endless clear white

On the darkest night of the year...

Thu, 24 Dec 2009 22:23:09 GMT

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Gods Rest Ye, Unitarians

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 02:28:32 GMT

Gods rest ye, Unitarians, let nothing you dismay;
Remember there's no evidence there was a Christmas Day;
When Christ was born is just not known, no matter what they say,
O, Tidings of reason and fact, reason and fact,
Glad tidings of reason and fact.

Our current Christmas customs come from Persia and from Greece,
From solstice celebrations of the ancient Middle East.
This whole darn Christmas spiel is just another pagan feast,
O, Tidings of reason and fact, reason and fact,
Glad tidings of reason and fact.

There was no star of Bethlehem, there was no angels' song;
There could not have been wise men for the trip would take too long.
The stories in the Bible are historically wrong,
O, Tidings of reason and fact, reason and fact,
Glad tidings of reason and fact!

Christmas card post!!!

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 20:54:49 GMT

Since Thanksgiving is over, I am officially allowed to put out a christmas card post! :) As usual, reply here if you want to receive a christmas card, including your address; replies will be screened. Please leave your address even if I have sent mail to you before; I'm not very good at keeping my address book updated with changes. (aging_parents, you're exempt.)

As per usual, you may request a card even if: you are overseas, you do not feel you know me particularly well/have been very close to me lately, you are not particularly religious (my cards are non religious in nature,) or you do not want to send a card in return. If you DO want to send a card in return, of course, here is my address below the cut:

Mikkeneko
824 210th PL SW
Lynnwood, WA 98036

Also, a PSA!
If you are planning to do christmas cards this year but have not yet acquired cards, please consider ordering your cards through www.thehungersite.com or one of their affiliates! They have many lovely cards to choose from, and each purchase gives to charity!

Chrestomanci update

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 19:34:07 GMT

This thanksgiving, I am thankful for my kitty <3

I've decided that for posterity, I'm going to copy my most recent few facebook status updates to here...

Sophie Hatter just watched Chrestomanci decide that her mirror was a window to another room, and try to jump through it. nearly laughed herself sick.

Sophie Hatter has met an unprecedented phenomenon: a kitty who is not interested in crackly toys.

Sophie Hatter cdxxxxxxxxxxx lo;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

Sophie Hatter put Chrestomanci to bed for the night, and is going to bed now too.

Sophie Hatter has never seen a cat chase his own collar before.

Sophie Hatter would find kitty kisses more endearing if his breath weren't so stinky.

Sophie Hatter had thought that Chrestomanci had a low and creaky voice, but now realizes that he just has kitty laryngitis.

Sophie Hatter is glad that Chrestomanci is less stinky now.

More Chrestomanci pics:

He really is a darling cat. I wish I could get better photos of him, but he's learned that if I pull out the camera, it means I'm about to pay attention to him, and he gets right up in my face for kitty kisses. I think he's starting to settle down, though. When I first brought him home, he wanted attention and pettings and cuddles EVERY MINUTE. He's still a total cuddlebug, and he still comes and bothers me for pets and climbs all over me, but he's now willing to leave me alone for stretches at a time to play and even willing to stop and walk away in the middle of a petting session.

When I first brought him home I thought he might be nervous, so I set up a corner of my room with the litter box, a covered kitty bed, and his food or water, so he could hide there if he wanted. Oh no, not he! As soon as I opened the carrier he was off like a shot, darting around my room, investigating things, climbing on things, knocking things over. I scold him for being a pest sometimes, but really, no more so than any overactive inquisitive kitten; he's knocked some things over, but he hasn't broken anything, and so far there have been no messes to clean up at all.

He does smell a lot better now, not so much like shelter cages and cat shit. I'm glad he's settling down enough to groom properly. I've been taking him out of my room to let him get used to the rest of the house in stages; once the roommates get home I'll probably let him out to interact with the other two cats. Pacifica is already fine with him, she doesn't care. Winry is a harder case, but she's calmed down a lot from her earlier poofy-tailed, ears-back, growling and hissing EXTREME DISAPPROVAL! to a more mild, angry-glare, low-growl in the face mild disapproval.

