We are Siamese, if you please...
Aug. 13th, 2003 08:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ebonlockI nearly caved in yesterday and purchased a lithograph of Si and Am, the two Siamese kitties from "Lady and the Tramp". Yes, we've got a house full of black cat stuff and now I feel the disturbing urge to add Siamese stuff. Does this put me a step closer to "cat lady" status, or is it just the latest harmless obsession?
Speaking of harmless obsessions, I know folks are all posting their generated haikus at the moment, but somehow I just didn't feel mine was quite good enough, so instead I'll post something that appealed to me greatly:
I blame the following quote for this:
"I'd say the most sacred acting experience I ever had was at the top of Mt. Ruepahu, with Elijah Wood in my arms," Astin said in an interview at the recent Comic-Con International, referring to the New Zealand volcano that doubled as J.R.R. Tolkien's Mt. Doom.
I certainly wouldn't mind having me a sacred experience like that sometime...
*sigh*
Anyway, lessee, I was alarmingly productive at work yesterday, despite our ongoing network issues. It was kinda funny to see our IT guy stuck in the middle of our circle of cubes until he could reassure us that we weren't going to lose our connection again. After about ten minutes we finally let him leave, but after an afternoon of "Ok, I've got a connection...oh wait, now it's gone." can you blame us?
Beyond that I zoomed home to spend some time with the kitties and get a tiny bit of housework done, then I dubbed our music for that night, got changed and we took off for the Cupertino Senior Center performance. It was our first time and a fairly large group of folks had turned out for their dinner and entertainment night. The group was entirely made up of older Persian folks, some of whom had only a shakey grasp on the English language, but they certainly did make us feel welcome. We hung out "backstage" with Khajoula and Jemerah (sp?) before the show and their "body guard" a very nice fellow who handled our music issues for us. We all giggled and joked and made each other a little less nervous. It's funny but even in as relaxed a setting as it was, there were still some definite nerves. Though I have noticed that my own tension tends to be in an inverse relationship to that of Aelf's. If she's keyed up and terrified I tend to calm down in an effort too soothe her a bit.
I remember looking around at the room we were in and our stuff tossed between folded up tables and stacked chairs in the storage area, and thinking "Ahh, the glamour of bellydance". Next time we're determined to take a picture and lable it just that. We went on last and I think we did pretty well. I'm reserving judgement until I see the actual video evidence, but oh my god the space. Alyne wasn't kidding when she said it was the perfect dance space. Plenty of room, nice hardwood floors, huge ceilings. I mean we could probably easily fit all four members of Troupe Samiyah dancing together in there without the slightest difficulty. Aelf was smashing (as usual), and I had to coo over her regroups backstage. I've never seen such smooth ones in my life! And we got some very nice applause for which we felt pretty good. Afterwards we hung out a bit and Aelf got pulled out on the dance floor by a cute little old lady to dance with her.
It was, well in a word, fun. I think we're going to try to turn this into a monthly thing.
Aside from that we watched a couple of the dance sequences from the movie Satin Rouge (which arrived yesterday, yay!) and were fascinated by what we saw. I'm totally unfamiliar with Tunisian cabaret and what goes on in such places, and it was amazing to watch. The filmmaker is also a trained dancer so she really caught the spirit, mood, and beauty of the dance. It wasn't so much technical perfection as this incredible love of movement and music. The joy and passion of these women was just stunning to see, and watching the main character come out of her shell to wow 'em in the club was amazing. Can't wait to actually get to sit down and see the whole thing.
Was tempted to let Pye stay in my room last night, but I needed *sleep* and doubted I'd get it with him in there. If I can start leaving my window open a crack, that can change, and I may try him out with it this weekend to see how it goes. I don't think he'll do such a "trauma kitty" routine in the mornings if he gets some serious monkey time at night. It's hard for him to be so isolated most of the day, he's really a social animal and it's no wonder he spends a lot of his time desperately mewling. I hope Kage can learn to tolerate him, he needs the interaction.
