Saturday, June 28, 2008

Quotation Saturday!!!

Honestly, where does the time go? HOW does it go? I only know that it goes quickly.

I have two jobs, and because I love them both so very, very much, time flies by. I'm sure there is something Einsteinian about it, but explaining it is beyond me.

Perhaps it has something to do with the example of the stove: when you sit on a cold stove with a handsome guy, an hour seems like a minute, but when you sit on a hot stove, a minute seems like an hour. Or something like that. . . .

I'm messing up badly; let's look at some REAL quotations by people who knew what they were doing.

1. "An open foe may prove a curse, but a pretended friend is worse." --John Gay

2. "Histories are more full of examples of the fidelity of dogs than of friends." --Alexander Pope

3. " 'It can't happen here' is number one on the list of famous last words." --David Crosby

4. "No matter what a man's past may have been, his future is spotless." --John R. Rice

5. "There are very few monsters who warrant the fear we have of them." --Andre Gide

6. "The best way to predict the future is to create it." --Jason Kaufmann

7. "A man never knows what a fool he is until he hears himself imitated by one." --Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree

8. "The only people who never fail are those who never try." --Ilka Chase

9. "There is no fun in having nothing to do; the fun is having lots to do and not doing it." --Francis Herbert Bradley

10. "It is the familiar that usually eludes us in life. What is before our nose is what we see last." --Prof. William Barrett

11. "Fiction reveals truths that reality obscures." --Jessamyn West

12. "A fly, sir, may sting a stately horse and make him wince, but one is but an insect, and the other is a horse still." -Samuel Johnson

13. "It is the spirit of the age to believe that any fact, no matter how suspect, is superior to any imaginative exercise, no matter how true." --Gore Vidal

14. "Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better." --Samuel Beckett

15. "From fanaticism to barbarism is only one step." --Denis Diderot

16. "Nice guys may finish last, but they finish." --Washington DC safety slogan, 1967

17. "I respect faith, but doubt is what gets you an education." --Wilson Mizner

18. "We are all of us failures - at least, the best of us are." --Sir James Barrie

19. "Only fools and dead men don't change their minds. Fools won't and dead men can't." --John H. Patterson

20. "The best part of the fiction in many novels is the notice that the characters are all purely imaginary." --Franklin Pierce Adams

21. "There are two freedoms: the false, where on eis free to do what he likes, and the true, where he is free to do what he ought." --Charles Kingsley

22. "I never blame failure - there are too many complicated situations in life - but I am absolutely merciless towards lack of effort." --Francis Scott Key

23. "Facts are facts and will not disappear on account of your likes." --Nehru

24. "We create our own fate every day we live." --Henry Miller

25. "News is the first rough draft of history." --Ben Bradlee

26. "To be ignorant of one's ignorance is the malady of the ignorant." --Amos Bronson Alcott

27. "When they come downstairs from their ivory towers, idealists are apt to walk straight into the gutter." --Logan Pearsall Smith

28. "There is always one more imbecile than you counted on." --Anon.

29. "The harpsichord sounds like two skeltons copulating on a corrugated tin roof." --Sir Thomas Beecham

30. "The best things and best people rise out of their separateness. I'm against a homogenized society because I want the cream to rise." Robert Frost

31. "There are people who have money, and there are people who are rich." --Coco Chanel

32. "There's nothing so dangerous for manipulators as people who think for themselves." --Meg Greenfield

33. "The reason the way of the transgressor is hard is because it's so crowded." --Kin Hubbard

34. "I know the people you mean: they are all brains and theory and can't sew on a button." --G.C. Lichtenberg

35. "That scholarship which consists in the memorization of facts does not qualify one to be a teacher." --Confucius

36. "You will never 'find' time for anything. If you want time you must make it." --Charles Buxton

37. "There is plenty of room at the top, but not enough to sit down." --Fred Sharp

38. "I kissed my first woman and smoked my first cigarette on the same day. I have never had time for tobacco since." --Arturo Toscanini

39. "Teaching is not a lost art, but the regard for it is a lost tradition." --Jacques Barzun

40. "The times are not as bad as they seem; they couldn't be." --John Franklin Carter

41. "Men don't care what's on TV. They are about what else is on TV." --Orson Welles

42. "Sometimes when I consider what tremendous consequences come from little things - a chance word, a tap on the shoulder, or a penny dropped on a news stand - I am tempted to think. . . there are no little things." --Bruce Barton

43. "The world does not require so much to be informed, as reminded." --Hannah More

44. "The time is always right to do what is right." --Martin Luther King Jr.

45. "The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat." --Lily Tomlin

46. "He who limps still walks." --Stanislaw Led

47. "The less a statesman amounts to, the more he loves the flag." --Kin Hubbard

48. "Although the world is very full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it." --Helen Keller

49. "Before there can be wonders, there must be wonder." --Anon.

50. "We are told that when Jehovah created the world, He saw that it was good. What would He say now?" --George Bernard Shaw

Fifty is a good, round number. There was even a time when I thought it was a large number. I remember when my mother turned thirty; I thought she was on her last legs. Then I turned thirty and the thoughts that ran through my mind were more like this: How could I be this old? I'm still amazed that my friends and I can DRIVE! I can't remember my locker combination!! I didn't know we were having a test today! Forty wasn't really all that bad; I was still flailing helplessly inside my head about driving and combination locks. Besides, at thirty and forty, my children took up all my energy and there really wasn't any "me." But fifty? How is even that number any different? I still have nightmares about not being able to remember my gym locker combination! And even now, the principal's office scares me.

I wonder if anyone ever really considers the principal's office a room like any other. I bet even the principal looks around his/her own office sometimes and hopes nobody calls his/her mother and tattles.

Okay, I just remembered how fifty is different from forty and thirty. Darn mirror.


Mamacita, Scheiss Weekly

Friday, June 27, 2008

Won't You Please, Please Tell Me What We've Learned. . . .

Sometimes, a person just needs to hear The Logical Song. I know I do. I'm listening to it right now, in fact.

I hate it that the world is not fair. It ought to be fair! I hate it that children must eventually learn that the world is not fair. I wish our kids didn't have to lose so much innocence, but I'm not sure which is worse: an adult who is dangerously naive for his/her age, or an adult who has lost ALL innocence.

I do think, however, that our society has somehow evolved into a scenario that not only asks us to relinquish our innocence, but actually encourages us to do so while still young enough that we're supposed to still have it. I also believe that our society has DEvolved into a scenario wherein people who choose to give it away are considered enlightened and savvy, while people who choose to be chaste and pure until such time. . . are considered backward and provincial.