And Winry, at least, LOVES the toy mouse I bought for him. When she discovered it she went mad over it, rolling over it on the floor for a good ten minutes. She likes the crackly toy almost as much. It's still bizarre that he wasn't really interested in the crackly toy. But he seems just as happy with a crumpled ball of paper, so what can you do.

Yay!

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 05:51:35 GMT

Meet Chrestomanci!

He's about 5 months old. So not a baby any more, but still very kittenish -- you can see he still has the chunky kitten belly, but an adolescent's looong tail and legs.

this is news!

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 05:37:41 GMT

Tomorrow I may have a kitty!!!!

Halloween party pictures

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 21:31:28 GMT

Happy Day of the Dead, everyone!

We had a Halloween party here last night. Before we end up taking down the decorations and throwing out the pumpkins, I wanted to grab some pictures, and you can see them in this gallery here: This also doubles as pictures of the interior of the house, for p[eople who haven't seen it before. Although it's difficult to get a good picture of a room you are inside of. But this + the pictures of the trees outside ought to give a general picture.

Here are just a few of my favorites...

The living/dining room, all dressed up for the party.

That pot over the window is not actually on fire, but it sure does look like it, doesn't it?

Some of the people at the party... me in the pirate costume, my roommates, and athena and her roommate.

This is the pumpkin I ended up carving. Bat-pumpkin!

Autumn colors

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 18:02:03 GMT

I had complained that the weather had turned grey and icky before I got any gorgeous autumn leaves shots; so when this morning we had the sun come out for once, I grabbed my camera and took just a few pictures from around the house.

Three trees from around my house.

Yellow and green at the same time!

I like this one a lot.

This one is right outside our door.

I should also take pictures of some of the halloween decorations.

Autumn goes on...

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 01:21:55 GMT

My car has been in the shop for the last week, getting repaired
(finally!) and I've been renting a car. It's actually kind of sad, how
much nicer the rental car is than my car. It's an automatic, though.

The trees around here lately have been putting on some absolutely
gorgeous colors. Really wish I'd taken my camera to get a few shots
while it was still sunny and nice, before the clouds rolled in. We
have reds and oranges and yellows, sometimes all on the same tree on
the upper branches while the lower and most inner ones are still
green. I'm sure we'll get a sunny break eventually, but with the way
the rain is stripping the leaves off the trees, it may not be until
it's too late, sigh.

The house is all decorated for Halloween after all. The roommates
turned out to have a whole box full of decorations. I should take
pictures of those too -- can't wait for Christmas, at this rate.
There's actually a place to put a tree!

I've been doing a lot of overtime at work; both staying late to help
with heavy loads and coming in on weekends to work on additional
projects. Hopefully it will all come to something.

Terminator Salvation meets Little Big Planet

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 06:07:35 GMT

With a side helping of The Secret Power Is Heart.

I finally got a chance to go see 9, which was a much better movie than the reviews had led me to believe. I mean, yeah, there were some parts of the story that made no sense whatsoever, but to be honest that's par for the course with Hollywood movies these days. It was a visually spectacular movie, with some really disturbing and terrifying monster designs, an amazing sound board, characters I liked a lot, and some edge-of-the-seat action scenes. I would totally recommend it.

The insurance company finally paid up, so I have to find an auto place to fix my fender. I know there are a few around here, I just have to have some way to determine what places are good. I never know how to find places like this, do I just pick one out of a book? I have the same problem with doctors.

I've been staying at home this weekend; my roommates are in Canada and I am feeding their cats, as well as harassing them so that they don't get too lonely. And I am thinking about getting a cat of my own soon, yay!

