Now that's sexy

Brad Pitt isn't exactly my type (although as he ages he's looking better to me ... he isn't that "pretty boy" anymore), but Angelina is sexy enough for both of them:

Angelina Jolie on being pregnant:
"I love it. It makes me feel like a woman. It makes me feel that all the things about my body are suddenly there for a reason. It makes you feel round and supple, and to have a little life inside you is amazing. Also, I'm fortunate. I think some women have a different experience depending on their partner. I think that affects it. I happen to be with somebody who finds pregnancy very sexy. So that makes me feel very sexy."

I have a special request: Could I please come back as Angelina Jolie in my next life???

You may prefer some other candidate

... but you've got to admit this is one inspiring and beautiful photo.

Not according to script

_DSC1065_final_sm
Originally uploaded by Donnay.

This is Kevin. He is one of my dearest, kindest, most supportive friends. He is smart, responsible, successful, considerate, funny, and quite simply the most polite person I have EVER met. He is also gay. (And, unbelievably, single.)

I am an unattached, childless woman approaching 40. If we were living out the cliché, I’d be investing in a turkey baster, if you know what I’m sayin’ …

But the reality is that I don’t want his sperm; I just want his camera. LOL

(Honestly, LOOK at the *crispness* of this photo!)

Ask Eclecta anything

Okay, folks, here's your chance, if you want it: Ask me anything.

Write it in the comments (e-mail will NOT do). As long as it's not obscene, I will answer it in the next week or so.

Crime and punishment

Freud overlooked the "hat" stage of development

Freud overlooked the "Hat" Stage of development
Originally uploaded by Noisypond.

One thing I've noticed about my niece and nephew at this age is their fascination with things they can put on their heads. They both seem to be big fans of hats, but in the absence of a hat anything that could possibly resemble a hat is just fine, whether it's actually a plastic basket, a washcloth, or, as in this photo, a piece of camera equipment.

So, along with the oral, anal, and whatever other stages Freud dreamed up/observed, I would suggest we add the hat stage.

You know what I really like about this photo, though? Is the sense of fun and play in Reece's expression. It's quite simply wonderful.

Rampant, sick materialism

We all know that materialism is wrong and that things just don't make us truly happy and all that blah blah blah ...

But today I got to use a Nikon D300 (my friend Kevin wanted me to take some shots of him and brought in his camera for it) and OH GREAT ZEUS I WANT ONE.

And if you click here you can see that its on sale right now! $20.00 off, Ma!!!! (That's $1799.00 minus $20.00 [plus taxes], mind you, but whatever ...) Will you get me one, please please PLEEEEEEEAAAASE????????? please?

MY president

If the United States is ungrateful enough to not elect this man, we'll take him here in Canada in a nanosecond:

Acupuncture ROCKS

By the way, I've been meaning to tell you about something that happened this week. Here's the setup:

I had this lousy sore throat and on Wednesday the cold moved into my sinuses, which felt achy andvery irritated for about 24 hours. On Thursday evening, I had a standing appointment for some acupuncture, and when I got there we discussed my cold as well. They suggested just adding a couple of needles to the plan, saying that there were some powerful acupuncture points either side of the nose, and using them often cleared up sinus congestion. Right, I thought, not having very high expectations, but every little bit helps. When you're not feeling well, you get a little desperate for even an improvement.

They ended up "threading" the needles so that each one went under the skin between two points. I won't pretend that it was comfortable, but it wasn't painful. I did feel a small electrical current at both needles (like a little shock you would get from touching someone after walking across some carpeting), but within 45 minutes of the treatment, the painful irritation I felt in my sinuses was GONE. As in, no runny nose, no sinus headache.

Amazing stuff - I would highly, highly recommend it.

Home

Yesterday I drove a six-hour round trip to my parents’ just to bring my cats back with me to Toronto. (They’d stayed there for two weeks while I prepared for my trip, flew to Seattle, and recovered after my trip.) When I arrived at my parents’, my mother warned me that neither cat had seemed really engaged in much play or social activity and she thought they’d both felt abandoned by me. Sure enough, they both gave me some attitude initially. Oh, and the road trip back to Toronto? Totally not happy. Thank goodness for headphones.

Now we’re home and Sabrina has been clingy and Cleo is still missing her joyful spark. So I have some work to do and some trust to earn back and to restore their sense of security.

