Photo Friday.

While my father is convalescing, I'm taking the opportunity to clear out his apartment. Among such sundry items as tape deck wipes, expired batteries, neck weights, old shoes, and 20-cent stamps, there are some things worth finding.

Happy Easter!

Or: This is now a baby blog, but with kittens. Sorry!

Last year on Easter, you may recall, my beloved cat died and it was very terrible and sad. This year, we decided to go, instead, with a box of kittens. Upgrade, basically.



Box of kittens. The smears you can see on the sides are from their eye medicine. Their eyes look pretty good!




This is tabby and the girl black one. We call the black ones "the twins" even though they are no more twins than the rest of them. Tabby is a girl.




The twins. The girl is biting her brother, but normally they love each other. They stick together most of the time. He has a few white hairs on his chest, and they both may or may not have eyebrows.




This is gray. She is kind of a loner. Also these next pictures are post-eye goo.




This is orange. This is the clearest picture I could get of orange, because he is bad. He likes to fight with his siblings. But he also loves to cuddle, and will bite his siblings until you pick him up and cuddle him.




He fights with gray a lot.




She does not take his crap.

And no, they don't have names beyond their color designations, and a few nicknames (such as "Pretty Face" or "The Whiner"). Three or four of them will eventually be living elsewhere, and there's no point in calling them something so that I can get annoyed when their new families give them far stupider names. Probably.



... And oh, right! My father. He's doing very well, thank you. I am going to bring him some colored eggs tomorrow. On Monday he will find out if they will admit him to their affiliated rehab clinic. He'd stay there for about a week. That may not sound desirable, but it totally, totally is. If you'd like to cross your fingers for anything, be it for not sending him home soon. He really needs to be monitored and worked on to get him on his feet again, and if they send him home it will be very difficult and frustrating. For him, but, I mean, for me.

Also all my bills are paid up for like, the first time this year! Holy shit, I hope the irony fairies aren't gearing up for something.

So.

The kittens have colds/eye infections. All of them. The colds have just about run their course, but the eye infections necessitate eye goo. Penny is not thrilled about this turn of events, but she needs to get used to it, frankly. They're old enough now that we don't need to stress about them getting cold, so tomorrow we'll move them all out of the furnace room into a place that's actually clean and acceptable for kittens. Penny.

Oh, and also tomorrow I'm escorting my father into town to get a little spinal surgery.

You could say that I'm feeling anxious and that would not be inaccurate.

I consider it a draw.

Yesterday, my niece asked me: "So, um, do you like ... Twilight, and stuff?"

My reaction in full:
[I read the newspaper.]
[I look up from the newspaper.]
[beat]
"No."
[I read the newspaper.]

She does, she says. And on the inside I wept and rent my garments. But on the plus side, she doesn't actually seem to know that much about it. She's Team Jacob, she tells me, and seems mostly interested in Taylor Lautner's bazillion abdominal muscles. Also, she heard Edward dies or something. Oh honey. If only.

So today my sister is taking her to see New Moon. "I can't help it. I love this Twilight shit," she told me a few weeks ago. (We were in a supermarket, and she expressed concern at a tabloid headline suggesting the terrible breakup of KStew and RPattz. "Oh that's sad! They were dating?" "[beat.] No." The level of knowledge I have about these thing is truly unGodly and is impairing my social functioning.) I was not surprised because, frankly, I expect this sort of poor judgment from her. Whenever there's a desperately painful-looking comedy out on the market (like, say, that new one with Robin Williams and John Travolta), she deems that it "looks pretty funny!" I don't ... please. Anyway.

On another hand, my mother was the one to tell me about this outing. She said they were going to see "that 'Dark Moon' or whatever the hell it is." My mom =/= a Twimom. <3<3<3<3<3<3

status

In the good news pile, my internet is repaired. Yes, just today. It ... please. In other news, though, I have the plague. But probably not swine flu, and I don't think I will become a zombie, so that's pretty good. Of course, I frequently have the plague. I'd estimate that I have some sort of respiratory infection or inflammation approximately 40% of the time, I just don't tell you about it. It would be like saying, "By the way, I still have fingers." But I mentioned it last time so I feel the need to tie up loose ends. Also it relates to my next two points:

- I was going to make a post for Mother's Day which I'd been planning to write since last Father's Day. I didn't, because I was busy having plague. So when I write it eventually, pretend that it's adorably timely.

