Me to the animal rescue again

So...I love animals. Everyone who knows me knows that I love animals. I don't eat animals, I have several of my own as pets, and I do whatever I am able to support rescues and shelters, whether it's sending money/donating things, transporting animals from shelter to rescue, or fostering. Most people I know think it's a little weird, but those involved with animal rescue know how rewarding and fulfilling it is.

The last foster we had was Alice. We found her fifteen months ago, cold and pregnant. We took her in, raised and adopted out her babies, and ended up keeping her. So, as rescue people say, we failed as fosters, because we kept her.

This time, we can't fail as fosters. We seriously can't keep any more animals without risking our sanity/finances/general wellbeing. We seriously don't have the space or the resources. But a few weeks of fostering? Why not?

So last Saturday I was walking Cal. I walked up the sidewalk, looking at Cal. When I looked up, there was a little cat directly in our path. I thought there was a dead mouse in its mouth, but when I looked a little closer, out of morbid curiosity, I realized it was a teeny tiny kitten. Momma cat was moving her kittens from a bush to a box on our neighbor's porch. I tried to approach her, but she hissed, growled, and spit at me, even when I was five feet away. She was totally mean! So I dropped off some food for her and left her alone. I came back later to check on her, and I saw her moving her kittens again, this time into a different bush. That's when I knew I had to do something. She was stressed enough to move her babies twice in one day, plus I knew how cold it would get that night (low 40s).

So the following Monday Chip and I borrowed a humane trap from a fantastic rescue here in town called Town Cats. At about 12:30 on Tuesday morning, we finally had success. There was a mom cat in our trap and she was PISSED! She was thrashing, growling, hissing, and generally being angry. I carefully carried her back to the apartment and woke Chip up. We went out and gathered up the kittens. There were five beautiful little babies. We quickly set up our gigantic dog crate for them with a bed, food and water, a litter box, a scratching post, and newspaper to line it. Chip spent seriously two or three hours fashioning insulation for this thing, since it's on our porch. He taped cardboard boxes to the outside, then he taped trash bags outside of that, then he lined the inside edges with cardboard so we'd have no escapees, then he whipped out an old shower curtain to cover the side that might get rained on, and THEN he made a flap in the shell into which we could put food. He's hilarious. Such the proud dad. Things like that are why I love him so much.

Since Tuesday, we've been learning all we can about socializing ferals, and trying to figure out what the hell to do with this cat. The first time I saw her, I figured she'd been a house pet, but that her owners had moved out and left her behind. That seems to happen pretty often in apartment complexes. Then I realized she wanted to claw me to death and maybe give me rabies. I thought maybe she was completely feral and wouldn't be able to be rehabilitated. If that were the case, we would have to keep the babies with her until they were weaned (about five weeks) and then spay and release her, while continuing to socialize and raise the kittens together. That's not ideal, because kittens learn a lot from their mother between 5 and 12 weeks of age, like bite inhibition, litter box manners, what to scratch, how to behave toward people, etc. But if the mother is feral, she just can't stay with the babies, because they will be feral too. I was afraid that would be the case.

But...we're totally making progress. And I've figured out why "Jill" was so bitchy before. She totally had good reason, aside from having given birth five times. I made a catster page for her where you can read about everything. I know I'm a dork, but it's a fun site and lots of people will see her and maybe one of those people will want to adopt her. Check out her site for updates on her progress and that of her kittens, as well as pictures (too cute). It's gonna be a crazy ride, but I'm totally ready for it again!

Join the Catster community

I love friends

So we had our first friend visit last weekend. We've hosted both of our families out here, but it was the first time a friend had come out to see us. It was very exciting, and we felt very grown up! Dave was Chip's friend in middle school. Then Dave moved into a house on the street next to my parents'. Dave and I met in high school and got to be good friends. Dave introduced me to Chip 7 years ago. The three of us have been close for years, through many life changes.

