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| Ollie in back, then Brewsky, then Scully |
The only bad thing about my date was that some asshole stole my cap from my shopping cart at St. Vinnie's (I took my cap off because I was hot). I repeatedly looked everywhere for the thief before finally pretending to leave the store on the off-chance that he would see me, think I was gone for good, and put my cap on his contemptible head. I finally gave up on getting my cap back and spent a whopping $2.49 for a replacement that I like better than the one that was stolen. I own upwards of 100 caps (I even had two other caps in the car), so I only bought a replacement in the hope that it would make me feel better about the theft, which it did. I sincerely wanted to kill the thief, and really would have too if I could have found him, and known that I wouldn't get in a lot of trouble. I hate that thief to the depths of my being for his willingness to cause me unhappiness for such a small gain. (I'm not the forgiving type when it comes to criminality, and the hatred I feel today, I'll feel for as long as I live.)
Now I want to tell you why I went to the doctor on Thursday:
1) Worsening back pain that dominates my thoughts and increases the longer I’m on my feet each day.
2) Anxiety that verges on panic.
3) Achy eyes and blurry vision, which my optometrist attributes to my badly dilated eyeballs twitching.
4) A facial tic.
4) Trouble keeping my extremities still.
5) Hands that tremble to the point of being obvious to others.
I thought it likely that all of these symptoms but the pain might be caused by my latest anti-depressant, so I gave the doc a list of antidepressants that I've never taken and that sounded good on the internet. He gave me a prescription for Remeron and told me to wait until bedtime to take it, but I was so desperate that I took one as soon as I got home. Although I became dizzy and staggered, the tic, trembling, twitching, and jerkiness were almost gone, and the anxiety was gone.
I'm now feeling so happy and spontaneous that when I took myself to Jerry's on my date, I almost succumbed to the urge to buy a pretty little yellow DeWalt table saw. When I got to St. Vinnie's, I became so enraptured with every third book that it was an enormous challenge to stop at twenty-one, most of them antique novels, although some were books of cat paintings and cat cartoons. (I also love cat photographs, but alas, St. Vinnie's was out.)
Speaking of being madly in love, I'm head-over-heels for my beautiful little tuxedo kitty, Scully, and she's head-over-heels for me. She couldn't wait for me to awaken naturally today (as is her custom), so she cried at my door until I opened it and embraced her for yet another day made precious by the beauty of her body and spirit. When Peggy and I finally got burned-out after forty-plus years of taking care of dogs, I wondered if I could ever love a feline half so well as I had loved a score of canines. I need wonder no longer, and while I adore Brewsky Katoosky and Ollie Somali (Ollie is sitting in my lap as I write this), Scully Scullaria is most definitely her daddy's little girl child who, sad to say, will turn one on May 6. I say "sad to say" because kittens are way more fun than grown cats.
I can no longer imagine life without cats. While I'll never stop missing the love of dogs, my cats are also loving creatures who adore one another and their daddy and mommy. They're also beautiful, self-cleaning, never have to be let outdoors to go potty, and would think I had completely lost my mind if I tried to take them walking in the rain. I can't get enough of cats, and who knows how many I would have if Peggy weren't here to put on the brakes.
Remeron.... I just hope it'll keep working.
30 comments:
I hope your new drug keeps working too. For a very long time.
I actually prefer cats to kittens, but can't imagine (don't want to imagine) life without a cat (or two).
You better go and live it up while you feel good!
We have never had a cat because my husband says he doesn't like them. Then again, I don't think he likes living things who require effort so I'm not sure how we managed to get a dog
I'm glad the new medicine is working and providing you with relief. Squeeze one of your cats for me.
I'm glad it's working for you and I hope it continues too
I always love it when a former dong lover comes over and becomes a cat person as well
I love both and can't understand how people only love one or the other
Don't hate the thief. It won't affect them only you. Get angry and get upset but then just say. Well
If you needed it that badly. Have it. Much healthier in the long run
I think Angela meant dog lover, but we can't really be sure, can we?
Also, I'm trying to understand why Peggy's brakes work on cats but not on books.
This is another glimpse into your psyche. The fact that you suffer with anxiety explains so much to me. Someone close to me has the same issues and much the same outlook on life that you do.
“I actually prefer cats to kittens, but can't imagine (don't want to imagine) life without a cat (or two).”
I met someone else who felt that way, and it surprised me. I think that, people like myself should raise the kittens, and then turn them over to people like you who prefer adults. Seriously, I love my adult cats, but if I had to choose, I would take kittens any day.
“You better go and live it up while you feel good!”
No shit! Make hay while the sun shines as the saying goes.
“We have never had a cat because my husband says he doesn't like them.”