Summer is definitely over up here; we had hot weather up until about a week ago when there was a cloudy cold day. Since then the sun has come back but it's much cooler. Today was a gorgeous fall day, temps in the low 60s and clear shiny skies. I actually got a lot more done today than I expected. I bought some herbs which I will put in the ground tomorrow, and I have been waffling recently over decorations. Do I want Halloween and/or Fall themed decorations, or no? How extensively can I decorate? Probably I'll end up just not doing much of anything at all, ah well.

Speaking of upcoming October, my sisters need to tell me what they want for their birthdays!

Items in my life:

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 19:35:03 GMT

- The other guy's car insurance agency agreed to pay up! FINALLY! And I only had to call her and leave her pestering voice messages every day for about four months!

- I am moved in to the new house in Lynnwood. No pictures yet, I'm gonna wait for some of the boxes and mess to go away before I do a photo tour.

-This experience of moving actually finally brought home to me what healthier people have known for years: when you are more active, you have more energy. For two weeks I spent hours every day hauling boxes around and rushing up and down stairs, and during that time period I didn't think to find it odd that I was less tired and sleeping fewer hours. Then once the move was over, and I took a relaxing day of not doing anything... I was jittery and full of energy.

- I've been at this job for almost a year now and I'm really getting good at it.

- My roommates are big CLAMP fans. Am now reading Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles, somehow. SAVE ME.

- I got to 100 mounts in WoW and got my Red Dragonhawk! SO PRETTY!

- St Louis in three days!

Back from the wedding

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 17:44:12 GMT

Feeling kind of sad and let down, but only in the way that you get after something good is over.

I just came back from Boston, attending my sister ayelle's wedding with nick zendzian. (Now Nicholas Paul Bennett-Zendzian, if I understand correctly.) It was about as good as weddings can get. The bride was beautiful, the location was beautiful, the ceremony was beautiful, and the party afterwards was fantastic. All of it helped along, I think, by my sister and brother-in-law's experience in theater, as well as the generous sprinkling of theater friends among the guests.

Also, on the topic of weddings in Massachusetts, you should read this story. It's very tear-inducing.

Done painting!

Mon, 03 Aug 2009 02:06:04 GMT

Please forgive the pic quality, taken with an iphone.

Before!

And after!

Painting and painting

Sun, 02 Aug 2009 04:28:24 GMT

So I am painting the room in my new house before I move in, because 1) the room belonged to the previous owner's daughter and they decided to paint two of the walls bright purple and the other two bright blue, and 2) the walls have been beat to shit and are full of dents, gouges, pockmarks, and places where they spackled over dents and gouges but then didn't sand them before painting.

Fortunately cryogenia knows about such things, so under her direction I bought plastic sheeting, paintbrushes, thirty yards of blue tape, a gallon of primer, a pint of spackling, putty knives, and sander blocks. We spent all of yesterday putting down plastic and washing the walls, and all of today sanding, spackling, sanding again, washing again, and finally putting on the first coat of primer. Tomorrow: moar primer, then monday and tuesday I can finally put on new paint.

Quick poll: The color I pick has to be pastel side of the spectrum, which is fine by me. Right now I'm looking at the blue-green range. I like blue better, but I hear cool colors can get depressing during the winter, and green would have a nice meadow-like feel to it. Opinions?

View Poll: colors

Anyway, once the walls are finished, THEN I can start looking at moving my actual STUFF into the room. Mostly into the room. It won't all fit in the room; some of it will obviously have to go in the rest of the house.

Things I still need to do:
-Fill out change-of-address forms
-Fix move-out date with current landlady (Current est: August 16th)
-Inform the following parties of address change: Workplace, State Farm, AT&T, Wells Fargo, US and WA gov't.
-Cancel account with Comcast.
-Contact Starving Students Movers to see their rates to move one bed, one mattress, and two desks.
-Visit the container store to get an other half a bookshelf.
-Buy, at Home Depot/Lowe's, more paint trays, and actual paint.

