Category Archive

Princess Zurg:  There was a boy in my class whose mom let him watch Spiderman 3 but wouldn’t  let him watch Corpse Bride, even though Spiderman 3 is rated PG-13 and Corpse Bride is rated PG.  She said Corpse Bride was too gross.

Giraffemom:  Well, Corpse Bride is a little too macabre for some people.  You know, it’s got all those dead people and…maggots.

PZ:  But those maggots aren’t even real.

GM:  Yeah, well…

PZ:  And Spiderman 3 is rated PG-13 for violence.  Corpse Bride only has one little duel in it.  And it doesn’t have any naked people in it, or anything disgusting like that.

GM:  No.

PZ:  What’s grosser, maggots or naked people?

GM:  Uh…I guess it depends on who’s naked.

PZ:  You mean, if the maggots are naked, they’re grosser, and if the people are naked, they’re grosser?

GM:  Something like that.

 

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So those of you who have been studying for the exam might recall that I’m an assistant librarian at church.  They called me to the position a couple of years ago, and I remarked at the time that Ward Librarian was a position of extreme power among Mormons because librarians are the only individuals aside from the bishopric who have keys to the church library.  Why is the church library such a well-guarded facility?  I guess because electronic equipment is stored there.  Like old TV’s and DVD players and ancient cassette players.  Oh, and erasers.  People are always “borrowing” our erasers and “forgetting” to return them. 

Totally irrelevant aside:  We keep our chalk and erasers in an old wine crate.  The head librarian was conscientious enough to black out the words “Red Wine” but not the word “Mondavi.”  Nor was she conscientious enough to remove the paper towel that resides at the bottom of the crate that says, “Get me wet and I’ll erase for you.”  For some reason that disturbs me more than anything else I’ve seen at church in recent years.  End totally irrelevant aside.

Anyway, as I was saying, any jerk can get keys to the church building itself, but the key to the library is most precious above all other keys.  So naturally I was rubbing my hands with glee, anticipating the moment they bestowed one of these babies upon me.  Well.  There’s a scientific term for this phenomenon; it’s “premature gleeful-hand-rubbing.”  For about a year and a half I did not have any keys, to the building or the library, and every time I had library duty, I had to hunt down keys from one of the other librarians, or from one of the bishopric, and while it wasn’t like crossing the plains on foot in bitter winter and losing my toes to frostbite, it was still a trial for me to bear.  Inconvenience is the scourge of our modern times. 

About a year into this business, I became reconciled (mostly) to the fact that I was never getting a key to the library, and I would just have to settle for the power trip that accompanies eraser disposition.  I kept telling myself, “You know, self, it’s not that they don’t trust you.  It’s that they’re too lazy to make copies.  I mean, they’re too busy.  They are so busy, and they can hardly expect to make your individual library key a top priority, no matter how many times you and the head librarian keep reminding them that you still do not have a key, and you do in fact need one.  It’s not like crossing the plains on foot in bitter winter and getting frostbite.  At worst, it’s like being in a covered wagon and having a cold.  So you can just suck it up, self, and stop trying to rise above your station.”

Then a wonderful thing happened.  The bishopric member from whom I most frequently borrowed keys (because he lives down the street from me) came in one Sunday and presented me with a key to the church building.  Which, as I told you, is the key that any jerk can get–but still, it was more than I had before.  I was now equal to any jerk in the church.  That was nothing to be ashamed of.  Of course, I still needed a library key in order to discharge my librarian duties to the best of my ability–which I ever-so-humbly reminded him, whilst expressing extreme gratitude for the gift already given.  At which point he said, “Oh.  I thought you already had one of those.”  I so humbly and graciously told him that I had not that precious key, but I would be ever so indebted if he could procure one for me.  No pressure.  I’d just been waiting a year and a half, which was not remotely how long it must have seemed to the pioneers crossing the plains in bitter winter, on foot or otherwise. 

In spite of the fact that I was clearly not under any imminent threat, he promised that he would get me a key the following week.  And you know what?  Eventually he did.  And I’m proud to say that since I’ve assumed ownership of that key, I have not once let my rowdy friends into the library to watch unauthorized videos or erase things with wet paper towels.  I have been the very picture of responsibility.

