Okay, so I fell asleep with the TV on, and when I woke up TiVo had changed the channel and I found myself face to face with Cheerleader Nation. And now I can't stop watching.
Both of my sisters were cheerleaders, but it was nothing like this. I guess I'd call their brand "ordinary" cheerleading; they didn't have to have the tumbling skills the girls on television do. Then again, they weren't competing nationally.
It just seems so strange how invested the girls are in it, and how over involved their mothers seem to be in their lives. Then again, perhaps that's normal; I made a practiced study of not being interested in anything while in high school myself, and my mother made a practiced study of avoiding me as much as she could. I understand that cheerleading is a sport, and I can see that when I look at the girls in this series; still, I don't understand why they aren't more interested in the world around them and doing well in school. Or participating in a more readily-recognized sport like swimming or tennis of gymnastics (which they're kind of already doing). Then again, I could be generalizing, but they seem very frivolous and spoiled to me.
I will admit that I always wanted to be able to move like them, to be confident and somewhat graceful and have some sense of rhythm, but it wasn't in the cards. I have white trash genes, which are not suited to anything useful.
Natalie, the woman I share an office with, has a husband who has cancer and a Leonberger named Elwood. The husband she’s had for nearly 30 years; the dog is fairly new.
Elwood is both still a puppy (he’s just over a year old) and a rescue dog; he’s trying to figure out how to live with people who are kind and good and would never, ever hurt him. After all he’s been through, it’s hard to trust.
Mike, Natalie’s husband, is somewhat older than Elwood and has Kaiser Permanente Health Insurance; he’s trying to figure how to be seriously ill while dealing with a system whose stated goal is to provide health care, but seems designed with more anxious anticipation and hoops to jump though than Cirque de Soleil. After all he’s been through, it’s hard to trust.
One night Natalie’s son, Jeremy, was getting a cup of coffee in the kitchen when Elwood growled at him. This was Elwood’s way to test his boundaries and to try and establish control. The proper reaction is to show no fear, not back down, and let Elwood know that you are in charge. Not in a harsh way, but in a firm, gentle way. In this case, Jeremy let Elwood know that he was in charge of the coffee pot. Because if dogs don’t know what their boundaries are, they will act in all kinds of inappropriate ways.
Today Mike met with a new doctor, and Natalie went with him. Initially the doctor simply ignored her; he did this to try and test his boundaries and establish control. Armed with notebooks and medical information the physician had not bothered to review, Natalie showed no fear, did not back down, and let him know that while she may not be completely in charge, she was a partner and not a doormat. Not in a harsh way, but in a firm way that brooked no debate. Natalie knew everything about her husband’s medical history since the day they’d met when she was 17; it was all stored in her brain and recorded in those notebooks. She remembered every drug Mike had ever taken (as well as how they interacted with any drugs he was currently on or ever had taken), the dates of any and all tests he’d ever had, and what treatments and diagnostic methods had already been tried. And she made sure the doctor knew, too. In this way, Natalie let the doctor know that while he had many patients, Mike was the only one she had and ever intended to. Because if Kaiser doesn’t realize that they can’t push you around, they will act in all kinds of inappropriate ways.
The offical term for his type of behavior is coffeepotting, and it is done soley out of love
Trite as this may sound, there was a tornado in Kansas today. Actually, many. But this one was in my old college town, Lawerence. Okay, not a real tornado, but "tornadic winds". Which, I'm sorry, is the same freakin' thing.
I actually like Lawrence; I don't blame the city for what happened there. Sometimes, when we're looking at new cities to move to, I think about mentioning it. But I don't. I think because I worry that I'd have flashbacks, but maybe becuase I don't want to return to a place where I failed.
In which Naomi Wolf talks straight about what the Gossip Girl-type books say about girls now, and what books like that are really embracing.
The spookiest part about the whole article is that apparently Cecily von Ziegesar (the author of Gossip Girl) has referred to her books as "aspirational", and seems to think that's a good thing.
I'm not against "light" reading, but I think there's a difference between that and books that seem to glorify girls as vapid, overly-sexualized, materialstic whores-in-waiting. I have issues with that.
Long before I lived in California, before it was even a possibility, I had another life.
It was not a bad life, really; just lonely. And I am accustomed to being alone. Actually, sometimes I feel safer on my own than with other people. People often irk me.
Anyway, when I lived in my small apartment in Nebraska I had two cats. Rigby came with me from Wisconsin, and Sophie came to me in Omaha. Rigby died last year; he was about 17 and very ill. I miss him a lot, but I was glad he didn't hurt any longer and was happy to have a chance to say goodbye.
On Wednesday, we noticed that Sophie had a cold. Nothing big, just watery eyes and she sounded a little congested. We made an appointment with the vet on Friday at 10:00, just to get her checked over. You can't be too careful.
By 1:00 afternoon on Friday, Sophie was dead.