I wouldn’t be okay with that unless I didn’t much want a cat anyway. I have a neighbor (Cliff is his name) who treats cats and dogs as if they are inanimate objects. On the rare occasions when he visits, my critters will go up to him to greet him, and he’ll just stare at them without otherwise acknowledging their existence. Cliff is someone who I like well enough and might be friends, but this one behavior keeps me from feeling affection for him. He wouldn’t stare without speaking to a human being who was welcoming him into their home, so why does he think it’s okay to treat non-humans that way? All I can think of is that he considers them unworthy of respect, and so it is that I consider him unworthy of respect. If he visited often, I would have to talk to him about his behavior, but since I rarely see him, I just let it slide—except that I give my non-human family a lot of attention while he’s here in order to atone for his rudeness.
“I don't think he likes living things who require effort so I'm not sure how we managed to get a dog.”
Yet he has a wife, and wives require effort. I don’t know about your man, Kylie…I just know that if a person doesn’t like cats and dogs, I conclude that there’s something wrong with that person. Maybe it seems odd that I would put so much weight on how a person feels about cats and dogs (not to mention rabbits, goldfish, parakeets, iguanas, pythons, painted turtles, etc.), but I do. I was watching a documentary last night about America’s national parks, and the film relied heavily on readings from diaries that people kept in the early days of the national park system (about a hundred years ago). One of these diarists had written a great deal about how perfectly happy she felt during prolonged visits to America’s national parks. I thought that, well, I’ve visited the same parks she visited, but I took my schnauzer along. I had rather stay at home with my pets than to go anyplace, no matter how beautiful, without them. I suspect that I had as much fun working in the backyard yesterday as she had felt while visiting national parks. I had done a lot of digging in the backyard; I was feeling good on my new antidepressant, and I knew that I had a wife and three cats to spend the evening with. I’m completely hooked on pets. While they cost me in various ways (the worst thing about them is that they tie me down), I never wonder if they’re worth it.
“Squeeze one of your cats for me.”
How did you know that I squeeze cats?! Cats don’t typically like being squeezed, but since I only do it briefly, they cut me a lot of slack about it.
“Don't hate the thief. It won't affect them only you..”
I don’t dwell on how I feel about him (I assume it was a him), but I would never say, “If you needed it that badly. Have it.” As you probably know, here in America, many states still have the death penalty, and I’ve very much in favor of it except for the fact that the person who is executed might later be found innocent. I’ve also reflected a great deal about the fact that many “minor” offenses aren’t punished all that severely, but why? Let’s say someone litters. On the one hand, it doesn’t do serious harm, but on the other, it’s completely unnecessary, so I would support the litterbug receiving a heavy fine plus jail time. Stealing, of course, is worse than littering, and it hurts the victim in two ways. The first way is the loss of his or her property, and the second way is that it makes him or her feel less safe and even violated. It is for this reason that I would favor severe punishments for theft.
“This is another glimpse into your psyche.”
As you probably noticed, I stopped blogging for a couple of months, and now that I’m back, I’m doing things differently in that, instead of laboring for days over a post, I’m putting them online as soon as I write them.
“The fact that you suffer with anxiety explains so much to me.”
My experiences with antidepressants have gone far in taking away any notion that we determine our own emotional state because the fact that such drugs can work so profoundly, strongly suggests that we are nothing more than the product of chemicals, so if our chemicals are altered, we person are altered, and we have no control over this happening.
"I sincerely wanted to kill the thief, and really would have too if I could have found him, and known that I wouldn't get in a lot of trouble. I hate that thief to the depths of my being for his willingness to cause me unhappiness for such a small gain. (I'm not the forgiving type when it comes to criminality, and the hatred I feel today, I'll feel for as long as I live.)" - I personally took this to be you being absolutely hilarious, and if you weren't, I'd say play along and take the bow rather than get carted off in a white van for being a nut. Hahahahahaha.
Glad to see the up you're on at present and love your love for Scully and the other cats. You're a pussycat too sweetie X
“I fully understand your wish to kill your cap-thief. A miserable turd that he, no doubt, is. The world is over-supplied with such idiots.”
I knew you would understand.
“Also, I'm trying to understand why Peggy's brakes work on cats but not on books.”
How about the fact that my brakes don’t work in buttons. In this room alone, there are five legal size file cabinets that are filled with buttons, and they are but the start of the button storage not the end. As for her tolerance of books, books don’t shed, don’t scratch the furniture, and don’t come with a lifetime commitment.
“I personally took this to be you being absolutely hilarious, and if you weren't, I'd say play along and take the bow rather than get carted off in a white van for being a nut. Hahahahahaha.”