I left work early on Thursday to go get Dave from the airport. We made a quick stop at Target for deodorant (he forgot it) and beer. I forgot until he and I walked into Target that in California they sell alcohol pretty much everywhere...gas stations, grocery stores, Rite Aid, Target, etc. Dave's eyes went wide when he saw the wine next to the dog food (much as mine did one year ago when I walked into Safeway for the first time). So after the Target adventure, we came home, relaxed, ordered pizza and salad, and waited for Chip to come home from work. We hung out for a while and then did karaoke night with some work friends. By "did" I just mean "attended." We do not sing. But we did get our picture taken by a very drunk friend.



On Friday we decided to do 17-Mile-Drive. We brought Cal along and drove along the coast. Dave saw the Pacific for the first time and I brought my flip flops this time (last time I got wet socks and was miz the rest of the night). Cal clearly enjoyed the beach (and eating sand):








We finished the drive in Carmel and went to a dog friendly restaurant called Forge in the Forest. They have a heated dog patio where you can hang out and eat with your dog. They even have a dog menu. We ordered Cal the grilled chicken. Ignore the creepy eyes.



On Saturday the boys went "mountain biking." Let's just say that the first time Chip took Dave mountain biking, Dave threw up within 12 minutes. This time was not much better or longer, though there was no vomit. We had some very tasty Mexican food for dinner in town at Sinaloa's.

On Sunday we took Dave to San Francisco. We dropped Cal off with his bff Walter so we could enjoy the day dog-free. We got to the city and took a ride on a cable car, which I hadn't done since I was 13 and hating life on a "family vacation" with my parents and 9-year-old brother. It was actually really fun and it was a cool way to see the city.



Then we went to Muir woods so Dave could see some redwoods. He was actually very impressed, which I didn't expect. We hiked around for about two hours...it was beautiful for sure.



We had Thai for dinner at a really good restaurant in San Rafael called My Thai. Dave had never had Thai before and he really liked it, which was great.

We slept in on Monday and while Chip went to work early, Dave and I hung out and packed him up. He left on Monday at lunchtime. It was so great to see him and to be able to show him California. It was awesome to catch up and I'm so excited now to go home in May.

It took Chip 41 days to grow this masterpiece. He took this picture just before he shaved it off. It was scratchy, it was ugly, and it smelled. I don't mind the beard look, per se, but this thing was just hideous. He grew it as a joke, and because the guys at work would be jealous (there are several guys who work in his department who have difficulty growing facial hair...Chip more than makes up for it for all of them). The joke turned into weeks upon weeks of me pestering him to shave. I don't like being that girl who's like, "my boyfriend has to do what I say," but seriously, it was obnoxious. He finally realized it was disgusting when I picked a piece of food out of it. He had fun shaving it, first shaving one entire side of his face and walking around talking about "Two Face" from Batman.

My boyfriend:

Work, bleh...

So when I was a bike messenger, I would go into offices and be like, "What a sweet life. Sitting in front of a computer isn't dangerous." I resented the people I saw sitting in their fancy, dry, air conditioned offices, playing Solitaire. It's not that I wanted to be them, it's that I hated that they were making double what I was, when I was risking my life every day on the streets (that's a little dramatic, but I WAS hit by three cars, as well as nearly run down more than once) to keep their business running, and they were trying to decide if they should have the rose design or the fish design on their Solitaire cards.

Now I am that guy that I hated. I sit at a desk. I work on a computer. It’s cool, because it’s a cool, fulfilling job, but it sucks, because due to the nature of international business, there are some busy times of year and some slow times. So I totally am that guy…writing on a blog, surfing the internet, making copious use of StumbleUpon. I know that I’ll be busier in a few weeks and will probably cry when I read this blog, but being not busy sucks more than it looks like. I have to act like I’m busy, doing really important things, while I’m actually reading Perez Hilton. And I also have to stay until 5, even if I haven’t gotten an e-mail since 1. Putting in the hours doing nothing sucks as much as putting in extra hours doing a lot. There were times in November when I’d stay at work til 11 at night. I had that much to do. Now that I have like nothing to do, I still have to stay til 5. I could be outside, playing and running and doing fun things, but instead I’m stuck inside, wasting daylight, reading crap on the internet about people adopting babies from Africa. And doing that is stirring my maternal instincts, which I didn’t think I had until about a month ago, and I don’t want to start getting into that yet, considering Chip can barely say the word “marriage” out loud. So basically…not working at work sucks more than it looks like it does.

