Archive | October, 2012

Friedman’s Not-So-Novel Idea

29 Oct

Yesterday in the middle of my work day I received a text from one of my really good friends. It read as follows:

The Friedman column is fucking pissing me off. Why would I expect him not to fucking pretend that what he is writing is nothing feminism has been saying for YEARS!

I could feel the anger pulsing through my cell phone. Obviously, I had to read it immediately if not sooner.  I checked up and down the bar to see the status of all my customers drinks and got to reading.  The premise of the article is basically that Friedman is “pro-life” but not in the way we all talk about being pro-life, as in the opposite of pro-choice.  He is pro “respect for the sanctity of life.”  Friedman has seen the light.  This paragraph basically says it all:

In my world, you don’t get to call yourself “pro-life” and be against common-sense gun control — like banning public access to the kind of semiautomatic assault rifle, designed for warfare, that was used recently in a Colorado theater. You don’t get to call yourself “pro-life” and want to shut down the Environmental Protection Agency, which ensures clean air and clean water, prevents childhood asthma, preserves biodiversity and combats climate change that could disrupt every life on the planet. You don’t get to call yourself “pro-life” and oppose programs like Head Start that provide basic education, health and nutrition for the most disadvantaged children. You can call yourself a “pro-conception-to-birth, indifferent-to-life conservative.” I will never refer to someone who pickets Planned Parenthood but lobbies against common-sense gun laws as “pro-life.”

Friedman makes a good point.  Read the article.  But the thing is, just like what my friend said to me in her enraged text, he is making the point feminism, the point women have been making for years.  Being in support of a woman’s right to choose is not only an end, but it is a means to other ends.  Allowing women to choose is part of a bigger conversation about quality of life, about freedoms, about capabilities, about possibilities, about empowerment. In the mainstream acceptance of the terms “pro-life” (or “anti-choice” as many of my ilk refer to it) and “pro-choice” I think of the former as an exclusionary opinion and the latter as inclusionary.  Pro-choice people are not requiring women to terminate a pregnancy.  Some of us might not even be comfortable with the idea  of abortion for ourselves.  I think all of us would love it if there didn’t have to be any abortions at all.  There is room in the pro-choice movement for everyone to do exactly with their bodies as they think is appropriate for themselves and their lives, be that terminate a pregnancy or carry a pregnancy through to term.  Pro-life takes that choice away, that legal and safe choice, and makes the decision for someone.  Either carry the fetus to term or endure a possibly life-threatening, illegal, unregulated procedure.  There is not room in that school of thought for everyone.  There is not room for me.

I guess this is a topic that I have been having a hard time with.  While I want to include men in the conversation about women’s rights and bodies, while I want more male allies, I don’t want men dictating the parameters of a conversation that women have been having for decades.  Let us spearhead this one, guys.  Listen to us.  Talk to us.  Take us seriously.  This is an important issue all the time and not only when you decide to give it a minute of your time.  This has been mattering to us for-fucking-ever, and not just every four years.  We’ve been talking about it.  We’ve been educating one another.  Where have you been, Friedman?

But I’ve gotten off topic.  Friedman’s point is an important one for sure.  But as a woman, it is incredibly, incredibly frustrating and angering to see that a point that feminists have been making for years and years does not get mainstream space until it is said by a right-leaning white man acting like he came up with it all on his own.  I’ve seen my friends sharing the link to the article on Facebook and, though I’m glad the point is making its rounds in the interwebs, I am frustrated that as women we have become so accustomed to our opinions being ignored and then, years later, being co-opted and taken seriously only through the medium of a male voice that we don’t even notice it any more.  It’s part of life.  It’s like, “wow!  Friedman!  What a great and original idea!” without the follow through of “wait, didn’t I talk to my mom about this very same idea when I first started learning about abortion clinic bombings and assassinations of abortion providers?  Hasn’t this term ‘pro-life’ always seemed somewhat misleading?”   It’s like that old saying, “if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”  Only I’m gonna change it.  “If an opinion is voiced by a woman and no one talks about it, did that opinion ever actually get shared?”

And to my friend who sent me the text in the first place, I am thankful for you.  You help keep me sane.

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One Year Blogiversary!

25 Oct

Hooray.  I did it.  One full year of blogging.  I had initially intended on going through all the search terms that got people to my blog and listing the most amusing ones here, but, instead, I will recap a conversation I had with my mom yesterday.  Enjoy.

