Humanity?

A couple of weeks ago I recorded a CNN special investigative report: "Inside Afghanistan: Behind the veil." The Engineer is out of town again, so I watched it tonight.

I am sitting here before my keyboard with my insides all heavy and congested. I don't understand how people can consider other people to be less than human. After watching this documentary, the only explanation I can think of for the way Afghan women are treated is that the men don't think women are human.

Of course this probably strikes me more profoundly because I'm a woman and because I know, pervasively, throughout history, women have been considered an inferior species.

It's not just women; anyone who's different can be conveniently labeled as inferior. It was okay to have black Africans as slaves in colonial America because, after all, they weren't really human. Never mind that white folks could cross breed with them and produce viable offspring. Anyone who's a different religion is suspect at the very least, more likely damned. Gays, no doubt about where they'll be cooking for all eternity. Don't yah know that their raison de'tre is to destroy the heterosexual family. And, hey, if people speak a different language, can't trust 'em, they're probably plotting in their heathen tongue against us.

I read a science fiction story when I was a kid that really left a mark on me. It compared an alien in human society to a green monkey, The story claimed that if you took a monkey from his troop, painted him green, then returned him to his troop, the other monkeys would kill him and tear him limb from limb because he was different. The author claimed that aliens would never be able to live among humans because they would provoke the same reaction from us. Different is bad and frightening and needs to be controlled or killed.

Sometimes I'm ashamed to be human. Especially when I don't feel like I'm doing anything to make it better.

Getting Better At It

Covered up the garden again today. I am getting better at it, plus it wasn't snowing and freezing cold this time, so it was easier. Also had the advantage of cat help. They thought I was putting up a kitty play palace for them. They pounced each other and me multiple times from beneath the Shrouds of Mystery. It's supposed to snow pretty much all day tomorrow, then get cold for a couple of nights. If this can protect the garden until Tuesday, it should be clear sailing for another week or so. There are still tons of green tomatoes that I hope will start to color up before I have to tear everything up for the winter.

I'm Leaving On a Jet Plane

Made the reservations for my three legged flight this evening. I'm leaving October 18 for DC to visit my good friend GuiGrl. It's about time, I haven't visited her since she married MarvelousMike seven years ago. She's been out this way three times, but that ain't near enough visiting and it's surely my turn now. Maybe I'll get a chance to say "Hey!" to Cicada while in the nation's capitol, you can never tell.

I leave DC for NC on the 23rd to visit my parents and assorted friends. Rented a car and bought myself a bluetooth headset for my cell phone (I am Borg, I have been assimilated) since I will be driving half way across the state to visit everyone. The dang car rental was only about $60 less than the plane ticket. Ouch! I'll fly home again on November 1st.

The Engineer is not going to like being abandoned for two whole weeks. Usually when I travel on my own, he manages to schedule himself to be out of the country while I'm gone. We'll see what he can come up with this year. Which means I'd better call the kitty sitter and put her on standby. Even if he doesn't go out of town, I may have her come in every few days to clean the litter box. The Engineer does not do litter boxes. He doesn't do any feline bodily byproducts.

I woke up yesterday morning and immediately knew that one of the girls had sinned on the new wool carpeting because of the can of carpet cleaner waiting for me at the site of the indiscretion. It was a hairball. Of course it was right next to the plastic the Engineer has laid to protect the new wool carpet.

Cats have an order of preference when it comes to upchucking:

1. Persian rugs
2. Wool carpeting
3. Shag carpeting
4. All other carpeting/rugs
5. Clothing or Bedding
6. Anything difficult to clean or that stains
7. and dead last -- Hard surfaced flooring: tile, linoleum, vinyl, hardwood, etc.

It is forbidden by
The Cat Code of Conduct
to toss one's crunchies into the litter box or outside in the shrubbery. That simply would not make a proper impression.

Just think, for two whole weeks I won't have to clean up any messes, scoop any poops, cook any meals for the Engineer, wash dishes or clothes or run errands...

Hmmm... Maybe I should make my trip a little longer.

I Beg Your Pardon?

I know what I said and you know what you heard, unfortunately, it's not the same thing.

If that doesn't describe interpersonal communications, I don't know what does.

I dearly love the Engineer, but he speaks geek and I speak nerdette. Sometimes, more often than I like to admit, we are not on the same wavelength. I suspect his growing up with an identical twin didn't help matters. He has an expectation that a grunt, a shift of the shoulders and a twitch of the mustache should speak volumes. To the Twin, they do. Makes it difficult to play cards with them because each knows what the other is holding -- and they won't switch partners, they are always a team.

