What is it doing there

The non-related things I find in specific categories continuously amaze me.
In looking for pictures of bike accidents, which I might add are more likely to make me quit biking than actually having had an accident, I ran across this in my google search for "bicycle accidents"

See the picture?

How about now?

I was pleased to find this picture of G. W. Bush's face all chewed up. At least that's more like it.
But honestly what does that first picture have to do with a bike accident. Is this what our education scare tactics have come down to? Really lazy efforts? Where have such works of art as: "Any Time is Train Time", "Blood on the highway" or "Reefer madness" gone. Hey at least they required a modicum of creativity. What do they show kids these days I wonder. Since I'm here, I'll look. Where are high impact ones? What's with all this soft touch? ADVANCING VEHICLE SAFETY: THE AUTO INSURERS' COMMITMENT PLEASE.

Well if you as board as I am right now, go ahead and google

battered-dipped and fried

If this week had been any indication of our health, you'd think R and I were ripped.
But dah'ling the only ripped we are is on whiskey.

We roller bladed over to a Gym and signed up for memberships. Mostly so we could swim (and quite a sweet set up. Sauna, steam room, and pool on the 4th floor with a nice view of the city). I'm going to (once a trainer calls me) learn how to use all that equipment and sign up for yoga and maybe some kick boxing. So we rolerbladed back home. Thursday we went out to look for (and ended up buying) a bike for R. Saturday he biked over to the gym and I went biking with my sister. Sunday and Monday we biked to the grocery store. On the way there I got run down by a bike that came from NOWHERE.
"Your Honor, It was most definitely NOT my fault. I looked behind me, past R who was following at a safe distance, slowed for the intersection, looked for cross traffic and began to turn when BAM!"

True I had given no indication I was turning...but if you are biking up past someone you are supposed to say..."On your right/left" So me-crash-bounce-skid-intersection. I look up from my napping place on the asphalt and see that the wrecking ball that hit me was a guy on a bike who was not only uninjured but upright and biking back towards me. At which point I realized happily that my glasses had not fallen off. The pair biking (2 guys) made sure I was okay. "I'm so sorry, I came out of nowhere, are you all right?" Shaken and sore I limp to the curb as a convention of cars had now arrived to humiliate me some more. As I assured the crowd I was fine and one of the evil bikers helped me put my chain back on. Aside form a hip/thigh bruise and an upper inner arm road rash I decided I was fine enough to go on to the store. I told R. I was pleased I had managed not to let my head hit the ground. R said he was very proud of me not trying to start a fight.
Me: although it really was more their fault than any of mine, they were nice enough and since I was shaken up and there were two of them...I think they could have taken me.
R: That's never stopped you before

Today aside from big 'ol shiner on my thigh and the lovely patch on my arm, that continuously weeps for it's missing skin, I have tender bruises showing up all over the place. Inner calf right leg, left wrist bone, back and shoulder left side, right foot, and still have sore muscles all over the place

Exceeding 90 degrees but less than 180

You want me to write huh?
Attempt #4 in 2 days.

Well currently I don’t know what to say…So I’ll be obtuse. Ha, I usually am by virtue of one definition or the other. I think even that was obtuse.

But the thing weighing on my mind is the thing I can’t even imagine.
How do you make a decision like that? Something you know want –vs- the practicality of timing. Fear of: regret –vs- regret.
But it’s not even just that. There is so much more and this is where my head starts to swim like its practicing for the English Channel.
There is practicality, the ideal situation, and timing: there is stigma and spirituality and desire. Not to mention selfishness, selflessness, Utilitarian, Egalitarian, and who decides what outweighs everything else.

Yeah, That’s what you want to hear. Like you needed someone to reinforce what you already knew.

You know how I say everyone’s biggest-emotional-whatever is equal to everyone else’s. I still firmly believe that…but
I consider what I have to compare. What even comes close and it’s not the same. Maybe it’s because there are additional factors. I don’t know. I think all I can bring is living in Portland. Something I knew I wanted but still had to make a choice about. Something that involved something I loved, someone I loved, something I hoped for. Not being able to have it all. Leaving a lover, leaving a love: losing a love, losing a lover. And none of it worked out for anything. As I said, maybe there is a flaw to my theory.

Well, I’m gonna call you here in a bit. So I’ll just leave this as it is. You’ll read it later and we’ll have either already discussed it, or something to come will make me feel like an ass for sending it.

Just remember. I’m obtuse
1 a : not pointed or acute : BLUNT
b (1) of an angle : rounded at the free end
2 a : lacking sharpness or quickness of sensibility or intellect : INSENSITIVE, STUPID
b : difficult to comprehend : not clear or precise in thought or expression

pick one

Love
Perdita the obtuse


But the poor little flower can't help it.