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 02:59:27 GMT

IT'S HOT

The inner life mind of the snail

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 18:37:53 GMT

One more week until our lease starts on the new place. Two people are checking out my apartment today, and once we have a taker my landlady will give me a move-out date. I'm very excited and looking forward to the new place, but at the same time I'm also kinda... scared.

The house is unquestionably a huge upgrade from my current place. Much more space, much more amenities for a much lower price, in a much better neighborhood. I'm not scared of my roommates, who are very nice, or of the moving process, which I'll have at least two weeks to complete. It's not even so much that I'm scared of change as I've changed residences pretty much once a year now for all of my adult life. It's something else.

The change is going to be to me, to my lifestyle, and to the way I think. I'm scared because I've spent my entire adult life moving from one temporary, limited shoebox to another. I'm scared because I've spent seven years with a certain set of habits, of thinking patterns, that are going to change now.

For example, whenever I've had to acquire furniture or other domestic devices, I went shopping with the mental metric "can I lift it without assistance, will it fit in the back seat of a sedan?" Anything that didn't meet that metric (with a few obvious exceptions like bed frames) was rejected. Non-furniture items underwent a similar process; if it couldn't fit into a handbag or a backpack, I wouldn't get it. When doing grocery shopping, I never buy more than could fit into a bike basket. And I always look for the smallest package size, even knowing that it's cheaper to buy in bulk, because I simply never had the room to store things.

For the past three years my cooking ability has been severely limited; in Japan I had no oven and few ingredients, and in my current apartment I had no oven, no freezer, and no space whatsoever. The limitations have sharply reduced the menu of things I know how to cook. Now that I'm going to have a full fridge and freezer, stovetop and oven, all manner of cookware and lots and lots of storage space, I'll have to remember everything and get in the habit of cooking again.

Basically, for all of my adult life I've been thinking like a snail. My home and my possessions needed to be something that I could pack up and take with me: in a suitcase, on an airplane, in a car. But that's not necessary any more, and that's what feels strange.

I'm going to get a cat. I've wanted one ever since I've left home, but circumstances have never allowed. Now I can. I'm so excited that I can hardly wait. But at the same time, I'm scared.

Book drive!

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 22:13:47 GMT

Today at my workplace lobby they were having a "Books and Backpacks" charity drive. They were selling a bunch of books and the proceeds went to the fund. I bought a copy of "The Pinhoe Egg" for myself, and "The Dark Is Rising" and donated it. I feel I'm 2 for 2 on that one.

Japan - One year retrospective

Sun, 19 Jul 2009 00:54:50 GMT

As I started to get ready to leave Japan, one of the things that they advised us to do, to try to prepare us for the culture shock and the sadness of leaving JET behind, was to make a few lists. Lists of things that we liked about Japan and were sorry to leave behind, and things that we were looking forward to having in the US. (Here's the old post, actually.)

So it's been about a year now, and as I watch people on my facebook and friendslist preparing to come home from Japan too, I feel like it's time to do a retrospective.

Things I miss about Japan in general, Toyama in particular.
-The beautiful environment. I can't really go into too terribly much detail about it because I never made a study of plants and animals and so I can't name them specifically. But it was just a beautiful, beautiful place, even as crowded with roads and buildings and rice paddies as it was.