I sincerely believe that some people try to rationalize their own sketchy ethics and lack of self-control by putting down other people who have more will power and honor.

The Logical Song, by Supertramp




When I was young, it seemed that life was so wonderful,
A miracle, oh it was beautiful, magical.
And all the birds in the trees, well they'd be singing so happily,
Joyfully, playfully watching me.
But then they send me away to teach me how to be sensible,
Logical, responsible, practical.
And they showed me a world where I could be so dependable,
Clinical, intellectual, cynical.

There are times when all the world's asleep,
The questions run too deep
For such a simple man.
Won't you please, please tell me what we've learned
I know it sounds absurd
But please tell me who I am.

Now watch what you say or they'll be calling you a radical,
Liberal, fanatical, criminal.
Won't you sign up your name, we'd like to feel you're
Acceptable, respectable, presentable, a vegetable!

At night, when all the worlds asleep,
The questions run so deep
For such a simple man.
Won't you please, please tell me what we've learned
I know it sounds absurd
But please tell me who I am.

Mamacita, Scheiss Weekly

Thursday, June 26, 2008

Everything In The World Should Be Arranged For MY Convenience!!!

A post in two parts: The bragging, and the bitching.

Part I: Bragging

My daughter is cool. Smart, savvy, funny, and, well, COOL.

She isn't a person who is easily fooled, or sidetracked, or conned into believing that people who follow their hormones around like an ass follows a dangling carrot have anything important to say about "choice." I mean, other than it's all about THEM and what they want NOW and how any consequences aren't THEIR FAULT and society should GET RID OF THEM at TAXPAYER EXPENSE, blah blah blah cry me a river and if you'd keep your legs closed you wouldn't be knocked up blah blah blah etc, I don't care. Wah wah wah, I don't understand biology! How did this happen? Somebody pay for it! Boo hoo, asking people to think before they act is such an insult, blah blah blah, we're back in the dark ages if we have to be accountable for our own actions, CHOICE CHOICE CHOICE CONSEQUENCES CONSEQUENCES CONSEQUENCES, wahhh boo hoo, blah blah blah, shut up. Seriously. Please do.

My daughter is SMART. Mamacita don't raise them OTHER kind.

That's my girl. I adore her.

Now, back to me.

Um, I'm not all that cool. But I like to hang out with people who are!

Too bad "cool" doesn't rub off. Sigh.

Speaking of "cool," I'm rooming with akaMonty at Blogher next month! Fausta will be there, too!
And lots of other lovely, lovely people I've waited my whole blogging life to meet! (Hey, 4 1/2 years is a LONG TIME!)

I love blogging and I love BlogHer and I plan to love everybody there, too!

Part II: Bitching

One other thing, while I'm ranting. . . .

American Airlines didn't kick the screaming, raving, rolling-in-the-aisle toddler off the plane because he was autistic. The kid and his mother were removed because he was screaming, raving, and rolling in the aisles, and because the mother at first refused to put her bag in the overhead compartment (It's got his TOYS in it!), and because both got all bothered because the flight attendant was doing her job, which means, checking to make sure all the seatbelts were fastened properly. The attendant was perfectly justified in coming back several times to re-tighten the kid's belt because the kid kept loosening it and trying to run away, and his mother wasn't tightening it. I know it's hard, parenting an autistic child, but this incident isn't about autism. It's about airplane safety, and the rights of other people. This woman says that her family will "never fly American again!!!" (wahhh) Good. I've never cared for American Airlines either, but after this, I might give them another go.

I think that people often go completely off when they hear about a special needs person who isn't allowed to do something other people are doing, without first checking out what really happened. Any person whose behavior puts other people at risk simply can't be allowed to be there. Period.

Personally, I HATE being on a plane (or anywhere else) with an out-of-control person, and I really don't care about his/her age, size, ethnicity, gender, or any letters of the alphabet that might be in his/her medical or permanent record file. I was once on a plane with a grown woman who freaked out and insisted that all the window shades be closed because looking at the ground made her sick.

I'm sure all those people who were enjoying the scenery loved her for that one.

The flight attendants refused to make that request and the woman actually WAILED, all the way to Denver. I feel bad that nobody felt sorry for her. (Not really; I still hate her.) (Such presumption!)

Again, I'm sorry as I can be for this family. But I do not believe they were treated unfairly in any way.

Shhhh, I think I can hear all the other passengers, past, present, and future, from every airline in the universe, applauding. . . .

Okay, parents, let me have it! You know you want to. I'm not going to budge an inch, and neither are you, so this should be good.

Apparently, many of the parenting, autism, and special needs forums are going bonkers about the airline's shoddy treatment of this kid. I think these people need to get their facts straight. This has nothing whatsoever to do with special needs, and everything to do with safety, adherence to the regulations, and the rights of EVERYBODY ELSE IN THE PLANE.

Special needs or not: if your kid can't behave and you can't make him, drive your own car. Don't inflict that on the rest of the world and then be all outraged because accommodations that would actually endanger the child and everyone else, aren't made, just for YOUUUUUU.

What's the next step? Removing the peanuts? Because, what's a flight without the peanuts?

As long as I'm infuriating people anyway, I think the church was in the right, too.

You know, I'm nice, really I am. I just think everyone else should be, too. Or else.


Mamacita, Scheiss Weekly

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

George Carlin -- May 12, 1937 - June 22, 2008: The Whole World Will Miss This Incredible Man!

George Carlin was a brilliant mastermind of the human condition, and one of the funniest men in the world.

Until a few hours ago, he and Eddie Izzard were tied for the honor of "funniest man in the world." Now, Eddie, this honor is all yours; please use the lessons George taught you. I know you will.

I admired George Carlin so much, and for so many reasons, one of the main reasons being his complete and total hatred of euphemisms. (not safe for work or in the hearing of small children or prudes)

Besides being brain-dazzlingly funny, Carlin was also savvy and observant, and if the government had only listened to him and done what he said, the world would be a far better place.

"I'm not concerned about all hell breaking loose, but that a PART of hell will break loose. It'll be much harder to detect."

"If it's true that our species is alone in the universe, then I'd have to say that the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little."

"If lawyers are disbarred and clergymen defrocked, doesn't it follow that electricians can be delighted, musicians denoted?"

"It's never just a game when you're winning."

"Some national parks have long waiting lists for camping reservations. When you have to wait a year to sleep next to a tree, something is wrong."

"Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that."

"I don't have hobbies; hobbies cost money. Interests are quite free."

" I thought about how mothers feed their babies with tiny little spoons and forks so I wondered, what do Chinese mothers use? Toothpicks?"

"Ever notice that anyone going slower than you is an idiot, but anyone going faster is a maniac?"

"The IQ and the life expectancy of the average American recently passed each other going in opposite directions."

"Isn't it a bit unnerving that doctors call what they do "practice?"

"When you're born you get a ticket to the freak show. When you're born in America, you get a front row seat."

"At a formal dinner party, the person nearest death should always be seated closest to the bathroom."

"Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity."

"Some people see things that are and ask, Why? Some people dream of things that never were and ask, Why not? Some people have to go to work and don't have time for all that."

"The main reason Santa is so jolly is because he knows where all the bad girls live."

"When you step on the brakes your life is in your foot's hands."

"If someone with multiple personalities threatens to kill himself, is it considered a hostage situation?"

"I went to a bookstore and asked the saleswoman, “Where’s the self-help section? ” She said if she told me, it would defeat the purpose."

"What if there were no hypothetical questions?"

"If a man is standing in the middle of the forest speaking and there is no woman around to hear him. . . is he still wrong? (yes)"

"If a turtle doesn’t have a shell, is he homeless or naked?"

"Why don’t sheep shrink when it rains?"

"I've always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific."

"You have to stay in shape. My mother started walking five miles a day when she was 60. She's 97 now and we have no idea where she is."

"One out of every three Americans is suffering from some form of mental illness. Think of two of your best friends. If they are OK, then it must be you."

"People who say they don't care what people think are usually desperate to have people think they don't care what people think."

"Religion convinced the world that there's an invisible man in the sky who watches everything you do. And there's 10 things he doesn't want you to do or else you'll go to a burning place with a lake of fire until the end of eternity. But he loves you! And he needs money! He's all powerful, but he can't handle money!"

"A lady came up to me on the street, pointed at my suede jacket and said, "Don't you know a cow was murdered for that jacket?" I said, "I didn't know there were any witnesses. Now I'll have to kill you too.""

"I have six locks on my door, all in a row. When I go out, I lock every other one. I figure no matter how long somebody stands there picking the locks, they are always locking three of them."

"The very existence of flame-throwers proves that some time, somewhere, someone said to themselves, You know, I want to set those people over there on fire, but I'm just not close enough to get the job done."

"What's all this stuff about motivation? I say, if you need motivation, you probably need more than motivation. You probably need chemical intervention or brain surgery. Actually, if you ask me, this country could do with a little less motivation. The people who are causing all the trouble seem highly motivated to me."

"Who decides when the applause should die down? It seems like it's a group decision; everyone begins to say to themselves at the same time, "Well, okay, that's enough of that."

"Why is there an expiration date on sour cream?"

"Wonderful Wino" was the first George Carlin routine I ever heard; I still have the 33 rpm record. My entire family loved this routine, and all the other innocent yet snarky routines on that album. When George Carlin came to the IU auditorium, Mom and Dad were ecstatic, and bought tickets for the whole family, including my Tumorless Sister and my Baby Brother, who were just little bitty kids at the time.

Unfortunately, this was just after Carlin had released "Seven Words You Can't Say On Television," and the majority of the show featured these words in various forms and contexts. Mom grabbed Tumorless and sat in the lobby with her while Dad and Bro watched the rest of the show.

I tried to warn them but they didn't believe me.

Here's "Wonderful Wino." Enjoy.




Mamacita, Scheiss Weekly

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Upside-Down Tomatoes! Thank You, Steve Spangler!

This is my upside-down grape cherry tomato plant! I just hung it up this afternoon ( oops, sorry about the potting soil on the bucket. . . .) It won't be long 'til I have a cascade of tomatoes hanging on my deck, free of weeds, and easy to pick! Such fun!!!!

Thank you, Steve Spangler Science, for showing me how!

Steve's going to be on "Ellen" again tomorrow, so check your TV Guide and don't miss it.

And look, there on top of the thermometer! I see the box-cutter I used to make the tomato-hole in the bucket! I wondered where I put that. . . . That's not really the kind of thing a person should lose track of, either. Ouch.

I'm also going to order several of Steve's Geyser Tubes. The Fourth of July is fast approaching, you know, and a few Mentos Geysers are a lot more fun than bottle rockets or firecrackers or any extremely loud dangerous spark-producing thing your kids might want.

See what I mean?




Mamacita, Scheiss Weekly

Quotation Saturday

I really appreciate all the supportive comments on my previous post. Thank you; I feel much better now. I hope to get word of a decision on Monday.

I spent most of today with family, and I am all the better for it.

Now, on with the show!

"By perseverance, the snail reached the Ark." --C.H. Spurgeon

"I don't like these cold, precise, perfect people who, in order not to speak wrong, never speak at all, and in order not to do wrong, never do anything." --Henry Ward Beecher

"Not so much what a man says in the pulpit, but what he does out of the pulpit, gives power to the ministry." --Henry Berkowitz

"To preach pie in the sky and to do nothing about the knife in a man's back is hardly Christianity." --Ugo Groppi

"Prejudices are rarely overcome by argument; not being founded in reason, they cannot be destroyed by logic." --Tryon Edwards

"Power without responsibility: the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages." --Rudyard Kipling

"Praying can no more be made a substitute for smiling that smiling can for praying." --Henry Ward Beecher

"Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on a political office, a rottenness begins in his conduct." --Thomas Jefferson

"Politics are usually the executive expression of human immaturity." --Vera Brittain

"Treat people as if they were what they ought to be, and you help them to become what they are capable of being." --Goethe

"The past is a guidepost, not a hitching post." --Thomas Holcroft

"To give pleasure to a single heart by a single kind act is better than a thousand head-bowings in prayer." --Sadd

"Philosophers have argued for centuries about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, but materialists have always known that it depends on whether they are jitterbugging or dancing cheek to cheek." --Tom Robbins

"Not to be able to bear poverty is a shameful thing, but not to know how to chase it away by work is a more shameful thing yet." --Anon

"Everyone is a philosopher. Not everyone is good at it." --Alfred North Whitehead

"A healthy male adult bore consumes each year one and a half times his own weight in other peoples' patience." --John Updike, Jr.

