March 17. 2003

Happy...today.  I'm not a big fan of St Patrick's Day for a couple of reasons.  One is that when I was little, I thought a holiday where you didn't wear a particular color would result in being pinched mercilessly.  After I grew up, I learned that St Patrick drove the "snakes" out of Ireland and then later, I learned that the snakes were actually the Celts who had been tortured and slain until most of them left Ireland, hence, the "snakes' were driven out.  Thousands of volumes of valuable historic Celtic volumes were destroyed when the libraries were decimated and burned (Didn't know those mangy Celts could read, write or keep books, eh?  The Celtic Druid Priests were book moguls!).  As a rule, I'm not into celebrating holidays that glorify people (and particularly literature) dying.  Even for Fourth of July, I use the day to celebrate the greatness of our country rather than the British and Americans who died in its creation.  For me, St Paddy's is toward a specific guy who was pretty blood-thirsty, so I can't really get into celebrating his day.

I will, however, celebrate what a wonderful day today is.  I had a really great weekend doing almost nothing.  Saturday morning was a musical program for the kids at school.  Both of them were wonderful.  It was also a pancake breakfast, so we waited in line for an hour for that, which wasn't great fun. 

Didn't do much the rest of the weekend, except for the Full Moon ritual Saturday night.  We "jumped the broom" to commit into what we will be planting in our lives this year at Spring Equinox and I'll be working on the weight and getting a lean, strong, healthy body.  I'd put off working on it on this level for a long time, but my trial run before Spring Equinox has been successful and I think that's a really good indicator that it's finally a good time to do it.  That means I should be pretty close to finished by October 31st when harvest ends. 

Eric borrowed a tiller and turned up the back yard, then seeded it with grass seed.  Immediately, we started to get rain and although we don't have any signs of growth yet, I'm hopeful that we'll actually get some green out there this year.  It's our first year without a dog in the back to run over everything, so there might be a hope.  I've seen little sprouts here and there before the seeding, so I know *some* things can grow. 

Our pets are starting to pare down.  I placed an embargo on pets a couple of years ago and the only thing that has made it through are Delena's hermit crabs (the perfect pets, even if they are not cuddly).  We have an outside cat, Creep, who is really Josh's cat and comes in to slum with us once in a while.  He's very tame, very fixed and very large.  He's also very polite, which is nice. 

KC is a very old kitty, about 12 or so.  She's a pile of bones with an irritable tummy and a strong affection for catnip.  Weird cat because she doesn't like tuna, but will lick up the juice from it.  Both of my cats are housebroken.  I hate cat boxes.

Still have the two water turtles and learned over the weekend that God is a female (how Wiccan!) and Q is a male.  Evidently, you tell by the length of their claws.  Water turtles are horrid pets.  If you are thinking about getting one, don't.  Ours are each about 8-9" across and there are reasons these things live in ponds.

Lastly, I have Dixie, our blind, ancient Chihuahua mix.  She turns 18 (wow) this year.  I'd have her put down if she didn't still wag her tail so much.  She sleeps a lot and is usually under my desk.  She spent 3 days in doggie jail last summer.  We had the garage door open a few inches to let the heat out, she went out to the garage to pee and turned the wrong way.  The pound report said she was picked up in our front yard.  (?!)  We had to pay a ton of fees to get her back, which sucked. 

No more pets.  I've got lots of pet rules and one of them now is no more pets.  I think it's the nurturing thing and I just don't have much of that to give to even one more creature.  Lord knows I'm the one who ends up getting to take care of whatever comes into the house.  If any pet is gained by this family, it will be a weinie dog, who will be named Elvis.  That's my rule.

I also have an innate distrust of pets.  Sad, eh?  I've seen and had some wonderful pets who meet that old adage of "Man's best friend," but I've always known that it gets right down to it, this is a wild animal and hundreds of years of domestication can't breed that out.   I always know that on some level, that animal is wondering if they can take me if push comes to shove.  That's why I won't ever have any animal whose ass I can't kick if it comes down to it.  Big dogs, horses, llamas, etc don't make it to my house.  They might get a lick in here or there in the bloody coup attempt when the pets are ready to overthrow the masters.  A lot of people really get off on that whole thing of taming and controlling some giant beast, but pfft, not me.  I'm not walking on the wild side with something that weighs a ton.  Screw that.  I saw Planet of the Apes.  I know what they're thinking.

When I'm walking Dylan to and from school, there's a power line that runs over the road at one point and hanging over that is a pair of tennis shoes, tied together at the strings.  There's also a big forked stick that is stuck up there, right in the middle of the wire, right over the road.  It makes me crazy.  I think about some mom turning her house upside down looking for her kid's shoes, then innocently driving to Albertson's, then looking up and thinking, well f*ck me in the ass.  I wonder if the shoes were thrown up there by 6th grade bullies or if some dumbass kid with a goofy grin and 7 brain cells just hurled his own shoes up there because he could.  I wish someone would take those shoes down...and the stick too.  I wonder which was the trial run, the stick or the shoes?

Good God, She's Verbose!  There's More!