Tag Archive: 2012

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Feels Good To Elect a President – Now look at these cats!

November 7th, 2012 / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , / categories: Cats, Cute Stuff, Observations, Pop Culture /

It’s the day after the Election here in the US and here in Southern California the weather is nice. It will probably get a bit too warm for an early November day, but for now the sky is a clear shade of blue, no clouds, with a good breeze. I’m not a morning person by choice but I had an early appointment today, so I was out of the house by 8:30am, and now I am awake and in a decent mood. Many of the propositions I voted for passed, with one major exception (Measure J- a small tax increase to support public transit), though some passed that I wish hadn’t. The big news is of course that my President was re-elected to the White House for his second term, and again this country has made history. In various state elections, historic decisions were made as well, and all of them make me proud to be in this country, now, while these choices are being made for the good of the country and for our fellow Americans as human beings with rights to live as they choose.

Isn’t that what this country was founded upon? The idea of Freedom for everyone? Sure, the definition of “everyone” has changed a little over time, but I can’t help but think that the Founding Fathers, if they were looking down at us from some heavenly place, would see this as a good thing. And I refuse to believe that any deity, be they fatherly, brotherly, motherly, or other, would judge the whole of society for the supposedly sinful actions of a few. Yes I know the Bible has stories that say otherwise, but I believe that if the Christian God exists, he’s more interested in that we have true, real, beautiful love for our fellows than whether that love is between a man and a woman or a man and a man or a woman and a woman. Somehow, to me, love itself is Divine, and part of what god is.

Hmm… I guess I can speak on religion and politics for a while: I found myself about to launch into a long discussion of both just now when I meant to keep it short and simple. Sorry about that. What I meant to say is, Yay, the Election is over. Now we can all go back to what the Internet was truly meant for. No, not that. The other thing. CATS!

I made another Cats Just Because magazine the other day, and waited a few days to post it here so as not to overwhelm you with teh kyoot. But it is time, Dear Reader. Enjoy with my compliments!

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Leaving The City of Flowers and Sunshine for The Land of 10,000 Lakes

March 21st, 2012 / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , / categories: Observations, People /

I never meant to live in California.

In fact, I argued against it for several years, while married to my first husband who had grown up out here. I met him in Louisiana, we lived together in Oklahoma, and he always wanted to move back to his childhood home in Ventura, CA. After a week-long visit in 1997 or ’98, I found myself afraid of moving here – it was too big, too dirty, too different for me. There were no trees! Not like in Southeast Texas/Louisiana and even Oklahoma City. I hated palm trees. I felt so out of place.

When I got divorced, I stayed for a couple months with a boyfriend, then had nowhere to go when we broke up. My dad offered to let me stay at his place in Costa Mesa, CA, and because I had no real choice, I accepted.

I had a hard time making friends at first, and finally made some through the Camarilla Fan Club (now known as The Mind’s Eye Society) of which I’d been a member for about 4 years before I’d moved. A year after I came to Cali, I moved into my own apartment in Long Beach with a roomie and fully began to settle into California. Eventually, I loved it, especially after meeting my current husband and solidifying many friendships.

For a while, I thought I would never want to move away from here. I mean, let’s face it – Southern California is known for its exceptional weather, and it’s no lie. Sunny, warm weather is the norm here, with some grey days in May and June and a sprinkle of rain in the winter. In all my time in California ( almost 9 years now) I’ve never lived more than 2 miles from a beach, and mostly I’ve lived only a few blocks from one. Mountains with beautiful, scenic views are a short-ish drive away, and the stark beauty of the desert isn’t much further. Las Vegas is only a 4 hour drive (if you drive like a Los Angeleno) and is a great weekend get-away – Adam and I have a time share property there. One of the most fun things about living in Los Angeles County is being able to identify all the locations in movies and TV – much of the Transformers movie was shot in L.A. and Dexter (which is set in Florida) is shot down the street from my house, for the most part. Songs, books, movies, and T.V. shows are written about and in and have settings in the Southland, and I find it fun to be able to identify so readily with them.

There are so many reasons to love La La Land, but there are plenty of reasons to hate it also.

  • high crime rates
  • pollution
  • over-crowding
  • grime caused by lack of cleansing rain and too much smog
  • the huge sprawl of the metro area, unbroken by nature or pretty scenery
  • the SoCal image
  • housing prices
  • etc

One of the things I’ve disliked about California for a long time is it’s lack of proximity to family. My dad and stepmom moved to Phoenix not long after I got my apartment in Long Beach. Step-aunts and uncles, and my step-brothers either moved with them or aren’t too big on visiting. My extended birth family is mostly in Wisconsin, with the major exception being my sister, who lives in Indiana. And my husband’s family, probably the best, most good hearted people I know, mostly live in Minnesota. Except Adam’s sister, who actually lives in Riverside, CA, which is far enough away from us to limit trips to visit to 3 or 4 times a year.