"When man ultimately faces his Maker, he will have to account to Him for those God-given pleasures of life of which he did not take full advantage." --Anon

"I have no more patience than anyone else. It's just that I use mine." --Paderewski

"It is remarkable how many impure things a prude can discover that nobody else can discover." --Anon

"I always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific." -Lily Tomlin

"When you're through changing, you're through." --Bruce Barton

"We must interpret a bad temper as a sign of inferiority." --Alfred Adler

"Don't accept rides from strange men, and remember that all men are as strange as hell." --Robin Morgan

"The mome rath isn't born that could outgrabe me." --Nicol Williamson

One more diet coke and off to bed with me. No, the caffeine doesn't bother me at all. Good night.

Mamacita, Scheiss Weekly

Thursday, June 19, 2008

I Have Failed

I have a student this summer over whom I am obsessing because I can not help him. This does happen occasionally and I beat myself up over it each and every time. Even though I know better in my head, in my heart I just know that if only I were smarter and more compassionate and better prepared and kinder and more considerate and less snarky and more willing to let the class standards go by the wayside and less inclined to raise my left eyebrow in derision and in general a nicer person altogether, maybe this student would make it.

I also know that even with all those things together, he isn't going to make it. He isn't going to make it because he doesn't have what it takes, and this time it isn't the fault of all the years of schooling behind him, or his parents, or his former teachers, or his upbringing, or any bad habits he might have, or peer pressure, or drugs, or alcohol, or any of the things educators like to draw attention to when a student isn't going to make it.

It isn't my fault, either. Or his.

This student isn't going to make it because whatever fates might be screwed with the combination of genes and chromosomes and brain cells allotted to him at birth, and what the kid does have, ain't working right.

This breaks my heart, and even understanding this, I still blame myself for not knowing how to reach him.

The other students are complaining now, and something must be done. I've reported it, and all we can do is wait.

Once a decision is made, I will have to live with that, too. The way will be made clear for the rest of the class, but I will always see an empty seat and wish I could have had what it took to reach him.

It isn't me, but it IS me. Why can't I help this student?

I know that sometimes the best way to help is to allow someone else to do it, but I don't like acknowledging that I can not find the key to unlock the door to a student's head.

I also do not like myself for being annoyed by his mannerisms and outbursts and inability to do the simplest things and his coming to class without pencils or paper and his tendency to get up and walk out several times daily and his coming to class twenty minutes or so late every day even though I saw him in the hall an hour before class started, and the way he follows me around shouting and laughing until I have to duck into the restroom to ditch him. I don't like myself for wanting to ditch him. I don't like myself for not being able to help him control himself so the other students can learn.

This isn't fifth grade. This is college. How did this happen? There are no IEP's at this level, but we do have "accommodation sheets." This student does not have one.

The others in the class can't work well with the noise and the movement and the shouted statements that are so blatantly age-inappropriate, and already one of the female students has complained about the staring. And no, we do not make our way around Venice "on a WOCKET!!! Pwanets gots WOCKETS" I had to count that one wrong, too.

If this were middle school, I would know what to do. It's not middle school, however; it's college, and these kinds of behaviors can not be tolerated. I know how to handle children and teens who behave like this, but these students are adults, and I, as well as the other students, are thrown for a loop.

Does anyone have any advice for me? What could I have done? What should I have done? Does one student have the right to disrupt and slow down and upset the other students at the college level? At ANY level?

I will hear back from people in an official capacity soon, probably tomorrow. I know they will know what to do.

I also know that I did not know what to do. Right now I don't like myself very well. I feel like a failure. I would not hurt this student's feelings for anything, but there are other students with feelings, too. These people paid a lot of money to take this class, and it's not fair for them to have to put up with this. I had to report it. I hate it, but I did it.

But what else could I have done? Anybody?


Mamacita, Scheiss Weekly

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Ten Things Thursday, Plus The Solstice Moon

Many of the Blogosphere neighbors participate in Ten Things Thursday, but I never had until tonight. It's not that I deliberately turned my back on it or anything; I just didn't do it. I could make up a better excuse, I suppose, and say that every time I started to make my list, something catastrophic happened and I was forced, much against my will, to cease and desist immediately, but I don't think any of you would be fooled. Besides, it's still Wednesday.

Gotcha.

Ten Things Thursday, by Mamacita:

. . . and by the way, these are in no particular order.

1. Every few days, I drink the juice of a dozen or more raw lemons, over ice. Sometimes, if I have more lemons, I have another glass. Lemon juice satisfies something in me. I've tried to figure out what it might be but still haven't come to any conclusions.

2. Sometimes I get so lost in thought that I don't want to ever come back.

3. It's a good thing I don't have to pay interest on all the trouble I've borrowed.

4. I kill myself daily, worrying about other people's problems and assorted things that I have no control over.

5. I prefer the smaller, "original" roads far more than the impersonal interstates. Unless I'm in a hurry.

6. When I'm away from home, I love to eat in local restaurants. Why would I choose some chain that I could lunch at right here when there are so many tantalizing NEW places to try, someplace else?

7. Cooking for a crowd is one of life's biggest pleasures.

8. I tried to count all of my books once, but finally had to admit defeat. I consider this an awesome thing.

9. In the summer, I like to re-read my favorite children's and YA novels. I began as I always do, with Frances Hodgeson Burnett's "A Little Princess," (for whom I named my daughter) "The Secret Garden," and "Little Lord Fauntleroy." I'm plowing through Judy Bolton right now; she's far superior to Nancy Drew, although I like the Nancy's, too.

10. I have been fascinated with astronomy since before I was in kindergarten. When I was in the second grade, I fell in love with a book called "Young Visitors to Mars," by Richard Elam. I checked it out from the library every single time I went, until Mom finally forbade me to bring it into the house again. I searched for this book for many years with no success, but when I was in my late twenties, I took my children to a huge library sale, so big it was held at the Armory. Public libraries from all over Indiana had contributed to it. There are no words to describe how thrilled I was to find this book at the bottom of a box of old novels: unclaimed, and unwanted by anybody but me. I bought it for a quarter, brought it home, and read it again. It was corny as all get-out but the thrill was still there. It still is, in fact. Published in 1953, it was. Old sci-fi is great fun; I love to read the author's predictions and assumptions about life in the. . . 1970's. Apparently, we had colonized Mars by then.

I really don't know how and why my obsession with the night sky began. Dad showed me a few constellations, and Santa brought me a telescope when I was a little kid, but the rest I did by myself. Well, me AND the public library. I'm still in love with the night sky.

I do not fear the dark. The darker the night, the brighter the stars.

Speaking of which. . . .