And on the subject of Pye, I'm keeping my eyes open for a cat tree/condo, I'm looking for something very vertical, but with a little hidey-hole that he can crawl into. If anyone knows of a good place to find a fairly inexpensive one I'm all ears.
Aside from that I slept very poorly last night (maybe got 5 hours tops) and am subsisting on caffeine today. So if I respond to anyone in a nonsensical manner please understand that it's the sleep dep talking. But tonight I sleep!
Oh and this little tidbit caught my eye this morning, many thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
odogoddess for pointing it out to me:
Seasonale: Fooling Mother Nature
New birth control pill is medicine for the sake of convenience
While many women would like to be rid of the inconvenience of periods, should it be part of medicine’s job to help women time their births to fit a busy schedule or to get rid of a messy and sometimes painful monthly experience?
Like it or not, the answer seems clear: Say goodbye to menstruation.
"Like it or not"? What the fuck is up with that? The more I read this piece the more pissed off I got, and I'll admit when I noted that it was written by a man my first response was, "Typical". Yeah you know what, I'm betting if he had to basically write off an entire week of each month because he knew he was going to be a physical basket case he'd be a helluva lot less likely to dismiss the importance of this drug. And that's just the women who don't have to go through an additional week of PMS with mood swings, bloating, cramping, and general discomfort.
You ask any woman out there if she'd trade 12 weeks of pain for 4 and I'm guessing 99.9% would happily sign up for that. I'm betting that percentage would hold up with most men as well. And you know what? If this sucker gets approved by the FDA I will be one of the first women in line to receive it. And not because a period can be "messy" or "inconvenient", but because they can be excruciating and incapacitating, and the concept of life without them every month sounds about as close to perfect bliss as I could hope for. The sheer freedom of it, is almost beyond imagining.
Here endeth the rant.
Speaking of harmless obsessions, I know folks are all posting their generated haikus at the moment, but somehow I just didn't feel mine was quite good enough, so instead I'll post something that appealed to me greatly:
I blame the following quote for this:
"I'd say the most sacred acting experience I ever had was at the top of Mt. Ruepahu, with Elijah Wood in my arms," Astin said in an interview at the recent Comic-Con International, referring to the New Zealand volcano that doubled as J.R.R. Tolkien's Mt. Doom.
I certainly wouldn't mind having me a sacred experience like that sometime...
*sigh*
Anyway, lessee, I was alarmingly productive at work yesterday, despite our ongoing network issues. It was kinda funny to see our IT guy stuck in the middle of our circle of cubes until he could reassure us that we weren't going to lose our connection again. After about ten minutes we finally let him leave, but after an afternoon of "Ok, I've got a connection...oh wait, now it's gone." can you blame us?
Beyond that I zoomed home to spend some time with the kitties and get a tiny bit of housework done, then I dubbed our music for that night, got changed and we took off for the Cupertino Senior Center performance. It was our first time and a fairly large group of folks had turned out for their dinner and entertainment night. The group was entirely made up of older Persian folks, some of whom had only a shakey grasp on the English language, but they certainly did make us feel welcome. We hung out "backstage" with Khajoula and Jemerah (sp?) before the show and their "body guard" a very nice fellow who handled our music issues for us. We all giggled and joked and made each other a little less nervous. It's funny but even in as relaxed a setting as it was, there were still some definite nerves. Though I have noticed that my own tension tends to be in an inverse relationship to that of Aelf's. If she's keyed up and terrified I tend to calm down in an effort too soothe her a bit.
I remember looking around at the room we were in and our stuff tossed between folded up tables and stacked chairs in the storage area, and thinking "Ahh, the glamour of bellydance". Next time we're determined to take a picture and lable it just that. We went on last and I think we did pretty well. I'm reserving judgement until I see the actual video evidence, but oh my god the space. Alyne wasn't kidding when she said it was the perfect dance space. Plenty of room, nice hardwood floors, huge ceilings. I mean we could probably easily fit all four members of Troupe Samiyah dancing together in there without the slightest difficulty. Aelf was smashing (as usual), and I had to coo over her regroups backstage. I've never seen such smooth ones in my life! And we got some very nice applause for which we felt pretty good. Afterwards we hung out a bit and Aelf got pulled out on the dance floor by a cute little old lady to dance with her.
