So...in response to the many questions I've received, no, I have not been eaten by bears, no, I have not started a cult that has taken up all my time, no, I am not in jail (yet) and no, I am not feeling clever enough to write an epic tale explaining why I haven't been about (though truly, it is a story worth telling...it all started when I drank 137 glasses of mellonaide...) STILL! I do exist, and since my previous promises not to fall off the earth didn't work out so well (see the last ten or eleven posts, and I think you shall see what I mean :-P) I make NO promises whatsoever here! Hopefully that will keep my recalcitrant arse from disappearing yet again...

SO, to all you goodly people, here is a general list of my activities...hopefully the truly grand and noble nature of all that I've been doing will make up for the fact that I am a silly goose for not writing more:

-Alaska (where I met the good lady Melody, who has been a doll and not permitted me to take a complete nose dive off the face of the earth...I owe her 1 plate of vegan cookies, just as soon as I can convince her to come visit :-))

-LSAT's...'nuff said :-P

-EGYPT! A glorious trip full of temples and tombs and more mummies than a bad b-movie!

-Law school applications! And I owe a batch of non-vegan cookies to the good Katie Classic for forcing me to keep Denver in mind... :-)

-Writing class! I have been taking a few classes lately, and I have high hopes that it will force me to improve my writing skills...or at least force me to write more often, if nothing else...

-And, of course, the usual cults, jail time, loss of gravity, and bear-related meal time insanity that traditionally keeps me occupied when I fall off the earth...I hope all of you wonderful people are doing well, and I hope I can actually manage to keep this dang thing going even after I get distracted by the shiny thing in the corner...

Oooh...shiny...

Huzzah for communication!

-Liz :-)

P.s. TO my beloved Bear and the glorious lady Jennie, I hope you're well...Jennie - congrats on your nuptials! Bear - I hope wherever you are, that you're doing phenomenally! I miss you both!

who has just discovered the success at the moment of her mother's battle against the horrific beast that is Breast Cancer. Good lady, I am so unbelievably happy for you! To celebrate, I am going to give the top ten reasons why you rock my universe in half!

10.) You somehow, against my many protestations, angry threats, and 3-day term on the cross country team, have convinced me that I like running. Good show, old bean...I never would have thought it possible...

9.) You still tell the stories about the biker bar I used to go to in high school. I long since have lost the nerve to tell those stories myself, and the reactions you solicit with those tales has never ceased to amuse me! I owe many a confidence-booster and many a laugh to your critical take on my high school hijinks's and I can never thank you enough for that!

8.) You are amazingly motivated! I have never seen someone so bound for greatness in all my 23 and 3/4 years on this earth!

7.) You drink nothing but the best! I will always laugh when I think of the men who sidle up to you to buy you a drink and are astonished when you ask for a single malt whiskey straight up. You rock!

6.) You can pronounce my middle name; and you prove it often enough for me to be forced to acknowledge that in all likelihood, you've committed it to memory. Wow. You astound me, good lady!

5.) You are a liberal with atheistic tendencies dating a born-again who also ascribes to the Republican faith. 'Nuff said!

4.) You understand what I mean when I say "I'm walking the dog" ;-)

3.) Not once in my life have you given me the benefit of the doubt. Not once. I really COULD have been keeping to myself all those years! I could have been sweet and shy and hidden away! Never once did you believe me, and for that, you have my eternal affection :-)

2.) You never let me fall off the planet. I do that too often, and whenever I do, you're right there to ring me and text me and write me and pull my lazy, "I-don't-feel-like-writing-now" ass back into the world. You rock!

1.) For the last six or seven odd years, you have been an amazing friend and confidante to me. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for being you, MLE! And many combolations on your mum! I hope things are totally up from here!

Got this from Sara's Spot. A list of the top 100 most banned/challenged books. The idea is to highlight the ones you've read.

( Ridonkulous banned book list )

Now, some of them are on a very strange level understandable. I suppose to some younger infants, the Goosebumps and Scary Stories books might be considered frightening (and no comments out of you Annie...I know I was scared of the Scary Stories books well into my now years :-)), and after having to read "The Catcher in the Rye" so many times for so very many classes, I wanted to ban the damn thing as well. Still, things like "A Light in the Attic" by Shel Silverstein being banned because it supposedly "promotes disrespect, horror, and violence." or "Where's Waldo" by Martin Hanford for it's (horror upon horrors!) containing amongst its thousands upon thousands of teeny tiny characters one with a solitary breast exposed (and if you're anything like me, this revelation brought to you by those oh-so concerned parents really is only going to make the book all the more enticing...now where is my copy of the dang thing?) is patently ridiculous. As concerned as you may be for your child, chances are, someday they will see an exposed breast, and as far as the heavily contested Silverstein poem goes, I'm sure they've thought about breaking the dishes themselves a few times...