……ring ring……

Mom:  Hello?

Me:  Hi, mom!

Mom:  How’s my Bekah?

Me:  Oh, I’m good.  I actually called to ask you for some advice but first, guess what tomorrow is?

Mom:  What??

Me:  My one year blogiversary!

Mom:  Really?  Happy blogiversary, my Bekah!

Me:  Speaking of ‘versarys, happy anniversary Mom!

Mom:  Your blogiversay.  Congratulations!

Me:  Mom?  Um…isn’t today your wedding anniversary?  It is October 24th, right?

Mom:  (Silence.)  You know what?  It is!!  Your father is going to play cards with friends and I am going to dinner with the ladies!

Hysterical laughter.

Me:  (Between giggles.) Hey Mom.  Remember that time I called you and wished you a happy birthday and you didn’t even remember it was your birthday?!?

Mom:  (More laughter.)  I do!

Me:  That was funny.

And this, dear readers, is why my Mom and Dad are awesome.  And also why I have a hard time remembering anyone’s birthday.  So when I forget yours, don’t be insulted.  I come by it naturally.

So, happy (one day belated) anniversary, Mom and Dad.  And happy blogiversary to you, blog.  You’re cool.

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A Beefcake Ruined my Workout

24 Oct

Today was the first day of my training for the New Orleans marathon which is exactly 4 months from today, on February 24th.  The plan I downloaded suggested that I run 5 miles at a 9:02 pace.  Okay, that’s not bad.  I decided to head to the gym and run on the treadmill because the idea of running the better part of a mile uphill to run a loop of the park (involving another hill) was just too much to handle.  I was feeling runner-lazy.  Obviously I am taking this process very seriously.  My goals are to make it to the start line prepared and injury-free and to complete the full 26.2 miles in under 3:45.  I think it’s possible.*

After my run, I decided to try and get into the groove of lifting weights, something I know is necessary but I hate with the strength of a thousand suns. (Did I get that saying right?)  I headed over to that weird dip thing and did some leg lifts.  Then I decided to do squats.  As I was walking towards the area with the body bars, dumbbells, and kettle bells I saw this rather beefy guy looking at me.  I half smiled at him in what I hoped was a dismissive yet friendly way, turned my music up, and grabbed a body bar to commence the squatting.  I could see him watching me in the mirror.  Then I saw it.  A little condescending smirk and a slight shake of the head, and then he motioned for me to take off my headphones.  I pretended I didn’t see him.  He did it again, this time in a more obvious manner.  I couldn’t ignore him.  I could have just shook my head “no” and went about my workout but I hate to be rude when I’m not (a) working and faced with some drunken asshole who I have to handle or (b) on the move, thereby escaping from the look of shock upon my response to the offensive cat calling or, my favorite, the “god bless you” whisper, I had to endure.  Shudder.  The conversation went as follows:

Beefcake: What do you do?  Run?

Me: Yup.

Beefcake:  Mind if I give you a few tips about that squat?

Me:  (Yes) Um…I guess not.

He then, without getting up, began instructing me on the proper approach to the squat which, I have to say, was exactly the opposite of how everyone else ever in the history of me has told me is the proper way to do it.  Whatever, I indulged him.  I just wanted him to stop talking to me.  He then proceeded to lecture me about the importance of working out my abs and back to make me a stronger runner.  I tried to explain to him that I already know all this, that I just hate the gym but that I am working on it but he was on a roll and wouldn’t really let me get a word in edgewise.  I figured it better to just let him run out of steam and move on.  And then,

Beefcake: I’m a trainer here, that’s why I was giving you tips

Me:  Yea, I figured.

Beefcake:  I’m really good with faces.  I haven’t seen you here in awhile.  You been going somewhere else?

Me:  A little I guess. I just really hate the gym.

Beefcake:  Really?  Why?

Me:  (Because I am stuck talking to people like you?) I don’t know.  It smells.

Beefcake:  Oh, well, do you remember seeing me?

Me:  No.  I don’t pay attention to people in the gym.  I just workout and leave and don’t look at anybody or talk to anybody. (Meaningful stare.)