- I will be house sitting this weekend, and besides watching a lot of HBO OnDemand and eating less healthily than usual, I will probably be bored. I was going to suggest you call me! You know, if you want to geek out about your new iPod, or if you've had a baby (or want to talk about Lost, whichever), or if you have an international calling card you're desperate to waste, or what have you. It could have been fun! But I kind of can't talk because I have plague. So I hope there's reruns of True Blood.

Things that are currently killing me.

In no particular order:

1. My sinuses. It's too early to tell if I have an ear infection, a cold, swine flu, or if I just breathed in too much pine tree (which may lead to one of the preceding), but the left side of my face is not happy.

2. My uterus? I don't even know what body parts are at issue, but I've been having lots of pain in the lower abdominal region for a few weeks. And no, it's not that thing that women get. Or, I don't know, maybe it's that thing that some women get, me being one of those women. Maybe I should have mentioned that this one was going to be about stuff growing on my girl organs. OH SORRY. Anyway, this is not a new problem, but if this is what it is, it's certainly a new intensity.

3. Money. Or rather, my lack thereof. You know how poor you are? I wish I were that poor right now.

4. My mother. Enough said.

5. The internet, general. For the past three days I have had a slow, wonky connection. This sucks because not only am I on the internet all the time, some of that time spent on the internet I'm actually doing important things that may cause me to be less poor. Also because if I see "Page Load Error" one more time, I may have to do something crazy like go watch television or maybe even read a book. I could have been doing both those things on the internet!

6. The internet, specific. Take a look at this. In the immortal words of the great Christian Bale, NO, FUCK NO!

and, as always...
7. Other people. Hell, it is them.

Success!!

Today I received a call from my niece, officially inviting me to her birthday party.

In the course of the conversation, she told me that she wanted me to make her a mix CD, like I have previously done. Because she listens to those, and the Beatles CD I got her, all the time. She knows all the words to all the songs. She thinks I have amazing taste.

I am so pleased with myself right now. I can't remember if I wrote about it here or not, but it had been my intent to introduce her to better music than the Z100 crap she favored. ... Thereby saving her life through art and making sure she doesn't become an insipid and unmindful and jaded person. Pretentious? Yes. Jerky? Maybe. But whatever because PHASE ONE COMPLETE.

... She also made a list of songs she wants included. Apparently her favorite song right now is "If U Seek Amy." Which, I mean, I'd object, but let's just say that would involve a certain amount of hypocrisy.

Later in the conversation she informed me of her plans to become a forensic investigator, and told me she looks up to me because I don't need a man to complete my life.

She will be 11.

Diēs patrī.

I don't have enough titles in Latin.

Today is Father's Day! So, happy day to all of those reading who, um, is a father. To mark this occasion, I decided to make a list. Here is a list of ways I do/have referred to my father. (I wanted to say "Things I've Called My Father" but that sounds like it will include inappropriate things. It doesn't!)


Dada - I'm told that this was my first word.

Daddy - This is the primary way I address him. Really! I call him Daddy, even though I am not six. I've occasionally, briefly, considered using "Daddy" to talk about him to other people - because I think that sounds like it would be delightfully Southern. "Yes, Daddy always says ... " And then I could sip a mint julep on the veranda. I once tried compromising by saying "My Daddy," but that sounded too cloyingly precious, and I had to stop right away. As it is, the only person I will use simply "Daddy" around (besides him) is, naturally enough, my sister.

Father - This is my secondary means of address. I actually address him as "Father" almost half the time. You may have noticed that I skipped right over "Dad" - I never use that one. It would feel awkward and foreign, like something I'd say if I were angry and sarcastic. Total endearment or total formality. No in-betweens! This is also the way I will almost always refer to him when talking to other people. "My father ... etc." That's how most people do it, right?

Pater - I'm really pretentious, what can I say? He doesn't seem to mind. Plus, when said blithely and brightly, "Hey there, Pater!" it's really fun to say.

Weed - I'm not sure when this started, but around the time I was seven or eight, I was calling my father Weed pretty much exclusively. I'm given to understand that it's because he was always out in the yard, like a weed is. Not, ... y'know. It's sort of like how I came to call my very overweight aunt "Aunt Skinny" - it sounds really terrible, but there's actually a totally justified, non-horrible reason for it. I believe I stopped because I realized that it probably wasn't a good thing to call someone.

The Old Man - When I talk about him with my mother (and sometimes my sister), this is usually what I call him. Probably because that's how my mother would refer to him to me. (Well, when she was in a good mood. When she wasn't, she would call him "your father".) It works, because he's always been rather old in spirit. He was delighted when he turned 62 and could start getting senior discounts everywhere. Plus, you know, he's my old man.