At least half of the books I highlighted I read by the age of 10 or 11, and frankly books like "The Bridge to Terabithia" and "Forever" by Judy Blume helped the crossover from childhood to adolescence make more sense. These are the things we should be encouraging children to read! Things that make them question their own beliefs and things that bring them joy! So many of these books are poignant stories about horrors committed in our collective human past ("The Giver", "Slaughterhouse-Five", "The Color Purple", etc.) which remind us never to let such atrocities happen again and some are simply stories that have the audacity to treat their audience as the rapidly growing adolescents they are as opposed to the infants these committees against literature seem to want them to be.

Well, clearly the stalwart men and women who have tirelessly worked to ensure that such smut and filth will never reach the eyes of the young or curious deserve praise for such an incredible array of intolerance and idiocy. And while they're out crusading against the horrors of *gasp!* reading about puberty in "Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.", the clearly homosexuality-inducing "Heather Has Two Mommies" (since that's definitely the reason some of their children become LGBTQ), the rebellion-causing "James and the Giant Peach" and the traumatic content of the "Harry Potter" series, I'm sure their children are at home, minding their P's and Q's, watching V-Chipped television, listening to Christian Rock, and clearly not reading any of that horrible subversive material their parents are working so hard to ban...and when they feel anger towards their parents, they will repress it because good children have no anger, and when their bodies start changing, they won't know what to think of what's going on (and will probably be too traumatized by the process to ask). Yes, you wondrous people surely are doing us all a favor by banning this horrific and evil material! By keeping your children locked in a state of perpetual infancy, you can ensure they grow up to be just like you are - unhappy, scared of your own shadow, and so uncomfortable in your own skin, the very mention of puberty, swear words, racism, and homosexuality sends you into a fit against anyone who has they temerity to attempt and open discussion about it.

As for me, my new goal for the year is to read every book I've yet to read from that list. :-) Huzzah for literature!

Alas, no whimsical tales of gravitational failings can explain away my three week absence from my beloved blogs...unfortunately, more mundane reasons will have to suffice. You see, the life of a super hero is rough at times and...

...not buying it eh? Well whether I don skin-tight pleather, knee high boots and a cape and fight crime by the light of the moon or not, I have been missing out on blogging and keeping up with you goodly people, and for that I profusely apologize. However, I have returned, and brought with me a glorious set of new stories, new adventures, and new rants against the political establishment! Many thanks to Katie, J-Ho, Lenka, Matt, Jen, Jennie, Bear, and many others, especially a goodly muppet man, fozebear, from all the way down under, for your copious reminders and your affectionate proddings for me to start posting again...I promise I shall try to keep a firmer grasp on the planet so as not to fall off again :-)

That and find a new super hero outfit...pleather doesn't breathe at all...

Huzzah!

-Liz :-)

I sat down at this glowy box tonight with a distinct purpose. Now here I sit, at least 1/2 an hour later, and I have no real clue what I had intended to write about that motivated me here in the first place. I think it had something to do with this past weekend, but alas, it's gone now. Suffice to say, it would have been brilliant, easily eclipsing other internet staples like Cute Overlord (and yes, I know it's called "Cute Overload" but it mandates that I must go there daily to partake in cuteness and since I cannot refuse, it has certainly become overlord-ly :-P) and that awesome Star Wars lightsaber kid! Alas! It has been lost to the vast and dusty annals of my memory. This has happened a lot this past week.

It's been an incredibly strange week. I honestly still feel like I've been walking around in a fog. I felt like crying this afternoon when American Airlines didn't want to let me use my miles for my Alaska trip in August (we worked it out :-) I'm off to the land of the Midnight Sun on August the 6th!) then later, found myself unable to stop laughing when my cat slipped and fell into the shower while I was in there. I guess I'm still dealing with Grandma's death. In light of that, I'm going to try to post several things over the next month that were really cool about my grandmother. I'll be cross-posting this to my MySpace account as well, so if you're a devotee of that one, look there (I do post some things here that don't wind up there and vice-versa :-))

1.) Grandma was a horrific cook. She was pretty much the physical incarnation of all that is dookie-esque about Anglo-Saxon cooking. Yet despite this, she made one HELL of an awesome rhubarb and berry pie. Thanks Grandma...those pies were wonderful. :-)

Early this morning, my grandmother died. She had a massive infarct in the bathroom at around 5 am. It was over pretty quickly and she didn't suffer much. She was 94.

My grandmother was not always a good woman. She was an inveterate racist, she was a total narcissist, and she could be more artificial than any person I've ever met. She could be needlessly cruel and profoundly manipulative. She was a master at dangling her affections and she expected people to jump when she demanded it.

Having said that, she was also brilliant, beautiful, powerful and funny. When Grandma was having a good day, she could be the most wonderful person to be around. She had a wonderful sense of humor and despite being blind and hateful, she was always aware of what was going on in the world. She voted religiously and encouraged all her granddaughters to do the same, since her mother was a suffragette and if we didn't vote when our turns came around, we were spitting on her sacrifice and degrading her memory.

