Rose Cat's Rambles

Is anyone else bothered by a picture of a cat in a dryer?

Cats are adorable, and a cat snuggled in a pile of clothes is even cuter. A cat in a basket full of clothes is one of my favorite things ever. But I digress.

The specific picture I'm referring to is at tumblr, and is not disturbing in itself: Get out of there, cat, you are line-dry only.

( Non-graphic account of what it reminded me of. )

Maybe you don't feel the same way as I do about animals. In that case, I think a picture of a small child, playing in an old refrigerator in a junkyard, is comparable.

I'm not saying that nobody who's aware of the danger can think it's cute, just that I can't. (Perhaps I need to learn to compartmentalize more.)

I'd like to explain this to the tumblr poster, and to get the word out about preventing this kind of awful accident, but I'm not a member and can't comment there. So I'm saying it here: never, EVER run a dryer -- or washer, for that matter -- full of clothes without carefully checking first. Even if you don't have any pets of your own. Because it could be someone else's.

Well, it's official. According to the US government agency NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), mermaids don't exist.

HMPH! I beg to differ. (Hey, science isn't always pretty.)

Besides, would Animal Planet lie to us? Huh? WOULD THEY?

( Reactions to the news were mixed. )

Fortunately, not all of the US government's agencies are such killjoys.

OH JOY. What else is on?

B. said, "I'd rather watch the Six Nations Rugby Championship." So would I. And neither of us like rugby that much.

And then we started rehashing why COE was such a bloody disappointment, the wasted opportunities of the end of "Exit Wounds," and WTF was Rusty thinking, anyway. B. reminded me that I actually threw dirty socks at the TV at one point, which I hadn't remembered. I do remember throwing pillows at RTD later, though, whenever I saw him. (On TV, that is.)

Has anyone made a video of just Gwen's kickass scenes? Because that I would watch over and over.

Then we turned to Dr. G to cheer ourselves up. And, hey, Portlandia is on later.

To the people who have posted to the internet in various places that the disasters in Japan are a well-deserved Act of God/karma for Pearl Harbor and WWII/a good thing for any other reason:

%#$& off, &%*#&#$#s. You should be ashamed of yourselves, every one of you. And keep an eye on your own karma.

Did you all see this? (Image-heavy.) Doctor Who and Torchwood Figurines

Horrors!

Human idiocy hits a new low.

Attorney for Valley woman says Ray created a "death trap"

The bastard's going to be doing time. I say throw the book at him.

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Making a hell of a lot of Americans ashamed of, and afraid for, their country.

Is anyone else having trouble getting LJ-cuts to work properly in their posts? I've been trying to do a picspam for hours now and I can't make it work. It's not like I've never done it before. It shouldn't be this bloody hard! I think I'm getting a migraine.

I'm going to get some dinner. If my head feels better maybe I'll try again.

Edit: It worked! It worked! I took vail_kagami's advice and made two posts alongside, one in HTML, in which I typed in the beginning and end code for an LJ-cut, and one in Rich Text, into which I put the post (text and pictures) and formatted it. Then I switched the Rich Text post to HTML(this is important!), cut the material out of that post, and pasted it into the HTML post inside the LJ-cut code. It worked! It worked!

Um, did I mention that it worked? *silly grin*

So, I was out in the front yard the other day, puttering amongst the rose bushes, listening to the birds. I had not been having a good day, and was trying to de-stress a bit. My next and next-next-door neighbors were hanging out in their front yards, shooting the breeze, as usual.  I was quietly listening, also as usual. (Well, it's not really eavesdropping if they're chatting in public. Can I help it if I have good hearing? ;)  )

Sam and Andy (not their real names) have some interesting conversations. Andy is a bit of a neat freak. He uses a leaf vacuum to pick up every single bit of vegetation on his driveway and front sidewalk. Sam is more easygoing, although he does like to use his leaf blower from time to time. (Man, I hate those things, but  that's a subject for another rant.) The two of them have an ongoing feud -- well, "feud" is really too strong a word -- a disagreement, I guess -- about each other's falling leaves.