I guess that's it! I thought there'd be more. The list for my mother is a lot longer and more colorful.

Now I'm going out to eat with my Daddy.

Aunt Rose.

My Aunt Rose died on Saturday night.

I wanted to write something out, to acknowledge this and say something about her, but after several attempts I've realized that it's not going to happen. I'm not okay about it. On one hand, she was nearly 96 years old (I mean 94 of course. She didn't want anyone to know how old she was, and even her obituary didn't know the truth. Keep it amongst yourselves.) On the other hand I love her and I'm not ready and it sucks. On a third hand, she's with my Uncle Joe and her children now. On a fourth hand ... I miss them, too. At some moments more than ever.


So for the past few days I've been hanging around with family members that, for one reason or another, I don't see very often. (For the sake of clarity I should note, unless it's my Aunt Rita, who is my father's sister, any time I mention an "Aunt" or an "Uncle", you should assume that it's one of my grandparents' siblings, and that they've been dead at least 15 years.) First, there's Aunt Rose's grandson and his children, who are around my age. My cousins and I have always had this weird sense of rivalry and dislike going on with them, and I really don't even know why. I know that it was handed down from our parents. I think it may be because my cousin Theresa was always a miserable pill all the time. But we liked Theresa, so, really, I don't get it. Truly, they've probably all turned out to be great people, and better people than my cousins at any rate. But I wouldn't even know how to start a conversation with them. The fact that we were crying over the same woman who had so touched our lives while we were standing on opposite sides of the room was interesting, to say the least. Oh, and the one that I had been thinking of as "the baby"? He's, like, sixteen now. The fuck.

Her granddaughter Roseanne was also there, and she's awesome. I used to play with her daughter Kelli when we were very small, but I couldn't talk to her. Literally. She's deaf.

Roseanne's siblings were not in attendance, and my cousin Suzanne was snubbed from the list of surviving family, so that's all you really need to know about that.

Then there were the relatives that I try to avoid because they all became Born Again Christians. I don't mean that I dislike them, but I try to avoid them. See, they're good people, and friendly to a fault, and because of their religious ethics and family values, they'll be first in line to help you if you, say, need to have your house repaired or need help getting out of bankruptcy. But they also sometimes send out Christmas cards with poems about the Judgment Day and how the unbelievers will burn in a lake of fire. Their sense of humor is also seriously lacking. How am I, to whom blasphemy is like a second native language, supposed to handle that? Also, they home-schooled all their children, reinforcing all the worst home-schooling stereotypes in the process. Thanks, guys. Except, I did get to see my cousin Nicole again, and she always seemed pretty sane. She went to school for massage therapy. I wouldn't mind seeing her again. I bet she's awesome.

Then there are my Aunt Rita's children, my lonely two first cousins. ... I don't even want to discuss them, really.

As I sort of expected, I had many relatives gushing that I look just like my grandmother (or, as most of them unsettlingly refer to her, "Aunt Gracie"), and recalling how beautiful she was. She was beautiful, but I don't look like her, and I don't know why they all think I do. I mean, I'm sure I resemble her a little; she is my grandmother. I do look a lot like my father. Of course, I also look a lot like my mother. It depends on which one I'm standing next to. I'd say I'm a fairly even mix, and I'd say my father is an even mix of his parents. So, by that account, I look about one-fourth like my grandmother ... and three-fourths not like her. Really, though, my grandmother had small, round eyes. My eyes are large and almond-shaped. My grandmother had a round nose. My nose comes to a point. My grandmother had an oval face. I have a square face. My grandmother had jet-black curly hair. My hair is chestnut-brown and wavy. Although it has been very humid lately, so it's been curlier. Anyway. I think they're just seeing what they want to see.

I also got to meet my Aunt Madeleine's two children, whom I don't think I've ever met before. Her daughter looks just the way I remember Aunt Madeleine looking. And she also looked a lot like Jenny. It was odd. She hadn't seen my father in some 20 years, so she made a great fresh audience for all the tragic stories of all his maladies. Which he regaled her with, incidentally, while they were both kneeling at the casket. Oh yes he did. My father, ladies and gentlemen.

My Aunt Rose had a brother named Nate that she was just crazy about. I never met him, as he died before I was born, but she talked about him all the time. His full name was Natale D'Amore, which in Italian means "Christmas of Love." Isn't that the best name you've ever heard? His four daughters were there. I'm sure I've never met them before, but they were very familiar to me because they all looked just like Stephanie. It was crazy. They all had similar eyes and noses, and they all had her hair and they all wore glasses. So for a few minutes I pretended that Stephanie was one of my cousins and it made me very happy.