I guess he got the picture because he walked away.  But then I was too self-conscious to do the rest of my squats because he was nearby, doing all his fancy pull-ups and shit and I knew he was watching and would swoop in and correct me at any moment.  And here’s the thing, I guess I wouldn’t have minded some tips if it weren’t for the following two things.  One, that smirk.  That cocky, rude smirk and that little dismissive head shake that communicated to me not concern for a possible knee injury, but a “you silly girl, let me show you how it’s done.”  And two, the obvious lie that he told me when he noticed me doing my squats ‘wrong.’  I saw him see me walking over from the dip machine, which is located behind a pillar.  He was just watching, and waiting.  I could have done a toe-raiser and he would have corrected me.  So, Beefcake at the gym, I write you this letter:

Dear Beefcake,

If you want to help someone out with something, kindly be a little less condescending and a little less of a liar.  You ruined my workout.  Please never talk to me again.  Ever.

From

The Runner with the Long Hair

*Just a little side note.  I will not, going forward, subject you, dear readers, to the ins and outs of my marathon training.  I might make reference to it here and there, but that’s about it.  So, worry not, details of my Yasso 800s will not take the place of my ranting about peeping toms, people making shitty comparisons to Hitler, or Donald Trump, who easily makes my top 5 least favorite people list.

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Money > People

23 Oct

If you haven’t yet noticed through reading this blog, or if you don’t already know about this through knowing me personally, I work in parallels.  I read things, I get upset about things, but sometimes the only way for me to make sense of it all is to compare the thing I am upset about — but that I lack the language to work through — to something else seemingly unconnected to it and draw a line between the two.  I guess I like to create an equal playing field within my mind and hold dissimilar things to similar standards.  That’s how I got from domestic violence within a human rights framework to trade agreements.  Onward.

This past week I had the pleasure of leaving Brooklyn and traveling, via Bolt Bus, to Washington, DC to visit a very good friend of mine who just recently started law school.  The timing couldn’t have been better.  She was on fall break and needed a small brain vacation from the stresses of the first year of law school which, as I understand it, is a torturous experience.  I needed a vacation from the stresses associated with the ridiculous amount of guilt I feel about avoiding my thesis.  It’s basically become a full-time job.  Anyway, one of the things we did while I was down there was attend a super interesting talk about the idea of domestic violence within the international human rights framework.  Yea, I didn’t really understand how that worked either.  So here is my very basic explanation of the things we learned about, lacking probably crucial details, because my memory just ain’t what it used to be.

So basically what I learned was that being a woman is a lot of times terrible.  And, not surprisingly, this is no different within the legal framework.  The professor and guest lecturer went over a number of cases over the past few decades within the United States that basically eroded the ability of victims of domestic violence (generally women and children) to bring charges against the state for negligence.  When someone takes out a restraining order, the idea is not that the state is in that person’s house, intervening at the first sign of trouble.  Instead, the police (or so I thought) have an obligation to enforce a restraining order if the holder of it calls them, reporting that the order has been broken in some way.  I learned that although one would think that a mandatory restraining order means that the police, an agent of the state by the way (until they are inevitably privatized which scares the shit out of me), are required to protect the holder of the order of protection from the person she took it out against.  That, oddly enough, is not exactly the case.  Mandatory, in this case, doesn’t actually mean mandatory.  The state is under no legal obligation to protect a victim from her victimizer even if she has gone through the appropriate mechanisms to seek guaranteed safety.  There were a few different legal avenues a woman could previously take to bring charges against the state for negligence.  All of those avenues have been systematically eroded, now leaving a victim without means to sue the state if, say, her children are murdered at the hands of her violent ex-husband from whom she is supposedly protected.  Scary, right?  So what is the next step?

This is where international human rights enters.  Human rights, or at least the way that I think about them, are based upon this moral and ethical understanding that all people are equal.  I know that is super simplistic.  What has happened in the US in terms of DV is that the state apparatus is protecting itself from the whims of its citizens.  Part of human rights is that they protect individuals from the whims of the state.  So, the next step could be that women, who have exhausted all domestic options in terms of holding someone accountable for the actions, or lack thereof, of the state or an actor of the state, bring their tale of violated rights to an international human rights body.    That body, in the case we heard about it was the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), which then looks at the facts, looks at the legislative trail and comes to a decision as to whether or not an individual’s human rights have been violated and then sends that finding to the offending state, allowing the state in question to respond.  In the case of the US who, obviously if you know anything about our record on this sort of thing,* has not ratified whatever it needs to ratify to be held accountable by this organization and so whatever the IACHR might find in the case of the US basically holds no water.  It is an embarrassment to the US, sure, but there is nothing that the IACHR can do.  It has no power.