Honky

R and I rollerblading. I'm really going along cause there is a Mexican place near by that smells of grilled meat. He's still kinda new at the blading thing. He was sweet enough to buy a pair last spring when I kept trying to get him to go with me. So we are very careful as we make our way the (eternity which is only) 11 blocks. We take this side street that is a short cut away from some traffic. Today, not so much so and we wait out turn as we will have to be in the street for at least half of the way since there is no sidewalk. We duck into open parallel parking places to let cars pass. A slow moving moving-van is coming so I head off not the next open slot, slow moving R is right behind me. The van Honks at him. As if there were somewhere other that where he was already headed to that he could go. He speeds up and swings in beside me and I begin to rant about the rudeness and how they were in such a hurry to stop, as they get out not 3 yards from where we had parked so they could pass.
Me: Oh, brilliant! Yes I can see why you couldn't wait.
R: hush
Me: louder Well that was rude.
Car honks because the truck has blocked the st. and a line of cars has begun to collect at either end of the street.
Fat impatient driver who honked because the rollerbladers were in his way shouts "Christ! Relax. Wull Gim'me a min here"
Me: having skated past I slow and turn back No WAY! It's okay for YOU to honk at a rollerblader but when you ACTUALLY block the street no one is allowed to honk at you?!

It's confrontations like this that reinforce it when R says
I use to think it would be something I said that would get me killed, now I think chances are better it will be something you said.

Indigestible words

Spring storms send debris swirling down the curbside to the sewer grates. As if this city is so dirty they have to come in full force. Rolling through one after another. Giving immovable cars the only bath they get. Rinsing off the construction dust, matting pamphlets to the windshield, melting notes down the driver side door. The words cling to the handle desperate to be important as the fiber that conveys them disintegrate towards the drains.
Still the rain comes, disillusioning and confusing
Advertisements, notes and love letters
"Find the one-lose the weight-call me-The asshole who can't park"
running down the gutter to the sewers till swallowing lies, accusations, unknown loves and confessions, back in my apartment, the toilet belches with indigestion.

Los Bandidos Pequenos

We went to a White Sox game Saturday. A friend of mine bought 4 tickets fundraising for his little league but couldn’t use them. So we ended up sitting with a bunch of children. Yippee! R discovered one of them was using my name when, while I was gone, he thought a parent was reprimanding him telling him to sit still next to me.
The home team lost but I was waiting for something else anyway. I had heard that Saturday nights they do an amazing fireworks display. Yes indeed they do. Even though we lost, to my delight, they still shot off the fireworks. Set to truncated versions of popular songs, it’s like the fourth of July.

Happily we walked back to the crowded, very crowded, L. R was pressed between me and some dirty little punks. It was as if they couldn’t decide if they were punks (green hair and all) or hippies. Unwashed hair and layers of sweat and dying skin pressed R near and nearer to me. That didn’t really help since the heat of the crowd encouraged the rank smells to rise and fall like a rollercoaster. I was nearer the psycho girl who had apparently ingratiated herself on some guy. Well I actually doubt that he cared, as she was pretty enough to approach strangers, until she revealed herself as crazy. I put together, as I bumped and jostled with the rest of the noise and smell, that her ex was on the train and she had been on one end or the other of a restraining order. He spoke in calming tones as she vented confiding that she wouldn’t be happy till she was dancing on his grave, and he better get off the train if he knew what was good for him. Shortly thereafter a guy got off the train, but as he did he made a point of saying, over my head to someone in her general direction, he was getting off at Grand. Grand was his stop. The next stop the chivalrous man left and crazy girl thanked him for standing with her. He did not look back.

We walked the rest of the way home talking about the crazy girl and the gym we were considering, thinking about joining. We took the short cut past the scrap yard.
R: See it’s not to busy to ride a bike.
Me: But I wouldn’t feel safe after dark.
R: It’s not that deserted. There was a cop.
Me: Yeah I saw the empty cop car
R: That passed us?
Me: Yes. That we passed, it was empty.
R: It better not be empty. Maybe they were just very short
Me: *looking at over turned garbage* Damn those raccoons.
R: hee hee hee. Raccoons stole a cop car.
Me: *guffaw* The Little Bandits
R: hee hee hee. Los Bandidos.
Me: *finally realizing we were talking about different cars as another one drives by* Look out! Los Flaca Bandidos


I spent the rest of the walk home making up stories about the Los Flaca Bandidos gang and how they’d run rampant stealing cop cars, houses, everything.
It wasn’t till the next day I realized I’d been ranting about the skinny bandit gang of raccoons terrorizing the land.

Well, not once had I mentioned them taking food. So I claim was just being unique in my gang naming.