There was one thing that my cousin Michael said to me (one thing that didn't make me want to hit him, anyway) that made me ponder. With Aunt Rose gone, with all the people that we've lost gone, our connection to those other people in that room has pretty much disappeared. Aunt Rose was, as my sister called her, "the last of the dinosaurs." ... I believe she meant it as a compliment. She was the last of all the old relatives, the ones the different branches had in common, the ones that made holiday dinners, the ones that connected everybody. I wondered, more than once, if I would ever see some of these people after this.

We had some adventures getting into the line for the cemetery. Of that cemetery: "Who's there?" I asked my mother. "Everyone," she replied. I saw my Aunt Madeleine and Uncle Neil and Aunt Mary. I saw a few cousins and many familiar names. I looked a little bit for my grandparents, but I didn't really look. As we were driving through, my mother teared up suddenly. I'm sure that's where my sister is. I've never been to a cemetery except when laying someone to rest. I've never felt the urge to go back. Aunt Rose was laid next to her husband, my Uncle Joe. They were married for 60 years, and she'd been without him for 18. They ran short on flowers, so I didn't get to place one. Before I left, I kissed his name with my fingertips.

Again with this?

Today is my grandfather's birthday. (There are many Sagittarii in my family.) He would have been 99, but he died 10 years ago. When I was little, I always used to ask him what he wanted to do for his 100th birthday. He was old, you see. He laughed and said he wasn't going to worry about it unless it seemed imminent.

So, I'm 24 now, right? Or, as my grandfather would say, I'm in my 25th year. A few weeks ago, I found some things out about my grandfather: 1. His first name. 2. He served in the army.

Let's get back to that first one. I always thought my grandfather's name was Gerard. Turns out it's Thomas. Gerard was his middle name, and when he started school, he decided he liked it better, and went by such. According to some letters I found, his friends called him Gerry. I'm mildly freaked out by this news. (Do you see? Do you see how going by your middle name screws with people? Do you see?) Of course, when I think about it, it doesn't exactly break a pattern. You see, I didn't learn that my grandfather's name was Gerard until I was about ... oh, maybe 7? You see, up until then, I thought his name was Bud.

Apparently, it's the thing in Irish families to call a young man Bud, or Buddy, or some variant thereof. My grandfather was nothing if not Irish. Unless it was a Catholic, but that's the same thing. Or a Democrat. Anyway, he was Bud to his sisters and to his mother. I have no idea when or how I picked this up as a wee thing: my grandmother never called him that, nor did his children or my sisters. Somehow, though, he was my Grandpa Bud.

I also call my sister Bud. That's a completely different story, which, surprisingly, has nothing to do with my grandfather. At least I don't think. My sister loved my grandfather to pieces, and he loved her likewise. We've determined that this may or may not have something to do with the fact that she looks exactly, eerily like his mother. We have a picture of his mother, or rather, my sister does. We've got several people convinced that it actually is my sister, and that she went down the shore and had one of those Olde Timey pictures taken. Not the case.

When my grandfather got pneumonia, my sister went to see him every day. She was the one who told him, when the holidays were over, that it was alright for him to go. She was the last one of us to see him alive. It is entirely fitting that she is now Bud.

Of course, she calls me Bud, too.

42.

Today is my sister Karen's birthday. She would have been forty-two.



This is one of my favorite pictures of her. I'm sorry I couldn't get it any clearer. Please note the shirt.

I am made of science!

Well, sort of.

You may recall some time ago I told you about my harrowing involvement with the Genographic Project and the rage that ensued. To update you on that, a few weeks after all the kerfuffle, I received a rather unceremonious email telling me that my order was being shipped. !!!!

What the hell my friends!

Anyway, I received my kit of science! I swabbed the insides of my cheeks. I plungered the implements into little fluid-filled vials. I packed them and shipped them off. It was very AP Bio. Except for the mailing. And I didn't get to see my cells at 250X magnification afterwards.

Then ... I waited! And I waited. And I waited some more! What would my results be? What! My mother's mother's mothers have lived in the Western Hemisphere for many generations. We are generally known to be of Dutch stock, but who knows? Perhaps I am Lene Lanape! Perhaps I am Inuit.

Um. I'm not. In fact, far from it. I am a member of the super pedestrian and half-inclusive Haplogroup H! We make up half of Europe!

OMG you guys we are all probably cousins you guys OMG.