-Bicycles. A hundred times bicycles. I miss bicycles being a ubiquitous part of life, entirely non-noteworthy. Since coming back to the states I've wanted to get another bike, because I liked biking places in Japan. I physically enjoy bike riding, it was very handy, and it certainly gave me plenty of exercise. While I acutely missed having a car that would let me travel long distances and carry large loads (ever tried to carry a mattress on a bike?) the bike was absolutely the transport of choice for local errands.
But since I came to Seattle -- even liberal, ecofriendly Seattle -- I haven't really been able to. Partly it's that I have no place to STORE a bike -- this apartment has no storage places available. Partly it's that most of the businesses, even downtown, have negligable bike parking racks available if they have any at all.
Partly it's that I am absolutely terrified of riding a bicycle on the road. In Japan, bicycles rode on the sidewalk, period (no doubt in large part to the fact that the streets were far too narrow to accomadate them.) I really don't get why the US insists on classifying bicycles as automobiles, when they clearly aren't.
And partly it's because bicycle "culture" in the US is quite hard to get into. Because it is a subculture. Bicycling in Seattle, as in most places, is a hobby. If you're really into it it's a "lifestyle." There are special bike-riding trails you take your bike and go on. There's no end of special bike-riding equipment available, most of it on the assumption that you're going to be spending hours away from civilization. And they can be incredibly snobbish about bikes; I didn't really catch on to this until I heard someone working in a bike store talking with a sneer about "department store bikes," which are apparently only a step up from a trashed junker you pull out of the Sound, and which are the only bicycles available for purchase for less than $300.

-Trains. I don't have to put too many words into this, do I? To sum it up: Once I learned how to work the JR system, which was surprisingly easy for someone who didn't even speak very good Japanese, I could be confident that I could step onto a train anywhere in Japan and be able to find my way to my destination anywhere else in Japan.

-Buses. On a similar note. I always had a vague aversion to riding metropolitan buses. I never really had to do it until I went to Japan, and then I wondered why I had been so afraid of it. Now I remember.
Buses in Japan, unlike those in America (or at least those in Seattle) are clean, comfortable, and userfriendly. They have LED displays that tell you what the next stop is, and canned recordings that announce when the bus is about to stop. Payment is easy and convenient, thanks partly to the Japanese monetary coin system, and the buses are almost always, if not exactly on time, only a few minutes late.
In Seattle at the least, riding the buses is nearly impossible unless you already know the city well enough to be able to tell where you are and can recognize the streets around your stop.

-My kids. I do miss my kids. And my school, in general. We were only a private school, and a lot of our kids were students who hadn't been able to pass the exams for more prestigious high schools. Working with them very quickly dispelled any illusions about Japan's super-smart, super-adademic, super-hardworking student body. They were just teenagers like any others; they didn't like to have to work, they were interested in living their lives without interference from adults. But they were good-hearted, fun people to work with, all the same.

-Conbinis. I don't know why convenience stores in the US are not as good. But they just aren't. Maybe because they don't have emergency underwear and socks.

-Karaoke. "Seattle's best karaoke" deserves its name only because it's "Seattle's only karaoke," at least in the booth style of real Japanese karaoke. Sadly America seems to be completely ignorant of this magnificent entertainment option, going straight from karaoke "bars" to home karaoke systems. Sure, you can rent a machine and sing all night long in your own home, but can you get room service to bring you strong mixed drinks and potato chips artfully arranged in a wine glass? I think not.

Things I don't miss about Japan.
-The food. I never, ever really got used to the food in Japan. There were a few kinds of food I really enjoyed eating -- the yakitori sold from street stalls, and the ramen at cheap 500 yen ramen places were very tasty -- but as a general rule the food was just always a trial. I found it very hard to eat things I couldn't recognize (although in some cases, knowing what kind of animal it came from was not an advantage.)
Eventually I just came to accept that for me, personally, food is not a fun adventure. I don't see virtue inherent in trying new and exciting types of food. I eat food because I am hungry, ideally tasty food which is enjoyable to eat. And if I am lucky when I am trying new foods, I'll find one that is tasty and that I enjoy eating, but it's a russian roulette that that will be the case and I'd basically get the same enjoyment as if I ate something I already know.