I’m be damned! You really don’t think I have it in me, but if you’re wrong then I’m a “nut”? Well, I’m a nut then, and Peggy is too because our views can be summarized as: “If you value you life, don’t fuck with our stuff.” As much as I loathe America’s Republican Party, I don’t identify as a liberal either partly because of my views regarding crime and punishment. I don’t think thieves have a right to live, and I feel the same way about litterbugs, vandals, and people who go about spraying graffiti, not to forget rapists, pedophiles, murderers, and those guilty of road rage. People wouldn’t commit these crimes if they knew they would be seriously punished, and I consider it a serious failing of society that are allowed to prey on the innocent who are then forced are to live in fear of their bad behavior. You’re afraid to even ride your bike for fear of being mugged, so how can you regard the people who deprive you of such simple joys as having a right to live? There are two parts to these things: the actual crime of being pushed off your bike and robbed, and the fear that you have to live with because you know you might be pushed off your bike and robbed, yet you have sympathy for those who would injure you and rob you!? To me, to hold your opinion is what would qualify as “absolutely hilarious if it didn’t represent, in the name of tolerance, the embrace of those who cause you to live in fear. My position is that such things shouldn’t happen, and I have ZERO sympathy for those who make them happen. I don’t give a rip about their rehabilitation, I just want them dead so we can all live in safety. I think we all have three choices, the first is to not harm others, the second is to do positive good for others, and the third is to do positive harm to others; and the last people shouldn’t be allowed to exist. The question is whether they should be euthanized after their first crime or punished severely and publicly after their first crime, and then euthanized after their second crime. To me, the ultimate wrong isn’t in severe punishment but in making society live in fear because there are so few severe punishments. I recall the outcry in America when the Chinese penal system ruled that some little American delinguent who was visiting China should be publicly whipped after he sprayed graffiti, the American view being that the criminal should be treated with compassion, making it preferable to have a world that has been spray-painted by criminals than a world that is free from graffiti. Where is the logic in this? Our sympathy should go to the victim, not to the criminal because criminals simply regard compassion as weakness, and hence it makes the world worse rather than better.
"I don’t think thieves have a right to live" - Children steal sweets, teens steal lipsticks from shops, people all over the world have stolen due to mental health issues that are well beyond their control. Let alone those living on barely enough to live. There are degrees. And as one who lives in such a place where I can't ride my bike for fear of being shoved off and having it stolen, I understand why this area has become the way it is, why when people have all local finding taken away, and they shove together the poorest of the poor in shite housing with landlords that bleed them dry and stuff families of ten or more at a time into tiny terraced two bed houses, charge them a fortune that leave them with no money for food or anything else, no quality of life and then don't bother fixing things like mould and rising damp. This isn't an area that has money put into it, this is a poor area. There are good people here, but no-one knows as much as I do how far one might be driven if their benefits were deprived for being ill, be that mentally or physically, and they were unfortunate enough to have no-one else to turn to. Then what? The streets, drugs, certainly drink to escape the misery of no life at all worth living. Does this apply to all thieves, No, of course it bloody doesn't, some are just toe-rags and bastards and should be caught and dealt with by the law, but you know what? Plenty of them are in the camp I've just described and THAT is why I assumed you were joking. Because I thought you'd realise that extremes don't work in any direction, and someone steals a guys cap, and he has two in the car and three million at home it's outrageous, it's a poor show, it's against the law but it isn't a bloody hanging offence!
That logged as Esme rather than All Consuming for reasons that are beyond me tsk!
“Children steal sweets, teens steal lipsticks from shops, people all over the world have stolen due to mental health issues that are well beyond their control. Let alone those living on barely enough to live. There are degrees.”
Yes, there are degrees. I never stole a thing until I was in my upper teens and paid a friend to steal guns from an antique shop for me. After I was forced out of my teaching job because I grew a beard (this was in Mississippi during the ‘70s), I became very angry at society and became a shop lifter. My point is that I understand what you mean, but I also understand that I never would have stolen a thing if I had known I would have been publicly beaten or had my hands chopped off, but because I knew that I would only get a $200 fine, I stole, my thinking being that I could steal $200 worth of merchandise in no time.
By the way, capital punishment is often in the news in America because, while many states have it, they can no longer procure the drugs they need to do it in what is supposed to be a humane manner. The ONLY reason I oppose capital punishment is my fear that an innocent person might be executed. Aside from that, I would like to see it applied to a whole lot of crimes (including white collar crimes), and I would very much like to see teenagers (the lipstick thieves being a case in point) subjected to humiliating punishments such as public whippings or being forced to stand on a busy street corner holding a placard with the word “Thief” on it. As I see it, the greater society’s compassion for the guilty, the greater society’s complicity in the crime. You might have seen “Dead Man Walking” in which the murder victim’s family was outraged that the nun’s only interest was in comforting the criminal. I think they had a point in that the nun represented their church, and by only visiting the criminal, their church was sending the message that only the criminal mattered. I really and truly don’t care about the feelings of criminals, and if I were a Catholic and learned that a nun was visiting the murderer of my wife, I would probably slap her. I sometimes hear people say that severe penalties don’t deter crime, and I wonder how they know since severe penalties are so rarely applied in this country. Our current president has suggested that (as is done in Israel) the families of terrorists should also be punished, and while I think it might work, the fact that I oppose our current limits doesn’t mean that I oppose all limits. There are two considerations here: what is fair, and what will reduce the problem.
