awhile and people have read it, I really don't want to do the 1984-style revisionist history thing.

It seems there are not physics/astronomy classes that can be taken at night, nor math classes of the level I'd need. So for now I'm still in the history program. I will probably stay with it; I'm SO close to being qualified for admission to the full Master's degree program, and I'm not quite willing to give that up!

So for this semester, I have American Indian History on Tuesdays and Early Middle Ages on Thursdays. Do you realize, there was a guy in the Early Middle Ages class who got offended that the prof was mentioning Jesus and the church in that historical context? It's kind of hard to learn early medieval history without hearing about the church!

Back to School

Today I begin something very different. Of course I was in school this past year, but that was with 3 credits (one class) per semester. This time around? NINE credits, and still working full time! I have 4 credits worth of Math on Mondays and Wednesdays, then 5 credits worth of Physics on Tuesdays and Thursdays, with a lab section after the Tuesday class. Most days I'll be home by 7:30 or 8, except Tuesdays.

But this is only a difference of size, not kind. (I was going to say a difference of degree, but that would be a very bad pun in a post about college.)

The real change is my change of major. Why would a history major be taking math (Algebra/Trig) and physics?

That's because I'm an astronomy major now. Well, technically it's physics with an emphasis in astronomy/astrophysics, but it's close. It's something I've wanted to do since I was very little. I had space books on the shelf right next to my Little Golden Books!

It's going to be a long road. It's not quite starting over, but close. But now I am on the road, and we shall see where it goes.

June 21, 2007

On the Summer Solstice, the day of most light, I married my beloved.

And so it begins. :-)

Puppies!!!!!!!!!!!

This is my new favorite website in the entire world.

The Daily Puppy

On Being Thirty

Yes, here I am, the big 3-0!

And I'm waiting patiently for the significant life change which is supposed to come with it.

*waits*
*waits*
*waits*

Meh, if I sit around and wait, I'll still be here when I'm 40.

So far the only thing unusual about being 30 is the sound of it. I mean, after ten years of starting my age with 2-, it's a little tricky to get used to it starting with 3-.

My cousin left me a well-meaning voicemail on my birthday (which was Thursday, but I've been too sick to blog!) reminding me that I'm not really 30, I'm just 29 + 1!

Nope, I really am 30. But I don't mind it. The 20s were not all they were cracked up to be, believe me.

A few months ago while shopping for a birthday card for someone else, I saw a card that would be absolutely perfect for my opinion about 30. The outside said, "If 50 is the new 30, then 30 must be the new 10." Then the inside said, "So who's up for a juice box and a game of dodgeball?"

So, you can watch me for wrinkles and gray hairs if you like, but you'll have to catch me first! ;-)

Color!

Hey, nifty, we can change the colors of everything now! Pretty. :-)

Denver?

My cousin Jamie is moving to Colorado at the end of May.

We were raised up together, constantly together, like sisters with two moms. We had bunkbeds when we were little and would whisper together at night to make each other laugh. We’d spend long hot Florida days playing with the hose or wading in the cool shaded ditch, then resting and watching cartoons in the hottest part of the day before going back out to run around the yard as the twilight dimmed to the deep hazy violet of the shore. We’d fight bitterly and make it up just as quickly, and in those sticky summer days when our school friends lived far away on the other side of town, we were each other’s constant companions.

Her family moved to Michigan a year before mine did, and it was a very lonely year.

In high school we struggled to find identities separate from the other, but we were still always together.

We grew apart some when I went away to West Virginia for college. She didn’t have email yet, and long distance calls are pretty pricey for students. But when I’d be home for vacations we’d have sleepovers and stay up until all hours catching up.

Once I moved home it seemed to be hard to make time to visit. Between our different work schedules and all the other demands of being grown, it was tricky. My move to Ohio did not improve things in this regard. The remarkable thing about it is that when we did manage to see each other, we would chatter away as if we hadn’t ever been separated at all. She was my maid of honor when I married my ex, and if Casey and I were having the kind of wedding which had attendants, I’d ask her again.

And now she’s moving all the way across the country. According to Mapquest, it is 1225 miles from Toledo to Denver. She’s got friends out there, so she won’t be alone. The economy is great in Colorado, so she’ll be able to find opportunity. And she never liked Michigan any more than I did. So this is a wonderful thing for her to do and I’m very happy for her.

But I am going to miss her very much.