It was, well in a word, fun. I think we're going to try to turn this into a monthly thing.
Aside from that we watched a couple of the dance sequences from the movie Satin Rouge (which arrived yesterday, yay!) and were fascinated by what we saw. I'm totally unfamiliar with Tunisian cabaret and what goes on in such places, and it was amazing to watch. The filmmaker is also a trained dancer so she really caught the spirit, mood, and beauty of the dance. It wasn't so much technical perfection as this incredible love of movement and music. The joy and passion of these women was just stunning to see, and watching the main character come out of her shell to wow 'em in the club was amazing. Can't wait to actually get to sit down and see the whole thing.
Was tempted to let Pye stay in my room last night, but I needed *sleep* and doubted I'd get it with him in there. If I can start leaving my window open a crack, that can change, and I may try him out with it this weekend to see how it goes. I don't think he'll do such a "trauma kitty" routine in the mornings if he gets some serious monkey time at night. It's hard for him to be so isolated most of the day, he's really a social animal and it's no wonder he spends a lot of his time desperately mewling. I hope Kage can learn to tolerate him, he needs the interaction.
And on the subject of Pye, I'm keeping my eyes open for a cat tree/condo, I'm looking for something very vertical, but with a little hidey-hole that he can crawl into. If anyone knows of a good place to find a fairly inexpensive one I'm all ears.
Aside from that I slept very poorly last night (maybe got 5 hours tops) and am subsisting on caffeine today. So if I respond to anyone in a nonsensical manner please understand that it's the sleep dep talking. But tonight I sleep!
Oh and this little tidbit caught my eye this morning, many thanks to
odogoddess for pointing it out to me:Seasonale: Fooling Mother Nature
New birth control pill is medicine for the sake of convenience
While many women would like to be rid of the inconvenience of periods, should it be part of medicine’s job to help women time their births to fit a busy schedule or to get rid of a messy and sometimes painful monthly experience?
Like it or not, the answer seems clear: Say goodbye to menstruation.
"Like it or not"? What the fuck is up with that? The more I read this piece the more pissed off I got, and I'll admit when I noted that it was written by a man my first response was, "Typical". Yeah you know what, I'm betting if he had to basically write off an entire week of each month because he knew he was going to be a physical basket case he'd be a helluva lot less likely to dismiss the importance of this drug. And that's just the women who don't have to go through an additional week of PMS with mood swings, bloating, cramping, and general discomfort.
You ask any woman out there if she'd trade 12 weeks of pain for 4 and I'm guessing 99.9% would happily sign up for that. I'm betting that percentage would hold up with most men as well. And you know what? If this sucker gets approved by the FDA I will be one of the first women in line to receive it. And not because a period can be "messy" or "inconvenient", but because they can be excruciating and incapacitating, and the concept of life without them every month sounds about as close to perfect bliss as I could hope for. The sheer freedom of it, is almost beyond imagining.
Here endeth the rant.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Re: Warning: Rant to follow
Date: 2003-08-13 11:14 am (UTC)This definitely depends on the experience. My aunt's first child was a necessary c-section (the baby would have been breech), and she was up and moving around a few days later. She was so happy with her recovery that she was disappointed when her second child actually turned about two weeks before the due date, and her doctor refused to do a c-section.
Also, with the abortion thing, I think the father's wishes should at least be considered, assuming the sex was consensual. Ultimately, the woman *does* have the right to make the final decision, but it's hardly fair to ignore his feelings in the matter. Differing opinion, perhaps. :)
Re: Warning: Rant to follow
Date: 2003-08-13 11:22 am (UTC)And I am torn on the other point on the father's wishes being considered in abortion. Yes, I think that he should at least have a right to know and express his opinion, but ultimately I think it has to be the mother's decision. She is the one who has to go through it all after all, and if they split then she most likely will be the one left with a child to raise. And if she didn't want the child to begin with then I shudder to think what the childs life would be like. It's such a touchy issue.
And I welcome differing opinions. Intelligent debate is a wonderful thing.