She was devilishly clever, and while she often used her intellect to manipulate people and get her way, she also wrote poetry and contributed her time and experience to botanical societies. She was one of the first women in the country accepted into medical school. Obeying her family's' edict and not going was a decision she regretted all her life. She inevitably became the head of the science department and the Dobbs school in upstate New York. She used that as a platform for exploration, eventually becoming in charge of inspecting and charting some of the smaller US Virgin Islands. Through this, she discovered several unique bugs and species of fern that are attributed to her and became one of the few women of her era to gain acceptance to the Explorers Club.

Though my biological grandfather died when my mom was 19, my grandmother re-married several decades later at the age of 82. Even though I was around 12 at the time, I remember the wedding vividly. Though there were far more laughs at her expense (since with grandma, you had to either laugh at her eccentricities or you could be deeply hurt very quickly) everyone noted how she lived her energetic life to the fullest; not letting something like age get in the way of a good wedding.

Even though it was hard to like her, we all did love her, and her loss is a blow to us all. So, Elizabeth Bailey Farnum Guibord Hartzel, may your rest be a peaceful one. Goodbye Grandma Farnie, we'll see you on the other side.

In the news over the last few days, there has been much wailing and gnashing of teeth over dubya's recent decision to turn over our ports to a company operating out of Abu Dabi in the United Arab Emirates. Now, while I do love the extraordinary amount of shit this horrific president is taking for it, and while this pushes him further and further into the realm of obscurity, since many a "Patriot" is appalled that he would have the audacity to turn our sea ports over to a pack of *gasp!* foreigners...and ARABS no less. Still, the fact that in all likelihood the government will demand our business be sent elsewhere has massive repercussions and makes very little sense...

For starters, America has not been in charge of it's own sea ports for over 20 years!!! We have constantly relied on foreign companies to control them, though they NEVER (and will never) have been in charge of security and all ports are staffed by the same people that staff so many of our nations' low-level jobs. This means poor Americans and immigrants work there, more often than not, and it is the United States Coast Guard who always has, and will for the forseeable future, controlled security and inspection. The foreign companies simply own the rights to the port and enforce the charges on each entering and exiting ship. For this right, they pay a hefty amount to our government in taxes and subsidies. The reason no American company has controlled our own ports for so long is no American company wants the job!!! We live in a CAPITALIST society. However you feel about capitalism, one of its greatest principals is that businesses will take care of themselves. If nobody in this country wants to run the ports, or can run them efficiently and productively, someone else in the world will.

Also, regardless of who is in control of our ports, we essentially control theirs. The port at Abu Dhabi is one of the most lucrative in the world. It also is our main way to bring in weapons to protect our oil interests (aka, the most recent conquest out there) and transport many other things. If and when we decide against permitting them to run our ports, the problems this will create will be immense. First of all, one THIRD of our economy is the direct contribution of wealthy Arabs and Middle Eastern nations. Refusing them the right to take up our ports will encourage them to sign potentially more lucrative deals with China, Russia or India for their oil, to drive up their tariffs which have historically been pretty low for us on the use of their ports, their resources and their land. These nations are already pulling out from our economy at an alarming rate. This will only encourage them to do so faster; and make European companies start looking like better potential investments than our own.

Apart from those important facts, though this company is based in the United Arab Emirates, the owners of it are mostly BRITISH. The country is a genetic grab-bag, with South Asians, Iranians, Emiratti and a hefty amount of European Ex-Patriots living there. Because of its make-up, open economy and tax benefits, tons of European countries are based there; much like how so many companies incorporate in states like Delaware for all the benefits. The UAE is also totally secular, while not rejecting religion, it has very little impact on its business transactions (save for the respect granted to Sharia law when dealing with more religious Muslims.) The company based in Abu Dhabi is a descendant of the ORIGINAL British company that has historically been in charge of the ports before now. They have an excellent track record and are highly efficient. They've done a good job for twenty years, why take their right away because they are now incorporated in a country with the word ARAB in its name?

Inevitably, what this all boils down to is racism, pure and simple. Nobody likes Arabs in today's' world. Have they done some horrible things to have earned their horrible caricatured treatment in our nation? Yes, especially if you look at the ridiculous rage they have over a set of Danish cartoons, but we've done horrible things to them to encourage some of the brazen racist hatred they feel for us now (like the civil war we've created in Iraq, for example...) Unfortunately, both parties are jumping on the racist bandwagon in this case. The Republicans are so callow that they will sell out their own poster-boy to not appear "weak on terror" and the Democrats are so cowardly that they will seize any opportunity to make this ridiculous president look bad, even at the cost of their own economy. We live in a global world. We have encouraged free trade for ages and now that we are put to the test, we reject it because we're so terrified of the Big Bad Arab who will sneak through our ports, rape the women, kill the men, sell the children to meat factories and the like. While I have put up with plenty of subtle (and not so subtle) racism towards my ethnicity for many years, I have never experienced anything like the hatred and loathing I have experienced in the last few days. Yet this time, there is no justification whatsoever. These are not a pack of religious extremists who want to run our ports for their own dastardly purposes, this is a group of businessmen who have respected our laws for decades and have no higher ideal other than profit.