However, if I could do backflips, I would be doing them over the fact that I have no trips further than a one-hour drive from Toronto for the foreseeable future. It is sooooo good to be home and to be free of the self-imposed pressure of road trips or running late for flights with transfers or missing luggage. To be at home for a whole day with my books and my cats and to sleep in and to finally attack the clutter in my living room and to maybe have a bubblebath later … well, it’s priceless and delicious. I miss my “Seattle family” (among whom I naturally include Tracy and Monika) sorely, but until I find a way to somehow bring everyone and everything I love into one central geographical location, I will simply enjoy the current moment for all it’s worth.

Barack Obama's speech on race

I know that Obama gave this speech on race back in March, but today was the first time I actually watched it, rather than just read about it. Amazing stuff, because he actually tells the truth about how things are. So courageous.

And I know that this speech was prompted by the whole Rev. Wright thing, but most of it still applies now that Wright seems to have fallen off the map, particularly the following section (whole transcript is available here):

For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division and conflict and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle — as we did in the O.J. trial — or in the wake of tragedy — as we did in the aftermath of Katrina — or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright's sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she's playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.

We can do that.

But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we'll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.

That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, "Not this time." This time, we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time, we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can't learn; that those kids who don't look like us are somebody else's problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.

This time we want to talk about how the lines in the emergency room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care, who don't have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.

This time, we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time, we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn't look like you might take your job; it's that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.

This time, we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together and fight together and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that should have never been authorized and should have never been waged. And we want to talk about how we'll show our patriotism by caring for them and their families, and giving them the benefits that they have earned.

I would not be running for President if I didn't believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country.

(emphasis mine)

If you haven't watched the whole speech yourself either, book 40 minutes and watch it. You will be watching the stuff of future history textbooks, I think.

The Fallen

The Fallen
Originally uploaded by Varina Patel.

A gorgeous photo I found on Flickr.

I am pooped ... time for bed!!!

Exactly, and MORE

Certain rules

I was thinking about ethics in an airport washroom this past weekend.

The reason I was doing so was because I chose to use the extra-wide wheelchair-accessible stalls so I could easily wheel my luggage in with me and not feel like I was a calf being fattened for veal. And yet each time I use a wheelchair-accessible stall, I remember this chick in my biology class in university who refused to use the wheelchair-accessible stall, even when it was the only free stall in the washroom. To her, such stalls should be reserved for people who actually needed them. I think she felt that people with mobility issues had enough challenges without having to wait in line to go to the washroom. I have never met anyone else who felt so strongly about this, or who'd even thought along those lines.

Me, I have a thing about making other people pick up after me. I don't (knowingly) leave trash behind in theatres or airplanes. I know they have clean-up crews, but it still seems wrong to me.

And so now I'm curious, friends and Internet vagabonds: do you have any rules by which you choose to live that might seem novel or odd to other people? If so, please share! :)

How Hillary could still make it right

(if she wanted to ...)



Via the Mahablog, which is one of the best blogs on American politics (or even just for critical thinking) out there, IMHO.

Harrison Ford gets his chest waxed - to make a point

From plane, last night, discombobulated

Oh sweet Lord this plane is warm. Those who know me will understand how hot it must truly be if *I’m* complaining about the heat. I don’t know how to wrap up the last few days, so bear with me. I do have stuff to say.

Just nothing to say out loud right now. Speaking is so painful. I’ve been fighting a sore throat the past few days, but my mistake was roaring. I was sitting in Joe’s office, which is closed off from the rest of the house by some glass doors, and then Reece pushed his way through into the forbidden office to hang out with me, and soon Lorelai was on the other side of the doors. At first I just put my face up to the glass between her and me, which prompted delighted giggles, but you need more, right? You need sound effects. So I roared like a lion (or some blonde lady who thinks she's imitating a lion, anyway). Oh, the laughter that ensued. I was so glad that she already trusted me, that she wasn’t scared. Reece got some in-your-face roars too, which produced his wide grin and chortles too. Anyway, about twenty minutes later, Lorelai was sitting on my lap on the couch and we were roaring in each other’s faces and having a great time. Except for my scratchy throat. This morning my voice sounded like that of a drag queen. A three-pack-a-day drag queen. And basically since hitting the Seattle airport, I’ve pretty much stopped talking, making do with gestures and pointing. Except customs. You suck it up to get through customs properly, lest they decide a body cavity search is necessary. LOL

In Vancouver I found out that my checked bag didn’t make the trip. This is the second time in a row that my luggage has shown marked reluctance in returning from Seattle. I think there might be a message in this somehow.