Part of the reason for this is that the United States, in all its exceptionalism and all its talk about holding other countries accountable for human rights violations, does not want to be held accountable for its own.  It does not want to give any other body jurisdiction over the affairs within its borders.  It’s like human rights isolationism.  So aside from a strongly worded letter, a victim has absolutely no recourse.  No wait while I blow your mind even more.

I just recently (as in about 20 minutes ago when I decided to write this blog) read this article in Salon by Matt Stoller.  It’s worth a read and contains a whole lot more about the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) than what I am about to say.  Basically, the TPP, along with NAFTA and the World Trade Organization, gives foreign companies the rights to impact US law.  The WTO, for example, can put sanctions on the US if its domestic environmental, financial and social interest laws are too restrictive of foreign products.  Have you noticed that all tuna cans no longer have huge labels pronouncing that product dolphin-free?  That’s because it was negatively impacting companies exporting tuna to the US.  When we are dealing at an international level without standardization in regards to manufacturing and product safety, this is not something we can really afford.  And yet we do it.  Somehow it is reasonable to amend our laws to permit the sale of candy-flavored cigarettes but not to guarantee state-sanctioned protection of a domestic violence victim.  Abiding by international trade laws is more important than human rights norms.  Placating trade partners is more important than protecting our citizens.  Money is more important than people.

* The US has not ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child or the landmine ban, among other things.  I leave you to imagine why that might be.

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Let’s Take Hitler Off the Table

12 Oct

I don’t think I can quite do justice to the point I am trying to make, but I will still try.

Act I

In the fall of 2010 I traveled to Montreal for an elongated birthday celebration for one of my graduate school classmates.  It was an idyllic weekend.  We met at Penn Station and rode an Amtrak train from New York to Montreal, taking a break from our studies to gossip, listen to music, and do some leisure reading.  Everything on that ride seemed quaint, from the verbal tour given the passengers by the conductor — and out the left side of the train a bald eagle! — to the request for the safe return of a copy of “The History of Connecticut” which inexplicably went missing to the visa checks by Canadian customs officials.  The weekend continued along in that vein.  There was the perfect bed and breakfast, the beautiful farmer’s market, the Owen Wilson sighting.  There was only one downside to the entire weekend:  the table we came across in the old city that featured a picture of Obama sporting a Hitler-esque mustache and a swastika on his arm.  This was not the first time I had come across such an image.  Walking to school a few months earlier I had seen the same doctored photograph holding court on a fold-out table in Union Square.  Those running the table handed out pamphlets.  I was enraged, insulted, and running late for class.  I scowled at them and hurried on my way, red-faced and breathing fire, trying to push the image out of my head while at the same time grappling with all the reasons it impacted me so severely.

Act II

Today fall appeared in New York City.  It was one of those days with a (mostly) blue sky and a strong sun but with winds that rip down the avenues and a certain damp coldness that pushes through layers.  I was sad I forgot my gloves.  After running a few errands I decided to finish my Friday evening over a glass of wine and last week’s issue of The New Yorker (I am behind once again).  In the section entitled The Political Scene was an article by Chrystia Freeland called “Super-Rich Irony:  Why do billionaires feel victimized by Obama?”  I had read a few other articles of a similar theme in The New Yorker, and elsewhere, in recent months.  One that comes to mind made mention of the super-rich who felt slighted because they never received a proper ‘thank you’ from Obama for previous fund-raising contributions.  (To them I say this:  boo-fucking-hoo.)  Freeland’s article was a little more specific, it revolved around an open letter to President Obama from billionaire Leon Cooperman, the founder of a hedge fund called Omega Advisors.    This letter went viral in the business community and accuses Obama of using language that has led to a class warfare in which the super-rich are the oppressed minority.  In it Cooperman says,

To frame the debate as one of rich-and-entitled versus poor-and-dispossessed is to both miss the point and further inflame an already incendiary environment. It is also a naked, political pander to some of the basest human emotions – a strategy, as history teaches, that never ends well for anyone but totalitarians and anarchists.

And then this,

You might do well at this point to eschew the polarizing vernacular of political militancy and become the transcendent leader you were elected to be.