Please remember that tonight's moon is brought to you by Solstice Illusion and MUST BE SEEN BY YOU AND BY YOUR CHILDREN - Yes, let them stay up late enough to see it - in fact, all of you should watch the moonrise tonight; it will be a memory-maker for you all - your kids will still be talking about it when they're old and grey and you're long dead - it's going to be FANTASTIC - and when did anyone ever see such a dreadful sentence anywhere, ever?

I mean besides right here.

I have. Sigh.

It's going to be a long summer session.

Mamacita, Scheiss Weekly

Contemplations

I love to walk on the track at night.

I like the darkness, and the privacy, and the fact that nobody can see me in my shorts. I love matching my steps to the rhythm of whatever song is playing on the tiny clothespin Mp3 player clipped to my collar. This means I change my pace all the time which I'm sure looks goofy but who can see that in the dark?

I think about books I've read or want to read, and movies I've seen or want to see. I put myself inside books and movies I've seen and loved, and in my head, everything has a happy ending.

I think about the people in my life, and how much I love and appreciate most of them, and how I wonder why lightning hasn't struck some of them dead.

Tonight, the moon was full and the air smelled like freshly mown honeysuckle. I associate the smell of honeysuckle with walking on the track, in fact.

I need to get different earphones; the ones I used tonight were made for someone with ears like bat wings.

Four laps equals one mile on the high school track. Tonight I did a mile and a half and might have done more but I made the mistake of stopping, and this messed me up. As long as I keep going, I can keep going, but once I stop, I'm done.

I don't like to wear sneakers. They make my feet feel huge and heavy. I'm a sandals and loafers kind of gal. Better still are the bare feet, but only in my own house. Other people's homes deserve more consideration than that.

I'm not the kind of person who requires people to remove their shoes before entering my house, however. In MY house, people are welcome, not considered soilers of my sacred carpets.

I feel contented tonight. Conversation and walking on the track and music. Nice. If YOU had been there, it would have been perfect!


Mamacita, Scheiss Weekly

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Jilted

I do love me some more Puppini Sisters.

Sunday, June 15, 2008

It's A Puzzlement

The staircases at the college are tall and steep and spiral-ish. Why don't I ever see anybody slide down? Is it all those cameras?

Wouldn't you think a witch's tit would be hot, not cold?

Why is it that when you go to bed at night, the weeds and the flowers are the same height, but when you get up the next morning day, the weeds are a foot tall and have grown a big seedpod?

Why does the grass in the "weedeater section" grow so much faster than the regular grass in the lawn?

How does it happen that I, a person who hates watermelon and all other foods that have the word "melon" in them, am so good at picking out a prime one?

Don't you all love local similes? "Dumber than Dode Mockey." "He could eat corn through a picket fence." "She looks like she's been rode hard and put up wet." A little jewel about a brick shithouse. There's another one Dad used to say, but I can't remember it. Tumorless Sister? A little help here?

If all the drive-throughs in all the restaurants in the world had a device that would instantly eject any car that dared to place a 'special order' during rush hour, that would be an awesomely wonderful thing.

Wouldn't it be cool if elevators had an invisible shield that refused to allow anyone who smelled like smoke, too much perfume, or just general stank, to enter?

Why do restaurants offer my favorite things only as occasional specials?

It's almost a hundred degrees, and not one soft drink company has anything on sale. Eight bucks for Coke? I don't think so; totally not worth it. Marsh, here I come.

It might be almost a hundred degrees, but taking your child out in public wearing only a diaper or, far worse, underpants, is just plain nasty. NASTY!

Even nastier is putting your kid in a public pool, wearing only that diaper. NASTIER.

Please notice that the positive degree of "nasty" is, indeed, "nasty. However, the comparative degree - two and only two - requires that we change the "y" to "i" and add "er." If I were to use the superlative degree - three or more - I would still change the "y" to "i" and add "est." This word changes in this way because it's a little word. Bigger words add "more" or "most," and NO WORDS use both. Why doesn't everyone know this? I find this one of the most frustratingest things when scoring essays. Really, it's one of the maddeningest things ever. More grosser than you can even imagine.

"Anyway" NEVER has an "s" at the end. Never. Ever. No no no no no no not ever. "Anyways" is the answer to the question, "What's your IQ?"

My cats have been flea-and-tick-treated at the vet. Now, when a tick jumps on one of them, it immediately leaps off and onto my arm. A tick walking on top of your arm hairs is juuuust enough sensation to wake you up. About this, I have only one thing to say: "AAAAAAAAAGH!"

As I type, there is a little dainty gray cat napping on top of my computer mouse. I find this adorable, and not in the least puzzling. It's a mouse, isn't it?

Expensive cat food gives my cats bad breath. Cheap cat food doesn't. Go figure.

I find myself talking to my cats and expecting them to understand and react as if they were humans. Then I catch myself, get a few giggles at my expense, and do it again.

That stack of essays isn't going to grade itself, you know. But wouldn't it be cool if it did?

My kids came down today and I served them Spanish hamburgers, corn on the cob, baked beans, deviled eggs, and freshly home-bought Lay's chips. I feel bad because I didn't bake a birthday cake for Belle, but it was almost a hundred degrees!

Which brings me back to that point about the witch's tit. . . . .

Yul was right.

Mamacita, Scheiss Weekly

Saturday, June 14, 2008

Happy Father's Day, Dad. Happy Birthday, Princess.

Today is Father's Day, but it's also my daughter's birthday. She's over 21, if anyone wants to ask me any questions.

She used to be the most beautiful baby girl in the universe, but not any more. She hasn't been that for a long time.

She is, however, the most beautiful young woman in the universe. She's strong and brave and smart and hilarious. Her sense of direction is almost perfect. Her sense of ethics and behavior are superior. She can sing like an angel. She can walk into an expensive dress shop and walk out with a $300.00 dress that she got for twelve bucks and matching $125.00 shoes that cost eight. Um, the honest way. She's kind and caring and patient, unless she's dealing with an idiot in which case she, sadly, takes after me. She's the best daughter any mother could ever hope to have, even when she takes the occasional pissy fit, and even then a good margarita will fix that mood swing right up. Mommy knows how to take care of her baby girl.

I didn't teach her to stick her head in a waterfall, but only because the subject never came up.

Happy Birthday, Princess.

My dad has been gone for several years now, but we never really ever stop missing the people we love. We recover, and get on with our lives, but the memories are still there, and aren't we all glad they are?

