Fresh, Hot Wastes of Time

Look, people. Roaman’s is a fat lady catalog. Sizes 12-44. Are there really enough safety pins in the world to deal with the fact that all your damn models are size 2’s?

The average dress size in the United States is 14. If you see a size 14 woman on the street, she looks completely normal.

Kate Winslet was a size 12 after Titanic, and the tabloids called her fat. What is wrong with this picture?

Not that I’m a plus size activist or anything. I’m just a realist.

Hub went upstairs to make us all sandwiches. He got his chicken salad made just the way he liked it. At this point the 2 year old decided it was naptime, so hub took her upstairs to put her to bed. He came back to the kitchen to find the cat eating his chicken salad. Hub then threw away said chicken salad in a fit of pique. And he’s threatening to pull off the cats’ legs.

About the cat. He’s 12 years old, anemic, hyperthyroid, and has kidney failure. I have to give him subcutaneous fluids nightly, plus 3 pills and a vitamin syrup. The poor guy has been on this nasty low protein special catfood for the past couple of years to control his renal failure. Can you blame the poor guy for trying to score some chicken salad?

Ok, look. I guess I’d call myself generally conservative but mostly a libertarian. I don’t feel that the government has any business meddling in my body, my mind, or my private property. If pressed on voting Democrat vs. Republican, I can usually be counted on to vote with the GOP since I’m a strong supporter of Second Amendment rights.

However, it’s stories like these that make me want to buy my own little island and flip everyone else the bird.

FWIW, we were at a restaurant seated next to Sen. Wentworth once. Nobody could get service from the waitstaff for some damn reason, but instead of pulling rank or getting loud, Sen. Wentworth ran up to the counter and helped himself to more iced tea and chips. Compare this to the time we had brunch in the same restaurant as Ann Richards, completely across the room from her, and she was so damned loud it was like she was right next to us. Class versus none.

Good grief. If it’s not one thing, it’s another. This is a sordid mess of a poor guy who was completely duped by someone who claimed to be dying of cancer. In the last 10 years that I’ve been around the internet, I’ve seen:

€ a man who created a fictitious wife for himself
€ a few guys pretending to be girls and having ‘mudsex’ with hapless guys
€ a guy who pretended to be a girl who eventually faked suicide
€ a pregnancy newsgroup troll who pretended to die from childbirth complications
€ a pregnancy newsgroup troll who pretended her child died from complications
€ a woman pretending to be a man who had a cyber-romance with an unknowing woman

My oh my, the list goes on.

And there always has to be drama, conflict, a soap opera. I’ve seen 2 bigass uproars on 2 different webrings lately and I find myself tuning in for today’s helping of pain. Sorry to be so crass, because I know I’m feeding on someone else’s anguish, but it’s like slowing down to watch a car wreck. I worry about being so dehumanized that I don’t care enough about my fellow man, I worry about the internet turning us all into automatons, but then I remember the case in NYC in the sixties where a woman was screaming for help as she was being killed and none of her neighbors did anything because they “didn’t want to get involved”.

Sorry to be such a downer tonight. It’s not like I’m in a bad mood or anything. Just ponderous.

The latest in a disturbing trend… School officials inspect yet more teenage girls’ underwear.

Excuse me? Nobody needs to gawk at my teenager’s bra. Between the panty inspection episode, this bra thing, random blood and/or urine tests, Ritalin being forced on kids or they get kicked out of school, and “feel good” grading where you get credit even if you answer wrong because damn it, you tried, I’m wondering if we’re going to end up homeschooling. Schools are snakepits as it is, and all this crap lately is exacerbating the situation. We spent a lot of money on this house because it’s in the “right” school district. I just hope it lives up to its reputation.

School officials do not have the right to arbitrarily 1) look at your intimates; 2) diagnose your kids with ADD; 3) randomly search your locker or bags; 4) require arbitrary drug testing; 5) ask you if you have guns at home; or 6) force you to pray (or not to pray, as the case may be). All of these things happen anyway. It’s a travesty, because kids don’t know any better, and they’re taught to trust grownups. Kids may not question Teacher digging through their backpacks.

On the flip side, I can see where school officials might get the misguided notion that they have to raise kids. (Some) parents aren’t taking responsibility for the actions of their children. They don’t get involved and ask questions and nose into things. Don’t be a friend to your kids. Be a parent.

Welcome to my birthday. It doesn’t seem like a special day anymore, not like it did when I was a kid. Then, it would be weeks of build-up; first the potato chips would gradually have 5/23 as an expiration date, then it would be a real sign it was getting closer when that was when the milk expired. Finally the big day came and I felt like it was really important. Usually I’d have a slumber party to celebrate, and there would be 10 girls in sleeping bags in the living room watching movies on the Betamax. Carrie was always a favorite, because I could grab someone and make her scream during the last scene. I pissed off my friend Debbie so much when I did it that she called her mom to take her home.

Slumber parties and spending the night were the best. Up all night giggling and whispering, trying to prove that you can make someone pee by putting their hand in warm water while they sleep, putting bras in the freezer, putting on makeup while wearing pajamas, talking about boys. I miss those times. There are some times that I can recapture that spirit now with hub. We stay up late after the lights are off and just whisper and giggle.

I’m beginning to wish I brought tennis shoes with us on the trip. I brought 4 pairs of sandals.

Ok, call me crazy, but if you’re going to be this damned crunchy-granola, why not breastfeed your kid? Oh, I guess it’s because breastmilk is dairy. Sheesh.

Sorry, folks. I’m not planning on having yet another political diatribe page, but I do have some hot buttons, and child welfare is one of them (especially breastfeeding. If I have to work this hard to nurse my kids, I just can’t understand those women to whom it comes effortlessly and they choose not to do it.

cleansing breath, cleansing breath

Sorry, I’m done now.

I really hate dealing with idiots. I sold something on eBay to a guy who apparently used to be on home.com but never bothered to update his email address. Strike #1. Then he updated it, I emailed him and told him to either Paypal me or let me know if he wanted to send a money order so I could provide a snail mail address, and he sent back a snippy reply saying that I didn’t give him an address. Strike #2. Next idiot thing he does, I’m going off on him.

After searching all over the darn town for nice outdoor furniture, we found some at the grocery store, of all places. Tonight we reclaimed our porch (that’s not our stuff, it’s the previous owner’s) and put a table and chairs out there. Then we sat down and had a really cold beer. Delicioso!

I know, I know, you’re asking “But where are the wastes of time? I want my wastes of time! First, I must direct you to the Waste of Time Forum, where you may chat with fellow time-wasters to your heart’s content.

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For the endowed-challenged
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