ack!

I was just writing an email responding to a very nice brunch invite, and realized that I've lost my mind. I found myself explaining the following situation:

I'm leaving early Sunday morning for a 10 day business trip, and I haven't done laundry or paid bills or done a dish or anything else domestic in - oh, about a year.

So, in order to avoid packing a bunch of dirty clothes and/or having the utilities shut off for nonpayment while I'm gone, I MUST get a bunch of that stuff done on Saturday before I leave. And, of course, since I've waited so long, it will likely take me all day.

So, what would any reasonable person do in this situation?

They would do what I did: schedule painters to show up at the house at 9:00 Sat morning.

To paint. Inside the house.

All day.

sad news for Guatemala's orphans

The President of Guatemala announced that all adoptions to the U.S. will be suspended as of Jan 1, 2008 (the date the Hague Convention takes effect in Guatemala).

The shocking part of the announcement is that there is no provision for grandfathering in adoptions already in process. This was something the US Dept of State warned the public about just last week, but it's still hard to believe.

This news breaks my heart, as thousands of people who are in the process of adoption their child(ren) from Guatemala, who already know the child they have been matched with, and who will be blocked from bringing them home. And the children will wait, who knows how long, before getting a family of their own. Very sad.

See the announcement here on Dawn's excellent Finding Your Child site, and more info at the Joint Council on International Children's Services (JCICS) site.

I can't help but wonder what this means for programs like Ethiopia, which remain open.

Ethiopia is struggling to handle the current volume of adoptions - I have a feeling the floodgates are about to open, and I hope they can scale up to deal with the thousands of new prospective adoptive parents. God knows, with literally millions of orphans in Ethiopia, there is a need for these parents - but there sure isn't an infrastructure in place to process them.

I am selfishly grateful and relieved that my dossier is already logged in at the orphanage in Addis, but I also wish the best for all the parents who are adopting, no matter where they have chosen to find their child.

My heart goes out to people in the process of a Guatemalan adoption, and I hope and pray that they can get their kids home before January 1, 2008.

outrage *updated*

** Here is a BBC story on the Jena Six. Finally some news coverage! **

Picture the scene:

Deep in the South - Jena, Louisiana.

The day after two Black high school students sat beneath the "white tree" on their campus, nooses were hung from the tree. When the superintendent dismissed the nooses as a "prank," more Black students sat under the tree in protest.

The District Attorney then came to the school accompanied by the town's police and demanded that the students end their protest, telling them, "I can be your best friend or your worst enemy... I can take away your lives with a stroke of my pen."¹

A series of white-on-black incidents of violence followed, and the DA did nothing. But when a white student was beaten up in a schoolyard fight, the DA responded by charging six black students with attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder.

When did this happen?

1959? 1963? 1970?


Nope - 2007!!

That's right, this is happening NOW.

Last month, the first young man to be tried, Mychal Bell, was convicted. Later this month, he will be sentenced to up to 22 years in prison for a school fight.

I am outraged, and I hope you are too. Sign the Jena 6 petition to express your outrage, and (I hope) help to free these 6 kids.

[Thanks to Haze and Tami for bringing this to my attention.]

** Updated to add this link to a site where you can buy a
"Free the Jena 6" T-shirt - support the cause! **

not the way I want to go

Many of you know the long and often-told story of how I got bitten by a camel in the Sahara desert.

I must say I thought my story was somewhat dramatic, sexy, and exciting.

But, man, I'm REALLY glad that I did not suffer the fate of the poor woman who died because her pet camel became a bit too enamored of her.

Death by attempted camel copulation. Yikes.

wee me

Thank you Pamplemousse for the inspiration!
this was fun... a mini version of me (and my dog, India).

Go to Wee World to make your own Wee Me...

i have a strange mind

fi yuo can raed tihs, tehn you hvae a sgtrane mnid too.

Wehn I fsrit saw tihs, I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdnaieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the huamn mnid.

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno’t mtaetr in what oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt thnig is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae.

The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. This is bcuseae the hmuan mnid deos not raed ervery lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

Azanmig huh? Yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!

"clementine prima"?

Here's a fun diversion - plug in your name and gender and find out what your Celebrity Baby name should be. Not so sure I love mine, as I happy to be very attached to a DOG with the name Clementine!!

Your Celebrity Baby Name Is...

Clementine Prima

What's Your Celebrity Baby Name?

Can't really explain it,

... but this always makes me laugh right out loud.


I especially enjoy the purse.

duh

I just noticed the following "explanation" above the CAPTCHA (word verification) test for entering comments on someone's blog:

"This test is used to prevent automated robots from posting comments."

As opposed to unautomated robots?