Dad wasn't perfect, not by a long shot. He and all of his brothers and their father before them were quick-tempered and easy to, as Mom used to say, "set off." He was also funny and smart; he could sing and he valued education, HIGHLY. He would have been a success at college, but he never went. Instead, he sent four kids through college, and continued to work day after day in a factory, "so we would never have to."

My Other Sister and I had a daddy who was playful and laughing. My two younger siblings had a daddy who was cranky and yelling. Dad's illness began long before anybody realized it, including himself, and the personality changes were just brushed aside as part of the aging process or, possibly, his true colors. Nobody actually said "true colors," but we all thought it.

By the time dad had had both legs amputated and was bedridden and too weak to feed himself or turn over, we all realized that the diabetes had begun to affect his mind long before it took his body.

He stayed at home and Mom took care of him. I don't think she went anywhere for three or four years, except her runs to the grocery and drugstores while Dad was at dialysis.

My father is gone, but he still lives in my head, daily. And to that loving and playful and laughing and singing father, I want to say, "Happy Father's Day, Daddy."

I knew all along that mean yelling daddy wasn't really you.

So, today, June 15, I salute my beautiful baby daughter AND the daddy I loved.

Mamacita, Scheiss Weekly

Quotation Saturday

It's Quotation Saturday again - where did the week go? Time is flying by faster and faster these days. Is it that darn pesky "old age" thing, or is it just because my life is more and more interesting now? Perhaps a bit of both. I'm thinking maybe more that "interesting" choice than that other, far more icky, choice.

Not "interesting" as in the ancient Chinese curse "Maybe you live in interesting times," but "interesting" as in "cool."

"I won't insult your intelligence by suggesting that you really believe what you just said." -- William F. Buckley

"The most violent element in society is ignorance." --Emma Goldman

"It is only possible to live happily ever after on a day-to-day basis." --Margaart Bonnano

"You don't get harmony when everybody sings the same note." --Doug Floyd

"The world is moving so fast these days that the man who says it can't be done is generally interrupted by someone doing it." --Elbert Hubbard

"What has made this nation great? Not its heroes, but its households." --Sara Josepha Hale

"I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense once hate is gone, that they will be forced to deal with pain." --James Baldwin

"We're all of us guinea pigs in the laboratory of God. Humanity is just a work in progress. -- Tennessee Williams

"When your heart speaks, take good notes." --Judith Campbell

"A drop of ink may make a million think." --Lord Byron

"In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then He made school boards." --Mark Twain (one of my favorite quotations)

"Gross ignorance: 144 times worse than ordinary ignorance." --Bennett Cerf

"I can't understand why people are frighted of new ideas. I'm frighted of the old ones." --John Cage

"Imagination has always had powers of resurrection that no science can match." --Ingrid Bengis

"What I am is good enough if I would only be it openly." --Carl Rogers

"In the face of uncertainty, there is nothing wrong with hope." --Dr. Bernie Siegel

"Man is free. The coward makes himself cowardly. The hero makes himself heroic." --Jean-Paul Sartre

"Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself." --A.H. Weiler

"To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk." --Thomas Edison

"Nobody can be exactly like me. Sometimes even I have trouble doing it." --Tallulah Bankhead

"A sense of humor is a sense of proportion." --Kahlil Gibran

"Our job is not to straighten each other out, but to help each other up." --Neva Cole

"There is nothing more horrible than imagination without taste." --Goethe

"Imagination is the eye of the soul." --Joseph Joubert

". . . nothing for preserving the body like having no heart." --John Petit-Senn

"Ingratitude is sooner or later fatal to its author." --Tivi (West African) proverb

"Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist but you have ceased to live." --Mark Twain

And, finally:

"My advice to you is not to inquire why or whither, but just enjoy the ice cream while it's on your plate." --Thornton Wilder

I do love ice cream. Lately, I've been craving it. Probably because of the heat.


Mamacita, Scheiss Weekly

Friday, June 13, 2008

Remember These?

I bet some of you younger bloggers don't know what this is. Mine were red.



How about this ice cube tray? Mom had two of these, and in the summer, with four kids, the ice went pretty fast, especially when nobody in the house had the decency to refill the tray when they cranked the ice loose and used it. An interesting point, though, is that back then, a cold drink usually meant straight from the refrigerator; ice in a drink was a restaurant thing. Knowing that then, and remembering it now, still doesn't make me hate people who put a partially-filled ice cube tray back in the freezer any less.



I still have my gum-wrapper chain from high school. It's almost fifteen feet long, and it's hanging from a hook on the laundry room wall. We used to sit in the gym during basketball games and add links to our chains.

That's a lot of gum, people. Big Red and Juicy Fruit were much sought-after because the bright red and bright yellow made for a classy-lookin' gum-wrapper chain. What were they for? I don't remember. But they were fun!

Finally, how many of you remember the tv test pattern? That's right, young ones, there used to be a time - and there are people still living who remember it - when all television stations "signed off" at midnight, and there was NOTHING on tv until 6 a.m. or so when they all signed back on. There were no VCR's or DVD players, either. If you had insomnia or a newborn child, your only options were a VERY few radio stations (most of them signed off, too!) or some records, in which case you probably had to use that first picture up there at the top of this post so you could play your 45's.

But all night long, if you turned on your TV, all you'd get was one of these test patterns, and a shrill siren. The siren was what woke you up after you fell asleep in your chair, watching tv.


Were those the good old days? For some people, sure. The same way today will be one of the good old days to some of you some day.

Mamacita, Scheiss Weekly

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Many Things Thursday

Mr. Teacher blogs over at Learn Me Good. He likes to tell people that he has forty children, all with different mothers, and this week he's hosting The Carnival of Education.

Get over there NOW and see what's going on in the world of Education. Remember, if you don't keep up, you forfeit all whining rights.

It's summer now, and your kids might become bored at some point. Fear not. Just sign up for Steve Spangler's Experiment of the Week, and your kids will not only have plenty to do, they'll get smarter! It's free and it's fun. Go for it.

It's Wednesday and it didn't rain today! Not at all! Not even a drop! This sunny day was obviously some freak of nature, as it went against the trend of violent gushing thunderstorms that have been the norm so far this summer.

Interstate highways are dissolving, or breaking apart and floating away. If you want to get from Indianapolis to any place down here, you'd better pack a lunch because it's going to take a while. On the plus side, you'll get to drive on a little road and go through several small towns! You'll get to actually SEE SOMETHING! On the minus side, you'll have to drive on a little road and go through several small towns.