-My coworkers.
That sounds really mean, and I regret that I have to write it. Most of my coworkers were very nice, smart, good people. But for two years of living in Japan, of all the things that caused me stress -- standing up in front of the kids' classes, trying to get around in a place where I spoke none of the language, even manuevering the foreign health-care system -- the vast majority of my stress came from dealing with my coworkers.
I won't go into too much detail, mostly because it would just sound like whining and generally be in poor taste. I'll just say in a general sort of way that some of the stress was expected, unavoidable stress caused by having to learn a whole lot about teaching, education, the Japanese school system, the language, and the culture -- and some of it... wasn't unavoidable.

-Smokers. Japan allows smoking in most public buildings. Technically it was not allowed inside the school at all, which meant that only the principal and his guests could do it.
They had non-smoking cars on their trains, but since it was often switched from one car to another depending on the line, basically all the cars had a chance of reeking of tobacco.

-Sunsets.
In a weird way, which I think I have tried to describe before and failed, Japan was very much "land of the rising sun." Japan, or at least my part of it, had beautiful sunrises. Bright colors, clear shining sunlight as it came up to illuminate the horizon. The light in the mornings was always very strong, full of color, beautiful. But it had no sunsets. Whether it was the arrangement of the mountains, the proximity of the ocean, or whatever, Toyama did not have good afternoons or evenings. Rather than a strong warm afternoon light and a pretty sunset, the light in the afternoon would simply start to fade; and it would get dimmer and duller steadily over the evening until finally it just went out.

Oh Japan, I miss you still. You taught me so much about myself, about the world, about my own culture. I'm not sorry I left. I couldn't have stayed. But I still miss you.

New lease

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 05:53:08 GMT

So, today I met with the landlady to sign the lease on OUR NEW PLACE! For those of you who were curious, since the craigslist listing has (of course) been taken down, the address is here:
824 210th PL SW
Lynnwood, WA 98036

You can google map it and go to street level view for a glimpse of the outside... It's a pretty new house, which is always good, and there should be plenty of room for the four of us. More importantly it has a REAL KITCHEN! and allows CATS!

I'll be moving in sometime during August -- I'll be paying double rent over that month, so I'll have lots of time, and I need to contact my current lady to make arrangements for when my last day here will be.

HOUSE!

Happy Fourth, everyone!

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 23:06:31 GMT

And for the Americans, happy Independence Day as well!

Today is sunny, clear, and hot in Seattle... and if it's like that in Seattle, imagine what it's like in normal places!

Go out and make the most of it!

Unexpected visitor

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 07:45:12 GMT

It has been a pretty good weekend so far. Yesterday I went to look at a house and all signs are pretty go. Today I worked a 7 hour shift in Auburn, which is less fantastic except it means I earned 7 hours of overtime, and money is never bad. After which I had a delicious salmon and asparagus dinner with friends and went to see Transformers, which was enormously fun, despite being a terrible movie.

Now I am home and somewhat perplexed, because there is a cat in my apartment.

She is not my cat. She was hanging around the back door to my apartment, waiting for someone to let her in, and slipped around my feet when I went inside. Then she followed me up the stairs and into my apartment.

She does not have a collar or a chip (that I can tell) but she is very obviously tame, a pet. She immediately started wandering around the apartment exploring, and purring and rubbing up when she is petted. I gave her some water and some warmed up ham and she ate them, but it's hard to tell from that whether she is really starving or not.

In approximate order of probability, she:
-belongs to someone around here and either escaped to explored the outdoors, or goes outdoors regularly and got locked out (I have not seen this cat around before)
-belongs to one of the new tenants who moved in today, and was ditched when they moved out of housing that allowed pets into housing that doesn't;
-belonged to a college student or resident who thought she was cute when she was a kitten, and was ditched when she started to grow up (I'd put her at about six months to a year old.)

She is very charming, and I would very much like to keep her, but I am probably going to have to put her outside before I go to sleep tonight.. Leaving aside the business of her not being my cat, this apartment has a no-pets policy, and even if it didn't have such a policy, I don't have any cat food or a litter pan.