Until I let Elvis play with my keyring with the iffy clasp and the keys to the church building and the library fell off.  Actually, a lot of things fell off–the grocery store club cards, the Blockbuster Rewards card, the tiny and purely decorative rape whistle–but I found all of those things in pretty short order.  The church and library keys were nowhere to be seen.  Naturally.

I didn’t panic initially.  I reasoned that since Elvis had most recently taken my keys down to the mailbox to get the mail (that’s his new favorite chore, second only to taking out the trash), the keys must be somewhere between our front door and the mailbox.  Which is across the street.  Yes, I let him cross the street by himself.  “Street” is really an overstatement–it’s more like ”a stretch of asphalt separating my sidewalk from my neighbor’s sidewalk, that sometimes cars drive on.”  Okay, this is really a topic for another blog.  Forget I told you where the mailbox was.  Suffice it to say that I visually scoured every inch of the path that Elvis would have taken to get the mail–and I found a couple of decorative doohickeys from my keychain that had been missing for several days–but no church keys.  I’ve always been afraid that Elvis would accidentally drop my keys into one of the gutters and I’d never see them again, and if you think I didn’t check the gutters–twice–you are mistaken.  That’s when I realized they (the keys) could be anywhere.  Possibly even in my house–meaning that I might never find them!  Augh!  This was when the panic started.

Knowing that if I told the head mucky-mucks that I’d lost my keys–not just the key to the church building, which any jerk can get and which jerks lose all the time, which is why they have to keep re-coding it, but also the coveted, most-precious-above-all-other-keys library key–I had about as much chance of getting replacement keys as I did of getting my pre-pregnancy breasts replaced.  Short of a miracle, it was simply not going to happen.  And it’s not like they would have relieved me of my librarian duties, since I was obviously not to be trusted with church property.  No, they would keep me as assistant ward librarian, forcing me to keep borrowing keys year after year, mocking me with their power–power that I would never again hold, so long as I lived.  It would be a little mini-hell, not unlike what the pioneers went through when they got to Utah and there were no department stores yet. 

So in desperation, I told my kids that my Very Important Keys had been lost and that whoever found them, I would buy that person a Webkinz.  (Is Webkinz an acceptable singular, or should it be Webkin?  This is the question I always ask myself, unless I am too worried about my keys.)  To be perfectly frank, I didn’t expect I would have to deliver on that promise, as I am a pessimist and believe that once something is lost, it can never be found again, all historical evidence to the contrary.  At some level I probably believed that God was punishing me for my negligence.  Letting my five-year-old borrow the keys so he could get the mail, which is across the street–tsk tsk. 

Anyway, I knew I was being extreme, but on the other hand, I really wanted my keys back.  I wanted them at least $13.99 worth.  So I did some back-of-the-envelope calculations and decided that the worst thing that could possibly happen was that I never found my keys.  The second-worst thing would be that both of the older kids found the keys simultaneously and I’d have to buy two new Webkinz and Mister Bubby would say that was unfair because now Princess Zurg would have three and he’d only have two, which would remind Princess Zurg that some kids have seven Webkinz, and we’re really falling behind in the showering-children-with-gifts department, and they would both (continue to) grow up with this disgusting sense of entitlement and they’d never succeed in the real world.  So that’s why I did what I did.

The next 24 hours I just spent re-reconciling myself to the fact that I was never going to have keys to the library.  Then, on Tuesday, we were coming home from swimming lessons, and as Elvis was unlocking the door (with my utterly replaceable house key), Mister Bubby spied the church keys on the welcome mat.  Yes, the welcome mat.  The one that’s right in front of the freaking door.  Now, I assure you people that I had looked all around the door, including that area with the welcome mat, including the welcome mat itself, and the keys were not there.  So make of that what you will.  This was either a test of my faith–which I think I failed–or it was fate smiling on MB, who has been yearning for a Bengal Tiger Webkin(z) for about three months.  Maybe it was both. 