La Pared

Sabes que sin tí ya yo no soy
Sabes que a dónde vayas, voy
Naturalmente



Those words come from a Shakira song called "La Pared." I know. It's Shakira. But she's really a brilliant songwriter and while she's had some poppy English-language hits, her Spanish songs are more emotional and more complex, with wrenching lyrics and haunting melodies. I've been listening to her Spanish language music since I was a dorky ninth grader who studied Spanish for fun.

Chip's been gone essentially since Sunday morning (he was home Sunday night but I was asleep and he left Monday morning as I was waking up). He is driving a truck along with the Tour of California for mechanical and other support. He'll be back on Monday, the 25th. I miss the crap out of him! Going home to an empty apartment, while I did that for years while living on my own in Baltimore, is just not fun. There's only so much fun to be had hanging out with a dog and three cats. There is endless litter-scooping, walking, feeding, vomit-cleaning, etc. to be done though. Great.

So I've been listening to music. And cleaning. And reading. And watching Law & Order. And listening to more music. Chip's not one for talking on the phone, and when he is, it's an inconvenient hour (such as the two 1:30 a.m. phone calls I received in the last week..."oh, were you sleeping?" "YES! I'm NORMAL!") So I've been having Katie time, and while it gets kinda boring, it's also kinda fun.

Jeff Goldblum

Does anyone else have a favorite actor that embarrasses them? I've been in love with Jeff Goldblum since I was 10 and saw him in Jurassic Park (he was like 40 then, but whatever). As I've gotten older, I've found him to be intelligent, witty, talented, and...sexy. Why did it take me so long to type the word sexy? I couldn't get my fingers to type that word. Because every single person to whom I've told this has laughed instantly. Instantly and a lot. Most people think I'm joking. I'm so not! I think he's funny in a smart way and sexy in that I apparently have a thing for tall skinny men with big noses. The only guy I've dated who wasn't tall and skinny with a big nose broke it off with me within six weeks. After that...back to the big noses. I once made out with this guy I worked with because he looked like Jeff Goldblum.

Anyway...I've been watching this a lot and I think it's great. Not just because it's Jeff Goldblum, but because it's hilarious. Jamie Kennedy is seriously underrated. It's ridiculous how much leeway people give "celebrities." If a regular person were tapping like that, or talking about himself in third person, or saying things like, "masterful, yet self-effacing," everyone would walk out of the room. But someone "famous" does this crap and people just play into it. Ridiculous.

Creating the aura of Goldblum...

I heart Mexico

One thing I love about my job is that I get to interact with people from around the world every day. Actually knowing people from other parts of the globe has me learning Cockney rhyming slang, getting birthday cards from Mexico, and hearing how the surfing is in Portugal.

This week has been especially exciting and international for me. Over the weekend, our distributors from the Czech Republic and Portugal flew in for meetings. On Monday evening I found myself having dinner with two Americans, a German guy who lives in France, two Czech guys, and 2 Portuguese guys. On Tuesday I spent time on the phone with people from Bermuda, Guatemala, Puerto Rico, and Chile. On Wednesday I'll be in meetings all day with our Mexican distributors, conducting business in Spanish. On Thursday I'll be flying to Salt Lake City for more meetings with our Mexican friends and our colleagues in Utah. On Friday it'll be back to English and some serious resting.