I have just finished watching 27 Dresses. It was about the only thing my restless mind could settle on. I quite enjoyed it, but that’s hardly a recommendation from someone in such a state that even reading a Jennifer Weiner book was considered too much work. The movie was relatively entertaining, although James Marsden looked more haggard than I feel, which is saying something.

But don’t let my complaints fool you – this trip was totally worth it. I could tell you how great those kids are, or how cute, but instead let me tell you a couple of my favourite anecdotes:

• It turns out that my camera was a great way to break the ice with them this time – they were both fascinated to see the slideshow of digital photos on the LCD screen. Lorelai* in particular was quite happy to sit in my lap while repeatedly pushing buttons on the back of the camera, but at least on one occasion both of them plopped themselves in my lap to get a front-row seat. (*I think Lorelai has inherited her Nanna's gadget obsession.)
  

• Once Lisa and I took the kids for a walk outside, and eventually Lorelai wanted to hold her mother’s hand instead of mine. I was content to walk behind them, but a few seconds later, Reece reached out with his free hand to me so that the four of us were walking hand-in-hand. What a sweet and sensitive kid.

Of course, no trip to Seattle is remotely complete without getting together with Tracy and Monika. Lisa and I met up with them last Friday evening and had a great time over appetizers talking about everything from Barack Obama to Robert Downey Jr.’s guns to Barack Obama again. (It was a fan club meeting, what can I say?) So awesome to see them again.

The woman beside me on the plane is watching The Bucket List and she’s using one of those scratchy napkins to wipe away her tears. Wordlessly but with a smile, I nudge a packet of tissues across her tray. Movies make me cry too. “I just need one,” she says with a laugh, then, with exaggerated diction: “Thank you!” like I might be deaf or non-English speaker.

So tired. Signing off for now.

Pic of the day

DSC_0033
Originally uploaded by Noisypond.

Things younger than John McCain

A totally awesome blog. Things younger than John McCain? Alaska (as an American state), Velcro, the Golden Gate Bridge, CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES, Ronald Reagan, Hawaii, the slinky ...

Favourite chewtoys = shoes

Favourite chewtoys = shoes
Originally uploaded by Noisypond.

De plane! De plane!!!

DSC_0118
Originally uploaded by Noisypond.

Why planning is important

Task: Install steel pillars in concrete to stop vehicles from parking on the payment outside a sports bar.

Execution: Task complete, crew cleaning up


Forwarded to me by a co-worker. Sorry, I don't know who to credit for this brilliant photo.

An idiot talking head gets his

Via DailyKos, awesome handling of someone who is all bluster.

Hello from sunny Seattle!

DSC_0156
Originally uploaded by Noisypond.

A Tale of Pleasure, A Tale of Pain

I’m in suburban Seattle again. Didn’t I tell you? Sorry about that. Anyway, I got in last night after the kids were in bed, and they’re still sleeping this morning (shhhhh ….), so let me tell you about the trip here. I’ll do it in point form, just to keep things brief:

• I hate packing.Stress.
• I was running late because I hate packing. STRESS!!!
• But I got to the airport with a few minutes to spare after all. Relief.
• I started to read Barack Obama’s book, “The Audacity of Hope”. Pleasure and inspiration (the man is a wonderful writer and thinker; I am politically in love.)
• The book kicked off a conversation with the person sitting next to me on the plane that lasted quite a while as we discussed American politics, food security, vegetarianism, work, Windows vs. Macs, family, etc. I felt like I had found another kindred spirit. Lovely.
• Re-reading a favourite book by Guy Gavriel Kay, “The Summer Tree”, of the amazing “Fionavar Tapestry” trilogy. Pleasure. (If only all his novels were this good!)
• Before leaving home, I made an assessment that I didn’t need a belt with the jeans I was wearing. This may have been a miscalculation, as I feel certain that I have been flashing plumber’s crack to unsuspecting travelers all day, as the jeans that just a few days prior had been snug everywhere seemed to be increasingly loose around the waist as the day went on (maybe all the stress was seriously burning calories?). But plumber’s crack is the new hot, right? Right??? Discomfiting.
• Neck and shoulder muscles starting to tense up from stress of the morning and prolonged turning of head to chat with stranger. Pain.
• Failure of self-massage of shoulders, head, and neck to significantly reduce tension. Frustrating. I obviously need a personal attendant.
• Carrying/dragging luggage from plane to next terminal. OH MY GOD MAKE THIS F@%$ING PAIN STOP BEFORE I WEEP.
• There was a pharmacy in the Vancouver terminal! I DON’T CARE WHAT THOSE DRUGS DO TO MY BODY JUST MAKE THIS PAIN STOP.
• Whatever else those drugs might do, the pain was almost gone 20 minutes later. Great Zeus, what a relief!
• Baggage claim process at Vancouver for transferring flights to the U.S. Weird. But not so bad.
• Flight from Vancouver to Seattle. Longest taxi ride in an airplane ever, as we were waiting clearance from the congested Seattle airport. It made me feel sorry for the two women from Nova Scotia who had been traveling since 5:00 AM Atlantic time, and then had waited in Vancouver almost 8 hours for a connecting flight. It would have been much faster for them to have taken a bus.
• Seeing Lisa and Joe, briefly, before we all went to bed. My heart was happy.
• Falling asleep … Utterly effortless.

Help me find the punchline

Okay, folks, need your help:

Today, despite my aversion to clothes shopping (see post below), I decided to go shopping during my lunch hour. (This almost never happens; in the four years I have worked in downtown Toronto, in buildings connected to the retail-rich underground PATH network, about the only other time I've gone shopping during my lunch break was when my friends Ryan and Isabelle were getting married, and on the Friday before their Saturday wedding I realized I had nothing appropriate to wear. This goes to show the utterly desperate state of my current wardrobe.)

I went to Jacob, where I found a few tops that, despite the slight pouffiness of their sleeves, weren't too trendy or girlish. The quality of the product seemed significantly better, so I didn't mind paying more for them.

Because I was too tired from shopping last night, I hadn't made a lunch for myself today, so after leaving Jacob I went to a food court where I bought some delicious vegetarian lasagna, with a savoury tomato sauce poured overtop.

Hurrying back to my desk, I noticed that the paper bag with the lasagna felt a bit wet and warm, but didn't stop to investigate until I was back at my cubicle, where I realized that a) the tomato sauce had leaked through the food container, the bag it was in, and was all over my spring jacket; and b) I was late for a meeting that I was chairing. (The lasagna was still good cold an hour later.)

So what do you know but tonight when I was about to hang up today's purchases when I finally discovered that the tomato sauce had somehow gotten into the shopping bag with my new tops and left a big red mark on the collar of the white with pinstripe blouse I'd purchased????

The blouse is currently soaking with some stain remover, but I'm not sure I'll be able to get it out. I guess the dry cleaners is the next step. Sigh.

So how can you help? There's a moral to this story, or a punchline, or both - you can help me find it. :) Leave your contributions in the comments, please! :)

I don't shop much

... but tonight I did. Out of desperation (I think it's been a year since I went clothes shopping ... if only clothes were books ...)

Clothing retail is bizarre. Some of the clothes are so cheaply made that they're already starting to fall apart in the store. Colours, patterns, and silhouettes come in trends such that if they don't suit you this season, fuggetaboutit. For instance, apparently empire waists are still the thing. Me, I look pregnant when I wear shirts with empire waists, and I have a pretty flat stomach, friends.

Tonight I noticed that the 80s are "in" again. Jewel tones, little lacy bits to tease around one's cleavage (assuming one has any), CAP SLEEVES. Poufy cap sleeves. I had a hard time with all this 80s stuff, as I continually wondered whether wearing such clothes might be an invitation to be mocked or even beaten up.

You know something about people who run clothing stores? They never order enough of the right sizes. Usually, when I see something attractive and reasonable on display, the only sizes available are extra small, large, and extra large. However, mediums can be found if the cut of the item is extra roomy and not very flattering that way. Why don't these people just order more of the average-sized items? I think they could sell a lot more product that way; maybe it's just me, but I can't think that they're all that smart.