In follow-up interviews, as well as in a speech that addressed this letter and its impacts, Cooperman, Freeland reports, “has gone so far as to draw a parallel between Obama’s election and the rise of the Third Reich.”  Ugh.  Honestly, I have had enough.  There are a lot of infuriating things in this article about how the super-rich feel about their treatment, and how they think they are being singled out and blamed, and, honestly, I do not feel bad for them.  Maybe that makes me an asshole and maybe someday I will amend that feeling but today is not that day.  This post is not about that.  This post is about the parallel that I see drawn over and over again between Obama and Hitler.  It has got to stop.  Take Hitler off the table.  Comparisons to Hitler should not be allowed.  I am not saying we should alter the First Amendment to allow free speech up until the point that someone draws an erroneous comparison between someone who isn’t Hitler and Hitler.   What I am saying is that there should be some sort of moral stopping point in which we take a moment, look around and we think, “hey, you know what?  Actually, this not-Hitler is actually nothing like actual Hitler because, for one, he or she is not responsible for the deaths of some 11 million innocent people.  Also, this not-Hitler did not spawn the coining of the term ‘genocide,’ like actual Hitler.  This not-Hitler, no matter how much I dislike his or her actions or policies is not the epitome of evil because that position is already occupied…by actual Hitler.”

But jokes aside.  Seriously.  I have always thought about it like this:  as a person of Jewish descent, I find this comparison especially problematic and hateful and wrong.  But now, sitting down here at my computer and working some of these thoughts out, I think that as a person I find this comparison especially problematic and hateful and wrong.  Not only is it erroneous, but every time we draw a comparison between the policies and speeches of, say, President Barack Obama and the speeches and actions of Hitler, we are minimizing the historical significance of Hitler’s existence and actions.  We are minimizing the suffering and death caused so many people.  We are minimizing the essence of evil.  Comparisons to Hitler should be reserved for those heinous few that orchestrate the systematic killing of people based off their background, religion, sexual orientation, disability, or any other single characteristic used by horrible, yet somehow magnetic, people to dehumanize.  Last time I checked, Obama has not done any of those things. Sure, he is charismatic.  But for that charisma to lead anywhere close to where Hitler’s charisma led would take a number of characteristics – narcissism? sociopathy? – that I don’t think any of us have reason to believe Obama possesses.

Now listen, I know the comparison to Hitler is not so much about his concentration camp era, but does it actually matter?  When I think Hitler, I think endless train rides, I think gas showers, I think forced labor, I think shaved heads, I think starvation, I think horrific medical experiments, I think families ripped apart, I think a world that was never the same, I think groups of people dehumanized to such an extreme degree that even to this day it stings.  I could continue but I won’t.  I don’t think any sane person’s thought association with Obama bring up any of those horrific thoughts.  So, come on, people.  Let’s stop being assholes.  Let’s take Hitler off the table.

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Some (belated) Thoughts on the Debate and Politics

9 Oct

So I’ve been thinking a lot about the direction this country is going since the (embarrassing) debate last Wednesday night.  As I sat on my sofa, watching these two men vying for a job as President of the United States of America my stomach dropped.  To be entirely honest, the feeling in the pit of my stomach actually kept me from sitting through the entire debate and the residual discomfort will, very likely, keep me from watching any of the other three.  Maybe this feeling will pass and I will give it another go but I doubt it.  Anyway, here are some thoughts.

I am someone who believes in government, who believes that it is important for there to be some sort of check to business expansion, that there should be services provided for people who, for whatever reason, are unable to provide those services for themselves.  Yes, politics can be dirty.  Yes, politicians can be corrupt.  But I am entirely unwilling to write this entire system we have built off and characterize everyone that makes up our government, and the government of other countries, as clowns.  Perhaps I am idealistic but I do not see a better outcome if we scratch the whole thing.  I think the system needs changing, the rules of the game need changing, and the behavior of our politicians  need changing.  All this was very clear by the disaster that was the first debate of this election season.  But I do think the system can still work and, a lot of times, actually does.  I think the system relies a lot on those of us who spend the time reading and learning and take the time to speak out against things, or in support of things, and go out and vote.  Just vote.  As a good friend of mine said the other day, write someone into the ballot if you have to.  Make a statement.  Let people know what we have, the options we have, does not work for you.  That is how change starts.

But I am off track.  Back to some thoughts.

