Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘Pecking order’

Part IV: The jig is up

Posted in Random, tagged , , on January 13, 2010| 1 Comment »

SHE SAID

During my six-month sentence, I dated a cowboy, a lawyer, an air conditioning repairman, a Hunter Army Air Field pilot, a hotel owner, two photographers and a police officer. There may have been others. (Lest you think I was ‘ho-ing it up, these were not those kind of dates.) I just went out with whoever asked. If it wasn’t fun, we didn’t go out again. It was kind of nice to be free.

It was also unfulfilling. After a night line-dancing at Stetson’s, a country bar (yes, bring on the jokes), I wrote this line in my journal: “Sometimes boys are just so yucky.”

HE SAID

I will make some comments later about some of these lads. Much to their dismay, we meet later on.

SHE SAID

The revelation finally came at a ZZ Top concert Sept. 27, 1994. I was there with the air conditioning repairman. I thought to myself, “Self, I would rather be at the dump with Eddie than here with this dude.” The repairman and I left, immediately had the “It’s not you; it’s me” talk, and then I dialed the hotline to Eddie. And that was that.

HE SAID

When Beth flashed the bat signal, I remember thinking “It’s about damn time!” However, I said “I’ll be right over.”

Beth and I did many fun things, even line dance (I got skills, yo!), once we got together. Bowling was one of those things (she is way better than I am). It just so happens that this was one of AC Man’s favorite hangouts. I did not call him AC Man, though. I called him Lat Man. “Why?” you may ask. This guy postured around the bowling alley as if he could not possibly put his arms to his sides. But it is hard to parade around when you’re only as tall as the person’s chest. He never made any moves toward Beth while I was there, so everything was cool. The kid was a good bowler, though.

I did not like the police officer at all. He was a slime ball. I think he knew I did not like him ’cause Beth and I went dancing one day and ended up at the  same place that he was. He skedaddled. He seemed like the kind of guy who liked to say he was a cop so that he could get the girls.

SHE SAID

But none of them mattered anymore. Three months later, we were engaged.

Up next: Happily ever after

Read Full Post »

“Columbine”

Posted in Random, tagged , , , , , , , , , on December 21, 2009| 13 Comments »

I rarely read for fun anymore because I don’t have time. People, Newsweek and Entertainment Weekly are my only sources of reading enjoyment. Sad, I know.

While I was in Barnes & Noble buying a book for research, I decided to buy “Columbine” by Dave Cullen because I had heard so many good things about it. I devoured it in less than 24 hours (kind of a long time for me, actually, but I had two vocal distractions and a “Survivor” finale to watch).

It is an impressively researched and incredibly interesting book. I remember the shootings, but was, like most, misled by erroneous and perpetuated media accounts into believing Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were outcasts who were being bullied. Instead, Cullen makes clear, they often did the bullying, and they had few close friends by choice. At least that was Eric’s choice. He was a true psychopath, the clinical definition. Dylan was depressed, lonely and incredibly shy.

One of the concepts I teach is crisis communication. The Jefferson County sheriff and his office did almost everything wrong. Repeatedly. But, if nothing else, communicators can learn from their mistakes.

The overall feeling I have after reading the book is sadness — sadness for the victims and their families, of course, but they have long had support in their recovery and grief. I feel the most sadness for Tom and Sue Klebold and Wayne and Kathy Harris. It is easy to point the finger of “bad parenting” at them, but there is no “if/then” manual for parents. You have to do the best you can. It is hard to distinguish the difference between warning signs and normal teenage angst. And no one wants to think his/her child is a psychopath. They also lost their children on April 20, 1999, but their children were killers, which adds another layer of pain. They also lost community support and relationships. They were vilified unjustly.

In general, the book is a solid piece of reporting. I do wonder why he chose to focus on the stories of a few of the victims, but not all. Some are not even mentioned. Also, Cullen could have used a diagram of the building and images of the people he discusses, but perhaps he thought the images would sensationalize the story even more than it has been. But I wanted to be able to visualize whom he was discussing. I turned to the Internet, of course. The bullying myth is still rampant in the comments on the videos. I wanted to respond to all of them. Sigh. Maybe word will get around thanks to Cullen.