A few days ago, the college students were kayaking down Kirkwood Avenue and swimming shoulder-deep in the middle of campus. Today, the water was gone and traffic was back to normal in town. However, I've seen the forecast for the rest of this century week, so we'd best not put away those kayaks and inner tubes just yet.

Belle sent flood pics.

I'm glad my house is on a rise.

I managed to get some grass cut this evening, too! I didn't finish, because I haven't figured out how to turn on the mower's headlights yet - we've only had this mower for ten years or so - and when it got too dark to see, I had to quit.

Another strange sight tonight was the moon! I hadn't seen it for weeks! It had a big ring around it so guess what, but still. The moon! No stars, but the moon was up there. It was like seeing an old friend. An old friend bearing bad news and spewing omens, but an old friend nonetheless.

This is the first week of summer session and so far, so good. I did have a student who asked to borrow a pencil and a sheet of paper, but from the looks on the faces of the other students, I think I'll probably be able to rely on peer pressure to straighten the kid out.

It's humid as a swamp and hotter than the surface of Mercury and you can actually see the air shimmering, much like a desert oasis. And, naturally, our air conditioning isn't working. Why should it? I mean, we NEED it, so of course it shuts down.

I drove the mower under a walnut tree that is covered with wild grapevines, and it was so dusky I couldn't see exactly where they were, so I drove right straight into them. Little pieces of woody vine are falling down my shirt as I type; I just touched my hair and apparently I'm woodier than a. . . . Okay, so not going there.

Off to the showers with me.

I was going to compare my situation with that of Baucis and Philemon. What were YOU thinking?

I love mythology. Baucis and Philemon have so many elements that carried over into the Christian church: water into wine, entertaining gods (angels) unaware, Great Flood, destroying the population because they were all evil, sparing two who showed kindness, telling them not to look back. . . and when Paul and Barnabas began their discipleship journeys, people thought they were Zeus and Hermes, because it was they who visited Baucis and Philemon and did all those things in their home.

Do I digress? Well, YEAH. Thass what I do.


Mamacita, Scheiss Weekly

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Cellist in a Funky Shirt

I do love a cello, and Andrew Lloyd Webber's brother Julian is one of the most creative cellists I've ever heard. I also love his funky shirts, worn when all the others at the party are wearing tuxes.

This video is a tiny segment from the Royal Albert Hall Celebration, which I have to watch at least once a year.



Oh, okay, my daughter would "out" me anyway, so I'll just go ahead and admit that I also love the Boyzone performance from the same RAH Celebration. Although, they look more like Manzone to me.



Please feel free to mock me. I'm used to it by now.

Mamacita, Scheiss Weekly

Sunday, June 08, 2008

I Stole This From Mommak, She Stole It From Miss Britt, and I Hope You Steal It From Me

MommaK stole it from Miss Britt, and I stole it from MommaK. Please feel free to steal it from me.

The Rules: Bold the things you can do and you leave in normal type the things you can’t. Sarcastic comments in parenthesis are encouraged.

---

1. Give advice that matters in one sentence. (Buck up and show some spunk.) (They're not coming over to inspect the house; they're coming to see us. ) (Don't talk about politics with a bump on a log.)

2. Tell if someone is lying. (I’m the world’s biggest sucker.)

3. Take a photo. (I’m good, honest. Everyone I know really has red eyes.)

4. Score a baseball game. (Just because I can doesn’t mean I will.)

5. Name a book that matters. (All of my books matter!)

6. Know at least one musical group as well as is possible. ( No, not THAT well; it’s my brother.)

7. Cook meat somewhere other than the grill. (I could survive indefinitely in the woods. I don’t even need a grill.)

8. Not monopolize the conversation. (I’m a listener.)

9. Write a letter. (A skill everyone should have, and no, email isn’t really a letter..)

10. Buy a suit. (You mean, like Ward Cleaver and Joan Crawford wore to work?)

11. Swim three different strokes. (Basic, dog-paddle, and tread water. The world might not count those but I do.)

12. Show respect without being a suck-up. (I really do respect a lot of people.)

13. Throw a punch. (Lay a hand on my kids and you’ll find out.)

14. Chop down a tree. (Like Paul Bunyan.)

15. Calculate square footage. (I didn’t realize there would be any math on the meme. . . .)

16. Tie a bow tie. (Why? Did Wally Cox come back from the dead?)

17. Make one drink, in large batches, very well. (I own a punch bowl and I used it once. . . .)

18. Speak a foreign language. (One of my biggest regrets, and it’s not too late yet..)

19. Approach a woman/man out of his/her league. (I always consider everyone to be out of my league..)

20. Sew a button. (I can whip up a passable Halloween costume overnight.)

21. Argue with a European without getting xenophobic or insulting soccer. (Can we talk about literature and music?)

22. Give a woman an orgasm so that he doesn’t have to ask after it. (Bad grammar merits no attention.)

23. Be loyal. (Absolutely.)

24. Know his poison, without standing there, pondering like a dope. (Of course. I know yours, too.)

25. Drive an eightpenny nail into a treated two-by-four without thinking about it. (Duh. Everyone should know the basic life skills.)

26. Cast a fishing rod without shrieking or sighing or otherwise admitting defeat. (You didn’t say it had to be done well.)

27. Play gin with an old guy. (And I like to play euchre with old guys.)

28. Play go fish with a kid. (. . . as long as the kid lets me win at least one round.)

29. Understand quantum physics well enough that he can accept that a quarter might, at some point, pass straight through the table when dropped. (I adore quantum physics! )

30. Feign interest. (. . . like a paid escort!)

31. Make a bed. (. . . which doesn’t mean I do it on a daily basis.)

32. Describe a glass of wine in one sentence without using the terms nutty, fruity, oaky, finish, or kick. ( “Tart!”) (I loathe sweet wine)

33. Hit a jump shot in pool. (I love to play pool.)

34. Dress a wound. (First aid instructor at Camp Towaki – Place Where Friends Meet)

35. Jump-start a car. Change a flat tire. Change the oil. (I CAN if I have to, but I greatly fear sparks and flammable substances together.)