Thought #1.  How can two candidates spend the amount of time they spent talking about healthcare and never, not once, mention that women pay more than men do for healthcare across the board?  Our rates are higher.  We, ladies, are pre-existing conditions.  ObamaCare actually addresses this issue.  Obama never mentioned it.  Romney certainly was not going to given his new found distaste for women thanks to Rick Santorum, Paul Ryan, et al.  So, Obama, let me say this to you:  think about us, like, really.  You did a great thing with ObamaCare.  You included us in there.  Flaunt it!  Women are watching, we are listening, and we care about more than just jobs and education and tax rates.  (Don’t get me wrong, we care about those things, too.)  We are smart, we educate ourselves, we know what makes us better off.  We vote.  God damnit, we matter!  We matter a lot.  We fight an uphill battle every day against things we might not even be able to articulate.  We are so immersed in a world in which we are undervalued, in which we are considered less than, that it makes a difference when a policy is written that actually takes us into consideration.  You did a good thing, Mr. President.  Own it.  Show that you care about women and that Romney and Ryan still think that our internal organs and lady brains somehow make us enigmas.

Thought #2.  Clean coal.  I’m sorry.  Really?  Clean coal?  There is nothing clean about coal, really.  And if you gut the EPA, as the plan is, then there is absolutely no incentive whatsoever for industry to try and make coal cleaner.  Here’s the thing about business.  Business wants to be efficient, and business wants to make money.  Profits.  Period.  Business doesn’t wake up one day and say “oh, hey, I feel like doing a good deed, let me go ahead and spend millions and millions of dollars to lower my carbon footprint.”  No.  If there are no regulations, business has no reason to clean up.  And who can blame business for that?  But guess what?  A few decades down the line when the earth is even more polluted than it is today, when polar bears don’t even have small bits of ice to depressingly float around on in all of those gloom and doom NatGeo specials, and most of the energy sources we rely on in the good old US of A are depleted, a lot of other countries will have come up with other ideas.  And they will have businesses that work on them.  And those businesses will be making money.  And we will have no EPA and water that catches on fire when you bring a match close to it.  Clean coal my ass.  That ship has sailed.  Actually, no, that ship tried sailing and instead sunk.

Thought #3.  Shut up about PBS.

Thought #4.  I think manners are really important.  One of the things that always gets me into hot water at the bar in which I work is that I really believe people should have manners and should respect those around them.  I consider this a high expectation when copious amounts of alcohol and late nights are involved.  I am going to go out on a limb and assume that there was no alcohol involved in the poor performance delivered by both the President and Mitt Romney.  It would be inappropriate and, besides, Romney is a Mormon.  Anyway, the smug looks they both delivered have got to go.  And the interrupting.  I’m pretty sure I learned to let people have their turn to speak in kindergarten.  Or!  Maybe we should institute a talking stick at debates.  Could you imagine?  It would go like this:

Obama:  So, if you look at Romney’s plan, he wants to cut 5 trillion dollars from blah blah blah blah

Romney:  That!  That is not true!  That is not in my plan!

Jim Lehrer:  Now, Mitt, do you have the talking stick?

Romney:  (looking down at his very empty hands) No…but..he started this round and…

Lehrer:  No talking stick, no talking.

Now that’s a debate I could get behind.

More thoughts undoubtedly to come.  But for now, dinner.

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Riding the Subway, Living the Dream

8 Oct

Today I was sitting around thinking about my love/hate with the New York City public transportation system.  As any good New Yorker does, I have lots of complaints about the system’s shortcomings.  It runs slow basically all the time but especially when you’re in a rush.  Because of snow.  Because of rain.  Because it’s too hot.  Because someone didn’t drink enough water and passed out.  Because of train traffic ahead of us.  Because of a police investigation at 34th street.  Despite all the frustration some of my funniest, or at least most memorable, New York moments have happened on the subway. Let’s climb into the way-back machine and walk through my most favorite ever subway experience.

Thanksgiving weekend 2007. I was on the subway on my way to work the night shift at my bar.  It was the Sunday after Thanksgiving and I was weighed down with bags from spending a good 4-5 days at home in New Jersey.  I smelled something funny and looked over and saw a guy huddled in his seat eating what appeared to be heated up Thanksgiving leftovers.  Okay.  Not my most ideal venue for eating but whatever, that’s cool.  I went back to staring blankly through the window into the darkness of the subway tunnel.  All of a sudden I felt something small hit me.  Then again.  And again.  I looked down at the floor and saw, rolling around, a few green peas.  I turned around and saw that the man with the leftovers was sitting there, staring at me, holding a plastic spoon in his hand and methodically launching his overcooked peas at me across the near-empty train car.  I was stunned.  I looked around, trying to see if anyone else had (a) been the victim of assault by pea or (2) had seen what was happening and could give me some clue as to the best way to respond because this guy was clearly a little looney.  No one seemed to have noticed.  I got hit in the forehead with another pea.  I said, loudly, and to no one in particular

Hello?  Anyone?  Does anyone see what is happening here?