My mtDNA differs from the Cambridge Reference Sequence in only one position! I'm almost scientifically famous!

Like a dutiful nerdful member of society, I have submitted to include my data in the published study. One tiny datum, doing my part. In addition, I have been offered a chance to have the free services of Family Tree DNA the premier ... something or other, I'm not really sure. I'm going to discuss it with my mother and sister (who, sharing my genetic matter, share in my test results) and see what they would like to do before submitting my information. I mean, I'm not really that fond of most of my family. I don't know that I'd like to know any more of them.

It would be nice if the results had told me which of Haplogroup H's 32 subclades I belong to. As is, the results are a bit bland (my foremothers came from Western Europe!), and, to be honest, a bit of a let down after all the hassle.

My mother thinks she is socially progressive.

Then I get to hear gems like the one last night, where she said that AIDS research only gets the funding it does because of the gays.

And then I spend half an hour trying to locate all the pieces of my exploded brain.

So clearly I haven't been into blogging lately.

What else is going on?

From my perspective, not a whole lot has happened. It feels like it was a month ago a couple minutes ago  . Seriously, is it really almost Thanksgiving? Is it therefore really almost my birthday? What the hell!

My mother went on vacation last month for two weeks. She twisted her knee on the cobblestones of London Towne so she's been gimping around since she's been back. I have been a loving and dutiful daughter, because I'm awesome and I love my mommy and knee injuries suck. But she's okay. I saw 'Marie Antoinette' and I liked it very much. Of course, thanks to the publicity I now have a serious preponderance of Kirsten Dunst pictures that I have yet to make into 85x100s. Plus, there's really no place for me to show them off anymore, if we're honest. But trust me, she looks pretty. Speaking of which, Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter. (I shouldn't say, "Is it July yet?" because at the rate things are going, it will be.) I think I saw another movie but I can't remember what it is now. And with me, I'm still at that job I was at last time you checked, and my soul has died just that little bit more. I also think I may be losing my hair again. I've acquired an extra five pounds that is baiting my already precariously taxed wardrobe. Um. Maybe I should do something about that.

So, basically, I do have some things that I'd like to get out into the blogosphere, but I have to make this introductory entry and then wait for people to stumble back to my blog and get used to the idea that there might be something new here again to read. That way there's more of a chance that there will actually be someone reading (and maybe responding) when I write something that I feel is worth reading. I mean, you guys know how it is, right? Right? I'm cool, right kids?

Veronica Mars is almost on.

Oh no!

I only got Exceeds Expectations this time!

In other news, my mother has broken her toe. The same toe, the same way, that I did several months ago. It's kind of cute, really. In a, uh, painful way.

You know.

Sometimes I really wish my sister hadn't died.

Forgive me, I've been in a very odd mood for the last few years.

Oh hey!

I realized just today that Patricia Hayes, who played Urgl in The Neverending Story, is the same lady who played Fin Raziel in Willow. Today is when I figured this out! In The Neverending Story, she always reminded me of my Aunt Fran. She's dead now. ... Both of them, actually. That's sad.

Also, Elora Danan is 19 now. Not that she's done anything since, but she (they) was (were) a (two) very pretty baby (ies).

Nothing else of interest, sorry.

A is my favorite letter of the alphabet.

This is one of those blog things. I am to tell you ten things about my life having to do with a particular letter. Beth has picked the letter "A" for me. I guess I'm also supposed to ... pass this on? If you want to play, you reply, I tell you what letter and you make one of these in your own blog? It sounds very frightening and interactive.

But here goes.

1. Amy. As most of you probably know by now, my name is Amy. This seems like the most basic place to start, and I'd like to thank Beth for assigning me a letter with a freebie. That's a good friend, folks! Anyway, if you were to ask my father, he would tell you that my name is Amy Grace. And this is what he tends to call me. Neither he nor his sisters were given middle names at birth. What he uses as a middle name, Joseph, was his confirmation name, from my uncle. So in his mind, I don't have a middle name either; Amy Grace is my full first name. I put an official stop to that shortly before I turned four, when I had my first dance class. My father introduced me as Amy Grace, but I told Miss Roseanna that she should just call me Amy. I was also nearly named Amelia, though my mother would still have called me Amy. Amelia was the name of my great-great grandmother.