If she continues to hang around my apartment unclaimed for the next few days, I might make inquiries to the local vet and pound, and if nobody claims her, I'll see if I can put her up somewhere until I move into my new pet-friendly home. But I'm probably getting ahead of myself here.

Picture of the cutie.

Houses!

Sat, 27 Jun 2009 02:17:34 GMT

We may be getting a house! This one!

Home is where the heart is, but hopefully not the mold

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 16:35:51 GMT

So signs are pointing to this august I will be moving into a house shared with a few other girls. They are looking for houses in the area, and are going to check out one of them today.

When looking at a house that you may be moving into for a year or so, what things should one check for? Aside from obvious things like "mold coming through the walls," what are the tell-tales?

Don't get angry, get better

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 13:27:08 GMT

As you no doubt have heard before, Dr. George Richard Tiller was murdered yesterday in his church, in what can only be described as a terrorist act. Coming on the heels of a recent article about increasing death threats and harassment of judges, this depresses me more than I can say. What a country we live in, where we shoot doctors and judges.

Regardless of your feelings on abortion 'as a method of birth control,' late term abortions are exceedingly rare; and while early abortions can occur for any number of reasons, late term abortions generally take place for one reason and one reason only: that there is some medical reason why the baby will not survive the birth, or has an extremely short and painful life expectancy. It is the hardest choice for an expectant mother to make, but when it is necessary, it is absolutely necessary, and Dr. Tiller was one of only three doctors in the US who would do what is necessary, and do so in a compassionate and caring manner.

I'm not going to get angry, because if I started to get angry, there would be no bottom to it, and it would accomplish nothing. So instead, I'd prefer to do something vaguely productive, even if it's not much. I haven't looked at the I'm sure numerous posts celebrating his murder; I haven't googled Dr. Tiller, but I think I can guess what the top result for him is right now. Dr. Tiller, mass murderer, baby Kevorkian. So I'd like to start to change that with a little good old fashioned Googlebombing. (Does googlebombing still work?) I'd like to push something else to the top of the google list, so that the world will remember him as he truly was, not as the scapegoat for blind hatred. So please, if you care about these issues, consider posting this or something like it in your blog.

Dr. Tiller was not just "an abortion doctor," he was a doctor who performed years of compassionate care for the women he knew. Dr. Tiller had standards and protocols and if they were not met, he would on some occasions refuse to perform a late term abortion when it was not a medical necessity. Dr. Tiller kept on working after years upon years of death threats, after actually having been shot once, because he believed in protecting women's rights and women's safely, and because he wanted to make sure that these women didn't end up like these women.

It's not what you do, it's who you do it with

Wed, 27 May 2009 19:18:49 GMT

As a sort of second half to the birthday experience, my parents visited Seattle this weekend. I had to work on Friday and Tuesday, but I had memorial day itself off, so we had three weekend days to go about Seattle and see stuff. We went hiking on Cougar Mountain (I did not get eaten by a cougar,) went downtown to see the Science Fiction Museum and the space needle, and went to see the star trek movie. (Still good the second time!) But they flew back to Austin today. Sad to see them go.

It was a fun weekend, and very good to see my parents again, though also tiring. Fortunately this week will be only a four-day weekend. And I can chill with my new speakers and mouse and other goodies.

For a while I had been putting things off until after my birthday/Memorial Day, so now that that's past I've been getting things done. At some point soon I'm going to have to buckle down and get my car repaired. The insurance claim seems to be tied up in an endless morass of not doing anything. My insurance company is waiting on the other guy's insurance company, which has apparently decided they're just going to do nothing and wait for it to go away.

At this point, if state farm wanted me to go to a specific place to get the damage estimated, they should have told me -- I asked if they wanted me to, and they said no. So I'm just going to get it repaired. And maybe some time in the next 80 years they'll get back to me about it.

I also went ahead and bought one of my bridesmaid dresses, and am looking into the other one. Will have to look into buying plane tickets soon, too.