Molon Labe

This is not a funny post. It's likely to cause me some hate mail (or hate-facebooking, I suppose). Ah well.

I am completely NOT shocked, nor even mildly surprised, about the CIA torture report. What DOES dishearten me are the variations of "This is why I don't give a fuck that we tortured terrorists" memes on social media. No, I'm not posting any examples, because I won't give credence to the idea. It disheartens me that many of the people whose opinions I value to at least some degree are willing to jump on the "it's ok to do anything to get results" bandwagon.

When you reduce a person to a label or pull an "ends to means" justification to excuse horrific brutality, have you not just proved you're no better than the enemy you're fighting? I would challenge any supporter of torture as an appropriate means to an end to read detailed descriptions of what happened in medieval torture chambers, and examine whether the rack or hot pokers are humane. Then read accounts of what happened to POWs during the Civil War or WWII or Vietnam (or, really, any other war). Torture hasn't changed much in the past few thousand years except in sophistication: in fact, as humans we've gotten BETTER at it.

Humans have gotten BETTER at breaking another human's psyche and spirit through physical and psychological pain without actually killing them. This is not an accomplishment we should be proud of as a species.

Here's the thing. I am not, at my core, a gentle person. In the words of a t-shirt I will soon own, "I am comfortable with violence."  I don't advocate peace at the expense of freedom, and, perhaps more importantly, I don't advocate standing by when someone else is attacked. As such, I'm both pro-military and pro-law enforcement in general. I get that it seems counter-intuitive to some of my really liberal values, but those who protect us are important to me. I admire those who serve because they do jobs that, by their very nature, chip away at the soul. They sacrifice immensely on our behalf. There are certain situations, both personal and as a member of humanity, in which violent response is the only available answer. I understand many will disagree with my position: I'm ok with that. The point of writing this isn't to advocate for my ethics: it's to give you a framework for what I'm about to say.

The moment you endorse the torture of another human being, even if you're not doing the torture yourself, is the moment you choose to kill a piece of your own humanity. Maybe it's just a little piece. Maybe you have humanity to spare. Maybe you truly feel justified that your response is fair retribution. Let me be painfully clear:

If you think it heinous and depraved for the ENEMY to shock American prisoners' genitals with electrodes, to repeatedly drown and revive them, to pull fingernails out, to refuse food and water and sleep, to force them to stand for days on end in joint-breaking positions, but you think it's acceptable for US to do so under the fallacy of getting "information," you have failed your argument. 

I don't agree with the Abrahamic religions' idea that everyone, even the most evil, have some bit of good to nurture. There is a level of depravity and cruelty in the world that, to my mind, deserves no quarter. No second chances to cause additional damage. I don't have a problem with the death that comes with war. It's part of war. I don't have a problem with the death penalty for certain levels of criminals. I don't have an issue with carrying guns or defending ourselves from violence done upon us. But if death is the response, it needs to be a clean, humane death.

There are people who are the equivalent of rabid dogs attacking individuals and society. The response to a rabid dog is NOT to become rabid yourself.  I think inflicting death upon another soul, taking someone or something's life, is already a serious and soul-damaging act. Inflicting pain because the judgement is made that the pain is "deserved" is both unjust and creates a dark, unclean space in the spirit.

I work, hard to cultivate compassion and empathy for others. Yes, this is a direct countermeasure to my ability to consider violence as an option. The better I am at seeing both sides of a situation, the more likely I am to be able to DE-escalate.  Empathy leads to finding a point of common ground, which can lead to a point of understanding between two otherwise contentious parties. Empathy leads to compassion for others' situations, and maybe, just maybe, empathy and compassion can provide a single moment for a person to step back and look without judgement. Imagine that: a break in the cycle of "you hurt me, so I'm going to do worse to you and yours."

Every attempt toward compassion is worthwhile. Every moment of empathy achieved is a step toward making your life more positive. And when it fails, as it most definitely will fail on many occasions, there is a choice. Choose to keep trying, or to give in to the negative, vengeful, destructive side. It's HARD to look at a situation from the other party's point of view.  But in my opinion the work is worth the effort, the failures, and the frustration, both personally and in hopes that I can make a little corner of my own universe a little less dark.

I'm not giving up my empathy and compassion to anyone, especially not to propaganda and a false sense of vengeance perpetrated by misinforming social media garbage.

Molon Labe. 