2. Anita. Anita is my sister, though I never call her Anita. We call each other Bud, which we vaguely understand may be odd to people who don't know us. I'm told this is an Irish thing, to have the nickname Bud, though it's really a nickname for a boy. My grandfather was Bud. My sister turned 15 ten days after I was born. Both my parents worked, and my sister was pretty much my primary caregiver when I was a small child. She changed me and doted on me and is probably the reason I'm so darn smart. I love her more than just about anything. However, she constantly (constantly!) reminds me about how she changed me and doted on me and is probably the reason I'm so darn smart. And that can get very annoying.

3. A boyfriend. Heeeeeeeee!!!! I could just leave this here, as it's perhaps more descriptive than anything I could say. I normally don't get publically gushy about my relationship. That's for us. But it's positively alarming how much I love and care for this person.

4. Acting. I almost wrote "art." This is probably the topic about which I could write the most, and about which I could probably never fully explain how I feel. Ever since I can first remember, there are only two things that I ever wanted to be in life: an "actress", or an "artist". I fervently hope that one day I might be both. It's a hard answer to give, though, and not just because it's a tough path to pursue. In the past, my answer was always tempered by the fact that I was young and I accomplished a lot in school. I don't have that anymore. I'm not used to people assuming that I'm stupid, but when it's widely known that you're trying to break into acting, that's what people assume. My mother told me that my chosen course is beneath me. I don't know how to respond, because I always felt like I was aspiring to something higher.

5. Ambidexterity. It's a thing that I have. Though according to the internet, I am not truly ambidextrous. And if I am, it's a sign that I have brain damage. What! I in fact am "cross-dominant" or something like that. The deal is, I do not have a specific hand/side/brain lobe that I favor over the other. I do not do all tasks equally well with both hands. One is usually more fine tuned than the other. I used to be able to write equally well with both. In second grade, in Catholic School, I was told that I would never achieve satisfactory penmanship unless I focused my writing energy on only one hand. Therefore, I would receive Cs in Penmanship until I picked a hand. ... And I had to pick the right. This is why, 90% of the time, I am to be seen writing with my right hand. My left hand is out of practice, but it still knows what it's doing. Here's something that fascinates me: I can write with my left with equal speed and clarity to my right, as long as I don't realize that I'm using my left hand. I have had many instances where I have been writing something with my left hand, and the thought occured to me: "Oh! I'm using my left hand!" and then my writing immediately deteriorates. It's one of my goals in life to rebuild my writing ability in my left hand.

6. Aldactone. This is the latest prescription drug that I have added to my daily regimine. This brings my total to five, though I take seven individual pills a day. It's actually a blood pressure medicine, but I take it to combat my excessive swarthiness due to the high levels of testosterone that my cystic ovaries produce. Whoo boy am I somatically fucked up! This is the first medication in a while that I've taken for what is, largely, a cosmetic issue. But it's important enough to me to suffer through the past few weeks of side effects while my body adapts to it. (These side effects include dips in my already low blood pressure and dizziness.) I have also taken other medications that start with A, including: Alesse, Atenolol, Allegra, and good old Advil.

7. Apple trees. I like apples. And since I was a small child I have been fascinated with the idea of having my very own apple tree. Or any fruit-bearing plant, but mostly apple. I have tried many times with little success to grow apple plants from seeds. Of course, these experiments were never monitored by someone who knew what she was doing (i.e. my mom) so I usually wound up drowning them. Turns out you shouldn't water plants every day. Who knew! I'm currently in the middle of my latest and most earnest attempt. I have five seedlings in a numbered row sitting on my sun porch. They are each about five inches tall. I also have a "cutting" that I kinda sorta stole from a tree at the Home Depot that I am trying to root in some soil. That's not going so swell. Anyway, not only do trees take a long time to grow, but apples are particularly fussy, and they require two separate individuals in order to produce fruit. My yard doesn't have the room for one apple tree, let alone two, but that's okay. I imagine that if my attempts are successful that I will carry my fledging trees around with me wherever I move, and I will plant them when I find the place I want to be my home.

8. Allie. Allie was my German Shepard. Because we didn't have enough people with "A" names already, we had to give them to our pets as well. Allie (her given name was Alexis) was bred to be a show dog in Mississippi. My sister got her when she was living in West Milford with some of the money she was awarded after being in a horrible car accident. Then she moved back home, and Allie moved with her. After a life of nothing but cats, we had to adjust to living with an ENORMOUS canine. She was 105 pounds, solidly fit. Despite being a cat person through and through, I loved Allie very much. I used to sit on the floor and hand feed her Kibbles 'N' Bits. She especially liked the cheese pieces. My perception of animals is sometimes unfortunately skewed. My neighbor had a Dalmatian named Ted who lived to be 17 years old. This meant that even though I knew intellectually that he was an exception, I was still shocked and confused when Allie developed a brain tumor at the age of ten. Allie is also the reason that most "big dogs" don't impress me very much. Eh. He's not that big. When you're eight years old and a dog stands on her back legs and you stare up at her towering over you, you're forever spoiled for size. Allie was an awesome dog. My sister wants to get another German Shepard. She says she'll know her when she sees her. I am fully in favor of this.