Be Jackson Pollock

This is incredibly cool.
Be sure to click your mouse at least once...

Sayonara, Sanjaya

It's about time. American Idol was really starting to piss me off.

But, tonight Sanjaya finally got voted off, and not a moment too soon. Seriously, people! WHY were you voting for this guy???

Sure, he's nice (or appears to be) but he's completely horrible as a performer.

The rest of the folks have actual talent, and I would be angry and bitter if he stayed and one of them went home.

Not that they are all equally talented.

I am -- still -- all about the fabulous Jordin Sparks.

She rocks, and I hope she wins.

**updated Off-topic. Also, sick and wrong.

But, DAMN, this is funny. Warning - likely to offend anyone who doesn't like swearing alcholic children.

** It was removed from YouTube, but you can still see it (and better quality!) HERE.

seriously?

One the continuing quest for documents to complete my dossier, I need to get my fingerprints scanned and compared against the database of the California Department of Justice.

My homestudy agency sent over the form and a set of instructions in big bold type.... which kinda look like they sent me an instruction manual for how to abuse a child.

I'm pretty sure that's NOT what they meant.

powerful = ho ???

Maybe you don't follow women's basketball, or listen to "shock jock" radio. If so, you might have been spared hearing about Don Imus's racist, misogynistic comments about the Rutgers' women's basketball team.

Imus, a foul radio "personality" called the Rutgers team "nappy-headed hos" after they lost the NCAA final to Tennessee.

Here's a bit of the transcript:

IMUS: That's some rough girls from Rutgers. Man, they got tattoos and --

BERNARD McGUIRK: Some hard-core hos.

IMUS: That's some nappy-headed hos there. I'm gonna tell you that now, man, that's some -- woo. And the girls from Tennessee, they all look cute, you know, so, like -- kinda like -- I don't know.

McGUIRK: A Spike Lee thing.

IMUS: Yeah.

McGUIRK: The Jigaboos vs. the Wannabes -- that movie that he had.

IMUS: Yeah, it was a tough --

CHARLES McCORD: Do The Right Thing.

McGUIRK: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

IMUS: I don't know if I'd have wanted to beat Rutgers or not, but they did, right?

ROSENBERG: It was a tough watch. The more I look at Rutgers, they look exactly like the Toronto Raptors.


WHAT THE F**K??!???!!?

Imus has been suspended for 2 weeks. That's it. And, with few exceptions, everyone is riveted on the racism, and just letting the misogyny go. Granted, the blatant racism in him comments is like a slap in the face.

Phrasing such criticisms in racial terms is a known taboo (rightly so). But discussing them in the context of powerful women (versus "cute" less-threatening women) is standard operating procedure. The equation seems to look a bit like this: strong, aggressive athlete = unacceptable woman.

Why is this OK?!?!?!?

It makes me furious.

Granted, it's a sore topic for me, because I'm almost 6'2", and used to be a competitive athlete, and DAMN, I am so tired of people who have never met me making comments about how I could beat them up, or how scary I am.

Seriously? Dude, I've never raised a hand to anyone in my life, and (outside of competitive sports) I'm about as conciliatory and non-scary as it gets.

I still get comments like this occasionally, and I try not to be hurt by them. But they do hurt.

And, to be honest, they piss me off. But, God forbid I get too worked up about them - I might come across as too scary to be cute.

Easter storyline

From one of my all-time favorite funny sites on the web, Savage Chickens.

a scientific explanation

Hey there, you. Yes, you.

Are you feeling a bit down, a bit sad, a bit blue?

You are not alone! Apparently, today is the most depressing day of the year (thanks to Amalah for this link).

So, that's why you feel like crap.

Feel better?
I thought so.

Chia Shrek

Last night was my department's Holiday Party.

We went to The Left Bank, a fab restaurant, and had a great meal.

Then we did a White Elephant gift exchange (which, in case you don't know, involves exchanging the worst possible gifts - tacky and noisy and generally horrible things).

I consider myself a HUGE winner after I scored this:


You know you're jealous.

how's your vocabulary?

Jenni over at Four Feet More posted this, and of course I had to try it.

I got an A-, which is OK. Not too shabby.

But to tell the truth, I'm disappointed not to have done better, because I am somewhat proud of my vocabulary - apparently *too* proud!

Your Vocabulary Score: A-

Congratulations on your multifarious vocabulary! You must be quite an erudite person.

How's Your Vocabulary?

diversion of the day

Love this:
How many people in the U.S. have the same name as you do?
in my case, zero (not counting, me of course!)

For a PAP (Prospective Adoptive Parent), this is a fun way to find out how popular your name choices are for your child...