Went to see Sedaris read in Berkeley.

Waited in line with my friend to get her book signed.

Conversation that followed:

Sedaris (S): Hi, what's your name?
Friend (F): <<NAME>>
S: And your friend?
Me: <<NAME>>
S: Do you want some cookies that a fan made for me?
*F and Me glance at each other*
Me: Um, no thanks. I'm vegan.
F: Me too.
S: *pause* Oh, really? *begins drawing a caricature in friend's book*
Me: Yes, really.
S: *tells us a story about a church in Texas where he 'found' Jesus*
*F and Me cast "huh?" glances at each other*

Sedaris then presents the book back to my friend. He had drawn a picture of Jesus with a bubble that said "I died on the cross for you."

We laughed the entire way back to the car. I mean, did he think veganism was a cult of Christianity? Or that we looked like the  Jesus-types? Or what? It was entirely weird and completely overshadowed his humorous readings.

Happy Emo Day - I hope it was as woeful for you as it was for me.

Weeping tears of melancholy,

Mina

Well, I guess it's technically not a redux for this journal since I've neglected posting some of the Mina and Celeste stuff here. But whatever. You'll have to visit their blog to read more, hahahahahaha. HA! That's how I roll, people.


I'm hot
And I don't just mean good-looking, which I am. I mean, it's 94 right now when it's supposed to be 74. This is a picture from 2008 showing how I feel about hot days.

I like them. A lot. They make me smile and I can stretch luxuriously in the grass, bathed in glorious sunlight.

I am a bibliophile
You may not have known this, but I am, in fact, a lover of books. And no, not just books I can eat (according to the minion, that is none).

Here is some evidence of me and my love of books. This is a whole stack of books, and I am ITCHING to dig in and read my little pit bull heart away.

But what is this? I do not have opposable thumbs? These pages do not turn themselves? Wait, I cannot read? What is this tomfoolery?

Woe
This is where I imagined myself today - out in the green, verdant fields gazing wistfully off into the distance.

Instead, I'm sitting behind the minion, glaring daggers as she writes this post for me.

I has the grasses!
Hi everyone, it's me TEAM CELESTE!!!!1!! and I has grasses!!! Here is a pictures of me with the grasses! My most awesomest of sisters says I look like a devil hounds, but I tells her that if I was a devils hound than that makes her a devil hounds sisters!!!! She says I'm not her real sisters, I says the bonds of sisterhoods knows no genetic markers!!

The EPA has just announced something that leading scientists have known for decades: Greenhouse gases carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride are, like, a total drag on our ozone layer and pose (or may, according to the EPA) health hazards.

The agency responsible for allowing factory farms and big-time polluters to keep running our earth into oblivion is now acknowledging that maybe some of the shit these places produces is problematic. Well, thanks, I guess. I'm sure the future generations who won't be here will be thrilled to know that, in our last hour, America's environmental protection agency stepped up to the plate! Kudos.

Here's my little "how you can help" slip-in: Stop eating meat, drinking milk and eating eggs. I don't think you'll find a single more polluting, exploitive and resource-intensive industry. Water use and pollution. Soil degradation and destruction. Deforestation and desertification. Air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. Disease, cancer, death. By it's very nature, animal exploitation and abuse. There is my public SAVE MY EARTH service announcement for the day.

Click to see larger versions.

I love this rooster, like a lot. He's finally starting to get a bit more feisty with the other roosters (he was a total wimp when he arrived). He still lets me pick him up and tote him around, which makes him my #1 Rooster Man.

I filled out a survey about pet loss. The "pet" was supposed to have died in the past year. I fudged it a lot - because my last pet died seven years ago, but I can conjure up those feelings in a nanosecond. I can feel them now like I felt them the day my parents called me, telling me Juju had died in my dad's arms. There's this special place of happy anguish in my heart just for Juju.