Racism and other forms of closed-mindedness will be the downfall of our nation, as it has been for so many in the past. Free trade is opening so many doors and making so much possible, especially for a wealthy nation like our own. If we can just get beyond our own petty hatred, perhaps we can snag a piece of that pie before the rest of the world beats us out.

*Sigh...*

Huzzah for my beloved cousin (in law :-)) the good lady Lenka who has, upon this day, tagged me in her glorious blog! Huzzah! Passing it forward, I hereby tag the following blogs as glorious works that ought be celebrated :-)

J-Ho's Blog!

The Good Sir Matt's Blog!

The Good Lady Jen's Blog!

These bring me much joy! Huzzah for such goodly people!

I love music! I love it like I love orange juice in the mornings! And since today is the holiday celebrating Saint Valentine, or the Goddess Hera (or Juno, depending on the pantheon) bitch-queen of the Gods in Greece and Rome, I figured I'd display it here for all to see! Huzzah!

"You Can Leave Your Hat On" - Billie Holliday (because it's a freakin' hot song and since Saint Valentine was martyred by being beaten and decapitated for marrying couples when the Emperor Claudius II of Rome had forbidden marriage in order to swell the ranks of his army...Valentine couldn't leave his hat on, but Billie sure could! )

"Suzanne" - Weezer (I think anyone, Roman or otherwise, can appreciate this stirring song, popularized by two men and a monkey!)

"Oh! What a Night!" - Frankie Valli (Because if you can't celebrate a fabulous one-night stand on Valentines Day, when CAN you celebrate it???)

"I'm in Love with a Girl Named Spike" - Skankin' Pickle (just because it's an awesome song! Besides, I think Hera could've dug the nickname "Spike"...)

"99 Red Balloons" - Goldfinger (For the woman in my office whose massive red-and-pink balloon thing is blocking our fire escape...)

"Take Me Back" - The Atari's (Just for the lyrics "I'm sorry that I gave you that infection and said we had sex on the Love Connection." Those lyrics earn them a place in the all-time most amazing song hall of fame!)

"Polythene Pam" - The Beatles (Also for lyrical purposes, most notably these: "Well, you should see Polythene Pam, she's so good-looking but she looks like a man."...besides, I've seen some of the busts of Hera...she was definitely rather mannish...why do you think Zeus strayed so much? )

"Why Don't We Do It in the Road?" - The Beatles (Because it is an awesome song, and because when Claudius banned marriage, Valentine married people where he could...the same went for that whole consummating thing...)

"Young James Dean" - Girlyman (Because it's about a woman falling for a Bond Girl...'nuff said!)

"If I ever Leave this World Alive" - Flogging Molly (Because it's sweet and fun and funny at the same time! And because those martyrs were probably hoping for something closer to that than what he got...)

"If I had $1,000,000" - BareNaked Ladies (Many in the Christian community tried to buy Valentine's way out of a death sentence...didn't work, but this is a wonderful song!)

"Eric the Half A Bee" - Monty Python's Flying Circus (Because St. Valentine is the patron saint of flowers, and because I love this hive employee-yee, bisected accidentally, one summer afternoon by me! )

"Subbaculcha" - The Pixies (Just for the lyrics: "I was looking handsome - she was looking like an erotic vulture." Huzzah!)

"Darling Loraine" - Paul Simon (Because she doesn't like the way he chews...and it's a glorious, glorious song! Why don't noisy eaters get more mention in love songs???)

"I Wanna Be Sedated" - The Ramones (Because that tends to be how I feel on this holiday )

Any other songs would be welcome additions to the list! Huzzah for music!

So the news is all a-buzz today with Vice President Dick(wad) Cheney's near slaying of his friend and hunting buddy, Harry Whittington, an attorney and millionaire from the Austin Texas area. Despite their apparent precautions (like bright orange hunting vests and such) and the fact that they were out hunting quail (hey! It's easy to mistake a 78 year-old man for a 6 pound bird! Just look at them! and look totally alike!) Cheney still managed to pepper Whittington with buckshot to the neck, chest, arm and ear. Even more amusing was the fact that since Cheney is at risk for a heart attack at any given moment (and what would dubya do if the brains behind his operation went down to a bum ticker?) his trained medical staff, who go with the Vice President wherever he roams and the ambulance he has on call 24-7 were able to get Whittington to safety.

"Fortunately, the vice president has got a lot of medical people around him and so they were right there and probably more cautious than we would have been...The vice president has got an ambulance on call, so the ambulance came."

Upon hearing the news, a friend of mine commented that hopefully this would change the administration's mind on the "barbaric nature of hunting." Fortunately or unfortunately, I doubt this will have much impact on our nation's affection for the sport. As much as I hate to say it though, I don't dislike hunting, so long as it's intention is to kill for food. This prompted a raging debate on the ethics of a "game" centered around the slaughter of an animal. To her defense, the good lady pointed out many of the various problems that the sport poses. For example, even the best marksmen can't often kill their prey on their first shot. Often the animal takes off and can bleed out for hours before the hunter catches it (if he/she ever does) or they die from their wounds. She talked about the rate of death among vultures and other scavenger birds and animals who choke on bullets or consume too much buckshot from a carcass and die. She raged about canned hunts (the hunting of a domesticated or chained animal, generally purchased from a zoo or private collection, that can't fight back or presumes humans to be it's caretakers) and talked about the dozens of deaths every year from hunting-related accidental shootings.