Andy: "I'm tired of the leaves from your tree dropping on my driveway. I have to pick them up all the time."
Sam:  "Well, I do the best I can. I use my leaf blower to get rid of them, you've seen me out here."
Andy: "Yeah, but then your leaf blower blows your leaves over to my side, too."
Sam:  "Sorry. I'll try not to do that. Your trees drop leaves in my yard too, you know."
Andy: "Yeah, but when leaves get in my front yard it looks messy. You want to borrow my leaf vacuum? Just ask."
Sam:  "OK, maybe I'll do that."

(I may not have the exact words here, but no, I am not making this up.)

After a while of this, they settle down and start complaining about things they can agree on, like graffiti on the communal mailbox, or what the homeowner's association ought to be doing but isn't. Then they talk about the weather, each other's kids, and so on. Very neighborly.

(Sound kind of like an old married couple? I am not going to tell them that.)

This thing has been going on for the five or so years I've lived here, and apparently for much longer than that.

Anyway, back to the other day. I was doodling along, picking aphids and sickly leaves off the roses, half-listening to crows cawing, doves cooing, and Sam and Andy. Then the conversation got more interesting. The guys' voices got a little louder, and then Andy said something along the lines of, "you do that and I'll sue you."

Wait a minute.

I looked up, and Andy waved to me. "Hey, Rose!" (That's not my real name, either.) "I want you to listen to this, in case I need a witness."

Oh, gawd. Now what?

"Hold on a minute, Andy." He was still talking. "Just a sec," I said, "I can't hear you. I'm coming over there."

I was going to regret this, I just knew it.

Andy: "Sam's talking about cutting the limb off my tree, right here."
Sam:  "Well, it's dropping leaves on my driveway."
(The tree is right on the edge of the property. It's about forty feet tall and has three limbs, one of which extends about a foot over the grass on Sam's side and then curves straight up.)
Andy: "Fine. If it bothers you that much, I'll have somebody come out and trim it."
Sam:  "Oh, you don't need to pay anybody. I'll just do it."
Andy: "But I don't want you to do it! I want it done professionally so it won't kill the tree. I'll have somebody come out next week."
Sam:  "Oh, no, no. I'll do it."

(Still not making this up, honest.)

At this point, Sam's little girl, Ally, came out of the house, and started pleading. "Daddy, don't cut his tree! Daddy!"  Ally is eight years old.

Andy: "Am I going to have to call a lawyer? Rose, are you hearing this?"

"Yes," I said, trying to keep the exasperation out of my voice, "I heard it." Then I did something incredibly naive. I tried to talk some sense into them.

Me:   "Uh, I don't see what the big deal is here. Why are you guys arguing about a few leaves, anyway? What happens when the wind blows?"

Sam and Andy stared at me for a moment as if I'd just stepped out of a UFO. Then they turned back to each other and continued where they'd left off. I turned my back on them and went straight back to my garden. I pulled off some more dead leaves. I think I was a bit rough.

Did I mention I was having a bad day?

I was feeling extremely un-relaxed at this point. Angry, in fact. What if they'd actually asked for my opinion? What would I have said? A rant was taking shape in my head:

Let me see if I have this straight. People are homeless, pushing their belongings around in shopping carts, just a few miles from here, and all across the county. No, all over this country. People all over the world are starving to death and hacking each other to pieces. Children are fighting in wars.  The environment is going to h*ll in a handbasket, and we're running out of places to dump all the cr*p we buy and then throw away. My mom has a neurological disease that is destroying her body, but not her mind. She's not going to get better. Our government is corrupt. The economy is heading straight into the toilet. Young men and women are dying in a war that should never have been started, isn't going to be won, and is sucking up money we couldn't afford to spend in the first place. A display that used to be put up on a particular beach, a memorial to all those lost men and women, with symbolic headstones for every one, had to be scrapped. There wasn't enough room left for all of them. Cats and dogs and other animals, wonderful pets and companions, are breeding, suffering and dying for no reason, filling up the shelters and falling through the cracks -- and human beings aren't doing a whole lot better ... and you're arguing over a couple of f**king leaves?!

I guess it's just as well they didn't ask me.