I don't know what happened; nobody does. When they checked her temperature it was very low, and chest e-rays revealed that her lungs were congested. In spite of this, Sophie looked healthy; just a little out of it like you get when you have a cold. Normally, with the degree of congestion, they would just prescribe some antibiotics and send her home. But for some reason, Sophie couldn't breathe.
A friend took Richard and Sophie to the vet because I had to work. I assumed that I'd get a call from him later on to let me know that they were home, and that Soph would need extensive pampering. She loved being pampered. Instead I got a call at 11:00 saying that Sophie was in an oxygen tank and her condition was "extremely guarded". I called the vet and he told me he honestly thought that he did not think Sophie would live. For whatever reason, she could not breathe on her own; he didn't know why, but was doing everything he could to keep her okay. The clinic closed at 6:00; they couldn't keep the oxygen tent on all night, so she might need to be transferred to the Animal Emergency Clinic in Cordeila. We were okay with that, but what scared me is that the vet told me he did not think Sophie would survive the hour between the time their clinic closed and the time the Emergency clinic opened. I told him to do what he needed to do, and to let me know afterward. I did not want my Baby Girl to suffer needlessly while a phone call was being made.
At 1:00 Richard called to tell me that Sophie died. She was having so much trouble breathing that the vet, who had exhausted all other options, put her down.
In many ways I still can't believe it. I mean, she just had a cold. Friday morning she was asleep in her basket by the window, curled up with two of our other cats. She was breathing a bit heavily and sounded congested, but didn't appear to be in distress. I petted her gently and kissed her on the forehead, telling her that Richard would be taking her to the vet and I'd see her when she got home. And I never saw her again.
Sophie was a long-haired Siamese mix with a Liz Taylor come-hither gaze. A diva of the old school, Sophie spent quite a bit of time in the alley behind my apartment building, waiting for people to pet her and give her treats. She also liked recline on the hood of my Toyota; some mornings she'd look at me with a languid gaze and stretch luxuriously, then jump off and wander off into the yard.
She didn't have a collar and seemed constantly hungry, so one day when she followed me into the lobby and accompanied me to my doorway I didn't turn her away. Rigby was a good cat, but he had been badly abused and had trust issues for days (it was why we got along so well); I figured that a cat that seemed better-adjusted might have a positive effect on him. While this was not exactly the case, he didn't ever actually harm her physically. Sophie didn't mind, in part because her world view was very limited. Everything in Sophie's world was about Sophie; as long as you let her cuddle with you on the couch, read her stories, and fed her, anyone else was welcome. It just had to be about her primarily; if her needs were met, she was very giving with my time.
A small town girl with a fairly narrow world view, Sophie loved San Francisco. We had a huge yard on Oak Street, and Sophie soon discovered every inch of it. I don't know why I let her out at all since we lived so close to major streets, but somehow the idea that because the yard was fenced it was safe. Silly me! Sophie was a gazelle in cat's clothing, and was soon wandering freely in the neighbor's yards, making friends and garnering love and attention.
I miss my baby girl.
Sometimes a book about penguins is just a book about freakin' penguins!
I am becoming more and more concerned about the state of my country. And I don't just mean the whole usual war in Iraq, Bush didn't know anything about Hurricane Katrina (which we all knew was a total lie, and now there's proof! I love video), let's let Dubai manage our ports stuff, I mean abortion. The fundamental right allowing women to make choices about their own bodies.
Mississippi has now jumped on the anti-abortion bandwagon, seeking to limit abortions to cases only where the mother's life is in danger. This is on the heels of a similar action that looks likely to become law in South Dakota, which will also only allow abortion when the mother's life is threatened.
W says his disagrees with the South Dakota bill, says he hasn't paid all that much attention to the situation at all. Right. He may support the option of abortion in more cases than the SD and MS laws will permit, but I bet that George W. Bush is watching the situation unfold with glee, because it fits in with his overall agenda.
There is a lot of baggage that comes with being pro-choice, just like someone who isn't. People see you as supporting one thing, without question or reservations, but it isn’t like that at all. I wish people would understand that many of us have just as many issues with the Movement as do those who seek to ban abortion. But we support the overall platform because we believe that it is the right thing to do. We believe that women should be able to control their bodies.
I wish women didn't have to have abortions; that every child was healthy and wanted and conceived in love. But you know what? That isn’t reality. Because some babies have genetic defects and some women are raped or children are victims of incest, and many people who have children are not ready emotionally or financially for the responsibility. I wish all of the babies could be given up for adoption, because there are so many people who want children that can't have them (myself included). But for some women, they are not comfortable with that choice. And because I support the overall choice, I have to respect this one.
The way I see the U.S. lumbering toward a more religious-centered government with shrinking individual rights, it makes me wonder what I can do. What I want to do is to move someplace where there are more like-minded people, but that's kind of the ostrich way of handling it. After the Presidential election someone, I can't remember who, said that more people who want to make changes in the red states should move there and let their views be known. I am not sure I want to be that political, but I do know I am really scared of the road our country is heading down. And I want to do more.