THE Worst puppy in the WORLD..tribute to a good dog.

I was going to write about what a fuck-job that CAFTA is for the American worker...but, I'm sidetracked.

You see, the worst puppy in the world who grew up to be the most good-hearted dog in the world died today. John F. Kennedy. He lived with my ex-boyfriend Chris and his wife Ruth. I visited Jack often, and now I realise too late, not often enough. I miss Jack already. He hated having his photo taken.

Chris and I had been burglarised in March of '93. We had bought a house for a reasonable sum in a neighborhood(Western & Armitage) where white folks were not appreciated, in fact, Chris had an anonymous, threatening, racist hate letter put in his mail-box once. The burglars took lots of stuff. My Rickenbacher bass, a computer, and a stereo that contained a cassette with the immortal song "Axel Rose is a Pussy". After some time, and major fortification, we decided we needed a watchdog, too. Even after the fortifications, we'd still come home and see where a crowbar had been applied to the door frame. This is why we decided we needed a dog.

One night after work we set off to the David R. Lee Animal Shelter on S. Western Avenue, and asked to see dogs and puppies. The staff happily showed us some. Right away, I fell in love with this medium size all black thing with silky hair, sorrowful, frightened eyes, and a tail that waved just dejectedly enough to let you know that YOU were her last hope. And we may have been. Oh the guilt. I feel the guilt just thinking about her right now. I want to save every animal in every animal shelter. She was already a full grown dog...didn't get along with cats, though, and we had 3...Spot, Mikey and the Puma. So, we figured a puppy was our best bet. I don't remember seeing Jack for the first time, or specifically choosing him. I think Chris did.

I must have gone into shock. It was, and is, all a blur. And all the yelping and barking ...Pick Me! Pick Me! Pick Me! Hello! Hello! Feed me! I had never had a puppy before, or a dog.

So, somehow we ended up with this 8 week old puppy. Mostly Black and brown, and some white. A handsome fellow, and already gelded. The staff at the pound were delighted...a bunch of young African American guys saying stuff to the puppy like: "Shit, slick, you gonna go live in a nice house now, your own TV with a remote" This amiable and happy conversation snapped me back to conciousness. I remember distinctly them telling me he would weigh 70 lbs. full grown. We finished filling out the paperwork, paid them some money, and we left, with our puppy.

Tip off of things to come: On the car-ride home, the puppy peed all over my lap. I looked at his feet. His feet were HUGE. When we got the puppy home, and put him down on the floor, the first thing he saw, and the first thing that saw him, was Spot. Spot was not happy, and puffed up to 3 times his normal size. Spot, to this day, is called the Porcupine because of that instant. The puppy charged. He wasn't going to hurt Spot, he just wanted to say "Hi." Puma took him in stride, and Mikey and the puppy became fast friends and together invented a game called "slappy", eventually.

Chris's parents and brother had a dog named Mac at the time, and after a month or so, we took the puppy over to meet his Uncle Mac. Mac was terrified of the puppy, because the puppy spent a good deal of time trying to hump him. Because of this behaviour, I named the puppy John F. Kennedy. Jack. Chris called him Jacobin Saluki, because Chris liked to fancy that Jack was a Saluki. And a Jacobin. The vet said he was part Bernese Mountain dog, and I always thought he looked exactly like a Swiss Mountain dog. But Jack was a mutt.

Chris's mother loved Jack..she could calm him down when no-one or nothing else could. I hope they have found each other by now. And Mikey, and the Puma, too. And Frank Gomez...Jack annoyed the hell out of Frank, so I hope by now Jack has stuck his nose in Frankie's crotch a few times.

Jack liked to eat furniture...he ate 4 couches. Apparently, he had separation anxiety. One day I came home from work and the living room was knee deep in couch stuffing. One morning we woke up and another couch had been destroyed AND dragged in front of the bedroom door. Jack was also part beaver, the baseboards being especially tasty.

Jack could be tiring...from the second we got home from work, to the second we went to bed, he would want to play fetch...endlessly. And I'm sure it remained that way until today.

Jack had already blown by 60 lbs by the time he was 6 months old. We got burglarised again, when he was about 6 months old, and the next day, whilst waiting for the police evidence technicians to come(they never showed up) I taught Jack how to bark. We never got burglarised again after Jack found his voice. He sounded so mean...if only they knew.