The Desolate One: Ephelba and Mr. Bill's Spawn

As it turns out, poor Samael the Starbucks Greeting Demon is unable to withstand the violent changes in Minnesota weather. Slowly but surely, he's following in Mom's (the Wicked Witch, of course) damp footsteps as we hover around 32 degrees today.

Clearly, the expression on his ever-shrinking face is that of his father, Mr. Bill.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about... Samael The Desolate One serves coffee at my Starbucks.

But not for long. I imagine he has that tiny evil voice similar to the Halloween demon in Buffy, right before she stomps his tiny ass.

Help Me! I'm melting...oh NOOOOOO.

Townhome Twits Episode IV: Bitch Wars

Read the first couple Townhome Twits here: Sneaky Peeping, here: Snow White, and here: Eyeore.

Our place has excessively limited parking. Everyone gets a one-car garage and two assigned spaces. Visitor parking isn't supposed to be used for resident cars, which means for people like Husband (who currently owns one winter car and two fun cars in addition to the truck and my mustang) we are always fanaggling parking with neighbors.

Directly in front of our house we have one spot. The spot next to ours is Eyeore's, who rents it out to the neighbor across the way and down two places. I'm beginning to think I need to draw a damn map, but my skill with MSPaint is laughable. 

This would be the lady who has been a pain in our collective asses since we moved in eight years ago. She and her three barky little ankle biting dogs (and they are, indeed, biters...my ankles can attest) run the complex. Anyway, said neighbor we've called the Bitch since we moved in. Why? Well, the first winter we lived here there was a LOT of snow. The snow removal dudes clear a two-foot wide path where they guess our sidewalk should be, and that winter the snowbanks on either side of the walking path were pretty high. The Bitch's daughter kept parking her car in such a way that she blocked half of our sidewalk. I put a note on the car (not knowing it was Bitch's daughter's car: thinking it was a visitor, since it wasn't Eyeore's) asking please park appropriately so the sidewalk isn't blocked, and PS there's visitor parking around the corner.

This woman knocked on our door about twenty minutes later, screamed at me incoherently while waving an old parking map, and walked away without giving me any chance to respond. I'm not kidding: to this day I think she was screamumbling something about being allowed to park there and how DARE I harass her daughter. But she could've been saying something about doughnuts or dogs: she seemed drunk. After that she became the Whirlwind Bitch: swooping in to snark and bitch about parking and running away before anyone can respond.

She did so again last winter while Husband was in the wheelchair and had home-health nurses and PT people coming to the house. Have I mentioned when the association repaved the parking lot they didn't bother to line and number the assigned parking? Yeah. They didn't (because they're cheap assholes), so there's NO WAY for a non-resident to know not to park in assigned parking.

This time, however, I yelled back at her as she tried to escape.: "I'm SO TERRIBLY FUCKING SORRY that my WHEELCHAIRBOUND HUSBAND'S health aids don't know where to park and you can fuck off since they're here for 1/2 hour a couple times a week when no-one else is home. Oh, and please can you tell your asshole cougarized boyfriend with the very large "my penis is huge, really" truck to park straight so I can get my husband's chair out of our car without scratching anything? Thanks."

She hasn't been back since.

Yes Medusa, my hair IS trying to kill me (or: You won't like it when it's ANGRY)

The past few days have been a rollercoaster. Did you know I'm horridly susceptible to motion sickness? I wonder if I can get a prescription for an emotional-Dramamine-patch...

So, the highs and lows in my fucked up universe in a 72 hour period:

• Had enough frequent flier miles to visit one of my most favoritest people on the planet, EVER SO CONVENIENTLY located in one of my most favoritest areas of the planet. And so I'm running away for a weekend in March to Seattle. "woohoo" does not cover the furiously excited tickle in my belly while I anticipate.

• A friend I haven't spoken with (due to miss-meshing schedules, not any nefarious doings) somehow butt-dialed me and left a 3 minute long "message," in which I listened to spirited conversation between her and her 3 year old daughter. I am monumentally entertained.

• Spent many tear-filled (my fucking eyeballs HURT, and I need a goddamned icepack) hours in emotional-stickymess-laden Arguments of Unusual Size. That was just...fucking FABULOUS. Really. Particularly the remnants that linger today. Sigh. There are times I think shaving my head and joining a remote mountain monastery would be a boon to my sanity.

• Oh, and said hair (which would be shaved off by now had I not just spent more than I normally would on myself to have a lovely friend attempt to tame it) tried to CHOKE me to death this morning. A pre-sneeze gasp resulted in the hair attempting to wreak revenge (presumably for the abuse I paid for on Saturday morning when my fabulous stylist fixed the caterpillars above my swollen eyeballs AND chemicalized the unruly mop on my head).  Near-death gagging accomplished by snaking its way, all Medusa-like, down my throat.