Lately I’ve felt a strong urge to connect with family again. To live close to a community of people who love us. Adam’s extended family is not only huge, but they’re truly wonderful people. I’ve said before that they’re the kind of people I never believed existed outside of classic television. Not that they’re unnaturally perfect or anything – but they’re honest, kind, warm, steady, non-crazy, stable folks who are family oriented and genuinely decent people. There’s not a mess of them in jail, none of them should be kept away from small children for safety reasons, mental disease seems minimal, etc. No one punched anyone else out at the family reunion a few years back… stuff like that.

So, when I started feeling the pull to be around family, Adam’s was the obvious choice for me. I truly like them. I think they like me, mostly. So we’re looking into it, and we have a very tentative plan to move out there after my Barbershop chorus’ international competition in October. We even have a good idea on where we’d live – a large house in the rural area surrounding Northfield, MN. In fact, we may be neighbors with Adam’s parents!

It’s a paradigm shift for me – I’ve mostly lived in large-ish cities or their suburbs. I’ve never lived on a farm, or on property with more than a fraction of an acre footprint. But I’m ready. I can’t stop thinking of it, of all the opportunities it opens, all the changes it presents.

It won’t be easy. It won’t be fun all the time (especially that first Winter and it’s attendant snowfall). But I think it will be a very good thing. And that’s what matters.

Here’s hoping for the future, and the best it can bring.

Do you have any big plans in mind for this year? Any game-changers in the works for you? I’d love to hear about them!

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Increasingly, We Are Living in the Future

December 31st, 2011 / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , / categories: Observations /

“Time goes by so slowly, and time can do so much.” – Righteous Brothers, ‘Unchained Melody’

The Righteous Brothers had it a little backwards in that song, actually. Time moves incredibly fast, most of the time (except when you’re waiting for the microwave to finish reheating your lunch, or waiting on a bus). Days blur into weeks, and months go by so fast that suddenly it’s New Year’s Eve again and you’ve barely noticed Christmas passing. And then you wake up, stare at the ceiling, and wonder…

Is it really Two-Thousand Twelve already?

Every time I think about life in the Twenty-teens (or Twenty-tweens even) I can’t help feeling this strange disconnect. On one hand the world is as it is. Normal, banal. On the other hand it’s… the FREAKING FUTURE. And every year that flips by on the calendar just brings us further and further into the future without taking the weirdness away.

Everyone has made the joke, or at least thought it – Where are the flying cars? The rocket trips to the luxury vacation dome on the moon? World peace?

It’s the fact that we don’t have the obvious super-technologies from the movies and pulp science fiction novels that gives me such a jarring feeling. When I was a kid I was sure the post-2000-world would bring us intergalactic travel, robot servants, and definitely flying cars or teleportation devices. Society would have moved past most issues related to crime, hunger, greed, and illness. Even though these thoughts occurred to my young brain in the late 1980′s and throughout the 90′s, I just knew when that clock struck midnight on Jan 1, 2000, the world would *change*.

The truth is, though, that we have the crazy future-tech all over the place. Our experience of Television would astound the sci-fi writers of the 50′s and 60′s – the variety and absurdity of our programming choices, the crisp reality and brilliant colors of the picture quality, modern 3D technologies available in our own homes… not to mention the on-demand movement of streaming video services such as Netflix, Hulu and others. Our computers have shrunk from massive, room-sized machines with the processing power of modern scientific calculators, to thin, sleek, glossy laptops and tablets that have uses in every facet of our lives, every industry in our world. Our phones would be as indecipherable to Alexander Graham Bell as any enigmatic piece of alien technology from the pulps. And they might as well be supercomputers in our pockets compared to those room-sized computers of the past.

As for robots, there is that Roomba thing. And Google’s on the road to making a reliable robotic car (pun intended, thank you). There are people who are developing robots to make dinner, fold laundry, and do all sorts of household chores. There are robots on Japan that work as secretaries. And the Asimo is out there, learning and doing really interesting things, a promise of the robot servants foretold in the pulps.

Life isn’t magically transforming into some high-tech, pulp fiction Utopia, but we’re making progress. Lots of progress. The disconnect comes from the fact that we’re watching that progress unfold, small bit by small bit. Just like it’s hard to recognize the growth in a child you see every day, it’s hard to recognize the advances for the miracles they are because we use them every day. We’re accustomed to them. But that doesn’t make them less miraculous.

And this is the way that the future has come upon us – not in giant leaps of progress, but in the small steps of every day. But it’s still the future. And we’re still living in it.

May 2012 bring even more innovations and inventions… and maybe some of that world peace too.

Happy New Year.