36. Make three different bets at a craps table. (I’m a Blackjack girl, myself.)

37. Shuffle a deck of cards. (like a Vegas dealer.)

38. Tell a joke. (I can tell it; the laughing-at-the-right-place is YOUR job.)

39. Know when to split his cards in blackjack.

40. Speak to an eight-year-old so he/she will hear. (It’s all in the facial expression and bribe.)

41. Speak to a waiter so he will hear. (See previous answer.)

42. Talk to a dog so it will hear. (I talk to cats.)

43. Install: a disposal, an electronic thermostat, or a lighting fixture without asking for help.

44. Ask for help. (Practice makes perfect.)

45. Break another man’s grip on his wrist. ( In girl-fights, there are no rules.)

46. Tell a woman’s dress size. (My own is huge, and I always assume all other women wear a 4.)

47. Recite one poem from memory. ( How about HUNDREDS?)

48. Remove a stain.

49. Say no. ( I always feel guilty, but I’ve learned to do it.)

50. Fry an egg sunny-side up.

51. Build a campfire. ( See #7 up there.)

52. Step into a job no one wants to do. (I’m a mommy. Need I say more? )

53. Sometimes, kick some ass. (I can’t do it for myself, but I can do it for you.)

54. Break up a fight. (I’m a teacher. What do you think?.)

55. Point to the north at any time. (I need landmarks.)

56. Create a play-list in which ten seemingly random songs provide a secret message to one person.

57. Explain what a light-year is.

58. Avoid boredom. (Bored? There is always something to do around here! )

59. Write a thank-you note. (No, children, email and phone calls do not count!.)

60. Be brand loyal to at least one product. (ketchup)

61. Cook bacon. ( I love thin, crispy but not crunchy, bacon!)

62. Hold a baby. (Good thing!.)

63. Deliver a eulogy. (I could write one, but I’m not sure I could give one unless maybe it was someone I didn’t know all that well in which case why would I be doing it?)

64. Know that Christopher Columbus was a son of a bitch. (diseases, Dominican Republic, and pay.)

65. Throw a baseball over-hand with some snap. (Not any more.)

66. Throw a football with a tight spiral. (Why would I even want to?)

67. Shoot a 12-foot jump shot reliably.

68. Find his/her way out of the woods if lost. (Eventually.)

69. Tie a knot.

70. Shake hands.

71. Iron a shirt. ( . . . which doesn’t mean I WILL.)

72. Stock an emergency bag for the car. (I used to be really good at that.)

73. Caress a woman’s neck. (Why would I want to do that? I can massage anyone’s neck, but “caress” has a different connotation. I would caress a man’s neck, though.)

74. Know some birds. (Robin. Cardinal. Bluebird. Little yellowish bird that chirps funny. Hummingbird.)

75. Negotiate a better price. (I am too shy.)

Saturday, June 07, 2008

Quotation Saturday

You all know by now that I love a good quotation. Words have such mighty and majestic power: they can make us laugh; they can make us cry; they can make us cower in fear, or stand tall with pride, or melt with love. Name it, and words can make us feel or do it. Wisely chosen words make us respect someone, or not. Words can inspire us, and words can fill us with disgust. Or longing. Or remorse. Or happiness. Or nostalgia. So much strength in words. . .there are no words to fully describe what words can do. Many words, and no words.

And, of course, other people's words are far more powerful than mine. Funnier, too.

"There never was a rule that didn't have to be broken at some time, and the man who doesn't know when to break a rule is a fearful pain in the neck." --William Feather

"The price one pays for pursuing any profession or call, is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side." --James Baldwin

"Not to know is bad; not to wish to know is worse." --West African Proverb

"Children, I grant, should be innocent; but when the epithet is applied to men or women, it is but a civil term for weakness." --Mary Wollstonecraft*

"So live that you wouldn't be ashamed to sell the family parrot to the town gossip." --Will Rogers

". . . he who does not increase his knowledge diminishes it; he who refuses to learn, merits extinction." --Talmud

"A mind all logic is like a knife all blade. It makes the hand bleed that uses it." --Tagore

"I guess the definition of a lunatic is a man surrounded by them." --Ezra Pound

"I hasten to laugh at everything for fear of being obliged to weep at it." --Pierre De Beaumarchair

"You don't look in the mirror to see life; you gotta look out of the window." --Drew Brown

"We do not really know anything at all until a long time after we have learned it." --Joseph Joubert

"Happiness is not the absence of conflict, but the ability to cope with it." --Anonymous

"Do not assume that the other fellow has intelligence to match yours. He may have more." --Terry-Thomas

"He who is firmly seated in authority soon learns to think security, and not progress, the highest lesson of statecraft." --J.R. Lowell

"Do not fear when your enemies criticize you. Beware when they applaud." --Vo Dong Giang

"Earnest people are often people who habitually look on the serious side of things that have no serious side." --Van Wyck Brooks

"It's the most unhappy people who most fear change." --Mignon McLaughlin

"Eccentricity is like having an accent. It's what "other" people have." --Oliver Sacks

"Some people crave baseball. I find this unfathomable; however, I do understand how someone could get excited about playing a bassoon." --Frank Zappa

"Sometimes I think war is God's way of teaching us geography." -- Paul Rodriguez

"A headline is not an act of journalism; it is an act of marketing." --Harold Evans

"Take a rest; a field that has rested gives a beautiful crop." --Ovid

"If a man does not work passionately - even furiously - at being the best in the world at what he does, he fails his talent, his destiny, and his God." --George Lois

"All of us are mad. If it weren't for the fact that every one of us is slightly abnormal, there wouldn't be any point in giving each person a separate name." --Ugo Bette

A good quotation is an education, isn't it. Sometimes, a really good one can make my skin tingle and my brain light up in one of those big areas we never use. Maybe a really good combination of words is the spark we need to heat up those empty lobes and see what's going on in there.

*Bonus points if you know what she wrote!

Mamacita, Scheiss Weekly

Thursday, June 05, 2008

"I'm Only 3 1/2 Years Old"

The newest Carnival of Education is up, over at The Education Wonks. Click on over there and check it out. If you don't keep up, you forfeit all whining rights. I'm not kidding.

It would also be nice of you went over there and told the Wonks you think he did a wonderful job with the Carnival. He always does - he's the Carnival of Education Guru - but the evil internet gremlins attacked his carefully-thought-out first draft and devoured it, and he had to reinvent it quickly so it would be up in time. AND, he did.

Speaking of gremlins, nothing can beat those old Warner Brothers' Merrie Melodies cartoons from the 1940's for propaganda and wit.

I suppose that political correctness prevents such cartoons from being made and distributed widely, nowadays. Pity. We're so busy trying not to offend that small handful of easily-offended-types that we've forgotten how to laugh at life. And life is FUNNY, people!

Enjoy.




Mamacita, Scheiss Weekly