So yesterday, true to my word–and ever so happy to be in possession of all my keys again–I took MB down to the local Webkinz dealer and I bought him a Bengal Tiger.  You know, I still don’t really “get” what Webkinz is all about.  It’s not a fad I ever would have bought into, except that my (or should I say the kids’?) babysitter bought MB and PZ Webkinz for Christmas, and the two have been obsessed with their online pets ever since.  Like I said, I’m still not real clear about what the deal is with these things–they could be part of some weird cult or an international slave trade, for all I know.  For the first couple months the kids had their Webkinz, I didn’t take any interest because a) I’m a busy person and I have my own frivolity to see to, and b) I’m generally negligent.  Then one day MB called me over to see the new swimming pool he’d bought for his Panda, so I went over and looked, and there was this panda bear wearing swim trunks and taking a swim in a pool–and I just about died because it was just the cutest thing I had ever seen. 

Do you get it?  It’s a panda bear and he’s wearing clothes, swimming in a pool, brushing his teeth and sleeping in a hammock, just like he’s people.  It’s beyond adorable.  Maybe a small part of me wanted this Bengal Tiger just for my own enjoyment, and that’s why I lost my keys in the first place.  The Lord works in a mysterious way, that’s all I know. 

 

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Giraffemom:  Mister Bubby, that Bengal Tiger is freaking adorable.

Mister Bubby:  I know.  What should I name him?

GM:  I don’t know.  What do you want to name him?

MB:  Well, one thing’s for sure.  I’m not naming him Jeffrey.

GM:  No, he doesn’t look like a Jeffrey.

MB:  Maybe “Teeny.”  No, that’s a girl’s name.

GM:  Yes, “Teeny” is a tad effeminate for a tiger.

MB:  I know.  How about “Tigey”?

GM:  That sounds…appropriate.

The Toronto Star reports that Daylight Savings Time as a conservation measure is not really all that.  In fact, it may be the opposite of all that.  Matthew Kotchen, a University of California-Santa Barbara economics professor, studied  almost 8 million residential meter readings across Indiana to quantify the change in electricity use over three years.  Up until 2006, the vast majority of Indiana counties did not observe DST.  Now that the entire state has joined the rest of us sheep in pushing our clocks forward, what did Kotchen (and his faithful graduate student) find?

Instead of saving electricity and money by adding an extra hour of sunlight to evenings most of the year, it cost Indiana homes an extra $8.6 million in electricity bills – mostly from chugging air conditioners – each year. And since 95 per cent of that extra energy was generated by coal-fired power plants, that meant much more atmosphere-warming carbon dioxide was spewed into the air. …

In Indiana, people might not have been flipping on the lights when they returned home after work. But they were cranking their air conditioners, because that extra hour of evening sunlight meant another hour of “solar build-up on your house,” says Kotchen.

“Take an hour at dawn versus an hour at sunset. When do you think you’re going to run the air conditioner harder?”

Kotchen is now studying the effect of daylight savings on the rest of the country. He figures the air conditioning effect will be even more profound in southern states. And in the north, there is the opposite problem: waking up an hour earlier in the spring and fall means more time roaming around a cold house, rather than dozing under a duvet.

What DST is good for, apparently, is the economy–because with an extra hour of sunlight, people tend to go shopping and run other errands when they get off work in the evening.  The trouble, of course, is that they’re not walking to the stores.  They’re getting in their cars and driving there, which is also bad for the environment.  Tsk tsk.

Now, you all know me.  I’m no friend of the environment.  But DST is my enemy, and if the enemy of my enemy is my friend, I guess that makes me a friend of the environment after all.  At least between March and October. 

My husband, however, is a fan of DST.  He likes coming home from work and having the sun still blazing bright as noonday.  He’s reasonably indifferent to the fact that children don’t want to go to bed at a reasonable hour, when the sun is finally beginning to set so that it shines like a beacon through the slats of the venetian blinds in their bedroom windows.  No, he just enjoys the extra hour of sunlight so he can “play with the kids” and “not succumb to the depressing effects of leaving for work in the dark and coming home in the dark” (although, in the summer, he’d have to leave for work at 3 a.m. and not come home until 10 p.m. in order to miss the daylight altogether–but in March I suppose it does make a difference).  To his credit, he will not get in his car and drive around to stores and junk.  He’ll have us all walk to the park and frolic in a carbon-free manner.  That’s because SD is a friend of the environment.  So will he be conflicted when he learns of this study, or will he just pick apart the “science” and discredit it because, unlike some people, he loves the light more than darkness?

Only time will tell.

Rather, only Daylight Savings Time will tell.