Then there was the time when he was a puppy, that he had diarrhea so foul and for so long(about a week..it was nothing..just something he ate) that I completely lost my appetite, and lost 20 Lbs! The dog shit diet! Jack liked to eat things, things that may have not been too good for his digestion...here is a partial list:

Cat poo
Pencils
Pens
Pot
Wallets
Money
Dove Soap
Paper
Plastic
Plaster
Wood
Fabric
Couch stuffing
Hopes and dreams(Just Kidding, Jack)

He refused to be housebroken until he was about 5 years old. We tried everything except throttling him. Chris put linoleum down on the floor(to cover the oak flooring that his urine had ruined) and Voila! housebroken dog.

Jack kept growing and growing...he ended up, in his prime, weighing about 130 lbs..I was out walking Jack in front of the house one day and a Puerto Rican guy walked by, pointed to him and said "feo!" Ugly.

I taught Jack a few tricks..sit, speak and shake. Later, Chris taught him roll-over. In his later years, Jack would combine all these small, amateur tricks into one big trick. You asked for sit? Well! You also get speak, shake and roll over, too! Per Chris..here is the order of Jack's tricks:

Jack's full routine =Sit -- paw -- other one -- give me a kiss -- lie down -- roll over -- moo like a cow

Jack loved people. 'Cuz the people would give him fetchings, pettings and snausages. He always remembered me, and he would always boop me when I came through the door. He was very protective of his food in general but especially his growl food(canned food), his blanket and his special chair. The kitties could eat some of his food while he was eating it...but He did NOT share his food with the peoples! Or his blanket! Or his special chair..ok, you could sit in his special chair...but you were not permitted to make a fuss about it. When you don't own much...everything you do own is important!

God, I have so many memories.... and pictures....and that is all I have. Memories are cheap and simple, and they aren't nearly enough.

Because of Jack, I will never have another puppy. But someday I WILL have another dog. Someday.

Beer Not Afraid!

Here's a very rational account of one Dave Taurus's experience when the Tube he was on blew up on 7/7. Read all about it here. Then he kindly invites us all to the local pub for a pint to shout down the darkness. If we stay sober, the terrorists win! He uses the c-word, but in that charming English way. I will use it later in that filthy American way.

The hardest thing for me to believe in all this is not that it happened...(Dan and I have discussed many times my puzzlement as why it hasn't happened here yet) and not that it happened again(thank god for inept bomb makers), but the biggest surprise for me was the London cops chasing down, knocking down and shooting an un-armed and innocent man while the man was on the ground in the tube station.

This behaviour is what one would expect from the Chicago Po-lice. Every once in a while the Chicago Po-lice take out a full page ad in the local newspapers, to tell us how to behave if stopped and questioned by one of these nervous and trigger happy morons. Stay in your car. Keep you hands in plain view. Don't even look at them... Chicago Cops are America's Happy Fun Balls! A couple of weeks ago a highly regarded(by his congregation)and powerful minister had his car stopped by a Chicago policeman. The reverend made the silly mistake of getting out of his chauffered car to see what the officer wanted. He was greeted by racial epithets(not just swearing, like the article says) and a gun stuck right up in his grill. Here's the story.

I hope every one of the bobbies involved in this very cold blooded shooting gets prosecuted and jailed for pre-meditated murder in the 1st degree. But they won't be, they'll get off scott free.

SPEAKING OF CUNTS....

I left work early on Thursday, July 14th, as I had to go to an appointment in Algonquin. In order to get there the quickest, I had to get to I-90. In order to do so, I took Dempster straight west. I arrived at the scene of one of the most horrendous auto accidents I've ever seen.
The three short intersections by the Skokie Swift were completely blocked off, and surrounded by yellow police tape. I could see 2 cars flipped upside down in the middle of the intersection. The accident had happened fairly recently, as there was no traffic back-up on Dempster, east or west bound, and there still was a large crowd of witnesses or gawkers standing around. I could tell by the amount and presense of police tape that it probably was fatal. I finally got around to doing some research on the accident, and here is what I found. A young woman has a fight with her mother or boyfriend, becomes suicidal, and races through the closely spaced intersections @ 70 MPH until she rear-ends a car sitting at a stop-light. 3 people killed, 2 injured. She broke her foot. The deceased were all Chicago musicians, on their lunchbreaks from their day jobs at Shure in Niles, one of whom I knew tangentially. She issued an apology. Mighty big of her.