Yet while I agree with her in principal, especially where canned hunts are concerned, hunters do a lot of good as well...

When I was younger, I worked with a couple of smaller environmentalist groups through my college (Students Against Violence to the Environment - S.A.V.E.) and high school (Students For Environmental Action - S.F.E.A. - yes...that acronym was pretty awful...) During my time with them, I had the opportunity to see the conservation efforts of a wonderful group known as Ducks Unlimited. Though they were a hunting group (specifically for water fowl) they donated an uncountable sum of time, money, and land to preserve habitat for ducks, geese, and other aquatic or semi-aquatic birds. Aside from that, they also worked to preserve habitats for birds not on their hunting lists (like sand pipers, cranes, and other beach, pond, lake or marsh dwelling life.) They spoke out for the conservation of wetlands, something all environmentalists agree is necessary, though few have been active in the preservation of, and are often considered at least partially responsible for the return of the Canadian Goose that now has more problems with over-population than with being endangered.

I suppose the place I come to on this one is the middle road. I know hunting has it's cruel aspects, and I know that it is far from a perfect activity, but banning it totally seems out of place and wrong. Many hunters and people in general have no reason to support conservation efforts without a tangible benefit. Most people can't fathom the notion of roping off segments of land for the simple purpose of leaving it alone so the animals and plants within might thrive. Groups like Ducks Unlimited provide that reason to ensure that these species have homes and places to roam in. And while I personally despise guns and doubt I could hunt unless I absolutely had to as a matter of survival, the fact that these groups do go that extra mile to set aside land for their contributors means that those of us who just enjoy a good walk in the woods still HAVE that option and can still see wildlife where it was meant to be seen.

And as for Cheney, well, while I'm sure this won't change his affinity for hunting, I do believe this might change up his roster of hunting buddies...especially if old Abramoff is scheduled in the near future... :-)

...in late January, when our heroine wandered out into the cold. Leaning down into her bag, she adjusted the volume on her iPod and began her long and arduous walk. It was far she had to go, and kitty litter she needed to procure, for her darling little one could not go without it. Crossing Broadway, a sudden sensation came over her. She felt light! Lighter than air! She felt as though she was suspended in the ether! Looking down, to her horror, she discovered she was! The ground was drifting further and further from her feet as she rose with rapid speed! Reaching out, she grabbed a windowsill and clung to it for dear life. Hours past. The people below meandered by, oblivious to her screams for help (being quite preoccupied with their own iPods) and clearly in a hurry to get to their own destinations. They had no time or inclination to deal with the girl who gravity forgot. Her arms tiring, she gripped fanatically at the ledge, but she could not hang on forever, and soon enough her arms gave way to the strain.

Careening upwards, our brave protagonist wondered aloud at the unfortunate fate that had befallen her. She resolved that if ever she were to get her feet firmly on the ground, she would never again question Newton or violate his beloved laws of physics! Suddenly, the whoosh of a jet engine roared into her ears and our heroine instinctively reached out and caught the first thing she could. Success! She had grabbed the wing of a passing 747! Hoping with all her might that she could cling to the wing long enough to get to the ground and beg for help, she steeled herself for a long flight. She was in luck, though! The flight was simply Kentucky bound! Rejoicing at her good fortune she yelped a hearty "Huzzah!" to the fast fleeing sky and threw up her hand when the plane landed. To her shock and joy, the laws of gravity seemed to have been restored to her and she fled the airfield in search of a way home.

What followed were several frantic weeks of odd jobs, false identities, and living close to the edge, all in order to earn enough to buy a ticket home to her beloved city. Her employment rambling took her through restaurant kitchens, welfare offices, lawns that needed landscaping and bathrooms that needed a wash. She worked hard, and by mid-February, she had finally earned enough to take the next greyhound bus back to her beloved city!

Her little kitten had become feral in her absence, and had learned the ways of the building, using a coal chute to get into the outside world and poaching old sushi from nearby restaurants. Yet when she saw her, she jumped head-first into her lady's arms!

...That's when she remembered the kitty litter...so, in a rush, our heroine, fixed the volume on her iPod, and headed into another cold and stormy night.

...and that's why I haven't blogged in awhile...don't blame me! Blame Newton and his wonky laws of physics!

Huzzah!

-Liz :-)

So apparently January 27th shall be the 250th anniversary of the birth of the late and undeniably great Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, composer of such amazing creations as the "Magic Flute", "The Marriage of Figaro", "Requiem", and many, many symphonies, quartets and sonatas, some of which were composed when he was but a spry lad of 14. So, in recognition of this wonderful composer and his great contribution to music as we know it, I shall include herein:

Well Known and Not So Well Known 411 on W.A.Mo!