Juju was the first "real" dog - she wasn't my first ME dog (that's Mina), but she was the first dog to be with me through junior high and high school and most of college. She let me cry in her fur, she tolerated regular trips to the dreaded dog park, she even put up with obnoxious foster kittens and puppies, and she expected nothing more than food, butt skritches and a warm bed. Physically, she shared one of Mina's best features - a pretty brown patch over one eye (her only eye, to boot). Other than that, she was a fluffy eskie mix with a curly tail and the generous ability to tolerate the moodiness of a clinically depressed teenager.

Don't tell Mina, but one of the biggest reason I adopted her was because she received the Juju seal of approval. Juju didn't like too many dogs, though she tolerated them with a grace befitting a queen. She wasn't thrilled by Mina, but both Mina and Juju respected each other. One night, I woke up to find both dogs curled up side by side, something Juju would NEVER allow another dog to do. I knew then that Mina was The One. It would be only a few weeks later that Juju's fragile heart would give out, leaving only a cold little body to cry on.

For weeks after Juju died, every time I visited my parents' home, I thought I could hear her. Sometimes, the bed would shake a little, reminscent of Juju doing her three circles before plopping down for a snooze. I would catch glimpses of her lying in the corner, a flash of her white fur, and then poof! gone. My mom did too. I don't know if it was just the grief talking, but I like to think that Juju's energy spent a bit of time with us before moving on to other things.

Her heart was never her best friend; she had a serious heart murmur from the day we adopted her (she was six). A few months before her death, the vet told us the bad news - she had congestive heart failure and we should limit her exercise. A lover of running free, we couldn't deny Juju the chance to play in the field, romp in the grass...you know, be a dog. We hastened her death so that she could be happy. The weekend before her death (she died on a Monday), she enjoyed the most glorious romp through her favorite park. She lived it up, got a bit lost (couldn't hear us calling for her), and ran through the fields like a puppy. It was her last big hurrah, and I wouldn't change a thing. She wouldn't, either, I'm sure.

Thinking about Juju, though, gets me thinking about Mina. She's ten. Not young, not really middle age, but not quite old. I haven't talked about it much, but I'm in the process of saving up money for a whole host of procedures that she needs to have. She needs radiographs for a shoulder problem the vets can't figure out; a removal of a *hopefully* benign cyst, and a canine tooth extraction. She has a thyroid problem, possible stone problems and borderline kidney problems. And all those things make me panicky and afraid of her eventual death, which I have told her is definitely at least another 10 years away (she agrees). Thinking about it makes me hyperventilate.

Anyway, I miss Juju, seven years later. She was not a troublemaker like Mina. She wasn't afraid of dogs like Celeste. She minded better than both my current dogs. She had one ginormous eye that saw the world for what it was - a place for sniffing, pissing, meeting friends, ignoring enemies, and having a grand old time running through weeds and flowers. Juju was the quintessential Good Dog. And I still miss her.

And later in the ruling, they said: “Equal protection under the Iowa Constitution is essentially a direction that all persons similarly situated should be treated alike. Since territorial times, Iowa has given meaning to this constitutional provision, striking blows to slavery and segregation, and recognizing women’s rights. The court found the issue of same-sex marriage comes to it with the same importance as the landmark cases of the past.”

They being the Iowa Supreme Court, which just ruled that Iowa's same-sex marriage ban is unconstitutional. Darn straight.

Opponents of same-sex marriage criticized the ruling.

“The decision made by the Iowa Supreme Court today to allow gay marriage in Iowa is disappointing on many levels," State Senator Paul McKinley, the Republican leader, said in a statement on The Des Moines Register’s Web site. "I believe marriage should only be between one man and one woman and I am confident the majority of Iowans want traditional marriage to be legally recognized in this state."

Emphasis my own. Having a belief can be wonderful, but it can also be limiting and cruel. Marriage is a personal and spiritual decision made between two people. It should not be a decision made by the state of Iowa or its voters. The majority has gotten it wrong many times.

Those who oppose gay marriage seem to act on petty, faulty beliefs that engender fear, promote exclusion, and do nothing to further religious or spiritual compassion. 