Now I’m off to play with the kids, and hope that one of them does not grow up to be infamous.

Read Full Post »

Cannibalism in action

Posted in Chickens, tagged , , , , , , on December 4, 2009| 1 Comment »

Not only does Reggie not care that Trish has been hanging out with him on the front porch, but he lets her eat his food. This was the scene this morning:

Don't eat that!

However, that cat food is probably made of … chicken. Gross.

Read Full Post »

For rent

Posted in Grammar, etc., tagged , , on October 23, 2009| Leave a Comment »

When I first drove by this sign, I thought it said, “Blog for Rent.” But that didn’t make sense. In addition to the obvious question of why someone would want to rent a blog, and also why someone would print a sign to advertise such a transaction, it is Pooler. I doubt most people have considered the Internet as a marketplace. Strong words, I know, but I don’t see much evidence of advanced business acumen in this stretch of road. Look at this:

Inviting, no? I think the flags really draw people in, don’t you? (more…)

Read Full Post »

Never Forever 21

Posted in Random, tagged , , on October 10, 2009| 1 Comment »

I first heard about the store Forever 21 from a student in one of my classes a couple of weeks ago. That same week, a graduate student in another class was wearing a cute outfit and she said she got it at Forever 21. I was at the mall yesterday, so I went in.

Up until that point, I had never felt particularly old. True, the occasional “Diff’rent Strokes” joke did fall flat in class, but I could live with that. But surrounded by St. Vincent’s students and hoochie clothes, I knew I was way out of my element. I felt like Jimmy Stewart in “Vertigo.”

How I felt at Forever 21

How I felt at Forever 21

My wrinkles and I left immediately, never to return.

Read Full Post »

Let’s talk about Ed

Posted in Random, tagged , , , on September 26, 2009| 2 Comments »

My mother always said, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, then I want to hear it.” No, she didn’t say that. But I do.

My friend Ed is stunted. He has lived his life without watching important, life-changing movies. Movies such as “Rear Window,” “Napoleon Dynamite” “Blair Witch Project,” “Seven,” “To Kill a Mockingbird,” anything Bond, anything with Clint Eastwood, any horror movie, etc. What stopped me in mid sentence tonight was his revelation that he has not seen “Tommy Boy.” Oh the shame.

To harass him further, I made him go through AFI’s list of the top 100 movies. Ed had not seen 38 of the first 50, so I had to stop. He was suitably heckled by the rest of the people over for Human Trish’s birthday, yet claims he would do better with the bottom 50. Sure, Ed.

Read Full Post »

Why?

Posted in Chickens, tagged , , , , , , , on September 20, 2009| 1 Comment »

I woke up one morning and wanted chickens. I don’t know why. I just did. I mentioned it to my long-suffering husband Eddie, who said, “You’re kidding, right?”

I gave it a week. I still wanted chickens. So I asked Eddie to make a coop (he’s handy). He ignored me. I think he thought I would forget about it. I didn’t.

I went to a feed store and took a picture of a coop. I researched coop designs. I drew the plan and gave it to Eddie. He sighed and went into the garage.

The coop is a fancy, two-story affair with a covered run. The back is chicken wire and we put it up against one of our sunroom windows so that we could check on the chickens and egg production from the comfort of our home.

The finished product

I made friends at the feed store. They called me when a new batch of chicks arrived. Eddie and I picked out two Araucanas, a Rhode Island Red and a Sex Link. I named them Heidi, Terri, Trish and Linda after four good friends.

All was well for almost a month. We kept them inside until it was time for them to move into the coop.

The weekend after the big move-in, we went out of town and left the neighbor girl in charge of checking on them. Her dad called us on Saturday night to report there had been a mishap.

We returned home to find an unpleasant scene. Only Trish was still alive. We called her namesake. Human Trish said, “Of course she was the smartest one.” Human Terri was very sad. Human Heidi wanted a forensics expert called in. Human Linda couldn’t be reached for comment at the time.

We had a dilemma: We didn’t want Trish to be lonely, but we couldn’t add an adult chicken in with her, or more chicks because of pecking order issues. We decided to wait until she was full-grown, then add a friend.


Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts