One day last year, a bunch of marketing geniuses were sitting around in the boardroom of a pharmeceutical company.

“So. We have this acid reflux stuff. What the heck are we gonna call it?”

“Um, you know the FDA has been on us about truth in advertising and all that crap, right?”

“Yeah. Freakin’ micromanagers. Just because all those fat people got their hopes up with those lipo drugs. I thought that was a pretty good connection, personally. Hey. Let’s mess with them.”

“Who? The fat people?”

“No, idiot. The FDA. Let’s find a name that they aren’t smart enough to recognize as a joke. They’ll put it out there and we can laugh at them every time the commercials run.”

“Uhhhh…”

“No, really. We can totally get away with it! C’mon… acid… it affects acid… aci… effects…”

“ACIPHEX!!”

*Dissolve into uncontrollable laughter*

Seriously. How did that get past the censors? Every time I hear it I go all Beavis and Butthead. “Huh huh huh…they said @$$.” I don’t even think I could act in the commercials… it would take a biiiig paycheck waiting in the wings for me to keep a straight face.

I HAVE to start going to bed earlier.

Bible studies bore me.

There. I said it out loud, and *ducking under the desk just in case* no lightning strikes. It’s not that the Bible itself bores me, tho it does, sometimes. (Really. How many begats can you take in one sitting?) No, it’s the setting, the study itself, taking a verse and picking the life out of it until it’s meaningless. Dear Lord, just spare me. But? I met my match, people. It gripped me, start to finish, no lie, and it wasn’t just because the host of the series is an Auburn grad.

I’ve just completed a video study at my church called “The Truth Project.” I highly recommend it if you can find a church near you sponsoring it. It’s basically a study on the Christian world view, and it’s even good for those who wonder why the Christians have their panties all wadded up about things that are happening in our country today. It’s eye-opening, world-changing stuff, it is, especially the episodes about The State and The American Experience. While our government is trying to abolish, even deny, the role of religion in our schools and our nation’s history, this series takes an honest look at the documents that forged her, the people whose vision helped her come to be, and the God who inspired it all. Very cool stuff.

It made me angry. It humbled me. It frustrated the living SNOT out of me, realizing the scope of the mess we face, the Goliath of governmental control that is daring us to stop it, confident in our inability to do so.

The final episode examined the concept of “the needy.” Who are the needy? The list is long, and populated not only by the poor, sick, elderly, and widows, but by the neglected.

The outcast. The social pariah. The lonely.

I occasionally listen to Rush Limbaugh (WAIT! Don’t go!), and while I agree with some of his rants, I also recognize he is an entertainer. Part of his goal is to ruffle feathers. He does that very well: the truth hurts, and when delivered with a healthy dose of his ego, well, there it is. One recent show kinda ticked me off, though. He said, “What is loneliness? They’re saying now that loneliness is ‘catching,’ that you can get it from your friends. The definition of lonely is not being with people, right? Lonely people can fix it by being around people.” That is a paraphrase. I’m too lazy to look up his exactwords, but that’s the gist. Please do NOT put that on wikipedia as a direct quote, m’kay?

But see, that’s stupid, and if you’ve ever been a loner, you know that the loneliest people are often in the center of the crowd. They’re the ones entertaining the crowd at times. Being surrounded doesn’t cure loneliness – being connected to another person does. If none of those people in that crowd cares about your heart, there’s no comfort there.

One of the guys in the series, a “man on the street,” is a guy named Flash. Flash is a tattoo artist, a really rough solitary character who has been shown his worthlessness by various churches based on first impressions. Every one of us in the group identified with him, hurt for him, wanted to sit down and have a beer with him and tell him the truth about himself, to try to undo the years of rejection and angst he’s suffered. We wondered how many people had come through our lives that we’d dismissed because of outward appearances or social issues.

Some of us wondered if the others in the room knew that we had been treated that way, too.

We were left with the challenge of how to proceed with the knowledge we’d been given, and the answer from the series host was a refreshing, “I have no idea.” I am afraid that many churches will try to organize missions projects to reach out in the name of the church, which in itself is not a bad thing. The problem with that is that it becomes a goal to “reach people” rather than an honest effort to build relationships. The reason the world sees Christianity as a farce is because the church gets behind certain issues and forgets that there are people behind the face of that issue that are in pain, falling through the cracks. Those people, the Flashes, know the church doesn’t care about THEM. They know outreach is a movement that will fade with time, and those zealous door-knockers and soup-bringers will vanish in time, when the new has worn off.

They want to see commitment. Frankly, I don’t blame them. It seems insincere otherwise. Christians tell people that God loves them and then leave them right where they are, albeit with a new coat or a bag of groceries. The only way we Christians are going to make a difference is by starting with the people we already know, and becoming part of their lives. The guy across the street who came over and insisted on changing my oil when he saw me on my back under the truck with a wrench and a bucket deserves more of me than a plate of cookies. I have let him down, knowing needs he had that I ignored because it would have a sacrifice for me to help. I must decide that he matters to me, and let him know it.

Flash said it best. “There was a lady … she’d check on (my little brother and me). She’d come make sure we were ok. SHE was a Christian. There was something different about her…she HAD “it.” … I will never forget her.”

I know people can’t tell I have “it,” and I am ashamed. If I were to make a resolution for the new year, it would be that I stop worrying about whether or not somebody wants me to help, and just do it. I would quit worrying about “witnessing” and start trying to “live” the witness. I would learn to care. That’s a tall order for me. I don’t know if I can, but I am going to start with that plate of cookies for the guy across the road.

How about you?

I have a confession to make. I? Made a mistake.

Yes, I know. I can hardly believe it myself. It’s a fact, tho. I have a habit of running the oppostie direction of public opinion: I can’t count the number of good movies that tanked because the General Public hated them, or the wasted hours watching some stupid event or going to lousy restaurants because “everybody loves it!” That’s the only explanation I have for the proliferation of Olive Gardens around the state. I love their breadsticks and salad, but when they stopped serving their humongo cheesecake and went to teeny little slices, they lost me.

ANYWAY. I have staunchly refused to get into Twilight Mania. Refused, I tell you, torch in hand, waving it at hormonal teen girls in an effort to rescue them from inane prose. I WAS WRONG. Dear LORD, I was WRONG!!! I just finished Breaking Dawn, and I was genuinely sad to see it end. Every time I thought I had it figured out, I turned the page and had my wrist slapped. OK, maybe not EVERY time, but enough times to keep me guessing, and most of all, hoping. I carried the books with me to work, and several of my students commented, happy to have something in common with me. One college freshman made me summarize Twilight for her to rescue her from the insanity of NOT. KNOWING. and having no time to finish it herself. Stephanie Meyer, you have my most humble apologies. Those who criticize your writing style are haters, and should get back to drawing their comic books in their mother’s basements.

Ahem.

Other news:

Everybody in my house has a cough right now. It’s probably a really good thing I am single, because I can’t imagine a human male being willing to wipe cat boogers off his arm when one sneezes on him. It was gross enough when one of them got squeezed the wrong way passing thru across the laptop and squirted foul-smelling ick on the screen. I assume it’s anal gland fluid, and I have had my share of 3am bed-changings because of that little design feature, but DANNNNG. On the SCREEN?? How does that even HAPPEN? I didn’t smell it first. The cat that did it looked AWFULLY surprised, then turned around and started cleaning it up. I let her, cuz her nose is better than mine, and she could find it all.  I was glad for it, but I didn’t kiss her after. *shudder*

If you are still reading, you have a mighty tough tummy. Congrats. Or… my condolences for what made it that way.

I’ve had a run of bad luck with the babies lately, but I’m holding out hope that it’s over. This cold has gone through most of them, with only the outside two escaping the crud. Spock never developed the cough. The others sound like I will wake up and find lungs, kidneys, and maybe a spleen or two on the kitchen floor. A horking cat is a truly awful thing to experience, and if you’ve never had the joy of being waked from a sound sleep at 4am by an imminent expulsion, please, consider yourself blessed in a Mother-Teresa-has-a-winning-lottery-ticket sort of way. I woke up to horrors twice this week: a pile of feathers, a raw peanut, and a rock on one day (that’s a great little puzzler, right there), and a really gross finding today that I can’t even type without feeling queasy.

Horking is piddlin’ compared to screaming, which is also common around here. the latest victim was a flying squirrel, whom I managed to rescue from a growling mini-tiger. He had an injured leg, and I wound up taking him to a nearby rehabilitator for further help. He made quite a recovery in the week I had him, so I have every hope he will have a good life. Just not in my back yard.

I once entertained thoughts of having one for a pet if the cats ever caught another (this was the 4th in my adult lifetime), but this experienced dashed those thoughts into tiny little bits of squirrel poo. The kids nearly destroyed my house trying to get him out of the cage. No way could I keep one. It would be like raising my own bait.

The clock tolls two. I should sleep. A parting portrait of my life these days: click to biggify.

Later!

One of the things that is hardest about putting an animal to sleep is the dishonesty of it. Poor little thing is suffering and wants help, but there’s no way to communicate it can’t be given, and that you are sorry, but really you will be doing her a favor. You pick her up and walk out to the car, let her ride with you out of the carrier, she snuggles and loves and purrs and watches the world go by, never knowing she is looking for the last time. She looks up at you, looking for reassurance. She trusts you. You can’t bear to watch (because the last time you did it did not go well for anybody in the room), so you hand her over to the vet and she fully expects to come back to you, only this time she does it in a little cardboard casket.

It sucks big, hairy donkey balls, stuffed with kidney puree.

I know that Christian tradition says animals do not have souls. I don’t think we can say they don’t have an energy that lives on after death.  I equate them with angels in the sense that they do not have to actively choose to follow their creator. Therefore, they are not subject to the same laws of sin and sanctification. I cannot imagine that creatures capable of such a level of love and devotion simply cease to exist when they die, and I actively choose to believe they are alive and well in whatever the afterlife is for them. They weren’t created in God’s image, but they WERE created for His glory and enjoyment, and I pray with all my heart that my Elsa is chasing butterflies and wrestling with other babies in a sunny field of tall grasses right this very second.

Elsa, you never stopped fighting, and you always loved in spite of the indignities of medical treatment. Thank you for allowing me to capture you and bring you home, and thank you for softening this jaded heart with your smile.

RIP, my sweet little ginger angel.

Elsa the Ginger Kitten

I have been MIA for a while, it appears, although I must admit I didn’t realize I last wrote in August. Since my last written purge, Buddy healed and re-opened his wound, which led to surgery to close it for good. My children all got colds, and let me tell you, getting snot on your back when a cat sneezes is no pleasant adventure. Chasing them around with a kleenex is not really an option. Also during my absence, a friend found a 12-y-o cat abandoned for at least 3 weeks in a rental house, no food or water, nearly dead, and of course I was the first person he thought to call. $190 and a round of i.v. fluids later, I had a very sick, very weak doorstop for two weeks. She finally started improving, and eventually went to a nice lady in a nearby town.

My life is one giant saga of life and death, and frankly, I have grown weary. I started Thursday by calling God a Giant Tool, basically, and while I am not stupid enough to allow my arrogance to rule me, I am not all THAT penitent. Yet. He responded by not so much being angry, but by reminding me He’s paying attention. MY problem with that is that I can pay attention to a child in the street, but if I don’t go get it, I am a huge idiot. I kinda wish He’d do more than pay attention. I want Him to intervene.

To be fair, I have no idea how often He steps in to avert disaster in my little puny life. I do know that if it’s a LOT, I should probably curl up in the closet and order my groceries from Amazon for the duration, cuz the stuff that gets through is awfully painful, and I can’t imagine how much more I can take. This time, it’s one of my dumpster babies. It was a year ago that I lost Leo and Max to FIP, a very nasty virus for which there is neither vaccine nor cure. It’s a wasting disease, and another of my children has it. She must be put to sleep, and I just cannot bear it. Little Elsa walks me to the door in the mornings and begs me not to leave her. She stands up on me and mews a little mute squeak, then watches sadly as I close the door between us.

Not once, but 3 times after the diagnosis Thursday, I had the words “God’s Plan” spoken to me. The first was the vet. They never break the religion barrier, but this one did this one time. She reminded me that we don’t know what God’s plan was for Elsa, but that Elsa has had a good life with me, short as it has been.  Cyndi said basically the same thing. She hurts almost as much as I do when I lose a baby, and she is quick to remind me that they have love and shelter and safety with me that they wouldn’t have gotten from living under a dumpster. The third was from a bookmark I had bought myself months ago, inscribed with a verse from Jeremiah: “For I know the plans I have made for you…”

Honestly, I am tired of plans that include me putting my babies to death.

The only way I can stay sane is to remember that they aren’t mine to begin with. They are His, and if He chooses to give them to me for a short while or decades, I should be grateful for what I get. That’s hard to swallow tonight. I know it’s true. I do. It’s just that I am so tired of being strong and taking care of things by myself, with very little support structure. I told one of my “friends” about Elsa tonight, and he said, “Is that called catanasia?” Mr. Sensitive for the Win! That made me really draw in and decide not to tell anybody else. I have Cyndi. I have 10 other babies who all seem to want to be in my arms at once. I have benny to help me sleep.

And I have jury duty in 8 hours.

Yeah, God. AWESOME week You put together for me there. Goooooo, GOD!

I guess I should sleep on a rubber sheet tonight, huh? You know, to avoid the lightning strikes?

Later…

I’ve been busy lately getting started with the college job, getting new piano students started, raising the four new kittens. I had to replace a fridge because it was at least 10 years old, and the repair was more than half the cost of a new one. No sense putting that much into an appliance that is nearing the end of its’ life span anyway. I finished the pool deck and have tried to get in the water at least a few times a week. I’ve also tried to tame the jungle/yard out back so that I will KNOW if there are pumas hiding out in my trees. Other little crises of day-to-day life have needed attention, as they do for all of us.

I’ve been busy, is all I’m sayin’, and I may sorta, maybe, just a little, be forgiven for letting a huge hole form on one of my kids’ back end. AHEM.

A couple of years ago a full-grown tom cat came to my kitchen for dinner. And breakfast. And the women. He wasn’t terrible rude or anything, but he liked to mark things, and that little act cost him his “boyz.” He was tame enough to catch, but since I had a house full of cats at the time, I didn’t encourage him to hang out after he was well.

One night he came in scalped. Half the skin on his head was gone, and yes, I was a bad, selfish person and thought, “Dangit. I am NOT spending money on a stray.” Heh. Moron, you say? Famous last words, you say? Yes. Yes, you would be right. He felt bad enough to let me touch him, so I slathered his head with neosporin whenever I walked by, and miraculously, he healed. There is just a teeny white spot next to his ear where the fur never came back, and it is barely noticeable. Since I was NICE to him and didn’t try to cut off any more parts he wanted to keep, he decided he was home. Three of my other cats ran away out of fear of him, others called him Daddy, and some still back slowly away when they meet him in the hallways.

Today, he is getting me back for the scalping. Last Friday I noticed that what had been a small draining wound had turned into two bigger draining wounds. He was in pain. When the vet shaved the spot, he had a half-dollar-sized hole on his back where an abscess had formed and ruptured. It was awful. Nearly a week later, it is healing, but it is still an open wound, so he can’t go outside and let the flies find it. (You’re welcome!) He has to be crated. Tomorrow, my 14-lb muscle-bound outdoor kitty will come home to a 3′x4′ crate. I feel horrible. The vet assured me it happens all the time, but I can’t help but feel as if I neglected him. I did, really. I should have taken him in when the first hole opened up. I don’t know why I didn’t – maybe I just thought it would heal by itself, with his history. Cat bites don’t do that, though, and I knew that, too.

The saving grace of the whole situation, including my holy appointed role as Caretaker of the Pusses Masses, is that I still hate sweaters. The doc assured me that if I started coming in with a new cat every day and kleenex stuffed up my sweater sleeves, they would intervene, cuz I would clearly have crossed a line.

Clearly.

Why do the bullies almost always win? Why is it that the words get through, that the taunts strike home and make us want to cower in the closet and cry? Quite frankly, I’m not patient enough to wait for God to sort ‘em out. I want some sort of retribution NOW, dangit. God’s too slow for my taste.

Last week I was out in the yard, working on my lawnmower. I had been out there for several hours, and it was 10pm by the time I looked at my watch. All evening a group of neighborhood kids had been camped in the empty lot next door, just a few feet from my house. They were laughing and talking, cussing and smoking, and I was fine with that, honestly. If their parents didn’t care where they were, I didn’t mind them. They weren’t bothering me.

By 10 o’clock, most of the group had broken up and gone home. Four boys were left, and one of them was still yelling across the lot. Nobody was answering him, he was just enjoying the sound of his own voice. After a half hour of him, I finally yelled back. “SHUT UP.”

Yeah, I’m smart, didja notice?

He yelled back, “Who?” from the darkness, and I answered. “YOU. Just stop yelling.” “I’ll do whatever the h*** I want.” “Yeah, I know. Most hicks do.”  We yelled back and forth a bit, I in the light of my barn and he in the anonymity of the night, and I finally just quit answering him. He shut up. He got in some good shots, though, and for some reason I can’t let them go. I would never let him know it. Heaven forbid.

I started to call the cops, but the truth is, they wouldn’t have cared. Country boys making noise is not a good enough cause for the sheriff or a deputy to drive 20 miles to get there and tell them to go home. The did no physical damage. I never even saw their faces – I might have woken up to slashed tires or a dead cat if I had done that, with no way to prove who did it. Eventually one of the fathers came home… the next-door neighbor: the man whose cat brought me so much joy and heartache last year with the “saga of the kittens.” The boys bolted for the house, across my yard no less.

Why would I let the angry words of a pubescent boy get under my skin?

Fear. Fear that he’s right, that my worth is based only on the opinion of others, even though I know that’s not true.

I am NOT, however, afraid that I’m a dyke. Yes, he used that word. He’s 12, or 14, and he used that word on an adult he doesn’t even know. I have such classy neighbors, doncha’ think? It made me wonder if that’s the word in the ‘hood, tho, since I don’t whore around and they never see a guy come to my house without writing on his truck, wearing a tool belt.

Tool belt. Hm. That could come in handy…

My mama used to tell me to ignore people who called me names. After a while those names stick to each other, and instead of rolling off your back, they start to pile up. Even a duck can get muddy if the mud is yucky enough.

I’m all mucked up. I really am ready for Jesus to come back. He won’t let me move, but He won’t let me kill them, either. That is not acceptable. I need more options.

You know, flogging, or castration, something like that. Gotta protect the gene pool somehow.

The article says it all, with the exception of the slackers who left from other floors. Go ahead, check it out. I’ll wait.

http://www.myfoxdfw.com/dpp/news/weird/Perfume_Odor_Sends_34_to_Hosp

All done? See? I’m NOT crazy.

Ok, a LITTLE crazy, but not because of this. In case the link is broken or you just don’t want to read it, a quick summary. A woman sprayed perfume in an office building and  34 people were sent to the hospital with respiratory problems and dizziness. Twelve of them required an ambulance.

I? Am gonna start wearing a mask. Call me Michael J., and I might have to carry a copy of the article in my pocket, but I am NOT making it up. I have proof. Talk about your toxic substances… somebody ought to decide to ban perfumes and colognes. People might have less sex for the lack of the pheremones, but the flip side is fewer headaches. Seems to me that’s a bonus. Fewer headaches=MORE sex, so that argument is moot.

How about the carnivores start wearing Eau de Ribeye? Outback would get more business, I bet. Think the vegans would protest? I wouldn’t carry a sign if they wanted to wear a Cabbage Spritzer, but Onion No. 5 might be another story. I think my only form of protest is the mask, unless I just stop bathing on Saturdays and Sundays. I would be ripe by Sunday morning, I bet, but then I wouldn’t be able to stand myself. Lose/lose. Besides, I don’t want to offend EVERYbody, just the ones who need offending.

One of these days I’m gonna figure out the perfect plan. Until then, just look for me in Wal-Mart – I’ll be the one breathing through my shirt sleeve.

Later…

A Thursday Meme, since love has eluded me. You know, the whole Love Thursday thing.

You know, I whine about not being loved, but I do have family that blows that argument outta the water. Yeah, one cousin asked me to explain some things the other day and then told me I was “so uplifting,” sarcasm oozing like south GA humidity. But for the most part, my dad’s side of the family takes me for who I am and loves me anyway, bless ‘em. I was out with my cousin Sue yesterday, and she reminded me of something I saw a couple of weeks ago and forgot to write about: You know you’re in the south when you can buy a 50 lb bag of chicken feed at the grocery store.

We went to The Piggly Wiggly to pick up a couple of things for her mom. It’s THE Piggly Wiggly, too, like it’s THE Winn Dixie. There’s a measure of awe in that “the” that we can walk into an air conditioned building and buy our food instead of having to walk out in the field to pick it. I for one respect the difference, since I bubble up and burst into flames in the sun. Thank you, Mr. Piggly, for putting the Wiggly in my day.

This store also had rabbit and goat feed on the shelves around the chicken scratch, and just below the cat food? Catfish pellets, of course.

OK. Here goes. What follows is entirely stolen, except the answers, so any effort at chipper or perky is not my own. Not that you would accuse me of being chipper anyway, right? Feel free to steal this. I’m not tagging anybody, ‘cept maybe Flea. Heh. Hey Flea! Love you!

****

It’s harder than you think!! Here is what you are supposed to do…use only one word for each of the following.

Where is your cell phone……………………………….Table
Your hair………………….……………………..…………..Up
Your father………………..……………………..………….Heaven
Your favorite thing………………………………………..…Kittens

*******

OK, so there ya go. Maybe it’s just a way to get a blog post out there, but there are a couple of uncommon answers hidden. Hope you have a great weekend! I will try to get back in the swing of things soon. I know you miss me.

Heh.