The notoriously abrasive, smart and talented Steve Albini wrote a tribute (you'll have to print it out to read it) to one of the men. Didn't know you had it in you Steve. Well, actually I did...

I am against the death penalty. In Illinois, it hasn't worked out so good, what with the freeing of 17 innocent men from death row. This idiot is charged with triple homicide, so my proscription for punishment for her is: Fasten her inside a car, and take it out to a safety-test range where they test cars for crash worthiness. Have them use one of their battering rams, and slam it into the car door nearest to where she sits @ 70 MPH. The attendance of her friends and family to this event would be forced. If she lives, she lives. If not, oh well.

I thought the whole idea of suicide was that you didn't take anyone with you? I'm not talking suicide bombers, or Klebold and Harris. I'm talking the actual, old fashioned type that you do all by yourself, and only to yourself in the loneliest hour of the very darkest night of your soul.

I'm stuck in the house because of the heat, and this has given me time to type about topical stuff, which I have decided I'm not very good at.

Southern Dyscomfort...

Here's a story for you...fresh from the Straight Dope message boards. Anyone who is from the south will understand, and, as one poster put it...It's Tennessee Williams on Mescaline. A long a multi-partite read, but well worth it. Sampiro is our protagonist....

Chicago Heat Wave, 1995

Recently passed was the 10th anniversary of the Chicago heat wave of 1995. Over 700 people died of the heat. Mostly the poor and/or elderly and/or minority. Here is the long-winded story of how it affected my life...

At the time it was happening, I lived on the third floor of a 3 floor building on the SE corner of Chicago and Damen, 1959 W. Chicago Avenue, Apartment 3R. I didn't have air conditioning at the time. It had been a hot early summer, I recall it being really hot both before and after the "official" heat wave.

I used 2 box fans to cool me off wherever I was in the apartment. It was a hot enough summer already.

I really loved that apartment, it was charming. Even though, when I moved in, the walls were a Pepto-Bismol pink with black trim. Some friends and I soon re-painted it with light grey walls and medium gray trim. A very large kitchen, with a built in oak hutch and an old fashioned farmer's type sink. I imported a large, 18" wide, 6 foot tall three shelf pantry like thing I had scavenged from the alley behind Sean and Myron's. The toilet was in a closet type of space, and the bathtub was in another room that had obviously been a 2nd bedroom at one time. There was a closet in this room, and I used it as storage and an additional pantry. The living room was about 20x12 or so, kind of big, and the bedroom was off of that. I had a borrowed 12" black and white TV..and I was happy with that. And my stereo. There was a large but narrow window in the bedroom. The windows in the living room were huge...you could stand on the sills and spread your arms out in them, and barely touch the frames. The height of the frames was at least 8 feet. There was a clear view of the south/southwest/west/northwest sky...I could always watch storms rolling in. Something I like to do. Because whatever I have going on inside is less violent than a thuderstorm. I get some kind of resolution and closure out of them. See, it will be over, and the sun will shine and the birds will sing.

My dad had called me a week previous to the official heat wave..he knew I didn't have an air conditioner, and wanted to know if he could send me the money to buy one. There weren't any to buy, all the stores were out of them. He said no problem, I'll buy one down here(Florida) and ship it to you. Which he did. I'll never forget the kindness.

Monday, July 16th, 1995 was really hot. The apartment was stifling, even with the faithful box fans going full force. I could not sleep. Sometime around midnight, I got up and found a left-over 5mg. Valium from an old prescription and took it. I had started a new job on July 5..and I needed to get some rest. Layed down and went to sleep. About 2:45 AM..something woke me. The silence, maybe. The fans were silent, and my clock was blinking ..12:00...12:00...12:00....or was it the crackle of walkie-talkies? But I woke up. I saw smoke. Heavy smoke. I laid there for another 5 seconds..unbelieving. I saw shafts of light from emergency vehicles poking through the smoke. Then I thought FIRE.

The first thing I did was stand up..the smoke was at just above head level. I wrapped a bedsheet around myself. I saw Spot, my cat, and grabbed him to stuff him into the carrier, but he wormed away from me and ran. I couldn't see the other 2 cats. I thought, okay...you have to save yourself. I walked to the door of my apartment, and, for some reason, I remembered those public service announcements that said when you vacate in a fire, put your hand against the door. If the door is hot..find another way out. I put my hand against the door...and got 2nd degree burns on my palm. Okay...can't go out that way. For some reason, when faced with true danger, I get ultra calm and rational.