Mozart was born in the city of Salzburg, Austria, and was christened Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus (Gottlieb) Mozart. Perhaps his freakishly long name led to beatings on the playground, but whatever the reason, Wolfgangus (as he preferred to be called) he turned out to be a quiet kid, fairly introspective, but exhibiting rare musical talent at as early as three years of age. Since his dad, Leopold, was already a celebrated musician, he was taught many instruments and while he was still in single digits, old Mozzy had learned to play clavier, violin, and organ as well as any concert musician.

His later travels all over Italy, Austria, Germany, and Europe in general, and his ridiculously prolific music writing garnered him a reputation with European nobility. Perhaps because of this, Mozart was a born spender and disposed of quite as much as he earned, though the rumors of him passing out of this world penniless and alone were quite wrong, since he had a good position in court and a nice fat paycheck at the time.

He did die early though, and despite further rumors of foul play on the part of individuals like rival composer Antonio Salieri who was probably not fond of him, but was highly unlikely and unable to slip him the mickey, they have been widely discredited; though over-work, rheumatic fever, and mercury poisoning have all been thrown out as possible causes. Whatever the case, he lies now (we believe) in a large, state-sanctioned mass grave in Vienna.

In his life, he had hundreds of compositions attributed to him, as well as mistresses (most debunked...dude loved his wife, we think) and debts. He is renowned as one of the fathers of classical music as we know it today and despite his (apparent) narcissism and his early and questionable death (or perhaps because of it) his work has survived the test of time and affects us even to this day.

So to you, Mr. Mozart, happy birthday! I hope the wigs in the afterlife are well-powdered and your music lives on for another two and a half centuries to come.

Huzzah!

Upon returning from dinner with the great and wonderful Holly and Katie and Christie and Pahlavi (and a most merry and excellent birthday to you, Holly!) I entered my apartment to find my kitten curled up inside a paper Victoria Secret bag...I wish I could have gotten a better shot, but here she is in all her electric glory:



Ain't she a cutie? :-)

That is all.

Huzzah for my cat!

-Liz :-)

After five full months of hearings, fights and deliberations galore, the state of Indiana has on January 19th finally decided upon a time for their state; and it turns out it's all going to depend on where in Indiana you are!

Yes, despite the universal accord that Indiana is a part of the Midwest, they have decided that only eight counties in the Hoosier State will join the normal-ish ten in our beloved Central Standard time. The other seventy-four counties will officially be declared one hour ahead on the East Coast time. So, if you live in Indiana East, you are considered to be a full hour different than a small portion of your state, most of whom live on the Illinois border.

They will also be requiring the nineteenth state in our union to conform to the ever-so-slightly outdated daylight savings time, initially suggested by Benjamin Franklin as a joke in the Journal of Paris (his point was that people should go to bed earlier, not that we should change time twice annually! :-P) It was only observed for seven months after it was first instated in 1916, nine years after it was seriously suggested by William Willet in 1907. It was so unpopular that it was ended less than a year after its inception because people refused to observe it. In 1942 it was reinstated to conserve time during World War II and mandated for the nation in 1966. Today it serves little purpose other than to mess with our minds and to cause consternation in the home state of Kurt Vonnegut, Cole Porter and many others.

Perhaps we should give the state its own time zone, maybe halfway between Central Standard and East Coast. I think that way we'd have a hell of a lot less confused Hoosiers running about.

Ah well...either way, huzzah for Indiana and its ambiguous and zany time zones!

SO! It has become abundantly clear that I don't sleep NEARLY enough. This is made complicated by many factors, like the various wonderful people in my life who insist on making me leave my cave, my psycho attack kitty who loves to keep me on my toes (I could have named her Hobbes :-)) work, fun things to do...you know the usual :-) Now, I know consciously that I really ought to get to sleep earlier, 'cause I keep getting sick lately and that's never healthy, so here I'll list several of the reasons I must sleep earlier, better, stronger, faster! THEN perhaps I'll convince myself to get some sleep!

1.) I run...and bike...and exercise in general. Whenever I get sick or am too tired, I pay for it later when I'm all fidget-y and restless (and no sex comments out of you lot! I know your minds are perpetually in the gutter! :-)) Plus, every year I tell myself I'm going to run that freakin' marathon (I swear it's gonna happen!) Now that I'm all single, I have the opportunity to get that done, and that is always a good thing :-)

2.) If I am well rested, my reflexes will be much quicker! This means Electric Mayhem will have a lot harder of a time getting the drop on me...she may be a wily and crafty, but I would be well rested and spry...crazy kitty and her houdini moves...besides, I can't get her drunk like so many Russian zookeepers will :-)

3.) I'm FAR more sexy with sleep in me...nobody goes for that bags-under-the-eyes, sallow skin, sickly look any more... :-)

Any more reasons would be welcome, good people! Until then, I'm off to bed...to ward off my psycho attack kitty :-)

Cheers!

