How New Kitty spends her time...

She waits for Daddy-Cat to come home... of course, she doesn't realize she's looking down at the "out" door of the garage -- she is a cat, after all. Since Hubby and I will go to Red State tomorrow, she'll be waiting for a while. He'll be back in February.... The good thing about her waiting is that she isn't on MY desk... which is in the far left part of this photo...

She spends a large amount of time sitting on my desk and ignoring me. She enjoys watching what is on my screen. If you look closely, you can see several of my favorite things in this photo... to her right is my purple Philosophy water bottle from Powell's Books in Portland, to the right of my computer monitor is most of my collection of Russell + Hazel notebooks and just to the left of my notebooks, under the monitor, is the scarf given to me (via Hubby) by one of Hubby's students -- a charming Asian student who had a little bit of a 'thing' for Hubby :). She gave him a matching tie -- with the characters of the Chinese Opera on it...

This is the "you aren't Daddy" look. New Kitty does that well and often, when she realizes that she's stuck here in BN state and not in Red State with her favorite parent. What she doesn't realize is that her favorite cat (Blind Kitty) wouldn't be with her in Red State, and she'd have to make several trips across Corn State in order to live with her cat-father full-time. As you might guess, she isn't a fan of the car... not at all.

This is her "I'm going to try to play with every small thing on your desk" mode... paper clips, rubber bands and anything small enough to be moved by a cat paw is fair game.

Finally, she's in her "I'm going to go jump on Extra-Toes" pose. Every morning she has a ritualized spat with Extra-Toes. They fight in the doorway to the office. She usually wins -- although sometimes he gets his extra-claws in her collar and takes it off of her. When he does this, she gets rather sad and looks at me as if to say "put my collar on... NOW!". Of course, I do so, because it has a bell on it and I get to know where she is...


Can you tell I'm on a paper deadline? Thank goodness it is almost time for their mid-morning nap... which follows the mid-morning spaz attack going on right now and which will be followed by the late-morning nap, the noon nap and the ever important all afternoon nap... most of these naps happen on our bed...

I'm going to refrain from posting anything else -- or reading any more blogs -- or checking any e-mail until I have a solid draft of this paper!

Y'a know what....

General note -- Overall, I'm politically liberal. If it is possible to average out my views on social and fiscal issues, I'd be a centrist-Democrat. I'm also a good feminist -- unlike many people who claim to be feminists, I've read a shit-ton of feminist philosophical literature. In fact one year ago, if you care to dig back into my archives, which I don't care to do, you'll see that I spent two weeks reading feminist stuff in the Sandra Day O'Connor school of law, law library... so, don't call me a sexist because I don't love Hillary... live with the fact that feminism is about individual choice and giving women the freedom to be construction workers, strippers or stay at home mothers... or, all three (in a lifetime, although the first two could work well together).

I also know many, many, many people who have gone to small Bible colleges and/or big Bible Universities. I've seen them come out just fine as adults who know what is going on in the world. I've also seen them do well in graduate studies or in their chosen careers.

In talking to them about their schools, they express the idea that they like the atmosphere on campus, they like the supportive environment and they like the fact that there ARE restrictions on behavior on campus. As such, the campus is sober and dry....and thus is a good environment for learning.

What bugs me is when people who don't know people from Bible colleges or universities make blanket decisions about them. They mean well, but their narrow-minded liberalism and feminism makes them blind to what may be the best choice for any given STUDENT. This isn't about where the person giving advise wants to go, it is about what would be a good place for the student to achieve their goals...

The real problem with taking such an adamant stand on where a student ought to go is that, if the student decides to go against the "advise", they risk losing the support of someone upon whom they should be able to rely...

So, be a liberal and be a feminist -- but, realize that there are reasonable people out there who may make considered decisions to reject at least the liberal part -- (sorry, I can't say there are reasonable people who aren't feminists... I just can't make myself type that sentence).

Iowa, Huckabee and Obama....

I usually leave the political blogging to Hubby -- who does it well. It isn't as if I don't have political thoughts and opinions, rather, he's just better at writing about them than I am...

