Monday, August 30, 2010

A Classic

I think I might be getting old.

This brings back fond memories of going to the movies when I was in high school:

Sunday, August 29, 2010

Abusive Behavior (Updated)

It's hard to know exactly what's going on. A month ago, I fell down and hurt my knees. Those injuries have healed now, except for a few spots that are still a bit pink. I was able to get back to praying on my knees within a few days of the Shameful Incident, and I wore my jeans to work that Friday (and every Friday since) without any pain to my band-aid covered wounds.

I had even begun to believe that perhaps the SI was just a strange aberration, a freak of nature that randomly struck an otherwise steady person.

I was deluded.

Last night, my daughter and a friend of hers and mine came over to play games. I went into my roommate's room (she was out for the evening), where the games were, and turned on her light so I could read the names of the games. After calling out the names, we decided to watch movies instead, and I walked toward the bedroom door. As I did, the door to one of the under-the-bed compartments was slightly open, and I walked right into the top corner, which smacked my kneecap and then banged into the fleshy part below it.

I said, "Damn it!" about five times, with the last one properly spelled in all caps, and this alarmed my daughter, who knows that I don't swear unless I'm really hurt.

She came in the room, and I pulled up my sweats to inspect my knee and check for bleeding. Swelling had already started, but I didn't see blood. She did, though, and mentioned it, and on my second look, I could see one wide drop trying to form.

I washed it, dried it, and applied a band-aid. Then I grabbed the gel pack out of the freezer (I got it from my chiropractor to use on my back when I feel a twinge) and put it on my knee for a while.

The ice didn't help much, and all night my knee had the look of a beluga whale with its bulging forehead. The swelling was about the size of a plum that had been cut in half and attached under the kneecap. I iced it several times while we watched Camille and then the Brothers Bloom.

At one point during the movie-watching, I glanced into my roomie's room and saw that the very door which had attacked me, AND WHICH I HAD CLOSED, was open again, waiting for another victim!

I gave it no quarter. Throwing off my ice pack, I went into the room and rearranged the stuff in the compartment until the evil door acknowledged that I was boss and stayed shut.

By this morning the swelling was down to the size of a large apricot. It doesn't look like there will be any lasting effects, but I can't help but wonder what is going on in me that my walking has suddenly become a danger to my knees.

Maybe I should consider attaching curb feelers to my lower legs as a protective measure...

Update (8/30/10, lunchtime):

I mentioned my new injury to my boss, and I told her I need curb feelers. She suggested rubber pads.

In retrospect, I think this is what she had in mind:


But this is what I thought of when she said it:


One on each knee. It'll look great with a dress.

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Monday, August 16, 2010

Zebras on the Loose

KGW News reported today about two zebras who got loose in Northern California. (Slideshow here.)



A pair of zebras on the way to Oregon got loose in traffic on a busy California road and it took hours to capture them.

The zebras were getting loaded into a horse trailer in Carmichael, Calif., a small suburb east of Sacramento, when two dogs apparently spooked them and sent them running in opposite directions. Much of the scramble was caught on camera.

Authorities said the zebras darted in and out of traffic and one of them was hit by a car but continued to run. Confused residents reported zebra sightings throughout the downtown area for next five hours.

Both were eventually caught and the animal that was struck by the car was checked over by a veterinarian and given a clear bill of health with just one superficial cut. The second zebra was found in the pool of an apartment complex.

Their owner, Michael Mastagni, was able to finally load the animals onto the trailer and transported his entire herd of seven zebras, including the two runaways, to the ranch in Bly, Ore., on Sunday.

I love that one of them found its way to a pool. It is summertime, after all...

Friday, August 13, 2010

Dereliction of Duty by ICE

Power Line reported Wednesday on a vote by the National Immigration and Customs Enforcement Council of the American Federation of Government Employees, the union that represents ICE agents and employees. The rank and file unanimously passed a vote of no confidence in the agency's leadership.

Did you get that? The vote was unanimous. Every single person voted against the leadership.

The union "stated that ICE has 'abandoned' its core mission of protecting the public to support a political agenda favoring amnesty. "

The union denounced John Morton, who heads ICE, and Phyllis Coven, assistant director for the agency's office of detention policy and planning. It stated that the integrity of the agency "as well as the public safety" would be "better provided for in the absence of Director Morton and Assistant Director Coven."