-Liz :-)

Over the last two days, there have been some wonderfully dramatic decisions made on our wonderful planet and beyond. It seems that since plenary indulgences have gone out of style in the last couple of centuries, and since the death rate of the unbaptized masses in Africa (one of the most Catholic-saturated continents in the world) is mounting due to AIDS, malnutrition, etc., the Catholic Church has decided to re-arrange the nether worlds once again! Ergo, no more Purgatory! The concept of Purgatory or Limbo was first popularized for the Catholic Church in 1254 by Pope Gregory I. According to some, it was an erstwhile method of bringing the devout to prayer more often, according to others, it was an excuse to make copious amounts of money through the sale of relics (supposed items of the Saints which were more often than not completely fake...) In recent years, this practice has seemed to cause more trouble for the Catholic Church than good, due to the hocking of other peoples phony indulgences online (come on now, people! The clergy is the only group allowed to sell chicken bones as saints fingers and tattered cloth as the Shroud of Turin!)

Despite the seeming complexity of tweaking the afterlife (wouldn't it be easier to just advocate condom use???) the Church handed down its decision yesterday with incredible non-chalance. And since their base answer to the multitude of questions surrounding this was that the infallible Pope (never mind the Nazism or other historical blemishes, you!) and the infallible Catholic Church (just ignore the tacit approval of the slave trade for now) have decreed it and thus it was so, I am left in a state of green-eyed-monster-tude. Why can't I rearrange the cosmos to suit my whims??? :-(



(This strip is the property of Bill Waterson...just letting you all know :-))

In another landmark decision made today, our own beloved U.S. Supreme Court finally gave the right wing a whiff of their own bullshit when they decided to uphold the state of Oregon's laws permitting Doctor-Assisted Suicide in extreme cases. This is monumental and horrific for the religious right because after decades of standing on the "States Rights" platform and calling all liberals fascists and pork-barrel spenders for their investments in education, health care, and other such non-essential entities, they have finally gotten what they wanted. It is, according to an increasingly conservative court, totally legal for a state to authorize its doctors to perform Euthanasia to give their patients the dignity they deserve in death as well as life. Perhaps the lack of Purgatory (it's heaven or hell all the way from here on in!) helped to encourage the verdict (after all, does doctor-assisted death really count as suicide? Either way, no waiting period to find out where the afterlife is sending them!) Whatever the case, it was nice to see finger-licans standing by their beliefs.

Anyways, good readers, whoever (all 6 of you) and wherever you may be (Chicago, China, Denver - Katie rocks! - New York, etc...) may your chicken bones bring you luck in the afterlife and may the progressive policies of one small state change the course of the rest of its' nation...

Cheers!

-Liz :-)

I feel decidedly old today...yes, good readers, the young whipper-snapper that so many have taken to calling things like "puppy" and "grasshopper" feels this very evening like an old lady...

You see, good people, my back is, for the first time in my life, giving me grief. I was walking out of work along Wacker Drive, as I do most nights out of the week when all of a sudden, my back politely informs me that not only is it an insubordinate little bitch capable of causing extreme pain for no apparent reason whatsoever, but it also owns me, and when it decides to throw a little hissy-fit, I had better find a place to lean up against, 'cause it wasn't going to treat me nice.

So there I stood on a busy thoroughfare at 7:30 pm, seriously peeved that not only was I leaving work pretty late, but I would also be hobbling to the el and to my home in a rather awkward fashion. Well, many stretches and one hell of a hot water bottle later, here I sit, like an old lady at her gramophone or printing press, thinking about my new rheumatism and perhaps reminiscing about the good old days...

Ooog...more tomorrow then, goodly peoples!

A good night to all!

-Liz :-)

I just learned that a woman in my office had died today. She’d been sick for a long time, in and out of the office for long periods, undergoing various procedures and the like. She left behind a twenty year-old son and many friends at my firm. The cause of death was sited as “medical complications”. She was forty-six.

I guess the worst part about all that was the way I found out. Earlier this afternoon I had asked one of the folks from accounting why everyone seemed so down today and her response was a strange look and the comment “didn’t you get that memo?” The statement was like something out of the movie Office Space. I nearly laughed out loud when she said that. I’m glad I didn’t, but the statement was so comically office-y. In our world of instant communication, where most people carry a mobile phone with them wherever they go, it was amazing to me that a woman so popular in the little law firm universe we exist in could be reduced to something so simple as a memo. She was a vivacious woman; full of energy, even in the depths of her illness. She was wonderfully cheerful, and clearly masked the pain she must have been suffering from well. Yet the only testament to her death was sitting in my inbox on some random piece of parchment; waiting for my acknowledgement.

That and the whole office was pretty quiet.

Unfortunately I didn’t know this woman well. The little I knew of her was that she was always very kind and cheerful; always the first to bring something in for peoples’ birthday, and often when I’d head out late, she’d give me a jaunty wave and a merry goodbye on my way to the elevator.

She will be missed by many, and I wish I’d known her better.