“I understand why this area has become the way it is, why when people have all local funding taken away…”
I regard such reasoning as condescending and enabling. If people are starving, they have a good excuse for stealing, but most people who steal here are simply looking for money to buy drugs. They care nothing for the irreplaceable emotional value a possession might have, and they’re not interested in the emotional harm they do to their victims and to society as a whole. I relate to conservatives regarding this issue more than I relate to liberals. Indeed, it is why I finally HAD to stop giving money to the American Civil Liberties Union because while they do a lot of good work, they also show a great deal of concern for criminals and none for the victims of those criminals.
“no-one knows as much as I do how far one might be driven if their benefits were deprived for being ill, be that mentally or physically, and they were unfortunate enough to have no-one else to turn to. Then what?”
I know much more about the state of the working classes in Victorian England than in today’s England, and if I had lived back then, there’s no telling what I might have done. America’s current president might have won by promising to help the working class, but everything he does only benefits the rich. The ideal society of America’s Republican Party would look like the England of 120 years ago, in which hardly anyone seemed to notice that children were starving to death on the streets and dying of cholera and typhoid due to adequate sewage disposal. It’s pretty much like that in America now in regard to gun violence, because, as long as conservatives can buy guns to give themselves the illusion of safety (from other people’s guns), they don’t care how many innocent toddlers are gunned down on Chicago’s streets (yet they not not only boast endlessly of their “Christian values,” but someone how imagine that Christ was “pro family values.” (he instead advised his followers to abandon their families). I have become a socialist because I have had a good taste of capitalistic values. You and I want the same thing, i.e. a safe and caring society, but we very much differ on how we would get there.
“I thought you'd realise that extremes don't work in any direction, and someone steals a guys cap, and he has two in the car and three million at home it's outrageous”
It was a $2.49 cap, so why would anyone steal it other than to give himself an ego boost for his courage and cleverness in swiping something from someone who was standing just out of sight? Certainly, he wasn’t in need of food or heroin (the cap having no black market value), and while you might say he was angry at society, I just see that as all the more reason why he shouldn’t live. I stand behind what I wrote because I’ve given such things enough thought that I don’t just spew out the venom of the moment but actually mean what I say. I don’t regard thieves as victims anymore than I regard rapists as victims, my thought being that if their sad experiences resulted in them being that screwed-up, then that's all the more reason why we would all be better of without them. I know that my attitude suggests an appalling absence of compassion and enlightenment in your mind, but you need understand that I regard your attitudes as being just as appalling.
I just thought of one more thing that I should mention here. If a person has a dog that is dangerous around people, then that dog should should be euthanized, and I regard a person as having no more intrinsic right to life than a dog. If a person can’t do good, then he or she should a least avoid doing harm, and if he is too screwed-up for even that little bit, he should be outta here. Every time I hear of someone who was just convicted of his fifth violent crime, I reflect that ours is a screwed-up system. I in no way regard giving people chance after chance after chance as being rooted in compassion but rather callousness or, at the very least, naiveté. Career criminals provide lawyers and America's privately owned penal system (prison stocks are literally traded on the New York Stock Exchange) a good income, but that hardly justifies their existence.
“The ONLY reason I oppose capital punishment is my fear that an innocent person might be executed. “ - Of course. that’s why I oppose it. That’s the only reason I’ve ever heard that people do oppose it. That’s why all cannot be tarred with the same brush, which was my point. Fear is a useful deterant, I agree, but I’m reacting to a comment where you say that everyone who steals should be killed and you’d have killed the person who stole your hat. I mean that is absolutely crazy. Yet you then answer quite rationally as to why you are against the death penalty, which seems a little inconsistent.
