Daily Archives: October 7, 2008

Oct 7

Staying Home, Spending Money

Here’s how my next week is shaping up:

Friday: My whole family arrives.

Saturday: We install the dishwasher and hook up the fridge and fix the leaks around the house and identify which plants are stifling the growth of other plants and judiciously pruning them.

Sunday: Southern Festival of Books

Monday: Chimney Sweep

Tuesday: Taking the dog in for her surgical consult and perhaps surgery.

Wednesday: Warping the minds of children.

Thursday: Heating and air conditioning dude comes to give the whole thing a once-over.

I am already a nervous wreck about the dog.  First because I normally don’t take her to the vet by myself and second because we need to do something so that she’s not hurting, but I’m really nervous about how much money it might be.  I guess we’ve been very lucky so far that she’s never needed anything more than her annual check-up.  But the vet was really nice about talking it over with me–she is a relatively young dog (8 years) of a breed that, if not fought, can get to be 15 years old.  She has almost as much time ahead of her as she’s got behind her.  There’s no reason she shouldn’t be running and jumping and enjoying herself.  And good lord, this is a girl who used to be able to jump over the couch.  Let’s at least get her back to a point where she can get on the couch.

But on the other hand, I don’t need a Lexus solution here, either.  She’s just a housepet.  She needs to be able to get on the couch and down the steps and into the car and out of it again.  I don’t actually need her to be able to do backflips off my dad’s belly again.  And I want her to not be in pain.

So, I’m hoping there’s something they can do that will make her more mobile and reduce her discomfort without breaking the bank.

Oct 7

By Glen Dean’s Measure I’m a Fifty Year Old Mexican Man

Glen Dean is all upset that Bob Krumm thinks the Ayers thing is a losing argument.  Fine, whatever.  I’m not that interested in watching Conservatives play “But who’s the true conservative?” unless it involves Roger Abramson in some way.

But you’re going to drag my name into it, as if Krumm somehow thinking along the “same” lines as me “proves that he regularly reads and admires” me, and as if Krumm regularly reading and admiring me proves something untoward about Krumm, well, then, we’ve got problems.

For starters, I like Bob Krumm as far as people I’ve met a couple of times and completely disagree with go.  I even voted for him when he ran for office, because in my brief encounters with him, I’ve found him to be a thoughtful person upon whom things weigh heavily and I thought that it wouldn’t hurt the State Government to have a thoughtful person who takes the decisions he makes to heart in office.  That is as far as my association with Bob Krumm goes.

And I think he’s a cutie, in that stiff, conservative way.

That’s it.

If my vaguely positive feelings towards Krumm are a problem, if they somehow taint him and make his positions easily dismissible, then, I’m sorry.

Well, sorry that this has turned into some kind of performance art piece that exactly illustrates my point about why this whole Ayers thing is so stupid.

Glen Dean says–

Folks, you are your associations.

–while attempting to create some association between Bob Krumm and me and using that “association” to smear Bob Krumm.  Should Krumm encase himself in a giant plastic bubble so as to not breathe the same air as me?  Should he call ahead to restaurants and make sure I’m not there before he goes there?  If he sees me in the street and remembers what I look like, should he scream and run the other way?  I mean, just what does a person who, oh, you know, occasionally leaves the house do to make sure he’s not making unsavory associations?

And please, I only wish I had secret super powers, or hypnotic feminist wiles that allowed me to secretly command an army of seemingly conservative men who strived for my approval and back-pats.

Let’s just cut through this bullshit with Occam’s razor.

Perhaps the reason that both Krumm and I say that bringing up Ayers doesn’t achieve anything is because it doesn’t achieve anything.  Krumm didn’t come to that conclusion because of his “association” with me (which is basically nonexistent) or because he wants my approval, but because it’s obvious to anyone with two brain cells to rub together that

By 1992 America was tired of fighting the Vietnam War.  What makes anyone think that sixteen years later we want to re-fight it again?  It is a loser issue.  Drop it.

This exactly is the problem.  If you’re going to hold a person responsible for the views of every single person they’ve ever had a cordial conversation with, then you’re going to end up doing stuff as stupid as assuming that I have some kind of influence over Bob Krumm or that Jeremiah Wright’s views are Obama’s views or (and I’m tossing this one out there for you, Bob) that Palin is an anti-Semite who thinks Jews control all of the money in the world and that it’s okay to run women who you think are witches and have placed curses on people out of town.

Or we can all be grown-ups who understand how the world works, and remember that, if a person is actually going to have a life, that they’re going to know and associate with all kinds of people that are very different than them.

Oct 7

Oh, Computer

Before I start this post complaining about my computer, I must share with you a funny thing about Mrs. Wigglebottom.  So, somehow, after our disasterous attempt to get her into my bed the other night, in which she sent me flying out of the bed and she ended up sprawled on the ground (why, yes, her knee has been bothering her.  Why do you ask?), she has now managed to get into my bed.  But she cannot figure out how to get down.  I need to go in and rescue her, but I’ve been lauging so hard at listening to her circling around, trying to figure it out.

Okay, the dog has been rescued.

So, yes, my computer.  I just moved, so clearly I haven’t yet uncovered the disks to do a complete reinstall.  But I thought I had it working again.  But I just noticed that I cannot go to any websites that might have anything to do with aiding my computer (I can’t get the Microsoft update to work; none of my anti-virus or spywear stuff can access their servers to update) and all of my browsers still send me whereever the hell they want when I do a search.

Until I find those disks, I am at a complete loss as to what to do.