I immediately went(crawled..the smoke was thicker and heavier and closer to the ground now, and starting to make me cough a lot) to my living room window, and set the plants that were on the window sill aside, and opened the window. I don't remember if I yelled for help, I think I did...but I do know the firemen had a ladder up there in about 10 seconds. The freaking second I had the window open, amidst all the other noise and confusion, they saw and heard me at that window. They were all yelling hold on hold on hold on!

There was a ladder up to my window, and a fireman with me in my apartment in a hearbeat. This man "ran" up the ladder. The fireman instructed me on how to exit. "but my cats" I said. "forget about your cats" said he. I had to climb up on the windowsill, get halfway out the window and turn around, 35 feet off the ground ..butt facing away from the building...and climb down the ladder. Whilst clutching my bedsheet, I was naked save for the bedsheet. And I'm afraid of heights.

The rungs on the ladder were of a corrugated finish...and the corrugations dug into my feet, and hurt. The fireman was below me on the ladder shouting hurry, hurry, hurry. They ALL were yelling hurry, hurry, hurry. Ouch, ouch, ouch. I did my best.

The SECOND I got off that ladder, a colony of firemen, like a column of ants, were back up it in a flash, chopping holes in the roof of my building, not 30 seconds later. I could hear the crunching of wood, the yelling of people doing important work. Venting the fire.

In the 2nd second I got off that ladder, people from the Red Cross were there, asking me if I needed a place to stay, or some food? They go to all the fires, Bless them. And the paramedics, making sure my breathing was okay, and nothing was broken or injured. They treated the burns on the palm of my left hand.

In the 3rd second I got off that ouchy ladder and onto the ground, this nice(A surprise!)Wood District lady cop asked me if there was anything she could do for me. "my cats" I said. "I have 3 cats up there." She hustled right over to the fire commander at the scene and said something...but 10 minutes later, 1 of my cats was in her squad car. I got Mikey a little later.

My most vivid remembrance of that whole night is of the Puma sitting in the driver's seat of a Chicago cop car, rather enjoying himself. And the cop telling me she was allergic to cats, poor girl!
The fire happened because the landlord had the electrical for 3 buildings(residential and restaurants, too)running off of one circuit breaker box, which was located in an old, unused ventilation shaft , located acroos the hall from the door to my apartment. The box overloaded and caught fire, which was fed by air coming up the shaft.

I found my third cat in the apartment 3 days after the fire. Spot. I was sure he had perished in the fire, but my land-lady(who wasn't the owner)said let's check one more time. We looked around. Nothing. The she lifted up the front of the love-seat. I looked under it and saw four little cat feet balanced on the frame. Spot had hidden himself up inside the love-seat. We pulled the love-seat away from the wall, I got my sharpest knife, felt where Spot was, and cut around him, and freed him. I still have Spot, and he still has me.

I had renter's insurance, luckily. Everything I was not able to save was replaced. But it was still a huge bummer to lose that apartment.

Some guys stole the built in oak hutch that was in the apartment....it was seen being wheeled away down Chicago Ave. a few days later, LOL!

The air-conditioner my father mailed me arrived the Friday after the fire, and I used it up until 3 years ago, then gave it to my friend Bob, who is still using it today. A fine machine!

Rain again, Finally

Had an awesome storm today, too bad I had to be at work and miss it. I mean, the storm came to Evanston, too...but I couldn't really watch it like I wanted to because I had to wuuuuurrrrk. Here are some storm pictures I took a couple of years ago in my back yard. We get some good storms out here, but I'm much less cavalier about severe thunderstorms than I was when I lived in Chicago..Chicago seems to be immune to tornadoes, and now I live in tornado-land. But I still get this weird thrill out of thunderstorms.

We surely needed the rain, and I'm glad to not be dragging 120 feet of hose around to try to water everything thoroughly in the 2 hours I am alloted to do so. It takes an hour to put down an inch of water with a normal type sprinkler. You shouldn't water your grass less than an inch of water a week...if you do, the roots will come towards the surface, thereby making them more easily dried out. Thereby making it even more prone to going dormant in a drought. Which is NOT to say I'm watering the grass. Fuck grass, I hate it. I water my gardens. My lawn looks like Arizona. So I'm always amused when I see my neighbor out trying to resuscitate his putting green lawn by watering it with the hose for 15 minutes. I've told him a million times he's just making things worse.

Fin De Siecle

The End of the Century.