An older lady who I had previously thought was sleeping lifted her head ever so slowly, looked at me, looked at the man, looked back at me and said, calmly,

He’s flicking peas.

I threw my hands up in the air, sending a pea that had gone unnoticed on my shoulder tumbling to the floor.

Yes! Exactly!  He is flicking peas!

And then, at a loss of what to do I looked back at the window, catching the man’s reflection in the darkness and watching to see when he might launch his next attack. My stop couldn’t come soon enough.  I grabbed my bags, looked over my shoulder in utter disbelief, and hustled off to my job.  I arrived at work a few moments later, anxiously awaiting the opportunity to share my experience.  I greeted my co-worker, wished her a happen belated Thanksgiving.  She smiled for a second and then screwed up her mouth and said,

Um…what is in your hair?

Clearly, it was a pea, nestled safely into one of my braids.

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The day my cat convinced me to never have children

2 Oct

First off I would like to apologize to all my millions and millions of fans out there for the time between my last post and this one.  I was busy not fasting for Yom Kippur and hearing about my grandmother’s week long stay at a dude ranch in the Catskills, which she found out about in an AARP catalogue which is, and I quote, “an organization for old people.”  Her words, not mine.  For those of you who are wondering, she did not ride a horse but she did take a photo standing near one.  She also played a lot of bingo.  She will not be going back next year.

And now on to the subject at hand:  cats.  I have two of them, Clark and Grete.  Grete is named for the great Norwegian marathon runner Grete Waitz who passed away last April, a few weeks before I brought home the kitties.  Clark is Clark because, hey, why not?  So there are a lot of things that are awesome about my cats.  (The following is not an exhaustive list.)

1. Snuggly.
2. Warm.
3.  One time when I was crying Grete sat on me and purred and it made me happy.
4.  Clark jumps really high.
5.  When they find a fly and then everything is crazy!
6.  I think they eat bugs.  I don’t like bugs in the house so this is great.

There are also some things which are not awesome.

1.  Scooping the box out is pretty gross.
2.  Also, changing the litter.
3. Basically everything having to do with the box.
4.  Then there was that time they ate something they found and proceeded to vomit everywhere.
5.  Also the time we fed them later than usual and we walked into the room to find a puddle of cat pee in the middle of our path.
6.  Clark loves breaking glasses.  I mean loves it.

Today, however, was basically the epitome of  the downs of cat ownership.  Just for a little information, I have noticed over the last few days that one of the cats has, shall we say, loose movements.  I got worried.  So I went to the vet down the block (so convenient!) and asked at what point I should get worried enough to do something about it.  The girl behind the counter told me if it kept happening I should bring a stool sample down.  Ew.  I really hoped it would stop.  And then today as I was getting ready to head into the city I heard it.  It sounded like this:

Scratch, scratch, scratch.  Gurgle…gurgle..gurgle.  Scratch.

And then the smell.  How can something that big come out of an animal so cute, small, and furry?  And then the favorite animal maneuver:  walk funny and then proceed to rub butt against floor which, subsequently, has to be mopped because gross.  I took a deep breath with my head out the window and investigated the box to find exactly what I knew I would find there after the noises I had just heard.  I called the vet.

Me: Hey, so, I came in yesterday because one of my cats has been having…cough cough…diarrhea for the past few days.  I am pretty sure I know which one it is.

Vet Tech:  This has been going on for a few days?  Okay, just bring down a stool sample and we’ll run some tests.

Me:  Oh, okay.  So, how should I get it down there?

Vet Tech:  Just wrap it in some tin foil and bring it on down.

Ugh.  Ew.  Ew ew ew.*  I did a dance of disgust, made some choking sounds, glared at the offending cat, sent some texts requesting support, and then I did it.  I took a LARGE piece of tin foil (sorry, environment), wrapped runny cat shit in it and brought it down to the vet.  So, that happened.  And now, after dealing with the less-than-solid stool of another creature, I have decided I will never have children.

*I know one of my readers specifically is all “whatever, that’s nothing!  I deal with animal poo all the time!  Diarrhea, shmiarrhea.”  And to you I say this:  You = rock star; I = pussy (no pun intended).