Goodnight good readers,

-Liz

Apparently we citizens of the great city of Chicago have gotten so lazy and have eaten so much crap that we have managed to somehow pass the city of Houston, renowned for it's supersized EVERYTHING and it's near total lack of public transit (as well as being the SUV hub of the U.S.) as the fattest city in the nation. I guess I shouldn't be too surprised, since we have such a hefty drinking culture and it's so cold so many months out of the year. Still, it's sad that we've let ourselves go so much.

Chicago has always been a bit of a corpulent city; yet we always followed places like Houston, Milwaukee, and Bismark North Dakota as far as the chunky-monkey factor goes. Yet here we are, porkie as pie. Even Electric Mayhem is putting on the pounds. It seems that since she will never reach any large size length or height-wise (the Vet is pretty sure she won't grow much more...she will always be my little ever-kitty! :-)) she has decided to fill herself out girth-wise. This leaves me in a bit of a bind, 'cause apart from the fact that I adore this kitten and thoroughly enjoy spoiling her, she has one of those little kitten faces that just screams "I'm cute! CLEARLY you want to give me copious amounts of food!" Ugh...hopefully when she's out of kitten food and makes the switch to adult chow she'll start to lose some of those kitten ounces...

That or I'm going to have to find a way to make her exercise much more :-P

Perhaps I'm looking for feline weight-loss aid in the wrong places though. Perhaps the answer does not lie in a kitten Jennie Craig, but rather in the almighty. Today on the el I met a man who claimed he was Maitreya - the next reincarnation of the Buddha. While I've seen Hasidic Jews, Hare Krishna's, and a man who believed he was Jesus on the red line before, this was the first time I'd come into contact with a fellow who believed he was the next incarnation of an East Asian deity. There are more problems with his story than some of the other western deified figures though. For example, the last Buddha taught us that if you see the Buddha, you must kill the Buddha since the Buddha lives inside us all and he must be the false Buddha if he is proclaiming himself to be thus. So, unless this fellow was attempting to pursue Nirvana in a much more suicidal fashion, he might want to think a bit more about proclaiming his Bodhisattva state. When I mentioned this to him he muttered something under his breath about how the Buddha had to beg in this life and how I won't "go to Nirvana" if I won't give the Buddha money. Hmmm...

Well, to all yon fake Maitreyas' and Buddha-bellied kittens out there, I say to you, good night! May your bellies rescind into a much more fit state and may your Nirvana be blissful and far from the red line in Chicago!

Cheers!

-Liz :-)

So...my blog has been blocked at work :-( I guess I should have seen it coming, since last week I played around on this thing far more than doing actual work (it was one HELL of a slow week...) BUT! I shall not let that deter me! I have yon internet in my own castle and often do I find yon blogging as good preparation for yon sleep...huzzah!

I have discovered the most amazing website called "Nation States" I have two nations going on it...one that is a total dictatorship and the other that is a "Left-Leaning College State" :-) I strongly encourage the checking out of this site...it is a new work distraction not forbidden me, and I LOVE it!

Anyways, today, Dubya came to town today to tell us all how well we were doing and to encourage us to not question him since, come on now fellas, we're doing great here! So what if we, like your average third world country, depend on the export of raw materials and then import of produced materials from nations like China? So what if we have offended or alienated our friends and encouraged our enemies? Who cares if we are being deeply influenced by religious fanatics, corrupt businesses, and people who would do anything for money.

The truth is, as I meandered over to lunch with a friend, I could hear talk of the small group of protesters who stood vigilantly behind their beliefs in the cold Chicago winter to lambaste the visiting President and to show their support for a more enlightened way of governance.



I wish I could be out there with them. Alas, the life of a working stiff often precludes me from launching off at a moment's notice to go protest a speech. Yet this whole situation got me thinking...with our economy seeing fewer and fewer bright patches amidst the dismal grey, with the worst violations of civil rights since our second President Adams' Alien and Sedition Acts, with record numbers of people going without health insurance or adequate health care, where are the throngs? The mobs of screaming people? Where is the outrage and the anger against the people who have done this to our nation? In the end, the group of protesters numbered in the hundreds when to have any real effect, it would have had to have been in the thousands. All governments, save the most basic fledgling ones, forget in the end that they rule by the decree of the people. Without our say-so, our government can do nothing, create no laws, rule no lands. This makes us just as responsible for the route our nation is going as the people who are in power. By our sloth, and yes dear reader, I say "our"...I am as responsible as any for not making the effort I should, we are essentially giving these people carte blanche to do as they please. If we truly wish to change things, we must convince our government it is in their very best interests to change; not necessarilly by physical force, but rather by the force of our will. Our parents' generation saw the injustice of the Vietnam War and our nation that still remained, as Abe Lincoln so memorably put it, as a house divided due to the lack of civil rights to black men and women. It is their energy we must harness, and their spirit we must channel. We must show how the nation is driving itself backward with these policies. How it is to the benefit of everyone, corporation, consumer, hippie and conservative alike that we learn and change. We as a nation must stop making excuses for our inactivity and our laziness and stand up for what is truly right.

But for now I'm off to bed :-)

Cheers!

-Liz :-)