I saw this movie last night. It's a documentary about the Ramones. I really, really miss them. and it was kind of a stab in the gut to realise how much.

I guess I'd have to say that they're the band that inspired me to be in a band. That I could do it, too. They gave me my still present aversion to guitar solos, any song lasting longer than 3 minutes and ever having more than 1 guitar player in my band.

I saw them many times when I was in my mid teens to early 20's...and I'm so glad I did, like I'm glad I saw Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker. The first time I saw The Ramones was about 28 years ago(!) at the Aragon Ballroom with Leslie West and Iggy Pop. I think Leslie West opened, it was his birthday and they brought him out a huge cake..which I hope he didn't eat any of, because at the time, he was a huge guy. It takes a big man to make a Les Paul look tiny. It was also my friend Diane's 16th birthday. I saw The Ramones several times after that. I always used to work my way up front and stand by the PA columns. Their gift to me besides some great memories and my love of aggressive music is a permanent ringing in my ears. The last time I saw them was in the lunchroom at College of Dupage in Glen Ellyn. This was right before they hung it up for good, I think(Edit:the last time I saw them was circa 1985, they hung it up in '96). My friend was working backstage security, so I was able to go right up to the stage and get pictures while they played. I have those pictures around somewhere, I hope. They were still so great..and fun. The best thing about them is that they sounded very threatening..but they were fun to listen to, and there was this innocence there, and who has NOT known this feeling:

Hey, daddy-o
I don't wanna go down to the basement
There's somethin' down there
I don't wanna go
Hey, Romeo
There's somethin' down there
I don't wanna go down to the basement

I always kind of tutted to myself about the fact that I was too old to really relate to the grunge movement, though I thought I did. It did that thing for my insides that the music that I love does, but Eddie Vedder told me I didn't really get it(This Is Not For You). I was all ears and open heart, you silly twat, the year punk broke. I was 17 years old in 1976. All YOU can do is watch the videos, and listen to the records. I was THERE. I was all ears in 1988, too, you weird-eyed fucker, when Nirvana released Bleach. HA!

The Ramones were the soundtrack of my emergence from dorky bookworm to....a pot smoking dork who actually had friends. Up until that time I had only and solely been my much more popular and cute sister's fat and unattractive older sister. Mike and Nick and Jim and Jeff and Gina and Kim and Shelley. ...we'd all sit around in Mike's basement talking, playing "power hitter in the dark" and listening to the Ramones, or the Talking Heads or the Jam or Iggy...I found who I was, somewhat, in Mike's basement. Funny what a little acceptance will do for a girl.

Then my mom bought me my first guitar..an epiphone 6 string acoustic, and my first bass, a green sunburst Rickenbacher copy. While I was in high school(hell on earth)I bought the first Sex Pistol's singles. In 1977. And I played them on the school radio station. And got in trouble for not going with the Eagles/Black Sabbath/Led Zep/Who/Jimi Hendrix/Pink Floyd fomula. I had a punk rock hair cut and wore a scarf that I had gotten from Steven Tyler at an Aerosmith concert. I figured I was already funny looking, why not be even more so? Punk Rock gave me my first tiny taste of some self esteem, and the realisation that if the pretty and popular kids think you're a loser..you're probably on the right track. I dropped out of high school soon after, a decision that to this day I do not regret. Got into a band with some girls from the Berkley/Hillside area, and in 1978 moved to LA to seek my fortune. All credit to the Ramones, Punk rock, and my friends, they all saved me from becoming something I was not.

On my computer desk, in front of me, sits a framed 8x10 photo of Johnny Ramone, taken at a show in NYC, in Central Park, in 1979. How fierce he was.

The movie made me sad. My world, at least, is a little bit less shiny because there will not ever be one more show.

Gabba Gabba we accept you, we accept you, one of us.

The Garden and Grover's story

It's hot, so I'm stuck in the house. And dragging the hoses around trying to keep things alive. Fuckity. We are having a barbecue next weekend, it should be lots of fun but it will be lots of work, too. And of course, it's supposed to be hot. Don't know how I'm going to pull this off...but we will.

I am going to make home-made ice cream, which is a trip because there is nowhere around here to get crushed ice, so that means I have to crush it with my car.

The temp receptionist got a job in a dept. at the university. Friday was John's last day. He's a nice guy, very smart and funny, and I will miss him. Easy on the eyes, too. He's also a talented writer...check out his blog here: Hear a Bitch Sing! Severe Blog envy!