Since it's apparently difficult to sneeze AND choke to death, my sinuses gave up. So, the cure for the impending allergy season is Medusa hair? Hmm...I'm sure there are a multitude of spit-or-swallow jokes to be made there, but frankly I'm still busy coughing.

Home Again. Jiggy.

Husband was released from prison the hospital yesterday: 2 months to the date since the drunk asshole in a borrowed SUV with SHITTY INSURANCE plowed into the motorcycle...yeah, I'm not bitter at all. But he's home, he's allowed to start working with crutches, and he managed it nearly three weeks earlier than we'd originally thought.

AND he's home for our 9th anniversary, which is (of course) Halloween.

My sister EVER so kindly bought him a hideous lovely brass bell, the kind you see on a dry cleaner's counter. To be helpful, I'm sure. So he can get my attention (intubation is HELL on vocal cords...he's been significantly lower-volumed since the accident) if I'm upstairs and he's in the living room.

Because she hates me. And wants revenge for my snarky comments about my nephew's night-owl tendencies being karma for HER having days and nights mixed up as a baby. I was four...I remember. "But she's helpful," you may say... well...I would agree except for the evil glee in her eye. I suppose that could be the glassy Han-won't-let-me-sleep effect, but I doubt it. Evil glee all the way.

Unfortunately, the bell was lost.

MORE unfortunately...that fucking thing is lost SOMEWHERE IN MY TRUCK.

That's right...the goddamn "help me now" bell randomly dings from the dog-fur-filled-recesses of my truck, and I can't find it.

On the bright side, neither can Husband.

Mwahahahaha.

Indeed, you WON'T like me when I'm angry.

The boys are pissed of this week.

I can tell. The carpet by the upstairs bathroom has a brand-new-pee-spot EVERY GODDAMN NIGHT.

They're so mad, they're not even peeing on the tile.

Do you have any idea how much urine a 100 or 145 pound dog carries?

A. Lot. Sigh.



I may be the pee devil, but I'm cute. And currently POSSESSED.


And I'm not sure which one did it. All I know is they BOTH hide when I get home.



I don't know who you're yelling at, but it wasn't ME.

 UPDATED: I'd still rather deal with pee than eyeballs. That should've been the title of this post.

Vengeful Turkey

I come from a large extended family: my mom's the oldest of eight, dad's the oldest of seven. Holidays at my grandma Kit's house (mom's side) are crazy: cousins, animals, aunts and uncles all running haywire. Stories are told and retold, children are in and out of the house all day followed by the dogs, cats are hiding in terror, and horses are hitched up for rounds of sleigh rides. It's all loud insanity and it's wonderful.

When I was about five my grandparents lived on a large farm in northern Minnesota, outside of Cloquet. It was more than a hobby farm, less than a farm-for-a-living spread. After all, they had seven kids still at home (four of them teenage boys) to feed so anything they could supply from the farm was much more cost effective for a second grade teacher and a heavy equipment driver for the county. In addition to the herd of horses, cats and dogs for fun, I remember cows, chickens, goats, sheep, guinea hens, and turkeys. There were probably other random animals from time to time...I know one of my aunts had a pet raccoon for a while.

One turkey in particular took an instant disliking to my small five-year-old form. He decided I was a blonde devil and for months I couldn't walk near the barn without him attacking. In case you didn't know, 25lb turkeys fully live and loaded have VERY STRONG wings: he'd extend them out to each side and run at me, screeching and beating his wings at me until I was cornered against the barn. I loathed that stupid bird. My aunt Elyse, only seven years older than me, had to beat him away from me with a big stick. That bastard gave me nightmares every time I stayed at Grandmas for the entire summer.

Thanksgiving came and we were all sitting around the large kitchen table. It was a cacaphony of children and adults all talking at once, passing food, slipping treats to the dogs under the table, and laughing. I, being the oldest (and therefore exalted) grandchild, sat next to my Grandpa, a big, gruff man who was really a big softie with the grandkids. He watched me take a big bite of turkey and waited until I swallowed. Then he told me that was the big nasty tom from the barn. To this day I think he was telling me just to see how I'd react, being a girl mostly sheltered from the more unpleasant farm duties (we never went there on butchering day after the chicken incident).

I cheered and asked for more.