“I regard such reasoning as condescending and enabling.” - I regard this statement as pretty condescending too bearing in mind I’m the one living here and I’ve watched all social services and care for the poor be eroded yar after year, many friends who give a crap about people and worked in these sectors have lost jobs sadly, and on top of that we have a new epidemic of sorts of a drug called Spice, which causes people to get very violent, is as addictive as heroin and being sold as cheap as chips to anyone on the streets that will buy it. We’re not in Kansas here Dorothy, things are dark and low and mental health services are barely in practice, I fear to walk the streets and would not excuse anyone for the crimes commited in the name of poverty, but I would jidge each bloody case on its own merits as is done I believe in a society one would wish to be civilised, or to civilise, which is closer to the truth as I don't think socitey is particularly civilised at all at present. You have no idea why the guy/woman/child/racoon stole your hat. Maybe it was a kid, maybe it was an adult, maybe they were mentally impaired and saw a pretty thing and took it for their mum, I’m not EXCUSING them, I’m showing you the bigger picture. You don’t know what happened but you state quite simply you’d want all theives kileld and would do so yourself in this case.
“I know that my attitude suggests an appalling absence of compassion and enlightenment in your mind, but you need understand that I regard your attitudes as being just as appalling." - I do. So this discussion isn’t likely to get any farther in terms of being useful to either of us, though of course I set apart from that any answer you may have. I deem it ridiculous, it makes no sense whatsoever in conjunction with being against the death penalty at all. Victims are THE most important in any crime at all, that’s an absolute, next comes judgement by the rational and punishment or care as needed. Care being for the mentally ill for heavens sake. Punishment for the actual criminals of which there are millions.
“‘The ONLY reason I oppose capital punishment is my fear that an innocent person might be executed. “ - Of course. that’s why I oppose it. That’s the only reason I’ve ever heard that people do oppose it.”
Whoa!!! I had idea that you would take such a stance as I had imagined that you were coming from a place of compassion, this based upon your view--as I understood it--that criminals are created by the callousness of society. That said, people who oppose the death penalty do so for MANY other reasons, and, until DNA evidence PROVED that innocent people sometimes go to prison, the possibility of executing an innocent person took a back seat to arguments based upon fairness and humanity. For instance, it was said that (1) if it’s wrong for an individual to kill, then it’s just as wrong for a government to kill; (2) that government conducted killing has a brutalizing effect upon society in regard to undervaluing life; (3) that, no matter how they are conducted, executions contradict America’s Constitutional ban on “cruel and unusual punishment; (4) that capital punishment is not a deterrent to murder (indeed, Texas leads the nation in executions—https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/number-executions-state-and-region-1976--yet it also has the nation’s second highest murder rate--http://www.worldatlas.com/articles/murder-capital-of-the-us-states-with-the-most-murders.html); (5) that executions are a barbarous practice that don’t satisfy the demands of justice but rather are borne out of a desire for revenge; (6) that society’s need for safety can be just as effectively attained through lifelong imprisonment; (7) that all lives are a gift from God, so therefore only God is justified in taking a life (this is the view of liberal religion); (8) that if you execute someone, you deprive them of, at some later date, seeing the error of their ways and seeking to make what amends they can; (9) that all lives have the potential for good; (10) that killing the murderer won’t bring back the victim (which is rather obvious I would say, yet it is still given as a reason for not putting murderers to death).
“I regard this statement as pretty condescending too bearing in mind I’m the one living here…”
Are you saying that you make no judgement on the Trump presidency, (along with dozens of other things that America does) based upon the fact that you don’t live in America and therefore lack the necessary knowledge to judge, or that people in your country are more likely to agree with you in regard to capital punishment because they better understand your nation’s political and social structure than I do and are therefore more in sympathy with murderers that are supposedly due to a lack of government funding for welfare programs? If anything, I should think that the government safety net in England is FAR superior to what it is here. To give just one example from this weeks’ news, poor children in America who are so unfortunate as to have type-one diabetes are DYING because the greedy drug companies have so raised the price of insulin that their parents can no longer afford it. Now if such a parent should get busted for robbing a drug company CEO bank at gunpoint, I for one couldn’t convict them because I would be too busy pinning a medal on their chest. Based upon this and numerous other examples, I could give you, your belief that I can’t understand the anger in England that is caused by the government’s underspending on social welfare programs is surely unjustified.
“on top of that we have a new epidemic of sorts of a drug called Spice”
Same here. Trump has this asinine notion that he can keeps drugs out of America by building a wall between the US and Mexico, yet the knowledge that drugs come here in the mail everyday from China, or are manufactured in home labs, or come around the US/Mexican border in boats, or are flown in, or come in from Canada, or arrive in sandwich bags that are shoved up people’s asses before getting on a commercial airliner, seems to have escaped him. I very much doubt that you have ANY serious criminal problem in your country that’s not worse here with the exception of religion-based terrorism.