9. Annie. Not the girl. The movie, starring Aileen Quinn, Carol Burnett, and Albert Finney. Annie was my very first hardcore obsession. By the time I hit kindergarten I knew it word for word and sang the songs daily. Which of course did not deter me from also watching it daily. I directed my friends so that we would put on mini Annie-plays during the day. While it doesn't have the same cultural fluency as the Simpsons or Buffy, it was the precursor to all those entertainment loves. It set the tone and the pattern and also my love for redheaded heroines (others including Anne Shirley, Pippilotta Longstocking, and Strawberry Shortcake). This is probably the reason that there's still a part of me that desperately wants to be a redhead. Mr. Warbucks prefers redheaded children.

10. Accord. I drive a white 1995 Honda Accord. It's the car of choice for young and useless people. I don't really like it, and I wasn't thrilled to get it. Of course, I don't really like driving, so that could be a big part of it. And also the major headaches that were going on in my life around the time that I acquired it. I named my car Nerwin, because it was the very first name that came to me. I don't know what that means. Nerwin and I have a fairly neutral relationship. She gets me between points in efficient time and I've yet to die or be seriously injured. Right now Nerwin needs some gas and a trip to the car wash.

I'm sorry if my aunt is one of the worst hurricanes on record.

So, hurricanes, man. Of all the things you can say about them, I've chosen to pick perhaps one of the least important aspects of them and make a fuss over it.

The naming of them.

Now, I understand why hurricanes are given names. It's much more immediate, even when you look at the abbreviated history of storms on news pages or what not. Hurricane Katrina kills people! Hurricane Andrew kills people! Hurricane Camille kills people! And then there was like this hurricane that was back around the turn of the century and it was really big? Yeah, killed people.

Back in the early 90s, my sister's soon-to-be husband was named Andrew. That was around when I started considering this. It was brought up again by a small editorial in my local paper, that I read while I was using said paper to catch drips as I painted a trim in my kitchen, describing the thoughts of some ladies named Katrina to the fact that they, it seems, destroyed New Orleans. And now there's Hurricane Rita the Category 5. Of course, like a good guinea, I have an aunt named Rita.

Does this strike anyone else as something of a bad idea? As I've said, I understand the rationale behind naming them. But must they be given peoples' names? A little girl in that article said that her classmates had been making fun of her name. Not, of course, that this is the greatest tragedy of the whole thing, but, seriously. Some things can't be helped and some things can. Having the same first name as the Long Island Lolita certainly didn't do me any favors in sixth grade.

What if, for example, you had a beloved grandmother Katrina, and you were about to give birth to a baby girl, and you could think of no better tribute than to name her after dear granny? Now, for the rest of her life (or at least for the next ten years, with varying frequency) you'll be asked why you named your child after the storm that decimated the Big Easy.

Now, with a storm like "Ophelia" -- it's not that bad. Because it's not a name many people have, and it's already famous for another reason. But "Katrina" -- that means Hurricane now. That means relief funds and refugees (or not, if you find that racist!) and floodwaters.

Then, here's a morbid consideration - if your name comes up for a hurricane, how well do you want it to do? Think about it. I mean, really, you don't want your storm to level cities and kill hundreds. Or do you? This is your shot for the record books, right? You don't want to be lame and never make it past tropical storm status, do you? Or hell, tropical depression ?? But do you really feel like having your name tied to the infamous? It's the only one you've got. (Unless you don't have a real name.)

I mean, my aunt (who may have to start going by Marguerite) has been around for quite some time. I'm sure she wouldn't appreciate me saying how long. But the better part of a century. A lot longer than this hurricane. Yet I know she's going to hear about it. I know she's going to have to think about it and its attendent destruction in relation to herself. Because, hell, that's what I'd do.

It's like this terrible commercial that I saw with my mother while we were watching Lost (hi Steph!). Although I didn't say these exact words, my thought was, "Gee, aren't you glad you lived so long to witness this?" Seriously, that's how bad it was.