Beside that, I have always found the reaction to legislation by gay marriage opponents to be both interesting and a bit schizophrenic. Try to create a law that is all-inclusive, that says marriage is a personal choice best left up to the folks doing the marrying and not the state and BAM!! hell breaks loose, and the gay marriage opponents are all up in a tizzy about "the nanny state". But try to amend a state's fucking constitution to promote an agenda based on exclusion and discrimination, well then Big Brother is now the best friend of homophobic america. 

Anyway, good ruling.

In case you care. And you do.

8. Graceling - Kristin Cashore (3/1/2009) - read it b/c wirenth said it was good. And it was.

9. Feast of Fools - Rachel Caine (3/2/2009) - another vampire series, but one that I actually enjoyed. Take that, PC Cast!

10. Chosen - PC Cast (3/6/09) - noooo! i am NOT chosen. i am running for the hills, because this series takes a downward spiral into blehness.

11. The Lathe of Heaven - Ursule l Guin (3/8/09) - oh ursula le guin, how i love thee. i could count the ways, but i won't. instead, i'll just read all your books. this is another excellent le guin novel.

12. I am the Messenger - Markus Zusak - (3/8/09) - FACT: This book rocks. 'Nuff said.

13. Frostbite - Rachelle Mead (3/14/09) - i thought this vampire series would help me pass the time, but i'm realizing that it just isn't my cup of tea. there was one crazy, awesome scene towards the end (where the main character goes CRAAAZY) but that was all that really held my attention. the next book? i couldn't even read the first few pages. it went back to the library.

14. Divining Women - Kaye Gibbons (3/14/09) - if you haven't read ellen foster, do so. divining women is just as powerful, though i think ellen foster is better written and more provocative (for me). the novel is set during world war i and the flu pandemic. it's about a woman struggling to help her uncle's wife, a beautiful, but verbally abused, woman. it's about hope and courage amidst suffering and death. i felt it was a bit rushed, but gibbon's beautiful prose more than makes up for that. she has a truly wonderful way with words.

15. Achingly Alice - Phyllis Reynolds Naylor (3/15/09) - continuing my reading of the alice series. egad, i love these books. they remind me of beverly cleary's ramona quimby books.

16. Thirteen Reasons Why - Jay Asher (3/17/09) - not sure how i feel about this one; it was a decent read (plot wise). premise is interesting; girl commits suicide and mails out 13 tapes detailing the 13 people who affected her decision to kill herself. each person has to mail the tapes on to the next person. not sure if i agree with much of the results, but the concept was still enough to keep my attention.

17. Alice on the Outside - Phyllis Reynolds Naylor (3/22/09)
18. The Grooming of Alice - Phyllis Reynolds Naylor (3/24/09)
19. Alice Alone - Phyllis Reynolds Naylor (3/28/09)

20. Shadowed Summer - Saundra Mitchell (3/30/09) - silly ya book about a girl who makes contact with a ghost, revealing secrets of the past. to be honest, couldn't quite grasp the whole plotline, even more so when the ending is revealed (it just doesn't make sense to me). easy read, finished it in a couple hours.

No, she's not growling at me. She's eating grass. In fact, I could have shown you the whole sequence of events.

Stage 1: Celeste goes out into my parents backyard when we visit.
Stage 2: Celeste furtively glances around.
Stage 3: Noticing no one is paying any attention, Celeste immediately digs in and eats grass.
Stage 4: Celeste gets her picture taken while eating grass, is not amused by the process.
Stage 5: Celeste gets up, looking VERY concerned about life and also the rumblings of her stomach.
Stage 6: Celeste throws up all the grass she just ate.
Stage 7: Moving away from her human, she goes off into the corner.
Stage 8: And begins to eat grass again.

Any thoughts on this: Celeste and Mina both eat grass at my place and NEVER have problems. No vomit, no upset tummies, nothing. The grass at my place is probably native grass that bears little resemblance to the grass people usually have. But when they go to my parents house, man their grass just irks their systems. Both throw up every time they visit after eating the grass. I don't get it.

You will thank me for not showing the photos of her vomiting; no one really wants to see that stuff.