Also, please check out another friend's blog...she is an excellent writer. Witty and insightful. Her blog is more about the news of the day than mine is: Senseofsoot. I am, again, in severe blog envy!

When I was living in Chicago at Division and Cleaver, I found a puppy, stuck in a fence. I freed the puppy, found some rope, fashioned a collar and leash, and took him home. Ran to the store, bought a can of dog food and gave him some water. After this feast, he took a big whiz and dump on the floor. Oh no. The vision I had immediately formed in my head of seamlessly incorporating this creature into my 3 cat household wilted and died a quick death. I should have realised it was useless by the way Spot, Jackson and Ruby puffed up to 3 times their normal size the minute they set eyes on the puppy, who by this time I had named Turd Ferguson. I called Henway Twingo and cried what the hell do I do with this thing. She and her husband came right over. And took him. And, after some misgivings...kept him. I will never forget their act of kindness to Turd, and especially to me. I needed another pet like I needed a hole in the head, and Henway realised this. I had just gone through a patch where I lost 2 of my cats in a 9 month period. Henway is rational and common-sense. I am not, in things like animals. The first is a picture of Turd, who was given a more respectable name, Grover. Grover is an NYC dog now, but he realises that nothing rocks like Chicago.

Stuff is blooming like nuts. It does look really nice, thanks to supplemental watering at the officially sanctioned times. Heh. My little prairie is kinda starting to look like a prairie. The seeded half looks a lot different than the plug half, though. There is tons of Daisy Fleabane on the seeded half. I am told not to worry about it. Here is a picture of how the driveway native plant garden looked 2 weeks ago. It's 2nd picture, in case you're mental.

Work

Here is a native plant I grow in my garden...Baptisia Australis. It's huge, because it doesn't really have competition from other close-growing prairie plants here. It's more of a specimen plant. When you see these things growing in the wild, they're much smaller. This plant gets about 4 feet high and 5 feet across..next year, i'm going to have to "ring" it. It's smothering things that are growing next to it. The good thing is it's loaded with seeds, which will give me more new little plants to plant in the prairie, and also lots of seeds to trade. I may have to divide this plant this fall, as it is way to big for its space. Or maybe I'll just move the stuff that's around it.

I went in to work late today, and got yelled at as I have been late for work 4 times since Jan. 1. which means out of the last 120 work days...I have been on time for 116 of them. How Abysmal!

I called today to say I had over-slept, I wanted to spare them the gory details... Hello, Trink..I had bad gastric upset and twitchy arms and legs all night. That kept me awake all night. This happens when it gets warm out. I got hardly any sleep. Its an MS thing. so, instead of taking a whole sick day off..I took part of a day off. And got critisized and threatened for it.

You know....it would be such a cool thing to have a job as a stocker at the Jewel. All I'd have to do is match the pictures on the labels.

Rain, Finally

We had a nice thunderstorm today, with lots of rain. Finally. Jeez...it's been so dry here, a farmer's nightmare. The corn was drying up in the fields..when corn gets dry the leaves roll and point almost straight up.

It's my favorite thing this weekend because I hate dragging the hose and sprinkler around watering things. On the assigned days at the assigned times. And god forbid you don't do it on the assigned day at the assigned time, or "officer friendly" (A Wauconda cop who's a real dick and looks like a baby)will come by and give you a ticket. Fortunately, my livelihood doesn't depend on the corn. I just want to make my flowers look nice. It's a sad thing when the prairie plants start drooping from lack of water...their roots go down 20 feet or more.

My evangelical christian neighbor keeps sending me really offensive and nasty stuff, such as an uber patriotic e-mail, with pictures, of how General Patton would be handling the war in Iraq now, or at least, those of us who are against it. Never mind that General Patton would be about 140 years old now.

About how Islam is an evil, murderous religion. And how Muslims (and ME) are going to go to hell if we don't pledge our troth immediately to Jesu. I want to go to hell when I die, I guess, so I can be with my non-christian friends.

Conveniently ignoring the fact that, during the Crusades, the bible commanded the crusaders to go into arab villages and kill everything that moved, and also proscribed that the heads of everything that moved should be stacked in piles at the city gates. Men, women, children and animals. EVERYTHING.

Jesus was a Stone-Cold, sabbath observing Jew. Christians still can't get over this fact. They've been trying for eons! Jesus was a jew who was killed by ROMANS, not his fellow jews, and they still can't get over this fact.