First, on Huckabee -- the man scares me, or angers me -- I'm not sure which. If he really thinks he's not being anti-Mormon, then he scares me because he's stupid. If he realizes his statements are offensive to Mormons and doesn't care, then he angers me. Either way, I'd almost rather vote for ANY Democrat than Huckabee --- as the thing I tolerate even less than homophobia is religious bigotry. Really folks, who we worship and who we f-ck are our own business -- and making any kind of decision based on another person's religion IS bigotry, plain and simple.

Next, Obama --- I'm happy to see him do well. In many ways, I hope he continues to do well -- as he seems to be open to taking advise from smart people, he's articulate and I don't think the rest of the world will hate him -- which is a good thing. It isn't as if I don't want Hillary to win, as I'd love to see the first female president -- it is just that I'm not really a fan of Hillary herself -- it is more interpersonal than political, she's just not my style.

Finally, on Iowa --- Folks, I've spent LOTS of time in Iowa -- lots of it... and, it isn't all farms. There is plenty of small town industry, at least one city that qualifies as such --- and a few more that almost count. In fact, the main complaint (if you read the billboards) is that corporate farmers are buying up all the land and shutting out family farmers. In fact, I know lots of people in Iowa and NONE of them are currently farming -- and only one of them lives on a farm!

What I do find problematic about Iowa is the way the Democrats do their caucuses... You have to stay for the whole length of the caucus. If you have some other commitment, you can't participate. In reality, having a caucus doesn't allow for absentee ballots etc... So, the process itself doesn't necessarily capture what Iowans think.

What is also pretty sad is that those that can't get back to their home to caucus and/or have to work etc have to listen to the political ads for months without the ability to do anything about it.... likewise for Omaha --- which is in the "Omaha /Council Bluffs (IA)" radio market.... sigh.

New Kitty and the printer....

New Kitty has a whole bunch of odd behaviors -- most of which are amusing.

Her "issue" with the printer is not.

Every time we print something, we have to first kick her out of the office. If we don't, she'll go into 'freak out/hunter mode'. Then she'll jump on our desks and go after the printer, like it is trying to kill us... this usually involves stepping on our keyboards and anything else in her way --

If we try to pick her up while she's in 'freak out / hunter mode', we'll need stitches...

I just printed a 44 page document (a version of my Supreme Emergencies paper -- YEA!). As soon as New Kitty realized the printer was going, she started banging her front paws on the French doors to our office... the look of concern on her face was flattering, but we knew that letting her in would result in injury....

A pal on Jeopardy... still!

You can follow the action from his sweet spouse's perspective...

So far they've won a boat-load of money -- and I'm really happy for them! She's about to have their first child and both of them are (or will be) attorneys working for the greater good... when they could have decided to use their degrees from highly-ranked law schools to make themselves a ton of money.

So, even if you don't watch - tune in over break to watch Dan win cash -- and know that they won't spend it all on hookers and blow... :).

"they" say....

.... that you are supposed to start the New Year doing what you'd like to do all year.

Today I started the year with a good water aerobics class.

After a good (and mostly healthy) lunch, a nap with the cats and a shower (not in that order), I spent the afternoon writing about the ethics of warfare.

yea, that sounds like the way my year ought to go....

on Resolutions...

I just caught a bit of Sharon Osborne talking about resolutions... she said something to the effect of, "I never keep them, they are always things like 'I'm going to stop spending' or 'I'm not going to eat chocolate', but, I never do them, so I'm just going to go on as I am".

I kind of feel the same.

Of course I want to exercise more and eat less. The exercise more bit is easier than the eating less... So, I'll work a bit on the eating less part while trying to keep the exercising more consistent.

Naturally I want to get more work done and have more fun... toward that end I'm spending the first 6 days of the year working on a paper -- and once we get to Omaha, I'm going to look into a weekend away with hubby for February...

And -- I want to keep my living space cleaner -- So, I'm going to call one of my (now) former students for an estimate. She runs her own cleaning company -- and, she's really smart and probably quite quick...

So, these aren't resolutions -- They seem to be more like positive patterns I want to improve on... and that's ok with me.