Along a similar vein, these stores try to resell crap. Tonight, in a lingerie store, I heard a sales clerk tell a customer, "The nice bras get sold right away." That reinforced what I could already see for myself, which was despite several hundred feet of displayed product, there wasn't much worth buying.

And since we're on the subject of bras, why is it so hard to find one that does what it's supposed to do without inserts or other bizarre contraptions? Tonight half the bras in the store were called "Extreme Lift". Does that not sound painful?

Thank goodness for T-shirts and jeans, that's all I can say ... :)

Great video

A few months old, perhaps, but still a rocking song and great message.



The band is called Freedom People (click on link to go to website). I also like their song, "The Earth is My Church".

Stunning tornado video

For a limited audience

But funny if you share my political interests and leanings. :)

Tragic love story

Read about it here and here.

Let this be a cautionary tale to all of you who have dependents - get life insurance, mortgage insurance, wills, etc.

I can't imagine what might have happened to me if at age 19 or 21 I was suddenly debt-ridden without my parents to help me through school.

Donate to the family here, if you feel so moved.

99 Too Many Things About Me

Every blogger does this at least once, right? :)

1. I do not bleach or dye my hair – the colour is 100% natural Dutch blonde. Sorry.
2. I truly envy people with olive or dark skin colour. Being fair-skinned is overrated.
3. The older I get, the more I see both sides of every argument.
4. This is annoying when I’m trying to win an argument.
5. Laughter and a sense of humour are things I’ve cultivated as an adult.
6. People who take themselves too seriously totally exasperate me. Probably because I see myself in them.
7. I frequently dream I am back on the farm where I grew up.
8. Interestingly, in those dreams I am always outside – never in the house.
9. Come to think of it, no one from my family is in those dreams either – it’s just me and the land.
10. Of my parents, my brother, and me, I was the one who spent the least time outside on the land.
11. I love irony.
12. I often dream of kittens too. Those are always happy dreams.
13. I was baptized twice.
14. These days, I only go to church for weddings, funerals, and musical recitals.
15. I believe in angels.
16. These days, I am no longer disdainful of other people’s need to go to church.
17. However, I still have very strong feelings about institutions that systemically covered up child abuse.
18. I experience God in nature and in solitude.
19. If my biology professor was right in our class about genetics, I am a carrier for colour-blindness.
20. I relax by reading other people’s blogs.
21. Given a choice of reading or buying more books, I will always buy more books. It is a sickness.
22. Given a choice of cooking or buying groceries, I will generally buy more groceries.
23. I’ve been a “just in case” kind of person as long as I can remember.
24. I have been my own best friend for at least 7 years.
25. It’s really great to be able to enjoy your own company.
26. I used to see myself like those withered merpeople who’d sold their souls in The Little Mermaid. I really used to abhor myself.
27. I’ve come a long way, baby.
28. I taught English in South Korea for almost two years.
29. I still kick myself that I never visited the DMZ while I lived in Korea.
30. Living in Korea was the hardest and the best thing I’ve ever done.
31. I love Korean food; I could eat it once a day if I could figure out how to cook like they do.
32. I’ve only seen the open ocean once, on a trip to Vancouver Island.
33. That afternoon by myself on a near-deserted beach was the happiest of my life.
34. That beach had signs warning of bears, cougars, and tsunamis.
35. I saw no bears, cougars, or tsunamis, thank goodness.
36. I believe that when you travel with a camera, you’re really not alone.
37. Since that trip about three years ago, I long to see the ocean again every spring.
38. I believe in magic.
39. My sense of wonder is one of the traits I cherish most about myself.
40. My right leg is almost one inch shorter than my left leg.
41. I didn’t learn this until I was in my thirties.
42. When in grade school, my classmates complained that I used too many big words that they couldn’t understand.
43. I dumbed down my vocabulary and regret it today.
44. I never fit in when I was growing up.
45. I have to wonder what kind of changeling my parents thought I was; I never met their expectations.
46. My parents are good, salt-of-the-earth people.
47. My brother is my hero.
48. The household chore I hate the most is dusting.
49. I had to dust a lot when I was growing up.
50. My mom had knickknacks and framed photographs our relatives all over the house.
51. I once tried to hide all the framed photographs because I thought they were too much work to dust.
52. My mother put most of them back.
53. I never anticipated I would love my niece and nephew as much as I do.
54. Other than their parents, I was the first relative to greet them, when they (or at least their tiny cell clusters) were still new in Lisa’s belly.
55. I will fondly remember Chicago for that reason.
56. They’d better remember I was there first.
57. I will never make them dust.
58. I like using song titles and lyrics for my Facebook updates.
59. If I know a song, I can usually identify it just by hearing the first few bars.
60. In almost every personality test, I score somewhere near the middle. I’m several people all rolled up in one.
61. My approach to situations often balances others; if someone is serious, I become light-hearted, if someone is reckless, I become cautious, etc.
62. Perhaps this means I am contrary?
63. I thank my lucky stars for my own build every time I see a large-breasted woman. Large breasts look like such a pain.
64. I find it easy to love certain people, as though we are reunited friends.
65. I find it difficult to resume normal relationships with those whom I feel have broken my trust.
66. I have never been to Europe.
67. I would love to travel around Europe. I think.
68. I am a homebody.
69. I love having my cats, my books, my kitchen, my bed. Everything where I need it. Just in case.
    
