Monthly Archives: May 2012

Great find

So I was making some repairs in my broken links list this morning (a never-ending task when you’ve linked 5,334 of them in posts since February of 2008), and ran across a post whose comments I thought I’d long ago deleted. Imagine my utter delight at finding them again. Ah, David Soul.

Had me a good laff.

If you’ve ever looked at the image caption on RtB’s The Law page, you’ve seen a David Soul reference, and maybe wondered why it was there. After you read the link below, you’ll understand. Not that people like him are arrogant, puffed-up, irrelevant, conceited, aging roosters trying to relive evaporated long-ago fame by Googling their own names, but…

Well, I’ll let you judge for yourself. Ladies and germs, from 2008: Cool TV II.

Bonus for this post: I’ve mentioned his name enough times that he might find me again. :-D Happy Day!

Dear old friend

Yesterday, I looked at the photo of Rousseau (the one on the left, below) I have as the desktop background on my computer at school. Then I got out my phone and looked at a picture I’d taken of him last Sunday. Wow…we all age, don’t we? Even pups. Look at the difference seven years make:

As I sat and looked at the two photos, I bawled. I know the time is coming — the time no pet owner wants to confront. He’s 12 now (13 in September), and we notice he’s moving a lot slower. His eyes are a bit droopy and cloudy, as opposed to alert and radiant chestnut brown. He often struggles getting up from the floor. These last two “things” he’s endured (the surgery and the stomach sickness last week) seem to have really taken the wind out of him.

The clock is ticking, and I don’t like it. Of course, we are going to adore, spoil and enjoy the heck out of him for however many years he has left. He’s still as affectionate, gentle and full of personality as he was on the day we got him. The two breeds that make up Rousseau (English Springer Spaniel and Australian Shepherd) have an average lifespan of 12-15 years, so it could be that we’re nowhere near that day. But…that day is coming. It’s the singular terrible thing about loving an animal.

There are several aging pets that I know of among my RtB fiends. In my immediate family alone, there are two Labradors, a Poodle and a Beagle who are all 9, and an 8-year-old Shetland Sheepdog. BoomR’s dogs are getting up there, too, I think. Chevy, the Famous American Cat who lives with Suzanne in the Netherlands has got to be 15 if he’s a day. The Thriller and I are not alone in the realization that our beloved four-legged kids are inching ever closer to the home stretch.

Stan Rawlinson wrote in his Ten Commandments From a Pet’s Point of View:

Go with me on difficult journeys. Never say, “I can’t bear to watch,” or “Let it happen in my absence.” Everything is easier for me if you are there. Remember, regardless of what you do, I will always love you.

[I can never get through that list without completely breaking down. Cue Sarah McLachlan, In the arms of the angel…Oy.]

So I will most certainly, if circumstances go that way, be there when Rousseau takes his final journey. But for now, I think I’ll get my tennies on and take the Old Man for walk through the park. After coffee, of course.

FO

¿Por qué? Pourquoi? VIII

What, again with the questions? Puzzling issues plague me this day, my last official work day of the school year.

  1. I know why some people are intentionally unkind (slamming others to make themselves feel superior, schadenfreude, trying to cover their own insecurities by pointing out those of others, etc.). What I don’t know is why the people around them — closest to them — allow it.
  2. Why do people selectively quote bible verses to support their agendas as to what is proper behavior or not, but ignore other passages that weaken them? I mean, couldn’t we go on and on about the oppression of women being acceptable in biblical times? Or slavery, or murder, or judgment being visited on the children for the father’s sins? What about the trustworthiness of the translators of the Hebrew/Greek texts into Latin, and then the Latin bible into English — medieval “scholars” with their own agendas? This all makes me sad. I’m aware of the pitfalls of two wrongs not making a right, and pointing fingers and saying, “Yeah, but look at THIS,” but can we not arrive at some consensus that not all things are hard and fast in the scriptures? Could some human, somewhere along the line, at some point, have dropped the translation ball?
  3. Why can’t people just defer sometimes? Is it that much of a deal breaker? Honestly. One of my secret desires (well, not secret anymore, right?) is to be less “teller” and more “asker” in my life. People are not dying to hear my opinion on every little thing (that’s why I have finkweb.org), and I don’t always have to be boss (unless I’m in rehearsal :P ). I can tell you the work is paying off. As I’ve said before, I have seen too many people get hurt — too many relationships damaged or killed — by one or both parties’ unrelenting need to be right.

Geez, why so serious this morning? It’s Contract Day! Yippy! I hope everyone had a good holiday weekend.

Now — answer me my questions three.

One. And. Done.

Welp, here we go, fiends. In weather that’ll melt your face off, the high school choir will sing at graduation at 2:00 today. Still debating about the robes. I mean, they only have to stand there for 20 minutes. What would you do? Could be worse. Could be 100 degrees, ja?

Regardless, nine hours from now, I will be motoring the Finkmobile back home to find the Thriller and Js waiting for me. Exciting! Tomorrow morning, when we take the boys back, I have absolutely no plans. None. The Thriller has to work on a research paper that’s due on Tuesday, and I am going to see what I feel like doing, then do it. I’m not hosting a Memorial Day cookout on Monday; I’m not going to one, either. Hmmm. What needs done tomorrow?

  • Weeding the flower gardens
  • Clearing out closets
  • Spring cleaning that didn’t get done this spring
  • Researching tunes for my recording session with BoomR
  • Cleaning the garage
  • Giving my classroom the royal treatment (clear out files, straighten shelves, and DUST everything, since dusting is not in the custodians’ job description per union rules)

Maybe I’ll choose one of the above; maybe I’ll read all day. :-)

What are your plans for the holiday weekend? Anything fun we should know about?

STOP IT

Neck – stop hurting!

Tribe – stop losing!

Girls – stop being mean!

Humidity and temps – stop rising! I have a gig tomorrow afternoon in an un-air-conditioned high school gym!

Body – stop makin me mad!

Tempus – stop fugiting!

Brain – stop overthinking!

School district – stop scheduling graduation over Memorial Day weekend!

OK, had to get that overwith. You’d think that since school is done (all that remains is my contract day on Tuesday) and the Js are coming over tomorrow night, I’d be happy. Well, I am. Time for an attitude adjustment, but it’s fun to get all yer digs in before you turn the corner, ja? Lots of good things coming down the pike this summer, so let’s have at it.

That is all. I need some fruit.

FO