Among the other points unanimously agreed to are these:

• The majority of ICE's enforcement and removal officers are prohibited from making street arrests or enforcing U.S. immigration laws outside of the jail setting.

• Hundreds of ICE officers nationwide perform no law enforcement duties whatsoever because of resource mismanagement within the agency.

• ICE detention reforms have transformed into a detention system aimed at providing resortlike living conditions to criminal aliens based on recommendations not from ICE officers and field managers, but from "special-interest groups."

• The lack of technical expertise and field experience has resulted in a priority of providing bingo nights, dance lessons and hanging plants to criminals, instead of addressing safe and responsible detention reforms for noncriminal individuals and families.

• Unlike any other agency in the nation, ICE officers will be prevented from searching detainees housed in ICE facilities, allowing weapons, drugs and other contraband into detention centers -- putting detainees, ICE officers and contract guards at risk.

• Senior leadership ignores reports that ICE internal investigations by the office of professional responsibility conceal agency and supervisor misconduct and are used to retaliate against employees who make whistleblower-type disclosures or question inappropriate policies and procedures.


As Paul Mirengoff, the Power Line writer, says, imagine if this vote had happened during the Bush administration. Imagine if it was only a handful of ICE agents voting against Bush's ICE leadership. Every single paper and every single left-leaning news outlet would be trumpeting the news 24/7.

But under Obama, it's only the right-leaning Washington Times that ran the story.

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Boys Will Be Boys

I spend an inordinate amount of time in and around parking lots in my daily life, and it's given me the opportunity to observe people and what they do.

A few weeks ago, there was a family gathered outside one of the doors of a building I was at. They may have been waiting for someone who was still inside, but one little boy about age 3 had separated himself from the rest. He had found a tiny puddle in the parking lot, the only spot of water in the dry, barren reaches of inland Southern California, and he was playing in it.

There must be something in the DNA of the Y chromosome, a gene that homes in on standing water and mud and compels the male to approach it, stick his hands in it and then stomp around in it until his mother lets out a horrified shriek and comes over to whisk said miscreant away. Being a girl, I don't completely understand.

There's another male gene that I see on display the parking lots, and this one afflicts older males, those of driving age. It's the Backing Into Parking Spaces gene. Although I'm willing to consider that this one may be an effect of the prenatal washing of the brain by testosterone that occurs early in the development of males and some rare females. By my estimation (not just at work but everywhere), about 90% of the vehicles that are parked for easy exit were parked by men. I think it's the modern manifestation of the same thing that caused Wild West men to sit in saloons with their backs to the wall. A lady doesn't normally think about that unless her man has drummed it into her over the years.

The other day I was looking out a window, and I noticed motion out in the parking lot, and I looked to see what it was. A pickup truck was starting to back into a spot. Naturally, my brain registered: Pickup = male; reverse parking = male. But then the truck pulled forward because the driver had miscalculated the proper trajectory. (My brain: Lack of awareness of surroundings and vehicle direction = potential female driver.) I watched more closely and saw that the driver didn't turn the wheels the right way to allow for a better approach, so he or she ended up in about the same position as the first time. Attempt number 3 was slightly improved, just enough to allow for full access to the parking space, but the driver wasn't sure how far back to go, so the truck moved forward a little then backwards again, and then it stopped.

I watched for confirmation of my conclusion that the truck was being driven by a rogue female, one who probably had to borrow hubby's truck because her little, maneuverable car was in the shop. The driver's door opened, and a man got out.

Hmmm. He parks like a girl when he's parking like a man. I'm not quite sure what to make of that.

Wednesday, August 04, 2010

Missouri Rejects Obamacare

"The God of Israel spoke. The Rock of Israel said to me: 'The person who rules righteously, who rules in the fear of God, he is like the light of the morning, like the sunrise bursting forth in a cloudless sky, like the refreshing rains that bring tender grass from the earth.'

But the godless are like thorns to be thrown away, for they tear the hand that touches them."
II Samuel 23:3-4, 6

It looks like Missouri has started throwing the thorns away, by nearly 3 to 1.

America is willing to be governed. But. We. Will. Not. Be. Ruled.