70. I love watching movies with strong female characters.
71. I was born a feminist.
72. My mother once told me that I would either have to marry a doormat or someone who beat me.
73. I think she was a bit frustrated with me when she said that. :)
74. I was a strong-willed child.
75. I’ve never gotten married. Heh.
76. In my teen years, I listened to Detroit radio.
77. As a result, I have a weakness for soul and R&B music.
78. My current boss is the best boss I’ve ever had.
79. I’ve had my driver’s license for 22 years.
80. I’m pretty content with things I can’t change.
81. I now love all the seasons.
82. I push myself because I believe in my own potential.
83. I wish I liked to read poetry, but generally I don’t. At least not for long periods of time.
84. I love organizing people.
85. I think my life word is “mother” because I like to take care of people.
86. I have never had so much to drink that I’ve become sick or lost control.
87. I’ve never tried illegal drugs.
88. I truly don’t think I’ve missed anything by either of the previous two points.
89. Yes, I am a total square.
90. I can’t remember the first time that I tasted beer because I was so young. My parents never made alcohol a mystery or a taboo. We were allowed to have a sip of their beers even when we were quite young. I think it was really smart of them.
91. Codeine and penicillin, when taken orally, make me violently ill.
92. I’ve watched Pride and Prejudice with Kiera Knightley countless times. (starring Kiera, not sitting down on the couch watching it with her, although I think that would be cool)
    
93. I love Alanis Morissette.
94. If I could start all over again, I’d choose a career in naturopathy.
95. I long to live an extraordinary life.
96. I refuse to use aluminum-based anti-perspirants and deodorants.
97. I generally don’t use perfumes or colognes because this planet has enough chemical pollution as it is.
98. I value consistency.
99. Precious few things are more important to me than my integrity.
100. I am somewhat repelled by how much I’ve had to focus on myself to write this. :)
     

What can I say about this one?

... except that it made me laugh loud and hard:

This is all I've got tonight, folks

Baby on the train

Tonight, on my way home on the subway, I sat near a man with a baby who was about 4 months old. She looked very much like Andy Griffith:


From her perch on her father's lap, she openly surveyed everything around her with open-mouthed wonder. And pretty much without exception, I saw everyone in our half of the subway car (the couple sprawled together with legs entwined, the thirty-something southeast Asian man, the elderly woman with support stockings) was either watching or furtively glancing at her. Smiles flitted across every face. She was utterly irresistable.

Even a homely baby has her charms. :)

Defended

It may not be well-documented here, but those who spend much time with me know that I hate confrontation and conflict (In the immortal words of Michael Jackson, "I'm a lover, not a fighter."). I can deal with conflict, but I hate every bloody minute of it, particularly if it means defending myself. I am NOT one of those people who, when someone is about to step on me, immediately responds, "And what the hell do YOU think you're doing???" although I often wish I were.

Anyway, I'm here to say that it felt really good to stand up for myself today. Details will, I'm sorry to say, have to remain a mystery. Although I will give credit to the use of Rescue Remedy and exercises like holding my neurovascular points for helping me do it well, or at least better than I would have otherwise.

Another amazing feeling is the one where you know someone has also stood up for you. Everyone should have that feeling at least once in his or her lifetime.

Lastly, when someone's suckitude is obvious to everyone involved? Huge sigh of relief.