"I had idea that you would take such a stance as I had imagined that you were coming from a place of compassion, this based upon your view--as I understood it--that criminals are created by the callousness of society." -
No. Once again I repeat that I am showing the wider picture because you said all thieves should be killed and you'd kill whoever stole your cap. Your assumption seems to be based on me being a good person, I'm showing the wider picture whilst you label me as someone who doesn't think any criminals should be punished or take responsibility for their actions. Which means you didn't read the end of my last comment at all and despite knowing me nine years are happy to portray me to your readers as the kind of liberal who thinks all criminals little flowers and nothing is their fault. Again I say - read the words of my last comment at the end. I said quite clearly that . . . God I am too tired for all this repeating and you know I don't enjoy this kind of thing as you do so just read my comments slowly dear and then see hopefully I'm talking about how wrong it is to just want to kill people when you don't know the circumstances. Why am I having to repeat this?
"Now if such a parent should get busted for robbing a drug company CEO bank at gunpoint, I for one couldn’t convict them because I would be too busy pinning a medal on their chest." -
Good news to hear that as it directly contradicts your supposition that all thieves should be killed, which is why I'm still writing, and still sighing and repeating myself whilst you merrily swing between killing all thieves, yet not agreeing with the death sentence. Let alone the extra caveat about parents stealing drugs for their kids. The latter two we agree on. Your first, and the root of this long, long conversation is the former and makes no sense when you put the three together. It's possible to have some compassion and not be an utter idiot, I am much closer to the middle of politics than I am to the extreme left and always have been, and I have a horrible feeling that we may actually agree on this subject when discussion is put into play, but you're too keen on an argument to realise it. Spatz does this every single day of my life. I don't need to come online for extra. I've been sucked back in here, but I won't be again. It's like talking to someone about religion!
"Why am I having to repeat this?"
Because, in your view, I never pay attention to anything you say? Could that be it? Actually, I hang onto your every punctuation point as well as your adorable English spellings and usages. I DID read your last comments, it being your last comments that I was responding to! As for you not enjoying such discussions, I do, or at least I could if you did. I remember a day when my friend, Walt, and I were discussing something much as you and I are, and we noticed that Peggy was walking behind us in tears. When we asked her why, she said it upset her for us to argue, but we WEREN'T arguing, we were debating.
"you said all thieves should be killed and you'd kill whoever stole your cap."
I was speaking of the thief who stole my cap in particular as well as thieves in general, but if I actually said, "all thieves" without regard to their age, mental capacity, or circumstance, then I hereby correct myself. As for you being what, in this country, would be called (by conservatives, "a bleeding heart liberal," yes, I believe you are pretty consistent in your liberal values.
"Let alone the extra caveat about parents stealing drugs for their kids."
I said that parents who steal for their drugs should be killed?! I didn't think it, and have never even heard of it happening.
"Your assumption seems to be based on me being a good person..."
Uh? Well, not quite. I don't think you're a BAD person, but we're talking a philosophical difference rather than a difference in who is or isn't well-intentioned. I would even admit that most neo-Nazis are well-intentioned, but this doesn't suggest that I don't think they're horribly wrong. Besides, if I say that you disagree with me because you're a good person, isn't that like admitting that I'm not?
"Good news to hear that as it directly contradicts your supposition that all thieves should be killed"
Who's having to repeat themselves because the other party isn't reading thoroughly! You're doing a reducto absurdum here because I'm really not in the market for putting five-year-olds on the guillotine, although it does make sense (to me) for adults, especially repeat offender adults, or adults who are so depraved as mug a blind man, as happened here recently, or to steal a crippled person's wheelchair, as also happened here a few times over the past several years. I think that the government owes it to us to make us feel safe in our persons and in our property, but that the government--yours and mine--cares a whole lot more about the rights of criminals than the rights of victims, and this puts the government into the position of being an enabler. However, it the interest in fairness, I will admit that if cops and juries perceive a punishment as being extreme, they won't enforce it. For example, we could stop people from running redlights overnight if we pernamently took away the driver's license of everyone who runs a redlight, but the governments not going to do it, and the juries aren't going to bring in guilty verdicts.
"I have a horrible feeling that we may actually agree on this subject when discussion is put into play, but you're too keen on an argument to realise it. Spatz does this every single day of my life"
Maybe Spatz sees things the way I do, i.e., "Given that All Consuming hates 'arguing' so much, why does she persist in doing it? She knows she's not likely to change my mind regarding things that I have put a lot of thought into, so why do she try so hard to do it? I don't need her to do it, and she SAYS she hates it, so is there a disconnect between her words and her actions, or am I so crazy that I'm magining things?
"Spatz does this [stubbornly refusing to change his thinking] every single day of my life. I don't need to come online for extra."
You could trade out, doing Spatz on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and me on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, with Sundays off to attend your "house of worship" now that Trump has made it okay for churches to be tax exempt Republican lobbying groups. Oh, but I forget, you live in a more or less sane country instead of a raving maniacal one.
"The latter two we agree on. Your first, and the root of this long, long conversation is the former and makes no sense when you put the three together."
