My husband was reading New Rules, by Bill Maher of Politically Incorrect. One of the “suggestions” contained in the book was that hurricanes should no longer be given nice names, like Katrina or Rita. They should instead be given scary names. Our son, whose current fascination is weather and weather-related disasters, started making suggestions with great gusto, naming “Hurricane Tyrannosaurus” and “Hurricane Steamroller”. But it was my husband who suggested the best nominative. He came up with “Hurricane Bush-Cheney” with the droll observation that he could think of nothing more destructive. And you know, I can’t think of anything scarier either.
Archive for March, 2006
On The Mark
Tuesday, March 7th, 2006Back Among the Sentient
Monday, March 6th, 2006My apologies to the reading public, but I’ve been rather the worse for another round of bronchitis, about which the less said the better. But it’s just about gone now, in time to take advantage of a late snow. Yesterday it began coming down early in the afternoon and kept it up steadily for a good few hours. Our cat was much distressed, perching on the approximately 2 inch ledge free of snow by the door with wailings and lamentations. She squeaks; I’ve never heard a cat make such sounds as she does. She did get let in for a time, for the most part because I’m a soft touch. (She also didn’t understand why her mommy was sniffling and finally put her back outside in spite of the cold white stuff on her paws)
This morning was white: white mist and white snow, and the only dark to see the tree branches. Much of the snow melted off over the course of the day, but there was still an inch or two left when our son got home from school. He came running and announced that he wanted to have a snowball fight. My first thought was to be adult and stodgy, but fortunately it didn’t last long. So I grabbed coat, hat and gloves, insisted my boychick put on his mittens, and out we went. You should have seen the cat watching the mysterious activity of her housemonkies. She crouched on the step, head going back and forth like a referee at Wimbeldon. We ran all over the yard, laughing, grabbing handsful of snow and throwing them at each other without bothering to compress them into snowballs. (Just as well; it was slushy enough they would have been ice balls.) We played for a good half hour, having ourselves a wonderful time. I will have to be stern and parental in about 15 minutes here, insisting that homework be done and that he actually pay attention and do it correctly. But this afternoon, I got to put that aside and just play in what I suspect will be the last snow of the season.
A Cat and Her Boy.
Friday, March 3rd, 2006Our son finally has a pet, and he is utterly enamored of her. He has to tell her goodbye before he gets on the school bus, and his first act when he gets home (sometimes before taking off his backpack) is to call her so he can tell her he’s back. What is truly amazing to me is that she always comes when he does that, generally appearing out of the barn and running to him at full feline gallop, there to purr and wind about his legs.
She has also become our best ally. Homework gets done at lightning speed, if he can’t go out to the cat until it’s done. Likewise, he jumps into his clothes in the morning instead of procrastinating and making us nuts if it is pointed out to him that as soon as he’s dressed, he’ll be able to play with the cat. She does play with him, too. She’s not interested in feather-on-a-string type cat toys, nor in catnip mice (the real ones are evidently much more fun), but she will play pounce and tag with him endlessly. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen an 8 year old human run by laughing and looking over his shoulder, with a six pound grey cat in hot pursuit. Then once she catches him, he pets her for awhile until it’s time for him to chase her. She signals this by walking out from under his hand, stopping to flick her tail at him, and then starting to trot away. As he picks up speed, so does she, until they are again flying across the yard. She does tire of the game after about 20 minutes, and either sits down by the back step or goes into her kitty-house. Even then, though, she generally hangs out with her boy until he’s ready to come inside, watching him play with his toys in the sand and leaves near the door.
I’ve met cats trained to come when called, and cats that would play fetch. But I’ve never met a cat who would play tag, nor one who would allow herself to be hauled around by a child in ways she would never tolerate from an adult. I have no idea how, but she seems to understand that her boy is a large two-legged kitten. And though he refers to her as “our cat”, it’s very clear who is in charge in this relationship.
Enough Already!
Thursday, March 2nd, 2006Just over a month ago, I went through my usual winter disputation with bronchitis. It went away quickly under the onslaught of antibiotics, and I had fond hopes of being done with it for the winter. No such luck. I’d a bit of a cold when I went to Chicago on Saturday, which of course settled in for the duration once I got home. And now, as usual, my breathing apparatus has decided that it feels left out and wants to play. So I am once again doing my best impression of a cat coughing up a hairball, and headed for the doc’s office.
It will go away again; I know it will. What I don’t see is why it felt obligated to call on me again in the first place. I have had enough of this!
Empirical Evidence
Wednesday, March 1st, 2006Last time I bought jeans, there was one pair that didn’t fit, printed size notwithstanding. It didn’t even meet at the equator, so to speak. But rather than take them back, I tucked them away with intent to work on getting into them.
Yesterday I bethought me of those jeans and pulled them out. Not only do they now fit, they’re a little loose. It’s nice to have such tangible evidence of change.
Old Enough
Wednesday, March 1st, 2006If you are reading this, then I’ve posted it after a lot of internal debate on whether or not to do so. I don’t usually put my political views right out here, though I daresay they’re clear enough. But I’ve just read a Supreme Court opinion saying that it wasn’t a federal crime to buttonhole women going into an abortion clinic and harangue them when they are already frightened and vulnerable. That came on top of a story about a statute passed in S. Dakota making it criminal to end a pregnancy unless a woman’s life – not just her health, but her survival – is in danger. It’s a go-for-broke attempt to upset that famous case decided in 1973. Two generations, now, have grown up knowing somewhere in the back of their minds that they had the right to make a choice, that they had ultimate control over their own bodies. That’s enough time for it to be taken for granted, or at least to lose the visceral understanding of what the lack of such a right really means. That’s enough time for the choices to be seen in purely idealogical terms – termination vs. adoption. It doesn’t consider desperation in there anywhere, nor the violent reaction of some families or some cultural groups. It doesn’t take account of inability to care for oneself during the pregnancy, nor to take the time off of work at the end of the term or to recover from birth. It doesn’t take account of any of the myriad of emotional, financial and practical realities that go into such a decision. It’s entirely cut-and-dried, entirely black and white. And telling women that they shouldn’t get pregnant in the first place is both irrelevant and beside the point. Once the decision is being made, it’s perforce too late. The deed is long since done, and that’s a door that cannot be closed no matter how much one wants to. And it will be those most desperate who will be most affected if this goes back to the bad old days. Those with financial resources to travel will still be able to attend to matters as they do now, in places where it is legal and can be done safely. Reversing current law would again penalize those least able to to compensate, the poor and the young and the frightened, who are already disenfranchised by their inability to make the campaign contributions that get the attention of the Powers that Be. I am idealist enough to think that that is just plain wrong.
It is those factors in the grey area, that desperation and sense of being trapped that are what led women to risk their lives, and to lose their lives, in attempts to deal with the unwanted pregnancy. When it was criminal, not only did women go to any unlicensed back-alley vampire promising the desired result, if they hemorrhaged or developed infection they still did not dare seek medical attention for fear of being denounced and jailed. And so they died. They died, and the offspring that the activists are so intent on “saving” still died. The difference isn’t whether the unformed one dies or not; it’s whether the woman dies with it. Desperation over a pregnancy should not be a death sentence.
I do have my own ideology in this one, that of the ultimate right to make one’s own choices about her own life and body, and it does inform my conclusions. But there is far more than ideology here. Both sides of this seem to have lost track of where and why this dispute began. It came out of the consequences of practical reality, of what happened to women who were desperate enough to make a choice in defiance of law. Most of those arguing this issue now don’t remember that, or don’t talk about it. But I am old enough. I was in high school when the Supreme Court made its initial decisions on the issue of reproductive self-determination. I already knew a girl whose older sister had died as a consequence of a botched back-alley procedure; I saw what that did to the family. I am past the age of bearing now. I will never face this decision. But I am old enough that it is not an exercise of imagination to try to understand what it was like. I know it. I saw it. And I never want to see that again.