I'm so excited to get to meet the people I've been e-mailing for eight months and put names to faces. I am so excited to get to chat with them in Spanish, and learn more about how we do business. I'm so new to all of this still that I just love to soak up everything I can. I feel like the moron who said on his resume's cover sheet, "I am a wedge with a sponge taped to it. My purpose is to wedge myself into someone's door to absorb as much as possible." Not a wedge-shaped sponge. A wedge that has a sponge TAPED to it. What.

In any case, I'm being very productive, important, and international this week. Work's been going really well, and I'm finally falling into and feeling comfortable in my first job. It's taken so long, but things are finally pretty awesome. Yay for my professional life!

Cakes to the (animal) rescue!

Ever since we adopted Cal from the Lake County shelter, I've wanted to give back to them in some way. This shelter is located in a very rural area; shelters like this receive lots of stray and unwanted pets, but get a low volume of foot traffic in to adopt. So in order to facilitate adoption, some volunteers have made an effort to get the word out about Lake County pets. That is how I found out about Cal; he was listed on craigslist with a beautiful picture of him (just try and resist that hang-dog look and those ears):


The three of us are so grateful for the work these volunteers put in; they often post until 2 in the morning on craigslist, trying to stave off what for half of these dogs (and more than 80% of the cats) is inevitable. The volunteers for the shelter also post to request transport assistance. Often the best prospect for these animals is to get them into no-kill rescues in areas that are more populated. When I saw their post on Tuesday asking for transport from Lake County to the town I live in, I jumped on it. I've been wanting to see the shelter for so long. Since we got Cal I've been sending up a monthly care package of flea meds, treats, food, toys, chews, blankets, and whatever else I could afford. I've stayed in touch with the shelter manager and she loves getting updates on Cal. I knew this was my opportunity to help out even more and also to meet the wonderful Paula.

The ride up was uneventful; Cal hung out in the back seat and hung his face out the window when he felt like it. It rained a bit, and there was some construction, but for the most part, it was fine.

I got to the shelter, met everyone, loaded up the animals (6 cats and a dog) and headed out quickly. Cal was miserable being at the shelter. I thought he might feel comfortable there, having been there for 3 weeks, but his personality changed completely. He completely shut down, crouching low to the ground, ears down on his head, eyes darting around. Paula gave him some hugs and some goodies and we set off.

Our first stop was to drop off a dog in Cotati. He was a 14-year-old dachshund that had been surrendered by his owners. They just didn't want him anymore. Fortunately for Oscar, a doxie rescue in Los Angeles heard about him and requested that he begin his trip home with me.

When I dropped off Oscar, I realized that one of the cats had wet herself. Another cat had chewed a hole in his cardboard carrier and his big fat face was sticking out of it. I put out those fires and hopped back in the car on my way to Oakland.

A half hour later, after some scratching, meowing, hissing, and pawing, I saw a tiny little cat running around in the back of the car. This tiny little peanut of a kitten had chewed her way out of her carrier and was having some fun. First she pooped in the car, then she tormented the crated cats with her kitten antics. When we arrived in Oakland, we found that her brown tabby friend had vomited and pooped in his crate. I dropped off three cats in Oakland; a black kitten, a big black male, and a beautiful female Siamese.

After walking Cal and cleaning up all the disasters in the back seat, I was finally on my way home. I almost ran out of gas in Fremont, but I narrowly averted crisis. I got to the rescue in my hometown and dropped off the remaining three cats. I helped the rescuer wipe off the big 20-pound girl who had wet herself. Then I helped the little brown tabby boy settle in. He cried and stuck his face through his cage where he had to spend the night (the rescue is cageless but in order to allow new cats to settle in, they spend their first few nights in a cage). The big boy who'd chewed his face out of his carrier settled in well too, with a little bit of sneezing.

I got home and was completely spent. I haven't felt that tired in a while. But I saved 7 animals from euthanasia and that is a great feeling at the end of the day. And if you count Cal...8. Below are pictures of Cal with the new love of his life, his stuffed toy from Paula.

