CAKE!

Friend Mae sent me one of the postings from the cartoon-essay-humour site Hyperbole and a Half. The author is talking about herself as a little girl, completely obsessed with getting at the cake her mother has just baked. She swipes one bite of it, and goes mental for cake. Cake! CAKE! CAAAAKE!!!!

It's exactly what it's like to live with Minion. She decides she wants something, and then it's CAKE CAKE CAKE until she gets it. You see his scary look in her. Whether it's slurping on my finger, having what I'm eating, getting fed her meal, or wanting to chase Haley. She'll be sitting nearby and suddenly LOOKS at Haley. And that's it. I can't distract her, I can't hold her back, she has to stalk the Halzebub.

So in future if I post any pictures of Minion, with just one word posted above it (HALEY!  KIBBLE!  FEATHER TOY!) you'll know what I'm referring to.

Last night it was my bowl of corn.

CORN!

 

CORN!!

 

Half an hour ago it was Haley.

HALEY!

 

HAALEEEY!

 

[Haley moved to the desk by the window, and then I saw this little kitty shadow--bottom center--stalking Haley.]

HALEY!!!

Look at that!

Three days since the Connie Willis came out, and it is not in my hands. I wrote to them yesterday and they've sent away to another supplier for it. Huff!

In the meantime I finished the Austen-inspired mystery, and I'm reading a Jane Langton (the author who's out of print and I bought all her books online second hand), as well as Shakes' Julius Caesar. I should get back to Les Trois Mousquetaires while I WAIT for CONNIE.

I bought two more books for my kobo today--one of the only teen authors who I like enough to buy all her books.

I should go to bed because I'm getting up so eeearly tomorrow to have lunch with a couple old work-buddies. But it was a stressful work day, so I'm still netfrolicking. At one point I told my boss: "Oh by the way, CoworkerX and I are quitting today. This is your 5 hour notice."

"Do AAAAANYTHING I try!"

I had this theme song in my head all day at work. Which was very strange, because I haven't heard it in golly knows how many years--it certainly doesn't play on TV now. And also, because we were having a stressful-busy day, and I kept wanting to start singing it out loud. I felt like it would have relieved my stress. But possibly raised everyone else's.

The famous "autobiography in five short chapters"

I've always liked this alcoholic's thingy. It's meant to show that the path to change includes taking personal responsibility. I always think of it when I'm faced with trying to change something in my life. That crucial first step is to just realize that the hole is there, and until you remember it, recognize it's coming, see that you're about to fall in, you won't be able to learn to start walking around.

I don't know if it's really written by Portia Nelson, but she seems to be attributed as the author in most places.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY IN FIVE SHORT CHAPTERS

by Portia Nelson

I

I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk
I fall in.
I am lost ... I am helpless.
It isn't my fault.
It takes me forever to find a way out.

II

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don't see it.
I fall in again.
I can't believe I am in the same place
but, it isn't my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.

III

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in ... it's a habit.
my eyes are open
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.

IV

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

V

I walk down another street.

Waaaaah!

Connie Willis' book has been out a couple days now, shows as in stock, and hasn't shipped yet! I sent them a crying email.

We don't have it in stock at the store yet so I can't just borrow it and start reading it.

It's on kobo so I'm tempted to buy it! But that would be silliness. I could have cancelled my preorder awhile back and bought it on kobo instead, but other people I know read her so it's a lender. Needs to be in paper form.

When I bought part 1 (Blackout) I not only got it on time, but it shipped early! However the wharehouse just moved to a new location, so maybe that's the problem. Grrrrr!!!

In other news...

Still deciding what to write for nano. For awhile now I've played with the idea of interspersing my story with the heroine's great-grandmother's diary, since it's something she inherited and has been reading. I want to see if I can write something funny.

So maybe I'll do that for nano. I already know the bones of the great-grandmother's story, cause I wrote it for nano 2 years ago. But writing up the actual diary entries will show me whether it's something I really want to add to the book or not. And 50 000 words might be just the right length for the entire project.

Since getting back from vacay I've missed the couple TV shows I was watching--just too disorganized, and busy with other stuff. So I think I'll leave the TV alone so that I'm ready for nano.