For years I've been trying to convince him that I am merely the Wife, not the Twin, and that I can only glean broad emotions from grunts and twitches, not Russian-novel-length concepts.

He doesn't seem to comprehend me any better. Sometimes he'll ask me to repeat the same thing half a dozen times. Don't know if he honestly doesn't understand what I'm saying or if he hopes that I will change it if he asks me enough times.

Our conversations end, on a regular basis, with me telling him, "It's a good thing you're cute."

A conceptual bypass happened between a friend's lips and my ears the other day. There was a vital piece of information assumed but not known. I ended up blithely trotting down an unintended path that ended with both of us going, "Huh?" at the end. It was one of those "well, duh!" moments for me once the little bit of information was revealed. Should have known it all along, but it never occurred to me.

I love words, as I said yesterday, but it really helps understanding if both parties are using the same dictionary and facing in the same direction.

A rose by any name might smell as sweet, but unless you draw me a picture, I won't know what you're talking about. P.S. I agree with you, Cicada, it's nice to be able to use the full vocabulary and know you'll be understood. That's one of the reasons I like college better than real life. Also agree on phlegmatic, it's been up at the top of my favorite words list many times.

Words

I love words. There are so many of them; one for almost any application. I used to work for a plumber and an electrician. They ran about 20 guys between them and shared the building and me as office manager. The guys always accused me of never using a nickel word if a 25¢ word would do.

It's true. I will not hang my head in shame but will proudly proclaim, it's true.

Some of my favorite web sites are Dictionary.com, Urban Dictionary, Visual Thesaurus, World Wide Words. A great blog is WordImperfect. My favorite NPR program is Says You. No secret there, I have links to all of them in the right-hand column. I e-subscribe to Mirriam-Webster's Word of the Day.

I have favorite words, which I must admit change from day to day. There are so many good ones, it's hard to stick with a few.

• onomatopoeia
• lugubrious
• velleity
• tintinnabulation
• moxie
• peripatetic
• rococo
• troglodyte

Wonderful words all, but how does one casually work them into a conversation?

Just Picked October 1st

Covering the raised beds last weekend did the trick!

The Mighty Hunters

Walked out the back door Sunday and saw that the girls had something cornered. It was a huge lady praying mantis. I reached down and picked her up by the thorax. She was moving slowly, but she tried to grab me with her serrated forelegs. I popped her into the bug box to make sure she had a chance to recover (and in hope of some photo ops -- I'm not totally altruistic where bugs are concerned.) This morning, as I was eating my oatmeal and Kitsu was nibbling on her canned cat food, I heard the cat door creak open, then kitty scrambling and some unknown creature squawking.

Kitsu and I rushed down the stairs to see what Sachi had caught. Don't tell the Engineer, but Sachi had her prey in his office. Kitsu leaped into the fray and the prey ran out from behind the sofa.

It was a squirrel! Big game!

"Oh crap, those things bite like heck," I muttered as I went to get a towel.

I'm going to have to keep a close eye on both the cats for the next couple of weeks, because squirrel bites have a nasty tendency to abscess.

The best bet to catch a rodent is to wait until the cats get it cornered then drop a towel over it. I am an old pro at this. I even caught a 'possum using this methodology once, but that's another story for another time.

Sachi ran around one end of the sofa and Kitsu went over the top. The squirrel bolted out the other side and ran into the rec room with all three of us hot on its tail.

I thought I had it in the corner, but tripped over Kitsu and it scuttled into the heap of furniture in the middle of the room. I said some very unladylike things. Both of the cats dove into the heap. All the critters scrambled under the piled furniture as I danced around the periphery with my towel.

Then a stroke of luck, the squirrel ran into a rolled up exercise mat and a cat staked out each end. I moved enough stuff to get at the mat and climbed into the field of combat.

Squashing Sachi's end of the rolled mat, I got a good grip on it then tipped it up with Kitsu's end tight to the floor. I slowly and firmly squashed the bottom end flat, then stood up with my squirrel burrito gripped tightly at both ends. The cats, thinking their prey had escaped, dived under the furniture in search of squirrel blood as I carried the trapped tree rat in its mat up the stairs.

The squirrel was so scared that it didn't start cussing until it was well up a tree and safe from my evil clutches. It was about a half an hour before the cats gave up the basement search.