When the bough breaks

I HAVE to fix the bed this weekend. It's a platform bed and it's support system is designed like a rope bed, but with wood slats. There is probably a name for that but I am way to tired to google that right now. One side is all saggy and I do get tired of climbing out of the other body hole all night. It doesn't make for a good nights sleep. I dream I'm being packaged into marshmallow bags and wake up feeling like I've been swimming in gooey fluffy coco all night.
This is the second bed we've broken. The first was a metal frame and suffered fatigue. Since neither of us learned how to weld we decided to get a wooden frame. As expected my wood working skills will be quite useful.
To R's credit he is willing to take responsibility for the bed breaking. Very thoughtful. I mean who wants to have to admit that they have gone through two beds....huh?
I think there was some assistance from a cat. Not just any cat, but the scariest cat I've met. Not mean, not ugly, just mastermind creepy. This cat once flew across a room and latched itself onto the face of my Rottweiler/German Shepard who, although well trained, had mauled the 2 cats it lived with the previous year. I mean what was this cat thinking? Look, big dog, if I rule that I rule the world. Must have larger minions! I pulled the cat off the dog's face and the cat moved back hissing. The dog was all like "what, what, what?" and I was worried it would go after the cat when the cat flew through the air again attacking like a monkey trained to ride a dog. Fortunately the dog is well trained, especially when I'm right there, and it was over quickly with another tossing of the cat and thus foiling the attempt to dominate the large dog and slowing the takeover of the world.
You get the picture. Creepy cat. This cat also refuses to sharpen it's claws on the usual cat type things. Cardboard, carpet, upholstery are not what this cat wants. The edge of a glass table, Now why didn't I think of that? I mean those other substances are really more likely to dull the claws. But glass, brilliant! I removed the glass table when we moved so we would suffer less surgical strikes from "playing". I know what you are thinking, poor kitten. It's okay though. She seems to be quite happy to sink her claws into all things wooden. My antique well loved, well oiled furniture has never been so adored by an animal. Well this brings us back to the bed (thank god). I'm sure you can guess. Yes, the cat lives under the bed (good place for an evil mastermind head quarters) and yes she has been working on this for months. Weakening the braces, plotting out downfall.
Thank goodness the dog did not move in with us, I'm sure she'd have trained it as phase 2.

Yesteryear

This past week marked the completion of the first Transcontinental Rail Road.
It also marked my third train ride. I don't mean the tiny things malls have at Christmas or the things at children museums or zoos. I have never been on one of those, much to the chagrin of my inner child, and I'm sure it has something to do with my adult personality disorders. A Real honest to goodness trains. Not the elevated, subway, or suburban lines. Although I have been on those, much to the chagrin of my *OCD germaphobia. Okay so they aren't coal burning anymore and none of the women I've seen wear hats and gloves, but it really is a different type of travel. Sure its not a fast as a plane, but it is more spacious. You are more likely not to have to sit next to some fat breathing-smelling like bandaids-let me tell you about myself-I'm so fascinating and even if you do it's not as though your crammed on top of one another. Although you still don't want to sit next to that person. There are other cars you can go to if one is too "crowded". There are actual other cars for food, real food. I had the Rib eye, potatoes, veggies salad and wine for dinner; the pancakes, hash browns & ham for breakfast and thought about the grilled tuna for lunch. If your lucky there are observation cars, and movies. There are station stops, extremely nice conductors (who, if you have a sleeping room, actually make your bed at night and in the morning). When I went to New York (an 18hr. ride) I arrived fresh and when I got back there was no need for the additional day off to recover from vacation. There were also some amazing scenic views. One of the more impressive was seeing Westpoint from the Hudson side. From that side you are forced to realize it is a military post not just a school.
So I'm in love with trains at this point. I see no reason to fly again, except if I want to leave the continent. I have no vacation time anyway (since I just started this job) and no money (see previous parenthesis). And NOW that I discover this new way of travel, that has been around since before high-ways and air-ways, now Amtrak is threatening to go away because of underfunding.

*not that I'm a freak. Well not that THAT makes me a freak. Seriously, haven't we all become a little OCD and germaphobic.


If you want to see a slam fest watch Hockey, staged wrestling, boxing, and perhaps rugby

I love the violence of hockey and so was saddened this year with the strike. (Strike, what strike?). Yes, there is amazing skill involved. Dress me up like a linebacker and expect me to skate at all, let alone fast and backwards. That is talent! But I think hockey is the only game designed for fights. No, not even football (either European or American). After all they don't have a penalty box nor do they define "legal" and "nonlegal" checking. Football, you tackle, you run, you pile, you grab the face mask? Grabbing for the face mask is just a wuss play of desperation in my opinion. Why is it that every sport now strives to be hockey? Why can't they be happy with the roles they have. And what ever happened to Sportsmanship? Part of the drama and raised tempers sprout from arguing calls. Even if...even WHEN they knew they were in the wrong they are willing to fight to the death. Sportsmanship use to be a standard. These days it seems most fans are not happy with a game unless there is drama above and beyond game. We'll even create our own drama if we have to the fans attack the players, the players attack the fans, the referees get it from everyone. Even Tennis, which use to be a gentleman's sport, changed when players began behaving like John McEnroe. That is until last week when Tennis made me happy. When Andy Roddick lost last week at the Rome Masters. What Andy did was (unfortunately) extraordinary, unusual, and ethical behavior. Frank Deford really expressed it best.