Cal is the best

People are always saying crap like, "dog is man's best friend." Every year you get a Christmas card from a family who sends along a picture of themselves with their dog. Dogs have been trained to do everything from reading to sniffing out bombs and drugs to sensing seizures before they occur. They are truly amazing, intelligent animals, and at times seem eerily human.

I took Cal swimming this weekend. Chesbro Reservoir is just a few miles from home, so we drove over that way for some fun times. I parked in a lot on the side of the road, and walked down the really steep boat ramp with Cal. For a good half hour I stood at the bottom and tossed a tennis ball up the ramp. Cal ran up it like it was nothing; he's so strong and fast. After that I started throwing it into the res. I threw it further and further and before I knew it, he was swimming! He is so driven; he'd dive right the hell in, swim out to his ball, turn himself around slowly, and paddle back with the ball in his mouth, staring at me. He is so intense.

Here he is swimming back to me:


Here he is "giving eye." Giving eye is the term used for the intense stare that herding dogs give to whatever they're working, whether it's sheep, cattle, or a ball.


After playtime at the res, I was headed back into Morgan Hill. It was raining, so I was just heading home. But just as I got near the dog park, it stopped raining. I took this as a sign that it was dog park time. We were the only ones there, and it was a sloppy, muddy, disgusting disaster. In short, Cal loved it. He was running and slipping all over the place. We played for about a half hour at the park and wore him out. Here's a picture of him when we got home (the mud isn't entirely noticeable until you look at his back legs):



So we promptly took him into the bathroom for a really long bath. It took about a half hour just to rinse the mud off. Then it was time for a double shampoo. He doesn't love baths, but he was OK with this one. I bet the warm water felt better than the cold dirty res water. A few highlights:





He's totally my baby, and sometimes I think he's my best buddy. He's so loyal and so happy all the time; he's a joy to be around and we have such a strong bond. Having a dog is so much work (I don't have kids and don't know if I ever will, but I imagine that this is at least kind of similar in that he's totally dependent on us and is pretty needy) but it's totally worth it. I also love that we rescued him from a shelter on his last day; he has no idea how close he came, but we do. I wish more people realized how wonderful shelter pets are; Cal is definitely a testament to the resourcefulness and resiliency of dogs.

I'm going home!

I booked my flights today for a visit home in early May. I will get to go to my brother's college graduation and see my dad's side of the family at the graduation party in western Pennsylvania. Then I'll be home in Columbia and Baltimore for a few days. I'm hoping to take my beautiful pink track bike so I can ride through the city with the wind in my hair (under my pink helmet, of course). I can't wait to see my parents, my cats, my brother, my friends, my family, and my first true love...Baltimore City.

I'm so excited to be going home, but I'm also kind of sad. While I've been gone, things have been changing. I know that several downtown buildings have been completed since I've been in California, so the city will look and feel different. My parents and brother are getting older. The trees in their neighborhood are growing (we moved into the first completed house on our street in June, 1991; the trees were almost nonexistent at that time).

Their cats are getting older too (they were adopted from the local animal shelter as kittens when I was a kid; one when I was 11 and one when I was 16). After I left home, their one cat, Belle, started having medical "issues." First she developed a tumor in the tip of her tail. She had to have it amputated twice. First they cut off all but two inches of it, but she chewed on the stump (yummy). Then they cut it all off and gave her a nice E-collar. Later, she got an infection between the two layers of skin in her ear. It puffed up and flopped down and now it doesn't stand up anymore. She looks like some kind of war victim, when she's actually lived a charmed indoor life since she was tiny.

ANYway...I'm so excited to go home, but nervous to see and quickly adjust to all the changes. I am not good at accepting change, and I get really nostalgic and emotional about "how things were." I think I'll be OK and that the trip will be great overall, but I have a feeling that it'll leave me wanting to stay home in Baltimore.

I want a dyke for president...

Even as a student of political science and a reader of The Economist, I am getting fed the fuck up with this election crap. More and more it's becoming apparent that politics is all a game. It's a game to get elected, and it's a game to stay in office and then get re-elected. The pandering to the lowest common denominator is making me angry.

When did the US start going backwards? Our social policies (explicitly disallowing gay marriage or even civil unions, implementing abstinence-only education, limiting access to safe abortions, etc) are centuries behind those of many European countries, and the economy is going to shit because of rich white guys and their predatory mortgages and their tax cuts for themselves, not to mention the wars they start to make themselves richer.

Every candidate is campaigning on a platform of change. Oh, you want to effect change? Not too risky a platform when you're running against the president with the lowest approval ratings in history (not to mention that he should be impeached and tried for war crimes, but whatever). But what kind of change could we expect from Mike Huckabee, the evangelical Christian pastor who doesn't "believe" in evolution and thinks a woman should "submit to her husband?" What kind of change could we expect from Rudy Giuliani, whose scare tactics have even surpassed those of George "the terrorists will win if Democrats are elected" Bush? What kind of change can we expect from any politician (including the spineless democrats except for Kucinich) who panders to the Christian right, won't give a straight answer to any question, won't state outright his or her support for gay rights, who says he or she is against the war but continues to vote to fund it, and who won't begin impeachment proceedings on the most criminal, despicable, and greedy little man to ever occupy the White House?

I want someone who lives and lets live. I want someone who doesn't care what consenting adults do in their bedrooms. I want someone who is black, who is a woman, who isn't a rich white man with corporations in his pocket. I want someone who's done drugs and will admit to it as it is: something fun you do when you're young, and something that is generally harmless when done responsibly. Someone who is an atheist and doesn't believe that an invisible being is commanding him to invade a country that posed no threat and was completely contained. Someone who will stand with the poor, the mistreated, the forgotten, the veterans, the drug addicts, the children. Someone who will stop fucking cutting funding for education, state parks, and the criminal justice system. Someone who will raise taxes and who will say that out loud. Someone who has experienced hardship and loss and has become better for it. Someone who knows what it's like to have to choose between feeding a family and feeding oneself. Someone who doesn't think that birth control is a "sin," and who realizes that human overpopulation is a real problem. Someone who is a humanitarian who won't let religious dogma destroy a continent. Someone who doesn't reject science because it's not convenient. Someone who can help this country regain its dignity and the respect of the rest of the world. Someone who understands why the rest of the world hates us and knows how to fix it. Someone who doesn't think the Constitution is just a "goddamn piece of paper." Someone who's real.

I came across this a few months ago and I think it's pretty cool. I don't agree with all of it but it definitely got me thinking.

"Happy" birthday to me

There's things I remember and things I forget
I miss you, I guess that I should
Three thousand five hundred miles away
What would you change if you could?
I wish, I wish it was a small world
Cuz I'm lonely for the big town

I don't keep up with this thing. Anyway, my 25th birthday was Monday. I cried a LOT. I don't want to be old, and I don't want to be spending my birthdays away from my family and friends. Last year I went out to dinner three times during my birthday week, and got THREE birthday cakes. Birthday cake is my favorite food, and I had three of them all to myself. And I got to go to Copra on my parents' dime. Last birthday was great. This birthday...I spent it 2872 miles from home in an apartment that I hate, with no drinking (Chip can't drink anymore), no family, and SO much homesickness. I listened to “Raining in Baltimore” at work and watched "The Wire" at home on my birthday, which didn't help me feel less homesick. It's been seven months, but it feels like yesterday the last time that I flew down Guilford on my track bike on the way to work. It feels like yesterday the last time that I walked down to Iggie’s for the most delicious pizza in the world (their pizza called the Alice will make you swoon; spinach, goat cheese, tomato, garlic, pesto…my mouth is watering). It feels like yesterday the last time I rode down to the farmers’ market under the JFX and got some Zeke’s organic fair trade Sumatra Gayoland coffee. I miss those things.

If I were to leave here today, I don’t know that there would be anything like those that I would miss about Morgan Hill. I wouldn’t miss driving everywhere I go because it’s suburbia. I wouldn’t miss sitting in a gigantic office filled with desks and no walls. I wouldn’t miss the 8% sales tax or the $1425 rent (rent in Baltimore was $650). I don’t know what I would miss. That’s pretty sad. I think that, in keeping with my last post, I need to take action. It’s time to go back home. Yeah, it’s “only” been seven months, but what amount of time is long enough to be miserable? Do I have to waste a year out here before I can say, “yeah, I’m coming home”? I don’t want to do that.

So...stay tuned for my homecoming plans. I hope they're not too far off.

What matters

Last night as I was falling asleep with Chip, I started an intense conversation. Well I suppose it could have been intense, but Chip is very sure of himself in matters of the world and places beyond (both real and imagined), so the conversation was pretty brief and to the point.

"Do you think it's empty to think that this life is all we get? Do you think there might be something else after this?"

"No. You know that."

"I know, but I always read religious people saying they think it feels empty to consider that there's nothing else after this, like an afterlife of sorts. They think atheism is hopeless. I agree with you, I just wasn't sure you felt that way."

"It's just not possible to me that there is a God. And why, of all animals, would we get an afterlife? Do we think cats and cows and spiders get afterlives?"

"I know. I think it's sadder to consider that people spend their entire lives thinking there's something after this. People who lives their lives in self-imposed misery. Like the evangelical minister who preached against homosexuality and sexual deviancy who was found dead of auto-erotic asphyxiation wearing TWO rubber wetsuits and with a dildo in his ass. If he didn't think this behavior was unacceptable, he would have been safely engaging in it with a partner and wouldn't have died. Like Ted Haggard, who is buying meth and having gay sex with a prostitute because he doesn't feel he can be openly gay. Like Larry "Happy Feet" Craig, who is supporting crap like the Defense of Marriage Act while soliciting gay sex in restrooms, pleading guilty, and then denying his guilt. If he thought "God" approved of his being gay, he would have a boyfriend and would be having sex with him at home, not soliciting sex in a restroom. I feel sorry for them because something they can't help (being homosexual) is something that everyone has told them is wrong. They feel so conflicted because of religion, and that is a fucking shame. On top of that, Haggard and Craig, once caught in the act, could have used their situations for good. They could have said, 'I'm gay, and there's nothing wrong with it. My only crime is hiding it and being a hypocrite." Instead, Haggard talked about "sexual immorality" and further reinforced that being gay is a choice that he made and that it was wrong. Without religion, these people would feel free to do what makes them happy, and to not worry about "hell" and "heaven." Another sad example of religious extremism is the machismo of Muslim law. Women are raped, and their brothers and fathers feel that they have to kill them because they were "adulterous." And they do it. They actually kill their female relatives. There's no way that crap like that doesn't just destroy them inside, no matter how much they think "God" wants them to do it. You can't murder someone, especially a family member with whom you grew up, without dying inside a little. It's sad to me that people live their lives like this. I'm going to make the most of my life, because it's the only one I've got. The world will go on forever without me; I'm part of the beautiful cycle that is life, and that is OK with me. I'm not going to spend my life waiting for "the next one." I'm going to do whatever makes me happy and fulfilled now."

Time for bed.

Pets being cute

I thought I'd just post a few pictures of the pets being adorable. These pictures were all taken recently.

Here's Cal in antlers, being reluctantly festive (and gangly and awkward as always):


Here is Max in the same antlers. He was far less cooperative:


Here's Petey doing his stretching thing. That cushion is at least three feet wide.


And here's Petey doing his fluffy curling up thing. I think both poses are equally cute. He's so fluffy that no matter what he does, he looks so comfy.


Here are Alice and Max in a spoon:


And this might be my favorite picture of Cal ever. He loves his friend Walter so much:


And here's Cal doing one of his favorite things ever: watching a dog show.