The gist of the e-mail was...our war in Iraq isn't an atrocity. 9/11 was an atrocity(yes it was!), though both W and Rumsfeld both said Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11. The torture of inmates at Guantanamo and Abu Ghariab is just like fraternity hazing! all the kids go through the exact same thing during pledge week!

If you belive that...I surely hope your son or daughter is chained to the floor, subjected to high/low temps and attack dogs, and has to shit or piss themselves. Or is compelled to form a naked pyramid with other pledges. Or is beaten and subjected to 24-7 high volume music(sleep deprivation). Or is subjected to religiously objectionable stuff...flushing the stupid
"Holy Bible" down the toilet, or having someone stomp on it. I wish all this and more for your children, you fucking stupid sheep. Keep watching Fox News...they'll tell you the truth. How about the rape videos from Abu Gharaib...wherein our finest rape young Iraqui children? Oh, the screaming. Seymour Hirsch saw the videos...when are they going to be released in america?

The other purpose of this stupid Jingoistic e-mail was to show me pictures of the be-headings. Hello, you stupid twats...IF WE WEREN'T IN IRAQ...NONE OF THESE BEHEADINGS WOULD HAVE HAPPENED~! Fucking DUH!~

Peculiar Shelf Butts.

The weather has "broken" for a couple days...i.e., it has cooled off some. I'm glad to get outside for a bit, I was getting quite mean and stir-crazy. I can't go out when it's hot. Garden is going gang-busters. I fear it may be all bloomed out way too soon. Here is a pic of some of what I'm growing. This a a native carnivorous plant, a pitcher plant. It's native to bogs in SE Georgia. It's a Sarracenia Oreophila. It is very rare, and very endangered in it's native habitat. It's a CITES Schedule I, appendix A plant, meaning it's illegal to buy, sell, or trade. It is, however, legal to give it away, and this is how I got it. I joined a carnivorous plant group. I guess their mission is to make these plants so easily obtained and cheap(or free) that there is no longer any need to poach them from the wild. It's a good idear in theory, but every week I hear about Venus Fly Traps being poached from their native habitat, which is a 100 mile radius of Wilmington, North Carolina. And this is the only place on earth these plants are native to. You can buy VFT's for $3.00 at Walgreens...I guess they're not cheap enough yet, because the people who are doing the poaching are getting all of 15 cents apiece. These plants are fussy..and test my gardening abilities. They must have rain water or distilled water...no tap water. Tap water will kill these plants. So, I either have to buy a reverse-osmosis water filtering system to put on my water lines, OR collect rain-water, OR buy distilled water from the store. I hasn't rained here in eons, I don't have a reverse osmosis system yet, so guess what? I'm buying water for the bastards.


Now, the shelf butt stuff~

Now see, here...I do have BIG Butt, but it's fairly normal looking by big butt standards. It's just overly large. But here at the Wauconda Jewel/Osco...I'be been seeing some fairly strange butts on women. Not that I really look, but these butts are so oddly shaped that they just kind of assail your eyes. The owners of these butts don't properly camouflage them OR hide them. Maybe they just are comfortable with their strange looking behinds. If that's the case, they're better women than I am and I say let the freak flag fly, sister/brother!

Comfort with how one looks is a concept comepletely alien to me...I'm always amazed when I see over-weight women or men wearing really tight clothing. I always think... don't you have mirrors in your house? Can you NOT see that you look like a walking package of hot dogs?

There's this one professor at work who is just hideous...he has a belly that's kind of melty, and flaps over his genital area..and he tucks his shirt in and wears a belt. His shirt conforms to the flappy belly. YUK~

I'm talking butts that jut out abruptly from the back. REALLY abruptly. Extreme Shelf Butt. On white women! You could put a doily and a vase on them, or a few books, and a pair of nice bookends. Or a bust of Socrates. I find myself wondering "now what could cause such a thing" In my large assed case, it's too much food, not enough excercise. In their case, it's the same, BUT....I don't have Shelf Butt.

It's the abrupt out-cropping of the gluteus that I don't quite understand. Hopefully, the NIH starts funding grants that will find the cause of this ummmm, syndrome? It's got to be a renegade Shelf Butt gene in the mitochondrial DNA that pairs up with the "I don't give a flyin rat's ass how I look, and what...wash my hair more than once a month?" gene that is expressed in pairs, and goes mostly to women. Do the men get the shelf butt?