And you're in a state of wonder that I don't understand a word of what you're saying?!
"I've been sucked back in here, but I won't be again!"
Oy! You've seen the light and will hereafter resist being "sucked back in" (is that the same as butt first)? What am I to do; how am I to carry on if I lose my power to suck you back in. Oh, please, please, please, please...please, please, please (are seven pleases enough, or are you going to force to go to eight?
No, bugger off. Hahahahaha. I'm off walking behind with Peggy. *nods*
“I'm off walking behind with Peggy.”
Oh, I did finally realize that when you referred to parents buying drugs for their kids, you meant for diabetes. It’s just that when I got your comment, I was wondering where I might buy myself some elephant narcotic (carfentanyl it’s called), and it took me a few hours to discern the difference between what you wrote and what I was thinking when I read what you wrote. You must remember that I live in America, the we’re all crazy over here (me more than some), and that I take a lot of drugs and because of said drugs and sundry other factors, I am in no way responsible for anything I say, do, or even think about saying or doing. But we (you and I) were talking about Peggy, were we not? If you want to go walking with Peggy, I would suggest that you buy a plane ticket (it would take you forever go get to Oregon by boat), but where were we? Something about Peggy I thin (please don’t interrupt again). If you to go walking with Peggy, you will need to fly to Portland (PDX is the airport) because she’s at her annual button convention.
The two of you will have a wonderful time I’m sure, just as I’m sure that you will like Peggy way better than you would like me, because even I like Peggy better than I like me, and I know both of us fairly well, but, come to think of it, Peggy hasn’t been through what happened to me last night. At 11:30 I opened the back door to put out the cat poop, and a large dog immediately tried to push her (as I later learned) way in. As I proceeded to shut the door on her lovely pointedly nose, it occurred to me that she was a golden retriever who didn’t look the least bit dangerous, so I foreswore my resolve to separate her from her nose. Meanwhile, Scully Scullaria—having never even SEEN a large dog except through the living room window—and who was the only cat in the laundry room—did a more or less major FREAK-OUT. I then grabbed said dog by her collar and learned that her name was Ginger, and that she lived about ten houses down the street. Still holding her by the collar, I proceeded to walk her back home, but she made it clear that she really preferred to stay with me. I thought that, well, I guess I could call her people, and they could come and get her. However, she was both wet and muddy, so I didn’t want her in the house, and because of my fencing work, I couldn’t even leave her in the backyard because she might not have been there when they arrived.
I didn’t even want to take a chance on her hanging around while I looked for a leash, so I just walked her home while holding onto her collar. This took awhile since she really didn’t wan her adventure to end so early, but we finally made it, and I knocked on her humans’ door despite knowing that I would NEVER open a door at midnight, unless I KNEW what I was awaiting me. However, Gingers’ people were presumably trusting because a nice looking young man and woman appeared before me almost immediately, and I said, “Behold, I bring you glad tidings of great joy!”and nodded suggestively toward Ginger. They took the hint, looked at Ginger with me, and then said (in unison), “It just looks to us like you’re bringing us a dog.” I then asked if they knew where THEIR dog was, and they admitted that they did not, to I said, “Well, does this dog look even a little familiar to you, at which time I shoved said dog into said house without demanding my usual generous
You are so endearing and funny in how you describe your love of cats (and caps). I smiled so big to read the last part of your post. And your description of behavior on the new drug. You stopped at 21! I love going through books at thrift stores and garage sales.
*Hugs him* Xx
“You are so endearing and funny in how you describe your love of cats (and caps).”
Thank you. I should write a post entitled, “If my love for my cats turned to rain, they would drown in the flood.” I’m so enchanted with these little beasts that I have no words for it. I had imagined that cats would be superior to dogs in that I wouldn’t get so attached, and this would spare me some of the pain when they died. This clearly isn’t the case, and while I’m not the kind of person who thinks that I must be either a dog person or a cat person (and criticize the other), I will say that cats have proven far more captivating than I had anticipated. The only thing I don’t like about them is that kittens turn cats, and, while I love both, I greatly prefer the playfulness of kittens (just as I tend to favor young humans to adult humans). I assumed that everyone was this way, so imagine my surprise when a stranger I was talking to on the sidewalk expressed a preference for adopting grown cats so he wouldn’t have to “endure” the kitten phase.
As for caps, I also have a lot of fedoras and even a derby, but I never wear them because, on a practical level, caps beat out hats in every way. One commenter seemed to imply that I’m a regular old cap tycoon (the further implication being that I should therefore get less pissy when someone steals my cap), and I guess I am, but for what little it matters, if I ever bought a single cap that was new, I don’t remember it. I instead get them at garage sales, estate sales, and free boxes on the side of the street, along with caps that, I suppose, people either didn’t want or that flew off their heads and ended up being blown about by passing cars on the highway or else laying in weeds on the side of the road (I ADORE such finds). I don’t remember where or when, but someone said that I shouldn’t be taking stuff that people put in free boxes because I’m not poor enough to deserve it. Yeah, right! I assume that if the owner cared who the took away his stuff, he or she would give it to charity. Therefore, if something is left setting by the curb, it’s for anyone, and that includes me. That’s the way I see things it when I put something out by the curb for free.
“You stopped at 21!”
Only once do I remember buying more than that, and they were nearly all books about cats. I have so many cat books by now that it’s hard to find new ones (meaning new ones that I want) unless I just happen to hit St. Vinnie's on a good day. I mostly look for cat (or dog) cartoons, paintings, photographs, and short stories, because I’m overrun with books of practical advice about cats, and I quickly got bored with books that someone wrote about his or her pet cat or cats. Cleveland Armory’s books are the best known when it comes to individual cats, and while I think that Amory was probably a really fine man (he was certainly a brave and charitable one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleveland_Amory), I just don't care to read such books.
In Eugene, St.Vinnies is a good place for books (the one up where you are--in Albany--is where I bought my first Margaret Deland book). As for Goodwill, its books are few and badly organized no matter which store I got to. Also, I turned against Goodwill a few years ago following an ugly incident with a manager, and now the only time I even donate anything to them is when St. Vinnie's won’t take it (Goodwill will take things that St. Vinnie's won’t). Nothing that anyone at Goodwill can do will ever make up for that incident because I complained all the way to the top both locally and nationally, and they just ignored me, which I saw as a case of throwing coals to the fire. What happened was that a clay flower pot lay broken into many pieces on the floor. Thinking I could use the chards to put over the drain holes of flower pots, I gathered up the pieces and took them to the register when I checked out, thinking the clerk would just say, take them for nothing. Instead, he called the manager, and she got really made, thinking, I suppose, that I had intentionally broken the pot in order to get the pieces for free. When I refused to pay for them, she angrily threw them into the trash right in front of me, and then just glared. This was when I was dealing wth a newly broken back and a crushed thumb, and really didn’t have the slack to handle such wholly undeserved contempt, especially from a store that is named “Goodwill.” If anyone in higher management had so much as said they were sorry I had had a bad experience, it would have meant so much to me, but I never heard a word in response to my letters, so if I had something to donate and St. Vinnie's didn’t want it, I would put it by curb in front of my house for someone to take away for free before I would take it to Goodwill, unless doing so wasn’t practicable for some reason (such as rain).
"*Hugs him* Xx"
This reminds me…
There’s a part of the Episcopal Church service that’s called the Passing of Peace. During the Passing of Peace, people either hug or shake hands with those around them. Then, if they follow tradition, one person will say: “The peace of the Lord be always unto you,” and the other will respond, “And also unto you.” I had mixed feelings about how real it was to do this with strangers, yet I found it so meaningful that I cannot think of the Episcopal Church without being warmed by the memory of those strangers.
Perhaps, I think of this now because I so respect the church’s desire to continue such a ritual even in the face of disagreement, and surely no church has been better able to hold together in the presence of profound disagreement than the Episcopal (in fact, it is at risk of being expelled from the “Anglican Communion” due to its desire to FULLY welcome—meaning as they are, and into any position within the church, including the priesthood and the bishopric—people like gays and transgenders whom many churches regard as sinners and demand that they give up their sin). So it is with you and me in that we each strive to accept the other rather than to denounce the other because, god knows, neither of us is likely to change our opinions.
It would seem obvious, and therefore pointless, to say that intimacy doesn't come easily for me, and that I cannot know whether it's real until it is tested, yet it often seems to me that my most obvious is also my most deep, and therefore worthy of my greatest reflection. You and I have showed a propensity for some profound disagreements, yet they don’t in any way weaken my love for you or my trust in your integrity, and therefore my belief that my Passing of the Peace is fully reciprocated.
I had to stop blogging when I decided to stop taking my Lexapro. It didn't do anything bad, but it didn't do ANYTHING. I stopped it so slowly it was agonizing, and yet the symptoms of drug withdrawal were so intense I became thoroughly suicidal to the point of gathering together my fair-thee-well kit. Then the doctor offered me some new-fangled, hardly tested anti-depressants. One month on one of them and I was walking out the door with my fair-thee-well kit in the middle of the night. I wasn't aware Joe and turned on the burglar alarm or I'd be dead for six months now. Remeron is a very new drug and I also hope it continues to help. I'd love to experience happiness, but when you decide to stop these drugs, it is hell on earth.
http://www.rxlist.com/remeron-drug/side-effects-interactions.htm
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