It's sort of the same feeling. As stated, this is not the most terrible or lasting thing about hurricanes. But ... isn't it kind of stupid? Seriously? What's to be lost by naming hurricanes after ancient gods, or something anthropomorphic yet still mostly impersonal like that? At least they don't have feelings to hurt. Unless you've actually named your child Zeus. In which case ... he's got bigger problems.

It's the little things.

I have been insanely tired all day. Probably because I went to sleep after 2 last night, and then only sort of slept and then got up at 6:30 and then went to work for 9 hours. Maybe! Anyway, I can totally sleep now, because I don't have to go back! But I'm not going to! Because I can sleep tomorrow! Wheee!

Perhaps, though, this is the reason that I have been so easily amused today. My duties at this temporary job included staring at a phone all day. This phone had a clock on it, but the clock was off the company's time by a considerable margin (and the company's clock is actually one minute slower than my cell phone's clock, which I tend to regard as Gospel Time, but no matter). This really bothered me. Really. And there was no discernible way to change it. Until today, when I asked one of my coworkers if there was, in fact, a way to change the time. And there was! There was a manual somewhere. So I got the manual, looked up the needlessly complex means of fixing the time, and then did it  . The time on the clock synched up perfectly with the time on the wall. Then, I spent the next hours or so beaming ecstatically.

Sometimes being obsessive compulsive can be amazingly gratifying.

Later in the day, I was greatly entertained by Jeopardy!. One of the correct responses was a man's name. This man apparently did cool things in the early end of the 20th century. I forget what though, and it doesn't matter, because this man's name was Norbert Weiner. And then I laughed like I have rarely ever laughed before. There were tears literally streaming down my face. My abdomen hurt so. freaking. much. but I just couldn't stop. I was laughing for at least 10 minutes. I realize this probably isn't very mature, but ... Norbert Weiner.

Let's see. What's been going on in television? A lot! I watched Veronica Mars this week. It was very good, but I don't really feel like discussing it. I probably won't feel like discussing next week's either. But still, very good. It occurred to me that I started watching this show in much the same way I started watching Buffy -- grudgingly. My sister was the one who told me about Buffy and said I'd probably like it. But I was totally against it. No thanks! And then I started watching it, and I tried to be blasé about it, but I couldn't, because I loved it. And that's sort of like Veronica Mars.

I also watched American Idol. Ha! I don't have much to say about it except the following: Every single person picked horrible songs that I hated. It was an all-around unpleasant experience. As for tonight, this is not the first time I've said this, but: I really don't understand the American voting public. WHAT. Seriously, WHAT. Mostly, I'm going to miss TWoP's hilarious commentaries on Constantine. They make my week.

And now for Lost!
[Begin Spoiler for the Catch Up Episode — Highlight to view]

Man, this was pretty pointless. I mean, on one level, I appreciate that they did this, because there's a lot of stuff going on in the show, and maybe some new people want to watch it but don't know what the hell is going on? It was a nice thought. But I was sad that there wasn't any insight for people who *have* been watching. I mean, I watched because I have nothing else to do with my Wednesday evenings. But really ... this show made Lost look far less fucked up than it is. And that made me a little sad. It's actually a lot weirder when you figure in the lame being cured, the mysterious corpses, resurrections, numerical curses, polar bears, and the freaky Satan child. This left out all the details, and I'm pretty sure (or at least hopeful) that those details are going to turn out to be import.

What was interesting, though, is noticing how much, for example, Shannon and Boone have affected the major plotlines and how little, for example, Jack and Kate have. Interesting.

[End Spoiler]

[Begin Spoiler for the preview for next week — Highlight to view]

Locke! Creepy Terry O'Quinn! I'm so upset! Poor Locke!

Did anyone else get the vibe that it seemed like Shannon is prepping Sayid to become her replacement Boone? You know, hiring a new person for the "person to lead around by the balls" slot in her life? I sure got that vibe. Which would be kind of cool, because she's so fucked up and unpleasant, even at a time when she's more or less sympathetic.

[End Spoiler]


Oh, also, speaking of my sister (which I did a while back), she was in the emergency room this past weekend. It turns out that she had a cyst on her ovary, and it burst. She's fine now, as is expected to be fine, though she'll be laid up for a few days. I'm not worried, and I know that this is not uncommon. To be honest, this makes me a little relieved. Because she's probably going to go on medication, and she'll probably be having regular follow-ups, just like I do. This means there will be a far less likely chance that her ovaries are going to develop cancer and kill her. And that's good.

Of course, both of my parents cried when they learned about this. Not bawling or anything, but they teared up. Which I guess is not entirely unexpected. But they're okay too.

Um. ... Norbert Weiner?