And I've been saving up lots of meals in Cafe World to serve while I'm writing. ;-)


In other news...

I've decided to start a completely private blogger blog, for My Eyes Only. It would be the same as keeping a diary on the computer, of course. But this way it's searchable and organized. Lately there's been things on my mind, but I'm not comfortable being too personal on the nets. I don't mind People I Don't Personally Know reading about my life--it's more the whole "future employers" angle. Or if a staff member were to find my blog. I know, I know, it makes for dull reading. What can I say.

Mindy-ninny-ninion <--Minion's first naturally occurring nickname

Friend Mae sent me this story--it's about a 4 year old girl and her obsessive quest to eat the cake her mother just baked. Read it if you want to know what it's like living with Evil Minion, when you get in the way of her and whatever her black little heart desires.

In other news, here's a good close-up of the suckitude.

Yesterday was the first time I saw Halzebub try to hold her ground. That's Minion's tail you see up there. Haley sat there and growled a bit, but eventually Minion tried to pounce her and H jumped down.

And then there's the toddler's fatigued crash on the couch. 

There's a new Bubbles in town

Just call him Officah Bubbles, dahling, everybody does.

During the G20 this year--an event held in Toronto whether Canadians/Torontonians wanted to pay for it or not--a youtube video went viral showing a cop Talkin' Tuff to a woman who was blowing bubbles at a female cop. While I think blowing bubbles at cops is obnoxious, the male cop wasn't within Bubble Range, and the female cop in question hadn't asked the woman to stop. In the video you later see the woman being arrested, though this wasn't for blowing bubbles--it was because she has medical equipment in her backpack, and a lawyer's address on her arm.

The cop in the video became known as Officer Bubbles, which at the time I thought was a fitting enough punishment for what many of us perceived to be his Mildly Obnoxious High Handed Manner. And that was it. I probably thumbed-up someone else's comment, never looked at the video again, never gave it another thought.

I guess some people later made cartoons lampooning Officer Bubbles. And then, as usual, people added some comments to those videos. But really the whole thing was over for most of us, oui?

Until this week when Bubbles decided his feelings were so hurt he had to sue the cartoon makers and many of the people who commented on the cartoon. Because, you know, heaven forbid the behavior of Toronto's cops, paid for by Toronto tax payers, should come under public scrutiny. And heaven forbid people call him Mean Names in a forum that he really doesn't ever have to look at.

There were apparently death threats made against him and his family. Alright then, go after those people--I agree that's inappropriate. But going after people for calling you names? ...Really? ...I mean, really? And in the process, you've drawn Canadian attention (and some international) back to the original story, and now your Officer Bubbles Persona is more widely known than ever.

One of the Accused has come out publicly with his identity. Here's what he posted in reply to one of the offending cartoons: “officer bubbles probably looks at himself in the mirror a lot.”

As Count Floyd would say: Scaaary stuff.


The Toronto police acted incomprehensibly during the G20, ignoring the smasher-window-people, and instead moving in, with overwhelming force...

against people who were peacefully meandering along in minimal protest, along with a ton of people who were out walking the dog / coming out of a restaurant etc. -- and then detaining them for 2 hours in the pouring rain -- and then making some of them wait in paddy wagons for hours, where apparently if you needed to pee you had to piss your pants there in the truck -- and then removing many of them to giant facilities overnight, where they slowwwwly processed them and let most go. The mayor didn't see anything wrong with what happened: "the Mayor said you can’t second guess police decisions “made in the heat of the moment because they are aware of all of the information that exists at that moment in time.” " (In other words, we can't question the police?)


Many people, myself included, were pissed about all this, and Officer Bubbles became one of the symbols of Everything Wrong With the G20. Live with it, Officer Bubbles. Rise above. "It's big of me too. It's big of all of us. Let's be big for a change!" [Groucho Marx]

While I'm in for protecting minors from being ridiculed on the internet, is this going to lead to a whole new slew of people cracking down on internet comments, treating them with the same gravitas as press articles? Someone like Kanye West could go to town over all the douchebag epithets thrown his way.