In this instance, the business that previously occupied this building was Planned Parenthood. Every time I drive past and see that “AVAILABLE” sign, I feel a bit of pleasant satisfaction.

They will definitely not be missed in the neighborhood.

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I’ve been watching Suburgatory because I knew so much of the cast to be funny in other projects, and have found the lead actress to be adorable. Most of the cast, in fact, is practically perfectly picked. However…

The snotty character of Dalia is not. She is supposed to be an anorexic teen-age girl, but she looks like a thick, 30 yr-old transvestite (“not that there’s anything wrong with that“) Every time she is on screen, the scene is blown for me.

Perhaps the problem is make-up or wardrobe…or lighting. But I’m pretty sure it is a casting issue on this one.

UPDATE: Just to clarify, I am not saying she is fat. She seems to be just the right weight for her size. However, when the script repeatedly refers to a certain group of girls as anorexic, makes explicit mention of how they “stay under 80 lbs”, you can’t cast an Amazon as their leader. It doesn’t work.

The card I turn to most often is for Grandma Johnson’s Banana Bread. It is a sure fire hit, just ask D. Though I like to tweak the measurements sometimes, a little less sugar, crunchy peanut butter rather than butter, I always pull out that card for the basics.

And I always laugh.

Because my sister wrote “…prepare to loaf pans…”. My sister was a writer. She was smart. She knew which to/too/two to use. She was also a perfectionist who would be mortified to know that in her haste to write out those recipes, she committed that error to perpetuity.

And yet, her error contributes to one of my sweetest memories of her.

It now appears to be working, after the installation of a newfangled SIM card and a bigger, badder SD card. However, in the data transfer, it seems to have lost track of my custom ring tones. Rather than just default to the default, it seems to have shuffled the deck and picked new custom rings for my contacts. Since I need to fix them, I thought I’d go through and list the changes – just for fun.

Contact	Old ring was…	Random new ring is…
D	Talk To Me	Mission Impossible
My Sister	Sisters	Just Between You & Me It’s “The Kinleys”, so I guess that’s close
Mom	You Are Wonderful Can’t find a link for this, it was a .wav clip from Princess Bride (I think)	Searchin My Soul
Office	Job is at Stake	I Didn’t Know About You
Tenants	Insert Coin	still Insert Coin (how did they know)
Realtor	I’m Waiting	Save Me
D’s sister	She texts more than calls, so I don’t remember, but I’m sure I wouldn’t have assigned her ->	They All Laughed
The rest just went to “unknown ringtone” – which apparently means it won’t ring at all. Now assigning everyone new rings

To all those patriots haters and dallas cowboys lovers Tom Brady is NOT a lady but Tony Romo IS a homo!!!!

Now, I am quite sure she does not think Tony Romo is a homosexual, I would be surprised if she even knew what that means at her age. I can’t imagine she would consider it something insult-worthy if she did, because I know she was not raised by people who are homophobic. I’m guessing that it is just something she’s heard, probably at school, as a generic term of derision.

Much has been made lately of using words like “homo” and “fag”, most recently when Willow Palin defended her sister & mother against a Facebook attack by a classmate by writing “you’re such a faggot” in a thread on his page*. Is it likely she was actually suggesting he was sexually attracted to his male classmates? No, and it is unlikely anyone who read the comment thought it was some sort of revelation into his sexuality.

Even Perez Hilton, an openly gay blogger who rails against gay bullying, when in an altercation with Will.i.Am’s producer (or manager, or bodyguard…whatever) reached deep in his soul for an insult to hurl – and came back with “faggot”

It seems to just be part of a larger shift away from civility, more than an indication of increased homophobia. Viewing the ‘youngsters’ online or listening to them at the mall, I see they spend a great deal of time cutting each other down. I regularly read or hear comments referring to friends and family members as “stupid”, “retarded”, “fat”, “cow”, “idiot”, “moron”, “doofus”. White kids & black call each other “nigger” or the seemingly more acceptable “nigga”. Kids that I know have homosexual relatives call their friends “fag” and “gay” and “dyke”.

The volume of the trash talk, as well as the targets at which it is aimed, show that these name-callers think it is “all in good fun”. I assume that when the store clerk spat out her insult at me, she had simply forgotten where she was and that she wasn’t just ‘playing’ with her friends.

I can’t imagine calling my friends names like that, let alone my family. Is that an indication that I am just an old fogey? Do I take it too seriously? Parents, do you hear your kids talking this way and, if so, do you attempt to stop them or do you see it as harmless fun and a way to bond with their friends?

And, given that the current atmosphere is so dense with slurs hurled willy-nilly, how does a person know when to be offended and when it is being said with affection? Is an insult now in the ears of the beholder rather than predicated on the intent of the speaker?

UPDATE: Someone else on Facebook just referred to themselves as a “sick son of a bitch” I jokingly remarked that it was not a very nice thing to say about his mother. Proving that kids have no concept of words & their meanings, let alone the impact of them, he had no idea what I meant. When I pointed out that by calling himself a “son of a ..”, it meant that his mother was the “..bitch” part, he called me an idiot.

I know this kid is one of the biggest momma’s boys ever and there is no chance he would say anything disparaging about her (if I thought he might answer me with “Well it’s true”, I wouldn’t have said anything) Yet the phrase had zero meaning to him. The fact that he just called his mother a bitch, and regularly refers to his friends as “fag”, “dork”, “skank”, “homo”, “nigga”, “moron”, and worse, I can hardly consider that his use of the term “idiot” was actually an insult. Right?
(Of note, he actually wrote “your an idiot”. Sort of takes the edge off when someone trying to insult your intelligence does so with a glaring grammatical error)

* I am not excusing it. Indeed, at her age, and given the level of media exposure she has endured for the last few years, she certainly should have known better. However, like other kids who use the word, I imagine she just figured it was a stupid goof and “no big deal”

I thought about censoring the bad words I used in this post but figured you all would know what I meant. When you see “b*tch, you fill in the blank on the fly. If you will “read” the words anyway, and the point I am making is about people who freely use the words, why bother even trying to mask them with random punctuation?

Hope you have a wonderful day – and that the coming year brings many happy surprises.

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Mainly, the memory of a copper reproduction we had in our house. I think it was about 2 feet tall(?) with a little wire ladder leaning on the side, and a tiny little roofer with a hammer at work on top. In my recollection (which may be skewed and open to correction by my family members), my father’s company did the roofing during the reconstruction. The gorgeous model was given in appreciation…I think.

Anyway, I do clearly remember being fascinated by that metal dollhouse, with which I was not supposed to play. But I did. Because it was just so cool.

I’ve often wondered what happened to that thing…

Dear Friends,

In my classic impulsive fashion, I recently decided to join a team and bike from San Francisco to Los Angeles to raise money for SF AIDS Foundation NEXT MONTH! Please, help support me in this endeavor by donating ANYTHING you can. I need to raise a minimum of $3000 in order to ride.

Click this link to donate

The SF AIDS Foundation is certainly a great cause to be raising money for, but my reason or joining this ride has more to do with my grandmother* who was recently diagnosed with breast cancer. My grandmother (73) is the strongest female figure in my life whom I credit for many of my accomplishments in life. Without her, I certainly would not be where I am today. She has been my personal advocate and guardian angel. I choose to ride for her in hopes for a smooth recovery. Please, help me make her proud!

Thanks for your help,
Carole

It certainly is a good cause, and she is a great girl. If you feel moved to help, we definitely appreciate it.

*that would be my mom, the most amazing woman ever

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Spend time with a nervous, anxious person and physiological monitoring would most likely show you mimicking the anxiety and nervousness, in ways that affect your brain and body in a concrete, measurable way. Find yourself in a room full of pissed off people and feel the smile slide right off your face. Listen to people complaining endlessly about work, and you’ll find yourself starting to do the same. How many of us have been horrified to suddenly realize that we’ve spent the last half-hour caught up in a gossip session–despite our strong aversion to gossip? The behavior of others we’re around is nearly irresistible.

I think happy people are happy, myself included, not because we ignore the negative, but we choose to appreciate and truly experience the moments of simple joy around us, when they find us. Children naturally have this ability. They are able to feel happy down to their bones, and it lights up their face. I think this is one reason people in families are happier. Being around children reminds us that just being alive is joyful!

(I dug this out of the archives from another of my blogs, so it may sound familiar to some of you)

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