And perhaps now players will discover this new way of playing, that has been around since...before everything got so out of hand.

A day without sunshine is like...night

You knew it had to happen, it's just one of those things you never want to think about like your parents having sex. (Ewwww, I know shake it off). I was standing waiting for the bus when I see it coming I start squinting, in my blind bat way, to see if it's mine. What the hell does that say anyway. I make out the word "Bus" flash and then "Training". Yikes. I backed away from the corner. Here it is, rush hour, and someone is training to drive a double bus. One of those extra long ones. Two buses sewn together with the accordion in the middle that remind you of a catapiller as they role up on themselves turning a corner.

Later: On the right bus, driven by a "professional"
professional muttering under his breath as the bus gets more and more crowded. Curses girl as girl gets on, then off, then back on the bus because she's too busy talking on the cell phone to realize anything going on around her. Mutters more like a crazy person when door gets stuck and passengers trapped in back can't get off at their stop. Finally stops bus and gets off. I presumed he just got fed up and "went out for a smoke" never to return. No, apparently he went to the back door and banged it so hard to open that it wouldn't close. That means he can't go anywhere, that means we all have to wait for another bus to rescue us.
Wouldn't you know it...
"Bus"
"Training"

How come we get 50 choices for Miss America and only 2 for President

Today marks the end of the Franco-Prussian War (1871)
although I read that the French capital was besieged on September 19th, falling to the Prussians on January 28, 1871.
In honor, the above poster is from a "scandalous" movie. In occupied France during the Franco-Prussian War, a young French laundress shares a coach ride with several of her condescending "social superiors." But when a Prussian officer holds the coach over, social standings are leveled and integrity and spirit are put to the test. Censorship worries changed Elizabeth from a prostitute into a laundress and changed the Prussian officers demand to sleep with her into a demand to have a private dinner with her. Isn't that just like men. Sex and Laundry. Bring on the beer wench!

The "Hero" is also a bit of a dandy. Oh yes. "Mademoiselle Fifi" (the title) is actually the solder! His comrades had given him that nickname "on account of his dandified style and small waist, which looked as if he wore stays"
You really can't wonder where they came up with that idea.

The Franco-Prussian war triggered a five year smallpox epidemic throughout Europe that claimed 500,000 lives.
The French army lost nearly as many men to smallpox alone as the German army lost to all causes in the entire war. The German army required vaccination of all troops and revaccination every seven years. The French army was militarily unprepared for war, but smallpox could only have made matters worse.

That's really all I know.
I only had a passing interest when, years ago, I had a roommate who claimed Prussian heritage. But she was a total flake.

The hills are alive with the sound of A khasuren die kalleh is tsu shayn*

This weekend I went to a Jewish wedding.
It was held in a hotel and the bride was a Shikseh. BUT what a Shikseh!
She is from Taiwan (I believe) and so the Canopy (chuppa) was red silk with a dragon on it for good luck.
It was a wonderful blending of culture.
I must say that my favorite part of the wedding was when the bride walked down the isle to
"How do you solve a problem like Maria"

Apparently you marry her


*A fault that the bride is too beautiful

I've got a friend who loves all things antiquated when it comes to hygiene, marital advice, so you are a young man/woman now and I have adopted a bit of her taste. When I ran into this I thought cool but what were they thinking here?

Lizard Spit Drug Approved for Diabetes!

Five cannibals get appointed as programmers in an IT company.
During the welcoming ceremony the boss says: "You're all part of our team now. You can earn good money here, and you can go to the company canteen for something to eat. So don't trouble the other employees."
The cannibals promised not to trouble the other employees.
Four weeks later the boss returns and says: "You're all working very hard, and I'm very satisfied with all of you. One of our cleaners has disappeared however. Do any of you know what happened to her?"
The cannibals disowned all knowledge of the missing cleaner.
After the boss had left, the leader of the cannibals says to the others, "Which of you idiots ate the cleaner?"
One of the cannibals raises his hand hesitantly,
to which the leader of the cannibals says: "You FOOL! For four weeks we've been eating team leaders, managers, and project managers and no one has noticed anything, and YOU ate one cleaner and it got noticed.
So hereafter please don't eat a person who is working."