I don’t know what that means.  I just wanted to say it like that.

Do you know anybody who knows way too much about every subject that could possibly arise in any conversation?  No matter what you have to say, this person has information wherewith to enlighten you.  Even if you’re just making idle chatter or a joke, or whatever, this person has to respond with a sentence that starts with “Actually…” and ends with some factoid or theory that may or may not be correct, no, what’s important is that it contradicts whatever it is you just said, and all you can do is say, “Huh, I had no idea,” because if you say anything else, they’ll just start spewing knowledge at you again.

Do you have an evil part of you that dances for joy when such a person tries to tell someone else everything they know and the other person responds with the equivalent of “You have no idea what you’re talking about”?  I felt the evil dance inside me today.  I won’t say that I’m proud, but there it is.

I can’t find my cell phone.  Ordinarily I would call it so I could find it, but as I have no other phone right now, I cannot call it and therefore cannot find it.  I last had it at about 10:45, when someone called me and I had to take it upstairs to get away from Elvis, who was screaming because he wanted to answer the phone himself.  I don’t remember where I went upstairs, or what I did after I hung up.  I don’t recall opening up a window and throwing my phone into the neighbor’s yard, but it’s possible I could have blacked out and done exactly that, because my phone is nowhere to be seen on these premises. 

I’ve paged Sugar Daddy twice, asking him to call me, but he either hasn’t gotten my pages, is too busy to answer my pages, is ignoring my pages, or has been trying to call me for the last two hours and my neighbor is wondering why her dog’s stomach keeps playing the theme from Alias.  Any of these scenarios is possible.  But I am getting tired of not knowing where my phone is.  I’d like to call some people.  I’m this close to posting my number on the blog and asking one of you all to call me.  I’m sure you wouldn’t be disappointed if you got Elvis instead of me.  He’s really becoming quite the conversationalist.

So today marks the first day of TV Turn-off Week, and my children’s school is again pressuring us to observe this period of Lent by sending home their little slips of paper whereupon we should mark the days our child(ren) do not watch television and which we mustn’t forget to turn in to the school at the end of the week so that…actually, I forget why we need to turn it back in.  There might be some kind of certificate involved.  Whatever.  It isn’t that I disdain the worthy goal of watching less (or no) television.  I think television is a cesspool.  It’s degraded our culture and our public discourse.  All people, including myself, should watch less television, except for those people who are already watching no television.  They should continue to watch the same amount of television, i..e. none, because it’s impossible to watch less than none.  Unless twenty minutes of vigorous aerobic activity counts as less than none, in which case they should do that, too.  Unless they have a physical impairment that prevents them from engaging in aerobic activity, in which case they should read a book or switch to diet soda or something.  I don’t care.

Obviously, TV Turn-off Week is not mandatory.  It’s merely a suggestion, coming from the the folks at the Center for Screen-Time Awareness–an enthusiastic, guilt-inducing suggestion, sure, but you know me, I have no problem with guilt trips, even when they’re laid on thick, even when they’re laid on me.  Guilt is a powerful motivator.  (Also underrated:  Fear of Hellfire.)  I don’t think certificates do much of anything, but I guess I’m not opposed to those, either–except all that paperwork does have an environmental impact, so never mind.  Screw certificates!  This is what bugs me–and I admit that it’s pretty lame, as irritants go, but here it is anyway:

It’s all well and good for the school to throw its support behind TV Turn-off Week, but I wish there were more to it than merely not participating in one particular activity (make that “activity”).  It’s always good to abstain from TV, but I don’t know that it does much good to make a big deal out of abstaining from TV unless you take note of how the abstinence affects how you live.  I’d prefer it if they asked kids to write down what they do with their time during a typical week, then ask them to do it again during TV Turn-off Week (when, theoretically, they would not be watching any–or as much–TV).  That would make it seem like more of a learning experience rather than just another deprivation.  As it is, I’m somewhat annoyed by the “rules” of the game (according to the literature our school gave us).  Nothing on a television set is kosher, be it broadcast or videotape/DVD or whatever.  Movies watched in a movie theater are okay, though–not because big-screen-movie-watching is any less passive than little-screen-movie-watching, but because this is TV Turn-off Week, not Movie Theater Avoidance Week.  As for video games and recreational computer usage goes, “Ask your parents.”  Oh, you bet they will.

So my son already hates this idea, which is funny because he doesn’t watch that much television in the first place.  Just telling him he can’t do something, though, makes him want to do it more.  Then there’s Elvis, who, while he’s certainly cut down on his Monsters, Inc. habit, still has to watch some little-screen entertainment during the day or I will go freaking nuts.  (He doesn’t play video games or use computers recreationally, and taking him to a movie theater would be Missing The Point Entirely.)  To be sure, his Non-TV-Watching Activity Log would be sport lots of interesting pastimes, most of them involving sharp objects, sticky food substances, and that giant mudhole in the backyard–but as the responsible adult in the house, I take the liberty of deciding when his dance card is full, if you catch my meaning.

Anyway, I think TV Turn-off Week is more properly observed during May sweeps.  People who turn their TV’s off in April are wusses!

But all their works they do for to be seen of men: they make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the borders of their garments,–Matthew 23:5

Rant o’ the Day

Pepperidge Farm Goldfish Crackers are evil.  They are crack cocaine for children.  Once kids get a taste, they are hooked for life and will not eat any truly wholesome foods ever again.  I hate you, Pepperidge Farm Goldfish Crackers.  You look innocent enough, but that’s your game, isn’t it?  Lure them in with relatively low calories and fat content, and then WHAM!  Sock it to ‘em with instant addiction that eventually consumes them and turns them into snack-scarfing zombies who shun fiber and vitamins in favor of your cheesy, hydrogenated-oily goodness.  For shame, Pepperidge Farm Goldfish Crackers.  For.  Shame.

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And now for the lesser rants

Attention, my fellow Americans:  Words have meanings.

1.  The “Morning After Pill” is NOT the “abortion pill.”  The “Morning After Pill” is a high-dose version of the hormone in regular, boring birth control pills.  It can work in any of the following ways, depending on when it is taken (ideally, within 72 hours after having unprotected sex):  stopping the release of an egg from the ovary; preventing fertilization of an already-released egg; or stopping an already-fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus.  In this last respect it is no more an abortifacient than is an IUD.  (The “abortion pill” is RU-486, which will induce abortion non-surgically in the first two months of pregnancy.  You can’t get it from your pharmacist.  It must be administered in a doctor’s office or similar medical facility.  It is not a “morning after pill.”  It is a “much too late for the morning-after pill” pill.) 

You may think it is morally wrong to prevent an already-fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus, and that is fine.  I respect that view.  (As John Kerry might say, I deeply, deeply respect that view.  Only I’m sincerely saying it.)  But it is not an abortion.  You may think it is morally equivalent to an abortion, which is also your privilege to believe, but it still isn’t an abortion.  It is different.  Not everyone agrees that preventing a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus is preferable to terminating a developing embryo–some think the two are equally bad, others think they are equally not-bad–but everyone should agree that they are two different things.  Because they are.

2.  An adult who has sex with a teenager is not a “pedophile.”  He (or she) may be a sexual predator.  He may be a cavalier user of other human beings.  He may be emotionally immature.  He may lack good judgment in a most egregious fashion.  He may be a super-ultra pig-dog who belongs in prison.  But he is not a pedophile.  A pedophile is someone who is sexually attracted to pre-pubescent children.  If this seems like splitting hairs to you, think of it this way:  A 15-year-old who molests a 5-year-old is a pedophile.  A 15-year-old who molests another 15-year-old is a 15-year-old.  It is not the difference in age that counts.  It’s the age and physical maturity of the youngest individual involved. 

Having sex with minors is wrong.  Heck, I don’t think minors should be having sex with each other, let alone with adults.  But sexual attraction to humans who have gone through puberty and reached (physical) sexual maturity is different from sexual attraction to babies.  Perhaps you think they are morally equivalent, and though I confess that your moral logic disturbs me personally, it is your privilege to believe that.  Nevertheless, they are still two different things.  They must be differentiated, and if not with words, how?

And now, a public-service announcement in the “words have meanings” category

You do not feel nauseous.  You feel nauseated.  You only feel nauseous if you feel you are making others feel nauseated.  It’s okay.  I sometimes feel that way myself.  But only say it if you mean it.

Have a great weekend, and remember to choose your words carefully!